instruction
stringlengths 462
44.8k
| output
stringclasses 332
values | task
stringclasses 139
values |
|---|---|---|
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.
We granted certiorari in this case to review a judgment of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit holding that the congressionally mandated composition of petitioner Federal Election Commission (FEC), including as it did representatives of the Senate and House as nonvoting members, violated the separation-of-powers principle embodied in the Constitution. 512 U. S. 1218 (1994). We do not reach the merits of the question, however, because we conclude that the FEC is not authorized to petition for cer-tiorari in this Court on its own, and that the effort of the Solicitor General to authorize the FEC’s petition after the time for filing it had expired did not breathe life into it.
The Court of Appeals entered judgment in this case on October 22, 1998. 6 F. 3d 821. The FEC, in its own name, filed a petition for a writ of certiorari on January 18, 1994. The FEC neither sought nor obtained the authorization of the Solicitor General before filing its petition. By order dated March 21, 1994, 510 U. S. 1190, we invited the United States to file a brief addressing the question “[wjhether the [FEC] has statutory authority to represent itself in this case in this Court.” The United States filed a brief on May 27, 1994, contending that the FEC lacks such statutory authority. The United States stated, however, that pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 518(a) and its implementing regulation, the Solicitor General had authorized the FEC’s petition by letter dated May 26,1994. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 13. The FEC filed a brief in response on May 31, 1994, asserting that it has independent statutory authority to represent itself before this Court in this case.
A petition for certiorari in a civil case must be filed within 90 days of the entry of the judgment below. 28 U. S. C. § 2101(c). This “90-day limit is mandatory and jurisdictional.” Missouri v. Jenkins, 495 U. S. 33, 45 (1990). Here, the Court of Appeals entered judgment on October 22, 1993, and the FEC filed its petition for certiorari on January 18, 1994, two days before the 90-day time period expired. The FEC’s petition would appear to be timely. However, if the FEC lacks statutory authority to represent itself in this case before this Court, it cannot independently file a petition for certiorari, but must receive the Solicitor General’s authorization. See 28 CFR § 0.20(a) (1994). The question then becomes whether the Solicitor General’s May 26, 1994, letter authorizing the FEC’s petition relates back to the date of the FEC’s unauthorized filing so as to make it timely. We first examine the scope of the FEC’s independent litigating authority.
The FEC is an independent agency established by Congress to “administer, seek to obtain compliance with, and formulate policy” with respect to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) and chapters 95 and 96 of Title 26. 86 Stat. 3, as amended, 2 U. S. C. § 437c(b)(l). The FECA governs various aspects of all federal elections, see 2 U. S. C. §431 et seq., whereas chapters 95 and 96 specifically govern the administration of funds for Presidential election campaigns and the payment of matching funds for Presidential primary campaigns, see 26 U. S. C. § 9001 et seq. (Presidential Election Campaign Fund Act), 26 U. S. C. § 9031 et seq. (Presidential Primary Matching Payment Account Act). The FEC has “exclusive jurisdiction with respect to the civil enforcement of such provisions.” 2 U. S. C. §437c(b)(l); see Federal Election Comm’n v. National Conservative Political Action Comm., 470 U. S. 480, 485, 489 (1985).
Two separate statutory provisions provide the FEC with independent litigating authority. The first provision, 2 U. S. C. § 437d(a)(6), applies to actions under both the FECA and chapters 95 and 96 of Title 26. It gives the FEC power “to initiate . . . , defend ... or appeal any civil action ... to enforce the provisions of [the FECA] and chapter 95 and chapter 96 of title 26, through its general counsel.” The second provision, which is contained in 26 U. S. C. §§ 9010(d) and 9040(d), applies only to actions under chapters 95 and 96 of Title 26. It authorizes the FEC “on behalf of the United States to appeal from, and to petition the Supreme Court for certiorari to review, judgments or decrees entered with respect to actions in which it appears pursuant to the authority provided in this section.”
The FEC brought this civil enforcement action seeking to establish a violation of 2 U. S. C. § 441b(a), a provision of the FECA. As noted above, 2 U. S. C. § 437d(a)(6) authorizes the FEC to “initiate” and “appeal” an FECA enforcement action such as the present one. Thus, no dispute exists as to the FEC’s authority to litigate this case in the District Court or the Court of Appeals; the question here concerns only the FEC’s independent litigating authority before this Court when it proceeds under § 437d(a)(6).
Title 28 U. S. C. § 518(a) provides in pertinent part:
“Except when the Attorney General in a particular case directs otherwise, the Attorney General and the Solicitor General shall conduct and argue suits and appeals in the Supreme Court... in which the United States is interested.”
By regulation, the Attorney General has delegated authority to the Solicitor General:
“The following-described matters are assigned to, and shall be conducted, handled, or supervised by, the Solicitor General, in consultation with each agency or official concerned:
“(a) Conducting, or assigning and supervising, all Supreme Court cases, including appeals, petitions for and in opposition to certiorari, briefs and arguments, and ... settlement thereof.” 28 CFR §0.20 (1994).
Thus, if a case is one “in which the United States is interested,” § 518(a), “it must be conducted and argued in this Court by the Solicitor General or his designee.” United States v. Providence Journal Co., 485 U. S. 693, 700 (1988); cf. United States v. Winston, 170 U. S. 522, 524-525 (1898); Confiscation Cases, 7 Wall. 454, 458 (1869).
It is undisputed that this is a case “in which the United States is interested.” 28 U. S. C. § 518(a). We have recognized, however, that Congress may “exempt litigation from the otherwise blanket coverage of [§ 518(a)].” Providence Journal, 485 U. S., at 705, n. 9. According to the FEC, one such exemption is found in 2 U. S. C. § 437d(a)(6). Bearing in mind the Solicitor General’s traditional role in conducting and controlling all Supreme Court litigation on behalf of the United States and its agencies — a role that is critical to the proper management of Government litigation brought before this Court, see id., at 702, n. 7, 706; id., at 709, 713-714 (Stevens, J., dissenting) — we “must... scrutinizfe] and subject] [§ 437d(a)(6)] to the ordinary tools of statutory construction to determine whether Congress intended to supersede § 518(a).” Id., at 705, n. 9.
Title 2 U. S. C. § 437d(a)(6) gives the FEC power “to initiate ... , defend ... or appeal any civil action ... to enforce the provisions of [the FECA] and chapter 95 and chapter 96 of title 26.” The statute clearly authorizes the FEC to “appeal,” but it omits any mention of authority to file a “petition for a writ of certiorari” or otherwise conduct litigation before the Supreme Court. The FEC argues that the term “appeal” is not defined in the FECA, and that in the absence of such a definition in the statute the term is construed “in accordance with its ordinary or natural meaning.” FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U. S. 471, 476 (1994). It then refers to the definition of “appeal” found in Black’s Law Dictionary 96 (6th ed. 1990), which includes, inter alia, the following:
“There are two stages of appeal in the federal and many state court systems; to wit, appeal from trial court to intermediate appellate court and then to Supreme Court.”
This argument might carry considerable weight if it were not for the cognate provision authorizing the FEC to enforce chapters 95 and 96 of Title 26. There, Congress has explicitly provided that “[t]he [FEC] is authorized on behalf of the United States to appeal from, and to petition the Supreme Court for certiorari to review,” judgments or decrees. 26 U. S. C. §§ 9010(d), 9040(d) (emphasis added). It is difficult, if not impossible, to place these sections alongside one another without concluding that Congress intended to restrict the FEC’s independent litigating authority in this Court to actions enforcing the provisions of the Presidential election funds under chapters 95 and 96 of Title 26. Such a differentiation by Congress would be quite understandable, since Presidential influence through the Solicitor General might be thought more likely in cases involving Presidential election fund controversies than in other litigation in which the FEC is involved.
The FEC argues that 26 U. S. C. §§ 9010(d) and 9040(d) shed no light on the issue whether 2 U. S. C. § 437d(a)(6) gives it independent litigating authority before this Court because the provisions are found in different statutes, were drafted by different Congresses in different years, and were originally written to apply to different agencies of the Government. Brief for Petitioner in Response to Solicitor General 21. The FEC is only partially correct. Section 9010(d) was first enacted in 1971, and at that time it applied to the Comptroller General. See Presidential Election Campaign Fund Act, Pub. L. 92-178, 85 Stat. 497, 569-570. The Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974 established the FEC, see Pub. L. 93-443,88 Stat. 1263,1280, and enacted §437d(a)(6). See id., at 1282-1283. The 1974 statute transferred to the FEC the functions previously performed by the Comptroller General under 26 U. S. C. § 9010, see id., at 1293, but it also added § 9040 to Title 26. See id., at 1302. Thus, § 9040(d) was originally enacted in 1974 as part of the same legislation that created §437d(a)(6). Each of the two sections, with its contrasting language as to litigating authority, was before the Conference Committee whose report was ultimately adopted by both Houses. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 93-1438, pp. 967, 989 (1974). Section 9040(d) may have been modeled on § 9010(d), but because both §§ 9040(d) and 437d(a)(6) were designed to deal with the FEC’s authority to represent itself in civil enforcement actions, we find the contrasting language to be particularly telling. See United States v. American Building Maintenance Industries, 422 U. S. 271, 277 (1975); cf. Keene Corp. v. United States, 508 U. S. 200, 208 (1993) (“Where Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another . . . , it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
We recognize sound policy reasons may exist for providing the FEC with independent litigating authority in this Court for actions enforcing the FECA. Congress’ decision to create the FEC as an independent agency and to charge it with the civil enforcement of the FECA was undoubtedly influenced by Congress’ belief that the Justice Department, headed by a Presidential appointee, might choose to ignore infractions committed by members of the President’s own political party. See, e. g., Federal Election Reform, 1973: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Priveleges [sic] and Elections and the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, 93d Cong., 1st Sess., 17, 177, 186 (1973); Federal Election Campaign Act of 1973: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Communications of the Senate Committee on Commerce, 93d Cong., 1st Sess., 70-71 (1973). The fact that Congress had these policies in mind when giving the FEC independent enforcement powers, however, does not demonstrate that it intended to alter the Solicitor General’s statutory prerogative to conduct and argue the Federal Government’s litigation in the Supreme Court. See 28 U. S. C. § 518(a).
That statutory authority, too, represents a policy choice by Congress to vest the conduct of litigation before this Court in the Attorney General, an authority which has by rule and tradition been delegated to the Solicitor General. See 28 CFR § 0.20(a) (1994). This Court, of course, is well served by such a practice, because the traditional specialization of that office has led it to be keenly attuned to this Court’s practice with respect to the granting or denying of petitions for certiorari. But the practice also serves the Government well; an individual Government agency necessarily has a more parochial view of the interest of the Government in litigation than does the Solicitor General’s office, with its broader view of litigation in which the Government is involved throughout the state and federal court systems. Whether review of a decision adverse to the Government in a court of appeals should be sought depends on a number of factors which do not lend themselves to easy categorization. The Government as a whole is apt to fare better if these decisions are concentrated in a single official. See Providence Journal, 485 U. S., at 706.
Congress could obviously choose, if it sought to do so, to sacrifice the policy favoring concentration of litigating authority before this Court in the Solicitor General in favor of allowing the FEC to petition here on its own. See 26 U. S. C. §§ 9010(d), 9040(d). But we do not think that §437d(a)(6) bespeaks such a choice. Nor are we impressed by the FEC’s argument that it has represented itself before this Court on several occasions in the past without any question having been raised regarding its authority to do so under § 437d(a)(6). See, e. g., Federal Election Comm’n v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc., 479 U. S. 238 (1986) (finding 2 U. S. C. § 441b unconstitutional as applied); Federal Election Comm’n v. National Right to Work Comm., 459 U. S. 197 (1982) (involving interpretation of 2 U. S. C. §441b(b)(4)(C)); Bread Political Action Comm. v. Federal Election Comm’n, 455 U. S. 577 (1982) (involving application of 2 U. S. C. § 437h(a)); Federal Election Comm’n v. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Comm., 454 U. S. 27 (1981) (involving application of 2 U. S. C. §441a(d)(3)); California Medical Assn. v. Federal Election Comm’n, 453 U. S. 182 (1981) (upholding constitutionality of certain campaign expenditure limitations imposed by 2 U. S. C. §431 et seq.). The jurisdiction of this Court was challenged in none of these actions, and therefore the question is an open one before us. See, e. g., Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58, 63, n. 4 (1989) (“[T]his Court has never considered itself bound [by prior sub silentio holdings] when a subsequent case finally brings the jurisdictional issue before us”) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); United States v. L. A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U. S. 33, 38 (1952) (same). And we do not think that the provisions discussed above, authorizing the FEC to litigate in the federal courts, are the sort of provisions that can be said to be within the province of the agency to interpret. Federal Election Comm’n v. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Comm., supra, at 37, relied upon by the FEC, dealt with the FEC’s interpretation of a substantive provision of the FECA, not with the provisions authorizing independent litigation.
Because the FEC lacks statutory authority to litigate this case in this Court, it necessarily follows that the FEC cannot independently file a petition for certiorari, but must receive the Solicitor General’s authorization. See 28 CFR § 0.20(a) (1994). By letter dated May 26, 1994, the Solicitor General authorized the petition filed by the FEC. The Solicitor General’s authorization, however, did not come until more than 120 days after the deadline for filing a petition had passed. See 28 U. S. C. § 2101(c). We must determine whether this “after-the-fact” authorization relates back to the date of the FEC’s unauthorized filing so as to make it timely. We conclude that it does not.
The question is at least presumptively governed by principles of agency law, and in particular the doctrine of ratification. “If an act to be effective in creating a right against another or to deprive him of a right must be performed before a specific time, an affirmance is not effective against the other unless made before such time.” Restatement (Second) of Agency §90 (1958); see also id., Comment a (“The bringing of an action, or of an appeal, by a purported agent can not be ratified after the cause of action or right to appeal has been terminated by lapse of time”). Though in a different context, we have recognized the rationale behind this rule: “The intervening rights of third persons cannot be defeated by the ratification. In other words, it is essential that the party ratifying should be able not merely to do the act ratified at the time the act was done, but also at the time the ratification was made.” Cook v. Tullis, 18 Wall. 332, 338 (1874) (emphasis added). Here, the Solicitor General attempted to ratify the FEC’s filing on May 26, 1994, but he could not himself have filed a petition for certiorari on that date because the 90-day time period for filing a petition had expired on January 20,1994. His authorization simply came too late in the day to be effective. See, e. g., Nasewaupee v. Sturgeon Bay, 77 Wis. 2d 110, 116-119, 251 N. W. 2d 845, 848-849 (1977) (refusing to uphold town board’s ratification of private attorney’s unauthorized commencement of lawsuit where ratification came after the statute of limitations had run); Wagner v. Globe, 150 Ariz. 82, 87, 722 P. 2d 250, 255 (1986) (holding invalid city council’s attempt to ratify police chief’s dismissal of police officer after police officer commenced a wrongful discharge action). But see Trenton v. Fowler-Thorne Co., 57 N. J. Super. 196, 154 A. 2d 369 (1959) (upholding city’s ratification of unauthorized lawsuit filed on its behalf even though ratification occurred after limitations period had expired).
The application of these principles of agency law here produces a result entirely consistent with, and perhaps required by, 28 U. S. C. § 2101(c), the statute governing the time for filing petitions for certiorari. “We have no authority to extend the period for filing except as Congress permits.” Jenkins, 495 U. S., at 45. If the Solicitor General were allowed to retroactively authorize otherwise unauthorized agency petitions after the deadline had expired, he would have the unilateral power to extend the 90-day statutory period for filing certiorari petitions by days, weeks, or, as in this case, even months. Such a practice would result in the blurring of the jurisdictional deadline. But “[t]he time of appealability, having jurisdictional consequences, should above all be clear.” Budinich v. Becton Dickinson & Co., 486 U. S. 196, 202 (1988).
We hold that the FEC may not independently file a petition for certiorari in this Court under 2 U. S. C. § 437d(a)(6), and that the Solicitor General’s “after-the-fact” authorization does not relate back to the date of the FEC’s unauthorized filing so as to make it timely. We therefore dismiss the petition for certiorari for want of jurisdiction.
It is so ordered.
Justice Ginsburg took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Under 28 U. S. C. §§ 516 and 519, the conduct of litigation on behalf of the United States and its agencies is subject to control of the Attorney General “[ejxcept as otherwise authorized by law.” The FEC’s “initiation” and “appeal” of this action fall within this “otherwise authorized by law” exception.
The dissent says it is incongruous “to assume that Congress wanted the FEC to have independent authority to invoke our mandatory [appellate] jurisdiction when proceeding under § 437h, but not to have the authority to invoke our discretionary jurisdiction when proceeding under other sections of the same statute.” Post, at 100, n. 1. But Congress could have thought the Solicitor General would better represent the FEC’s interests in cases involving our discretionary jurisdiction “because the traditional specialization of that office has led it to be keenly attuned to this Court’s practice with respect to the granting or denying of petitions for certiorari.” Infra, at 96.
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.
Mb. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question here concerns the proper venue for a suit against a labor union, an unincorporated association, under 28 U. S. C. § 1391 (b), which at the time this action was brought read as follows: “A civil action wherein jurisdiction is not founded solely on diversity of citizenship may be brought only in the judicial district where all defendants reside, except as otherwise provided by law.”
In December 1959 and January 1960, the National Railroad Adjustment Board issued monetary awards in favor of certain members of respondent union on their claims for breach of collective bargaining contracts between the union and petitioner, the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad Company. The railroad refused to honor the awards, the union struck to enforce them and the strike was permanently enjoined by the District Court. 185 F. Supp. 369, aff’d, 290 F. 2d 266, cert, denied, 366 U. S. 966. The railroad then sued the union for damages in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, also joining as defendants R. E. Carroll, chairman of the union’s General Grievance Committee on the property of petitioner, and the chairmen of various local lodges of the union. The complaint alleged that the defendants had breached their duties under the Railway Labor Act, 44 Stat. 577, as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. The District Court overruled the union’s motion to dismiss for improper venue, held the strike illegal because the union had failed to exhaust its statutory remedies to enforce the Adjustment Board awards, and awarded damages based on the railroad’s loss of traffic caused by the illegal strike. The judgment ran against both the union and Carroll, the case against the other defendants being dismissed for failure of proof. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the union could be sued under § 1391 (b) only in the district of its residence and that its residence was not in Colorado. Because of the seeming conflict with Rutland R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Eng’rs, 307 F. 2d 21, we granted certiorari. 385 U. S. 1000. We reverse.
Section 1391 (b) is the general venue statute governing transitory causes of action in the federal courts where jurisdiction does not depend wholly on diversity of citizenship. Following its amendment in 1966, 80 Stat. 1111, the section permits suit either in the district where all of the defendants reside or in the district where the claim arose. At the time this suit was brought, however, venue lay only at the defendant’s residence, as had been the case since 1887. 24 Stat. 552, as corrected by 25 Stat. 433 (1888). Thus for almost 80 years proper venue in federal-question cases was limited to the district of the defendant’s residence, whether the defendant was an individual, a corporation, or an unincorporated association such as this respondent. During all of this time, down to and including the 1966 amendment, Congress has not expressly defined the residence of an unincorporated association for purposes of the general venue statute. The same was true with respect to corporations until 1948 when Congress directed that a corporation could be sued in the judicial district “in which it is incorporated or licensed to do business or is doing business, and such judicial district shall be regarded as the residence of such corporation for venue purposes.” 28 U. S. C. § 1391 (c). Congress has maintained its silence, however, with respect to the residence of the unincorporated association. The resolution of that issue, as was true for the corporation prior to 1948, has been left to the courts. The issue is now here for the first time.
Of course, venue for a suit against an unincorporated association becomes important only if the association is itself suable. At common law, such an association could be sued only in the names of its members and liability had to be enforced against each member. This principle was rejected in United Mine Workers v. Coronado Co., 259 U. S. 344, where this Court, recognizing the growth and pervasive influence of labor organizations and noting that the suability of trade unions “is of primary importance in the working out of justice and in protecting individuals and society . . . ,” 259 U. S., at 390, held that such organizations were suable in the federal courts and that funds accumulated by them were subject to execution in suits for torts committed during strikes. The Coronado holding is now reflected in Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 17 (b).
The Coronado case dealt with capacity to be sued, not with venue, but it did legitimate suing the unincorporated association as an entity. Although that entity has no citizenship independent of its members for purposes of diversity jurisdiction, Steelworkers v. Bouligny, Inc., 382 U. S. 145, a case relied upon by the Court of Appeals here, we think that the question of the proper venue for such a defendant, like the question of capacity, should be determined by looking to the residence of the association itself rather than that of its individual members. Otherwise, § 1391 (b) would seem to require either holding the association not suable at all where its members are residents of different States, or holding that the association “resides” in any State in which any of its members resides. The first alternative seems wholly at odds with Coronado and in addition removes federal-question litigation from the federal courts unnecessarily; the second is patently unfair to the association when it is remembered that venue is primarily a matter of convenience of litigants and witnesses. H. R. Rep. No. 1893, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 2. Of course, having concluded that the unincorporated association should be viewed as an entity for purposes of residence under § 1391 (b), that residence must still be ascertained, an inquiry requiring examination of congressional intent and the interests reflected in Coronado and in principles underlying venue limitations.
In Sperry Prods., Inc. v. Association of American Railroads, 132 F. 2d 408, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dealt with the issue of what district an unincorporated association may be said to inhabit under the special venue statute governing patent suits, then 28 U. S. C. § 109 (1940 ed.), now 28 U. S. C. § 1400. That court thought the association should be treated like a corporation. Under the decisions of this Court, corporations had a single residence for venue purposes, the State of their incorporation. Likewise, the Sperry court thought the unincorporated association should be considered as having a single residence, in its case its principal place of business. Neirbo Co. v. Bethlehem Corp., 308 U. S. 165, had already determined, however, that corporations, while having only one residence, nevertheless consented to be sued in federal diversity suits where they were licensed to do business. And Neirbo had much to do with producing the 1948 congressional definition of corporate residence as including not only the State of incorporation but wherever the corporation is licensed to do business or is doing business.
It can be argued, as respondent does, that had the 1948 Congress intended the expanded definition of corporate residence to apply to labor unions and other unincorporated associations, it would have said so. But even accepting this, the question of what the association’s residence is for venue purposes remains unanswered. Saying that Congress did not intend to “change” the venue law with respect to unincorporated associations assumes a settled meaning to the prior law. This was not the ease. There was no settled construction of the law in the courts in 1948, and there is none yet. Nor was there anything to indicate that Congress had considered a labor union’s residence to be in only one place or had ever intended a limited view of residence with respect to unincorporated associations. Rather than accepting respondent’s position, we view the action of Congress in 1948 as simply correcting an unacceptably narrow definition of corporate residence which had been adopted by the courts, while maintaining its silence with respect to the unincorporated association. And if it is assumed that Congress was aware of Sperry at all, it is surely reasonable to think that Congress anticipated that the approach of that case, analogizing incorporated and unincorporated entities, would continue to be followed by the courts so that if corporate residence were broadly defined by the Congress, the courts would similarly construe the concept of residence of the unincorporated association. This was the approach of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Rutland R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Eng’rs, supra.
We think it most nearly approximates the intent of Congress to recognize the reality of the multi-state, unincorporated association such as a labor union and to permit suit against that entity, like the analogous corporate entity, wherever it is “doing business.” Congress has itself recognized as much in a special venue statute, § 301 (c) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 Stat. 157, 29 U. S. C. § 185 (c), which provides that actions against labor unions governed by the Labor Management Relations Act may be brought in any district where the union maintains its principal office or in any district in which its duly authorized officers or agents are engaged in representing or acting for employee members. That statute was enacted but a year before the 1948 revision of the Judicial Code, and while it does not mention residence, it is a considerable indication that Congress had no desire, then or at any previous time, to construe “residence” as used in the general venue provision so as to confine suits against a labor union to the district where its principal office is located. Moreover, from the standpoint of convenience to parties and witnesses, there would be little merit in holding that suits against unions covered by the National Labor Relations Act may be brought anywhere the responsible representatives of the union take concrete action and yet hold that suits for similar conduct against unions subject to a parallel federal labor statute, the Railway Labor Act, may be brought only where the union’s principal office is located. Nor need we here be concerned, as in Bouligny, with possible effects on the scope of the jurisdiction of the federal courts. Under these circumstances, for this Court to create such a distinction without some positive lead from Congress and in the face of sound policy considerations to the contrary would be unjustified.
We therefore conclude that the Court of Appeals improperly applied § 1391 (b) as it read when this suit was brought. But even if we instead agreed with the Court of Appeals on this question, the case must be considered in light of the present form of that section, that is, as amended by the Act of November 2, 1966, which provides for venue not only at the place of a defendant’s residence but also in the district where the claim arose. This amendment does not change the substantive law applicable to this lawsuit. It is wholly procedural. Absent some contrary indications by the Congress and absent any procedural prejudice to either party, the 1966 amendment to § 1391 is applicable to this suit. See United States v. Alabama, 362 U. S. 602; Ex parte Collett, 337 U. S. 55; American Foundries v. Tri-City Council, 257 U. S. 184, 201; Pruess v. Udall, 123 U. S. App. D. C. 301, 359 F. 2d 615. As this Court said in applying 28 U. S. C. § 1404 (a) to pending actions, “No one has a vested right in any given mode of procedure.” Ex parte Collett, 337 U. S¡, at 71. And in any event, if the decision below were affirmed, the petitioner could reinstitute the same action in the same District Court and seek the benefits of the current version of § 1391, absent the barrier of any applicable statute of limitations. We do not, of course, intimate any views as to whether this claim “arose” in the District of Colorado. That would be an issue for the District Court should it now be determined, in light of this opinion, that respondent was not doing business in Colorado when this suit was instituted.
Reversed and remanded.
The Court of Appeals also reversed the damage. award against respondent Carroll, concluding that Carroll was not responsible for the strike in question. We do not disturb this factual determination of the Court of Appeals. Carroll’s residence is admittedly within the District of Colorado.
Other lower court cases are divided on the question whether an unincorporated association can be sued at a place other than its principal place of business. Cases restricting venue to the association’s principal place of business include Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen v. Graham, 84 U. S. App. D. C. 67, 69, n. 2, 175 F. 2d 802, 804, n. 2, rev’d on other grounds, 338 U. S. 232; McNutt v. United Gas, Coke & Chem. Workers, 108 F. Supp. 871, 875; Salvant v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 83 F. Supp. 391, 396; Westinghouse Elec. Corp. v. United Elec. Radio & Mach. Workers, 92 F. Supp. 841, aff’d without discussion, 194 F. 2d 770; Chenco v. Brotherhood of R. R. Trainmen, 167 F. Supp. 635, 637-638; cf. Hadden v. Small, 145 F. Supp. 387 (partnership). Cases holding that unincorporated associations may be sued where they do business: Portsmouth Baseball Corp. v. Frick, 132 F. Supp. 922; Eastern Motor Express v. Espen-shade, 138 F. Supp. 426, 432; American Airlines, Inc. v. Air Line Pilots Assn., 169 F. Supp. 777, 781-783; R & E Dental Supply Co. v. Ritter Co., 185 F. Supp. 812; cf. Joscar Co. v. Consolidated Sun Ray, Inc., 212 F. Supp. 634.
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.
A writ of certiorari was granted in this case on June 22, 1970, 399 U. S. 904, limited to the question of the retro-activity of our decision in North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711. Since the granting of the writ there has come to the attention of the Court an order of Judge McRae of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, dated July 1, 1970, denying a motion of petitioner Odom to set aside his. second sentence as illegally imposed under Pearce, supra. The order makes it clear that the greater severity of the second sentence was based on conduct on the part of the petitioner occurring after the time of the original sentencing proceeding, and that the new information was specifically referred to at resentencing. Since it is now apparent that this case does not present the issue of the retroactivity of North Carolina v. Pearce, supra, the writ is dismissed as improvidently granted.
Mr. Justice Douglas.
The question - is whether North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711, should be retroactive. In that case we said that “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.” Id., at 726. The information now reported to us by the District Court was never made á part of the record,. Hence an issue of retroactivity of Pearce is present .and I would decide the case on the1 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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
When the Boulder Canyon Project Act, 45 Stat. 1057, 43 U. S. C. § 617 et seg. (Project Act), became effective in 1929, a large area in Imperial Valley, Cal., was already being irrigated by Colorado River water brought to the Valley by a privately owned delivery and distribution system. Pursuant to the Project Act, the United States constructed and the Imperial Irrigation District (District) agreed to pay for a new diversion dam and a new canal connecting the dam with the District. The Project Act was supplemental to the reclamation laws, which as a general rule limited water deliveries from reclamation projects to 160 acres under single ownership. The Project Act, however, required that the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) observe rights to Colorado River water that had been perfected under state law at the time the Act became effective. In the course of contracting with the District for the building of the new dam and canal and for the delivery of water to the District, the United States represented that the Project Act did not impose acreage limitations on lands that already had vested or present rights to Colorado River water. The United States officially adhered to that position until 1964 when it repudiated its prior construction of the Project Act and sued the District, claiming that the 160-acre limitation contained in the reclamation law applies to all privately owned lands in the District, whether or not they had been irrigated in 1929. The District Court found for the District and its landowners, 322 P. Supp. 11 (SD Cal. 1971), but the Court of Appeals reversed and sustained the Government’s position, 559 F. 2d 509 (CA9 1977). We now reverse the Court of Appeals with respect to those lands that were irrigated in 1929 and with respect to which the District has been adjudicated to have a perfected water right as of that date, a water right which, until 1964, the United States Department of the Interior officially represented foreclosed the application of acreage limitations. The judgment is otherwise vacated.
I
Imperial Valley is an area located south of the Saltón Sea in southeastern California. It lies below sea level, and is an arid desert in its natural state. In 1901, however, irrigation began in the Valley, using water diverted from the Colorado River, which in that area marks the border between California and Arizona. Until at least 1940, irrigation water was brought to the Valley by means of a canal and distribution system that were completely privately financed. On June 25, 1929, when the Project Act became effective, the District was diverting, transporting, and delivering water to 424,145 acres of privately owned and very productive farmland in Imperial Valley. Under neither state law nor private irrigation arrangements in existence in Imperial Valley prior to 1929 was there any restriction on the number of acres that a single landholder could own and irrigate.
Prior to 1929 and for several years thereafter, the water diverted from the Colorado River was carried to the Valley through the Alamo Canal, which left the river north of the border with Mexico but then traversed Mexican territory for some 50 miles before turning northward into Imperial Valley. This distribution system, entirely privately financed and owned, comprised approximately 1,700 miles of main and lateral canals, all serving to divert and deliver the necessary waters to the lands in Imperial Valley.
The Project Act was the culmination of the efforts of the seven States in the Colorado River Basin to control flooding, regulate water supplies on a predictable basis, allocate waters among the Upper and Lower Basin States and among the States in each basin, and connect the river to the Imperial Valley by a canal that did not pass through Mexico. In 1922, the seven States executed the Colorado River Compact (Compact) allocating the waters of the river between the Upper and Lower Basins, and among other things providing in Art. VIII that “[p]resent perfected rights to the beneficial use of waters of the Colorado River System are unimpaired by this compact.” The Project Act, passed in 1928 and effective in 1929, implemented and ratified the Compact; contained its own formula for allocating Lower Basin water among California, Arizona, and Nevada, Arizona v. California, 373 U. S. 546 (1963); and authorized the construction of the works required for the harnessing and more efficient utilization of the unruly river. The principal works of the Project, consisting of the Hoover Dam at Black Canyon and the storage facilities behind it, served to implement the division of the Compact. The dam was completed and storage began in 1935.
Section 1 of the Project Act, which provided for the dam at Black Canyon, also authorized the construction of a new canal, the All-American Canal, which would replace the Alamo Canal and would traverse only territory located in the United States. A new diversion dam for Imperial Valley water was also authorized. Section 1 went on to provide that no charge should be made for the storage or delivery of irrigation or potable water to Imperial or Coachella Valley.
Section 4 (a) of the Project Act conditioned the effectiveness of the Act on the ratification of the Compact by the signatory States. Section 4 (b), as well as requiring contractual provision for the repayment of specified costs with respect to the Hoover Dam, required that before any money was appropriated for the Imperial Yalley works, the Secretary was to make provision for revenues “by contract or otherwise” to insure payment of all “expenses of construction, operation, and maintenance of said main canal and appurtenant structures in the manner provided in the reclamation law.” Section 5 authorized the Secretary to contract for the storage of water and for its delivery at such points on the river and the canal as were agreed upon. Contracts were to be for permanent service and were required before any person would be entitled to stored water.
Section 6 of the Project Act, of critical importance in these cases, mandated that the works authorized by § 1 were to be used: “First, for river regulation, improvement of navigation, and flood control; second, for irrigation and domestic uses and satisfaction of present perfected rights in pursuance of Article VIII of said Colorado River compact; and third, for power.” Section 9 authorized the opening to entry of the public lands that would become irrigable by the Project but in tracts not greater than 160 acres in size in accordance with the provisions of the reclamation law.
Section 14 provided that the Project Act should be deemed supplemental to the reclamation law, “which said reclamation law shall govern the construction, operation, and management of the works herein authorized, except as otherwise herein provided.” The “reclamation law” referred to was defined in § 12 as the Act of June 17, 1902 (Reclamation Act), 32 Stat. 388, and Acts amendatory thereof and supplemental thereto. One of the statutes amendatory of or supplemental to the Reclamation Act was the Omnibus Adjustment Act of 1926 (1926 Act), § 46 of which, 44 Stat. (part 2) 649, 43 U. S. C. § 423e, forbade delivery of reclamation project water to any irrigable land held in private ownership by one owner in excess of 160 acres, and required owners to execute recordable contracts for the sale of excess lands before such lands could receive project water.
Pursuant to the Project Act, the United States and the District entered into a contract on December 1, 1932, providing for the construction of the Imperial Dam and the All-American Canal. The District undertook to pay the cost of the works, and to include within itself certain public lands of the United States and other specified lands. The United States undertook to deliver to the Imperial Dam the water which would be carried by the new canal to the various lands to be served by it. The contract contained no acreage limitation provision. Pursuant to this contract, the United States constructed the Imperial Dam in the Colorado River — some distance below Black Canyon but upriver from the existing point of diversion — and the All-American Canal connecting the dam and Imperial Valley. Use of the canal began in 1940, and by 1942 it carried all Colorado River water used by Imperial Valley.
Article 31 of the contract between the District and the United States provided that the United States would not be' bound by the contract until and unless court proceedings had been instituted by the District and a final judgment obtained confirming the authorization and the validity of the contract. Such an action, entitled Hewes v. All Persons, No. 15460, Superior Court, Imperial County, was instituted' and final judgment was entered on July 1, 1933, confirming the validity of the contract in all respects. App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 79-435, pp. 120a-154a. In connection with these proceedings, the then Secretary, Ray Lyman Wilbur, on February 24, 1933, submitted a letter to the District dealing with the question whether the 160-acre limitation of the reclamation law was applicable in Imperial Valley. Among other things, the letter stated:
“Upon careful consideration the view, was reached that this limitation does not apply to lands now cultivated and having a present water right. These lands, having already a water right, are entitled to have such vested right recognized without regard to the acreage limitation mentioned. Congress evidently recognized that these lands had a vested right when the provision was inserted that no charge shall be made for the storage, use, or delivery of water to be furnished these areas.”
The trial court in the Hewes case expressly found and concluded that eligibility for project water was not limited to 160-acre tracts in single ownership. An appeal in the case was dismissed before judgment. The United States was not a party to the action.
The Wilbur letter expressing the view that lands under irrigation at the time the Project Act was passed and having a present water right were not subject to the 160-acre limitation remained the official view of the Department of the Interior until 1964 when the Department adopted the view of its then Solicitor that the limitation should have applied to all Imperial Valley lands in private ownership.
Meanwhile, it having become apparent that neither the Compact nor the Project Act settled to the satisfaction of the Lower Basin States how the water allocated to them should be divided, an original action was begun in this Court in 1952 to settle this fundamental question and related issues, including the ascertainment of present perfected rights the unimpaired preservation of which was required by both the Compact and the Project Act. After more than 10 years of litigation, the opinion in Arizona v. California was handed down on June 3, 1963. 373 U. S. 546. Although the dispute among the Lower Basin States was at the heart of the controversy, for present purposes the primary aspect of the case was the recognition given to present perfected rights in the opinion and the ensuing decrees.
The opinion recognized that under § 14 of the Project Act, the construction, operation, and management of the works were to be subject to the provisions of the reclamation law, except as the Act otherwise provided, and that one of the most significant limitations in the Project Act on the Secretary’s authority to contract for the delivery of water is the requirement to satisfy present perfected rights, “a matter of intense importance to those who had reduced their water rights to actual beneficial use at the time the Act became effective.” 373 U. S., at 584. The decree, which was entered on March 9, 1964, 376 U. S. 340, defined a perfected right as:
“[A] water right acquired in accordance with state law, which right has been exercised by the actual diversion of a specific quantity of water that has been applied to a defined area of land or to definite municipal or industrial works....” Id., at 341.
Present perfected rights were defined as those perfected rights "existing as of June 25, 1929, the effective date of the Boulder Canyon Project Act.” Ibid. The decree also provided for the future determination of the specific present perfected rights in each of the Lower Basin States. A supplemental decree was eventually forthcoming, 439 U. S. 419 (1979), and in that decree the Imperial Irrigation District was adjudged to have a present perfected right
“in annual quantities not to exceed (i) 2,600,000 acre-feet of diversions from the mainstream or (ii) the quantity of mainstream water necessary to supply the consumptive use required for irrigation of 424,145 acres and for the satisfaction of related uses, whichever of (i) or (ii) is less, with a priority date of 1901.” Id., at 429.
As already indicated, the Department of the Interior repudiated the Wilbur interpretation of the Project Act in 1964. It then sought to include its revised position in a renegotiated contract with the District. When the District refused to accept the Department’s position, the United States sued the District in 1967 for a declaratory judgment that the excess-acreage limitation of § 46 applied to all private lands in the Valley. The District Court permitted several Imperial Valley landowners to intervene as defendants representing the certified class of all landowners owning more than 160 acres. It then ruled against the Government, holding for several reasons that “the land limitation provisions of reclamation law have no application to privately owned lands lying within the Imperial Irrigation District” and that the District is not bound to observe such limitations. 322 P. Supp., at 27. The Department of the Interior recommended and the Solicitor General decided, after reviewing the case, that an appeal not be prosecuted on behalf of the United States. In consequence, respondents, a group of Imperial Valley residents, who had been given leave to participate as amici in the District Court and who desired to purchase the excess lands that might become available if § 46 were held applicable, attempted to intervene for purpose of appeal, but the District Court denied the motion. The Court of Appeals reversed the denial, 559 P. 2d, at 543-544, and proceeded to hold that the appealing intervenors had standing under Art. Ill of the Constitution; that Hewes v. All Persons was not conclusive with respect to acreage limitation; that the clear import of §46 and the Project Act was that the 160-acre limitation is applicable to the Imperial Valley; and that the Department’s administrative practice over the years did not bar application of the limitation to the Valley.
Because of the importance of these cases, we granted the petitions for writs of certiorari filed by the District, the landowners, and the State of California. 444 U. S. 978 (1979).
II
As a preliminary matter, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the respondents who sought to enter the suit when the United States forwent an appeal from the District Court’s adverse decision had standing to intervene and press the appeal on their own behalf. Respondents, most of whom are farmworkers, reside in Imperial Valley. The essence of their claim was that they desired to purchase farmlands in Imperial Valley and that if § 46 were applied as they believed it should be, there would be excess lands available for purchase at prices below the market value for irrigated land. The Court of Appeals, although recognizing that no owner of excess lands would be required to sell, concluded that it would be highly improbable that all owners of excess lands would prefer to withdraw their irrigable lands from agriculture in order to avoid § 46. In these circumstances, the Court of Appeals ruled that under Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252 (1977), and other cases, respondents had standing even though they could not with certainty establish that they would be able to purchase excess lands if § 46 were held applicable.
This was a proper application of our cases. It being unlikely that any of the 800 owners of excess lands would sell land at below current market prices absent the applicability of § 46 and it being likely that excess lands would become available at less than market prices if § 46 were applied, the Court of Appeals properly concluded that respondents had a sufficient stake in the outcome of the controversy to afford them standing to appeal the District Court’s decision.
Ill
We are unable, however, to agree with the Court of Appeals that Congress intended that the 160-acre limitation of the 1926 Act would apply to the lands under irrigation in Imperial Valley in 1929. Under § 14 of the Project Act, the construction, operation, and management of the project works were to be governed by the reclamation law, but only if not otherwise provided for in the Project Act. Section 46 of the 1926 Act is one of the reclamation laws; and its acreage limitation, which expressly applies to contracts for “constructing, operating, and maintaining” project works, would appear to govern the delivery of project water unless its applicability is foreclosed by some other provision of the Project Act. The Court of Appeals, erroneously we think, found no such preclusion in § 6 of the Act. >
Concededly, nothing in § 14, in § 46, or in the reclamation law in general would excuse the Secretary from recognizing his obligation to satisfy present perfected rights in Imperial Valley that were provided for by Art. VIII of the Compact and § 6 of the Project Act and adjudicated by this Court in Arizona v. California, 373 U. S. 546 (1963). The Court of Appeals neverthless held that § 46 could be applied consistently with § 6 because the perfected rights in Imperial Valley were owned by and would be adjudicated to the District, not to individual landowners, who were merely members of a class for whose benefit the water rights had been acquired and held in trust. Individual farmers, the Court of Appeals said, had no right under the law to a particular proportion of the District’s water. Applying § 46 and denying water to excess lands not sold would merely require reallocation of the water among those eligible to receive it and would not reduce the water which the District was entitled to have delivered in accordance with its perfected rights.
We find this disposition of the § 6 defense to the application of the 1926 Act’s acreage limitation to be unpersuasive. Arizona v. California, supra, at 584, recognized that “one of the most significant limitations” on the Secretary’s power under the Project Act was the requirement that he satisfy present perfected rights, a matter of great significance to those who had reduced their water rights to beneficial use prior to 1929. Accordingly, in our initial decree, the perfected right protected by § 6 was defined with some care: a right that had been acquired in accordance with state law and that had been exercised by the actual diversion of a specific quantity of water and its application to a defined area of land. In our supplemental decree, entered prior to the opinion of the Court of Appeals denying rehearing and rehearing en banc, there was decreed to the District a present perfected water right of 2.6 million acre-feet of diversions from the mainstream or the quantity of water necessary to supply the consumptive use required to irrigate 424,145 acres and related uses, whichever was less, with a priority date of 1901. 439 U. S., at 429. We thus determined that, as of 1929, the District had perfected its rights under state law to divert the specified amount of water and had actually diverted that water to irrigate the defined quantity and area of land. As we see it, the Court of Appeals failed to take adequate account of § 6 of the Project Act and its implementation in our opinion and decrees filed in the Arizona v. California litigation.
In the first place, it bears emphasizing that the § 6 perfected right is a water right originating under state law. In Arizona v. California, we held that the Project Act vested in the Secretary the power to contract for project water deliveries independent of the direction of § 8 of the Reclamation Act to proceed in accordance with state law and of the admonition of § 18 of the Project Act not to interfere with state law. 373 U. S., at 586-588. We nevertheless clearly recognized that § 6 of the Project Act, requiring satisfaction of present perfected rights, was an unavoidable limitation on the Secretary’s power and that in providing for these rights the Secretary must take account of state law. In this respect, state law was not displaced by the Project Act and must be consulted in determining the content and characteristics of the water right that was adjudicated to the District by our decree.
It may be true, as the Court of Appeals said, that no individual farm in the District has a permanent right to any specific proportion of the water held in trust by the District. But there is no doubt that prior to 1929 the District, in exercising its rights as trustee, delivered water to individual farmer beneficiaries without regard to the amount of land under single ownership. It has been doing so ever since. There is no suggestion, by the Court of Appeals or otherwise, that as a matter of state law and absent the interposition of some federal duty, the District did not have the right and privilege to exercise and use its water right in this manner. Nor has it been suggested that the District, absent some duty or disability imposed by federal law, could have rightfully denied water to individual farmers owning more than 160 acres. Indeed, as a matter of state law, not only did the District’s water right entitle it to deliver water to the farms in the District regardless of size, but also the right was equitably owned by the beneficiaries to whom the District was obligated to deliver water.
These were important characteristics of the District’s water right as of the effective date of the Project Act, and the question is whether Congress intended to effect serious changes in the nature of the water right by doing away with the District’s privilege and duty to service farms regardless of their size. We are quite sure that Congress did not so intend and that to hold otherwise is to misunderstand the Project Act and the substantive meaning of “present perfected rights” as defined by this Court’s decree.
The Court of Appeals said it would not be a breach of trust by a water district to obey the dictates of § 46, relying on Ivanhoe Irrig. Dist. v. All Parties and Persons, 53 Cal. 2d 692, 712, 350 P. 2d 69, 81 (1960). But the issue here is whether § 46 applies to lands already being irrigated in 1929. In the Ivanhoe proceedings, the courts were not dealing with perfected rights to water that the project there involved would furnish, nor with a Project Act that specifically required present perfected rights to be satisfied. Here, we are dealing with perfected rights protected by the Project Act; and because its water rights are to be interpreted in the light of state law, the District should now be as free of land limitations with respect to the land it was irrigating in 1929 as it was prior to the passage of the Project Act. To apply § 46 would go far toward emasculating the substance, under state law, of the water right decreed to the District, as well as substantially limiting its duties to, and the rights of, the farmer-beneficiaries in the District.
It should also be recalled that we defined a present perfected right as one that had not only been acquired pursuant to state law but as one that had also been exercised by the diversion of water and its actual application to a specific area of land. We did not intend to decree a water right to the District under this definition, conditioned upon proof of actual diversion and use, but nevertheless to require the District to terminate service to the lands on the basis of which the right was decreed. The District has itself no power to require that excess lands be sold, and it is a contradiction in terms to say, as the Court of Appeals did, that the District has present perfected rights but that § 46 requires it to terminate deliveries to all persons with excess lands who refuse to sell. We consequently hold that the perfected water right decreed to the District may be exercised by it without regard to the land limitation provisions of § 46 of the 1926 Act or to any similar provisions of the reclamation laws.
IV
The legislative history of the Project Act, which spans several years, raises no doubt in our minds about the foregoing construction of the Act. Our attention has been called to nothing in the relevant materials indicating that although Congress was careful to preserve present perfected rights in § 6, other provisions of the Project Act were nevertheless intended to invoke acreage limitation with respect to lands already being irrigated in Imperial Valley by means of water diverted from the Colorado River and delivered to the Valley by the District’s own works. Indeed, the version of the Project Act passed in the House contained an express acreage limitation applicable to all privately owned lands; but the Senate substituted the provisions of its own bill, which did not contain an acreage limitation expressly applicable to lands then being irrigated, and it was this version which became the Project Act despite objections in the Senate that the bill should be amended to limit water deliveries to 160 acres under single ownership. There is nothing in this chain of events to suggest that Congress intended § 14, by bringing the 1926 Act into play, to interfere with the delivery of water to those lands already under irrigation in Imperial Valley and having present perfected rights that the Secretary was bound to recognize. If anything, the inference from the legislative history is to the contrary. This is not to say that we rely strongly on legislative materials in construing the Project Act. Statements by the opponents of a bill and failure to enact suggested amendments, although they have some weight, are not the most reliable indications of congressional intention. Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U. S. 185, 204, n. 24 (1976); Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U. S. 367, 381-382, n. 11 (1969). But we do say that the respondents have not called our attention to anything in the hearings, Committee Reports or floor debates suggesting in any substantial way that our construction of the Project Act is in error.
There can be little question that the contemporary construction of the Project Act by the parties to the 1932 contract was that the acreage limitation did not apply to lands in the District presently being irrigated. Secretary Wilbur, in his letter of February 24, 1933, stated that early in the negotiations on the All-American Canal contract, the question was raised as to the 160-acre limitation, and the view was reached that the limitation did not apply to lands that were under cultivation and having a present water right. There is no reason to doubt that the parties went forward on this basis, especially since language in early drafts of the contract which might have indicated an acreage limitation was eliminated in thé course of the negotiations. The Imperial Valley system was a going concern at the time, and the Alamo Canal continued to supply the water to the Valley for another 10 years. It is thus a fair inference that both the Imperial Valley landowners and the United States proceeded on the assumption that the 160-acre limit was of no concern to those who were receiving water from the Alamo Cañal. This contemporaneous view of the Project Act, which supports our own construction of the legislation, was not officially repudiated by the Secretary until 1964. It is also a matter of unquestioned fact that in the ensuing years the Secretary has delivered water to the District pursuant to its contract and that the 160-acre provision of the reclamation laws has to this date never been an operative limitation with respect to lands under irrigation in 1920.
V
There remains a further consideration. The parties stipulated and the District Court found that at the outset of this litigation, the District was irrigating approximately 14,000 more acres than the 424,145 acres under irrigation in 1929. If, in light of our perfected rights holding, an Art. Ill case or controversy remains with respect to the applicability of acreage limitations to this additional 14,000 acres, there would remain to be disposed of those arguments of petitioners for reversing the Court of Appeals which we have not addressed and which, if sustained, would exempt from acreage limitations all privately owned lands in Imperial Valley, a result which the District Court seemingly embraced. The parties, however, have not separately addressed the status of this additional 14,000 acres; nor does the record invite us to deal further with this case without additional proceedings in the lower court. We do not know, for example, whether the District is still irrigating the additional 14,000 acres, whether any of the 14,000 acres consists of lands held in excess of 160 acres, or whether for some other reason of fact or law there is not now a controversy that requires further adjudication. Even if a live dispute remains, it would be helpful to have the Court of Appeals, or the District Court in the first instance if the Court of Appeals deems it advisable, adjudicate the status of the 14,000 acres, freed of any misapprehensions about the applicability of the 160-acre limitation to lands under irrigation in 1929.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed with respect to those lands that were irrigated on June 25, 1929, and with respect to which the District has been adjudicated to have a perfected water right as of that date. The judgment is otherwise vacated, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
Under California law, an irrigation district is a public corporation governed by a board of directors, usually elected by voters in the district. It is empowered to distribute and otherwise administer water for the beneficial use of its inhabitants and to levy assessments upon the lands served for the payment of its expenses.
The parties stipulated that the value of agricultural products in the Valley, overall, increased from some $4 million in 1909 to approximately $200 million in 1965.
The Colorado River was subject to flooding. In 1905, the river broke through its banks and flooded the Alamo Canal and Imperial Valley. The California Development Co., then the major force in Imperial Valley, sought financial assistance from the Southern Pacific Co. whose tracks were threatened by the floodwaters. The railroad, taking as security a controlling interest in the California Development Co., returned the river to its channel and ultimately foreclosed on its security, transferring these interests to the District. The District acquired certain mutual water companies in 1922-1923 and has been solely responsible since that time for the diversion, transportation, and distribution of water from the Colorado River to the Imperial Valley.
Difficulties also arose because the Alamo Canal passed through Mexican territory and hence was partly subject to Mexican sovereignty. As a Senate Committee remarked, a new canal would “end an intolerable situation, under which the Imperial Valley now secures its sole water supply from a canal running for many miles through Mexico....” S. Rep. No. 592, 70th Cong., 1st Sess., 8 (1928).
The provision apparently resulted from the concern of the farmers of Imperial Valley that after two decades of productive reliance on the Alamo Canal Project, their existing water rights might be impaired by the Compact aEocation. Delph Carpenter, one of the draftsmen of the Compact, testified in hearings on a precursor of the Project Act as follows:
“During the deliberations of the Colorado River Commission at Santa Fe, and after 10 days’ work, a sketch or outline of the progress was released to the press, stating what had happened and the proposed terms of a treaty.... The Imperial VaEey representatives were immediately responsive. They came before the Commission and presented their claims with great vigor..,.
“In view of that claim, coming as it did from people who cultivated upward of half a million acres of very valuable land,... Article VIII of the compact was drawn at the last session of the proceedings.” Hearings Pursuant to S. Res. 320 before the Senate Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation, 68th Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 1, p. 678 (1925).
The genesis of the Project Act and of the Colorado River Compact is described at greater length in Arizona v. California, 373 U. S. 546, 552-562 (1963).
Coachella Valley is an area lying north of Imperial Valley across the Saltón Sea. Unlike Imperial Valley, it was not being irrigated with Colorado River water in 1929. Coachella Yalley is not involved in these cases.
Section 4 (a) also contained provisions which, together with the Secretary’s power under § 5 to contract for storage and delivery of water with particular water users and with § 8’s tying the Project Act and the Compact together, provided the basis for the Court’s holding in Arizona v. California that the Project Act itself sufficiently revealed the intent of Congress with respect to the division of the project water among the Lower Basin States.
Section 46 provides in relevant part:
“No water shall be delivered upon the completion of any new project or new division of a project until a contract or contracts in form approved by the Secretary of the Interior shall have been made with an irrigation district or irrigation districts organized under State law providing for payment by the district or districts of the cost of constructing, operating, and maintaining the works during the time they are in control of the United States, such cost of constructing to be repaid within such terms of years as the Secretary may find to be necessary, in any event not more than forty years from the date of public notice hereinafter referred to, and the execution of said contract or contracts shall have been confirmed by a decree of a court of competent jurisdiction.”
In 1942, pursuant to this provision, the District expanded its boundaries to include 271,588 acres of the unpatented public lands.
The All-American Canal system was not declared completed until 1952. By that time, pursuant to the 1932 contract, the care, operation, and maintenance of the system, with specified exceptions, had been transferred to the District, although title to the Imperial Dam and the canal remained in the United States. Repayment of construction charges commenced on March 1, 1955. The District’s financial obligation was determined to be approximately $25 million, repayable in 40 annual installments, without interest. All payments to date have been made 'from net power revenues derived from the sale of electrical energy generated by hydro-electrical facilities of the All-American Canal, facilities which cost the District approximately $15 million.
The Act of May 15, 1922, ch. 190, § 1, 42 Stat. 541, 43 U. S. C. § 511, authorized the Secretary to contract with irrigation districts but provided that no contract under the section “shall be binding on the United States until the proceedings on the part of the district for the authorization of the execution of the contract with the United States shall have been confirmed by decree of a court of competent jurisdiction, or pending appellate action if ground for appeal be laid.” The 1926 Act also required that the “execution” of the contracts referred to in the section be judicially confirmed.
In addition, the law of California specified preconditions to the effectiveness of water district contracts. Approval by the governing body was required as well as by district members voting in an election for that purpose. A district was also permitted to submit the contract to Superior Court for validation proceedings. The decree in Hewes v. All Persons, discussed in the text, concluded that California law had been satisfied in all respects.
App. 177a, 71 I. D. 496, 530 (1964). Secretary Wilbur’s letter referred specifically only to the applicability of § 5 of the Reclamation Act to the privately owned district lands. Five days later, the Assistant Commissioner and Chief Counsel of the Bureau of Reclamation, Porter W. Dent, issued a letter confirming that the Department’s interpretation likewise applied to § 46 of the 1926 Act. App. 179a, 71 I. D., at 531.
Finding of Fact No. 35 in pertinent part said that under the 1932 contract, “the delivery of water will not be limited to 160 acres in a single ownership.
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
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Part III, and an opinion with respect to Parts I and II, in which The Chief Justice, Justice O’Connor, and Justice Kennedy join.
This case presents two questions: whether a first-degree murder conviction under jury instructions that did not require agreement on whether the defendant was guilty of premeditated murder or felony murder is unconstitutional; and whether the principle recognized in Beck v. Alabama, 447 U. S. 625 (1980), entitles a defendant to instructions on all offenses that are lesser than, and included within, a capital offense as charged. We answer no to each.
I — I
On August 9, 1978, a highway worker discovered the badly decomposed body of 74-year-old Lorimer Grove in the underbrush off U. S. Highway 89, about nine miles south of Prescott, Arizona. There was a rope around his neck, and a coroner determined that he had been strangled to death. The victim had left his home in Bisbee, Arizona, eight days earlier, driving his new Cadillac and towing a camper.
On September 3, 1978, petitioner, driving Grove’s Cadillac, was stopped for speeding by the New York State Police. He told the officers that he was transporting the car for an elderly friend named Larry Grove. Later that month, petitioner was arrested in Salt Lake City, Utah, for a parole violation and possession of a stolen vehicle. A search of the Cadillac, which petitioner was still driving, revealed personal belongings of Grove’s, and petitioner’s wallet contained two of Grove’s credit cards, which petitioner had begun using on August 2, 1978. Other items belonging to Grove were discovered in a rental car which had been found abandoned off Highway 89 on August 3, 1978; petitioner had rented the car the previous December and never returned it. While in custody in Salt Lake City, petitioner told a visitor that he would “ ‘deny being in any area of Arizona or the State of Arizona, particularly Tempe, Arizona and Prescott, Arizona.’” 163 Ariz. 411, 414, 788 P. 2d 1162, 1165 (1989).
A Yavapai County, Arizona, grand jury indicted petitioner on one count of first-degree murder, and petitioner was extradited to stand trial. The Arizona statute applicable to petitioner’s case defined first-degree murder as “murder which is... wilful, deliberate or premeditated... or which is committed... in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate,... robbery.” Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-452 (Supp. 1973). Petitioner was convicted and sentenced to death, but his conviction was set aside on collateral review. 142 Ariz. 619, 691 P. 2d 710 (1984).
At petitioner’s retrial, the prosecutor advanced theories of both premeditated murder and felony murder, against which petitioner claimed that the circumstantial evidence proved at most that he was a thief, not a murderer. The court instructed the jury that “[f ]irst degree murder is murder which is the result of premeditation.... Murder which is committed in the attempt to commit robbery is also first degree murder.” App. 26. The court also instructed that “[a]ll 12 of you must agree on a verdict. All 12 of you must agree whether the verdict is guilty or not guilty.” Id., at 27.
The defense requested a jury instruction on theft as a lesser included offense. The court refused, but did instruct the jurors on the offense of second-degree murder, and gave them three forms for reporting a verdict: guilty of first-degree murder; guilty of second-degree murder; and not guilty. The jury convicted petitioner of first-degree murder, and, after a further hearing, the judge sentenced petitioner to death.
The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed. 163 Ariz. 411, 788 P. 2d 1162 (1989). The court rejected petitioner’s contention that the trial court erred in not requiring the jury to agree on a single theory of first-degree murder, explaining:
“In Arizona, first degree murder is only one crime regardless whether it occurs as a premeditated murder or a felony murder. Although a defendant is entitled to a unanimous jury verdict on whether the criminal act charged has been committed, the defendant is not entitled to a unanimous verdict on the precise manner in which the act was committed.’” Id., at 417; 788 P. 2d, at 1168 (quoting State v. Encinas, 132 Ariz. 493, 496, 647 P. 2d 624, 627 (1982)) (citations omitted).
The court also rejected petitioner’s argument that Beck v. Alabama, supra, required an instruction on the lesser in-eluded offense of robbery. 163 Ariz., at 416-417, 788 P. 2d, at 1167-1168.
We granted certiorari. 498 U. S. 894 (1990).
1 — I 1 — I
Petitioner’s first contention is that his conviction under instructions that did not require the jury to agree on one of the alternative theories of premeditated and felony murder is unconstitutional. He urges us to decide this case by holding that the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments require a unanimous jury in state capital cases, as distinct from those where lesser penalties are imposed. See Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U. S. 356 (1972); Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U. S. 404 (1972). We decline to do so, however, because the suggested reasoning would beg the question raised. Even assuming a requirement of jury unanimity arguendo, that assumption would fail to address the issue of what the jury must be unanimous about. Petitioner’s jury was unanimous in deciding that the State had proved what, under state law, it had to prove: that petitioner murdered either with premeditation or in the course of committing a robbery. The question still remains whether it was constitutionally acceptable to permit the jurors to reach one verdict based on any combination of the alternative findings. If it was, then the jury was unanimous in reaching the verdict, and petitioner’s proposed unanimity rule would not help him. If it was not, and the jurors may not combine findings of premeditated and felony murder, then petitioner’s conviction will fall even without his proposed rule, because the instructions allowed for the forbidden combination.
In other words, petitioner’s real challenge is to Arizona’s characterization of first-degree murder as a single crime as to which a verdict need not be limited to any one statutory alternative, as against which he argues that premeditated murder and felony murder are separate crimes as to which the jury must return separate verdicts. The issue in this case, then, is one of the permissible limits in defining criminal conduct, as reflected in the instructions to jurors applying the definitions, not one of jury unanimity.
A
A way of framing the issue is suggested by analogy. Oür cases reflect a long-established rule of the criminal law that an indictment need not specify which overt act, among several named, was the means by which a crime was committed. In Andersen v. United States, 170 U. S. 481 (1898), for example, we sustained a murder conviction against the challenge that the indictment on which the verdict was returned was duplicitous in charging that death occurred through both shooting and drowning. In holding that “the Government was not required to make the charge in the alternative,” id., at 504, we explained that it was immaterial whether death was caused by one means or the other. Cf. Borum v. United States, 284 U. S. 596 (1932) (upholding the murder conviction of three codefendants under a count that failed to specify which of the three did the actual killing); St. Clair v. United States, 154 U. S. 134, 145 (1894). This fundamental proposition is embodied in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 7(c)(1), which provides that “[i]t may be alleged in a single count that the means by which the defendant committed the offense are unknown or that the defendant committed it by one or more specified means.”
We have never suggested that in returning general verdicts in such cases the jurors should be required to agree upon a single means of commission, any more than the indictments were required to specify one alone. In these cases, as in litigation generally, “different jurors may be persuaded by different pieces of evidence, even when they agree upon the bottom line. Plainly there is no general requirement that the jury reach agreement on the preliminary factual issues which underlie the verdict.” McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U. S. 433, 449 (1990) (Blackmun, J., concurring) (footnotes omitted).
The alternatives in the cases cited went, of course, to possibilities for proving the requisite actus reus, while the present case involves a general verdict predicated on the possibility of combining findings of what can best be described as alternative mental states, the one being premeditation, the other the intent required for murder combined with the commission of an independently culpable felony. See State v. Serna, 69 Ariz. 181, 188, 211 P. 2d 455, 459 (1949) (in Arizona, the attempt to commit a robbery is “the legal equivalent of... deliberation, premeditation, and design”). We see no reason, however, why the rule that the jury need not agree as to mere means of satisfying the actus reus element of an offense should not apply equally to alternative means of satisfying the element of mens rea.
That is not to say, however, that the Due Process Clause places no limits on a State’s capacity to define different courses of conduct, or states of mind, as merely alternative means of committing a single offense, thereby permitting a defendant’s conviction without jury agreement as to which course or state actually occurred. The axiomatic requirement of due process that a statute may not forbid conduct in terms so vague that people of common intelligence would be relegated to differing guesses about its meaning, see Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451, 453 (1939) (citing Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U. S. 385, 391 (1926)), carries the practical consequence that a defendant charged under a valid statute will be in a position to understand with some specificity the legal basis of the charge against him. Thus it is an assumption of our system of criminal justice “ ‘so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental,’” Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 523 (1958) (quoting Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 105 (1934)), that no person may be punished criminally save upon proof of some specific illegal conduct. Just as the requisite specificity of the charge may not be compromised by the joining of separate offenses, see United States v. UCO Oil Co., 546 F. 2d 833 (CA9 1976), cert. denied, 430 U. S. 966 (1977), nothing in our history suggests that the Due Process Clause would permit a State to convict anyone under a charge of “Crime” so generic that any combination of jury findings of embezzlement, reckless driving, murder, burglary, tax evasion, or littering, for example, would suffice for conviction.
To say, however, that there are limits on a State’s authority to decide what facts are indispensable to proof of a given offense is simply to raise the problem of describing the point at which differences between means become so important that they may not reasonably be viewed as alternatives to a common end, but must be treated as differentiating what the Constitution requires to be treated as separate offenses. See generally Note, 91 Harv. L. Rev. 499, 501-502 (1977). Although we have never before attempted to define what constitutes an immaterial difference as to mere means and what constitutes a material difference requiring separate theories of crime to be treated as separate offenses subject to separate jury findings, there is a body of law in the federal circuits, deriving primarily from the decision of the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Gipson, 553 F. 2d 453 (1977) (Wisdom, J.), that addresses this problem.
The defendant in Gipson was charged with violating 18 U. S. C. § 2313 (1982 ed.), which prohibited knowingly “receiv[ing], concealing], storing], bartering], selling] or disposing] of” any stolen vehicle or aircraft moving in interstate commerce, and was convicted after the trial judge charged the jury that it need not agree on which of the enumerated acts the defendant had committed. The Fifth Circuit reversed, reasoning that the defendant’s right to “jury consensus as to [his] course of action” was violated by the joinder in a single count of “two distinct conceptual groupings,” receiving, concealing, and storing forming the first grouping (referred to by the court as “housing”), and bartering, selling, and disposing (“marketing”) constituting the second. Id., at 456-459. In that court’s view, the acts within a conceptual grouping are sufficiently similar to obviate the need for jurors to agree about which of them was committed, whereas the acts in distinct conceptual groupings are so unrelated that the jury must decide separately as to each grouping. A number of lower courts have adopted the standard of “distinct conceptual groupings” as the appropriate test. E. g., United States v. Peterson, 768 F. 2d 64 (CA2) (Friendly, J.), cert. denied, 474 U. S. 923 (1985); United States v. Duncan, 850 F. 2d 1104, 1113 (CA6 1988), cert. denied sub nom. Downing v. United States, 493 U. S. 1025 (1990); State v. Baldwin, 101 Wis. 2d 441, 449-450, 304 N. W. 2d 742, 747-749 (1981).
We are not persuaded that the Gipson approach really answers the question, however. Although the classification of alternatives into “distinct conceptual groupings” is a way to express a judgment about the limits of permissible alternatives, the notion is too indeterminate to provide concrete guidance to courts faced with verdict specificity questions. See, e. g., Rice v. State, 311 Md. 116, 133, 532 A. 2d 1357, 1365 (1987) (criticizing Gipson criteria as “not entirely clear” and as “providing] little guidance”); Trubitt, Patchwork Verdicts, Different-Jurors Verdicts, and American Jury Theory: Whether Verdicts Are Invalidated by Juror Disagreement on Issues, 36 Okla. L. Rev. 473, 548-549 (1983) (same). This is so because conceptual groupings may be identified at various levels of generality, and we have no a priori standard to determine what level of generality is appropriate. Indeed, as one judge has noted, even on the facts of Gipson itself, “[o]ther conceptual groupings of the six acts are possible. [One might] put all six acts into one conceptual group, namely trafficking in stolen vehicles.” Manson v. State, 101 Wis. 2d 413, 438, 304 N. W. 2d 729, 741 (1981) (Abrahamson, J., concurring); accord, Trubitt, supra, at 548-549 (“[I]t is difficult to see how a court could determine that ‘housing’ and ‘marketing’ are ultimate acts in some metaphysical or constitutional sense, and thus prohibit the legislature from including them in the single offense of trafficking”). In short, the notion of “distinct conceptual groupings” is simply too conclu-sory to serve as a real test.
The dissent would avoid the indeterminacy of the Gipson approach by adopting an inflexible rule of maximum verdict specificity. In the dissent’s view, whenever a statute lists alternative means of committing a crime, “the jury [must] indicate on which of the alternatives it has based the defendant’s guilt,” post, at 656, even where there is no indication that the statute seeks to create separate crimes. This approach rests on the erroneous assumption that any statutory alternatives are ipso facto independent elements defining independent crimes under state law, and therefore subject to the axiomatic principle that the prosecution must prove independently every element of the crime. See post, at 656-658 (citing In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970), and Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U. S. 510 (1979)). In point of fact, as the statute at issue in Gipson demonstrates, legislatures frequently enumerate alternative means of committing a crime without intending to define separate elements or separate crimes. The question whether statutory alternatives constitute independent elements of the offense therefore does not, as the dissent would have it, call for a mere tautology; rather, it is a substantial question of statutory construction. See, e. g., United States v. UCO Oil Co., 546 F. 2d, at 835-838.
In cases, like this one, involving state criminal statutes, the dissent’s “statutory alternatives” test runs afoul of the fundamental principle that we are not free to substitute our own interpretations of state statutes for those of a State’s courts. If a State’s courts have determined that certain statutory alternatives are mere means of committing a single offense, rather than independent elements of the crime, we simply are not at liberty to ignore that determination and conclude that the alternatives are, in fact, independent elements under state law. See Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684, 690-691 (1975) (declining to reexamine the Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s decision that, under Maine law, all intentional or criminally reckless killings are aspects of the single crime of felonious homicide); Murdock v. City of Memphis, 20 Wall. 590 (1875). In the present case, for example, by determining that a general verdict as to first-degree murder is permissible under Arizona law, the Arizona Supreme Court has effectively decided that, under state law, premeditation and the commission of a felony are not independent elements of the crime, but rather are mere means of satisfying a single mens rea element. The issue in this case therefore is not whether “the State must be held to its choice,” post, at 657-658, for the Arizona Supreme Court has authoritatively determined that the State has chosen not to treat premeditation and the commission of a felony as independent elements of the crime, but rather whether Arizona’s choice is unconstitutional.
B
It is tempting, of course, to follow the example of Gipson to the extent of searching for some single criterion that will serve to answer the question facing us. We are convinced, however, of the impracticability of trying to derive any single test for the level of definitional and verdict specificity permitted by the Constitution, and we think that instead of such a test our sense of appropriate specificity is a distillate of the concept of due process with its demands for fundamental fairness, see, e. g., Dowling v. United States, 493 U. S. 342, 352-353 (1990), and for the rationality that is an essential component of that fairness. In translating these demands for fairness and rationality into concrete judgments about the adequacy of legislative determinations, we look both to history and wide practice as guides to fundamental values, as well as to narrower analytical methods of testing the moral and practical equivalence of the different mental states that may satisfy the mens rea element of a single offense. The enquiry is undertaken with a threshold presumption of legislative competence to determine the appropriate relationship between means and ends in defining the elements of a crime.
1
Judicial restraint necessarily follows from a recognition of the impossibility of determining, as an a priori matter, whether a given combination of facts is consistent with there being only one offense. Decisions about what facts are material and what are immaterial, or, in terms of Winship, supra, at 364, what “fact[s] [are] necessary to constitute the crime,” and therefore must be proved individually, and what facts are mere means, represent value choices more appropriately made in the first instance by a legislature than by a court. Respect for this legislative competence counsels restraint against judicial second-guessing, cf. Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U. S. 57, 65 (1981) (“[L]ack of competence on the part of the courts” relative to the legislature so counsels), which is particularly appropriate in cases, like this one, that call state definitions into question. “It goes without saying that preventing and dealing with crime is much more the business of the States than it is of the Federal Government, Irvine v. California, 347 U. S. 128, 134 (1954) (plurality opinion), and that we should not lightly construe the Constitution so as to intrude upon the administration of justice by the individual States.” Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197, 201 (1977).
There is support for such restraint in our “burden-shifting” cases, which have made clear, in a slightly different context, that the States must be permitted a degree of flexibility in defining the “fact[s] necessary to constitute the crime” under Winship. Each of those cases arose because a State defined an offense in such a way as to exclude some particular fact from those to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, either by placing the burden on defendants to prove a mitigating fact, see Patterson, supra (extreme emotional disturbance); Martin v. Ohio, 480 U. S. 228 (1987) (self-defense); see also Mul- laney, supra (heat of passion or sudden provocation), or by allowing the prosecution to prove an aggravating fact by some standard less than that of reasonable doubt, McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79 (1986) (possession of a firearm). In each case, the defendant argued that the excluded fact was inherently “a fact necessary to constitute the offense” that required proof beyond a reasonable doubt under Winship, even though the fact was not formally an element of the offense with which he was charged. See, e. g., id., at 90.
The issue presented here is similar, for under Arizona law neither premeditation nor the commission of a felony is formally an independent element of first-degree murder; they are treated as mere means of satisfying a mens rea element of high culpability. The essence of petitioner’s argument is that, despite this unitary definition of the offense, each of these means must be treated as an independent element as to which the jury must agree, because premeditated murder and felony murder are inherently separate offenses. Both here and in the burden-shifting cases, in other words, a defendant argues that the inherent nature of the offense charged requires the State to prove as an element of the offense some fact that is not an element under the legislative definition.
In the burden-shifting cases, as here, we have faced the difficulty of deciding, as an abstract matter, what elements an offense must comprise. Recognizing “[o]ur inability to lay down any ‘bright line’ test,” McMillan, 477 U. S., at 91, we have “stressed that... the state legislature’s definition of the elements of the offense is usually dispositive.” Id., at 85; see also Patterson, supra, at 201-202. We think that similar restraint is appropriate here, although we recognize that, as in the burden-shifting cases, “there are obviously constitutional limits beyond which the States may not go.” Patterson, supra, at 210; see also McMillan, supra, at 86.
2
The use here of due process as a measurement of the sense of appropriate specificity assumes the importance of history and widely shared practice as concrete indicators of what fundamental fairness and rationality require. In turning to these sources we again follow the example set in the burden-shifting cases, where we have often found it useful to refer both to history and to the current practice of other States in determining whether a State has exceeded its discretion in defining offenses. See Patterson, supra, at 202, 207-209, nn. 10-11; see also Martin, supra, at 235-236; Mullaney, 421 U. S., at 692-696. Where a State’s particular way of defining a crime has a long history, or is in widespread use, it is unlikely that a defendant will be able to demonstrate that the State has shifted the burden of proof as to what is an inherent element of the offense, or has defined as a single crime multiple offenses that are inherently separate. Conversely, a freakish definition of the elements of a crime that finds no analogue in history or in the criminal law of other jurisdictions will lighten the defendant’s burden.
Thus, it is significant that Arizona’s equation of the mental states of premeditated murder and felony murder as species of the blameworthy state of mind required to prove a single offense of first-degree murder finds substantial historical and contemporary echoes. At common law, murder was defined as the unlawful killing of another human being with “malice aforethought.” The intent to kill and the intent to commit a felony were alternative aspects of the single concept of “malice aforethought.” See 3 J. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England 21-22 (1883). Although American jurisdictions have modified the common law by legislation classifying murder by degrees, the resulting statutes have in most cases retained premeditated murder and some form of felony murder (invariably including murder committed in perpetrating or attempting to perpetrate a robbery) as alternative means of satisfying the mental state that first-degree murder presupposes. See 2 W. LaFave & A. Scott, Substantive Criminal Law § 7.5, pp. 210-211, and nn. 21, 23, 24 (1986); ALI, Model Penal Code § 210.2, p. 32, and n. 78 (1980). Indeed, the language of the Arizona first-degree murder statute applicable here is identical in all relevant respects to the language of the first statute defining murder' by differences of degree, passed by the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1794.
A series of state-court decisions, beginning with the leading case of People v. Sullivan, 173 N. Y. 122, 65 N. E. 989 (1903), have agreed that “it was not necessary that all the jurors should agree in the determination that there was a deliberate and premeditated design to take the life of the deceased, or in the conclusion that the defendant was at the time engaged in the commission of a felony, or an attempt to commit one; it was sufficient that each juror was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had committed the crime of murder in the first degree as that offense is defined by the statute.” Id., at 127, 65 N. E., at 989-990. See People v. Milan, 9 Cal. 3d 185, 507 P. 2d 956 (1973); People v. Travis, 170 Ill. App. 3d 873, 525 N. E. 2d 1137 (1988), cert. denied, 489 U. S. 1024 (1989); State v. Fuhrmann, 257 N. W. 2d 619 (Iowa 1977); State v. Wilson, 220 Kan. 341, 552 P. 2d 931 (1976); Commonwealth v. Devlin, 335 Mass. 555, 141 N. E. 2d 269 (1957); People v. Embree, 70 Mich. App. 382, 246 N. W. 2d 6 (1976); State v. Buckman, 237 Neb. 936, 468 N. W. 2d 589 (1991); James v. State, 637 P. 2d 862 (Okla. Crim. 1981); State v. Tillman, 750 P. 2d 546 (Utah 1987); see also Brown v. State, 473 So. 2d 1260 (Fla.), cert. denied, 474 U. S. 1038 (1985). Although the state courts have not been unanimous in this respect, see State v. Murray, 308 Ore. 496, 782 P. 2d 157 (1989), there is sufficiently widespread acceptance of the two mental states as alternative means of satisfying the mens rea element of the single crime of first-degree murder to persuade us that Arizona has not departed from the norm.
Such historical and contemporary acceptance of Arizona’s definition of the offense and verdict practice is a strong indication that they do not “ ‘offen[d] some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental,’” Patterson, 432 U. S., at 202 (quoting Speiser, 357 U. S., at 523), for we recognize the high probability that legal definitions, and the practices comporting with them, are unlikely to endure for long, or to retain wide acceptance, if they are at odds with notions of fairness and rationality sufficiently fundamental to be comprehended in due process. Cf. Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U. S. 22, 31 (1922) (Holmes, J.); Snyder, 291 U. S., at 111.
This is not to say that either history or current practice is dispositive. In McMillan, for example, even though many States had made the fact at issue (possession of a weapon) an element of various aggravated offenses, we were unwilling to conclude that Pennsylvania’s decision to treat it as an aggravating circumstance provable at sentencing by a mere preponderance of the evidence deviated so far from the constitutional norm as to violate the Due Process Clause. “That Pennsylvania’s particular approach has been adopted in few other States,” we observed, “does not render Pennsylvania’s choice unconstitutional.” 477 U. S., at 90; see also Martin, 480 U. S., at 235-236 (relying on history, but not current practice); Patterson, supra, at 211. Conversely, “‘neither the antiquity of a practice nor the fact of steadfast legislative and judicial adherence to it through the centuries insulates it from constitutional attack.’” Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip, 499 U. S. 1, 18 (1991) (quoting Williams v. Illinois, 399 U. S. 235, 239 (1970)). In fine, history and current practice are significant indicators of what we as a people regard as fundamentally fair and rational ways of defining criminal offenses, which are nevertheless always open to critical examination.
3
It is, as we have said, impossible to lay down any single analytical model for determining when two means are so disparate as to exemplify two inherently separate offenses. In the case before us, however, any scrutiny of the two possibilities for proving the mens rea of first-degree murder may appropriately take account of the function that differences of mental state perform in defining the relative seriousness of otherwise similar or identical criminal acts. See generally ALI, Model Penal Code §2.02(2) (1985) (defining differing mental states). If, then, two mental states are supposed to be equivalent means to satisfy the mens rea element of a single offense, they must reasonably reflect notions of equivalent blameworthiness or culpability, whereas a difference in their perceived degrees of culpability would be a reason to conclude that they identified different offenses altogether. Petitioner has made out no case for such moral disparity in this instance.
The proper critical question is not whether premeditated murder is necessarily the moral equivalent of felony murder in all possible instances of the latter. Our cases have recognized that not all felony murders are of identical culpability, compare Tison v. Arizona, 481 U. S. 137 (1987), with Enmund v. Florida, 458 U. S. 782 (1982), and the same point is suggested by examining state murder statutes, which frequently diverge as to what felonies may be the predicate of a felony-murder conviction. Compare, e. g., Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-202 (Supp. 1990) (theft as predicate of first-degree felonymurder) with, e. g., Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-1105. A (1989) (theft not such a predicate).
The question, rather, is whether felony murder may ever be treated as the equivalent of murder by deliberation, and in particular whether robbery murder as charged in this case may be treated as thus equivalent. This is in fact the very question we considered only three Terms ago in the context of our capital sentencing jurisprudence in Tison, supra. There we held that “the reckless disregard for human life implicit in knowingly engaging in criminal activities known to carry a grave risk of death represents [such] a highly culpable mental state... that [it] may be taken into account in making a capital sentencing judgment when that conduct causes its natural, though not inevitable, lethal result.” Id., at 157-158. We accepted the proposition that this disregard occurs, for example, when a robber “shoots someone in the course of the robbery, utterly indifferent to the fact that the desire to rob may have the unintended consequence of killing the victim as well as taking the victim’s property.” Id., at 157. Whether or not everyone would agree that the mental state that precipitates death in the course of robbery is the moral equivalent of premeditation, it is clear that such equivalence could reasonably be found, which is enough to rule out the argument that this moral disparity bars treating them as alternative means to satisfy the mental element of a single offense.
We would not warrant that these considerations exhaust the universe of those potentially relevant to judgments about the legitimacy of defining certain facts as mere means to the commission of one offense. But they do suffice to persuade us that the jury’s options in this case did not fall beyond the constitutional bounds of fundamental fairness and rationality. We do not, of course, suggest that jury instructions requiring increased verdict specificity are not desirable, and in fact the Supreme Court of Arizona has itself recognized that separate verdict forms are useful in cases submitted to a jury on alternative theories of premeditated and felony murder. State v. Smith, 160 Ariz. 507, 513, 774 P. 2d 811, 817 (1989). We hold only that the Constitution did not command such a practice on the facts of this
III
Petitioner’s second contention is that under Beck v. Alabama, 447 U. S. 625 (1980), he was entitled to a jury instruction on the offense of robbery, which he characterizes as a lesser included offense of robbery murder. Beck held unconstitutional an Alabama statute that prohibited lesser in-eluded offense instructions in capital cases. Unlike the jury in Beck, the jury here was given the option of finding petitioner guilty of a lesser included noncapital offense, second-degree murder. While petitioner cannot, therefore, succeed under the strict holding of Beck, he contends that the due process principles underlying Beck require that the jury in a capital case be instructed on every lesser included noncapital offense supported by the evidence, and that
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.
Per Curiam.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court’s denial of habeas relief based on its speculation that the prosecution’s failure to turn over the results of a polygraph examination of a key witness might have had an adverse effect on pretrial preparation by the defense. The Court of Appeals assumed, and the parties do not dispute, that the results were inadmissible under state law both for substantive purposes as well as for impeachment. The decision below is a misapplication of our Brady jurisprudence, see Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), and we accordingly reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand for further proceedings.
I
On August 1, 1981, respondent Dwayne Bartholomew robbed a laundromat in Tacoma, Washington. In the course of the robbery, the laundromat attendant was shot and killed. Two shots were fired: One hit the attendant in the head; the second lodged in a counter near the victim’s body. From the beginning, respondent admitted that he committed the robbery and that the shots came from his gun.
The only issue at trial was whether respondent was guilty of aggravated first-degree murder, which requires proof of premeditation; or of first-degree (felony) murder, which does not. Respondent’s defense was that the gun, a single action revolver (one that must be cocked manually before each shot), discharged by accident — twice.
In addition to the physical evidence concerning the operation of the gun, the prosecution’s evidence consisted of the testimony of respondent’s brother, Rodney Bartholomew, and of Rodney’s girlfriend, Tracy Dormady. Both Rodney and Tracy testified that on the day of the crime they had gone to the laundromat in question to do their laundry, and that respondent was sitting in his car in the parking lot when they arrived. While waiting for their laundry, Rodney sat with his brother in the car. Rodney testified that respondent told him that he intended to rob the laundromat and “leave no witnesses.” According to their testimony, Rodney and Tracy left the laundromat soon after the conversation and went to Tracy’s house. Respondent arrived at the house a short time later, and when Tracy asked respondent if he had killed the attendant respondent said “he had put two bullets in the kid’s head.” Tracy also testified that she had heard respondent say that he intended to leave no witnesses. Both Rodney and Tracy’s testimony was consistent with their pretrial statements to the police. State v. Bartholomew, 98 Wash. 2d 173, 176-178, 654 P. 2d 1170, 1173-1174 (1982).
Respondent testified in his own defense. He admitted threatening the victim with his gun and forcing him to lie down on the floor. Respondent said, however, that while he was removing money from the cash drawer his gun acci-dently fired, discharging a bullet into the victim’s head. Respondent further claimed that the gun went off a second time while he was running away. Respondent denied telling Rodney or Tracy that he intended to leave no witnesses. According to his testimony, moreover, Rodney had assisted in the robbery by convincing the attendant to open the laundromat’s door after it had closed for the night, although Rodney left before the crime was committed. Ibid. In closing argument the defense sought to discredit Rodney and Tracy’s testimony by suggesting that they were lying about the extent of Rodney’s participation in the crime. 34 F. 3d 870, 872 (CA9 1994).
At the sentencing phase of the trial (respondent was sentenced to death but his sentence was overturned on appeal and he was resentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole), the prosecution’s first witness was respondent’s cellmate, Stanley Bell. Bell testified that respondent told him that he made the victim lie on the floor, asked him his age, found out it was 17, replied “[t]oo bad,” and shot him. See State v. Bartholomew, supra, at 178, 654 P. 2d, at 1174.
Before trial, the prosecution requested that Rodney and Tracy submit to polygraph examinations. The answers of both witnesses to the questions asked by the polygraph examiner were consistent with their testimony at trial. As part of the polygraph examination, the examiner asked Tracy whether she had helped respondent commit the robbery and whether she had ever handled the murder weapon. Tracy answered in the negative to both questions. The results of the testing as to these questions were inconclusive, but the examiner noted his personal opinion that her responses were truthful. The examiner also asked Rodney whether he had assisted his brother in the robbery and whether at any time he and his brother were in the laundromat together. Rodney responded in the negative to both questions, and the examiner concluded that the responses to the questions indicated deception. Neither examination was disclosed to the defense.
After exhausting his state remedies, respondent filed a ha-beas action in the District Court for the Western District of Washington, raising, inter alia, a Brady claim based on the prosecution’s failure to produce the polygraph examinations. The District Court denied the writ, concluding that respondent “fails ... to show that evidence was withheld. The information withheld only possibly could have led to some admissible evidence. He fails to show that disclosure of the results of the polygraph to defense counsel would have had a reasonable likelihood of affecting the verdict.” App. to Pet. for Cert. B5 (emphasis in original).
On appeal, the Ninth Circuit reversed. 34 F. 3d 870 (1994). The Court of Appeals noted that under Washington law polygraphic examinations are inadmissible in evidence, even for impeachment purposes. See id., at 875 (citing State v. Ellison, 36 Wash. App. 564, 676 P. 2d 531 (1984)). The court nevertheless reversed the District Court’s denial of the writ, concluding that although the results would have been inadmissible at trial, the information was material under Brady. The court reasoned that “[h]ad [respondent’s] counsel known of the polygraph results, he would have had a stronger reason to pursue an investigation of Rodney’s story”; that he “likely would have taken Rodney’s deposition” and that in that deposition “might well have succeeded in obtaining an admission that he was lying about his participation in the crime” and “would likely have Uncovered a variety of conflicting statements which could have been used quite effectively in cross-examination at trial.” 34 F. 3d, at 875-876.
II
If the prosecution’s initial denial that polygraph examinations of the two witnesses existed were an intentional misstatement, we would not hesitate to condemn that misrepresentation in the strongest terms. But as we reiterated just last Term, evidence is “material” under Brady, and the failure to disclose it justifies setting aside a conviction, only where there exists a “reasonable probability” that had the evidence been disclosed the result at trial would have been different. Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U. S. 419, 433-434 (1995); United States v. Bagley, 473 U. S. 667, 682 (1985) (opinion of Blackmun, J.); id., at 685 (White, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). To begin with, on the Court of Appeals’ own assumption, the polygraph results were inadmissible under state law, even for impeachment purposes, absent a stipulation by the parties, see 34 F. 3d, at 875 (citing State v. Ellison, supra), and the parties do not contend otherwise. The information at issue here, then — the results of a polygraph examination of one of the witnesses — is not “evidence” at all. Disclosure of the polygraph results, then, could have had no direct effect on the outcome of trial, because respondent could have made no mention of them either during argument or while questioning witnesses. To get around this problem, the Ninth Circuit reasoned that the information, had it been disclosed to the defense, might have led respondent’s counsel to conduct additional discovery that might have led to some additional evidence that could have been utilized. See 34 F. 3d, at 875. Other than expressing a belief that in a deposition Rodney might have confessed to his involvement in the initial stages of the crime — a confession that itself would have been in no way inconsistent with respondent’s guilt — the Court of Appeals did not specify what particular evidence it had in mind. Its judgment is based on mere speculation, in violation of the standards we have established.
At trial, respondent’s strategy was to discredit Rodney’s damaging testimony by suggesting that Rodney was lying in order to downplay his own involvement in the crime. Id., at 872. That strategy did not involve deposing Rodney. It is difficult to see, then, on what basis the Ninth Circuit concluded that respondent’s counsel would have prepared in a different manner, or (more important) would have discovered some unspecified additional evidence, merely by disclosure of polygraph results that, as to two questions, were consistent with respondent’s preestablished defense.
In speculating that the undisclosed polygraph results might have affected trial counsel’s preparation, and hence the result at trial, the Ninth Circuit disagreed with, or disregarded, the view of respondent’s own trial counsel. At the evidentiary hearing held in the Federal District Court in this habeas action, respondent’s habeas counsel questioned trial counsel on the importance of the polygraph results:
“Q: And you indicated that your cross-examination of Rodney was, I think, somewhat limited because of concern that—
“A: It was limited in my own respect. Nobody tried to limit me. In my opinion, as a trial lawyer, that was a very dangerous witness to me, and I wanted to get as much as I could out of him without recalling the crystal words again. Leave no prisoners.
“Q: Do you think it would have been any help to you in doing that, if you had known of specific questions regarding the offense on which Mr. Rodney Bartholomew had failed a polygraph examination? Would that have perhaps affected the shape of your cross-examination of him?
“A: I think in retrospect they’re almost parallel. The questions that he failed were his contribution or implication in the offense, the holdup, with Mr. Dwayne Bartholomew. I believe they were in gloves, so in retrospect they wouldn’t have affected it. I would have liked to have known it, Mr. Ford, but I don’t think it would have affected the outcome of the case.” Tr. 55-56.
Trial counsel’s strategic decision to limit his questioning of Rodney undermines the suggestion by the Court of Appeals that counsel might have chosen to depose Rodney had the polygraph results been disclosed. But of even greater importance was counsel’s candid acknowledgment that disclosure would not have affected the scope of his cross-examination. That assessment is borne out by the best possible proof: The Federal District Court below went so far as to permit respondent’s habeas counsel, armed with the. information about the polygraph examinations, to question Rodney under oath. Even though respondent’s counsel was permitted to refer to the polygraph results themselves — reference to which would not be permissible on retrial — counsel obtained no contradictions or admissions out of Rodney. See id., at 84-87.
In short, it is not “reasonably likely” that disclosure of the polygraph results — inadmissible under state law — would have resulted in a different outcome at trial. Even without Rodney’s testimony, the case against respondent was overwhelming. To acquit of aggravated murder, the jury would have had to believe that respondent’s single action revolver discharged accidently, not once but twice, by tragic coincidence depositing a bullet to the back of the victim’s head, execution style, as the victim lay face down on the floor. In the face of this physical evidence, as well as Rodney and Tracy’s testimony — to say nothing of the testimony by Bell that the State likely could introduce on retrial — it should take more than supposition on the weak premises offered by respondent to undermine a court’s confidence in the outcome.
Whenever a federal court grants habeas relief to a state prisoner the issuance of the writ exacts great costs to the-State’s legitimate interest in finality. And where, as here, retrial would occur 13 years later, those costs and burdens are compounded many times. Those costs may be justified where serious doubts about the reliability of a trial infested with constitutional error exist. But where, as in this case, a federal appellate court, second-guessing a convict’s own trial counsel, grants habeas relief on the basis of little more than speculation with slight support, the proper delicate balance between the federal courts and the States is upset to a degree that requires correction.
* * *
The petition for certiorari is granted, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. The respondent’s motion to proceed in forma pauperis is granted.
It is so ordered.
Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer dissent from summary disposition of this case.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Hanover Shoe, Inc. (hereafter Hanover) is a manufacturer of shoes and a customer of United Shoe Machinery Corporation (hereafter United), a manufacturer and distributor of shoe machinery. In 1954 this Court affirmed the judgment of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts, 110 F. Supp. 295 (1953), in favor of the United States in a civil action against United under § 4 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U. S. C. § 4. United Shoe Machinery Corp. v. United States, 347 U. S. 521. In 1955, Hanover brought the present treble-damage action against United in the District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. In 1965 the District Court rendered judgment for Hanover and awarded trebled damages, including interest, of $4,239,609, as well as $650,000 in counsel fees. 245 F. Supp. 258. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the finding of liability but disagreed with the District Court on certain questions relating to the damage award. 377 F. 2d 776 (1967). Both Hanover and United sought review of the Court of Appeals’ decision, and we granted both petitions. 389 U. S. 818 (1967).
I.
Hanover’s action against United alleged that United had monopolized the shoe machinery industry in violation of § 2 of the Sherman Act; that United’s practice of leasing and refusing to sell its more complicated and important shoe machinery had been an instrument of the unlawful monopolization; and that therefore Hanover should recover from United the difference between what it paid United in shoe machine rentals and what it would have paid had United been willing during the relevant period to sell those machines.
Section 5 (a) of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, as amended, 69 Stat. 283, 15 U. S. C. § 16 (a), makes a final judgment or decree in any civil or criminal suit brought by the United States under the antitrust laws "prima facie evidence... as to all matters respecting which said judgment or decree would be an estoppel as between the parties thereto....” Relying on this provision, Hanover submitted the findings, opinion, and decree rendered by Judge Wyzanski in the Government’s case as evidence that United monopolized and that the practice of refusing to sell machines was an instrument of the monopolization. United does not contest that prima facie weight is to be given to the judgment in the Government’s case. It does, however, contend that Judge Wyzanski’s decision did not determine that the practice of leasing and refusing to sell was an instrument of monopolization. This claim, rejected by the courts below, is the threshold issue in No. 463. If the 1953 judgment is not prima facie evidence of the illegality of the practice from which Hanover’s asserted injury arose, then Hanover, having offered no other convincing evidence of illegality, should not have recovered at all.
Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals concluded that the lease only policy had been held illegal in the Government’s suit. We find no error in that determination, It is true that § 4 of the decree on which United relies condemned only certain clauses in the standard lease and that nowhere in the decree was any other aspect of United’s leasing system expressly described or characterized as illegal monopolization. It is also arguable that § 5 of the decree, which required that United thenceforward not “offer for lease any machine type, unless it also offers such type for sale,” was included merely to insure an effective remedy to dissipate the accumulated consequences of United’s monopolization. We are not, however, limited to the decree in determining the extent of estoppel resulting from the judgment in the Government’s case. If by reference to the findings, opinion, and decree it is determined that an issue was actually adjudicated in an antitrust suit brought by the Government, the private plaintiff can treat the outcome of the Government’s case as prima facie evidence on that issue. See Emich Motors Corp. v. General Motors Corp., 340 U. S. 558, 566-569 (1951).
Section 5 of the decree would have been a justifiable remedy even if the practice it banned had not been instrumental in the monopolization of the market. But in our view the trial court’s findings and opinion put on firm ground the proposition that the Government’s case involved condemnation of the lease only system as such. In both its opinion with respect to violation and its opinion with respect to remedy, the court not only dealt with the objectionable clauses in the standard lease but also addressed itself to the consequences of only leasing machines and to the manner in which that practice related to the maintenance of United’s monopoly power. These portions of the court’s opinion are well supported by its findings of fact, which also estop United as against the Government and which therefore constitute prima facie evidence in this case. We have set out the relevant findings in an Appendix to this opinion. They are themselves sufficient to show that the lease only system played a significant role in United’s monopolization of the shoe machinery market. Those findings were not limited to the particular provisions of United’s leases. They dealt as well with United’s policy of leasing but not selling its important machines, with the advantages of that practice to United, and with its impact on potential and actual competition. When the applicable standard for determining monopolization under § 2 is applied to these facts, it must be concluded that the District Court and the Court of Appeals did not err in holding that United’s practice of leasing and refusing to sell its major machines was determined to be illegal monopolization in the Government’s case.
II.
The District Court found that Hanover would have bought rather than leased from United had it been given the opportunity to do. so. The District Court determined that if United had sold its important machines, the cost to Hanover would have been less than the rental paid for leasing these same machines. This difference in cost, trebled, is the judgment awarded to Hanover in the District Court. United claims, however, that Hanover suffered no legally cognizable injury, contending that the illegal overcharge during the damage period was reflected in the price charged for shoes sold by Hanover to its customers and that Hanover, if it had bought machines at lower prices, would have charged less and made no more profit than it made by leasing. At the very least, United urges, the District Court should have determined on the evidence offered whether these contentions were correct. The Court of Appeals, like the District Court, rejected this assertion of the so-called “passing-on” defense, and we affirm that judgment.
Section 4 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, 15 U. S. C. § 15, provides that any person “who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws may sue therefor... and shall recover threefold the damages by him sustained... We think it sound to hold that when a buyer shows that the price paid by him for materials purchased for use in his business is illegally high and also shows the amount of the overcharge, he has made out a prima facie case of injury and damage within the meaning of § 4.
If in the face of the overcharge the buyer does nothing and absorbs the loss, he is entitled to treble damages. This much seems conceded. The reason is that he has paid more than he should and his property has been illegally diminished, for had the price paid been lower his profits would have been higher. It is also clear that if the buyer, responding to the illegal price, maintains his own price but takes steps to increase his volume or to decrease other costs, his right to damages is not destroyed. Though he may manage to maintain his profit level, he would have made more if his purchases from the defendant had cost him less. We hold that the buyer is equally entitled to damages if he raises the price for his own product. As long as the seller continues to charge the illegal price, he takes from the buyer more than the law allows. At whatever price the buyer sells, the price he pays the seller remains illegally high, and his profits would be greater were his costs lower.
Fundamentally, this is the view stated by Mr. Justice Holmes in Chattanooga Foundry & Pipe Works v. City of Atlanta, 203 U. S. 390 (1906), where Atlanta sued the defendants for treble damages for antitrust violations in connection with the city's purchases of pipe for its waterworks system. The Court affirmed a judgment in favor of the city for an amount measured by the difference between the price paid and what the market or fair price would have been had the sellers not combined, the Court saying that the city “was injured in its property, at least, if not in its business of furnishing water, by being led to pay more than the worth of the pipe. A person whose property is diminished by a payment of money wrongfully induced is injured in his property.” Id,., at 396. The same approach was evident in Thomsen v. Cayser, 243 U. S. 66 (1917), another treble-damage antitrust case. With respect to overcharge cases arising under the transportation laws, similar views were expressed by Mr. Justice Holmes in Southern Pacific Co. v. Darnell-Taenzer Lumber Co., 245 U. S. 531, 533 (1918), and by Mr. Justice Brandeis in Adams v. Mills, 286 U. S. 397, 406-408 (1932). In those cases the possibility that -plaintiffs had recouped the overcharges from their customers was held irrelevant in assessing damages.
United seeks to limit the general principle that the victim of an overcharge is damaged within the meaning of § 4 to the extent of that overcharge. The rule, United argues, should be subject to the defense that economic circumstances were such that the overcharged buyer could only charge his customers a higher price because the price to him was higher. It is argued that in such circumstances the buyer suffers no loss from the overcharge. This situation might be present, it is said, where the overcharge is imposed equally on all of a buyer’s competitors and where the demand for the buyer’s product is so inelastic that the buyer and his competitors could all increase their prices by the amount of the cost increase without suffering a consequent decline in sales.
We are not impressed with the argument that sound laws of economics require recognizing this defense. A wide range of factors influence a company’s pricing policies. Normally the impact of a single change in the relevant conditions cannot be measured after the fact; indeed a businessman may be unable to state whether, had one fact been different (a single supply less expensive, general economic conditions more buoyant, or the labor market tighter, for example), he would have chosen a different price. Equally difficult to determine, in the real economic world rather than an economist’s hypothetical model, is what effect a change in a company’s price will have on its total sales. Finally, costs per unit for a different volume of total sales are hard to estimate. Even if it could be shown that the buyer raised his price in response to, and in the amount of, the overcharge and that his margin of profit and total sales had not thereafter declined, there would remain the nearly insuperable difficulty of demonstrating that the particular plaintiff could not or would not have raised his prices absent the overcharge or maintained the higher price had the overcharge been discontinued. Since establishing the applicability of the passing-on defense would require a convincing showing of each of these virtually unascertainable figures, the task would normally prove insurmountable. On the other hand, it is not unlikely that if the existence of the defense is generally confirmed, antitrust defendants will frequently seek to establish its applicability. Treble-damage actions would often require additional long and complicated proceedings involving massive evidence and complicated theories.
In addition, if buyers are subjected to the passing-on defense, those who buy from them would also have to meet the challenge that they passed on the higher price to their customers. These ultimate consumers, in today's case the buyers of single pairs of shoes, would have only a tiny stake in a lawsuit and little interest in attempting a class action. In consequence, those who violate the antitrust laws by price fixing or monopolizing would retain the fruits of their illegality because no one was available who would bring suit against them. Treble-damage actions, the importance of which the Court has many times emphasized, would be substantially reduced in effectiveness.
Our conclusion is that Hanover proved injury and the amount of its damages for the purposes of its treble-damage suit when it proved that United had overcharged it during the damage period and showed the amount of the overcharge; United was not entitled to assert a passing-on defense. We recognize that there might be situations — for instance, when an overcharged buyer has a pre-existing “cost-plus” contract, thus making it easy to prove that he has not been damaged — where the considerations requiring that the passing-on defense not be permitted in this case would not be present. We also recognize that where no differential can be proved between the price unlawfully charged and some price that the seller was required by law to charge, establishing damages might require a showing of loss of profits to the buyer.
III.
The District Court held that Hanover was entitled to damages for the period commencing July 1, 1939, and terminating September 21, 1955. The former date represented the greatest retrospective reach permitted under the applicable statute of limitations, and the latter date was that upon which Hanover filed its suit. In addition to somewhat shortening the forward' reach of the damage period, the Court of Appeals ruled that June 10, 1946, rather than July 1, 1939, marked the commencement of the damages period. June 10, 1946, was the date this Court decided American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 328 U. S. 781, which endorsed the views of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in United States v. Aluminum Co. of America, 148 F. 2d 416 (1945). In the case before us the Court of Appeals concluded that the decisions in Alcoa-American Tobacco fundamentally altered the law of monopolization — that prior to them it was necessary to prove the existence of predatory practices as well as monopoly power, whereas afterwards proof of predatory practices was not essential. The Court of Appeals was also of the view that because in prior litigation United’s leases had escaped condemnation as predatory practices illegal under § 1, United’s conduct should not be held to have violated § 2 at any time prior to June 10, 1946. 377 F. 2d, at 790. This holding has been challenged, and we reverse it.
The theory of the Court of Appeals seems to have been that when a party has significantly relied upon a clear and established doctrine, and the retrospective application of a newly declared doctrine would upset that justifiable reliance to his substantial injury, considerations of justice and fairness require that the new rule apply prospectively only. Pointing to recent decisions of this Court in the area of the criminal law, the Court of Appeals could see no reason why the considerations which had favored only prospective application in those cases should not be applied as well as in the civil area, especially in a treble-damage action. There is, of course, no reason to confront this theory unless we have before us a situation in which there was a clearly declared judicial doctrine upon which United relied and under which its conduct was lawful, a doctrine which was overruled in favor of a new rule according to which conduct performed in reliance upon the old rule would have been unlawful. Because we do not believe that this case presents such a situation, we have no occasion to pass upon the theory of the Court of Appeals.
Neither the opinion in Alcoa nor the opinion in Amen-can Tobacco indicated that the issue involved was novel, that innovative principles were necessary to resolve it, or that the issue had been settled in prior cases in a manner contrary to the view held by those courts. In ruling that it was not necessary to exclude competitors to be guilty of monopolization, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit relied upon a long line of cases in this Court stretching back to 1912. 148 F. 2d, at 429. The conclusion that actions which will show monopolization are not “limited to manoeuvres not honestly industrial” was also premised on earlier opinions of this Court, particularly United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U. S. 106, 116 (1932). In the American Tobacco case, this Court noted that the precise question before it had not been previously decided, 328 U. S., at 811, and gave no indication that it thought it was adopting a radically new interpretation of the Sherman Act. Like the Court of Appeals, this Court relied for its conclusion upon existing authorities. These cases make it clear that there was no accepted interpretation of the Sherman Act which conditioned a finding of monopolization under § 2 upon a showing of predatory practices by the monopolist. In neither case was there such an abrupt and fundamental shift in doctrine as to constitute an entirely new rule which in effect replaced an older one. Whatever development in antitrust law was brought about was based to a great extent on existing authorities and was an extension of doctrines which had been growing and developing over the years. These cases did not constitute a sharp break in the line of earlier authority or an avulsive change which caused the current of the law thereafter to flow between new banks. We cannot say that prior to those cases potential antitrust defendants would have been justified in thinking that then current antitrust doctrines permitted them to do all acts conducive to the creation or maintenance of a monopoly, so long as they avoided direct exclusion of competitors or other predatory acts.
United relies heavily on three Sherman Act cases brought against it or its predecessors by the United States and decided by this Court. United argues that these cases demonstrate both that before Alcoa-American Tobacco the law was substantially different and that its leasing practices had been deemed by this Court not to be instruments of monopolization. United States v. Winslow, 227 U. S. 202 (1913); United States v. United Shoe Machinery Co. of New Jersey, 247 U. S. 32 (1918); United Shoe Machinery Corp. v. United States, 258 U. S. 451 (1922). In our opinion, however, United overreads and exaggerates the significance of these three cases. In Winslow, the Government charged the three groups of companies which had merged to form United with a violation of § 1. The trial court construed the indictment to pertain only to the merger of the companies and not to business practices which resulted from the merger; most significantly, it excluded United’s leasing policies from consideration. The Court specifically stated that “[t]he validity of the leases or of a combination contemplating them cannot be passed upon in this case.” 227 U. S., at 217.
The third case, decided in 1922, was brought under § 3 of the Clayton Act rather than § 2 of the Sherman Act. This Court affirmed a decree enjoining United from making leases containing certain clauses, terms, and conditions. Nothing in that case indicates that predatory practices had to be shown to prove a § 2 monopoly charge or that the leases, or the clauses in them which were left undisturbed, would not adequately demonstrate monopolization by an enterprise with monopoly power.
Of the three cases, the 1918 case most strongly supports United. It involved a civil action by the United States charging violations of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. The Government contended that United’s machinery leases and license agreements had been used to consummate both violations. A three-judge court dismissed the bill and this Court affirmed by a vote of 4 to 3. There is no question but that the leases as they were then constituted were held unassailable under § 1; the reasons for this ruling are not clear. As for the § 2 charge, we cannot read the opinion as specifying what course of conduct would amount to monopolization under § 2 if engaged in by a concern with monopoly power. At most the holding was that the leases themselves did not prove a § 2 charge — did not themselves prove monopoly power as well as monopolization. But the issue in the case before us now is not whether United’s leasing system proves monopoly power but whether, once monopoly power is shown, leasing the way United leased sufficiently shows an intent to exercise that power. There is little, if anything, in the 1918 opinion which is illuminating on this issue. Indeed, it may fairly be read as holding that United did not have monopoly power over the market at all, for in rejecting the claim that United’s practice of leasing was illegal when used by a corporation dominant in the market, the Court said:
“This, however, is assertion and relies for its foundation upon the assumption of an illegal dominance by the United Company that has been found not to exist. This element, therefore, must be put to one side and the leases regarded in and of themselves and by the incentives that induced their execution _” 247 U. S., at 60.
Any comfort United might have received from the 1918 case with respect to the legality of its leasing system when employed by one with monopoly power should have been short-lived. In the third case, which was brought under § 3 of the Clayton Act, and in which all the remaining Justices making up the majority in the 1918 case except Mr. Justice McKenna voted with the Court, the opinion for the Court described the 1918 decision as follows:
“That the leases were attacked under the former bill as violative of the Sherman Act is true, but they were sustained as valid and binding agreements within the rights of holders of patents.” 258 U. S., at 460.
This view was supported by other references to the 1918 opinion which described the question at issue there as being whether United's leases went beyond the exercise of a lawful monopoly.
One might possibly disagree with this reading of the 1918 opinion, but it was an authoritative gloss. After 1922 and after the expiration of the patents on its major machines, there was no sound basis to justify reliance by United on the 1918 case as a definitive pronouncement that its leasing system provided legally insufficient evidence of monopolization, once United’s power over the market was satisfactorily shown. The prior cases immunized United’s monopoly insofar as it originated in a merger of allegedly competing companies and perhaps are of some help to United in other respects. But they do not establish either that prior to 1946 there was a well-defined interpretation of the Sherman Act which was abruptly overruled in Alcoa-American Tobacco or that United’s leasing system could not be considered an instrument for the exercise and maintenance of monopoly power.
In these circumstances, there is no room for argument that Hanover’s damages should reach back only to the date of the American Tobacco decision. Having rejected the contention that Alcoa-American Tobacco changed the law of monopolization in a way which should be given only prospective effect, it follows that Hanover is entitled to damages for the entire period permitted by the applicable statute of limitations.
I — f
Two questions are raised here about the manner m which damages were computed by the courts below. Hanover argues that the Court of Appeals erred in requiring the District Court, on remand, to take account of the additional taxes Hanover would have paid, had it purchased machines instead of renting them during the years in question. The Court of Appeals evidently felt that since only after-tax profits can be reinvested or distributed to shareholders, 'Hanover was damaged only to the extent of the after-tax profits that it failed to receive. The view of the Court of Appeals is sound in theory, but it overlooks the fact that in practice the Internal Revenue Service has taxed recoveries for tor-tious deprivation of profits at the time the recoveries are made, not by reopening the earlier years. See Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co., 348 U. S. 426 (1955). As Hanover points out, since it will be taxed when it recovers damages from United for both the actual and the trebled damages, to diminish the actual damages by the amount of the taxes that it would have paid had it received greater profits in the years it was damaged would be to apply a double deduction for taxation, leaving Hanover with less income than it would have had if United had not injured it. It is true that accounting for taxes in the year when damages are received rather than the year when profits were lost can change the amount of taxes the Revenue Service collects; as United shows, actual rates of taxation were much higher in some of the years when Hanover was injured than they are today. But because the statute of limitations frequently will bar the Commissioner from recomputing for earlier years, and because of the policy underlying the statute of limitations — the fact that such recomputations are immensely difficult or impossible when a long period has intervened— the rough result of not taking account of taxes for the year of injury but then taxing recovery when received seems the most satisfactory outcome. The District Court therefore did not err on this question, and the Court of Appeals should not have required a recomputation.
United contends that if Hanover had bought machines instead of leasing them, it would have had to invest its own capital in the machines. United argues that the District Court erred in computing damages because it did not properly take account of the cost of capital to Hanover. The District Court found that in the years in question Hanover was able to borrow money for between 2% and 2.5% per annum, and that-had Hanover bought machines it would have obtained the necessary capital by borrowing at about this rate. It therefore deducted an interest component of 2.5% from the profits it thought Hanover would have earned by purchasing machines. Our review of the record convinces us that the courts below did not err in these determinations; on the basis of the determinations of fact, Hanover’s damages were properly computed.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT.
Excerpts From Judge Wyzanski’s Opinion in United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 110 F. Supp. 295, 323-325 (D. Mass. 1953).
Effects of the Leasing System.
The effect of United’s leasing system as it works in practice may be examined from the viewpoints of United, of the shoe manufacturers, and of competitors potential or actual.
For United these are the advantages, (a) United has enjoyed a greater stability of annual revenues than is customary among manufacturers of other capital goods. But this is not due exclusively to the practice of leasing as distinguished from selling. It is attributable to the effects of leasing when, as is the case with United, the lessor already has a predominant share of the market, (b) United has been able to conduct research activities more favorably than if it sold its machines outright. The leasing system, especially the service aspect of that system, has given United constant access to shoe manufacturers and their problems. This has promoted United’s knowledge of their problems and has stimulated United’s shoe machinery development. This research knowledge would not be diminished substantially if United’s service activities covered fewer factories. But if all access to shoe factories were denied the diminution would be of great consequence to research, (c) The steadiness of revenues, attributable, as stated above, not to the leases alone, but to leases in a market dominated by the lessor, has tended to promote fairly steady appropriations to research. But these appropriations declined in the 1929 depression. Research expenditures might or might not be increased if competition were increased. The experience of United when faced with Compo’s cement process suggests that declining revenues, no less than steady revenues, may promote research expenditures, (d) United has kept its leased machines in the best possible condition. (e) Under the leasing system United has enjoyed a wide distribution of machinery in a relatively narrow market. But this is merely another way of saying that United’s market position, market power, lease provisions, and lease practices give it an advantage over competitors.
Upon shoe manufacturers, United’s leasing system has had these effects. It has been easy for a person with modest capital and of something less than superior efficiency to become a shoe manufacturer. He can get machines without buying them; his machines are serviced without separate charges; he can conveniently exchange an older United model for a new United model; he can change from one process to another; and his costs of machinery per pair of shoes produced closely approximate the machinery costs of every other manufacturer using the same machinery to produce shoes by the same process. Largely as a consequence of these factors, there were in 1950, 1,300 factories each having a daily production capacity of 3,000 pairs a day or less; 100 factories each having a capacity of 3,000 to 8,000 pairs; and 40 larger manufacturers. Many of these larger manufacturers, who collectively account for 40% of the shoe production of the United States, started in a small way and flourished under United’s leasing system. Moreover the testimony in this case indicates virtually no shoe manufacturers who are dissatisfied with the present system. It cannot be said whether this absence of expressed dissatisfaction is due to lack of actual dissatisfaction, to practical men’s preference for what they regard as a fair system, even if it should be monopolistic, or to fear, inertia, or reluctance to testify.
However, while United’s system has made it easier to enter the shoe manufacturing industry than to enter many, perhaps most, other manufacturing industries, it has not necessarily promoted in the shoe manufacturing field the goals of a competitive economy and an open society. Without attempting to make findings that are more precise than the evidence warrants, this much can be definitely stated. If United shoe machinery were available upon a sale basis, then—
(a) Some shoe manufacturers would be able to secure credit whether by conditional sales, chattel mortgages, or other devices.
(b) Under such a system, there is no reason to suppose that a purchaser's first installment on a machine would significantly exceed the deposit now often required of a new shoe manufacturer by United.
(c) A few shoe manufacturers would be able to borrow at rates of interest comparable to the interest rates at which United borrows, or raises capital.
(d) Some shoe manufacturers would be able to provide for themselves service at a cost less than the average cost to United of supplying service to all lessees of its machines.
(e) Those manufacturers who bought United machines would not be subject, as are those manufacturers who lease United machines, to the unilateral decision of United whether or not to continue or modify those informal policies which are not written in the leases and to which United is not expressly committed for any specific future period. While there is no evidence that United plans any change in its informal policies, and while United has not heretofore proceeded to alter its informal policies on the basis of its approval or disapproval of individual manufacturers, United has not expressly committed itself to continue, for example, its 1935 plan for return of machines, its right of deduction fund, its waiver for 4 months of unit ■ charges, or its present high standard of service. United's reserved power with respect to these matters gives it some greater degree of psychological, and some greater degree of economic control, than a seller of machinery would have.
(f) Some manufacturers who had bought machinery would find that financial and psychological considerations made them more willing than lessees would be, to dispose of already acquired United machines and to take on competitors’ machines in their place.
In looking at United’s leasing system from the viewpoint of potential and actual competition, it must be confessed at the outset, that any system of selling or leasing one company’s machines will, of course, impede to some extent the distribution of another company’s machines. If a shoe manufacturer has already acquired one company’s machinery either by outright purchase, by conditional purchase, or on lease on any terms whatsoever, the existence of that machine in the factory is a possible impediment to the marketing of a competitive machine.
Yet as already noted, a shoe manufacturer may psychologically or economically be more impeded by a leasing than by a selling system. And this general observation is buttressed by a study of features in the United leasing system which have a special deterrent effect. Though these features are stated separately, and some of them alone are important impediments, they must be appraised collectively to appreciate the full deterrent effect.
(a) The 10 year term is a long commitment.
(b) A shoe manufacturer who already has a United leased machine which can perform all the available work of a particular type may be reluctant to experiment with a competitive machine to the extent he would wish. He may hesitate to ask for permission to avoid the full capacity clause. If permission is given for an experimental period he may find the experimental period too short. Thus a competitor may not get a chance to have his machine adequately tried out by a shoe manufacturer. If a shoe manufacturer prefers a competitive machine to a United machine on hand, he may not know the exact rate at which future payments may be commuted. If he knows, he may find that a fresh outlay to make those commuted payments (which admittedly are not solely for revenue but also are for protection against competition, and which admittedly discriminate in favor of a lessee who takes a new United machine and not a competitor’s machine) plus the rentals he has already paid cost him more than if he had bought a similar machine in the first place and were now to dispose of it in trade or in a second-hand market. Thus for a maker of competitive machines he may be a less likely customer than if United had initially allowed him to buy the machine.
(c) United’s lease system makes impossible a secondhand market in its own machines. This has two effects. It prevents United from suffering that kind of competition which a second-hand market offers. Also it prevents competitors from acquiring United machines with a view to copying such parts of the machines as are not patented, and with a view to experimenting with improvements without disclosing them to United.
(d) United’s practice of rendering repair service only on its own machines and without separate charge has brought about a situation in which there are almost no large scale independent repair companies. Hence when a typical small shoe manufacturer is considering whether to acquire a complicated shoe machine, he must look to the manufacturer of that machine for repair service. And a competitor of United could not readily market such a complicated machine unless in addition to offering the machine he was prepared to supply service. As the experience of foreign manufacturers indicates, this has proved to be a serious stumbling block to those who have sought to compete with United.
(e) If a shoe manufacturer is deciding whether to introduce competitive machines, (either for new operations or as replacements for United machines on which the lease has not expired), he faces the effect of those decisions upon his credit under the Right of Deduction Fund. If he already has virtually all United machines, and if he replaces few of them by competitive machines, the Fund will take care of substantially all his so-called deferred charges, and may cover some of his minimum payments. This is because credit to the Fund earned by a particular machine enures to the benefit of all leased machines in the factory, and the maximum advantage to the shoe manufacturer is to have a large number of United machines to which the credit can be applied. This advantage to the shoe manufacturer of acquiring and keeping a full line of United machines deters, though probably only mildly, the opportunities of a competing shoe manufacturer.
Following the District Court’s rejection of United's construction of Judge Wyzanski’s opinion and decree, United filed a motion requesting that the District Court certify the question of construction to Judge Wyzanski. United contends that the District Court erred in denying this motion, but we need not pass upon the merits of United’s novel request, for the District Court clearly acted within its proper discretion in denying as untimely certification to another court of a question upon which it had already ruled.
“4. All leases made by defendant which include either a ten-year term, or a full capacity clause, or deferred payment
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 Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide that service of process upon an individual may be made “by delivering a copy of the summons and of the complaint to an agent authorized by appointment ... to receive service of process.” The petitioner is a corporation with its principal place of business in New York. It sued the respondents, residents of Michigan, in a New York federal court, claiming that the respondents had defaulted under a farm equipment lease. The only question now before us is whether the person upon whom the summons and complaint were served was “an agent authorized by appointment” to receive the same, so as to subject the respondents to the jurisdiction of the federal court in New York.
The respondents obtained certain farm equipment from the petitioner under a lease executed in 1961. The lease was on a printed form less than a page and a half in length, and consisted of 18 numbered paragraphs. The last numbered paragraph, appearing just above the respondents’ signatures and printed in the same type used in the remainder of the instrument, provided that “the Lessee hereby designates Florence Weinberg, 47-21 Forty-first Street, Long Island City, N. Y., as agent for the purpose of accepting service of any process within the State of New York.” The respondents were not acquainted with Florence Weinberg.
In 1962 the petitioner commenced the present action by filing in the federal court in New York a complaint which alleged that the respondents had failed to make any of the periodic payments specified by the lease. The Marshal delivered two copies of the summons and complaint to Florence Weinberg. That same day she mailed the summons and complaint to the respondents, together with a letter stating that the documents had been served upon her as the respondents’ agent for the purpose of accepting service of process in New York, in accordance with the agreement contained in the lease. The petitioner itself also notified the respondents by certified mail of the service of process upon Florence Weinberg.
Upon motion of the respondents, the District Court quashed service of the summons and complaint, holding that, although Florence Weinberg had promptly notified the respondents of the service of process and mailed copies of the summons and complaint to them, the lease agreement itself had not explicitly required her to do so, and there was therefore a “failure of the agency arrangement to achieve intrinsic and continuing reality.” 30 F. R. D. 3, 5. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 311 F. 2d 79, and we granted certiorari, 372 U. S. 974. For the reasons stated in this opinion, we have concluded that Florence Weinberg was “an agent authorized by appointment . . . to receive service of process,” and accordingly we reverse the judgment before us.
We need not and do not in this case reach the situation where no personal notice has been given to the defendant. Since the respondents did in fact receive complete and timely notice of the lawsuit pending against them, no due process claim has been made. The case before us is therefore quite different from cases where there was no actual notice, such as Schroeder v. City of New York, 371 U. S. 208; Walker v. Hutchinson City, 352 U. S. 112; and Mullane v. Central Hanover Tr. Co., 339 U. S. 306. Similarly, as the Court of Appeals recognized, this Court’s decision in Wuchter v. Pizzutti, 276 U. S. 13, is inapposite here. In that case a state nonresident motorist statute which failed to provide explicitly for communication of notice was held unconstitutional, despite the fact that notice had been given to the defendant in that particular case. Wuchter dealt with the limitations imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment upon a statutory scheme by which a State attempts to subject nonresident individuals to the jurisdiction of its courts. The question presented here, on the other hand, is whether a party to a private contract may appoint an agent to receive service of process within the meaning of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4 (d)(1), where the agent is not personally known to the party, and where the agent has not expressly undertaken to transmit notice to the party.
The purpose underlying the contractual provision here at issue seems clear. The clause was inserted by the petitioner and agreed to by the respondents in order to assure that any litigation under the lease should be conducted in the State of New York. The contract specifically provided that “This agreement shall be deemed to have been made in Nassau County, New York, regardless, of the order in which the signatures of the parties shall be affixed hereto, and shall' be interpreted, and the rights and liabilities of the parties here determined, in accordance with the laws of the State of New York.” And it is settled, as the courts below recognized, that parties to a contract may agree in advance to submit to the jurisdiction of a given court, to permit notice to be served by the opposing party, or even to waive notice altogether. See, e. g., Kenny Construction Co. v. Allen, 248 F. 2d 656 (C. A. D. C. Cir. 1957); Bowles v. Schmitt & Co., Inc., 170 F. 2d 617 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1948); Gilbert v. Burnstine, 255 N. Y. 348, 174 N. E. 706 (1931).
Under well-settled general principles of the law of agency, Florence Weinberg’s prompt acceptance and transmittal to the respondents of the summons and complaint pursuant to the authorization was itself sufficient to validate the agency, even though there was no explicit previous promise on her part to do so. “The principal’s authorization may neither expressly nor impliedly request any expression of assent by the agent as a condition of the authority, and in such a case any exercise of power by the agent within the scope of the authorization, during the term for which it was given, or within a reasonable time if no fixed term was mentioned, will bind the principal.” 2 Williston on Contracts (3d ed. 1959), § 274.
We deal here with a Federal Rule, applicable to federal courts in all 50 States. But even if we were to assume that this uniform federal standard should give way to contrary local policies, there is no relevant concept of state law which would invalidate the agency here at issue. In Michigan, where the respondents reside, the statute which validates service of process under the circumstances present in this case contains no provision requiring that the appointed agent expressly undertake to notify the principal of the service of process. Similarly, New York law, which it was agreed should be applicable to the lease provisions, does not require any such express promise by the agent in order to create a valid agency for receipt of process. The New York statutory short form of general power of attorney, which specifically includes the power to accept service of process, is entirely silent as to any such requirement. Indeed, the identical contractual provision at issue here has been held by a New York court to create a valid agency for service of process under the law of that State. National Equipment Rental v. Graphic Art Designers, 36 Misc. 2d 442, 234 N. Y. S. 2d 61.
It is argued, finally, that the agency sought to be created in this case was invalid because Florence Weinberg may have had a conflict of interest. This argument is based upon the fact that she was not personally known to the respondents at the time of her appointment and upon a suggestion in the record that she may be related to an officer of the petitioner corporation. But such a contention ignores the narrowly limited nature of the agency here involved. Florence Weinberg was appointed the respondents’ agent for the single purpose of receiving service of process. An agent with authority so limited can in no meaningful sense be deemed to have had an interest antagonistic to the respondents, since both the petitioner and the respondents had an equal interest in assuring that, in the event of litigation, the latter be given that adequate and timely, notice which is a prerequisite to a valid judgment.
A different case would be presented if Florence Weinberg had not given prompt notice to the.respondents, for then the claim might well be made that her failure to do so had operated to invalidate the agency. We hold only that, prompt notice to the respondents having been given, Florence Weinberg was their “agent authorized by appointment” to receive process within the meaning of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4 (d)(1).
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.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4 (d) provides, in pertinent part:
“(d) Summons: Personal Service. The summons and complaint shall be served together. The plaintiff shall furnish the person making service with such copies as are necessary. Service shall be made as follows:
“(1) Upon an individual other than an infant or an • incompetent person, by delivering a copy of the summons and of the complaint to him personally or by leaving copies thereof at his dwelling house or usual place of abode with some person of suitable age and discretion then residing therein or by delivering a copy of the summons and of the complaint to an agent authorized by appointment or by law to receive service of process.”
No questions of subject matter jurisdiction or of venue are presented. Federal jurisdiction exists by reason of diversity of citizenship. 28 U. S. C. § 1332. Venue in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York has not been contested. 28 U. S. C. § 1391.
The paragraph in its entirety read as follows:
“This agreement shall be deemed to have been made in Nassau County, New York, regardless of the order in which the signatures of the parties shall be affixed hereto, and shall be interpreted, and the rights and liabilities of the parties here determined, in accordance with the laws of the State of New York; and the Lessee hereby designates Florence Weinberg, 47-21 Forty-first Street, Long Island City, N. Y., as agent for the purpose of accepting service of any process within the State of New York.”
The complaint, summons, and covering letter were sent by certified mail, and the letter read as follows:
“Gentlemen:
“Please take notice that the enclosed Summons and Complaint was duly served upon me this day by the United States Marshal, as your agent for the purpose of accepting service of process within the State of New York, in accordance with your contract with National Equipment Rental, Ltd.
“Very truly yours,
“Florence Weinberg”
Mich. Stat. Ann., 1962, § 27A.1930.
McKinney’s N. Y. Laws, General Business Law, § 229 (6).
McKinney’s N. Y. Laws, General Business Law, § 220.
It is argued that the state court decisions upholding the agency designation here at issue would have been different if the case of Rosenthal v. United Transp. Co., 196 App. Div. 540, 188 N. Y. S. 154, had been brought to the attention of the courts. Rosenthal interpreted the forerunner of § 227 of the Civil Practice Act, Gilbert-Bliss’ N. Y. Civ. Prac., Vol. 3A, 1942, §227 (1963 Supp.), which creates a procedure whereby a resident of New York may appoint an agent for the receipt of process by designation of a person to receive service and the filing thereof with the County Clerk. The Rosenthal case is entirely inapposite, because § 227 clearly applies only to residents of New York who leave the State, and even as to them, the provision is permissive rather than exclusive. Phillips v. Garramone, 36 Misc. 2d 1041, 233 N. Y. S. 2d 842; Torre v. Grasso, 11 Misc. 2d 275, 173 N. Y. S. 2d 828.
There is no allegation that Weinberg had any pecuniary interest in the subject matter of the litigation. Nor is the issue here the applicability of a statute which permits service on a foreign corporation by service on persons who are generally authorized to act as agents of the corporation, when the agent upon whom service is made has a personal interest in suppressing notice of service: see, e. g., John W. Masury & Son v. Lowther, 299 Mich. 516, 300 N. W. 866 (1941) (involving a garnishment proceeding in which service under such a statute was attempted upon that employee of the foreign corporation who had incurred the debt on which the suit was based, who therefore had a personal interest in concealing from his employer the fact of service, and who did not notify the employer that service had been made). See Hartsock v. Commodity Credit Corp., 10 F. R. D. 181, also involving a situation where the agent “sustains such a relation to plaintiff or the claim in suit as to make it to his interest to suppress the fact of service ...” 10 F. R. D., at 184.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we review the determination of the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA or Authority) that, under Title VII of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (Act), 5 U. S. C. §7101 et seq., the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) must bargain with the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU or Union) over a proposed contract provision subjecting to grievance and arbitration procedures claims that the IRS had failed to comply with an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular relating to the “contracting out” of work.
I
Title VII of the Civil Service Reform Act establishes a collective-bargaining system for federal agencies and their employees, under the administration of the FLRA. The Act recognizes the right of federal employees to form and join unions, 5 U. S. C. § 7102, and imposes upon management officials and employee unions the duty to “negotiate in good faith for the purposes of arriving at a collective bargaining agreement.” § 7114(a)(4). A collective-bargaining agreement must provide procedures “for the settlement of grievances,” § 7121(a)(1), which are defined as “complaint[s] . . . concerning . . . any claimed violation, misinterpretation, or misapplication of any law, rule, or regulation affecting conditions of employment,” § 7103(a)(9)(C)(ii); and the agreement must “provide that any grievance not satisfactorily settled under the negotiated grievance procedure shall be subject to binding arbitration” which may be invoked by either party. § 7121(b)(3)(C). The agency’s duty to bargain is qualified, however, in one pertinent respect. The Act reserves to management officials the authority “in accordance with applicable laws ... to make determinations with respect to contracting out.” § 7106(a)(2)(B).
Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76 generally directs federal agencies to “contract out” to the private sector their non-“governmental” activities (e. g., data processing) unless certain specified cost comparisons indicate that the activities can be performed more economically “in house.” Executive Office of the President, OMB Circular A-76, as revised, 48 Fed. Reg. 37110 (1983). The Circular also requires agencies to establish an administrative appeals procedure to resolve complaints by employees or private bidders relating to “determinations resulting from cost comparisons performed in compliance with [the] Circular,” or relating to decisions to contract out where no cost comparison is required. OMB Circular A-76, Supp. 1-14, 1-15 (1983).
During the course of contract negotiations with the IRS, respondent NTEU put forward a proposal that, with respect to contracting-out decisions employees wished to contest, the “grievance and arbitration” provisions of the collective-bargaining agreement would constitute the “internal appeals procedure” required by the Circular. The IRS refused to bargain over this proposal, taking the position that its subject matter was nonnegotiable under the Act. The Union then petitioned for review by the Authority, which is empowered by the Act to “resolv[e] issues relating to the duty to bargain.” § 7105(a)(2)(E); see § 7117(c).
The FLRA held that the IRS was required by §§ 7114 and 7121 to negotiate over the proposal. In its view the IRS’ failure to comply with Circular A-76 would be a “violation ... of [a] law, rule, or regulation” affecting “conditions of employment,” so that an employee complaint on the matter would qualify as a “grievance” for which procedures must be specified in the collective-bargaining agreement. 27 F. L. R. A. 976, 978-979 (1987). The FLRA found that the union’s proposal was not precluded by § 7106(a)(2)(B)’s reservation of management authority over contracting-out determinations, because it “would only contractually recognize external limitations on management’s right.” Id., at 978.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the Authority’s decision. 274 U. S. App. D. C. 135, 862 F. 2d 880 (1988). We granted certiorari. 493 U. S. 807 (1989).
II
The management rights provision of the Act provides, in pertinent part:
“(a) [N]othing in this chapter [i. e., the Act] shall affect the authority of any management official of any agency—
“(2) in accordance with applicable laws—
“(A) to hire, assign, direct, layoff, and retain employees in the agency, or to suspend, remove, reduce in grade or pay, or take other disciplinary action against such employees;
“(B) to assign work, to make determinations with respect to contracting out, and to determine the personnel by which agency operations shall be conducted;
“(C) with respect to filling positions, to make selections for appointments from—
“(i) among properly ranked and certified candidates for promotion; or
“(ii) any other appropriate source . . . 5 U. S. C. § 7106 (emphasis added).
In the proceedings below and again before this Court, the IRS has argued that even when an agency’s decision to contract out violates OMB Circular A-76 it is still a decision “in accordance with applicable laws” and is thus immunized by the foregoing provisions from contractually imposed substantive controls — rendering the proposal here nonbargainable. According to the IRS, the Circular is not a law, but an internal Executive Branch'directive to agency officials regarding matters of office management.
The FLRA’s position is that the management rights provisions of §7106 do not trump §7121, which entitles the union to negotiate and enforce procedures for resolving any “grievance” as defined in §7103 — that is, any claimed “violation, misinterpretation, or misapplication of any law, rule, or regulation affecting conditions of employment.” 5 U. S. C. § 7103(a)(9)(C)(ii) (emphasis added). Thus, according to the FLRA, it makes no difference whether OMB Circular A-76 is an “applicable law”; so long as it is a “law, rule, or regulation” within the meaning of §7103(a)(9)(C)(ii), § 7106(a) does not bar mandatory negotiation over NTEU’s proposal. This, it appears, has been the FLRA’s consistent position. See, e. g., AFSCME Local 3097 v. Department of Justice, Justice Management Div., 31 F. L. R. A. 322, 338 (1988) (§ 7106(a) reserves to management the right to make contracting-out decisions only when they are “in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations”); GSA v. American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO Nat. Council 236, 27 F. L. R. A. 3, 6 (1987) (§ 7106(a) does not preclude union from compelling agency compliance with any “applicable law, rule, or regulation”).
A
We do not lightly overturn the FLRA’s construction of the Act it is charged with administering. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms v. FLRA, 464 U. S. 89, 97 (1983). We must accept that construction if it is a reasonable one, even though it is not the one we ourselves would arrive at. See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842-843 (1984); NLRB v. Food and Commercial Workers, 484 U. S. 112, 123 (1987). For the reasons that follow, however, we conclude that the FLRA’s construction is not reasonable.
The FLRA’s position is flatly contradicted by the language of §7106(a)’s command that “nothing in this chapter” — i. e., nothing in the entire Act — shall affect the authority of agency officials to make contracting-out determinations in accordance with applicable laws.' Section 7121 is among the provisions covered by that italicized language.
The FLRA presents four arguments to overcome this plain text. First, it contends that reading § 7106(a) to supersede the grievance requirements of §7121 would render certain portions of §7121 superfluous. Subsection 7121(c) exempts from the grievance requirements, among other things, decisions concerning appointments and certain decisions concerning suspension and removal — decisions that are also referred to as protected management rights in § 7106(a). Compare §§ 7106(a)(2)(A) and (C)(i) with §§ 7121(c)(3) and (4). The suggestion is that these § 7121(c) exclusions would have been unnecessary if the decisions in question were already insulated from the grievance requirements by § 7106(a). We disagree. Subsection 7121(c) removes these agency decisions from the coverage of only § 7121(a)’s negotiated grievance provisions, yet does so whether or not the decisions are made in accordance with applicable laws; § 7106(a) removes the decisions from the coverage of the entire Act, but only to the extent the decisions are in accordance with applicable laws. Thus, although §§ 7106(a) and 7121(c) sometimes overlap in their treatment of these enumerated agency decisions (each removes the decisions from the coverage of § 7121(a) when they are made in accordance with applicable laws), each provision has quite a distinct effect on them as well.
Second, the FLRA argues that § 7121 is among the “applicable laws” referred to in § 7106(a)(2) — so that § 7106(a) never excuses agency management from negotiating, and submitting to, grievance procedures over the exercise of reserved management rights. This cannot be the case. If the negotiation and grievance provisions of the Act, §§ 7114 and 7121, are “applicable laws” under this section, then presumably so is all the rest of the Act, there being no basis for treating those provisions specially. Thus, under the FLRA view, § 7106(a) in effect says that “nothing in this chapter shall affect the authority of management to make contracting out decisions in accordance with this chapter” — a pointless tautology. It is clear that the term “applicable laws” refers to laws outside the Act.
Third, the FLRA argues that the NTEU proposal is not barred by § 7106(a) because, in the words of the FLRA’s opinion, its incorporation into the collective-bargaining agreement would “not itself establish any particular substantive limitation on management in the exercise of its right to make contracting-out decisions”; rather, it “would only contractually recognize and provide for the enforcement of external limitations on management’s right.” 27 F. L. R. A., at 980. Referring to one of its earlier decisions, the FLRA emphasizes that in a negotiated grievance proceeding the arbitrator would not second-guess the IRS on discretionary aspects of the contracting-out determination, but would only review claims “that the agency failed to comply with mandatory and nondiscretionary provisions” of the Circular. Headquarters, 97th Combat Support Group (SAC) Blytheville Air Force Base, Ark. v. American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO, Local 2840, 22 F. L. R. A. 656, 661-662 (1986). He could, for example, order the agency to “reconstruct” the cost data it relied on in making a contracting decision, ibid., and, if the decision was not cost justified as required by the Circular, he could order the agency to reconsider it; but he would impose no “substantive limitation” on the contracting-out decision (other than those imposed by the “law, rule, or regulation” invoked by the aggrieved employee). 27 F. L. R. A., at 980. The trouble with this argument is that it is entirely disconnected from the text of the statute. The Act does not empower unions to enforce all “external limitations” on management rights, but only limitations contained in “applicable laws.” Or to put the point differently, there are no “external limitations” on management rights, insofar as union powers under § 7106(a) are concerned, other than the limitations imposed by “applicable laws.” It makes no difference that, as a remedial matter, the arbitrator would at most order the IRS to redo its cost comparisons, and would not actually order a particular contract to be awarded or set aside. Section 7106(a) says that, insofar as union rights are concerned, it is entirely up to the IRS whether it will comply at all with Circular A-76’s cost-comparison requirements, except to the extent that such compliance is required by an “applicable law” outside the Act.
Finally, the FLRA suggests that the term “applicable laws” in § 7106(a)(2) is coextensive with the phrase “any law, rule, or regulation” in § 7103(a)(9)(C)(ii), so that any agency contracting decision that gives rise to a grievance is by definition not “in accordance with applicable laws.” The FLRA did not explicitly use this reasoning in its decision here, but it seems to have done so in other cases. See, e. g., AFSCME Local 3097 v. Department of Justice, Justice Management Div., 31 F. L. R. A., at 333, 338-339. This argument is simply contrary to any reasonable interpretation of the text. A statute that in one section refers to “law, rule or regulation,” and in another section to only “laws” cannot, unless we abandon all pretense at precise communication, be deemed to mean the same thing in both places. Nor can the modifier “applicable” make the difference — not only because its meaning has nothing to do with extending the coverage in this fashion, but also because the Act in several places employs the terms “rule” and “regulation” in conjunction with the term “applicable law.” See, e. g., § 7114(c)(2) (agency head shall approve collective-bargaining agreement “if the agreement is in accordance with the provisions of this chapter and any other applicable law, rule, or regulation”) (emphasis added); § 7122(a) (“If upon review [of an arbitrator’s decision] the Authority finds that the award is deficient — (1) because it is contrary to any law, rule, or regulation . . . the authority may take such action and make such recommendations concerning the award as it considers necessary, consistent with applicable laws, rules, or regulations”) (emphasis added). There is, in short, no justification for saying that all “rules” and “regulations” are encompassed by the term “applicable laws.” It cannot be true, therefore, that all actions not in accordance with a “law, rule, or regulation” under § 7103(a) (9)(C)(ii) are, by definition, also actions not “in accordance with applicable laws” in § 7106(a)(2).
B
At oral argument, counsel for NTEU urged that we could sustain the FLRA’s decision on the ground that the term “applicable laws” includes at least those regulations that carry the “force of law,” and that OMB Circular A-76 is such a regulation. Tr. of Oral Arg. 36. We cannot, however, adopt this ground. While we think it a permissible (though not an inevitable) construction of the statute that the term “applicable laws” in § 7106(a)(2) extends to some, but not all, rules and regulations, that extension should be made, and its precise scope described, in the first instance by the FLRA — which has been proceeding until now on the mistaken assumption that § 7106(a) is irrelevant, or that “applicable laws” in § 7106(a)(2) and “any law, rule or regulation” in § 7103(a)(9)(C)(ii) are entirely synonymous. As we emphasized in Chevron, when an agency is charged with administering a statute, part of the authority it receives is the power to give reasonable content to the statute’s textual ambiguities. 467 U. S., at 843-844. That is a task infused with judgment and discretion, requiring the “‘accommodation of conflicting policies that were committed to the agency’s care.’” Id,., at 845, quoting United States v. Shimer, 367 U. S. 374, 383 (1961). It is not a task we ought to undertake on the agency’s behalf in reviewing its orders. Cf. SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U. S. 80, 88, 95 (1943); Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, 371 U. S. 156, 169 (1962).
The IRS contends that even though the term “applicable laws” includes some rules and regulations, under no reasonable construction could it include internal directives like OMB Circular A-76. We are poorly situated to evaluate that argument, since the Court of Appeals did not consider it, neither of the respondents briefed it, and counsel for respondents addressed it in only the most cursory fashion at oral argument. It is, moreover, an argument that calls for a very difficult abstract conclusion, to wit, that no conceivable reasonable interpretation of “applicable laws” could include this Circular. The Court of Appeals, on remand, may wish to enter into that inquiry, or may prefer to await the FLRA’s specification, on remand, of the particular permissible interpretation of “applicable laws” (if any) it believes embraces the Circular. In any event, we decline to consider the point at this stage in the proceedings.
c
Finally, the IRS argues that the decision below should be reversed outright on the ground that the Union’s proposal is inconsistent with the “no arbitration” language in OMB Circular A-76, and is therefore nonnegotiable under § 7117, which provides that “the duty to bargain in good faith shall, to the extent not inconsistent with any Federal law or any Government-wide rule or regulation, extend to matters which are the subject of any rule or regulation only if the rule or regulation is not a Government-wide rule or regulation.” 5 U. S. C. § 7117(a)(1) (emphasis added). As this argument was not raised or considered in the Court of Appeals, we do not reach it. See EEOC v. FLRA, 476 U. S. 19, 24 (1986) (per curiam). Nor do we decide whether the FLRA properly held Circular A-76 to be a “rule” or “regulation” within the meaning of § 7103(a)(9); although the IRS raised this question as a separate ground for reversal in its petition for certiorari, it has relied only on the “management rights” clause of § 7106(a) in its argument before this Court.
The judgment is reversed, and the cause is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall joins, dissenting.
Because the Court remands for further proceedings I believe are unnecessary, I respectfully dissent. As I read the opinion below, the agency found OMB Circular A-76 to be an “applicable law” within the meaning of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978’s management rights provision, 5 U. S. C. § 7106(a)(2), and therefore determined that the Union’s proposal would not infringe management’s reserved rights. Since the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA or Authority) could permissibly interpret the statutory term to include regulations having the “force of law” and could permissibly find that the Circular is such a regulation, as the Court acknowledges, see ante, at 932, I would affirm the judgment below. The FLRA’s decision that the Circular is an “applicable law” is entirely reasonable. The Circular was promulgated as a formal regulation, with notice published in the Federal Register and public comment invited. See Executive Office of the President, OMB Circular A-76, 44 Fed. Reg. 20556 (1979), as amended, 48 Fed. Reg. 37110 (1983), 50 Fed. Reg. 32812 (1985). It is referenced by, and its terms generally restated in, the Federal Acquisition Regulations, codified at 48 CFR pt. 7, subpt. 7.3 (1988). By its terms, agency compliance is mandatory and enforced. OMB Circular A-76, Supp. Intro, and 1-14, 1-15 (rev. Aug. 4, 1983). Hence, I would uphold the FLRA’s conclusion that the Circular is an “applicable law” within the meaning of § 7106(a)(2).
The Court finds the FLRA’s interpretation of “applicable laws” unreasonable, not because it is an implausible reading in itself, but because it is indistinguishable from the Authority’s interpretation of the phrase “law, rule, or regulation” which is contained in a different section of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. See ante, at 931-932. I suspect the Court reads too much into the difference in language between “applicable laws” in § 7106(a)(2) and “law, rule, or regulation” in § 7103(a)(9)(C)(ii). But, in any event, I understand the Court’s decision to say only that the two phrases are not synonymous. Ibid. If the FLRA, in fact, has employed the same definition for the two phrases, which is arguable, the Authority’s error most likely was to embrace too restrictive a view of the scope of “law, rule, or regulation.” Thus on remand the FLRA is free to interpret “applicable laws” to cover not only statutes, but also regulations and rules that are binding on the agency exercising its reserved rights. See n. 2, supra. The Authority is also free to interpret “law, rule, or regulation” to cover these and more — for instance, nonbinding policy statements and unpublished internal agency guidelines.
Finally, I take issue with the Court’s expansive view of the management rights provision as abrogating any union rights vis-a-vis decisions such as contracting out, so long as agency decisions are made consistently with applicable laws. See ante, at 931. Section 7106(a) does not purport to make other provisions of the Act wholly inapplicable to the enumerated subject areas. It says only that nothing in the statute “shall affect the authority of any management official of any agency” to make certain types of decisions. (Emphasis added.) An exercise of union rights that does not affect management’s existing authority is fully consistent with this provision. Insofar as the Union proposal would require merely what is already required by OMB Circular A-76, it would not affect the Internal Revenue Service’s authority to make contracting out decisions. Therefore it would not infringe the agency’s reserved rights. Because I do not read the Authority’s decision as clearly relying on this ground, I 'do not think it necessary for the Court to have reached it.
The proposed contract term read: “The Internal Appeals Procedure shall be the parties’ grievance and arbitration provisions of the Master Agreements.” 27 F. L. R. A. 976 (1987). The Court of Appeals characterized the proposal as “establishing] the ‘grievance and arbitration’ provisions of the master labor agreement between them as the internal ‘administrative appeals procedure’ mandated by the Supplement to the Circular for disputed ‘contracting-out’ cases.” 274 U. S. App. D. C. 135, 136, 862 F. 2d 880, 881 (1988). We follow the Court of Appeals’ interpretation of the proposed term.
The FLRA also held that although Circular A-76 was a “government-wide rule or regulation” within the meaning of § 7117(a), that section of the statute did not render the union’s proposal nonnegotiable because the proposal was “not inconsistent” with the Circular. 27 F. L. R. A., at 977. For reasons explained below in Part II-C, that issue is not properly before us.
A qualification to §7106 permits contract negotiations regarding “procedures which management officials of the agency will observe in exercising” the reserved management rights. 5 U. S. C. § 7106(b)(2). Although they call our attention to this qualification, NTEU and the FLRA rightly refrain from asserting that it governs this case. The proposal at issue would enable the grievance examiner to compel the IRS to follow the cost-comparison requirements of the OMB Circular, thereby dictating the substantive criteria for the contracting-out decision. See infra, at 931.
The relevant language of § 7121 is the following:
“(a)(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2) of this subsection, any collective bargaining agreement shall provide procedures for the settlement of grievances, including questions of arbitrability. . . .
“(2) Any collective bargaining agreement may exclude any matter from the application of the grievance procedures which are provided for in the agreement.
“(c) The preceding subsections of this section shall not apply wdth respect to any grievance concerning—
“(1) any claimed violation of subchapter III of chapter 73 of this title (relating to prohibited political activities);
“(2) retirement, life insurance, or health insurance;
“(3) a suspension or removal under section 7532 of this title;
“(4) any examination, certification, or appointment; or “(5) the classification of any position which does not result in the reduction in grade or pay of an employee.”
The FLRA’s position gets no support from § 7121(a)’s language providing that “Except as provided, in paragraph (2) of this subsection, any collective bargaining agreement shall provide procedures for the settlement of grievances . . . .” (Emphasis added.) If that italicized language were construed to create the Act’s only exception to the requirements of § 7121(a), then even the specific exclusions in subsection (c) of the provision would disappear.
The IRS concedes this point. See Reply Brief for Petitioner 7; Tr. of Oral Arg. 14.
Justice Stevens contends that § 7117(a)(1) bars negotiation over the Union’s proposal for yet another reason, namely, that the proposal covers a matter that is “the subject” of a “‘Government-wide rule or regulation.’” Post, at 938 (dissenting opinion). This argument not only was not raised or considered below, but has not even been raised by the IRS here. We decline to address it.
See 27 F. L. R. A. 976, 979 (1987) (the Union proposal “require[s] nothing that is not required by section 7106(a)(2) of the Statute itself, namely, that determinations as to contracting-out must be made ‘in accordance with applicable laws’ ”).
1 am inclined to agree with the position taken by the Deputy Solicitor General at oral argument, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 14, that “applicable laws” include not only statutes but also regulations having the force of law, and that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) provides the relevant measure. See id., at 47 (“[I]f a private party could bring an APA action, that would be very strong, if not conclusive, evidence that. . . you are dealing with an applicable law”). Under the APA, an agency action inconsistent with any valid and binding rule or regulation is actionable by anyone “aggrieved” by it. See 5 U. S. C. §§ 702, 706(2)(A); Center for Auto Safety v. Dole, 264 U. S. App. D. C. 219, 223, 235, 828 F. 2d 799, 803, 815 (1987); Padula v. Webster, 261 U. S. App. D. C. 365, 368, 822 F. 2d 97, 100 (1987).
1 do not agree with Justice Stevens that, even if OMB Circular A-76 is an applicable law, § 7117(a)(1) precludes bargaining over the Union proposal because the Circular is also a “ ‘Government-wide rule or regulation.’” See post, at 938. Section 7117(a)(1) provides:
“[T]he duty to bargain in good faith shall, to the extent not inconsistent with any Federal law or any Government-wide rule or regulation, extend to matters which are the subject of any rule or regulation only if the rule or regulation is not a Government-wide rule or regulation.”
I agree with Justice Stevens that the Circular is a Government-wide rule or regulation, but I do not read the provision to bar a union proposal that asks only that an existing rule or regulation be incorporated in its entirety into the union’s collective-bargaining agreement. The function of § 7117(a)(1) appears to be to insulate from the bargaining process union efforts to change anything that has already been settled by those with authority over the agency — e. g., Congress, the President, or OMB. The two clauses in § 7117(a)(1) explain that a union proposal in direct conflict with, or covering the same ground as, a Government-wide rule or regulation is not bargainable. They establish a kind of pre-emption by which agencies may not adopt rules where those with greater authority have adopted a contrary rule or occupied the field. Thus, no purpose is served by including the rule or regulation itself within “matters which are the subject of” any Government-wide rule or regulation. Incorporating a Government-wide rule into a collective-bargaining agreement does not place the agency at odds with any greater authority.
That the Authority found below that OMB Circular A-76 is a “law, rule, or regulation” under § 7103(a)(9)(C)(ii), see 27 F. L. R. A., at 978, does not undermine the validity of its decision even if its definition of “law, rule, or regulation” was too narrow. If the Circular fit within an overly restrictive definition of the phrase, a fortiori, it must fit within an appropriately broad definition. Moreover, the FLRA’s finding that the Union’s proposal did not interfere with reserved management rights because OMB Circular A-76 is encompassed by the term “applicable laws” is sufficient ground in itself for the decision and was relied on as such by the Authority. See 27 F. L. R. A., at 979.
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.
This case involves two of the most complex and sensitive issues this Court has faced in recent years: the meaning of the constitutional “right” to vote, and the propriety of race-based state legislation designed to benefit members of historically disadvantaged racial minority groups. As a result of the 1990 census, North Carolina became entitled to a 12th seat in the United States House of Representatives. The General Assembly enacted a reapportionment plan that included one majority-black congressional district. After the Attorney General of the United States objected to the plan pursuant to § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 439, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c, the General Assembly passed new legislation creating a second majority-black district. Appellants allege that the revised plan, which contains district boundary lines of dramatically irregular shape, constitutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The question before us is whether appellants have stated a cognizable claim.
I
The voting age population of North Carolina is approximately 78% white, 20% black, and 1% Native American; the remaining 1% is predominantly Asian. App. to Brief for Federal Appellees 16a. The black population is relatively dispersed; blacks constitute a majority of the general population in only 5 of the State’s 100 counties. Brief for Appellants 57. Geographically, the State divides into three regions: the eastern Coastal Plain, the central Piedmont Plateau, and the western mountains. H. Lefler & A. Newsom, The History of a Southern State: North Carolina 18-22 (3d ed. 1973). The largest concentrations of black citizens live in the Coastal Plain, primarily in the northern part. O. Gade & H. Stillwell, North Carolina: People and Environments 65-68 (1986). The General Assembly’s first redistricting plan contained one majority-black district centered in that area of the State.
Forty of North Carolina’s one hundred counties are covered by § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c, which prohibits a jurisdiction subject to its provisions from implementing changes in a “standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting” without federal authorization, ibid. The jurisdiction must obtain either a judgment from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia declaring that the proposed change “does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color” or administrative preclearance from the Attorney General. Ibid. Because the General Assembly’s reapportionment plan affected the covered counties, the parties agree that § 5 applied. Tr. of Oral Arg. 14, 27-29. The State chose to submit its plan to the Attorney General for preclearance.
The Attorney General, acting through the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, interposed a formal objection to the General Assembly’s plan. The Attorney General specifically objected to the configuration of boundary lines drawn in the south-central to southeastern region of the State. In the Attorney General’s view, the General Assembly could have created a second majority-minority district “to give effect to black and Native American voting strength in this area” by using boundary lines “no more irregular than [those] found elsewhere in the proposed plan,” but failed to do so for “pretextual reasons.” See App. to Brief for Federal Appellees 10a-lla.
Under §5, the State remained free to seek a declaratory judgment from the District Court for the District of Columbia notwithstanding the Attorney General’s objection. It did not do so. Instead, the General Assembly enacted a revised redistricting plan, 1991 N. C. Extra Sess. Laws, ch. 7, that included a second majority-black district. The General Assembly located the second district not in the south-central to southeastern part of the State, but in the north-central region along Interstate 85. See Appendix, infra.
The first of the two majority-black districts contained in the revised plan, District 1, is somewhat hook shaped. Centered in the northeast portion of the State, it moves southward until it tapers to a narrow band; then, with finger-like extensions, it reaches far into the southernmost part of the State near the South Carolina border. District 1 has been compared to a “Rorschach ink-blot test,” Shaw v. Barr, 808 F. Supp. 461, 476 (EDNC 1992) (Voorhees, C. J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), and a “bug splattered on a windshield,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 4, 1992, p. A14.
The second majority-black district, District 12, is even more unusually shaped. It is approximately 160 miles long and, for much of its length, no wider than the 1-85 corridor. It winds in snakelike fashion through tobacco country, financial centers, and manufacturing areas “until it gobbles in enough enclaves of black neighborhoods.” 808 F. Supp., at 476-477 (Voorhees, C. J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Northbound and southbound drivers on 1-85 sometimes find themselves in separate districts in one county, only to “trade” districts when they enter the next county. Of the 10 counties through which District 12 passes, 5 are cut into 3 different districts; even towns are divided. At one point the district remains contiguous only because it intersects at a single point with two other districts before crossing over them. See Brief for Republican National Committee as Amicus Curiae 14-15. One state legislator has remarked that “ ‘[i]f you drove down the interstate with both car doors open, you’d kill most of the people in the district.’” Washington Post, Apr. 20, 1993, p. A4. The district even has inspired poetry: “Ask not for whom the line is drawn; it is drawn to avoid thee.” Grofman, Would Vince Lombardi Have Been Right If He Had Said: “When It Comes to Redistricting, Race Isn’t Everything, It’s the Only Thing”?, 14 Cardozo L. Rev. 1237, 1261, n. 96 (1993) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The Attorney General did not object to the General Assembly’s revised plan. But numerous North Carolinians did. The North Carolina Republican Party and individual voters brought suit in Federal District Court, alleging that the plan constituted an unconstitutional political gerrymander under Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S. 109 (1986). That claim was dismissed, see Pope v. Blue, 809 F. Supp. 392 (WDNC), and this Court summarily affirmed, 506 U. S. 801 (1992).
Shortly after the complaint in Pope v. Blue was filed, appellants instituted the present action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Appellants alleged not that the revised plan constituted a political gerrymander, nor that it violated the “one person, one vote” principle, see Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 558 (1964), but that the State had created an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Appellants are five residents of Durham County, North Carolina, all registered to vote in that county. Under the General Assembly’s plan, two will vote for congressional representatives in District 12 and three will vote in neighboring District 2. Appellants sued the Governor of North Carolina, the Lieutenant Governor, the Secretary of State, the Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, and members of the North Carolina State Board of Elections (state appellees), together with two federal officials, the Attorney General and the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division (federal appellees).
Appellants contended that the General Assembly’s revised reapportionment plan violated several provisions of the United States Constitution, including the Fourteenth Amendment. They alleged that the General Assembly deliberately “create[d] two Congressional Districts in which a majority of black voters was concentrated arbitrarily — without regard to any other considerations, such as compactness, contiguousness, geographical boundaries, or political subdivisions” with the purpose “to create Congressional Districts along racial lines” and to assure the election of two black representatives to Congress. App. to Juris. Statement 102a. Appellants sought declaratoiX-and-i-njunctive -relief against the state^appellees. ¡Theysought similar relief against* t'he^ ''federaf appellees, arguing, alternatively, that the federal appellees had misconstrued the Voting Rights Act or that.the Act itself was unconstitutional.
' The-three-judge District Court granted the federal appellees’ motion to dismiss. 808 F. Supp. 461 (EDNC 1992). The court agreed unanimously that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction by reason of § 14(b) of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1973¿(b), which vests the District Court for the District of Columbia with exclusive jurisdiction to issue injunctions against the execution of the Act and to enjoin actions taken by federal officers pursuant thereto. 808 F. Supp., at 466-467; id., at 474 (Voorhees, C. J., concurring in relevant part). Two judges also concluded that, to the extent appellants challenged the Attorney General’s preclearance decisions, their claim was foreclosed by this Court’s holding in Morris v. Gressette, 432 U. S. 491 (1977). 808 F. Supp., at 467.
By a 2-to-l vote, the District Court also dismissed the complaint against the state appellees. The majority found no support for appellants’ contentions that race-based districting is prohibited by Article I, §4, or Article I, §2, of the Constitution, or by the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It deemed appellants’ claim under the Fifteenth Amendment essentially subsumed within their related claim under the Equal Protection Clause. 808 F. Supp., at 468-469. That claim, the majority concluded, was barred by United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh, Inc. v. Carey, 430 U. S. 144 (1977) (UJO).
The majority first took judicial notice of a fact omitted from appellants’ complaint: that appellants are white. It rejected the argument that race-conscious redistricting to benefit minority voters is per se unconstitutional. The majority also rejected appellants’ claim that North Carolina’s reapportionment plan was impermissible. The majority read UJO to stand for the proposition that a redistricting scheme violates white voters’ rights only if it is “adopted with the purpose and effect of discriminating against white voters... on account of their race.” 808 F. Supp., at 472. The purposes of favoring minority voters and complying with the Voting Rights Act are not discriminatory in the constitutional sense, the court reasoned, and majority-minority districts have an impermissibly discriminatory effect only when they unfairly dilute or cancel out white voting strength. Because the State’s purpose here was to comply with the Voting Rights Act, and because the General Assembly’s plan did not lead to proportional underrepresentation of white voters statewide, the majority concluded that appellants had failed to state an equal protection claim. Id., at 472-473.
Chief Judge Voorhees agreed that race-conscious redistricting is not per se unconstitutional but dissented from the rest of the majority’s equal protection analysis. He read Justice White’s opinion in UJO to authorize race-based reapportionment only when the State employs traditional districting principles such as compactness and contiguity. 808 F. Supp., at 475-477 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). North Carolina’s failure to respect these principles, in Judge Voorhees’ view, “augur[ed] a constitutionally suspect, and potentially unlawful, intent” sufficient to defeat the state appellees’ motion to dismiss. Id., at 477.
We noted probable jurisdiction. 506 U. S. 1019 (1992).
II
A
“The right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society....” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S., at 555. For much of our Nation’s history, that right sadly has been denied to many because of race. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870 after a bloody Civil War, promised unequivocally that “ft]he right of citizens of the United States to vote” no longer would be “denied or abridged... by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” U. S. Const., Arndt. 15, § 1.
But “[a] number of states... refused to take no for an answer and continued to circumvent the fifteenth amendment’s prohibition through the use of both subtle and blunt instruments, perpetuating ugly patterns of pervasive racial discrimination.” Blumstein, Defining and Proving Race Discrimination: Perspectives on the Purpose Vs. Results Approach from the Voting Rights Act, 69 Va. L. Rev. 633, 637 (1983). Ostensibly race-neutral devices such as literacy tests with “grandfather” clauses and “good character” provisos were devised to deprive black voters of the franchise. Another of the weapons in the States’ arsenal was the racial gerrymander — “the deliberate and arbitrary distortion of district boundaries... for [racial] purposes.” Bandemer, 478 U. S., at 164 (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (internal quotation marks omitted). In the 1870’s, for example, opponents of Reconstruction in Mississippi “concentrated the bulk of the black population in a ‘shoestring’ Congressional district running the length of the Mississippi River, leaving five others with white majorities.” E. Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, p. 590 (1988). Some 90 years later, Alabama redefined the boundaries of the city of Tuskegee “from a square to an uncouth twenty-eight-sided figure” in a manner that was alleged to exclude black voters, and only black voters, from the city limits. Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 340 (1960).
Alabama’s exercise in geometry was but one example of the racial discrimination in voting that persisted in parts of this country nearly a century after ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. See South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 309-313 (1966). In some States, registration of eligible black voters ran 50% behind that of whites. Id., at 313. Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a dramatic and severe response to the situation. The Act proved immediately successful in ensuring racial minorities access to the voting booth; by the early 1970’s, the spread between black and white registration in several of the targeted Southern States had fallen to well below 10%. A. Thernstrom, Whose Votes Count? Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights 44 (1987).
But it soon became apparent that guaranteeing equal access to the polls would not suffice to root out other racially discriminatory voting practices. Drawing on the “one person, one vote” principle, this Court recognized that “[t]he right to vote can be affected by a dilution of voting power as well as by an absolute prohibition on casting a ballot.” Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S. 544, 569 (1969) (emphasis added). Where members of a racial minority group vote as a cohesive unit, practices such as multimember or at-large electoral systems can reduce or nullify minority voters’ ability, as a group, “to elect the candidate of their choice.” Ibid. Accordingly, the Court held that such schemes violate the Fourteenth Amendment when they are adopted with a discriminatory purpose and have the effect of diluting minority voting strength. See, e. g., Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613, 616-617 (1982); White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755, 765-766 (1973). Congress, too, responded to the problem of vote dilution. In 1982, it amended § 2 of the Voting Rights Act to prohibit legislation that results in the dilution of a minority group’s voting strength, regardless of the legislature’s intent. 42 U. S. C. § 1973; see Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30 (1986) (applying amended § 2 to vote-dilution claim involving multimember districts); see also Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U. S. 146, 155 (1993) (single-member districts).
B
It is against this background that we confront the questions presented here. In our view, the District Court properly dismissed appellants’ claims against the federal appellees. Our focus is on appellants’ claim that the State engaged in unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. That argument strikes a powerful historical chord: It is unsettling how closely the North Carolina plan resembles the most egregious racial gerrymanders of the past.
An understanding of the nature of appellants’ claim is critical to our resolution of the case. In their complaint, appellants did not claim that the General Assembly’s reapportionment plan unconstitutionally “diluted” white voting strength. They did not even claim to be white. Rather, appellants’ complaint alleged that the deliberate segregation of voters into separate districts on the basis of race violated their constitutional right to participate in a “color-blind” electoral process. Complaint ¶ 29, App. to Juris. Statement 89a-90a; see also Brief for Appellants 31-32.
Despite their invocation of the ideal of a “color-blind” Constitution, see Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 559 (1896) (Harlan, J., dissenting), appellants appear to concede that race-conscious redistricting is not always unconstitutional. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 16-19. That concession is wise: This Court never has held that race-conscious state decision-making is impermissible in all circumstances. What appellants object to is redistricting legislation that is so extremely irregular on its face that it rationally can be viewed only as an effort to segregate the races for purposes of voting, without regard for traditional districting principles and without sufficiently compelling justification. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that appellants have stated a claim upon which relief can be granted under the Equal Protection Clause. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 12(b)(6).
Ill
A
The Equal Protection Clause provides that “[n]o State shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” U. S. Const., Arndt. 14, § 1. Its central purpose is to prevent the States from purposefully discriminating between individuals on the basis of race. Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 239 (1976). Laws that explicitly distinguish between individuals on racial grounds fall within the core of that prohibition.
No inquiry into legislative purpose is necessary when the racial classification appears on the face of the statute. See Personnel Administrator of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U. S. 256, 272 (1979). Accord, Washington v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, 458 U. S. 457, 485 (1982). Express racial classifications are immediately suspect because, “[a]bsent searching judicial inquiry..., there is simply no way of determining what classifications are ‘benign’ or ‘remedial’ and what classifications are in fact motivated by illegitimate notions of racial inferiority or simple racial politics.” Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 493 (1989) (plurality opinion); id., at 520 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment); see also UJO, 430 U. S., at 172 (Brennan, J., concurring in part) (“[A] purportedly preferential race assignment may in fact disguise a policy that perpetuates disadvantageous treatment of the plan’s supposed beneficiaries”).
Classifications of citizens solely on the basis of race “are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.” Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, 100 (1943). Accord, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 11 (1967). They threaten to stigmatize individuals by reason of their membership in a racial group and to incite racial hostility. Croson, supra, at 493 (plurality opinion); UJO, supra, at 173 (Brennan, J., concurring in part) (“[E]ven in the pursuit of remedial objectives, an explicit policy of assignment by race may serve to stimulate our society’s latent race consciousness, suggesting the utility and propriety of basing decisions on a factor that ideally bears no relationship to an individual’s worth or needs”). Accordingly, we have held that the Fourteenth Amendment requires state legislation that expressly distinguishes among citizens because of their race to be narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest. See, e. g., Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 277-278 (1986) (plurality opinion); id., at 285 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
These principles apply not only to legislation that contains explicit racial distinctions, but also to those “rare” statutes that, although race neutral, are, on their face, “unexplainable on grounds other than race.” Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 266 (1977). As we explained in Feeney:
“A racial classification, regardless of purported motivation, is presumptively invalid and can be upheld only upon an extraordinary justification. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483; McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184. This rule applies as well to a classification that is ostensibly neutral but is an obvious pretext for racial discrimination. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356; Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347; cf. Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268; Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339.” 442 U. S., at 272.
B
Appellants contend that redistricting legislation that is so bizarre on its face that it is “unexplainable on grounds other than race,” Arlington Heights, supra, at 266, demands the same close scrutiny that we give other state laws that classify citizens by race. Our voting rights precedents support that conclusion.
In Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347 (1915), the Court invalidated under the Fifteenth Amendment a statute that imposed a literacy requirement on voters but contained a “grandfather clause” applicable to individuals and their lineal descendants entitled to vote “on [or prior to] January 1, 1866.” Id., at 357 (internal quotation marks omitted). The determinative consideration for the Court was that the law, though ostensibly race neutral, on its face “embodied] no exercise of judgment and rest[ed] upon no discernible reason” other than to circumvent the prohibitions of the Fifteenth Amendment. Id., at 363. In other words, the statute was invalid because, on its face, it could not be explained on grounds other than race.
The Court applied the same reasoning to the “uncouth twenty-eight-sided” municipal boundary line at issue in Gomillion. Although the statute that redrew the city limits of Tuskegee was race neutral on its face, plaintiffs alleged that its effect was impermissibly to remove from the city virtually all black voters and no white voters. The Court reasoned:
“If these allegations upon a trial remained uncontradicted or unqualified, the conclusion would be irresistible, tantamount for all practical purposes to a mathematical demonstration, that the legislation is solely concerned with segregating white and colored voters by fencing Negro citizens out of town so as to deprive them of their pre-existing municipal vote.” 364 U. S., at 341.
The majority resolved the case under the Fifteenth Amendment. Id., at 342-348. Justice Whittaker, however, concluded that the “unlawful segregation of races of citizens” into different voting districts was cognizable under the Equal Protection Clause. Id., at 349 (concurring opinion). This Court’s subsequent reliance on Gomillion in other Fourteenth Amendment cases suggests the correctness of Justice Whittaker’s view. See, e. g., Feeney, supra, at 272; Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124, 149 (1971); see also Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, 86 (1980) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment) (Gomillion’s holding “is compelled by the Equal Protection Clause”). Gomillion thus supports appellants’ contention that district lines obviously drawn for the purpose of separating voters by race require careful scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause regardless of the motivations underlying their adoption.
The Court extended the reasoning of Gomillion to congressional districting in Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U. S. 52 (1964). At issue in Wright were four districts contained in a New York apportionment statute. The plaintiffs alleged that the statute excluded nonwhites from one district and concentrated them in the other three. Id., at 53-54. Every Member of the Court assumed that the plaintiffs’ allegation that the statute “segregate^] eligible voters by race and place of origin” stated a constitutional claim. Id., at 56 (internal quotation marks omitted); id., at 58 (Harlan, J., concurring); id., at 59-62 (Douglas, J., dissenting). The Justices disagreed only as to whether the plaintiffs had carried their burden of proof at trial. The dissenters thought the unusual shape of the district lines could “be explained only in racial terms.” Id., at 59. The majority, however, accepted the. District Court’s finding that the plaintiffs had failed to establish that the districts were in fact drawn on racial lines. Although the boundary lines were somewhat irregular, the majority reasoned, they were not so bizarre as to permit of no other conclusion. Indeed, because most of the nonwhite voters lived together in one area, it would have been difficult to construct voting districts without concentrations of nonwhite voters. Id., at 56-58.
Wright illustrates the difficulty of determining from the face of a single-member districting plan that it purposefully distinguishes between voters on the basis of race. A reapportionment statute typically does not classify persons at all; it classifies tracts of land, or addresses. Moreover, redistricting differs from other kinds of state decisionmaking in that the legislature always is aware of race when it draws district lines, just as it is aware of age, economic status, religious and political persuasion, and a variety of other demographic factors. That sort of race consciousness does not lead inevitably to impermissible race discrimination. As Wright demonstrates, when members of a racial group live together in one community, a reapportionment plan that concentrates members of the group in one district and excludes them from others may reflect wholly legitimate purposes. The district lines may be drawn, for example, to provide for compact districts of contiguous territory, or to maintain the integrity of political subdivisions. See Reynolds, 377 U. S., at 578 (recognizing these as legitimate state interests).
The difficulty of proof, of course, does not mean that a racial gerrymander, once established, should receive less scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause than other state legislation classifying citizens by race. Moreover, it seems clear to us that proof sometimes will not be difficult at all. In some exceptional cases, a reapportionment plan may be so highly irregular that, on its face, it rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to “segregate]... voters” on the basis of race. Gomillion, supra, at 341. Gomillion, in which a tortured municipal boundary line was drawn to exclude black voters, was such a case. So, too, would be a case in which a State concentrated a dispersed minority population in a single district by disregarding traditional districting principles such as compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions. We emphasize that these criteria are important not because they are constitutionally required — they are not, cf. Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U. S. 735, 752, n. 18 (1973) — but because they are objective factors that may serve to defeat a claim that a district has been gerrymandered on racial lines. Cf. Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U. S. 725, 755 (1983) (Stevens, J., concurring) (“One need not use Justice Stewart’s classic definition of obscenity — ‘I know it when I see it’ — as an ultimate standard for judging the constitutionality of a gerrymander to recognize that dramatically irregular shapes may have sufficient probative force to call for an explanation” (footnotes omitted)).
Put differently, we believe that reapportionment is one area in which appearances do matter. A reapportionment plan that includes in one district individuals who belong to the same race, but who are otherwise widely separated by geographical and political boundaries, and who may have little in common with one another but the color of their skin, bears an uncomfortable resemblance to political apartheid. It reinforces the perception that members of the same racial group — regardless of their age, education, economic status, or the community in which they live — think alike, share the same political interests, and will prefer the same candidates at the polls. We have rejected such perceptions elsewhere as impermissible racial stereotypes. See, e.g., Holland v. Illinois, 493 U. S. 474, 484, n. 2 (1990) (“[A] prosecutor’s assumption that a black juror may be presumed to be partial simply because he is black... violates the Equal Protection Clause” (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 630-631 (1991) (“If our society is to continue to progress as a multiracial democracy, it must recognize that the automatic invocation of race stereotypes retards that progress and causes continued hurt and injury”). By perpetuating such notions, a racial gerrymander may exacerbate the very patterns of racial bloc voting that majority-minority districting is sometimes said to counteract.
The message that such districting sends to elected representatives is equally pernicious. When a district obviously is created solely to effectuate the perceived common interests of one racial group, elected officials are more likely to believe that their primary obligation is to represent only the members of that group, rather than their constituency as a whole. This is altogether antithetical to our system of representative democracy. As Justice Douglas explained in his dissent in Wright v. Rockefeller nearly 30 years ago:
“Here the individual is important, not his race, his creed, or his color. The principle of equality is at war with the notion that District A must be represented by a Negro, as it is with the notion that District B must be represented by a Caucasian, District C by a Jew, District D by a Catholic, and so on.... That system, by whatever name it is called, is a divisive force in a community, emphasizing differences between candidates and voters that are irrelevant in the constitutional sense....
“When racial or religious lines are drawn by the State, the multiracial, multireligious communities that our Constitution seeks to weld together as one become separatist; antagonisms that relate to race or to religion rather than to political issues are generated; communities seek not the best representative but the best racial or religious partisan. Since that system is at war with the democratic ideal, it should find no footing here.” 376 U. S., at 66-67.
For these reasons, we conclude that a plaintiff challenging a reapportionment statute under the Equal Protection Clause may state a claim by alleging that the legislation, though race neutral on its face, rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to separate voters into different districts on the basis of race, and that the separation lacks sufficient justification. It is unnecessary for us to decide whether or how a reapportionment plan that, on its face, can be explained in nonracial terms successfully could be challenged. Thus, we express no view as to whether “the intentional creation of majority-minority districts, without more,” always gives rise to an equal protection claim. Post, at 668 (White, J., dissenting). We hold only that, on the facts of this case, appellants have stated a claim sufficient to defeat the state appellees’ motion to dismiss.
C
The dissenters consider the circumstances of this case “functionally indistinguishable” from multimember districting and at-large voting systems, which are loosely described as “other varieties of gerrymandering.” Post, at 671 (White, J., dissenting); see also post, at 684 (Souter, J., dissenting). We have considered the constitutionality of these practices in other Fourteenth Amendment cases and have required plaintiffs to demonstrate that the challenged practice has the purpose and effect of diluting a racial group’s voting strength. See, e. g., Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613 (1982) (at-large system); Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55 (1980) (same); White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755 (1973) (multimember districts); Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124 (1971) (same); see also supra, at 640-641. At-large and multimember schemes, however, do not classify voters on the basis of race. Classifying citizens by race, as we have said, threatens special harms that are not present in our vote-dilution cases. It therefore warrants different analysis.
Justice Souter apparently believes that racial gerrymandering is harmless unless it dilutes a racial group’s voting strength. See post, at 684 (dissenting opinion). As we have explained, however, reapportionment legislation that cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to classify and separate voters by race injures voters in other ways. It reinforces racial stereotypes and threatens to undermine our system of representative democracy by signaling to elected officials that they represent a particular racial group rather than their constituency as a whole. See supra, at 647-649. Justice Souter does not adequately explain why these harms are not cognizable under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The dissenters make two other arguments that cannot be reconciled with our precedents. First, they suggest that a racial gerrymander of the sort alleged here is functionally equivalent to gerrymanders for nonracial purposes, such as political gerrymanders. See post, at 679 (opinion of Stevens, J.); see also post, at 662-663 (opinion of White, J.). This Court
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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 Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
At issue in this case is the effect of Executive Order No. 8979 and Public Land Order No. 487 upon the Secretary of the Interior’s authority to issue oil and gas leases.
Between October 15, 1954, and January 28, 1955, D. J. Griffin and other persons — hereinafter collectively referred to as the Griffin lessees — filed applications for oil and gas leases on approximately 25,000 acres located in the Kenai National Moose Range in Alaska. On August 14, 1958, the respondents filed offers to lease the same lands. Section 17 of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 provides, in relevant part, that “the person first making application for the lease who is qualified to hold a lease... shall be entitled to a lease of such lands without competitive bidding....” 41 Stat. 443 (1920), as amended by 60 Stat. 951 (1946), 30 U. S. C. § 226 (1958 ed.). The Bureau of Land Management of the.Department of the Interior determined that the Griffin lessees were the persons who had applied first, and issued to them leases on the tracts, effective September 1, 1958. Respondents’ applications were reached for processing in October 1959, and were rejected on the ground that the lands had been leased to prior applicants.
From the rejection of their applications, respondents appealed to the Director of the Bureau of Land Management and then to the Secretary of the Interior, both of whom affirmed the decision. 68 I. D. 256 (1961). Respondents then brought an action in the nature of mandamus, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, to compel the Secretary to issue oil and gas leases to them. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the Secretary dismissing the complaint. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed, holding that Executive Order No. 8979, the order creating the Moose Range in 1941, and Public Land Order No. 487, issued by the Secretary in 1948, had withdrawn the lands in controversy from availability for leasing under the Mineral Leasing Act, and that the lands remained closed to leasing until they were reopened by a revised departmental regulation on August 14, 1958. The court therefore held that the Griffin applications, filed while the land was closed, were ineffective, rendering the leases issued on them nullities; the respondents, as the persons first making application after the promulgation of the 1958 regulation, were held to be entitled to the leases. 116 U. S. App. D. C. 379, 324 F. 2d 411 (1963). We granted certiorari, 376 U. S. 961.
We conclude that the District Court correctly refused to issue a writ of mandamus, and accordingly reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals. Since their promulgation, the Secretary has consistently construed both orders not to bar oil and gas leases; moreover, this interpretation has been made a repeated matter of public record. While the Griffin leases and others located in the Moose Range have been developed in reliance upon the Secretary’s interpretation, respondents do not claim to have relied to their detriment upon a contrary construction. The Secretary’s interpretation may not be the only one permitted by the language of the orders, but it is quite clearly a reasonable interpretation; courts must therefore respect it. McLaren v. Fleischer, 256 U. S. 477, 481; Bowles v. Seminole Rock Co., 325 U. S. 410, 413-414.
I.
The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 437, 30 U. S. C. § 181 et seq. (1958 ed.), gave the Secretary of the Interior broad power to issue oil and gas leases on public lands not within any known geological structure of a producing oil and gas field. Although the Act directed that if a lease was issued on such a tract, it had to be issued to the first qualified applicant, it left the Secretary discretion to refuse to issue any lease at all on a given tract. United States ex rel. McLennan v. Wilbur, 283 U. S. 414. The Act excluded from its application certain designated lands, but did not exclude lands within wildlife refuge areas.
The Kenai National Moose Range was created in 1941 by Executive Order No. 8979, 6 Fed. Reg. 6471, by which approximately two million acres of the public domain were set aside "as a refuge and breeding ground for moose.” The order provided that “[n]one of the above-described lands excepting [a defined area] shall be subject to settlement, location, sale, or entry, or other disposition (except for fish trap sites) under any of the public-land laws applicable to Alaska....” On November 8, 1947, the Secretary promulgated the first general regulation dealing with the issuance of oil and gas leases within wildlife refuges. It provided simply that such leases had to be subjected to an approved unit plan and contain a provision prohibiting drilling or prospecting without the advance consent of the Secretary. 12 Fed. Reg. 7334.
On June 16, 1948, the Secretary issued Public Land Order No. 487, 13 Fed. Reg. 3462:
“[T]he public lands within the following-described areas in Alaska [including most of that portion of the Moose Range which had been excepted from Executive Order No. 8979] are hereby temporarily withdrawn from settlement, location, sale or entry, for classification and examination, and in aid of proposed legislation:
"This order shall take precedence over, but shall not modify... the reservation for the Kenai National Moose Range made by Executive Order No. 8979 of December 16, 1941....”
Thus neither Executive Order No. 8979 nor Public Land Order No. 487 expressly withdrew the lands to which it applied from oil and gas leasing. In 1951, however, the Secretary set aside, for uses inconsistent with mineral leasing, minor portions of the lands covered by Public Land Order No. 487:
“[T]he following-described public lands in Alaska are hereby withdrawn from all forms of appropriation under the public-land laws, including the mining laws and the mineral-leasing laws....”
Had the Secretary thought that Public Land Order No. 487 had already withdrawn the lands covered by it from appropriation under the mineral-leasing laws, his reference to such laws in the 1951 orders would have been superfluous.
By an intra-agency memorandum dated August 31, 1953, the Director of the Bureau of Land Management advised the Regional Administrators of the Bureau and managers of the local land offices that “a possible revision of policy and regulations” on leasing in wildlife refuges was being studied, and directed them that “[p]ending the completion of this study and the possible revision of existing regulations, you will suspend action on all pending oil and gas lease offers and applications for lands within such refuges.” It is not disputed, and subsequent memoranda make clear, that the 1953 memorandum did not purport to prevent either the issuance of leases with the approval of the national office or the continued filing of lease offers. During late 1954 and early 1955, a number of individuals filed applications for oil and gas leases in the northern half of the Moose Range; among these applications were those of the Griffin lessees. Action on them was suspended in accordance with the 1953 directive, but none was rejected on the ground that the land in question was closed to leasing.
On September 9, 1955, the Secretary issued Public Land Order No. 1212, 20 Fed. Reg. 6795, revoking in its entirety Public Land Order No. 487. After granting certain preferences, it provided:
“6. Any of the lands described in paragraphs 4 (a), 4 (b) or 4 (d) of this order then remaining unappropriated, shall become subject to such application, petition, selection, or other form of appropriation by the public generally as may be authorized by the public-land laws, including the mineral-leasing laws....
“7. Commencing at 10:00 a. m. on the 182nd day after the date of this order, any of the unsurveyed lands described in paragraph 4 (c) not settled upon by veterans or other persons entitled to credit for service shall become subject to settlement and other forms of appropriation by the public generally, including leasing under the mineral-leasing laws....” (Emphasis added.)
Respondents make much of the italicized language, which does appear to be inconsistent with the Department’s prior interpretation of Public Land Order No. 487 and its actual leasing practices. However, on October 14, 1955 — 35 days after it was promulgated but before it went into effect, and years before the respondents entered the picture — Public Land Order No. 1212 was amended to delete the references to the mineral-leasing laws. 20 Fed. Reg. 7904.
On December 8, 1955, the anticipated revision of the 1947 refuge-leasing regulation was promulgated. 20 Fed. Reg. 9009. It was more restrictive than the old regulation, and gave increased power to the Fish and Wildlife Service to approve or disapprove oil and gas development of refuges. It listed in an Appendix A a number of refuges (not including Kenai) in which, because of their importance to the preservation of rare species of plant and animal life, no leasing at all would be permitted. In Appendix B it listed certain areas (including a small part of the Moose Range not involved here) “with respect to which the Fish and Wildlife Service reports that oil and gas development might seriously impair or destroy the usefulness of the lands for wildlife conservation purposes....” In such Appendix B areas, leasing was to be permitted only upon the approval by the Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service of “a complete and detailed operating program for the area.” In all other wildlife areas the regulation provided that “[o]il and gas leases may be issued” provided they contain specified conditions requiring approval by the Fish and Wildlife Service of the type of prospecting to be conducted, and adoption by the lessee of a unit plan approved by the Service. Respondents argue that even if it be assumed that (as is clearly the case) the 1955 regulation treated the lands in controversy as open to leasing, the regulation is not probative of the availability of the lands for leasing prior to 1955, and is therefore no evidence that the Secretary viewed the lands as open to leasing at the time the Griffin applications were filed. We think, however, that if the Secretary had been of the opinion that he was changing the status of that part of the Moose Range not covered by Appendix B, rather than merely imposing additional restrictions on leasing therein, he would have done so in terms more express than those used in the 1955 regulation. He did not refer to the Range as a whole; the only reference by name was to those parts of the Range which were specified in order to except them from the general provision that “[o]il and gas leases may be issued” in wildlife refuges. Though this specification supports the inference that the regulation was drafted on the assumption that the remainder of the Range was open to leasing, such indirect implication — however clearly it confirms the preexisting availability of the Range — would have been a technique inappropriate for effecting a change of the Range’s status. Moreover, the President’s 1952 delegation to the Secretary of power to make or modify withdrawals had directed that “[a] 11 orders issued by the Secretary of the Interior under the authority of this order shall be designated as public land orders and shall be submitted... for filing and for publication in the Federal Register.” Executive Order No. 10355, 17 Fed. Reg. 4831 (emphasis added). It may be that a document not labeled a public land order could in legal effect constitute an exercise of that power; however, if the Secretary had meant to exercise such power, it is likely that he would have done so in the manner directed by the President’s delegation.
When bills were introduced in Congress early in 1956 to restrict oil and gas leasing in wildlife refuges, the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries and the Subcommittee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce held extensive hearings thereon. The bills as introduced only forbade the Secretary to “dispose of” lands in wildlife refuges, and the question arose during the hearings whether that language would apply to the issuance of oil and gas leases. A representative of the Department asserted, without contradiction, that the granting of an oil and gas lease was not a “disposition” and would not be affected by the language as proposed. Hearings before the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries on H. R. 5306, etc., 84th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 98. An amendment was accordingly proposed specifically restricting oil and gas leasing. Neither committee reported favorably on the bills. However, the House Committee submitted a report stating that it had been decided to try, for an experimental period of time, an arrangement whereby each proposed alienation or relinquishment of any interest the Fish and Wildlife Service had in lands under its jurisdiction would be submitted to the Committee, which would within 60 days approve or disapprove the action contemplated. H. R. Rep. No. 1941, 84th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 12-13. This resolution of the issue suggests that the Committee accepted the Department’s view that the Secretary had pre-existing authority to grant oil and gas leases in the Moose Range, and was concerned only with the way in which he exercised his discretion.
Pursuant to the agreement, the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries held public hearings on July 20 and 25, 1956, on a proposal from the Fish and Wildlife Service for the issuance of 30 oil and gas leases on 71,680 acres in the northern half of the Moose Range— located within the area encompassed by Executive Order No. 8979 — for which lease applications had been filed in 1954 by amicus curiae Richfield Oil Corporation and others. The proposal contemplated that the leases would be subject to the Swanson River Unit plan of operation, which had been approved by the Bureau of Land Management, the Geological Survey and the Fish and Wildlife Service, all branches of the Department of the Interior. At the hearing on the proposal a spokesman for the National Wildlife Federation urged that Executive Order No. 8979 precluded the issuance of the leases. Transcript of Hearings before the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, July 20 and 25, 1956, Lease of Portions of Kenai National Moose Range, pp. 17, 19, 24-26. But see id., pp. 35-36; letter, July 24, 1956, Deputy Solicitor, Department of the Interior, to Hon. E. L. Bartlett, Delegate to Congress from Alaska, following id., p. 30. On July 25,1956, however, the Committee’s Chairman advised the Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service that the Committee unanimously had concluded that issuance of the leases would not be detrimental to the wildlife values of the Moose Range, and had concurred in the proposal to issue the leases.
Following the Committee’s approval the leases were issued, an exploratory well was drilled and oil was discovered in commercial quantities in July 1957. See Rep. Alaska Gov. 88 (1957); Rep. Secy. Int. 356 (1957); Rep. Secy. Int. 104, 199, 258, 356 (1958). The Swanson River leases soon became again a subject of congressional concern, when the Secretary of the Interior — realizing that although he had authority to issue leases on dry land, he lacked such authority with respect to lands beneath Alaskan inland navigable waters — asked Congress for authority to issue leases on Alaskan water bottoms, and to add to the leases already issued in Alaska and to applications pending there the water bottoms within their boundaries. The Senate Committee reported favorably on the proposed bill, saying:
“In Alaska, there is at the present time only one area which is now subject to the Mineral Leasing Act where oil and gas is known to exist in paying quantities, this being on the Kenai Peninsula as previously described. If prior to the effective date of this act, the producing structure on the Kenai is defined, then the holders of upland leases in such areas might be forced to compete for areas beneath adjacent lakes and streams. The committee felt that this result would work to the disadvantage of those lessees and developers who have gone ahead and developed this area....” S. Rep. No. 1720, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 5.
The bill was subsequently enacted into law. 72 Stat. 322 (1958), 48 U. S. C. § 456 and 30 U. S. C. § 251 (1958 ed.).
Meanwhile, the controversy over the leasing policies to be followed in wildlife refuges was resolved by the adoption, on January 8, 1958, of another complete revision of the regulation. 23 Fed. Reg. 227, 43 CFR § 192.9. The revision represented a near-total victory for the conservationists. It altogether prohibited oil and gas leasing, unless necessary to prevent draining, in wildlife refuges — with two exceptions: lands withdrawn for a dual purpose, and wildlife refuges located in Alaska. As to lands falling within these two excepted categories, the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Service were to reach agreements specifying the lands which “shall not be subject to oil and gas leasing” and to decide on provisions to be required in leases issued on the remaining lands. The agreements were to become effective upon approval by the Secretary and publication in the Federal Register. The regulation further provided that “[a] 11 pending offers or applications heretofore filed for oil and gas leases covering game ranges, coordination lands, and Alaska wildlife areas, will continue to be suspended until the agreements referred to... shall have been completed,” and that no new lease applications would “be accepted for fifing until the tenth day after the agreements... are noted on the land office records.”
Pursuant to the regulation, there was published in the Federal Register on August 2,1958, an order of the Secretary announcing the agreement reached with respect to the Moose Range. 23 Fed. Reg. 5883. The order decreed that certain lands within the Range (essentially the southern half) “are hereby closed to oil and gas leasing because such activities would be incompatible with management thereof for wildlife purposes.” It then provided:
“The balance of the lands within the Kenai National Moose Range are subject to the fifing of oil and gas lease offers.... Offers to lease covering any of these lands which have been pending and upon which action was suspended in accordance with the regulation 43 CFR 192.9 (d) will now be acted upon and adjudicated in accordance with the regulations.
.. [L] ease offers for lands which have not been excluded from leasing will not be accepted for filing until the tenth day after the agreement and map are noted on the records of the land office...
The agreement was noted in the Anchorage land office on August 4, 1958, and 10 days later respondents filed their applications.
Soon after the issuance of the regulation and the implementing order, the pending applications were acted upon; within the next two months, 294 leases covering 621,234 acres were issued in the area subject to Executive Order No. 8979, in response to applications (including those of the Griffin lessees) filed in 1954 and 1955. When these figures are added to those covering leases issued prior to 1958 (primarily those in the Swanson River area), it appears that in the area subject to Executive Order No. 8979, the Secretary issued a total of 331 leases covering 696,680 acres on applications filed during the period the Court of Appeals held that the area was closed to leasing. Thus, prior to the commencement of the instant suit, the Secretary had leased substantially the entire area in controversy; the Solicitor General further assures us that the lessees and their assignees had, in turn, expended tens of millions of dollars in the development of the leases.
II.
When faced with a problem of statutory construction, this Court shows great deference to the interpretation given the statute by the officers or agency charged with its administration. “To sustain the Commission’s application of this statutory term, we need not find that its construction is the only reasonable one, or even that it is the result we would have reached had the question arisen in the first instance in judicial proceedings.” Unemployment Comm’n v. Aragon, 329 U. S. 143, 153. See also, e. g., Gray v. Powell, 314 U. S. 402; Universal Battery Co. v. United States, 281 U. S. 580, 583. “Particularly is this respect due when the administrative practice at stake 'involves a contemporaneous construction of a statute by the men charged with the responsibility of setting its machinery in motion, of making the parts work efficiently and smoothly while they are yet untried and new.’ ” Power Reactor Co. v. Electricians, 367 U. S. 396, 408. When the construction of an administrative regulation rather than a statute is in issue, deference is even more clearly in order.
“Since this involves an interpretation of an administrative regulation a court must necessarily look to the administrative construction of the regulation if the meaning of the words used is in doubt.... [T]he ultimate criterion is the administrative interpretation, which becomes of controlling weight unless it is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation.” Bowles v. Seminole Rock Co., 325 U. S. 410, 413-414.
In the instant case, there is no statutory limitation involved. While Executive Order No. 8979 was issued by the President, he soon delegated to the Secretary full power to withdraw lands or to modify or revoke any existing withdrawals. See Executive Order No. 9146, 7 Fed. Reg. 3067; Executive Order No. 9337, 8 Fed. Reg. 5516; Executive Order No. 10355, 17 Fed. Reg. 4831. Public Land Order No. 487 was issued by the Secretary himself.
Moreover, as the discussion in Section I of this opinion demonstrates, the Secretary has consistently construed Executive Order No. 8979 and Public Land Order No. 487 not to bar oil and gas leases.
“It may be argued that while these facts and rulings prove a usage they do not establish its validity. But government is a practical affair intended for practical men. Both officers, law-makers and citizens naturally adjust themselves to any long-continued action of the Executive Department — on the presumption that unauthorized acts would not have been allowed to be so often repeated as to crystallize into a regular practice. That presumption is not reasoning in a circle but the basis of a wise and quieting rule that in determining the meaning of a statute or the existence of a power, weight shall be given to the usage itself — even when the validity of the practice is the subject of investigation.” United States v. Midwest Oil Co., 236 U. S. 459, 472-473.
The Secretary’s interpretation had, long prior to respondents’ applications, been a matter of public record and discussion. The agreement worked out with the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries in 1956, and the approval of the Swanson River leases pursuant thereto, though probably constituting no “legislative ratification” in any formal sense, serve to demonstrate the notoriety of the Secretary’s construction, and thereby defeat any possible claim of detrimental reliance upon another interpretation. Finally, almost the entire area covered by the orders in issue has been developed, at very great expense, in reliance upon the Secretary’s interpretation. In McLaren v. Fleischer, 256 U. S. 477, 480-481, it was held:
“In the practical administration of the act the officers of the land department have adopted and given effect to the latter view. They adopted it before the present controversy arose or was thought of, and, except for a departure soon reconsidered and corrected, they have adhered to and followed it ever since. Many outstanding titles are based upon it and much can be said in support of it. If not the only reasonable construction of the act, it is at least an admissible one. It therefore comes within the rule that the practical construction given to an act of Congress, fairly susceptible of different constructions, by those charged with the duty of executing it is entitled to great respect and, if acted upon for a number of years, will not be disturbed except for cogent reasons.”
If, therefore, the Secretary’s interpretation is not unreasonable, if the language of the orders bears his construction, we must reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.
III.
Executive Order No. 8979, 6 Fed. Reg. 6471, provided:
“None of the above-described lands excepting [a described area] shall be subject to settlement, location, sale, or entry, or other disposition (except for fish trap sites) under any of the public-land laws applicable to Alaska, or to classification and lease under the provisions of the act of July 3, 1926, entitled ‘An Act to provide for the leasing of public lands in Alaska for fur farming, and for other purposes’, 44 Stat. 821, U. S. C., title 48, secs. 360-361, or the act of March 4, 1927, entitled ‘An Act to provide for the protection, development, and utilization of the public lands in Alaska by establishing an adequate system for grazing livestock thereon’, 44 Stat. 1452, U. S. C., title 48, secs. 471-471o
“Settlement,” “location,” “sale” and “entry” are all terms contemplating transfer of title to the lands in question. It was therefore reasonable for the Secretary to construe “or other disposition” to encompass only dispositions which, like the four enumerated, convey or lead to the conveyance of the title of the United States — for example, “grants” and “allotments.” Cf. Opinion of the Solicitor, 48 I. D. 459 (1921). An oil and gas lease does not vest title to the lands in the lessee. See Boesche v. Udall, 373 U. S. 472, 477-478. Moreover, the term “public-land laws” is ordinarily used to refer to statutes governing the alienation of public land, and generally is distinguished from both “mining laws,” referring to statutes governing the mining of hard minerals on public lands, and “mineral leasing laws,” a term used to designate that group of statutes governing the leasing of public lands for gas and oil. Compare Title 43 U. S. C., Public Lands, with Title 30 U. S. C., Mineral Lands and Mining.
The reference in Executive Order No. 8979 to the 1926 and 1927 statutes also lends support to the Secretary’s interpretation. For both statutes relate to leasing rather than alienation of title; it would be reasonable to infer from their specific addition that “disposition” was not intended to encompass leasing. The Secretary also might reasonably have been influenced by a belief that in view of his overriding discretionary authority to refuse to issue an oil and gas lease on a given tract whenever he thought that granting a lease would undercut the purposes of the withdrawal, inclusion of such leases in the withdrawal order would have been unnecessary. Cf. Haley v. Seaton, 108 U. S. App. D. C. 257, 281 F. 2d 620 (1960).
Respondents’ reliance upon Wilbur v. United States ex rel. Barton, 60 App. D. C. 11, 46 F. 2d 217 (1930), aff’d sub nom. United States ex rel. McLennan v. Wilbur, 283 U. S. 414, is misplaced. Involved in Wilbur was the meaning of language contained in the Pickett Act, 36 Stat. 847 (1910), 43 U. S. C. § 141 (1958 ed.).
“[T]he President may, at any time in his discretion, temporarily withdraw from settlement, location, sale, or entry any of the public lands of the United States including the District of Alaska...
It is true that the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit squarely held this language to be sufficient to authorize withdrawals from oil and gas leasing. Moreover, this Court affirmed, albeit on an alternative theory: that the Mineral Leasing Act merely authorized and did not compel the issuance of prospecting permits. 283 U. S., at 419. However, a word of history will place Wilbur in context and thereby demonstrate its irrelevance to the problem here. Prior to 1920, oil and gas rights in public lands were acquired in the same way as rights in other minerals — by a form of “location.” One staked out a location and prospected for oil or other minerals; upon making a discovery, he became entitled to a patent to the land as well as the minerals. In 1909, responding to rapid reserve depletion in certain areas, the Interior Department issued an order pursuant to Presidential authorization:
“In aid of proposed legislation affecting the use and disposition of the petroleum deposits on the public domain, all public lands in [a defined area of over 3 million acres in California and Wyoming] are hereby temporarily withdrawn from all forms of location, settlement, selection, filing, entry, or disposal under the mineral or nonmineral public land laws... U. S. Geological Survey, Bull. 623, H. R. Doc. No. 868, 64th Cong., 1st Sess., 135 (1916); quoted, 236 U. S., at 467.
The power of the executive to make the withdrawal was upheld by this Court in 1915 in United States v. Midwest Oil Co., 236 U. S. 459. In the meantime, however, Congress had, pursuant to the President’s request, sought to remove all doubts about the legality of such orders by granting to him, in the Pickett Act, discretionary authority to withdraw public lands from “settlement, location, sale, or entry.”
The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 changed the procedure for acquiring oil and gas rights in public lands: the Secretary was empowered to issue prospecting permits and required, in the event a discovery was made under the permit, to issue a lease which entitled the lessee to extract the mineral, but gave him no right in the land itself. Prom 1920 on, therefore, the language of the Pickett Act no longer technically encompassed leasing. Nonetheless, it was clear that the Act had been specifically designed to legitimize orders like the 1909 withdrawal order. The Court of Appeals reasonably concluded in Wilbur that the fact that Congress had in 1920 changed the procedure— from “location” to “leasing” — for acquisition of oil and gas rights afforded no reason for concluding that they had thereby intended to cut back the power granted in 1910. 60 App. D. C., at 14-15, 46 F. 2d, at 220-221. Thus neither that holding by the Court of Appeals nor this Court’s affirmance in any way casts doubt upon the reasonableness of the Secretary’s interpretation of the orders at bar, which were drafted long after the Mineral Leasing Act had done away with location as a means of acquiring oil and gas rights.
The placement of the fish trap exception — “(except for fish trap sites)” — a phrase admittedly not relating to alienation of title to land, does tend to cut against the Secretary’s interpretation of Executive Order No. 8979. However, it appears that the exception was designed to assure the Alaskans, whose livelihood is largely dependent on the salmon catch, that they could continue — despite the order — to use fish traps. Cf. Organized Village of Kake v. Egan, 369 U. S. 60. Since it was a reassurance not technically necessary and therefore not functionally related to- any part of the regulation, it is no surprise to find it carelessly placed. Compare Executive Order No. 8857, 6 Fed. Reg. 4287, establishing the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. We do not think the position of the fish trap exception is sufficient to justify a court’s overturning the Secretary’s construction as unreasonable.
Public Land Order No. 487 withdrew the lands it covered from “settlement, location, sale or entry,” but contained no reference to “other disposition.” Nor did it contain anything analogous to the fish trap exception. The reasonableness of the Secretary’s interpretation of Public Land Order No. 487 therefore follows a fortiori from the reasonableness of his construction of Executive Order No. 8979.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Harlan took no part in the decision of this case.
Lease offers are processed in the order of filing and a lease on a given tract is' issued as soon as an acceptable offer is reached. In the instant case, the Secretary’s order of August 2, 1958, 23 Fed. Reg. 5883, directed that all lease offers filed within 10 days of August 14, 1958, would be treated as simultaneously filed, and that a public drawing would be held to determine the priorities among them. See 43 CFR §295.8 (1964). The drawing was held on September 4, 1959, and respondents prevailed. Thus their offers were processed before all other offers filed between August 14 and August 24, 1958; upon processing, however, it was discovered that the land was already covered by the leases issued to the Griffin lessees.
Public Land Order No. 487 encompassed the land for which respondent Coyle applied; the land for which the other nine respondents filed is covered by Executive Order No. 8979.
Section 1 of the Act excludes “lands acquired under the Act known as the Appalachian Forest Act, approved March 1, 1911 (36 Stat. 961), and those in incorporated cities, towns, and villages and in national parks and monuments, those acquired under other Acts subsequent to February 25, 1920, and lands within the naval petroleum and oil-shale reserves, except as hereinafter provided... 41 Stat. 437-438 (1920), as amended, 60 Stat. 950 (1946), 30 U. S. C. §181 (1958 ed.).
See Public Land Order No. 751 of August 29, 1951, 16 Fed. Reg. 9044, which withdrew 160 acres for the Civil Aeronautics Administration, and 88.86 acres for townsite purposes, and Public Land Order No. 778 of December 29, 1951, 17 Fed. Reg. 159, which withdrew a number of tracts, aggregating 4,280 acres, for the use of the Army.
See memorandum, February 15, 1954, Director, Bureau of Land Management, to Assistant Secretary of the Interior; memorandum, August 12, 1955, Director, Bureau of Land Management, to Area Administrator, Area 4 (Alaska); 102 Cong. Rec. A6582.
In his report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1955, the Governor of Alaska stated:
“Residents of Alaska and major oil companies have continued to file lease applications and send exploratory parties into various parts of the Territory. The Kenai
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted. The judgment is vacated and the case is remanded to the Supreme Court of California for further consideration in light of Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353.
Mr. Justice Harlan, for the reasons stated in Daegele v. Kansas, ante, p. 1, would have withheld disposition of this petition for certiorari until the disposition, after argument, of that 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:
|
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.
To maximize the funds available for, and ensure equity in, the distribution to creditors in a bankruptcy proceeding, the Bankruptcy Code gives a trustee the power to invalidate a limited category of transfers by the debtor or transfers of an interest of the debtor in property. Those powers, referred to as “avoiding powers,” are not without limits, however, as the Code sets out a number of exceptions. The operation of one such exception, the securities safe harbor, 11 U.S.C. § 546(e), is at issue in this case. Specifically, this Court is asked to determine how the safe harbor operates in the context of a transfer that was executed via one or more transactions, e.g., a transfer from A->D that was executed via B and C as intermediaries, such that the component parts of the transfer include A -> B -> C -> D. If a trustee seeks to avoid the A -> D transfer, and the § 546(e) safe harbor is invoked as a defense, the question becomes: When determining whether the § 546(e) securities safe harbor saves the transfer from avoidance, should courts look to the transfer that the trustee seeks to avoid (ie., A -> D) to determine whether that transfer meets the safe-harbor criteria, or should courts look also to any component parts of the overarching transfer (ie., A B -> C -> D)? The Court concludes that the plain meaning of § 546(e) dictates that the only relevant transfer for purposes of the safe harbor is the transfer that the trustee seeks to avoid.
I
A
Because the § 546(e) safe harbor operates as a limit to the general avoiding powers of a bankruptcy trustee, we begin with a review of those powers. Chapter 5 of the Bankruptcy Code affords bankruptcy trustees the authority to “se[t] aside certain types of transfers... and... recaptur[e] the value of those avoided transfers for the benefit of the estate.” Tabb § 6.2, p. 474. These avoiding powers “help implement the core principles of bankruptcy.” Id., § 6.1, at 468. For example, some “deter the race of diligence of creditors to dismember the debtor before bankruptcy” and promote “equality of distribution.” Union Bank v. Wolas, 502 U.S. 151, 162, 112 S.Ct. 527, 116 L.Ed.2d 514 (1991) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Tabb § 6.2. Others set aside transfers that “unfairly or improperly deplete... assets or... dilute the claims against those assets.” 5 Collier on Bankruptcy ¶ 548.01, p. 548-10 (16th ed. 2017); see also Tabb § 6.2, at 475 (noting that some avoiding powers are designed “to ensure that the debtor deals fairly with its creditors”).
Sections 544 through 553 of the Code outline the circumstances under which a trustee may pursue avoidance. See, e.g., 11 U.S.C. § 544(a) (setting out circumstances under which a trustee can avoid unrecorded liens and conveyances); § 544(b) (detailing power to avoid based on rights that unsecured creditors have under nonbankruptcy law); § 545 (setting out criteria that allow a trustee to avoid a statutory lien); § 547 (detailing criteria for avoidance of so-called “preferential transfers”). The particular avoidance provision at issue here is § 548(a), which provides that a “trustee may avoid” certain fraudulent transfers “of an interest of the debtor in property.” § 548(a)(1). Section 548(a)(1)(A) addresses so-called “actually” fraudulent transfers, which are “made... with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud any entity to which the debtor was or became.,. indebted.” Section 548(a)(1)(B) addresses “constructively” fraudulent transfers. See BFP v. Resolution Trust Corporation, 511 U.S. 531, 535, 114 S.Ct. 1757, 128 L.Ed.2d 556 (1994). As relevant to this case, the statute defines constructive fraud in part as when a debt- or:
“(B)(i) received less than a reasonably equivalent value in exchange for such transfer or obligation; and
“(ii)(I) was insolvent on the date that such transfer was made or such obligation was incurred, or became insolvent as a result of such transfer or obligation. 11 U.S.C. § 548(a)(1).
If a transfer is avoided, § 550 identifies the parties from whom the trustee may recover either the transferred property or the value of that property to return to the bankruptcy estate. Section 650(a) provides, in relevant part, that “to the extent that a transfer is avoided... the trustee may recover... the property transferred, or, if the court so orders, the value of such property” from “the initial transferee of such transfer or the entity for whose benefit such transfer was made,” or from “any immediate or mediate transferee of such initial transferee.” § 550(a).
B
The Code sets out a number of limits on the exercise of these avoiding powers. See, e.g., § 546(a) (setting statute of limitations for avoidance actions); §§ 546(c)-(d) (setting certain policy-based exceptions to avoiding powers); § 548(a)(2) (setting limit to avoidance of “a charitable contribution to a qualified religious or charitable entity or organization”). Central to this case is the securities safe harbor set forth in § 546(e), which provides (as presently codified and in full):
“Notwithstanding sections 544, 545, 547, 548(a)(1)(B), and 548(b) of this title, the trustee may not avoid a transfer that is a margin payment, as defined in section 101, 741, or 761 of this title, or settlement payment, as defined in section 101 or 741 of this title, made by or to (or for the benefit of) a commodity broker, forward contract merchant, stockbroker, financial institution, financial participant, or securities clearing agency, or that is a transfer made by or to (or for the benefit of) a commodity broker, forward contract merchant, stockbroker, financial institution, financial participant, or securities dealing agency, in connection with a securities contract, as defined in section 741(7), commodity contract, as defined in section 761(4), or forward contract, that is made before the commencement of the case, except under section 548(a)(1)(A) of this title.”
The predecessor to this securities safe harbor, formerly codified at 11 U.S.C. § 764(c), was enacted in 1978 against the backdrop of a district court decision in a case called Seligson v. New York Produce Exchange, 394 F.Supp. 125 (S.D.N.Y.1975), which involved a transfer by a bankrupt commodity broker. See S. Rep. No. 95-989, pp. 8, 106 (1978); see also Brubaker, Understanding the Scope of the § 546(e) Securities Safe Harbor Through the Concept of the “Transfer” Sought To Be Avoided, 37 Bkrtcy. L. Letter 11-12 (July 2017). The bankruptcy trustee in Seligson filed suit seeking to avoid over $12 million in margin payments made by the commodity broker debtor to a clearing association on the basis that the transfer was constructively fraudulent. The clearing association attempted to defend on the theory that it was a mere “conduit” for the transmission of the margin payments. 394 F.Supp., at 135. The District Court found, however, triable issues of fact on that question and denied summary judgment, leaving the clearing association exposed to the risk of significant liability. See id,, at 135-136. Following that decision, Congress enacted the § 764(c) safe harbor, providing that “the trustee may not avoid a transfer that is a margin payment to or deposit with a commodity broker or forward contract merchant or is a settlement payment made by a clearing organization.” 92 Stat. 2619, codified at 11 U.S.C. § 764(c) (repealed 1982).
Congress amended the securities safe harbor exception over the years, each time expanding the categories of covered transfers or entities. In 1982, - Congress expanded the safe harbor to protect margin and settlement payments “made by or to a commodity broker, forward contract merchant, stockbroker, or securities clearing agency,” § 4, 96 Stat. 236, codified at 11 U.S.C. § 646(d). Two years later Congress added “financial institution” to the list of protected entities. See § 461(d), 98 Stat. 377, codified at 11 U.S.C. § 546(e). In 2005, Congress again expanded the list of protected entities to include a “financial participant” (defined as an entity conducting certain high-value transactions). See § 907(b), 119 Stat. 181-182; 11 U.S.C. § 101(22A). And, in 2006, Congress amended the provision to cover transfers made in connection with securities contracts, commodity contracts, and forward contracts. § 5(b)(1), 120 Stat. 2697-2698. The 2006 amendment also modified the statute to its current form by adding the new parenthetical phrase “(or for the benefit of)” after “by or to,” so that the safe harbor now covers transfers made “by or to (or for the benefit of)” one of the covered entities. Id., at 2697.
C
With this background, we now turn to the facts of this case, which comes to this Court from the world of competitive harness racing (a form of horse racing). Harness racing is a closely regulated industry in Pennsylvania, and the Commonwealth requires a license to operate a racetrack. See Bedford Downs Management Corp. v. State Harness Racing Comm’n, 592 Pa. 475, 485-487, 926 A.2d 908, 914-915 (2007) (per curiam). The number of available licenses is limited, and in 2003 two companies, Valley View Downs, LP, and Bedford Downs Management Corporation, were in competition for the last harness-racing license in Pennsylvania.
Valley View and Bedford Downs needed the harness-racing license to open a “ ‘raci-no,’ ” which is a clever moniker for racetrack casino,, “a racing facility with slot machines.” Brief for Petitioner 8. Both companies were stopped before the finish line, because in 2005 the Pennsylvania State Harness Racing Commission denied both applications. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld those denials in 2007, but allowed the companies to reapply for the license. See Bedford Downs, 592 Pa., at 478-479, 926 A.2d, at 910.
Instead of continuing to compete for the last available harness-racing license, Valley View and Bedford Downs entered into an agreement to resolve their ongoing feud. Under that agreement, Bedford Downs withdrew as a competitor for the hamess-racing license, and Valley View was to purchase all of Bedford Downs’ stock for $55 million after Valley View obtained the license.
With Bedford Downs out of the race, the Pennsylvania Harness Racing Commission awarded Valley View the last harness-racing license. Valley View proceeded with the corporate acquisition required by the parties’ agreement and arranged for the Cayman Islands branch of Credit Suisse to finance the $55 million purchase price as part of a larger $850 million transaction. Credit Suisse wired the $55 million to Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania, which had agreed to serve as the third-party escrow agent for the transaction. The Bedford Downs shareholders, including petitioner Merit Management Group, LP, deposited their stock certificates into escrow as well. At closing, Valley View received the Bed-ford Downs stock certificates, and in October 2007 Citizens Bank disbursed $47.5 million to the Bedford Downs shareholders, with $7.5 million remaining in escrow at Citizens Bank under the multiyear indemnification holdback period provided for in the parties’ agreement. Citizens Bank disbursed that $7.5 million installment to the Bedford Downs shareholders in October 2010, after the holdback period ended. All told, Merit received approximately $16.5 million from the sale of its Bedford Downs stock to Valley View. Notably, the closing statement for the transaction reflected Valley View as the “Buyer,” the Bedford Downs shareholders as the “Sellers,” and $55 million as the “Purchase Price.” App. 30.
In the end, Valley View never got to open its racino. Although it had secured the last harness-racing license, it was unable to secure a separate gaming license for the operation of the slot machines in the time set out in its financing package. Valley View and its parent company, Centaur, LLC, thereafter filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Bankruptcy Court confirmed a reorganization plan and appointed respondent FTI Consulting, Inc., to serve as trustee of the Centaur litigation trust.
FTI filed suit against Merit in the Northern District of Illinois, seeking to avoid the $16.5 million transfer from Valley View to Merit for the sale of Bedford Downs’ stock. The complaint alleged that the transfer was constructively fraudulent under § 548(a)(1)(B) of the Code because Valley View was insolvent when it purchased Bedford Downs and “significantly overpaid” for the Bedford Downs stock. Merit moved for judgment on the pleadings under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c), contending that the § 546(e) safe harbor barred FTI from avoiding the Valley View-to-Merit transfer. According to Merit, the safe harbor applied because the transfer was a “settlement payment... made by or to (or for the benefit of)” a covered “financial institution”—here, Credit Suisse and Citizens Bank.
The District Court granted the Rule 12(c) motion, reasoning that the § 546(e) safe harbor applied because the financial institutions transferred or received funds in connection with a “settlement payment” or “securities contract.” See 541 B.R. 850, 858 (N.D.Ill.2015). The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that the § 546(e) safe harbor did not protect transfers in which financial institutions served as mere conduits. See 830 F.3d 690, 691 (2016). This Court granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the circuit courts as to the proper application of the § 546(e) safe harbor. 581 U.S. -, 137 S.Ct. 2092, 197 L.Ed.2d 894 (2017).
II
The question before this Court is whether the transfer between Valley View and Merit implicates the safe harbor exception because the transfer was “made by or to (or for the benefit of) a... financial institution.” § 546(e). The parties and the lower courts dedicate much of their attention to the definition of the words “by or to (or for the benefit of)” as used in § 546(e), and to the question whether there is a requirement that the “financial institution” or other covered entity have a beneficial interest in or dominion and control over the transferred property in order to qualify for safe harbor protection. In our view, those inquiries put the proverbial cart before the horse. Before a court can determine whether a transfer was made by or to or for the benefit of a covered entity, the court must first identify the relevant transfer to test in that inquiry. At bottom, that is the issue the parties dispute in this case.
On one side, Merit posits that the Court should look not only to the Valley View-to-Merit end-to-end transfer, but also to all its component parts. Here, those component parts include one transaction by Credit Suisse to Citizens Bank (i&, the transmission of the $16.5 million from Credit Suisse to escrow at Citizens Bank), and two transactions by Citizens Bank to Merit (i.e., the transmission of $16.5 million over two installments by Citizens Bank as escrow agent to Merit). Because those component parts include transactions by and to financial institutions, Merit contends that § 546(e) bars avoidance.
FTI, by contrast, maintains that the only relevant transfer for purposes of the § 546(e) safe-harbor inquiry is the overarching transfer between Valley View and Merit of $16.5 million for purchase of the stock, which is the transfer that the trustee seeks to avoid under § 548(a)(1)(B). Because that transfer was not made by, to, or for the benefit of a financial institution, FTI contends that the safe harbor has no application.
The Court agrees with FTI. The language of § 546(e), the specific context in which that language is used, and the broader statutory structure all support the conclusion. that the relevant transfer for purposes of the § 546(e) safe-harbor inquiry is the overarching transfer that the trustee seeks to avoid under one of the substantive avoidance provisions.
A
Our analysis begins with the text of § 546(e), and we look to both “the language itself [and] the specific context in which that language is used.... ” Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U.S. 337, 341, 117 S.Ct. 843, 136 L.Ed.2d 808 (1997). The pertinent language provides:
“Notwithstanding sections 544, 545, 547, 548(a)(1)(B), and 548(b) of this title, the trustee may not avoid a transfer that is a... settlement payment... made by or to (or for the benefit of) a... financial institution... or that is a transfer made by or to (or for the benefit of) a... financial institution... in connection with a securities contract..., except under section 548(a)(1)(A) of this title.”
The very first clause—“Notwithstanding sections 544, 545, 547, 548(a)(1)(B), and 548(b) of this title”—already begins to answer the question. It indicates that § 546(e) operates as an exception to the avoiding powers afforded to the trustee under the substantive avoidance provisions. See A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law:' The Interpretation of Legal Texts 126 (2012) (“A dependent phrase that begins with notwithstanding indicates that the main clause that it introduces or follows derogates from the provision to which it refers”). That is, when faced with a transfer that is otherwise avoidable, § 546(e) provides a safe harbor notwithstanding that avoiding power. From the outset, therefore, the text makes clear that the starting point for the § 546(e) inquiry is the substantive avoiding power under the provisions expressly listed in the “notwithstanding” clause and, consequently, the transfer that the trustee seeks to avoid as an exercise of those powers.
Then again in the very last clause— “except under section 548(a)(1)(A) of this title”—the text reminds us-that, the focus of the inquiry is the transfer that the trustee seeks to avoid. It does so by creating an exception to the exception, providing that “the trustee may not avoid a transfer” that meets the covered transaction and entity criteria of the safe harbor, “except” for an actually fraudulent transfer under § 548(a)(1)(A). 11 U.S.C. § 546(e). By referring back to a specific type of transfer that falls within the avoiding power, Congress signaled that the exception applies to the overarching transfer that the trustee seeks to avoid, not any component part of that transfer.
Réinforcing that reading of the safe-harbor provision, the section heading for § 546—within which the securities safe harbor is found—is: “Limitations on avoiding powers.” Although section headings cannot limit the plain meaning of a statutory text, see Florida Dept. of Revenue v. Piccadilly Cafeterias, Inc., 554 U.S. 33, 47, 128 S.Ct. 2326, 171 L.Ed.2d 203 (2008), “they supply cues” as to what Congress intended, see Yates v. United States, 574 U.S. -, -, 135 S.Ct. 1074, 1083, 191 L.Ed.2d 64 (2015). In this case, the relevant section heading demonstrates the close connection between the transfer that the trustee seeks to avoid and the transfer that is exempted from that avoiding power pursuant to the safe harbor.
The rest of the statutory text confirms what the “notwithstanding” and “except” clauses and. the section heading begin to suggest. The safe harbor provides that “the trustee may not avoid” certain transfers. § 546(e). Naturally, that text invites scrutiny of the transfers that “the trustee may avoid,” the parallel language used in the substantive avoiding powers provisions. See § 544(a) (providing that “the trustee... may avoid” transfers falling under that provision); § 545 (providing that “[t]he trustee may avoid” certain statutory liens); § 547(b) (providing that “the trustee may avoid” certain preferential transfers); § 548(a)(1) (providing that “[t]he trustee may avoid” certain fraudulent transfers). And if any doubt remained, the language that follows dispels that doubt: The transfer that the “the trustee may not avoid” is specified to be “a transfer that is ” either a “settlement payment” or made “in connection with a securities contract.” § 546(e) (emphasis added). Not a transfer that involves. Not a transfer that comprises. But a transfer that is a securities transaction covered under § 546(e). The provision explicitly equates the transfer that the trustee may otherwise avoid with the transfer that, under the safe harbor, the trustee may not avoid. In other words, to qualify for protection under the securities safe harbor, § 546(e) provides that the otherwise avoidable transfer itself be a transfer that meets the safe-harbor criteria.
Thus, the statutory language- and the context in which it is used all point to the transfer that the trustee seeks to avoid as the relevant transfer for consideration of the § 546(e) safe-harbor criteria.
B
The statutory structure also reinforces our reading of § 546(e). See Hall v. United States, 566 U.S. 506, 516, 132 S.Ct. 1882, 182 L.Ed.2d 840 (2012) (looking to statutory structure in interpreting the Bankruptcy Code). As the Seventh Circuit aptly put it, the Code “creates both a system for avoiding transfers and a safe harbor from avoidance—logically these are two sides of the same coin.” 830 F.3d, at 694; see also Fidelity Financial Services, Inc. v. Fink, 522 U.S. 211, 217, 118 S.Ct. 651, 139 L.Ed.2d 571 (1998) (“Section 546 of the Code puts certain limits on the avoidance powers set forth, elsewhere”). Given that structure, it is only logical to view the pertinent transfer under § 546(e) as the same transfer that the trustee seeks to avoid pursuant to one of its avoiding powers.
As noted in Part I-A, supra, the substantive avoidance provisions in Chapter 5 of the Code set out in detail the criteria that must be met for a transfer to fall within the ambit of the avoiding powers. These provisions, as Merit admits, “focus mostly on the characteristics of the transfer that may be avoided.” Brief for Petitioner 28. The trustee, charged with exercising those avoiding powers, must establish to the satisfaction of a court that the transfer it seeks to set aside meets the characteristics set out under the substantive avoidance provisions. Thus, the trustee is not free to define the transfer that it seeks to avoid in any way it chooses. Instead, that transfer is necessarily defined by the carefully set out criteria in the Code. As FTI itself recognizes, its power as trustee to define the transfer is not absolute because “the transfer identified must satisfy the terms of the avoidance provision the trustee invokes.” Brief for Respondent 23.
Accordingly, after a trustee files an avoidance action identifying the transfer it seeks to set aside, a defendant in that action is free to argue that the trustee failed to properly identify an avoidable transfer under the Code, including any available arguments concerning the role of component parts of the transfer. If a trustee properly identifies an avoidable transfer, however, the court has no reason to examine the relevance of component parts when considering a limit to the avoiding power, where that limit is defined by reference to an otherwise avoidable transfer, as is the case with § 546(e), see Part II-A, supra.
In the instant case, FTI identified the purchase of Bedford Downs’ stock by Valley View from Merit as the transfer that it sought to avoid. Merit does not contend that FTI improperly identified the Valley View-to-Merit transfer as the transfer to be avoided, focusing instead on whether FTI can “ignore” the component parts at the safe-harbor inquiry. Absent that argument, however, the Credit Suisse and Citizens Bank component parts are simply irrelevant to the analysis under § 546(e). The focus must remain on the transfer the trustee sought to avoid.
Ill
A
The primary argument Merit advances that is moored in the statutory text concerns the 2006 addition of the parenthetical “(or for the benefit of)” to § 646(e). Merit contends that in adding the phrase “or for the benefit of’ to the requirement that a transfer be “made by or to” a protected entity, Congress meant to abrogate the 1998 decision of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in In re Munford, Inc., 98 F.3d 604, 610 (1996) (per curiam,), which held that the § 546(e) safe harbor was inapplicable to transfers in which a financial institution acted only as an intermediary. Congress abrogated Munford, Merit reasons, by use of the disjunctive “or,” so that even if a beneficial interest, ie., a transfer “for the benefit of’’ a financial institution or other covered entity, is sufficient to trigger safe harbor protection, it is not necessary for the financial institution to have a beneficial interest in the transfer for the safe harbor to apply. Merit thus argues that a transaction “by or to” a financial institution such as Credit Suisse or Citizens Bank would meet the requirements of § 546(e), even if the financial institution is acting as an intermediary without a beneficial interest in the transfer.
Merit points to nothing in the text or legislative history that corroborates the proposition that Congress sought to overrule Munford in its 2006 amendment. There is a simpler explanation for Congress’ addition of this language that is rooted in the text of the statute as a whole and consistent with the interpretation of § 546(e) the Court adopts. A number of the substantive avoidance provisions include that language, thus giving a trustee the power to avoid a transfer that was made to “or for the benefit of’ certain actors. See § 547(b)(1) (avoiding power with respect to preferential transfers “to or for the benefit of a creditor”); § 548(a)(1) (avoiding power with respect to certain fraudulent transfers “including any transfer to or for the benefit of an insider '... ”). By adding the same language to the § 546(e) safe harbor, Congress ensured that the scope of the safe harbor matched the scope of the avoiding powers. For example, a trustee seeking to avoid a preferential transfer under § 547 that was made “for the benefit of a creditor,” where that creditor is a covered entity under § 546(e), cannot now escape application of the § 546(e) safe harbor just because the transfer was not “made by or to” that entity.
Nothing in the amendment therefore changed the focus of the § 546(e) safe-harbor inquiry on the transfer that is otherwise avoidable under the substantive avoiding powers. If anything, by tracking language already included in the substantive avoidance provisions, the amendment reinforces the connection between the inquiry under § 546(e) and the otherwise avoidable transfer that the trustee seeks to set aside.
Merit next attempts to bolster its reading of the safe harbor by reference to the inclusion of securities clearing agencies as covered entities under § 546(e). Because a securities clearing agency is defined as, inter alia, an intermediary in payments or deliveries made in connection with securities transactions, see 15 U.S.C. § 78c(23)(A) and 11 U.S.C. § 101(48) (defining “securities clearing agency” by reference to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934), Merit argues that the § 546(e) safe harbor must be read to protect intermediaries without reference to any beneficial interest in the transfer. The contrary interpretation, Merit contends, “would run afoul of the canon disfavoring an interpretation of a statute that renders a provision ineffectual or superfluous.” Brief for Petitioner 25.
Putting aside the question whether a securities clearing agency always acts as an intermediary without a beneficial interest in a challenged transfer—a question that the District Court in Seligson found presented triable issues of fact in that case—the reading of the statute the Court adopts here does not yield any superfluity. Reading § 546(e) to provide that the relevant transfer for purposes of the safe harbor is the transfer that the trustee seeks to avoid under a substantive avoiding power, the question then becomes whether that transfer was “made by or to (or for the benefit of)” a covered entity, including a securities clearing agency. If the transfer that the trustee seeks to avoid was made “by” or “to” a securities clearing agency (as it was in Seligson), then § 546(e) will bar avoidance, and it will do so without regard to whether the entity acted only as an intermediary. The safe harbor will, in addition, bar avoidance if the transfer was made “for the benefit of’ that securities clearing agency, even if it was not made “by” or “to” that entity. This reading gives full effect to the text of § 546(e).
B
In a final attempt to support its proposed interpretation of § 546(e), Merit turns to what it perceives was Congress’ purpose in enacting the safe harbor. Specifically, Merit contends that the broad language of § 546(e) shows that Congress took a “comprehensive approach to securities and commodities transactions” that “was prophylactic, not surgical,” and meant to “advancfe] the interests of parties in the finality of transactions.” Brief for Petitioner 41-43. Given that purported broad purpose, it would be incongruous, according to Merit, to read the safe harbor such that its application “would depend on the identity of the investor and the manner in which it held its investment” rather than “the nature of the transaction generally.” Id., at 33. Moreover, Merit posits that Congress’ concern was plainly broader than the risk that is posed by the imposition of avoidance liability on a securities industry entity because Congress provided a safe harbor not only for transactions “to” those entities (thus protecting the entities from direct financial liability), but also “by” these entities to non-covered entities. See Reply Brief 10-14. And, according to Merit, “[t]here is no reason to believe that Congress was troubled by the possibility that transfers by an industry hub could be unwound but yet was unconcerned about trustees’ pursuit of transfers made through industry hubs.” Id., at 12-13 (emphasis in original).
Even if this were the type of case in which the Court would consider statutory purpose, see, e.g., Watson v. Philip Morris Cos., 551 U.S. 142, 150-152, 127 S.Ct. 2301, 168 L.Ed.2d 42 (2007), here Merit fails to support its purposivist arguments. In fact, its perceived purpose is actually contradicted by the plain language of the safe harbor. Because, of course, here we do have a good reason to believe that Congress was concerned about transfers “by an industry hub” specifically: The safe harbor saves from avoidance certain securities transactions “made by or to (or for the benefit of)” covered entities. See § 546(e), Transfers “through” a covered entity, conversely, appear nowhere in the statute. And although Merit complains that, absent its reading of the safe harbor, protection will turn “on the identity of the investor and the manner in which-it held its investment,” that is nothing more than an attack on the text of the statute, which protects only certain transactions “made by or to (or for the benefit of)” certain covered entities.
For these reasons, we need not- deviate from the plain meaning of the language used in § 546(e).
IV
For the reasons stated, we conclude that the relevant transfer for purposes of the § 546(e) safe harbor is the same transfer that the trustee seeks to avoid pursuant to its substantive avoiding powers.'Applying that understanding of the safe-harbor provision to this case yields a straightforward result. FTI, the trustee, sought to avoid the $16.5 million Valley View-to-Merit transfer. FTI did not seek to avoid the component transactions by which that overarching transfer was executed. As such, when determining whether the § 546(e) safe harbor saves the transfer from avoidance liability, ie., whether it was “made by or to (or for the benefit of) a... financial institution,” the Court must look to the overarching transfer from Valley View to Merit to evaluate whether it meets the safe-harbor criteria. Because the parties do not contend that either Valley View or Merit is a “financial institution” or other covered entity, the transfer falls outside of the § 546(e) safe harbor. The judgment of the Seventh Circuit is therefore affirmed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
. Avoiding powers may be exercised by debtors, trustees, or creditors’ committees, depending on the circumstances of the case. See generally C. Tabb, Law of Bankruptcy § 6.1 (4th ed. 2016) (Tabb). Because this case concerns an avoidance action brought by a trustee, we refer throughout to the trustee in discussing the avoiding power and avoidance action. The resolution of this case is not dependent on the identity of the actor exercising the avoiding power.
. The term “financial institution” is defined as:
“(A) a Federal reserve bank, or an entity that is a commercial or savings bank, industrial savings bank, savings and loan association, trust company, federally-insured credit union, or receiver, liquidating agent, or conservator for such entity and, when any such Federal reserve bank, receiver, liquidating agent, conservator or entity is acting as agent or custodian for a customer (whether or not a 'customer', as defined in section 741) in connection with a securities contract (as defined in section 741) such customer; or
"(B) in connection with a securities contract (as defined in section 741) an investment company registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940,” 11 U.S.C. § 101(22).
The parties here do not contend that either the debtor or petitioner in this case qualified as a "financial institution” by virtue of its status as a "customer” under § 101(22)(A). Petitioner Merit Management Group, LP, discussed this definition only in footnotes and did not argue that it somehow dictates the outcome in this case. See Brief for Petitioner 45, n. 14; Reply Brief 14, n. 6. We therefore do not address what impact, if any, § 101(22)(A) would have in the application of the § 546(e) safe harbor.
. A separate provision of the agreement providing that Bedford Downs would sell land.to Valley View for $20 million is not at
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 Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question before us is whether defendants in a case filed in a state court, with claims “arising under” federal law, can remove that case to federal court — where some claims, made against a State, are subject to an Eleventh Amendment bar. We conclude that the defendants can remove the ease to a federal court and that the court can decide the nonbarred claims.
I
In 1993, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections dismissed Keith Schacht, a prison guard, for stealing items from the Oakhill Correctional Institution, a state prison. In January 1996, Schacht filed a complaint in state court against the Department and several of its employees, both in their “personal” and in their “official” capacities. The complaint, in several different claims, alleged that the Department and its employees had deprived Schacht of “liberty” and “property” without “due process of law,” thereby violating the Federal Constitution and civil rights laws. U. S. Const., Arndt. 14, § 1; Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 ü. S. C. § 198S. The defendants immediately removed the case to federal court.
The defendants’ answer, filed in federal court, in part raised as a “defense” that the “eleventh amendment to the United States Constitution, and the doctrine of sovereign immunity, bars any claim under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against” the State itself, namely, the “defendant Wisconsin Department of Corrections [and] against any of the’named defendants in their official capacities.” Answer and Defenses, App. 14-15. See Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U. S. 159, 165-167, and n. 14 (1985) (suit for damages against state officer in official capacity is barred by the Eleventh Amendment); Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U. S. 781, 782 (1978) (per curiam) (suit against state agency is barred by the Eleventh Amendment).
After further proceedings, the Federal District Court considered those claims that were not against the State, that is, the claims against the individual defendants in their “personal capaeit[ies].” It concluded as to those claims that, even if Schaeht’s factual allegations were true, Schacht had received the process that was his “due,” and his dismissal did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. No. 96-C-122-S (WD Wis., Sept. 13, 1996), App. 31-34. It therefore granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment with respect to those claims. Id., at 34.
The federal court also considered the defendants’ motion to dismiss those claims filed against the State, i. e., the claims against the Department of Corrections and its employees in their “official capacities.” The District Court granted the motion, stating:
“Plaintiff agrees his claims for money damages are barred [by the Eleventh Amendment] but pursues his claims for injunctive relief. Plaintiff does not, however, request injunctive relief in his complaint.... Defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claims against the Wisconsin Department of Corrections and the individual defendants in their official capacities will be granted.” Id., at 30.
Sehaeht appealed. He did not assert that the District Court was wrong to have dismissed the claims against the State. He argued only that the court’s disposition of the “personal capacity” claims, i. e., the grant of summary judgment, was legally erroneous. During the appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit itself raised the question whether the removal from state to federal court had been legally permissible. See 116 F. 3d 1151, 1153 (1997). After supplemental briefing, the Court of Appeals concluded that removal had been improper and the federal courts lacked jurisdiction over Schaeht’s ease. Ibid.
The Court of Appeals pointed out that Sehacht’s original state-court complaint, while presenting only claims arising under federal law, asserted some of those claims against the State. Id., at 1152. The court added that the Eleventh Amendment, as interpreted by this Court, prohibited the.assertion of those claims in federal court. Ibid, (citing U. S. Const., Arndt. 11; Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S 1, 10 (1890)). The Court of Appeals concluded that the presence of even one such claim in an otherwise removable ease deprived the federal courts of removal jurisdiction over the entire ease. 116 F. 3d, at 1152-1153 (relying on Frances J. v. Wright, 19 F. 3d 337, 341 (CA7 1994)). Hence, it held, the District Court’s judgment must be vacated and the entire case returned to the state court for the litigation to begin all over again. 116 F. 3d, at 1153-1154.
We granted certiorari to review the Seventh Circuit’s view of the matter, and the similar views taken in several earlier cases upon which that court relied, see, e.g., Frances J., supra; McKay v. Boyd Constr. Co., 769 F. 2d 1084 (CA5 1985). Those decisions conflict with the decisions of other Courts of Appeals. See, e.g., Kruse v. Hawai'i, 68 F. 3d 331 (CA9 1995); Henry v. Metropolitan Sewer Dist., 922 F. 2d 332 (CA6 1990); see also Silver v. Baggiano, 804 F. 2d 1211 (CA11 1986). We now conclude, contrary to the Seventh Circuit, that the presence in an otherwise removable ease of a claim that the Eleventh Amendment may bar does not destroy removal jurisdiction that would otherwise exist.
H-Í hH
The governing provision of the federal removal statute authorizes a defendant to remove “any civil action brought in a State court of which the district courts of the United States have original jurisdiction.” 28 U. S. C. § 1441(a). See also Judiciary Act of 1789, § 12, 1 Stat. 79-80 (original removal statute); Act of Mar. 3,1887, 24 Stat. 552, corrected by Act of Aug. 13, 1888, 25 Stat. 433 (setting forth removal power in terms roughly similar to present law). The language of this section obviously permits the removal of a ease that contains only claims that “arise under” federal law. That is because a federal statute explicitly grants the federal courts “original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States,” 28 U. S. C. § 1331. This case, however, requires us to consider what happens if one, or more, of those claims is subject to an Eleventh Amendment bar. Does that circumstance destroy removal jurisdiction that would otherwise exist?
The primary argument that it does destroy removal jurisdiction has several parts. First, the argument distinguishes a ease with federal-law claims that include one or more Eleventh Amendment claims from a case with both federal-law claims and state-law claims. See 116 F. 3d, at 1152. We have suggested that the presence of even one claim “arising under” federal law is sufficient to satisfy the requirement that the case be within the original jurisdiction of the district court for removal. See Chicago v. International College of Surgeons, 522 U. S. 156, 163-166 (1997). In Chicago, for example, we wrote:
“[The] federal claims suffice to make the actions ‘civil actions’ within the ‘original jurisdiction’ of the district courts for purposes of removal. . . . Nothing in the jurisdictional statutes suggests that the presence of related state law claims somehow alters the fact that [the] complaints, by virtue of their federal claims, were 'civil actions’ within the federal courts’ 'original jurisdiction.’ ” Id., at 166 (citation omitted).
See also Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Taylor, 481 U. S. 58 (1987); Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust for Southern Cal., 463 U. S. 1, 7-12 (1983).
This statement, however, and others like it, appear in the context of cases involving both federal-law and state-law claims. And the Seventh Circuit found a significant difference between such cases and cases in which the Eleventh Amendment applies to some of the federal-law claims. See 116 F. 3d, at 1152. In the former cases the state-law claims fall within the supplemental jurisdiction of the federal courts. Supplemental jurisdiction allows federal courts to hear and decide state-law claims along with federal-law claims when they ''are so related to claims in the action within such original jurisdiction that they form part of the same ease or controversy.” 28 U. S. C. § 1367(a); see Chicago, supra, at 164-166. Cf. § 1441(c) (explicitly providing discretionary removal jurisdiction over entire ease where federal claim is accompanied by a "separate and independent” state-law claim). In the latter eases, the comparable claims do not fall within the federal courts’ “pendent” jurisdiction, but rather, it is argued, are claims that the Eleventh Amendment prohibits the federal courts from deciding.
Second, the argument emphasizes the “jurisdictional” nature of this difference. The Seventh Circuit, for example, said: “Glaims barred by sovereign immunity stand on different footing than other claims that are not independently removable, because of the affirmative limitation on jurisdiction imposed by the sovereign immunity doctrines.” 116 F. 3d, at 1152 (citing Frances J., supra, at 340-341, and n. 4). That is to say, according to the Court of Appeals, neither the law permitting supplemental jurisdiction, nor any other law, see, e. g., § 1441(e), gives the federal court the power to decide a claim barred by the Eleventh Amendment. See Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U. S. 89, 121 (1984); Frances J., 19 F. 3d, at 341.
Third, the argument looks to removal based upon “diversity jurisdiction,” 28 U. S. C. § 1332, for analogical authority that leads to its conclusion, namely, that this “jurisdictional” problem is so serious that the presence of even one Eleventh-Amendment-barred claim destroys removal jurisdiction with respect to all claims (i. e., the entire “ease”). See, e. g., 116 F. 3d, at 1152 (citing Frances J., supra, at 341); McKay v. Boyd Constr. Co., 769 F. 2d, at 1086-1087 (discussing analogy to removal based on diversity jurisdiction). A case falls within the federal district court's “original” diversity “jurisdiction” only if diversity of citizenship among the parties is complete, i. e., only if there is no plaintiff and no defendant who are citizens of the same State. See Carden v. Arkoma Associates, 494 U. S. 185, 187 (1990); Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch 267 (1806). But cf. Fed. Rule Civ. Proe. 21; Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U. S. 826, 832-838 (1989) (Rule 21 authorizes courts to dismiss nondi-verse defendants in order to cure jurisdictional defects, instead of the entire case). Consequently, this Court has indicated that a defendant cannot remove a case that contains some claims against “diverse” defendants as long as there is one claim brought against a “nondiverse” defendant. See Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61, 68-69 (1996). If the analogy is appropriate, then, an Eleventh Amendment bar with respect to one claim would prevent removal of a case that contains some “arising under” claims, which, had they stood alone, would have permitted removal. Frances J., supra, at 341; McKay, supra, at 1087.
We find the analogy unconvincing. This ease differs significantly from a diversity case with respect to a federal district court’s original jurisdiction. The presence of the non-diverse party automatically destroys original jurisdiction: No party need assert the defect. No party can waive the defect or consent to jurisdiction. Insurance Corp. of Ireland v. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee, 456 U. S. 694, 702 (1982); People’s Bank v. Calhoun, 102 U. S. 256, 260-261 (1880). No court can ignore the defect; rather a court, noticing the defect, must raise the matter on its own. Insurance Corp. of Ireland, supra, at 702; Mansfield, C. & L. M. R. Co. v. Swan, 111 U. S. 379, 382 (1884).
The Eleventh Amendment, however, does not automatically destroy original jurisdiction. Rather, the Eleventh Amendment grants the State a legal power to assert a sovereign immunity defense should it choose to do so. The State can waive the defense. Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234, 241 (1985); Clark v. Barnard, 108 U. S. 436, 447 (1883). Nor need a court raise the defect on its own. Unless the State raises the matter, a court can ignore it. See Patsy v. Board of Regents of Fla., 457 U. S. 496, 515, n. 19 (1982).
These differences help to explain why governing authority has treated the defects differently for purposes of original jurisdiction. Where original jurisdiction rests upon Congress’ statutory grant of “diversity jurisdiction,” this Court has held that one claim against one nondiverse defendant destroys that original jurisdiction. See, e.g., Newman-Green, Inc., supra, at 829 (“When a plaintiff sues more than one defendant in a diversity action, the plaintiff must meet the requirements of the diversity statute for each defendant or face dismissal”). But, where original jurisdiction rests upon the Statute’s grant of “arising under” jurisdiction, the Court has assumed that the presence of a potential Eleventh Amendment bar with respect to one claim, has not destroyed original jurisdiction over the case. E. g., Pugh, 438 U. S., at 782; Papasan v. Allain, 478 U. S. 265 (1986). See also Henry, 922 F. 2d, at 338-339; Roberts v. College of the Desert, 870 F. 2d 1411, 1415 (CA9 1988). Cf. Pennhurst, supra, at 121 (suggesting that courts must analyze the applicability of the Eleventh Amendment to each claim rather than ease as whole). Since a federal court would have original jurisdiction to hear this case had Schacht originally filed it there, the defendants may remove the case from state to federal courts. See § 1441(a).
Other considerations further undermine the analogy. For example, for purposes of removal jurisdiction, we are to look at the case as of the time it was filed in state court — prior to the time the defendants filed their answer in federal court. See, e. g., St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U. S. 283, 291 (1938) (“[T]he status of the case as disclosed by the plaintiff’s complaint is controlling in the ease of a removal, since the defendant must file his petition before the time for answer or forever lose his right to remove”). As of that time, a ca,se that involved “incomplete diversity” automatically would have fallen outside the federal courts’ “original jurisdiction.” By contrast, as of that time, the State’s participation as a defendant would not automatically have placed the case outside the federal courts’ jurisdictional authority. That is because the underlying relevant condition (the federal courts’ effort to assert jurisdiction over an objecting State) could not have existed prior to removal, see, e. g., Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1, 9, n. 7 (1980), and because the State might not have asserted the defense in federal court, but could have decided instead to defend on the merits. (Here, for example, the State, while not waiving its Eleventh Amendment defense, has asserted in the alternative that Schacht could not state a § 1983 claim against the State. See Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58, 64 (1989).)
These differences between “diversity” and “Eleventh Amendment” eases with respect to original and removal jurisdiction are sufficient to destroy the analogy upon which the lower court opinions rest. A ease such as this one is more closely analogous to eases in which a later event, say, the change in the citizenship of a party or a subsequent reduction of the amount at issue below jurisdictional levels, destroys previously existing jurisdiction. In such cases, a federal court will keep a removed ease. See St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co., supra, at 293-295; Phelps v. Oaks, 117 U. S. 236, 240-241 (1886); Kanouse v. Martin, 15 How. 198, 207-210 (1854). See also Carnegie-Mellon Univ. v. Cohill, 484 U. S. 343, 350, and n. 7 (1988) (federal court may exercise jurisdiction over remaining state-law claims under supplemental jurisdiction, if all federal-law claims are eliminated before trial). Here, too, at the time of removal, this case fell within the “original jurisdiction” of the federal courts. The State’s later invocation of the Eleventh Amendment placed the particular claim beyond the power of the federal courts to decide, but it did not destroy removal jurisdiction over the entire case.
Ill
We must consider one further argument that respondent has made. That argument is not based upon an analogy but upon the specific language of a particular statutory provision, 28 U. S. C. § 1447(c). The provision says: “If at any time before final judgment it appears that the district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, the ease shall be remanded.” Ibid. Respondent argues that, at least after the State asserted its Eleventh Amendment defense, the federal court “lacked subject matter jurisdiction.” Brief for Respondent 19. He points out that the statute says that the entire “case shall be remanded” to the state court. That is to say, he contends that, if the “district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction” over any claim, then every claim, i. e., the entire “ease,” must be “remanded” to the state court.
Even making the assumption that Eleventh Amendment immunity is a matter of subject-matter jurisdiction — a question we have not decided — we reject respondent’s argument because we do not read the statute in this way. An ordinary reading of the language indicates that the statute refers to an instance in which a federal court “lacks subject matter jurisdiction” over a “ease,” and not simply over one claim within a case. Cf. § 1441(c) (permitting “the entire case” to be removed or remanded, when one or more “non-removable claims or causes of action” is joined with a federal question “claim or cause of action”). Conceivably, one might also read the statute’s reference to “case” to include a claim within a case as well as the entire case. But neither reading helps Schacht. The former reading would make the provision inapplicable here; the latter would make it applicable, but requires remand only of the relevant claims, and not the entire case as Schacht contends.
Nor does the statute’s purpose favor Schacht’s interpretation. The statutory section that contains the provision deals, not with the question of what is removable, but with the procedures that a federal court is to follow after removal occurs. It is entitled: “Procedure after removal generally.” § 1447. In substance, the section differentiates between removals that are defective because of lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and removals that are defective for some other reason, e. g., because the removal took place after relevant time limits had expired. For the latter kind of case, there must be a motion to remand filed no later than 30 days after the filing of the removal notice. § 1447(c). For the former kind of case, remand may take place without such a motion and at any time. Ibid. The provision, then, helps to specify a procedural difference that flows from a difference in the kinds of reasons that could lead to a remand. That objective is irrelevant to the kind of problem presented in this case.
We repeat our conclusion: A State’s proper assertion of an Eleventh Amendment bar after removal means that the federal court cannot hear the barred claim. But that circumstance does not destroy removal jurisdiction over the remaining claims in the case before us. A federal court can proceed to hear those other claims, and the District Court did hot err in doing so.
For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the ease is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether, in an action for money damages, a United States District Court has the power to issue a preliminary injunction preventing the defendant from transferring assets in which no lien or equitable interest is claimed.
I
Petitioner Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo, S. A. (GMD), is a Mexican holding company. In February 1994, GMD issued $250 million of 8.25% unsecured, guaranteed notes due in 2001 (Notes), which ranked pari passu in priority of payment with all of GMD’s other unsecured and unsubordinated debt. Interest payments were due in February and August of every year. Four subsidiaries of GMD (which are the remaining petitioners) guaranteed the Notes. Respondents are investment funds which purchased approximately $75 million of the Notes.
Between 1990 and 1994, GMD was involved in a toll road construction program sponsored by the Government of Mexico. In order to elicit private financing, the Mexican Government granted concessions to companies that would build and operate the system of toll roads. GMD was both an investor in the concessionaries and among the construction companies hired by the concessionaries to build the toll roads. Problems in the Mexican economy resulted in severe losses for the concessionaries, who were therefore unable to pay contractors like GMD. In response to these problems, in 1997, the Mexican Government announced the Toll Road Rescue Program, under which it would issue guaranteed notes (Toll Road Notes) to the concessionaries, in exchange for their ceding to the Government ownership of the toll roads. The Toll Road Notes were to be used to pay the bank debt of the concessionaries, and also to pay outstanding receivables held by GMD and other contractors for services rendered to the concessionaries (Toll Road Receivables). In the fall of 1997, GMD announced that it expected to receive approximately $309 million of Toll Road Notes under the program.
Because of the downturn in the Mexican economy and the related difficulties in the toll road program, by mid-1997 GMD was in serious financial trouble. In addition to the Notes, GMD owed other debts of about $450 million. GMD’s 1997 Form 20-F, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 30,1997, stated that GMD’s current liabilities exceeded its current assets and that there was “substantial doubt” whether it could continue as a going concern. As a result of these financial problems, neither GMD nor its subsidiaries (who had guaranteed payment) made the August 1997 interest payment on the Notes.
Between August and December 1997, GMD attempted to negotiate a restructuring of its debt with its creditors. On August 26, Reuters reported that GMD was negotiating with the Mexican banks to reduce its $256 million bank debt, and that it planned to deal with this liability before negotiating with the investors owning the Notes. On October 28, GMD publicly announced that it would place in trust its right to receive $17 million of Toll Road Notes, to cover employee compensation payments, and that it had transferred its right to receive $100 million of Toll Road Notes to the Mexican Government (apparently to pay back taxes). GMD also negotiated with the holders of the Notes (including respondents) to restructure that debt, but by December these negotiations had failed.
On December 11, respondents accelerated the principal amount of their Notes, and, on December 12, filed suit for the amount due in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (petitioners had consented to personal jurisdiction in that forum). The complaint alleged that “GMD is at risk of insolvency, if not insolvent already”; that GMD was dissipating its most significant asset, the Toll Road Notes, and was preferring its Mexican creditors by its planned allocation of Toll Road Notes to the payment of their claims, and by its transfer to them of Toll Road Receivables; and that these actions would “frustrate any judgment” respondents could obtain. App. 29-30. Respondents sought breach-of-contract damages of $80.9 million, and requested a preliminary injunction restraining petitioners from transferring the Toll Road Notes or Receivables. On that same day, the District Court entered a temporary restraining order preventing petitioners from transferring their right to receive the Toll Road Notes.
On December 28, the District Court entered an order in which it found that “GMD is at risk of insolvency if not already insolvent”; that the Toll Road Notes were GMD’s “only substantial asset”; that GMD planned to use the Toll Road Notes “to satisfy its Mexican creditors to the exclusion of [respondents] and other holders of the Notes”; that “[i]n light of [petitioners’] financial condition and dissipation of assets, any judgment [respondents] obtain in this action will be frustrated”; that respondents had demonstrated irreparable injury; and that it was “almost certain” that respondents would succeed on the merits of their claim. App. to Pet. for Cert. 25a-26a. It preliminarily enjoined petitioners “from dissipating, disbursing, transferring, conveying, encumbering or otherwise distributing or affecting any [petitioner’s] right to, interest in, title to or right to receive or retain, any of the [Toll Road Notes].” Id., at 26a. The court ordered respondents to post a $50,000 bond.
The Second Circuit affirmed. 143 F. 3d 688 (1998). We granted certiorari, 525 U. S. 1015 (1998).
II
Respondents contend that events subsequent to petitioners’ appeal of the preliminary injunction render this ease moot. While that appeal was pending in the Second Circuit, the ease proceeded in the District Court. Petitioners filed an answer and asserted various counterclaims. On April 17, 1998, the District Court granted summary judgment to respondents on their contract claim and dismissed petitioners’ counterclaims. The eourt ordered petitioners to pay respondents $82,444,259 by assignment or transfer of Toll Road Receivables or Toll Road Notes; the court also converted the preliminary injunction into a permanent injunction pending such assignment or transfer. Although petitioners initially appealed both portions of this order to the Second Circuit, they later abandoned their appeal from the permanent injunction. The appeal from the payment order is still pending in the Second Circuit. The same date the District Court entered judgment, respondents moved to dismiss petitioners’ first appeal — the one now before us — arguing that the final judgment rendered the appeal moot. On May 4, the Second Circuit denied the motion to dismiss and two days later affirmed, as mentioned above, the District Court’s grant of the preliminary injunction.
Respondents argue that the issue of the propriety of the preliminary injunction is moot because that injunction is now merged into the permanent injunction. Petitioners contend that the ease is not moot because, if we hold that the District Court was without power to issue the preliminary injunction, then under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 65(c) and 65.1 they will have a claim against the injunction bond. They assert that the injunction “interfered with GMD’s efforts to restructure its debt and substantially impaired GMD’s ability to continue its operations in the ordinary course of business.” Brief for Petitioners 7. Respondents concede that a party who has been wrongfully enjoined has a claim on the bond, but they argue that although such a claim might mean that the case is not moot, it does not prevent this interlocutory appeal from becoming moot. In any event, say respondents, because a claim for wrongful injunction requires that the enjoined party win on the ultimate merits, petitioners have forfeited any claim by failing to appeal the portion of the District Court’s, judgment converting the preliminary injunction into a permanent injunction.
Generally, an appeal from the grant of a preliminary injunction becomes moot when the trial court enters a permanent injunction, because the former merges into the latter. We have dismissed appeals in such circumstances. See, e. g., Smith v. Illinois Bell Telephone Co., 270 U. S. 587, 588-589 (1926). We agree with petitioners, however, that their potential cause of action against the injunction bond preserves our jurisdiction over this appeal. Cf. Liner v. Jafco, Inc., 375 U. S. 301, 305-306 (1964).
In the case of the usual preliminary injunction, the plaintiff seeks to enjoin, pending the outcome of the litigation, action that he claims is unlawful. If his lawsuit turns out to be meritorious — if he is found to be entitled to the permanent injunction that he seeks — even if the preliminary injunction was wrongly issued (because at that stage of the litigation the plaintiff’s prospects of winning were not sufficiently clear, or the plaintiff was not suffering irreparable injury) its issuance would in any event be harmless error. The final injunction establishes that the defendant should not have been engaging in the conduct that was enjoined. Hence, it is reasonable to regard the preliminary injunction as merging into the final one: If the latter is valid, the former is, if not procedurally correct, at least harmless. A quite different situation obtains in the present case, where (according to petitioners’ claim) the substantive validity of the final injunction does not establish the substantive validity of the preliminary one. For the latter was issued not to enjoin unlawful conduct, but rather to render unlawful conduct that would otherwise be permissible, in order to protect the anticipated judgment of the court; and it is the essence of petitioners’ claim that such an injunction can be issued only after the judgment is rendered. If petitioners are correct, they have been harmed by issuance of the unauthorized preliminary injunction — and hence should be able to recover on the bond — even i/the final injunction is proper. It would make no sense, when this is the claim, to say that the preliminary injunction merges into the final one.
We reject respondents’ argument that the controversy over the bond saves the “ease” from mootness, but does not save the “issue” of the validity of the preliminary injunction from mootness. University of Texas v. Camenisch, 451 U. S. 390 (1981), upon which respondents principally rely, is inap-posite. In that case a deaf graduate student sued the University of Texas to obtain an injunction requiring the school to pay for a sign-language interpreter for his school work. The District Court granted a preliminary injunction and required the student to post an injunction bond. Pending appeal of that injunction, the university paid for the interpreter, but the student graduated before the Court of Appeals issued its decision. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeals held that the appeal of the preliminary injunction was not moot because the issue of who had to pay for the interpreter remained. We reversed:
“The Court of Appeals correctly held that the case as a whole is not moot, since, as that court noted, it remains to be decided who should ultimately bear the cost of the interpreter. However, the issue before the Court of Appeals was not who should pay for the interpreter, but rather whether the District Court had abused its discretion in issuing a preliminary injunction requiring the University to pay for him. The two issues are significantly different, since whether the preliminary injunction should have issued depended on the balance of factors listed in [Fifth Circuit precedent], while whether the University should ultimately bear the cost of the interpreter depends on a final resolution of the merits of Cameniseh’s case.
“This, then, is simply another instance in which one issue in a ease has become moot, but the ease as a whole remains alive because other issues have not become moot.... Because the only issue presently before us— the correctness of the decision to grant a preliminary injunction — is moot, the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be vacated and the ease must be remanded to the District Court for trial on the merits.” Id., at 393-394 (citations omitted).
Camenisch is simply an application of the same principle which underlies the rule that a preliminary injunction ordinarily merges into the final injunction. Since the preliminary injunction no longer had any effect (the student had graduated), and since the substantive issue governing the propriety of what had been paid under the preliminary injunction (as opposed to the procedural issue of whether the injunction should have issued when it did) was the same issue underlying the merits claim, there was no sense in trying the preliminary injunction question separately. In the present case, however, petitioners’ basis for arguing that the preliminary injunction was wrongfully issued — which is that the District Court lacked the power to restrain their use of assets pending a money judgment — is independent of respondents’ claim on the merits — which is that petitioners breached the note instrument by failing to make the August 1997 interest payment. The resolution of the merits is immaterial to the validity of petitioners’ potential claim on the bond. Cf. American Can Co. v. Mansukhani, 742 F. 2d 314, 320-321 (CA7 1984); Stacey G. v. Pasadena Independent Sch. Dist., 695 F. 2d 949, 955 (CA5 1983).
For the same reason, petitioners’ failure to appeal the permanent injunction does not forfeit their claim that the preliminary injunction was wrongful. Petitioners do not contest the District Court’s power to issue a permanent injunction after rendering a money judgment against them, but they do contest its power to issue a preliminary injunction, and they do so on a ground that has nothing to do with the validity of the permanent injunction. And again for the same reason, we reject respondents’ argument that petitioners have no wrongful injunction claim because they lost the case on the merits.
III
We turn, then, to the merits question whether the District Court had authority to issue the preliminary injunction in this case pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65. The Judiciary Act of 1789 conferred on the federal courts jurisdiction over “all suits... in equity.” § 11, 1 Stat. 78. We have long held that “[t]he 'jurisdiction’ thus conferred... is an authority to administer in equity suits the principles of the system of judicial remedies which had been devised and was being administered by the English Court of Chancery at the time of the separation of the two countries.” Atlas Life Ins. Co. v. W. I. Southern, Inc., 306 U. S. 563, 568 (1939). See also, e. g., Stainback v. Mo Hock Ke Lok Po, 336 U. S. 368, 382, n. 26 (1949); Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U. S. 99, 105 (1945); Gordon v. Washington, 295 U. S. 30, 36 (1935). “Substantially, then, the equity jurisdiction of the federal courts is the jurisdiction in equity exercised by the High Court of Chancery in England at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the enactment of the original Judiciary Act, 1789 (1 Stat. 73).” A. Dobie, Handbook of Federal Jurisdiction and Procedure 660 (1928). “[T]he substantive prerequisites for obtaining an equitable remedy as well as the general availability of injunctive relief are not altered by [Rule 65] and depend on traditional principles of equity jurisdiction.” 11A C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure §2941, p. 31 (2d ed. 1995). We must ask, therefore, whether the relief respondents requested here was traditionally accorded by courts of equity.
A
Respondents do not even argue this point. The United States as amicus curiae, however, contends that the preliminary injunction issued in this case is analogous to the relief obtained in the equitable action known as a “creditor’s bill.” This remedy was used (among other purposes) to permit a judgment creditor to discover the debtor’s assets, to reach equitable interests not subject to execution at law, and to set aside fraudulent conveyances. See 1 D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies §2.8(1), pp. 191-192 (2d ed. 1993); 4 S. Symons, Pomeroy’s Equity Jurisprudence § 1415, pp. 1065-1066 (5th ed. 1941); 1 G. Glenn, Fraudulent Conveyances and Preferences §26, p. 51 (rev. ed. 1940). It was well established, however, that, as a general rule, a creditor’s bill could be brought only by a creditor who had already obtained a judgment establishing the debt. See, e. g., Pusey & Jones Co. v. Hanssen, 261 U.S. 491, 497 (1923); Hollins v. Brierfield Coal & Iron Co., 150 U. S. 371, 378-379 (1893); Cates v. Allen, 149 U. S. 451, 457 (1893); National Tube Works Co. v. Ballou, 146 U. S. 517, 523-524 (1892); Scott v. Neely, 140 U. S. 106, 113 (1891); Smith v. Railroad Co., 99 U. S. 398, 401 (1879); Adler v. Fenton, 24 How. 407, 411-413 (1861); see also 4 Symons, supra, at 1067; 1 Glenn, supra, §9, at 11; F. Wait, Fraudulent Conveyances and Creditors’ Bills §73, pp. 110-111 (1884). The rule requiring a judgment was a product, not just of the procedural requirement that remedies at law had to be exhausted before equitable remedies could be pursued, but also of the substantive rule that a general creditor (one without a judgment) had no cognizable interest, either at law or in equity, in the property of his debtor, and therefore could not interfere with the debtor’s use of that property. As stated by Chancellor Kent: “The reason of the rule seems to be, that until the creditor has established his title, he has no right to interfere, and it would lead to an unnecessary, and, perhaps, a fruitless and oppressive interruption of the exercise of the debtor’s rights.” Wiggins v. Armstrong, 2 Johns. Ch. 144, 145-146 (N. Y. 1816). See also, e. g., Guaranty Trust Co., supra, at 106-107, n. 3; Pusey & Jones Co., supra, at 497; Cates, supra, at 457; Adler, supra, at 411-418; Shufeldt v. Boehm, 96 Ill. 560, 564 (1880); 1 Glenn, supra, § 9, at 11; Wait, supra, §52, at 81, §73, at 113.
The United States asserts that there were exceptions to the general rule requiring a judgment. The existence and scope of these exceptions is by no means clear. Cf. G. Glenn, The Rights and Remedies of Creditors Respecting Their Debtor’s Property §§21-24, pp. 18-21 (1915). Although the United States says that some of them “might have been relevant in a case like this one,” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 11, it chooses not to resolve (or argue definitively) whether any particular one would have been, id., at 12. For their part, as noted above, respondents do not discuss creditor’s bills at all. Particularly in the absence of any discussion of this point by the lower courts, we are not inclined to speculate upon the existence or applicability to this case of any exceptions, and follow the well-established general rule that a judgment establishing the debt was necessary before a court of equity would interfere with the debtor’s use of his property.
Justice Ginsburg concedes that federal equity courts have traditionally rejected the type of provisional relief granted in this case. See post, at 338 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). She invokes, however, “the grand aims of equity,” and asserts a general power to grant relief whenever legal remedies are not “practical and efficient,” unless there is a statute to the contrary. Post, at 342 (internal quotation marks omitted). This expansive view of equity must be rejected. Joseph Story’s famous treatise reflects what we consider the proper rule, both with regard to the general role of equity in our “government of laws, not of men,” and with regard to its application in the very case before us:
“Mr. Justice Blackstone has taken considerable pains to refute this doctrine. ‘It is said,’ he remarks, ‘that it is the business of a Court of Equity, in England, to abate the rigor of the common law. But no such power is contended for. Hard was the ease of bond creditors, whose debtor devised away his real estate.... But a Court of Equity can give no relief....’ And illustrations of the same character may be found in every state of the Union.... In many [States], if not in all, a debtor may prefer one creditor to another, in discharging his debts, whose assets are wholly insufficient to pay all the debts.” 1 Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence § 12, pp. 14-15 (1886).
See also infra, at 332-833. We do not question the proposition that equity is flexible; but in the federal system, at least, that flexibility is confined within the broad boundaries of traditional equitable relief. To accord a type of relief that has never been available before — and especially (as here) a type of relief that has been specifically disclaimed by longstanding judicial precedent — is to invoke a “default rule,” post, at 342, not of flexibility but of omnipotence. When there are indeed new conditions that might call for a wrenching departure from past practice, Congress is in a much better position than we both to perceive them and to design the appropriate remedy. Despite Justice Gins-BURG’s allusion to the “increasing complexities of modern business relations,” post, at 337 (internal quotation marks omitted), and to the bygone “age of slow-moving capital and comparatively immobile wealth,” post, at 338, we suspect there is absolutely nothing new about debtors’ trying to avoid paying their debts, or seeking to favor some creditors over others — or even about their seeking to achieve these ends through “sophisticated... strategies,” ibid. The law of fraudulent conveyances and bankruptcy was developed to prevent such conduct; an equitable power to restrict a debtor’s use of his unencumbered property before judgment was not.
Respondents argue (supported by the United States) that the merger of law and equity changed the rule that a general creditor could not interfere with the debtor’s use of his property. But the merger did not alter substantive rights. “Notwithstanding the fusion of law and equity by the Rules of Civil Procedure, the substantive principles of Courts of Chancery remain unaffected.” Stainback, 336 U. S., at 382, n. 26. Even in the absence of historical support, we would not be inclined to believe that it is merely a question of procedure whether a person’s unencumbered assets can be frozen by general-creditor claimants before their claims have been vindicated by judgment. It seems to us that question goes to the substantive rights of all property owners. In any event it appears, as we have observed, that the rule requiring a judgment was historically regarded as serving, not merely the procedural end of assuring exhaustion of legal remedies (which the merger of law and equity could render irrelevant), but also the substantive end of giving the creditor an interest in the property which equity could then act upon. See supra, at 319-320.
We note that none of the parties or amici specifically raised the applicability to this case of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 18(b), which states:
‘^Whenever a claim is one heretofore cognizable only after another claim has been prosecuted to a conclusion, the two claims may be joined in a single action; but the court shall grant relief in that action only in accordance with the relative substantive rights of the parties. In particular, a plaintiff may state a claim for money and a claim to have set aside a conveyance fraudulent as to that plaintiff, without first having obtained a judgment establishing the claim for money.”
Because the Rule was neither mentioned by the lower courts nor briefed by the parties, we decline to consider its application to the present ease. We note, however, that it says nothing about preliminary relief, and specifically reserves substantive rights (as did the Rules Enabling Act, see 28 U. S. C. § 2072(b)).
B
Respondents contend that two of our postmerger cases support the District Court’s order “in principle.” Brief for Respondents 22. We find both of these cases entirely consistent with the view that the preliminary injunction in this case was beyond the equitable authority of the District Court.
In Deckert v. Independence Shares Corp., 311 U. S. 282 (1940), purchasers of certificates that entitled the holders to invest in a trust of common stocks sued the company that sold the certificates and the company administering the trust, and related officers and affiliates, under the Securities Act of 1933, alleging that the sale was fraudulent. They further alleged that the company that sold the certificates was insolvent, that it was likely to make preferential payments to certain creditors, and that its assets were in danger of dissipation. They sought the appointment of a receiver and an injunction restraining the company administering the trust from transferring any assets of the corporations or of the trust. The District Court preliminarily enjoined the company from transferring a fixed sum. Id., at 285-286. After deciding that the Securities Act permitted equitable relief, we concluded that the bill stated a cause of action for the equitable remedies of rescission of the contracts and restitution of the consideration paid, id., at 287-288, and that the preliminary injunction “was a reasonable measure to preserve the status quo pending final determination of the questions raised by the bill,” id., at 290. Deckert is not on point here because, as the Court took pains to explain, “the bill state[d] a cause [of action] for equitable relief.” Id., at 288.
“The principal objects of the suit are rescission of the Savings Plan contracts and restitution of the consideration paid.... That a suit to rescind a contract induced by fraud and to recover the consideration paid may be maintained in equity, at least where there are circumstances making the legal remedy inadequate, is well established.” Id., at 289.
The preliminary relief available in a suit seeking equitable relief has nothing to do with the preliminary relief available in a creditor’s bill seeking equitable assistance in the collection of a legal debt.
In the second ease relied on by respondents, United States v. First Nat. City Bank, 379 U. S. 378 (1965), the United States, in its suit to enforce a tax assessment and tax lien, requested a preliminary injunction preventing a third-party bank from transferring any of the taxpayer’s assets which were held in a foreign branch office of the bank. Id., at 379-380. Relying on a statute giving district courts the power to grant injunctions “'necessary or appropriate for the enforcement of the internal revenue laws,’ ” id., at 380 (quoting former 26 U. S. C. § 7402(a) (1964 ed.)), we concluded that the temporary injunction was “appropriate to prevent further dissipation of assets,” 379 U. S., at 385. We stated that if a district court could not issue such an injunction, foreign taxpayers could avoid their tax obligations.
First National is distinguishable from the present ease on a number of grounds. First, of course, it involved not the Court’s general equitable powers under the Judiciary Act of 1789, but its powers under the statute authorizing issuance of tax injunctions. Second, First National relied in part on the doctrine that courts of equity will “ ‘go much farther both to give and withhold relief in furtherance of the public interest than they are accustomed to go when only private interests are involved,’ ” id., at 383 (quoting Virginian R. Co. v. Railway Employees, 300 U. S. 515, 552 (1937)). And finally, although the Court did not rely on this fact, the creditor (the Government) asserted an equitable lien on the property, see 379 U. S., at 379-380, which presents a different case from that of the unsecured general creditor.
That Deckert and First National should not be read as establishing the principle relied on by respondents is strongly suggested by De Beers Consol. Mines, Ltd. v. United States, 325 U. S. 212 (1945). In that case the United States brought suit against several corporations seeking equitable relief against alleged antitrust violations. The United States also sought a preliminary injunction restraining the defendants from removing their assets from this country pending adjudication of the merits. We concluded that the injunction was beyond the power of the District Court. We stated that “[a] preliminary injunction is always appropriate to grant intermediate relief of the same character as that which may be granted finally,” but that the injunction in that case dealt “with a matter lying wholly outside the issues in the suit.” Id., at 220. We pointed out that “Federal and State courts appear consistently to have refused relief of the nature here sought,” id., at 221, and we concluded:
“To sustain the challenged order would create a precedent of sweeping effect. This suit, as we have said, is not to be distinguished from any other suit in equity. What applies to it applies to all such. Every suitor who resorts to chancery for any sort of relief by injunction may, on a mere statement of belief that the defendant can easily make away with or transport his money or goods, impose an injunction on him, indefinite in duration, disabling him to use so much of his funds or property as the court deems necessary for security or compliance with its possible decree. And, if so, it is difficult to see why a plaintiff in any action for a personal judgment in tort or contract may not, also, apply to the chancellor for a so-called injunction sequestrating his opponent’s assets pending recovery and satisfaction of a judgment in such a law action. No relief of this character has been thought justified in the long history of equity jurisprudence.” Id., at 222-223.
The statements in the last two sentences, though dictum, confirms that the relief sought by respondents does not have a basis in the traditional powers of equity courts.
C
As further support for the proposition that the relief accorded here was unknown to traditional equity practice, it is instructive that the English Court of Chancery, from which the First Congress borrowed in conferring equitable powers on the federal courts, did not provide an injunctive remedy such as this -until 1975. In that year, the Court of Appeal decided Mareva Compania Naviera S. A. v. International Bulkcarriers S. A., 2 Lloyd’s Rep. 509. Mareva, although acknowledging that the prior case of Lister & Co. v. Stubbs, [1890] 45 Ch. D. 1 (C. A.), said that a court has no power to protect a creditor before he gets judgment, relied on a statute giving courts the authority to grant an interlocutory injunction ‘“in all eases in which it shall appear to the court to be just or convenient,' ” 2 Lloyd’s Rep., at 510 (quoting Judicature Act of 1925, Law Reports 1925 (2), 15 & 16 Geo. V, ch. 49, §45). It held (in the words of Lord Denning) that “[i]f it appears that the debt is due and owing — and there is a danger that the debtor may dispose of his assets so as to defeat it before judgment — the Court has jurisdiction in a proper case to grant an interlocutory judgment so as to prevent him [sic] disposing of those assets.” 2 Lloyd’s Rep., at 510. The Mareva injunction has now been confirmed by statute. See Supreme Court Act of 1981, § 37, 11 Halsbury’s Statutes 966, 1001 (1991 reissue).
Commentators have emphasized that the adoption of Mareva injunctions was a dramatic departure from prior practice.
"Before 1975 the courts would not grant an injunction to restrain a defendant from disposing of his assets pen-dente lite merely because the plaintiff feared that by the time he obtained judgment the defendant would have no assets against which execution could be levied. Applications for such injunctions were consistently refused in the English Commercial Court as elsewhere. They were thought to be so clearly beyond the powers of the court as to be ‘wholly unarguable.’ ” Hetherington, supra n. 9, at 3.
See also Wasserman, Equity Renewed: Preliminary Injunctions to Secure Potential Money Judgments, 67 Wash. L. Rev. 257, 337 (1992) (stating that Mareva “revolutionized English practice”). The Mareva injunction has been recognized as a powerful tool for general creditors; indeed, it has been called the “nuclear weapo[n] of the law.” R. Ough & W. Flenley, The Mareva Injunction and Anton Piller Order: Practice and Precedents xi (2d ed. 1993).
The parties debate whether Mareva was based on statutory authority or on inherent equitable power. See Brief for Petitioners 17, n. 8; Brief for Respondents 35-36. Regardless of the answer to this question, it is indisputable that the English courts of equity did not actually exercise this power until 1975, and that federal courts in this country have traditionally applied the principle that courts of equity will not, as a general matter, interfere with the debtor’s disposition of his property at the instance of a nonjudgment creditor. We think it incompatible with our traditionally cautious approach to equitable powers, which leaves any substantial expansion of past practice to Congress, to decree the elimination of this significant protection for debtors.
IV
The parties and amici discuss various arguments for and against creating the preliminary injunctive remedy at issue in this ease. The United States suggests that the factors supporting such a remedy include
“simplicity and uniformity of procedure; preservation of the court’s ability to render a judgment that will prove enforceable; prevention of inequitable conduct on the part of defendants; avoiding disparities between defendants that have assets within the jurisdiction (which would be subject to pre-judgment attachment 'at law’) and those that do not; avoiding the necessity for plaintiffs to locate a forum in which the defendant has substantial assets; and, in an age of easy global mobility of capital, preserving the attractiveness of the United States as a center for financial transactions.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16.
But there are weighty considerations on the other side as well, the most significant of which is the historical principle that before judgment (or its equivalent) an unsecured creditor has no rights at law or in equity in the property of his debtor. As one treatise writer explained:
“A rule of procedure which allowed any prowling creditor, before his claim was definitely established by judgment, and without reference to the character of his demand, to file a bill to discover assets, or to impeach transfers, or interfere with the business affairs of the alleged debtor, would manifestly be susceptible of the grossest abuse. A more powerful weapon of oppression could not be placed at the disposal of unscrupulous litigants.” Wait, Fraudulent Conveyances §73, at 110-111.
The requirement that the creditor obtain a prior judgment is a fundamental protection in debtor-creditor law — rendered all the more important in our federal system by the debtor’s right to a jury trial on the legal claim. There are other factors which likewise give us pause: The remedy sought here could
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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 Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court.
When an alien has been found to be unlawfully present in the United States and a final order of removal has been entered, the Government ordinarily secures the alien’s removal during a subsequent 90-day statutory “removal period,” during which time the alien normally is held in custody.
A special statute authorizes further detention if the Government fails to remove the alien during those 90 days. It says:
“An alien ordered removed [1] who is inadmissible.'.. [2] [or] removable [as a result of violations of status requirements or entry conditions, violations of criminal law, or reasons of security or foreign policy] or [3] who has been determined by the Attorney General to be a risk to the community or unlikely to comply with the order of removal, may be detained beyond the removal period and, if released, shall be subject to [certain] terms of supervision....” 8 U. S. C. § 1231(a)(6) (1994 ed., Supp. V).
In these cases, we must decide whether this post-removal-period statute authorizes the Attorney General to detain a removable alien indefinitely beyond the removal period or only for a period reasonably necessary to secure the alien’s removal. We deal here with aliens who were admitted to the United States but subsequently ordered removed. Aliens who have not yet gained initial admission to this country would present a very different question. See infra, at 693-694. Based on our conclusion that indefinite detention of aliens in the former category would raise serious constitutional concerns, we construe the statute to contain an implicit “reasonable time” limitation, the application of which is subject to federal-court review.
H-l
A
The post-removal-period detention statute is one of a related set of statutes and regulations that govern detention during and after removal proceedings. While removal proceedings are in progress, most aliens may be released on bond or paroled. 66 Stat. 204, as added and amended, 110 Stat. 3009-585, 8 U. S. C. §§ 1226(a)(2), (c) (1994 ed., Supp. V). After entry of a final removal order and during the 90-day removal period, however, aliens must be held in custody. § 1231(a)(2). Subsequently, as the post-removal-period statute provides, the Government “may” continue to detain an alien who still remains here or release that alien under supervision. § 1231(a)(6).
Related Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) regulations add that the INS District Director will initially review the alien’s records to decide whether further detention or release under supervision is warranted after the 90-day removal period expires. 8 CFR §§ 241.4(c)(1), (h), (k)(l)(i) (2001). If the decision is to detain, then an INS panel will review the matter further, at the expiration of a 3-month period or soon thereafter. § 241.4(k)(2)(ii). And the panel will decide, on the basis of records and a possible personal interview, between still further detention or release under supervision. §241.4(i). In making this decision, the panel will consider, for example, the alien’s disciplinary record, criminal record, mental health reports, evidence of rehabilitation, history of flight, prior immigration history, and favorable factors such as family ties. § 241.4(f). To authorize release, the panel must find that the alien is not likely to be violent, to pose a threat to the community, to flee if released, or to violate the conditions of release. § 241.4(e). And the alien must demonstrate “to the satisfaction of the Attorney General” that he will pose no danger or risk of flight. § 241.4(d)(1). If the panel decides against release, it must review the matter again within a year, and can review it earlier if conditions change. §§241.4(k)(2)(iii), (v).
B
1
We consider two separate instances of detention. The first concerns Kestutis Zadvydas, a resident alien who was born, apparently of Lithuanian parents, in a displaced persons camp in Germany in 1948. When he was eight years old, Zadvydas immigrated to the United States with his parents and other family members, and he has lived here ever since.
Zadvydas has a long criminal record, involving drug crimes, attempted robbery, attempted burglary, and theft. He has a history of flight, from both criminal and deportation proceedings. Most recently, he was convicted of possessing, with intent to distribute, cocaine; sentenced to 16 years’ imprisonment; released on parole after two years; taken into INS custody; and, in 1994, ordered deported to Germany. See 8 U. S. C. § 1261(a)(2) (1988 ed., Supp. V) (delineating crimes that make alien deportable).
In 1994, Germany told the INS that it would not accept Zadvydas because he was not a German citizen. Shortly thereafter, Lithuania refused to accept Zadvydas because he was neither a Lithuanian citizen nor a permanent resident. In 1996, the INS asked the.Dominican Republic (Zadvydas’ wife’s country) to accept him, but this effort proved unsuccessful. In 1998, Lithuania rejected, as inadequately documented, Zadvydas’ effort to obtain Lithuanian citizenship based on his parents’ citizenship; Zadvydas’ reapplication is apparently still pending.
The INS kept Zadvydas in custody after expiration of the removal period. In September 1995, Zadvydas filed a petition for a writ of habeas eorpus under 28 U. S. C. § 2241 chai-lenging his continued detention. In October 1997, a Federal District Court granted that writ and ordered him released under supervision. Zadvydas v. Caplinger, 986 F. Supp. 1011, 1027-1028 (ED La.). In its view, the Government would never succeed in its efforts to remove Zadvydas from the United States, leading to his permanent confinement, contrary to the Constitution. Id., at 1027.
The Fifth Circuit reversed this decision. Zadvydas v. Underdown, 185 F. 3d 279 (1999). It concluded that Zadvydas’ detention did not violate the Constitution because eventual deportation was not “impossible,” good-faith efforts to remove him from the United States continued, and his detention was subject to periodic administrative review. Id., at 294,297. The Fifth Circuit stayed its mandate pending potential review in this Court.
2
The second case is that of Kim Ho Ma. Ma was born in Cambodia in 1977. When he was two, his family fled, taking him to refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines and eventually to the United States, where he has lived as a resident alien since the age of seven. In 1995, at age 17, Ma was involved in a gang-related shooting, convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to 38 months’ imprisonment. He served two years, after which he was released into INS custody.
In light of his conviction of an “aggravated felony,” Ma was ordered removed. See 8 U. S. C. §§ 1101(a)(43)(F) (defining certain violent crimes as aggravated felonies), 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) (1994 ed., Supp. IV) (aliens convicted of aggravated felonies are deportable). The 90-day removal period expired in early 1999, but the INS continued to keep Ma in custody, because, in light of his former gang membership, the nature of his crime, and his planned participation in a prison hunger strike, it was “unable to conclude that Mr. Ma would remain nonviolent and not violate the conditions of release.” App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 00-38, p. 87a.
In 1999, Ma filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U. S. C. §2241. A panel of five judges in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Washington, considering Ma’s and about 100 similar cases together, issued a joint order holding that, the Constitution forbids post-removal-period detention unless there is “a realistic chance that [the] alien will be deported” (thereby permitting classification of the detention as “in aid of deportation”). Binh Phan v. Reno, 56 F. Supp. 2d 1149, 1156 (1999). The District Court then held an evidentiary hearing, decided that there was no “realistic chance” that Cambodia (which has no repatriation treaty with the United States) would accept Ma, and ordered Ma released. App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 00-38, at 60a-61a.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed Ma’s release. Kim Ho Ma v. Reno, 208 F. 3d 815 (2000). It concluded, based in part on constitutional concerns, that the statute did not authorize detention for more than a “reasonable time” beyond the 90-day period authorized for removal. Id., at 818. And, given the lack of a repatriation agreement with Cambodia, that time had expired upon passage of the 90 days. Id., at 830-831.
3
Zadvydas asked us to review the decision of the Fifth Circuit authorizing his continued detention. The Government asked us to review the decision of the Ninth Circuit forbidding Ma’s continued detention. We granted writs in both cases, agreeing to consider both statutory and related constitutional questions. See also Duy Dac Ho v. Greene, 204 F. 3d 1045, 1060 (CA10 2000) (upholding Attorney General’s statutory and constitutional authority to detain alien indefinitely). We consolidated the two cases for argument; and we now decide them together.
i — t
We note at the outset that the primary federal habeas corpus statute, 28 U. S. C. §2241, confers jurisdiction upon the federal courts to hear these cases. See § 2241(c)(3) (authorizing any person to claim in federal court that he or she is being held “in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws i.. of the United States”). Before 1952, the federal courts considered challenges to the lawfulness of immigration-related detention, including challenges to the validity of a deportation order, in habeas proceedings. See Heikkila v. Barber, 345 U. S. 229, 230, 235-236 (1953). Beginning in 1952, an alternative method for review of deportation orders, namely, actions brought in federal district court under the. Administrative Procedure Act (APA), became available. See Shaughnessy v. Pedreiro, 349 U. S. 48, 51-52 (1955). And in 1961 Congress replaced district court APA review with initial deportation order review in courts of appeals. See Act of Sept. 26, 1961, § 5, 75 Stat. 651 (formerly codified at 8 U. S. C. § 1105a(a)) (repealed 1996). The 1961 Act specified that federal habeas courts were also available to hear statutory and constitutional challenges to deportation (and exclusion) orders. See 8 U. S. C. §§ 1105a(a)(10), (b) (repealed 1996). These statutory changes left habeas untouched as the basic method for obtaining review of continued custody after a deportation order had become final. See Cheng Fan Kwok v. INS, 392 U. S. 206, 212, 215-216 (1968) (holding that § 1105a(a) applied only to challenges to determinations made during deportation proceedings and motions to reopen those proceedings).
More recently, Congress has enacted several statutory provisions that limit the circumstances in which judicial review of deportation decisions is available. But none applies here. One provision, 8 U. S. C. § 1231(h) (1994 ed., Supp. V), simply forbids courts to construe that section “to create any... procedural right or benefit that is legally enforceable”; it does not deprive an alien of the right to rely on 28 U. S. C. § 2241 to challenge detention that is without statutory authority.
Another provision, 8 U. S. C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) (1994 ed., Supp. V), says that “no court shall.' have jurisdiction to review” decisions “specified... to be in the discretion of the Attorney General.” The aliens here, however, do not seek review of the Attorney General’s exercise of discretion; rather, they challenge the extent of the Attorney General’s authority under the post-removal-period detention statute. And the extent of that authority is not a matter of discretion. See also, e.g., § 1226(e) (applicable to certain detention-related decisions in period preceding entry of final removal order); § 1231(a)(4)(D) (applicable to assertion of causes or claims under §1231(a)(4), which is not at issue here); §§ 1252(a)(1), (a)(2)(C) (applicable to judicial review of “final order[s] of removal”); § 1252(g) (applicable to decisions “to commence proceedings, adjudicate cases, or execute removal orders”).
We conclude that § 2241 habeas corpus proceedings remain available as a forum for statutory and constitutional challenges. to post-removal-period detention. And we turn to the merits of the aliens’ claims.
H-1 H-l
The post-removal-period detention statute applies to certain categories of aliens who have been ordered removed, namely, inadmissible aliens, criminal aliens, aliens who have violated their nonimmigrant status conditions, and aliens removable for certain national security or foreign relations reasons, as well as any alien “who has been determined by the Attorney General to be a risk to the community or unlikely to comply with the order of removal.” 8 U. S. C. § 1231(a)(6) (1994 ed., Supp. V); see also 8 CFR § 241.4(a) (2001). It says that an alien who falls into one of these categories “may be detained beyond the removal period and, if released, shall be subject to [certain] terms of supervision.” 8 U. S. C. § 1231(a)(6) (1994 ed., Supp. V).
The Government argues that the statute means what it literally says. It sets no “limit on the length of time beyond the removal period that an alien who falls within one of the Section 1231(a)(6) categories may be detained.” Brief for Petitioners in No. 00-38, p. 22. Hence, “whether to continue to detain such an alien and, if so, in what circumstances and for how long” is up to the Attorney General, not up tó the courts. Ibid.
“[I]t is a cardinal principle” of statutory interpretation, however, that when an Act of Congress raises “a serious doubt” as to its constitutionality, “this Court will first ascertain whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question may be avoided.” Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932); see also United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U. S. 64, 78 (1994); United States v. Jin Fuey Moy, 241 U. S. 394, 401 (1916); cf. Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U. S. 224, 238 (1998) (construction of statute that avoids invalidation best reflects congressional will). We have read significant limitations into other immigration statutes in order to avoid their constitutional invalidation. See United States v. Witkovich, 353 U. S. 194, 195, 202 (1957) (construing a grant of authority to the Attorney General to ask aliens whatever questions he “deem[s] fit and proper” as limited to questions “reasonably calculated to keep the Attorney General advised regarding the continued availability for departure of aliens whose deportation is overdue”). For similar reasons, we read an implicit limitation into the statute before us. In our view, the statute, read in light of the Constitution’s demands, limits an alien’s post-removal-period detention to a period reasonably necessary to bring about that alien’s removal from the United States. It does not permit indefinite detention.
A
A statute permitting indefinite detention of an alien would raise a serious constitutional problem. The Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause forbids the Government to “de-priv[e]” any "person... of... liberty... without due process of law.” Freedom from imprisonment — from government custody, detention, or other forms of physical restraint — lies at the heart of the liberty that Clause protects. See Foucha v. Louisiana, 504 U. S. 71, 80 (1992). And this Court has said that government detention violates that Clause unless the detention is ordered in a criminal proceeding with adequate procedural protections, see United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 746 (1987), or, in certain special and “narrow” nonpunitive “circumstances,” Foucha, supra, at 80, where a special justification, such as harm-threatening mental illness, outweighs the “individual’s constitutionally protected interest in avoiding physical restraint.” Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U. S. 346, 356 (1997).
The proceedings at issue here are civil, not criminal, and we assume that they are nonpunitive in purpose and effect. There is no sufficiently strong special justification here for indefinite civil detention — at least as administered under this statute. The statute, says the Government, has two regulatory goals: “ensuring the appearance of aliens at future immigration proceedings” and “[preventing danger to the community.” Brief for Respondents in No. 99-7791, p. 24. But by definition the first justification — preventing flight — is weak or nonexistent where removal seems a remote possibility at best. As this Court said in Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U. S. 715 (1972), where detention’s goal is no longer practically attainable, detention no longer “bear[s] [a] reasonable relation to the purpose for which the individual [was] committed.” Id., at 738.
The second justification — protecting the community — does not necessarily diminish in force over time. But we have upheld preventive detention based on dangerousness only when limited to specially dangerous individuals and subject to strong procedural protections. Compare Hendricks, swpm, at 368 (upholding scheme that imposes detention upon “a small segment of particularly dangerous individuals” and provides “strict procedural safeguards”), and Salerno, supra, at 747, 750-752 (in upholding pretrial detention, stressing “stringent time limitations,” the fact that detention is reserved for the “most serious of crimes,” the requirement of proof of dangerousness by clear and convincing evidence, and the presence of judicial safeguards), with Foucha, supra, at 81-83 (striking down insanity-related detention system that placed burden on detainee to prove nondangerousness). In cases in which preventive detention is of potentially indefinite duration, we have also demanded that the dangerousness rationale be accompanied by some other special circumstance, such as mental illness, that helps to create the danger. See Hendricks, supra, at 358, 368.
The civil confinement here at issue is not limited, but potentially permanent. Cf. Salerno, supra, at 747 (noting that “maximum length of pretrial detention is limited” by “stringent” requirements); Carlson v. Landon, 342 U. S. 524, 545-546 (1952) (upholding temporary detention of alien during deportation proceeding while noting that “problem of... unusual delay” was not present). The provision authorizing detention does not apply narrowly to “a small segment of particularly dangerous individuals,” Hendricks, supra, at 368, say, suspected terrorists, but broadly to aliens ordered removed for many and various reasons, including tourist visa violations. See 8 U. S. C. § 1231(a)(6) (1994 ed., Supp. V) (referencing § 1227(a)(1)(C)); cf. Hendricks, 521 U. S., at 357-358 (only individuals with “past sexually violent behavior and a present mental condition that creates a likelihood of such conduct in the future” may be detained). And, once the flight risk justification evaporates, the only special circumstance present is the alien’s removable status itself, which bears no relation to a detainee’s dangerousness. Cf. id., at 358; Foucha, supra, at 82.
Moreover, the sole procedural protections available to the alien are found in administrative proceedings, where the alien bears the burden of proving he is not dangerous, without (in the Government’s view) significant later judicial review. Compare 8 CFR § 241.4(d)(1) (2001) (imposing burden of proving nondangerousness upon alien) with Foucha, supra, at 82 (striking down insanity-related detention for that very reason). This Court has suggested, however, that the Constitution may well preclude granting “an administrative body the unreviewable authority to make determinations implicating fundamental rights.” Superintendent, Mass. Correctional Institution at Walpole v. Hill, 472 U. S. 445, 450 (1985) (O’Connor, J.); see also Crowell, 285 U. S., at 87 (Brandeis, J., dissenting) (“[U]nder certain circumstances, the constitutional requirement of due process is a requirement of judicial process”). The Constitution demands greater procedural protection even for property. See South Carolina v. Regan, 465 U. S. 367, 393 (1984) (O’CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment); Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U. S. 589, 595-597 (1931) (Brandeis, J.). The serious constitutional problem arising out of a statute that, in these circum: stances, permits an indefinite, perhaps permanent, deprivation of human liberty without any such protection is obvious.
The Government argues that, from a constitutional perspective, alien status itself can justify indefinite detention, and points to Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U. S. 206 (1953), as support. That case involved a once lawfully admitted alien who left the United States, returned after a trip abroad, was refused admission, and was left on Ellis Island, indefinitely detained there because the Government could not find another country to accept him. The Court held that Mezei’s detention did not violate the Constitution. Id., at 215-216.
Although Mezei, like the present cases, involves indefinite detention, it differs from the present cases in a critical respect. As the Court emphasized, the alien’s extended departure from the United States required him to seek entry into this country once again. His presence on Ellis Island did not count as entry into the United States. Hence, he was “treated,” for constitutional purposes, “as if stopped at the border.” Id., at 213, 215. And that made all the difference.
The distinction between an alien who has effected an entry into the United States and one who has never entered runs throughout immigration law. See Kaplan v. Tod, 267 U. S. 228, 230 (1925) (despite nine years’ presence in the United States, an “excluded” alien “was still in theory of law at the boundary line and had gained no foothold in the United States”); Leng May Ma v. Barber, 357 U. S. 185, 188-190 (1958) (alien “paroled” into the United States pending admissibility had not effected an “entry”). It is well established that certain constitutional protections available to persons inside the United States are unavailable to aliens outside of our geographic borders. See United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U. S. 259, 269 (1990) (Fifth Amendment’s protections do not extend to aliens outside the territorial boundaries); Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U. S. 763, 784 (1950) (same). But once an alien enters the country, the legal circumstance changes, for the Due Process Clause applies to all “persons” within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent. See Plyler v. Doe, 457 U. S. 202, 210 (1982); Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U. S. 67, 77 (1976); Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding, 344 U. S. 590, 596-598, and n. 5 (1953); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 369 (1886); cf. Mezei, supra, at 212 (“[A]liens who have once passed through our gates, even illegally, may be expelled only after proceedings conforming to traditional standards of fairness encompassed in due process of law”). Indeed, this Court has held that the Due Process Clause protects an alien subject to a final order of deportation, see Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U. S. 228, 238 (1896), though the nature of that protection may vary depending upon status and circumstance, see Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U. S. 21, 32-34 (1982); Johnson, supra, at 770.
In Wong Wing, supra, the Court held unconstitutional a statute that imposed a year of hard labor upon aliens subject to a final deportation order. That case concerned substantive protections for aliens who had been ordered removed, not procedural protections for aliens whose removability was being determined. Cf. post, at 704 (Scalia, J., dissenting). The Court held that punitive measures could not be imposed upon aliens ordered removed because “all persons within the territory of the United States are entitled to the protection” of the Constitution. 163 U. S., at 238 (citing Yick Wo, supra, at 369 (holding that equal protection guarantee applies to Chinese aliens)); see also Witkovich, 353 U. S., at 199, 201 (construing statute which applied to aliens ordered deported in order to avoid substantive constitutional problems). And contrary to Justice Scalia’s characterization, see post, at 703-705, in Mezei itself, both this Court’s rejection of Mezei’s challenge to the procedures by which he was deemed excludable and its rejection of his challenge to continued detention rested upon a basic territorial distinction. See Mezei, supra, at 215 (holding that Mezei’s presence bn Ellis Island was not “considered a landing” and did “not affecft]” his legal or constitutional status (internal quotation marks omitted)).
In light of this critical distinction between Mezei and the present cases, Mezei does not offer the Government significant support, and we need not consider the aliens’ claim that subsequent developments have undermined Mezei’s, legal authority. See Brief for Petitioner in No. 99-7791, p. 23; Brief for Respondent in No. 00-38, pp. 16-17; Brief for Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights as Amicus Curiae in No. 00-38, pp. 15-20. Nor are we aware of any other authority that would support Justice Kennedy’s limitation of due process protection for removable aliens to freedom from detention that is arbitrary or capricious. See post, at 717-722 (dissenting opinion).
The Government also looks for support to cases holding that Congress has “plenary power” to create immigration law, and that the Judicial Branch must defer to Executive and Legislative Branch decisionmaking in that area. Brief for Respondents in No. 99-7791, at 17, 20 (citing Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U. S. 580, 588-589 (1952)). But that power is subject to important constitutional limitations. See INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 941-942 (1983) (Congress must choose “a epnstitutionally permissible means of implementing” that power); The Chinese Exclusion Case, 130 U. S. 581, 604 (1889) (congressional authority limited “by the Constitution itself and considerations of public policy and justice which control, more or less, the conduct of all civilized nations”). In these cases, we focus upon those limitations. In doing so, we nowhere deny the right of Congress to remove aliens, to subject them to supervision with conditions when released from detention, or to incarcerate them where appropriate for violations of those conditions. See 8 U. S. C. § 1231(a)(3) (1994 ed., Supp. V) (granting authority to Attorney General to prescribe regulations governing supervision of aliens not removed within 90 days); § 1253 (imposing penalties for failure to comply with release conditions). The question before us is not one of “ ‘conferring] on those admitted the right to remain against the national will’” or ‘“sufferance of aliens’” who should be removed. Post, at 703 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (emphasis deleted) (quoting Mezei, 345 U. S., at 222-223 (Jackson, J., dissenting)). Rather, the issue we address is whether aliens that the Government finds itself unable to remove are to be condemned to an indefinite term of imprisonment within the United States.
Nor do the cases before us require us to consider the political branches’ authority to control entry into the United States. Hence we leave no “unprotected spot in the Nation’s armor.” Kwong Hai Chew, 344 U. S., at 602. Neither do we consider terrorism or other special circumstances where special arguments might be made for forms of preventive detention and for heightened deference to the judgments of the political branches with respect to matters of national security. The sole foreign policy consideration the Government mentions here is the concern lest courts interfere with “sensitive” repatriation negotiations. Brief for Respondents in No. 99-7791, at 21. But neither the Government nor the dissents explain how a habeas court’s efforts to determine the likelihood of repatriation, if handled with appropriate sensitivity, could make a significant difference in this respect. See infra, at 699-700.
Finally, the Government argues that, whatever liberty interest the aliens possess, it is “greatly diminished” by their lack of a legal right to “liv[e] at large in this country.” Brief for Respondents in No. 99-7791, at 47; see also post, at 703 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (characterizing right at issue as “right to release into this country”). The choice, however, is not between imprisonment and the alien “living at large.” Brief for Respondents in No. 99-7791, at 47. It is between imprisonment and supervision under release conditions that may not be violated. See supra, at 695 (citing 8 U. S. C. §§ 1231(a)(3), 1253 (1994 ed., Supp. V)); 8 CFR §241.5 (2001) (establishing conditions of release after removal period). And, for the reasons we have set forth, we believe that an alien’s liberty interest is, at the least, strong enough to raise a serious question as to whether, irrespective of the procedures used, cf. post, at 722-724 (Kennedy, J., dissenting), the Constitution permits detention that is indefinite and potentially permanent.
B
Despite this constitutional problem, if “Congress has made its intent” in the statute “clear, 'we must give effect to that intent.’ ” Miller v. French, 530 U. S. 327, 336 (2000) (quoting Sinclair Refining Co. v. Atkinson, 370 U. S. 195, 215 (1962)). We cannot find here, however, any clear indication of congressional intent to grant the Attorney General the power to hold indefinitely in confinement an alien ordered removed. And that is so whether protecting the community from dangerous aliens is a primary or (as we believe) secondary statutory purpose. Cf. post, at 706, 708-709 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). After all, the provision is part of. a statute that has as its basic purpose effectuating an alien’s removal. Why should we assume that Congress saw the alien’s dangerousness as unrelated to this purpose?
The Government points to the statute’s word “may.” But while “may” suggests discretion, it does not necessarily suggest unlimited discretion. In that respect the word “may” is ambiguous. Indeed, if Congress had meant to authorize long-term detention of unremovable aliens, it certainly could have spoken in clearer terms. Cf. 8 U. S. C. § 1537(b)(2)(C) (1994 ed., Supp. V) (“If no country is willing to receive” a terrorist alien ordered removed, “the Attorney General may, notwithstanding any other provision of law, retain the alien in custody” and must review the detention determination every six months).
The Government points to similar related statutes that require detention of criminal aliens during removal proceedings and the removal period, and argues that these show that mandatory detention is the rule while discretionary release is the narrow exception. See Brief for Petitioners in No. 00-38, at 26-28 (citing 8 U. S. C. §§ 1226(c), 1231(a)(2)). But the statute before us applies not only to terrorists and criminals, but also to ordinary visa violators, see supra, at 691; and, more importantly, post-removal-period detention, unlike detention pending a determination of removability or during the subsequent 90-day removal period, has no obvious termination point.
The Government also points to the statute’s history. That history catalogs a series of changes, from an initial period (before 1952) when lower courts had interpreted statutory silence, Immigration Act of 1917, ch. 29, §§ 19, 20, 39 Stat. 889, 890, to mean that deportation-related detention must end within a reasonable time, Spector v. Landon, 209 F. 2d 481, 482 (CA9 1954) (collecting cases); United States ex rel. Doukas v. Wiley, 160 F. 2d 92, 95 (CA7 1947); United States ex rel. Ross v. Wallis, 279 F. 401, 403-404 (CA2 1922), to a period (from the early 1950’s through the late 1980’s) when the statutes permitted, but did not require, post-deportation-order detention for up to six months, Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, § 242(c), 66 Stat. 210, 8 U. S. C. §§ 1252(c), (d) (1982 ed.); Witkovich, 353 U. 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:
|
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.
Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971), held that a “cause of action for damages” arises under the Constitution when Fourth Amendment rights are violated. The issue presented for decision in this case is whether a cause of action and a damages remedy can also be implied directly under the Constitution when.the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment is violated. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, en banc, concluded that “no civil action for damages” can be thus implied. 571 F. 2d 793, 801 (1978). We granted certiorari, 439 U. S. 925 (1978), and we now reverse.
I
At the time this case commenced, respondent Otto E. Passman was a United States Congressman from the Fifth Congressional District of Louisiana. On February 1, 1974, Passman hired petitioner Shirley Davis as a deputy administrative assistant. Passman subsequently terminated her employment, effective July 31, 1974, writing Davis that, although she was “able, energetic and a very hard worker,” he had concluded “that it was essential that the understudy to my Administrative Assistant be a man.” App. 6.
Davis brought suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, alleging that Passman’s conduct discriminated against her “on the basis of sex in violation of the United States Constitution and the Fifth Amendment thereto.” Id., at 4. Davis sought damages in the form of backpay. Id., at 5. Jurisdiction for her suit was founded on 28 U. S. C. § 1331 (a), which provides in pertinent part that federal “district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions wherein the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $10,000... and arises under the Constitution... of the United States....”
Passman moved to dismiss Davis’ action for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 12 (b)(6), arguing, inter alia, that “the law affords no private right of action” for her claim. App. 8. The District Court accepted this argument, ruling that Davis had “no private right of action.” Id., at 9. A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed. 544 F. 2d 865 (1977). The- panel concluded that a cause of action for damages arose directly under the Fifth Amendment; that, taking as true the allegations in Davis’ complaint, Passman’s conduct violated the Fifth Amendment; and that Passman’s conduct was not shielded by the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, § 6, cl. I.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed the decision of the panel. The en banc court did not reach the merits, nor did it discuss the application of the Speech or Debate Clause. The court instead held that “no right of action may be implied from the Due Process Clause of the fifth amendment.” 571 F. 2d, at 801. The court reached this conclusion on the basis of the criteria that had been set out in Cort v. Ash, 422 U. S. 66 (1975), for determining whether a private cause of action should be implied from a federal statute. Noting that Congress had failed to create a damages remedy for those in Davis’ position, the court also concluded that “the proposed damage remedy is not constitutionally compelled” so that it was not necessary to “countermand the clearly discernible will of Congress” and create such a remedy. 571 F. 2d, at 800.
II
In Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, federal agents had allegedly arrested and searched Bivens without probable cause, thereby subjecting him to great humiliation, embarrassment, and mental suffering. Bivens held that the Fourth Amendment guarantee against “unreasonable searches and seizures” was a constitutional right which Bivens could enforce through a private cause of action, and that a damages remedy was an appropriate form of redress. Last Term, Butz v. Economou, 438 U. S. 478 (1978), reaffirmed this holding, stating that “the decision in Bivens established that a citizen suffering a compensable injury to a constitutionally protected interest could invoke the general federal-question jurisdiction of the district courts to obtain an award of monetary damages against the responsible federal official.” Id., at 504.
Today we hold that Bivens and Butz require reversal of the holding of the en banc Court of Appeals. Our inquiry proceeds in three stages. We hold first that, pretermitting the question whether respondent’s conduct is shielded by the Speech or Debate Clause, petitioner asserts a constitutionally protected right; second, that petitioner has stated a cause of action which asserts this right; and third, that relief in damages constitutes an appropriate form of remedy.
A
The Fifth Amendment provides that “[n]o person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law....” In numerous decisions, this Court “has held that the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment forbids the Federal Government to deny equal protection of the laws. E. g., Hampton v. Mow Sun Wong, 426 U. S. 88, 100 (1976); Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 93 (1976); Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S. 636, 638 n. 2 (1975); Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497, 500 (1954).” Vance v. Bradley, 440 U. S. 93, 95 n. 1 (1979). “To withstand scrutiny under the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, ‘classifications by gender must serve important governmental objectives and must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives.’ Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190, 197 (1976).” Califano v. Webster, 430 U. S. 313, 316-317 (1977). The equal protection component of the Due Process Clause thus confers on petitioner a federal constitutional right to be free from gender discrimination which cannot meet these requirements. We inquire next whether petitioner has a cause of action to assert this right.
B
It is clear that the District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1331 (a) to consider petitioner’s claim. Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678 (1946). It is equally clear, and the en banc Court of Appeals so held, that the Fifth Amendment confers on petitioner a constitutional right to be free from illegal discrimination. Yet the Court of Appeals concluded that petitioner could not enforce this right because she lacked a cause of action. The meaning of this missing “cause of action,” however, is far from apparent.
Almost half a century ago, Mr. Justice Cardozo recognized that a “ ‘cause of action’ may mean one thing for one purpose and something different for another.” United States v. Memphis Cotton Oil Co., 288 U. S. 62, 67-68 (1933). The phrase apparently became a legal term of art when the New York Code of Procedure of 1848 abolished the distinction between actions at law and suits in equity and simply required a plaintiff to include in his complaint “[a] statement of the facts constituting the cause of action....” 1848 N. Y. Laws, ch. 379, § 120 (2). By the first third of the 20th century, however, the phrase had become so encrusted with doctrinal complexity that the authors of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure eschewed it altogether, requiring only that a complaint contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 8 (a). See Original Ballet Russe, Ltd. v. Ballet Theatre, Inc., 133 F. 2d 187, 189 (CA2 1943). Nevertheless, courts and commentators have continued to use the phrase “cause of action” in the traditional sense established by the Codes to refer roughly to the alleged invasion of “recognized legal rights” upon which a litigant bases his claim for relief. Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U. S. 682, 693 (1949).
This is not the meaning of the “cause of action” which the Court of Appeals below refused to imply from the Fifth Amendment, however, for the court acknowledged that petitioner had alleged an invasion of her constitutional right to be free from illegal discrimination. Instead the Court of Appeals appropriated the meaning of the phrase “cause of action” used in the many cases in which this Court has parsed congressional enactments to determine whether the rights and obligations so created could be judicially enforced by a particular “class of litigants.” Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 688 (1979). Securities Investor Protection Corp. v. Barbour, 421 U. S. 412 (1975), for example, held that although “Congress’ primary purpose in... creating the SIPC was... the protection of investors,” and although investors were thus “the intended beneficiaries of the [Securities Investor Protection] Act [of 1970],” 84 Stat. 1636, 15 U. S. C. i 78aaa et seq., investors nevertheless had no private cause of action judicially to compel SIPC “to commit its funds or otherwise to act for the protection” of investors. 421 U. S., at 418, 421. We held that under the Act only the Securities and Exchange Commission had a cause of action enabling it to invoke judicial authority to require SIPC to perform its statutory obligations. On the other hand, Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Railway & Steamship Clerks, 281 U. S. 548 (1930), held that § 2 of the Railway Labor Act of 1926, 44 Stat. 577, 45 U. S. C. § 152, which provides that railroad employees be able to designate representatives “without interference, influence, or coercion,” did not confer “merely an abstract right,” but was judicially enforceable through a private cause of action. 281 U. S., at 558, 567-568.
In cases such as these, the question is which class of litigants may enforce in court legislatively created rights or obligations. If a litigant is an appropriate party to invoke the power of the courts; it is said that he has a “cause of action” under the statute, and that this cause of action is a necessary element of his “claim.” So understood, the question whether a litigant has a “cause of action” is analytically distinct and prior to the question of what relief, if any, a litigant may be entitled to receive. The concept of a “cause of action” is employed specifically to determine who may judicially enforce the statutory rights or obligations.
It is in this sense that the Court of Appeals concluded that petitioner lacked a cause of action. The Court of Appeals reached this conclusion through the application of the criteria set out in Cort v. Ash, 422 U. S. 66 (1975), for ascertaining whether a private cause of action may be implied from “a statute not expressly providing one.” Id., at 78. The Court of Appeals used these criteria to determine that those in petitioner’s position should not be able to enforce the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, and that petitioner therefore had no cause of action under the Amendment. This was error, for the question of who may enforce a statutory right is fundamentally different from the question of who may enforce a right that is protected by the Constitution.
Statutory rights and obligations are established by Congress, and it is entirely appropriate for Congress, in creating these rights and obligations, to determine in addition who may enforce them and in what manner. For example, statutory rights and obligations are often embedded in complex regulatory schemes, so that if they are not enforced through private causes of action, they may nevertheless be enforced through alternative mechanisms, such as criminal prosecutions, see Cort v. Ash, supra, or other public causes of actions. See Securities Investor Protection Corp. v. Barbour, supra; National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. National Assn, of Railroad Passengers, 414 U. S. 453, 457 (1974). In each case, however, the question is the nature of the legislative intent informing a specific statute, and Cort set out the criteria through which this intent could be discerned.
The Constitution, on the other hand, does not “partake of the prolixity of a legal code.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 407 (1819). It speaks instead with a majestic simplicity. One of “its important objects,” ibid., is the designation of rights. And in “its great outlines,” ibid., the judiciary is clearly discernible as the primary means through which these rights may be enforced. As James Madison stated when he presented the Bill of Rights to the Congress:
“If [these rights] are incorporated into the Constitution, independent tribunals of justice will consider themselves in a peculiar manner the guardians of those rights; they will be an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the Legislative or Executive; they will be naturally led to resist every encroachment upon rights expressly stipulated for in the Constitution by the declaration of rights.” 1 Annals of Cong. 439 (1789).
At least in the absence of “a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of [an] issue to a coordinate political department,” Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 217 (1962), we presume that justiciable constitutional rights are to be enforced through the courts. And, unless such rights are to become merely precatory, the class of those litigants who allege that their own constitutional rights have been violated, and who at the same time have no effective means other than the judiciary to enforce these rights, must be able to invoke the existing jurisdiction of the courts for the protection of their justiciable constitutional rights. “The very essence of civil liberty,” wrote Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 163 (1803), “certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection.” Traditionally, therefore, “it is established practice for this Court to sustain the jurisdiction of federal courts to issue injunctions to protect rights safeguarded by the Constitution and to restrain individual state officers from doing what the 14th Amendment forbids the State to do.” Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S., at 684. See Bivens, 403 U. S., at 400 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgment). Indeed, this Court has already settled that a cause of action may be implied directly under the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment in favor of those who seek to enforce this constitutional right. The plaintiffs in Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497 (1954), for example, claimed that they had been refused admission into certain public schools in the District of Columbia solely on account of their race. They rested their suit directly on the Fifth Amendment and on the general federal-question jurisdiction of the district courts, 28 U. S. C. § 1331. The District Court dismissed their complaint for failure “to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 12(b)(6). This Court reversed. Plaintiffs were clearly the appropriate parties to bring such a suit, and this Court held that equitable relief should be made available. 349 U. S. 294 (1955).
Like the plaintiffs in Bolling v. Sharpe, supra, petitioner rests her claim directly on the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. She claims that her rights under the Amendment have been violated, and that she has no effective means other than the judiciary to vindicate these rights. We conclude, therefore, that she is an appropriate party to invoke the general federal-question jurisdiction of the District Court to seek relief. She has a cause of action under the Fifth Amendment.
Although petitioner has a cause of action, her complaint might nevertheless be dismissed under Rule 12 (b)(6) unless it can be determined that judicial relief is available. We therefore proceed to consider whether a damages remedy is an appropriate form of relief.
c
We approach this inquiry on the basis of established law. “[I]t is... well settled that where legal rights have been invaded, and a federal statute provides for a general right to sue for such invasion, federal courts may use any available remedy to make good the wrong done.” Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S., at 684. Bivens, 403 U. S., at 396, holds that in appropriate circumstances a federal district court may provide relief in damages for the violation of constitutional rights if there are “no special factors counselling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress.” See Butz v. Economou, 438 U. S., at 604.
First, a damages remedy is surely appropriate in this case. “Historically, damages have been regarded as the ordinary remedy for an invasion of personal interests in liberty.” Bivens, supra, at 395. Eelief in damages would be judicially manageable, for the case presents a focused remedial issue without difficult questions of valuation or causation. See 403 U. S., at 409 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgment). Litigation under Title VII of the Civil Eights Act of 1964 has given federal courts great experience evaluating claims for backpay due to illegal sex discrimination. See 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5 (g). Moreover, since respondent is no longer a Congressman, see n. 1, supra, equitable relief in the form of reinstatement would be unavailing. And there are available no other alternative forms of judicial relief. For Davis, as for Bivens, “it is damages or nothing.” Bivens, supra, at 410 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgment).
Second, although a suit against a Congressman for putatively unconstitutional actions taken in the course of his official conduct does raise special concerns counseling hesitation, we hold that these concerns are coextensive with the protections afforded by the Speech or Debate Clause. See n. 11, supra. If respondent’s actions are not shielded by the Clause, we apply the principle that “legislators ought... generally to be bound by [the law] as are ordinary persons.” Gravel v. United States, 408 U. S. 606, 615 (1972). Cf. Doe v. McMillan, 412 U. S. 306, 320 (1973). As Buts v. Economou stated only last Term:
“Our system of jurisprudence rests on the assumption that all individuals, whatever their position in government, are subject to federal law:
“ 'No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law, and are bound to obey it.’ United States v. Lee, 106 U. S. [196,] 220 [ (1882) ].” 438 U. S., at 506.
Third, there is in this case “no explicit congressional declaration that persons” in petitioner’s position injured by unconstitutional federal employment discrimination “may not recover money damages from” those responsible for the injury. Bivens, supra, at 397. (Emphasis supplied.) The Court of Appeals apparently interpreted § 717 of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 86 Stat. Ill, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-16, as an explicit congressional prohibition against judicial remedies for those in petitioner’s position. When § 717 was added to Title VII to protect federal employees from discrimination, it failed to extend this protection to congressional employees such as petitioner who are not in the competitive service.- See 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-16 (a). There is no evidence, however, that Congress meant § 717 to foreclose alternative remedies available to those not covered by the statute. Such silence is far from “the clearly discernible will of Congress” perceived by the Court of Appeals. 571 F. 2d, at 800. Indeed, the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that § 717 permits judicial relief to be made available only to those who are protected by the statute is patently inconsistent with Hampton v. Mow Sun Wong, 426 U. S. 88 (1976), which held that equitable relief was available in a challenge to the constitutionality of Civil Service Commission regulations excluding aliens from federal employment. That § 717 does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of alienage did not prevent Hampton from authorizing relief. In a similar manner, we do not now interpret § 717 to foreclose the judicial remedies of those expressly unprotected by the statute. On the contrary, § 717 leaves undisturbed whatever remedies petitioner might otherwise possess.
Finally, the Court of Appeals appeared concerned that, if a damages remedy were made available to petitioner, the danger existed “of deluging federal courts with claims... 571 F. 2d, at 800. We do not perceive the potential for such a deluge. By virtue of 42 U. S. C. § 1983, a damages remedy is already available to. redr ess injuries such as petitioner’s when they occur under color of state law. Moreover, a plaintiff seeking a damages remedy under the Constitution must first demonstrate that his constitutional rights have been violated. We do not hold that every tort by a federal official may be redressed in damages. See Wheeldin v. Wheeler, 373 U. S. 647 (1963). And, of course, were Congress to create equally effective alternative remedies, the need for damages relief might be obviated. See Bivens, 403 U. S., at 397. But perhaps the most fundamental answer to the concerns expressed by the Court of Appeals is that provided by Mr. Justice Harlan concurring in Bivens:
“Judicial resources, I am well aware, are increasingly scarce these days. Nonetheless, when we automatically close the courthouse door solely on this basis, we implicitly express a value judgment on the comparative importance of classes of legally protected interests. And current limitations upon the effective functioning of the courts arising from budgetary inadequacies should not be permitted to stand in the way of the recognition of otherwise sound constitutional principles.” Id., at 411.
We conclude, therefore, that in this case, as in Bivens, if petitioner is able to prevail on the merits, she should be able to redress her injury in damages, a “remedial mechanism normally available in the federal courts.” Id., at 397.
Ill
We hold today that the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, en banc, must be reversed because petitioner has a cause of action under the Fifth Amendment, and because her injury may be redressed by a damages remedy. The Court of Appeals did not consider, however, whether respondent’s conduct was shielded by the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution. Accordingly, we do not reach this question. And, of course, we express no opinion as to the merits of petitioner’s complaint.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
Passman was defeated in the 1976 primary election, and his tenure in office ended January 3, 1977.
In her complaint, Davis avers that her “salary was $18,000.00 per year with the expectation of a promotion to defendant’s administrative assistant at a salary of $32,000.00 per year upon the imminent retirement of defendant’s current administrative assistant.” App. 4.
Davis was not hired through the competitive service. See 2 U. S. C. §92.
The full text of Passman’s letter is as follows:
Dear Mrs. Davis:
My Washington staff joins me in saying that we miss you very much. But, in all probability, inwardly they all agree that I was doing you an injustice by asking you to assume a responsibility that was so trying and so hard that it would have taken all of the pleasure out of your work. I must be completely fair with you, so please note the following:
You are able, energetic and a very hard worker. Certainly you command the respect of those with whom you work; however, on account of the unusuaEy heavy work load in my Washington Office, and the diversity of the job, I concluded that it was essential that the understudy to my Administrative Assistant be a man. I believe you will agree with this conclusion.
It would be unfair to you for me to ask you to waste your talent and experience in my Monroe office because of the low salary that is available because of a junior position. Therefore, and so that your experience and talent may be used to advantage in some organization in need of an extremely capable secretary, I desire that you be continued on the payroll at your present salary through July 31, 1974. This arrangement gives you your full year’s vacation of one month, plus one additional month. May I further say that the work load in the Monroe office is very limited, and since you would come in as a junior member of the staff at such a low salary, it would actually be an offense to you.
I know that secretaries with your ability are very much in demand in Monroe. If an additional letter of recommendation from me would be advantageous to you, do not hesitate to let me know. Again, assuring you that my Washington staff and your humble Congressman feel that the contribution you made to our Washington office has helped all of us.
With best wishes,
Sincerely, /s/ Otto E. Passman OTTO E. PASSMAN Member of Congress
App. 6-7.
Davis also sought equitable relief in the form of reinstatement, as well as a promotion and salary increase. Id., at 4-5. Since Passman is no longer a Congressman, however, see n. 1, supra, these forms of relief are no longer available.
Passman also argued that his alleged conduct was “not violative of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution,” and that relief was barred “by reason of the sovereign immunity doctrine and the official immunity doctrine.” App. 8.
The District Court also ruled that, although “the doctrines of sovereign and official immunity” did not justify dismissal of Davis’ complaint, “the discharge of plaintiff on alleged grounds of sex discrimination by defendant is not violative of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.” Id., at 9.
The panel also held that, although sovereign immunity did not bar a damages award against Passman individually, he was entitled at trial to a defense of qualified immunity.
The criteria set out in Cort v. Ash are:
“First, is the plaintiff 'one of the class for whose especial benefit the statute was enacted,’ Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Rigsby, 241 U. S. 33, 39 (1916) (emphasis supplied) — that is, does the statute create a federal right in favor of the plaintiff? Second, is there any indication of legislative intent, explicit or implicit, either to create such a remedy or to deny one? See, e. g., National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. National Assn. of Railroad Passengers, 414 U. S. 453, 458, 460 (1974) [Amtrak). Third, is it consistent with the underlying purposes of the legislative scheme to imply such a remedy for the plaintiff? See, e. g., Amtrak, supra; Securities Investor Protection Corp. v. Barbour, 421 U. S. 412, 423 (1975); Calhoon v. Harvey, 379 U. S. 134 (1964). And finally, is the cause of action one traditionally relegated to state law, in an area basically the concern of the States, so that it would be inappropriate to infer a cause of action based solely on federal law? See Wheeldin v. Wheeler, 373 U. S. 647, 652 (1963); cf. J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U. S. 426, 434 (1964); Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388, 394-395 (1971); id., at 400 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgment).” 422 U. S., at 78.
The Court of Appeals had some difficulty applying these criteria to determine whether a cause of action should be implied under the Constitution. It eventually concluded, however, (1) that although “the fifth amendment right to due process certainly confers a right upon Davis, the injury alleged here does not infringe this right as directly as” the violation of the Fourth Amendment rights alleged in Bivens, 571 F. 2d, at 797; (2) that “ [congressional remedial legislation for employment discrimination has carefully avoided creating a cause of action for money damages for one in Davis’ position,” id., at 798; (3) that, unlike violations of the Fourth Amendment, “the breadth of the concept of due process indicates that the damage remedy sought will not be judicially manageable,” id., at 799; and (4) that implying a cause of action under the Due Process Clause would create “the danger of deluging 'federal courts with claims otherwise redressable in state courts or administrative proceedings....” Id., at 800.
Before it can be determined whether petitioner’s Fifth Amendment right has been violated, therefore, inquiry must be undertaken into what “important governmental objectives,” if any, are served by the gender-based employment of congressional staff. See n. 21, infra. We express no views as to the outcome of this inquiry.
This right is personal; it is petitioner, after all, who must suffer the effects of such discrimination. See Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 690-693, n. 13 (1979); cf. Monongahela Navigation Co. v. United States, 148 U. S. 312, 326 (1893).
Respondent argues that the subject matter of petitioner’s suit is non-justiciable because judicial review of congressional employment decisions would necessarily involve a “lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government.” Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 217 (1962). We disagree. While we, acknowledge the gravity of respondent’s concerns, we hold that judicial review of congressional employment decisions is constitutionally limited only by the reach of the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, § 6, el. 1. The Clause provides that Senators and Representatives, “for any Speech or Debate in either House,... shall not be questioned in any other Place.” It protects Congressmen for conduct necessary to perform their duties “within the ‘sphere of legitimate legislative activity.’ ” Eastland v. United States Servicemen’s Fund, 421 U. S. 491, 501 (1975). The purpose of the Clause is “to protect the integrity of the legislative process by insuring the independence of individual legislators.” United States v. Brewster, 408 U. S. 501, 507 (1972). Thus “[i]n the American governmental structure the clause serves the... function of reinforcing the separation of powers so deliberately established by the Founders.” United States v. Johnson, 383 U. S. 169, 178 (1966). The Clause is therefore a paradigm example of “a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of [an] issue to a coordinate political department.” Baker v. Carr, supra, at 217. Since the Speech or Debate Clause speaks so directly to the separation-of-powers concerns raised by respondent, we conclude that if respondent is not shielded by the Clause, the question whether his dismissal of petitioner violated her Fifth Amendment rights would, as we stated in Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486, 548-549 (1969), “require no more than an interpretation of the Constitution. Such a determination falls within the traditional role accorded courts to interpret the law, and does not involve a ‘lack of respect due [a] coordinate branch of government,’ nor does it involve an ‘initial policy determination of a kind clearly for non-judicial discretion.’ Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, at 217.’’
The en banc Court of Appeals did not decide whether the conduct of respondent was shielded by the Speech or Debate Clause. In the absence of such a decision, we also intimate no view on this question. We note, however, that the Clause shields 'federal legislators with absolute immunity “not only from the consequences of litigation’s results but also from the burden of defending themselves.” Dombrowski v. Eastland, 387 U. S. 82, 85 (1967). Defenses based upon the Clause should thus ordinarily be given priority, since federal legislators should be exempted from litigation if their conduct is in fact protected by the Clause. We nevertheless decline to remand this case to the en banc Court of Appeals before we have decided whether petitioner’s complaint states a cause of action, and whether a damages remedy is an appropriate form of relief. These questions are otherwise properly before us and may be resolved without imposing on respondent additional litigative burdens. Refusal to decide them at this time may actually increase these burdens.
The restraints of the Fifth Amendment reach 'far enough to embrace the official actions of a Congressman in hiring and dismissing his employees. That respondent’s conduct may have been illegal does not suffice to transform it into merely private action. “[P]ower, once granted, does not disappear like a magic gift when it is wrongfully used.” Bivens, 403 U. S., at 392. See Home Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Los Angeles, 227 U. S. 278, 287-289 (1913).
See United States v. Dickinson, 331 U. S. 745, 748 (1947); Arnold, The Code “Cause of Action” Clarified by United States Supreme Court, 19 A. B. A. J. 215 (1933).
See Clark, The Code Cause of Action, 33 Yale L. J. 817, 820 (1924) ; Blume, The Scope of a Civil Action, 42 Mich. L. Rev. 257 (1943).
See, e. g., United States v. Employing Plasterers Assn., 347 U. S. 186 (1954); 2A J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 8.13, pp. 1704-1705 (2d ed. 1975) (“Perhaps it is not entirely accurate to say, as one court has said, that 'it is only necessary to state a claim in the pleadings... and not a cause of action.’ While the Rules have substituted 'claim’ or 'claim for relief’ in lieu of the older and troublesome term 'cause of action,’ the pleading still must state a 'cause of action’ in the sense that it must show 'that the pleader is entitled to relief.' It is not enough to indicate merely that the plaintiff has a grievance but sufficient detail must be given so that the defendant, and the court, can obtain a fair idea of what
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 Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We brought these cases here to consider certain questions arising under the Smith Act which have not heretofore been passed upon by this Court, and otherwise to review the convictions of these petitioners for conspiracy to violate that Act. Among other things, the convictions are claimed to rest upon an application of the Smith Act which is hostile to the principles upon which its constitutionality was upheld in Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494.
These 14 petitioners stand convicted, after a jury trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, upon a single count indictment charging them with conspiring (1) to advocate and teach the duty and necessity of overthrowing the Government of the United States by force and violence, and (2) to organize, as the Communist Party of the United States, a society of persons who so advocate and teach, all with the intent of causing the overthrow of the Government by force and violence as speedily as circumstances would permit. Act of June 28, 1940, §2 (a)(1) and (3), 54 Stat. 670, 671, 18 U. S. C. §§ 371, 2385. The conspiracy is alleged to have originated in 1940 and continued down to the date of the indictment in 1951. The indictment charged that in carrying out the conspiracy the defendants and their co-conspirators would (a) become members and officers of the Communist Party, with knowledge of its unlawful purposes, and assume leadership in carrying out its policies and activities; (b) cause to be organized units of the Party in California and elsewhere; (c) write and publish, in the “Daily Worker” and other Party organs, articles on the proscribed advocacy and teaching; (d) conduct schools for the indoctrination of Party members in such advocacy and teaching, and (e) recruit new Party members, particularly from among persons employed in the key industries of the nation. Twenty-three overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy were alleged.
Upon conviction each of the petitioners was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of $10,000. Thé Court of Appeals affirmed. 225 F. 2d 146. We granted certiorari for the reasons already indicated. 350 U. S. 860.
In the view we take of this case, it is necessary for us to consider only the following of petitioners' contentions: (1) that the term “organize” as used in the Smith Act was erroneously construed by the two lower courts; (2) that the trial court’s instructions to the jury erroneously excluded from the case the issue of “incitement to action”; (3) that the evidence was so insufficient as to require this Court to direct the acquittal of these petitioners; and (4) that petitioner Schneiderman’s conviction was precluded by this Court’s judgment in Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118, under the doctrine of collateral estoppel. For reasons given hereafter, we conclude that these convictions must be reversed and the case remanded to the District Court with instructions to enter judgments of acquittal as to certain of the petitioners, and to grant a new trial as to the rest.
I. The Term “Organize.”
One object of the conspiracy charged was to violate the third paragraph of 18 U. S. C. § 2385, which provides:
“Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any [govérnment in the United States] by force or violence... [ s] h all be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both....”
Petitioners claim that “organize” means to “establish,” “found,” or “bring into existence,” and that in this sense the Communist Party was organized by 1945 at the latest. On this basis petitioners contend that this part of the indictment, returned in 1951, was barred by the three-year statute of limitations. The Government, on the other hand, says that “organize” connotes a continuing process which goes on throughout the life of an organization, and that, in the words of the trial court’s instructions to the jury, the term includes such things as “the recruiting of new members and the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes and other units of any society, party, group or other organization.” The two courts below accepted the Government’s position. We think, however, that petitioners’ position must prevail, upon principles stated by Chief Justice Marshall more than a century ago in United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76, 95-96, as follows:
“The rule that penal laws are to be construed strictly, is perhaps not much less old than construction itself. It is founded on the tenderness of the law for' the rights of individuals; and on the plain principle that the power of punishment is vested in the legislative, not in the judicial department. It is the legislature, not the Court, which is to define a crime, and ordain its punishment.
“It is said, that notwithstanding this rule, the intention of the law maker must govern in the construction of penal, as well as other statutes. This is true. But this is not a new independent rule which subverts the old. It is a modification of the ancient maxim, and amounts to this* that though penal laws are to be construed strictly, they are not to be construed so strictly as to defeat the obvious intention of the legislature. The maxim is not to be so applied as to narrow the words of the statute to the exclusion of cases which those words, in their ordinary acceptation, or in that sense in which the legislature has obviously used them, would comprehend. The intention of the legislature is to be collected from the words they employ. Where there is no ambiguity in the words, there is no room for construction. The case must be a strong one indeed, which would justify a Court in departing from the plain meaning of words, especially in a penal act, in search of an intention which the words themselves did not suggest. To determine that a case is within the intention of a statute, its language must authorise us to say so. It would be dangerous, indeed, to carry the principle, that a case which is within the reason or mischief of a statute, is within its provisions, so far as to punish a crime not enumerated in the statute, because it is of equal atrocity, or of kindred character, with those which are enumerated. If this principle has ever been recognized in expounding criminal law, it has been in cases of considerable irritation, which it would be unsafe to consider as precedents forming a general rule for other cases.”
The statute does not define what is meant by “organize.” Dictionary definitions are of little help, for, as those offered us sufficiently show, the term is susceptible of both meanings attributed to it by the parties here. The fact that the Communist Party comprises various components and activities, in relation to which some of the ■ petitioners bore the title of “Organizer,” does not advance us towards a solution of the problem. The charge here is that petitioners conspired to organize the Communist Party, and, unless “organize” embraces the continuing concept contended for by the Government, the establishing of new units within the Party and similar activities, following the Party’s initial formation in 1945, have no independent significance or vitality so far as the “organizing” charge is involved. Nor are we here concerned with the quality of petitioners’ activities as such, that is, whether particular activities may properly be categorized as “organizational.” Rather, the issue is whether the term “organize” as used in this statute is limited by temporal concepts. Stated most simply, the problem is to choose between two possible answers to the question: when was the Communist Party “organized”? Petitioners contend that the only natural answer to the question is the formation date — in this case, 1945. The Government would have us answer the question by saying that the Party today is still not completely “organized”; that “organizing” is a continuing process that does not end until the entity is dissolved.
The legislative history of the Smith Act is no more revealing as to what Congress meant by “organize” than is the statute itself. The Government urges that “organize” should be given a broad meaning since acceptance of the term in its narrow sense would require attributing to Congress the intent that this provision of the statute should not apply to the Communist Party as it then existed. The argument is that since the Communist Party as it then existed had been born in 1919 and the Smith Act was not passed until 1940, the use of “organize” in its narrow sense would have meant that these provisions of the statute would never have reached the act of organizing the Communist Party, except for the fortuitous rebirth of the Party in 1945 — an occurrence which, of course, could not have been foreseen in 1940. This, says the Government, could hardly have been the congressional purpose since the Smith Act as a whole was particularly aimed at the Communist Party, and its “organizing” provisions were especially directed at the leaders of the movement.
We find this argument unpersuasive. While the legislative history of the Smith Act does show that concern about communism was a strong factor leading to this legislation, it also reveals that the statute, which was patterned on state anti-sedition laws directed not against Communists but against anarchists and syndicalists, was aimed equally at all groups falling within its scope. More important, there is no evidence whatever to support the thesis that the organizing provision of the statute was written with particular reference to the Communist Party. Indeed, the congressional hearings indicate that it was the “advocating and teaching” provision of the Act, rather than the “organizing” provision, which was especially thought to reach Communist activities.
Nor do there appear to be any other reasons for ascribing to “organize” the Government’s broad interpretation. While it is understandable that Congress should have wished to supplement the general provisions of the Smith Act by a special provision directed at the activities of those responsible for creating a new organization of the proscribed type, such as was the situation involved in the Dennis case, we find nothing which suggests that the “organizing” provision was intended to reach beyond this, that is, to embrace the activities of those concerned with carrying on the affairs of an already existing organization. Such activities were already amply covered by other provisions of the Act, such as the “membership” clause, and the basic prohibition of “advocacy” in conjunction with the conspiracy provision, and there is thus no need to stretch the “organizing” provision to fill any gaps in the statute. Moreover, it is difficult to find any considerations, comparable to those relating to persons responsible for creating a new organization, which would have led the Congress to single out for special treatment those persons occupying so-called organizational positions in an existing organization, especially when this same section of the statute proscribes membership in such an organization without drawing any distinction between those holding executive office and others.
On the other hand, we also find unpersuasive petitioners’ argument as to the intent of Congress. In support of the narrower meaning of “organize,” they argue that the Smith Act was patterned after the California Criminal Syndicalism Act; that the California courts have consistently taken “organize” in that Act in its narrow sense; and that under such cases as Willis v. Eastern Trust & Banking Co., 169 U. S. 295, 304, 309, and Joines v. Patterson, 274 U. S. 544, 549, it should be presumed that Congress in adopting the wording of the California Act intended “organize” to have the same meaning as that given it by the California courts. As the hearings on the Smith Act show, however, its particular prototype was the New York Criminal Anarchy Act, not the California statute, and the “organizing” provisions of the New York Act have never been construed by any court. Moreover, to the extent that the language of the California statute, which itself was patterned on the earlier New York legislation, might be significant, we think that little weight can be given to these California decisions. The “general rule that adoption of the wording of a statute from another legislative jurisdiction carries with it the previous judicial interpretations of the wording... is a presumption of legislative intention... which varies in strength with the similarity of the language, the established character of the decisions in the jurisdiction from which the language was adopted and the presence or lack of other indicia of intention.” Carolene Products Co. v. United States, 323 U. S. 18, 26. Here, the three California cases relied on by petitioners were all decisions of lower courts, and, in the absence of anything in the legislative history indicating that they were called to its attention, we should not assume that Congress was aware of them.
We are thus left to determine for ourselves the meaning of this provision of the Smith Act, without any revealing guides as to the intent of Congress. In these circumstances we should follow the familiar rule that criminal statutes are to be strictly construed and give to “organize” its narrow meaning, that is, that the word refers only to acts entering into the creation of a new organization, and not to acts thereafter performed in carrying on its activities, even though such acts may loosely be termed “organizational.” See United States v. Wiltberger, supra; United States v. Lacker, 134 U. S. 624, 628; United States v. Gradwell, 243 U. S. 476, 485; Fasulo v. United States, 272 U. S. 620, 628. Such indeed is the normal usage of the word “organize,” and until the decisions below in this case the federal trial courts in which the question had arisen uniformly gave it that meaning. See United States v. Flynn, unreported (D. C. S. D. N. Y.), No. C. 137-37, aff’d, 216 F. 2d 354, 358; United States v. Mesarosh, 116 F. Supp. 345, aff’d, 223 F. 2d 449, 465 (dissenting opinion of Hastie, J.); see also United States v. Dennis, unreported (D. C. S. D. N. Y.), No. C. 128-87, aff’d, 183 F. 2d 201, 341 U. S. 494. We too think this statute should be read “according to the natural and obvious import of the language, without resorting to subtle and forced construction for the purpose of either limiting or extending its operation.” United States v. Temple, 105 U. S. 97, 99.
The Government contends that even if the trial court was mistaken in its construction of the statute, the error was harmless because the conspiracy charged embraced both “advocacy” of violent overthrow and “organizing” the Communist Party, and the jury was instructed that in order to convict it must find a conspiracy extending to both objectives. Hence, the argument is, the jury must in any event be taken to have found petitioners guilty of conspiring to advocate, and the convictions are supportable on that basis alone. We cannot accept this proposition for a number of reasons. The portions of the trial court’s instructions relied on by the Government are not sufficiently clear or specific to warrant our drawing the inference that the jury understood it must find an agreement extending to both “advocacy” and “organizing” in order to convict. Further, in order to convict, the jury was required, as the court charged, to find an overt act which was “knowingly done in furtherance of an object or purpose of the conspiracy charged in the indictment,” and we have no way of knowing whether the overt act found by the jury was one which it believed to be in furtherance of the “advocacy” rather than the “organizing” objective of the alleged conspiracy. The character of most of the overt acts alleged associates them as readily with “organizing” as with “advocacy.” In these circumstances we think the proper rule to be applied is that which requires a verdict to be set aside in cases where the verdict is supportable on one ground, but not on another, and it is impossible to tell which ground the jury selected. Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359, 367-368; Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U. S. 287, 291-292; Cramer v. United States, 325 U. S. 1, 36, n. 45.
We conclude, therefore, that since the Communist Party came into being in 1945, and the indictment was not returned until 1951, the three-year statute of limitations had run on the “organizing” charge, and required the withdrawal of that part of the indictment from the jury’s consideration. Samuel v. United States, 169 F. 2d 787, 798. See also Haupt v. United States, 330 U. S. 631, 641, n. 1; Stromberg v. California, supra, at 368.
II. Instructions to the Jury.
Petitioners contend that the instructions to the jury were fatally defective in that the trial court refused to charge that, in order to convict, the jury must find that the advocacy which the defendants conspired to promote was of a kind calculated to “incite” persons to action for the forcible overthrow of the Government. It is argued that advocacy of forcible overthrow as mere abstract doctrine is within the free speech protection of the First Amendment; that the Smith Act, consistently with that constitutional provision, must be taken as proscribing only the sort of advocacy which incites to illegal action; and that the trial court's charge, by permitting conviction for mere advocacy, unrelated to its tendency to produce forcible action, resulted in an unconstitutional application of the Smith Act. The Government, which at the trial also requested the court to charge in terms of “incitement,” now takes the position, however, that the true constitutional dividing line is not between inciting and abstract advocacy of forcible overthrow, but rather between advocacy as such, irrespective of its inciting qualities, and the mere discussion or exposition of violent overthrow as an abstract theory.
We print in the margin the pertinent parts of the trial court's instructions. After telling the jury that it could not convict the defendants for holding or expressing mere opinions, beliefs, or predictions relating to violent overthrow, the trial court defined the content of the proscribed advocacy or teaching in the following terms, which are crucial here:
“Any advocacy or teaching which does not include the urging of force and violence as the means of overthrowing and destroying the Government of the United States is not within the issue of the indictment here and can constitute no basis for any finding against the defendants.
“The kind of advocacy and teaching which is charged and upon which your verdict must be reached is not merely a desirability but a necessity that the Government of the United States be overthrown and destroyed by force and violence and not merely a propriety but a duty to overthrow and destroy the Government of the United States by force and violence.”
There can be no doubt from the record that in so instructing the jury the court regarded as immaterial, and intended to withdraw from the jury’s consideration, any issue as to the character of the advocacy in terms of its capacity to stir listeners to forcible action. Both the petitioners and the Government submitted proposed instructions which would have required the jury to find that the proscribed advocacy was not of a mere abstract doctrine of forcible overthrow, but of action to that end, by the use of language reasonably and ordinarily calculated to incite persons to such action. The trial court rejected these proposed instructions on the ground that any necessity for giving them which may have existed at the time the Dennis ease was tried was removed by this Court’s subsequent decision in that case. The court made it clear in colloquy with counsel that in its view the illegal advocacy was made out simply by showing that what was said dealt with forcible overthrow and that it was uttered with a specific intent to accomplish that purpose, insisting that all such advocacy was punishable “whether it is language of incitement or not.” The Court of Appeals affirmed on a different theory, as we shall see later on.
We are thus faced with the question whether the Smith Act prohibits advocacy and teaching of forcible overthrow as an abstract principle, divorced from any effort to instigate action to that end, so long as such advocacy or teaching is engaged in with evil intent. We hold that it does not.
The distinction between advocacy of abstract doctrine and advocacy directed at promoting unlawful action is one that has been consistently recognized in the opinions of this Court, beginning with Fox v. Washington, 236 U. S. 273, and Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47. This distinction was heavily underscored in Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, in which the statute involved was nearly identical with the one now before us, and where the Court, despite the narrow view there taken of the First Amendment, said:
“The statute does not penalize the utterance or publication of abstract ‘doctrine’ or academic discussion having no quality of incitement to any concrete action.... It is not the abstract ‘doctrine’ of overthrowing organized government by unlawful means which is denounced by the statute, but the advocacy of action for the accomplishment of that purpose.... This [Manifesto]... is [in] the language of direct incitement.... That the jury were warranted in finding that the Manifesto advocated not merely the abstract doctrine of overthrowing organized government by force, violence and unlawful means, but action to that end, is clear.... That utterances inciting to the overthrow of organized government by unlawful means, present a sufficient danger of substantive evil to bring their punishment within the range of legislative discretion, is clear.” Id., at 664-669.
We need not, however, decide the issue before us in terms of constitutional compulsion, for our first duty is to construe this statute. In doing so we should not assume that Congress chose to disregard a constitutional danger zone so clearly marked, or that it used the words “advocate” and “teach” in their ordinary dictionary meanings when they had already been construed as terms of art carrying a special and limited connotation. See Willis v. Eastern Trust & Banking Co., supra; Joines v. Patterson, supra; James v. Appel, 192 U. S. 129, 135. The Gitlow case and the New York Criminal Anarchy Act there involved, which furnished the prototype for the Smith Act, were both known and adverted to by Congress in the course of the legislative proceedings. Cf. Carolene Products Co. v. United States, supra. The legislative history of the Smith Act and related bills shows beyond all question that Congress was aware of the distinction between the advocacy or teaching of abstract doctrine and the advocacy or teaching of action, and that it did not intend to disregard it. The statute was aimed at the advocacy and teaching of concrete action for the forcible overthrow of the Government, and not of principles divorced from action.
The Government’s reliance on this Court’s decision in Dennis is misplaced. The jury instructions which were refused here were given there, and were referred to by this Court as requiring “the jury to find the facts essential to establish the substantive crime.” 341 U. S., at 512 (emphasis added). It is true that at one point in the late Chief Justice’s opinion it is stated that the Smith Act “is directed at advocacy, not discussion,” id., at 502, but it is clear that the reference was to advocacy of action, not ideas, for in the very next sentence the opinion emphasizes that the jury was properly instructed that there could be no conviction for “advocacy in the realm of ideas.” The two concurring opinions in that case likewise emphasize the distinction with which we are concerned. Id., at 518, 534, 536, 545, 546, 547, 571, 572.
In failing to distinguish between advocacy of forcible overthrow as an abstract doctrine and advocacy of action to that end, the District Court appears to have been led astray by the holding in Dennis that advocacy of violent action to be taken at some future time was enough. It seems to have considered that, since “inciting” speech is usually thought of as something calculated to induce immediate action, and since Dennis held advocacy of action for future overthrow sufficient, this meant that advocacy, irrespective of its tendency to generate action, is punishable, provided only that it is uttered with a specific intent to accomplish overthrow. In other words, the District Court apparently thought that Dennis obliterated the traditional dividing line between advocacy of abstract doctrine and advocacy of action.
This misconceives the situation confronting the Court in Dennis and what was held there. Although the jury’s verdict, interpreted in light of the trial court’s instructions, did not justify the conclusion that the defendants’ advocacy was directed at, or created any danger of, immediate overthrow, it did establish that the advocacy was aimed at building up a seditious group and maintaining it in readiness for action at a propitious time. In such circumstances, said Chief Justice Vinson, the Government need not hold its hand “until the putsch is about to be executed, the plans have been laid and the signal is awaited. If Government is aware that a group aiming at its overthrow is attempting to indoctrinate its members and to commit them to a course whereby they will strike when the leaders feel the circumstances permit, action by the Government is required.” 341 U. S., at 509. The essence of the Dennis holding was that indoctrination of a group in preparation for future violent action, as well as exhortation to immediate action, by advocacy found to be directed to “action for the accomplishment” of forcible overthrow, to violence as “a rule or principle of action,” and employing “language of incitement,” id., at 511-512, is not constitutionally protected when the group is of sufficient size and cohesiveness, is sufficiently oriented towards action, and other circumstances are such as reasonably to justify apprehension that action will occur. This is quite a different thing from the view of the District Court here that mere doctrinal justification of forcible overthrow, if engaged in with the intent to accomplish overthrow, is punishable per se under the Smith Act. That sort of advocacy, even though uttered with the hope that it may ultimately lead to violent revolution, is too remote from concrete action to be regarded as the kind of indoctrination preparatory to action which was condemned in Dennis. As one of the concurring opinions in Dennis put it: “Throughout our decisions there has recurred a distinction between the statement of an idea which may prompt its hearers to take unlawful action, and advocacy that such action be taken.” Id., at 545. There is nothing in Dennis which makes that historic distinction obsolete.
The Court of Appeals took a different view from that of the District Court. While seemingly recognizing that the proscribed advocacy must be associated in some way with action, and that the instructions given the jury here fell short in that respect, it considered that the instructions which the trial court refused were unnecessary in this instance because establishment of the conspiracy, here charged under the general conspiracy statute, required proof of an overt act, whereas in Dennis, where the conspiracy was charged under the Smith Act, no overt act was required. In other words, the Court of Appeals thought that the requirement of proving an overt act was an adequate substitute for the linking of the advocacy to action which would otherwise have been necessary. This, of course, is a mistaken notion, for the overt act will not necessarily evidence the character of the advocacy engaged in, nor, indeed, is an agreement to advocate forcible overthrow itself an unlawful conspiracy if it does not call for advocacy of action. The statement in Dennis that “it is the existence of the conspiracy which creates the danger,” 341 U. S., at 511, does not support the Court of Appeals. Bearing in mind that Dennis, like all other Smith Act conspiracy cases thus far, including this one, involved advocacy which had already taken place, and not advocacy still to occur, it is clear that in context the phrase just quoted referred to more than the basic agreement to advocate. “The mere fact that [during the indictment period] petitioners’ activities did not result in an attempt to overthrow the Government by force and violence is of course no answer to the fact that there was a group that was ready to make the attempt. The formation by petitioners of such a highly organized conspiracy, with rigidly disciplined members subject to call when the leaders, these petitioners, felt that the time had come for action, coupled with... world conditions,... disposes of the contention that a conspiracy to advocate, as distinguished from the advocacy itself, cannot be constitutionally restrained, because it comprises only the preparation. It is the existence of the conspiracy which creates the danger.... If the ingredients of the reaction are present, we cannot bind the Government to wait until the catalyst is added.” 341 U. S., at 510-511 (emphasis supplied). The reference of the term “conspiracy,” in context, was to an agreement to accomplish overthrow at some future time, implicit in the jury’s findings under the instructions given, rather than to an agreement to speak. Dennis was thus not concerned with a conspiracy to engage at some future time in seditious advocacy, but rather with a conspiracy to advocate presently the taking of forcible action in the future. It was action, not advocacy, that was to be postponed until “circumstances” would “permit.” We intimate no views as to whether a conspiracy to engage in advocacy in the future, where speech would thus be separated from action by one further remove, is punishable under the Smith Act.
We think, thus, that both of the lower courts here misconceived Dennis.
In light of the foregoing we are unable to regard the District Court’s charge upon this aspect of the case as adequate. The jury was never told that the Smith Act does not denounce advocacy in the sense of preaching abstractly the forcible overthrow of the Government. We think that the trial court’s statement that the proscribed advocacy must include the “urging,” “necessity,” and “duty” of forcible overthrow, and not merely its “desirability” and “propriety,” may not be regarded as a sufficient substitute for charging that the Smith Act reaches only advocacy of action for the overthrow of government by force and violence. The essential distinction is that those to whom the advocacy is addressed must be urged to do something, now or in the future, rather than merely to believe in something. At best the expressions used by the trial court were equivocal, since in the absence of any instructions differentiating advocacy of abstract doctrine from advocacy of action, they were as consistent with the former as they were with the latter. Nor do we regard their ambiguity as lessened by what the trial court had to say as to the right of the defendants to announce their beliefs as to the inevitability of violent revolution, or to advocate other unpopular opinions. Especially when it is unmistakable that the court did not consider the urging of action for forcible overthrow as being a necessary element of the proscribed advocacy, but rather considered the crucial question to be whether the advocacy was uttered with a specific intent to accomplish such overthrow, we would not be warranted in assuming that the jury drew from these instructions more than the court itself intended them to convey.
Nor can we accept the Government’s argument that the’ District Court was justified in not charging more than it did because the refused instructions proposed by both sides specified that the advocacy must be of a character reasonably calculated to “incite” to forcible overthrow, a term which, it is now argued, might have conveyed to the jury an implication that the advocacy must be of immediate action. Granting that some qualification of the proposed instructions would have been permissible to dispel such an implication, and that it was not necessary even that the trial court should have employed the particular term “incite,” it was nevertheless incumbent on the court to make clear in some fashion that the advocacy must be of action and not merely abstract doctrine. The instructions given not only do not employ the word “incite,” but also avoid the use of such terms and phrases as “action,” “call for action,” “as a rule or principle of action,” and so on, all of which were offered in one form or another by both the petitioners and the Government.
What we find lacking in the instructions here is illustrated by contrasting them with the instructions given to the Dennis jury, upon which this Court’s sustaining of the convictions in that case was bottomed. There the trial court charged:
“In further construction and interpretation of the statute [the Smith Act] I charge you that it is not the abstract doctrine of overthrowing or destroying organized government by unlawful means which is denounced by this law, but the teaching and advocacy o/ action for the accomplishment of that purpose, by language reasonably and ordinarily calculated to incite persons to such action. Accordingly, you cannot find the defendants or any of them guilty of the crime charged unless you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that they conspired... to advocate and teach the duty and necessity of overthrowing or destroying the Government of the United States by force and violence, with the intent that such teaching and advocacy be of a rule or principle of action and by language reasonably and ordinarily calculated to incite persons to such action, all with the intent to cause the overthrow... as speedily as circumstances would permit.” (Emphasis added.) 9 F. R. D. 367, 391; and see 341 U. S., at 511-512.
We recognize that distinctions between advocacy or teaching of abstract doctrines, with evil intent, and that which is directed to stirring people to action, are often subtle and difficult to grasp, for in a broad sense, as Mr. Justice Holmes said in his dissenting opinion in Gitlow, supra, 268 U. S., at 673: “Every idea is an incitement.” But the very subtlety of these distinctions required the most clear and explicit instructions with reference to them, for they concerned an issue which went to the very heart of the charges against these petitioners. The need for precise and understandable instructions on this issue is further emphasized by the equivocal character of the evidence in this record, with which we deal in Part III of this opinion. Instances of speech that could be considered to amount to “advocacy of action” are so few and far between as to be almost completely overshadowed by the hundreds of instances in the record in which overthrow, if mentioned at all, occurs in the course of doctrinal disputation so remote from action as to be almost wholly lacking in probative value. Vague references to “revolutionary” or “militant” action of an unspecified character, which are found in the evidence, might in addition be given too great weight by the jury in the absence of more precise instructions. Particularly in light of this record, we must regard the trial court’s charge in this respect as furnishing wholly inadequate guidance to the jury on this central point in the case-. We cannot allow a conviction to stand on such “an equivocal direction to the jury on a basic issue.” Bollenbach v. United States, 326 U. S. 607, 613.
III. The Evidence.
The determinations already made require a reversal of these convictions. Nevertheless, in the exercise of our power under 28 U. S. C. § 2106 to “direct the entry of such appropriate judgment... as may be just under the circumstances,” we have conceived it to be our duty to scrutinize this lengthy record with care, in order to determine whether the way should be left open for a new trial of all or some of these petitioners. Such a judgment, we think, should, on the one hand, foreclose further proceedings against those of the petitioners as to whom the evidence in this record would be palpably insufficient upon a new trial, and should, on the other hand, leave the Government free to retry the other petitioners under proper legal standards, especially since it
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
C
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether § 703 (h) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 267, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(h), restricts Title VII’s prohibition of sex-based wage discrimination to claims of equal pay for equal work.
I
This case arises over the payment by petitioner County of Washington, Ore., of substantially lower wages to female guards in the female section of the county jail than it paid to male guards in the male section of the jail. Respondents are four women who were employed to guard female prisoners and to carry out certain other functions in the jail. In January 1974, the county eliminated the female section of the jail, transferred the female prisoners to the jail of a nearby county, and discharged respondents. 20 FEP Cases 788, 790 (Ore. 1976).
Respondents filed suit against petitioners in Federal District Court under Title VII, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq., seeking backpay and other relief. They alleged that they were paid unequal wages for work substantially equal to that performed by male guards, and in the alternative, that part of the pay differential was attributable to intentional sex discrimination. The latter allegation was based on a claim that, because of intentional discrimination, the county set the pay scale for female guards, but not for male guards, at a level lower than that warranted by its own survey of outside markets and the worth of the jobs.
After trial, the District Court found that the male guards supervised more than 10 times as many prisoners per guard as did the female guards, and that the females devoted much of their time to less valuable clerical duties. It therefore held that respondents’ jobs were not substantially equal to those of the male guards, and that respondents were thus not entitled to equal pay. 20 FEP Cases, at 791. The Court of Appeals affirmed on that issue, and respondents do not seek review of the ruling.
The District Court also dismissed respondents’ claim that the discrepancy in pay between the male and female guards was attributable in part to intentional sex discrimination. It held as a matter of law that a sex-based wage discrimination claim cannot be brought under Title VII unless it would satisfy the equal work standard of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, 29 U. S. C. §206 (d). 20 FEP Cases, at 791. The court therefore permitted no additional evidence on this claim, and made no findings on whether petitioner county’s pay scales for female guards resulted from intentional sex discrimination.
The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that persons alleging sex discrimination “are not precluded from suing under Title VII to protest... discriminatory compensation practices” merely because their jobs were not equal to higher paying jobs held by members of the opposite sex. 602 F. 2d 882, 891 (CA9 1979), supplemental opinion on denial of rehearing, 623 F. 2d 1303, 1313, 1317 (1980). The court remanded to the District Court with instructions to take evidence on respondents’ claim that part of the difference between their rate of pay and that of the male guards is attributable to sex discrimination. We granted certiorari, 449 U. S. 950 (1980), and now affirm.
We emphasize at the outset the narrowness of the question before us in this case. Respondents’ claim is not based on the controversial concept of “comparable worth,” under which plaintiffs might claim increased compensation on the basis of a comparison of the intrinsic worth or difficulty of their job with that of other jobs in the same organization or community. Rather, respondents seek to prove, by direct evidence, that their wages were depressed because of intentional sex discrimination, consisting of setting the wage scale for female guards, but not for male guards, at a level lower than its own survey of outside markets and the worth of the jobs warranted. The narrow question in this case is whether such a claim is precluded by the last sentence of § 703 (h) of Title VII, called the “Bennett Amendment.”
II
Title VII makes it an unlawful employment practice for an employer “to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s... sex 42
U. S. C. § 2000e-2 (a). The Bennett Amendment to Title VII, however, provides:
“It shall not be an unlawful employment practice under this subchapter for any employer to differentiate upon the basis of sex in determining the amount of the wages or compensation paid or to be paid to employees of such employer if such differentiation is authorized by the provisions of section 206 (d) of title 29.” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2 (h).
To discover what practices are exempted from Title VII’s prohibitions by the Bennett Amendment, we must turn to § 206 (d) — the Equal Pay Act — which provides in relevant part:
“No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex.” 77 Stat. 56, 29 U. S. C. §206 (d)(1).
On its face, the Equal Pay Act contains three restrictions pertinent to this case. First, its coverage is limited to those employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act. S. Rep. No. 176, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1963). Thus, the Act does not apply, for example, to certain businesses engaged in retail sales, fishing, agriculture, and newspaper publishing. See 29 U. S. C. §§ 203 (s), 213 (a) (1976 ed. and Supp. III). Second, the Act is restricted to cases involving “equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions.” 29 U. S. C. §206 (d)(1). Third, the Act’s four affirmative defenses exempt any wage differentials attributable to seniority, merit, quantity or quality of production, or “any other factor other than sex.” Ibid.
Petitioners argue that the purpose of the Bennett Amendment was to restrict Title VII sex-based wage discrimination claims to those that could also be brought under the Equal Pay Act, and thus that claims not arising from “equal work” are precluded. Respondents, in contrast, argue that the Bennett Amendment was designed merely to incorporate the four affirmative defenses of the Equal Pay Act into Title VII for sex-based wage discrimination claims. Respondents thus contend that claims for sex-based wage discrimination can be brought under Title VII even though no member of the opposite sex holds an equal but higher paying job, provided that the challenged wage rate is not based on seniority, merit, quantity or quality of production, or “any other factor other than sex.” The Court of Appeals found respondents’ interpretation the “more persuasive.” 623 F. 2d, at 1311. While recognizing that the language and legislative history of the provision are not unambiguous, we conclude that the Court of Appeals was correct.
A
The language of the Bennett Amendment suggests an intention to incorporate only the affirmative defenses of the Equal Pay Act into Title VII. The Amendment bars sex-based wage discrimination claims under Title VII where the pay differential is “authorized” by the Equal Pay Act. Although the word “authorize” sometimes means simply “to permit,” it ordinarily denotes affirmative enabling action. Black’s Law Dictionary 122 (5th ed. 1979) defines “authorize” as “[t]o empower; to give a right or authority to act.” Cf. 18 IT. S. C. § 1905 (prohibiting the release by federal employees of certain information “to any extent not authorized by law”); 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (1976 ed., Supp. Ill) (granting district courts jurisdiction over “any civil action authorized by law”). The question, then, is what wage practices have been affirmatively authorized by the Equal Pay Act.
The Equal Pay Act is divided into two parts: a definition of the violation, followed by four affirmative defenses. The first part can hardly be said to “authorize” anything at all: it is purely prohibitory. The second part, however, in essence “authorizes” employers to differentiate in pay on the basis of seniority, merit, quantity or quality of production, or any other factor other than sex, even though such differentiation might otherwise violate the Act. It is to these provisions, therefore, that the Bennett Amendment must refer.
Petitioners argue that this construction of the Bennett Amendment would render it superfluous. See United States v. Menasche, 348 U. S. 528, 538-539 (1955). Petitioners claim that the first three affirmative defenses are simply redundant of the provisions elsewhere in § 703 (h) of Title YII that already exempt bona fide seniority and merit systems and systems measuring earnings by quantity or quality of production, and that the fourth defense — “any other factor other than sex” — is implicit in Title VIPs general prohibition of sex-based discrimination.
We cannot agree. The Bennett Amendment was offered as a “technical amendment” designed to resolve any potential conflicts between Title VII and the Equal Pay Act. See infra, at 173. Thus, with respect to the first three defenses, the Bennett Amendment has the effect of guaranteeing that courts and administrative agencies adopt a consistent interpretation of like provisions in both statutes. Otherwise, they might develop inconsistent bodies of case law interpreting two sets of nearly identical language.
More importantly, incorporation of the fourth affirmative defense could have significant consequences for Title VII litigation. Title VIPs prohibition of discriminatory employment practices was intended to be broadly inclusive, proscribing “not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation.” Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424, 431 (1971). The structure of Title VII litigation, including presumptions, burdens of proof, and defenses, has been designed to reflect this approach. The fourth affirmative defense of the Equal Pay Act, however, was designed differently, to confine the application of the Act to wage differentials attributable to sex discrimination. H. R. Rep. No. 309, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1963). Equal Pay Act litigation, therefore, has been structured to permit employers to defend against charges of discrimination where their pay differentials are based on a bona fide use of “other factors other than sex.” Under the Equal Pay Act, the courts and administrative agencies are not permitted to “substitute their judgment for the judgment of the employer... who [has] established and applied a bona fide job rating system,” so long as it does not discriminate on the basis of sex. 109 Cong. Rec. 9209 (1963) (statement of Rep. Goodell, principal exponent of the Act). Although we do not decide in this case how sex-based wage discrimination litigation under Title VII should be structured to accommodate the fourth affirmative defense of the Equal Pay Act, see n. 8, supra, we consider it clear that the Bennett Amendment, under this interpretation, is not rendered superfluous.
We therefore conclude that only differentials attributable to the four affirmative defenses of the Equal Pay Act are “authorized” by that Act within the meaning of § 703 (h) of Title VII.
B
The legislative background of the Bennett Amendment is fully consistent with this interpretation.
Title YII was the second bill relating to employment discrimination to be enacted by the 88th Congress. Earlier, the same Congress passed the Equal Pay Act “to remedy what was perceived to be a serious and endemic problem of [sex-based] employment discrimination in private industry,” Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, 417 U. S. 188, 195 (1974). Any possible inconsistency between the Equal Pay Act and Title VII did not surface until late in the debate over Title VII in the House of Representatives, because, until then, Title VII extended only to discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin, see H. R. Rep. No. 914, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 10 (1963), while the Equal Pay Act applied only to sex discrimination. Just two days before voting on Title VII, the House of Representatives amended the bill to proscribe sex discrimination, but did not discuss the implications of the overlapping jurisdiction of Title VII, as amended, and the Equal Pay Act. See 110 Cong. Rec. 2577-2584 (1964). The Senate took up consideration of the House version of the Civil Rights bill without reference to any committee. Thus, neither House of Congress had the opportunity to undertake formal analysis of the relation between the two statutes.
Several Senators expressed concern that insufficient attention had been paid to possible inconsistencies between the statutes. See id., at 7217 (statement of Sen. Clark); id., at 13647 (statement of Sen. Bennett). In an attempt to rectify the problem, Senator Bennett proposed his amendment. Id., at 13310. The Senate leadership approved the proposal as a “technical amendment” to the Civil Rights bill, and it was taken up on the floor on June 12, 1964, after cloture had been invoked. The Amendment engendered no controversy, and passed without recorded vote. The entire discussion comprised a few short statements:
“Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, after many years of yearning by members of the fair sex in this country, and after very careful study by the appropriate committees of Congress, last year Congress passed the so-called Equal Pay Act, which became effective only yesterday.
“By this time, programs have been established for the effective administration of this act. Now, when the civil rights bill is under consideration, in which the word ‘sex’ has been inserted in many places, I do not believe sufficient attention may have been paid to possible conflicts between the wholesale insertion of the word'sex’ in the bill and in the Equal Pay Act.
“The purpose of my amendment is to provide that in the event of conflicts, the provisions of the Equal Pay Act shall not be nullified.
“I understand that the leadership in charge of the bill have agreed to the amendment as a proper technical correction of the bill. If they will confirm that understand [sic], I shall ask that the amendment be voted on without asking for the yeas and nays.
“Mr. HUMPHREY. The amendment of the Senator from Utah is helpful. I believe it is needed. I thank him for his thoughtfulness. The amendment is fully acceptable.
“Mr. DIRKSEN. Mr. President, I yield myself 1 minute.
“We were aware of the conflict that might develop, because the Equal Pay Act was an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Fair Labor Standards Act carries out certain exceptions.
“All that the pending amendment does is recognize those exceptions, that are carried in the basic act.
“Therefore, this amendment is necessary, in the interest of clarification.” Id., at 13647.
As this discussion shows, Senator Bennett proposed the Amendment because of a general concern that insufficient attention had been paid to the relation between the Equal Pay Act and Title VII, rather than because of a specific potential conflict between the statutes. His explanation that the Amendment assured that the provisions of the Equal Pay Act “shall not be nullified” in the event of conflict with Title VII may be read as referring to the affirmative defenses of the Act. Indeed, his emphasis on the “technical” nature of the Amendment and his concern for not disrupting the “effective administration” of the Equal Pay Act are more compatible with an interpretation of the Amendment as incorporating the Act’s affirmative defenses, as administratively interpreted, than as engrafting all the restrictive features of the Equal Pay Act onto Title VII.
Senator Dirksen’s comment that all that the Bennett Amendment does is to “recognize” the exceptions carried in the Fair Labor Standards Act, suggests that the Bennett Amendment was necessary because of the exceptions to coverage in the Fair Labor Standards Act, which made the Equal Pay Act applicable to a narrower class of employers than was Title VII. See supra, at 167-168. The Bennett Amendment clarified that the standards of the Equal Pay Act would govern even those wage discrimination cases where only Title VII would otherwise apply. So understood, Senator Dirk-sen’s remarks are not inconsistent with our interpretation.
Although there was no debate on the Bennett Amendment in the House of Representatives when the Senate version of the Act returned for final approval, Representative Celler explained each of the Senate’s amendments immediately prior to the vote. He stated that the Bennett Amendment “ [provides that compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act as amended satisfies the requirement of the title barring discrimination because of sex... 110 Cong. Rec. 15896 (1964). If taken literally, this explanation would restrict Title YII’s coverage of sex discrimination more severely than even petitioners suggest: not only would it confine wage discrimination claims to those actionable under the Equal Pay Act, but it would block all other sex discrimination claims as well.”' We can only conclude that Representative Celler’s explanation was not intended to be precise, and does not provide a solution to the present problem.
Thus, although the few references by Members of Congress to the Bennett Amendment do not explicitly confirm that its purpose was to incorporate into Title VII the four affirmative defenses of the Equal Pay Act in sex-based wage discrimination cases, they are broadly consistent with such a reading, and do not support an alternative reading.
c
The interpretations of the Bennett Amendment, by the agency entrusted with administration of Title VII — the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — do not provide much guidance in this case. Cf. Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S., at 433-434. The Commission’s 1965 Guidelines on Discrimination Because of Sex stated that “the standards of 'equal pay for equal work’ set forth in the Equal Pay Act for determining what is unlawful discrimination in compensation are applicable to Title VII.” 29 CFR § 1604.7 (a) (1966). In 1972, the EEOC deleted this portion of the Guideline, see 37 Fed. Reg. 6837 (1972). Although the original Guideline may be read to support petitioners’ argument that no claim of sex discrimination in compensation may be brought under Title VII except where the Equal Pay Act’s “equal work” standard is met, EEOC practice under this Guideline was considerably less than steadfast.
The restrictive interpretation suggested by the 1965 Guideline was followed in several opinion letters in the following years. During the same period, however, EEOC decisions frequently adopted the opposite position. For example, a reasonable-cause determination issued by the Commission in 1968 stated that “the existence of separate and different wage rate schedules for male employees on the one hand, and female employees on the other doing reasonably comparable work, establishes discriminatory wage rates based solely on the sex of the workers.” Harrington v. Picadilly Cafeteria, Case No. AU 7-3-173 (Apr. 25, 1968).
The current Guideline does not purport to explain whether the equal work standard of the Equai Pay Act has any application to Title VII, see 29 CFR § 1604.8 (1980), but the EEOC now supports respondents’ position in its capacity as amicus curiae. In light of this history, we feel no hesitation in adopting what seems to us the most persuasive interpretation of the Amendment, in lieu of that once espoused, but not consistently followed, by the Commission.
D
Our interpretation of the Bennett Amendment draws additional support from the remedial purposes of Title VII and the Equal Pay Act. Section 703 (a) of Title VII makes it unlawful for an employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment” because of such individual’s sex. 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2 (a) (emphasis added). As Congress itself has indicated, a “broad approach” to the definition of equal employment opportunity is essential to overcoming and undoing the effect of discrimination. S. Rep. No. 867, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., 12 (1964). We must therefore avoid interpretations of Title VII that deprive victims of discrimination of a remedy, without clear congressional mandate.
Under petitioners’ reading of the Bennett Amendment, only those sex-based wage discrimination claims that satisfy the “equal work” standard of the Equal Pay Act could be brought under Title VII. In practical terms, this means that a woman who is discriminatorily underpaid could obtain no relief- — -no matter how egregious the discrimination might be- — -unless her employer also employed a man in an equal job in the same establishment, at a higher rate of pay. Thus, if an employer hired a woman for a unique position in the company and then admitted that her salary would have been higher had she been male, the woman would be unable to obtain legal redress under petitioners’ interpretation. Similarly, if an employer used a transparently sex-biased system for wage determination, women holding jobs not equal to those held by men would be denied the right to prove that the system is a pretext for discrimination. Moreover, to cite an example arising from a recent case, Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power v. Manhart, 435 U. S. 702 (1978), if the employer required its female workers to pay more into its pension program than male workers were required to pay, the only women who could bring a Title VII action under petitioners’ interpretation would be those who could establish that a man performed equal work: a female auditor thus might have a cause of action while a female secretary might not. Congress surely did not intend the Bennett Amendment to insulate such blatantly discriminatory practices from judicial redress under Title VII.
Moreover, petitioners’ interpretation would have other far-reaching consequences. Since it rests on the proposition that any wage differentials not prohibited by the Equal Pay Act are “authorized” by it, petitioners’ interpretation would lead to the conclusion that discriminatory compensation by employers not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act is “authorized” — since not prohibited — by the Equal Pay Act. Thus it would deny Title VII protection against sex-based wage discrimination by those employers not subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act but covered by Title VII. See supra, at 167-168. There is no persuasive evidence that Congress intended such a result, and the EEOC has rejected it since at least 1965. See 29 CFR § 1604.7 (1966). Indeed, petitioners themselves apparently acknowledge that Congress intended Title VII’s broader coverage to apply to equal pay claims under Title VII, thus impliedly admitting the fallacy in their own argument. Brief for Petitioners 48.
Petitioners’ reading is thus flatly inconsistent with our past interpretations of Title VII as “prohibiting] all practices in whatever form which create inequality in employment opportunity due to discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin.” Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U. S. 747, 763 (1976). As we said in Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power v. Manhart, supra, at 707, n. 13: “In forbidding employers to discriminate against individuals because of their sex, Congress intended to strike at the entire spectrum of disparate treatment of men and women resulting from sex stereotypes.” (Emphasis added.) We must therefore reject petitioners’ interpretation of the Bennett Amendment.
Ill
Petitioners argue strenuously that the approach of the Court of Appeals places “the pay structure of virtually every employer and the entire economy... at risk and subject to scrutiny by the federal courts.” Brief for Petitioners 99-100. They raise the specter that “Title VII plaintiffs could draw any type of comparison imaginable concerning job duties and pay between any job predominantly performed by women and any job predominantly performed by men.” Id., at 101. But whatever the merit of petitioners’ arguments in other contexts, they are inapplicable here, for claims based on the type of job comparisons petitioners describe are manifestly different from respondents’ claim. Respondents contend that the County of Washington evaluated the worth of their jobs; that the county determined that they should be paid approximately 95% as much as the male correctional officers; that it paid them only about 70% as much, while paying the male officers the full evaluated worth of their jobs; and that the failure of the county to pay respondents the full evaluated worth of their jobs can be proved to be attributable to intentional sex discrimination. Thus, respondents’ suit does not require a court to make its own subjective assessment of the value of the male and female guard jobs, or to attempt by statistical technique or other method to quantify the effect of sex discrimination on the wage rates.
We do not decide in this case the precise contours of lawsuits challenging sex discrimination in compensation under Title VII. It is sufficient to note that respondents’ claims of discriminatory undercompensation are not barred by § 703 (h) of Title VII merely because respondents do not perform work equal to that of male jail guards. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
Affirmed.
Prior to February 1, 1973, the female guards were paid between $476 and $606 per month, while the male guards were paid between $668 and $853. Effective February 1, 1973, the female guards were paid between $525 and $668, while salaries for male guards ranged from $701 to $940. 20 FEP Cases 788, 789 (Ore. 1976).
Oregon requires that female inmates be guarded solely by women, Ore. Rev. Stat. §§ 137.350, 137.360 (1979), and the District Court opinion indicates that women had not been employed to guard male prisoners. 20 FEP Cases, at 789, 792, nn. 8, 9. For purposes of this litigation, respondents concede that gender is a bona fide occupational qualification for some of the female guard positions. See 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2 (e)(1); Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U. S. 321 (1977).
Respondents could not sue under the Equal Pay Act because the Equal Pay Act did not apply to municipal employees until passage of the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1974, 88 Stat. 55, 58-62. Title VII has applied to such employees since passage of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, §2(1), 86 Stat. 103.
Respondents also contended that they were discharged and not rehired in retaliation for their demands for equal pay. Respondent Vander Zanden also contended that she was denied medical leave in retaliation for such demands. The District Court rejected those contentions, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Those claims are not before this Court.
See infra, at 168.
The concept of “comparable worth” has been the subject of much scholarly debate, as to both its elements and its merits as a legal or economic principle. See, e. g., E. Livernash, Comparable Worth: Issues and Alternatives (1980); Blumrosen, Wage Discrimination, Job Segregation, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 12 U. Mich. J. L. Ref. 397 (1979); Nelson, Opton, & Wilson, Wage Discrimination and the “Comparable Worth” Theory in Perspective, 13 U. Mich. J. L. Ref. 231 (1980). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has conducted hearings on the question, see BNA Daily Labor Report Nos. 83-85 (Apr. 28-30, 1980), and has commissioned a study of job evaluation systems, see D. Treiman, Job Evaluation: An Analytic Review (1979) (interim report).
Respondents thus distinguish Lemons v. City and County of Denver, 620 F. 2d 228 (CA10), cert, denied, 449 U. S. 888 (1980), on the ground that the plaintiffs, nurses employed by a public hospital, sought increased compensation on the basis of a comparison with compensation paid to employees of comparable value — other than nurses — in the community, without direct proof of intentional discrimination.
We are not called upon in this case to decide whether respondents have stated a prima facie case of sex discrimination under Title VII, cf. Christensen v. Iowa, 563 F. 2d 353 (CA8 1977), or to lay down standards for the further conduct of this litigation. The sole issue we decide is whether respondents’ failure to satisfy the equal work standard of the Equal Pay Act in itself precludes their proceeding under Title VII.
Similarly, Webster’s Third New International Dietionary 147 (1976) states that the word “authorize” “indicates endowing formally with a power or right to act, usu. with discretionary privileges.” (Examples deleted.)
Section 703 (h), as set forth in 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2 (h), provides in relevant part:
“Notwithstanding any other provision of this subchapter, it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to apply different standards of compensation, or different terms, conditions, or privileges of employment pursuant to a bona fide seniority or merit system, or a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production... provided that such differences are not the result of an intention to discriminate because of... sex... (Emphasis added.)
The legislative history of the Equal Pay Act was examined by this Court in Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, 417 U. S. 188, 198-201 (1974). The Court observed that earlier versions of the Equal Pay bill were amended to define equal work and to add the fourth affirmative defense because of a concern that bona fide job-evaluation systems used by American businesses would otherwise be disrupted. Id., at 199-201. This concern is evident in the remarks of many legislators. Representative Griffin, for example, explained that the fourth affirmative defense is a “broad principle,” which “makes clear and explicitly states that a differential based on any factor or factors other than sex would not violate this legislation.” 109 Cong. Rec. 9203 (1963). See also id., at 9196 (remarks of Rep. Fre-linghuysen); id., at 9197-9198 (remarks of Rep. Griffin); ibid., (remarks of Rep. Thompson); id., at 9198 (remarks of Rep. Goodell); id., at 9202 (remarks of Rep. Kelly); id., at 9209 (remarks of Rep. Goodell); id., at 9217 (remarks of Reps. Pucinski and Thompson).
To answer certain objections raised by Senators concerning the House version of the Civil Rights bill, Senator Clark, principal Senate spokesman for Title VII, drafted a memorandum, printed in the Congressional Record. One such objection and answer concerned the relation between Title VII and the Equal Pay Act:
"Objection: The sex antidiscrimination provisions of the bill duplicate the coverage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963. But more than this, they extend far beyond the scope and coverage of the Equal Pay Act. They do not include the limitations in that act with respect to equal work on jobs requiring equal skills in the same establishments, and thus, cut across different jobs.
“Answer: The Equal Pay Act is a part of the wage hour law, with different coverage and with numerous exemptions unlike title VII. Furthermore, under title VII, jobs can no longer be classified as to sex, except where there is a rational basis for discrimination on the ground of bona fide occupational qualification. The standards in the Equal Pay Act for determining discrimination as to wages, of course, are applicable to the comparable situation under title VII.” 110 Cong. Rec. 7217 (1964).
This memorandum constitutes the only formal discussion of the relation between the statutes prior to consideration of the Bennett Amendment. It need not concern us here, because it relates to Title VII before it was amended by the Bennett Amendment. The memorandum obviously has no bearing on the meaning of the terms of the Bennett Amendment itself.
The dissent finds it “obvious” that the “principal way” the Equal Pay Act might have been “nullified” by enactment of Title VII is that the “equal pay for equal work standard” would not apply under Title VII. Post, at 193. There is, however, no support for this conclusion in the legislative history: not one Senator or Congressman discussing the Bennett Amendment during the debates over Title VII so much as mentioned the “equal pay for equal work” standard. Rather, Senator Bennett’s expressed concern was for preserving the “programs” that had “been established for the effective administration” of the Equal Pay Act. 110 Cong. Rec. 13647 (1964). This suggests that the focus of congressional concern was on administrative interpretation and enforcement procedures, rather than on the “equal work” limitation.
The argument in the dissent that under our interpretation, the Equal Pay Act would be impliedly repealed and rendered a nullity, post, at 193, is mistaken. Not only might the substantive provisions of the Equal Pay Act’s affirmative defenses affect the outcome of some Title YII sex-based wage discrimination cases, see supra, at 170-171, but the procedural characteristics of the Equal Pay Act also remain significant. For example, the statute of limitations for backpay relief is more generous under the Equal Pay Act than under Title VII, and the Equal Pay Act, unlike Title VII, has no requirement of filing administrative complaints and awaiting administrative conciliation efforts. Given these advantages, many plaintiffs will prefer to sue under the Equal Pay Act rather than Title VII. See B. Babcock, A. Freedman, E. Norton, & S. Ross, Sex Discrimination and the Law 507 (1975).
In an exchange during the debate on Title VII, Senator Randolph asked Senator Humphrey whether certain differences in treatment in industrial retirement plans, including earlier retirement options for women, would be permissible. Senator Humphrey responded: “Yes. That point was made unmistakably clear earlier today by the adoption of the Bennett amendment; so there can be no doubt about it.” 110 Cong. Rec. 13663-13664 (1964). Apparently, Senator Humphrey believed that the discriminatory provisions to which Senator Randolph referred were authorized by the Equal Pay Act. His answer does not reveal whether he believed such plans to fall within one of the affirmative defenses of the Act, or whether they simply did not violate the Act.
The parties also direct our attention to several comments by Members and Committees of Congress made after passage of Title VII. See 111 Cong. Rec. 13359 (1965) (statement by Senator Bennett that “compensation on account of sex does not violate title VII unless it also violates the Equal Pay Act”); id., at 18263 (statement by Senator Clark criticizing Senator Bennett’s attempt to create post hoc legislative history and adding his own interpretation); S. Rep. No. 95-331, p. 7 (1977) (stating that the Bennett Amendment authorizes only those practices within the four affirmative defenses of the Equal Pay Act).
We are normally hesitant to attach much weight to comments made after the passage of legislation. See Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324, 354, n. 39 (1977). In view of the contradictory nature of these cited statements, we give them no weight at all.
See General Counsel’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:
|
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 Frankfurter
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which
Mr. Justice Murphy and Mr. Justice Rutledge join.
Although the Constitution puts protection against crime predominantly in the keeping of the States, the Fourteenth Amendment severely restricted the States in their administration of criminal justice. Thus, while the State courts have the responsibility for securing the rudimentary requirements of a civilized order, in discharging that responsibility there hangs over them the reviewing power of this Court. Power of such delicacy and import must, of course, be exercised with the greatest forbearance. When, however, appeal is made to it, there is no escape. And so this Court once again must meet the uncongenial duty of testing the validity of a conviction by a State court for a State crime by what is to be found in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This case is here because the Supreme Court of Indiana rejected petitioner’s claim that confessions elicited from him were procured under circumstances rendering their admission as evidence against him a denial of due process of law. 226 Ind. 655, 82 N. E. 2d 846. The grounds on which our review was sought seemed sufficiently weighty to grant the petition for certiorari. 336 U. S. 917.
On review here of State convictions, all those matters which are usually termed issues of fact are for conclusive determination by the State courts and are not open for reconsideration by this Court. Observance of this restriction in our review of State courts calls for the utmost scruple. But “issue of fact” is a coat of many colors. It does not cover a conclusion drawn from uncontroverted happenings, when that conclusion incorporates standards of conduct or criteria for judgment which in themselves are decisive of constitutional rights. Such standards and criteria, measured against the requirements drawn from constitutional provisions, and their proper applications, are issues for this Court’s adjudication. Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, 324 U. S. 652, 659, and cases cited. Especially in cases arising under the Due Process Clause is it important to distinguish between issues of fact that are here foreclosed and issues which, though cast in the form of determinations of fact, are the very issues to review which this Court sits. See Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587, 589-90; Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501, 510.
In the application of so embracing a constitutional concept as “due process,” it would be idle to expect at all times unanimity of views. Nevertheless, in all the cases that have come here during the last decade from the courts of the various States in which it was claimed that the admission of coerced confessions vitiated convictions for murder, there has been complete agreement that any conflict in testimony as to what actually led to a contested confession is not this Court’s concern. Such conflict comes here authoritatively resolved by the State’s adjudication. Therefore only those elements of the events and circumstances in which a confession was involved that are unquestioned in the State’s version of what happened are relevant to the constitutional issue here. But if force has been applied, this Court does not leave to local determination whether or not the confession was voluntary. There is torture of mind as well as body; the will is as much affected by fear as by force. And there comes a point where this Court should not be ignorant as judges of what we know as men. See Taft, C. J., in the Child Labor Tax Case, 259 U. S. 20, 37.
This brings us to the undisputed circumstances which must determine the issue of due process in this case. Thanks to the forthrightness of counsel for Indiana, these circumstances may be briefly stated.
On November 12, 1947, a Wednesday, petitioner was arrested and held as the suspected perpetrator of an alleged criminal assault earlier in the day. Later the same day, in the vicinity of this occurrence, a woman was found dead under conditions suggesting murder in the course of an attempted criminal assault. Suspicion of murder quickly turned towards petitioner and the police began to question him. They took him from the county jail to State Police Headquarters, where he was questioned by officers in relays from about 11:30 that night until sometime between 2:30 and 3 o’clock the following morning. The same procedure of persistent interrogation from about 5:30 in the afternoon until about 3 o’clock the following morning, by a relay of six to eight officers, was pursued on Thursday the 13th, Friday the 14th, Saturday the 15th, Monday the 17th. Sunday was a day of rest from interrogation. About 3 o’clock on Tuesday morning, November 18, the petitioner made an incriminating statement after continuous questioning since 6 o’clock of the preceding evening. The statement did not satisfy the prosecutor who had been called in and he then took petitioner in hand. Petitioner, questioned by an interrogator of twenty years’ experience as lawyer, judge and prosecutor, yielded a more incriminating document.
Until his inculpatory statements were secured, the petitioner was a prisoner in the exclusive control of the prosecuting authorities. He was kept for the first two days in solitary confinement in a cell aptly enough called “the hole” in view of its physical conditions as described by the State’s witnesses. Apart from the five night sessions, the police intermittently interrogated Watts during the day and on three days drove him around town, hours at a time, with a view to eliciting identifications and other disclosures. Although the law of Indiana required that petitioner be given a prompt preliminary hearing before a magistrate, with all the protection a hearing was intended to give him, the petitioner was not only given no hearing during the entire period of interrogation but was without friendly or professional aid and without advice as to his constitutional rights. Disregard of rudimentary needs of life — opportunities for sleep and a decent allowance of food — are also relevant, not as aggravating elements of petitioner’s treatment, but as part of the total situation out of which his confessions came and which stamped their character.
A confession by which life becomes forfeit must be the expression of free choice. A statement to be voluntary of course need not be volunteered. But if it is the product of sustained pressure by the police it does not issue from a free choice. When a suspect speaks because he is overborne, it is immaterial whether he has been subjected to a physical or a mental ordeal. Eventual yielding to questioning under such circumstances is plainly the product of the suction process of interrogation and therefore the reverse of voluntary. We would have to shut our minds to the plain significance of what here transpired to deny that this was a calculated endeavor to secure a confession through the pressure of unrelenting interrogation. The very relentlessness of such interrogation implies that it is better for the prisoner to answer than to persist in the refusal of disclosure which is his constitutional right. To turn the detention of an accused into a process of wrenching from him evidence which could not be extorted in open court with all its safeguards, is so grave an abuse of the power of arrest as to offend the procedural standards of due process.
This is so because it violates the underlying principle in our enforcement of the criminal law. Ours is the accusatorial as opposed to the inquisitorial system. Such has been the characteristic of Anglo-American criminal justice since it freed itself from practices borrowed by the Star Chamber from the Continent whereby an accused was interrogated in secret for hours on end. See Ploscowe, The Development of Present-Day Criminal Procedures in Europe and America, 48 Harv. L. Rev. 433, 457-58, 467-473 (1935). Under our system society carries the burden of proving its charge against the accused not out of his own mouth. It must establish its case, not by interrogation of the accused even under judicial safeguards, but by evidence independently secured through skillful investigation. “The law will not suffer a prisoner to be made the deluded instrument of his own conviction.” 2 Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, c. 46, § 34 (8th ed., 1824). The requirement of specific charges, their proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the protection of the accused from confessions extorted through whatever form of police pressures, the right to a prompt hearing before a magistrate, the right to assistance of counsel, to be supplied by government when circumstances make it necessary, the duty to advise an accused of his constitutional rights — these are all characteristics of the accusatorial system and manifestations of its demands. Protracted, systematic and uncontrolled subjection of an accused to interrogation by the police for the purpose of eliciting disclosures or confessions is subversive of the accusatorial system. It is the inquisitorial system without its safeguards. For while under that system the accused is subjected to judicial interrogation, he is protected by the disinterestedness of the judge in the presence of counsel. See Keedy, The Preliminary Investigation of Crime in France, 88 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 692, 708-712 (1940).
In holding that the Due Process Clause bars police procedure which violates the basic notions of our accusatorial mode of prosecuting crime and vitiates a conviction based on the fruits of such procedure, we apply the Due Process Clause to its historic function of assuring appropriate procedure before liberty is curtailed or life is taken. We are deeply mindful of the anguishing problems which the incidence of crime presents to the States. But the history of the criminal law proves overwhelmingly that brutal methods of law enforcement are essentially self-defeating, whatever may be their effect in a particular case. See, e. g., Radzinowicz, A History of English Criminal Law and its Administration from 1750, passim (1948). Law triumphs when the natural impulses aroused by a shocking crime yield to the safeguards which our civilization has evolved for an administration of criminal justice at once rational and effective.
We have examined petitioner’s other contentions and do not sustain them.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Black concurs in the judgment of the Court on the authority of Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227; Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143.
On the record before us and in view of the consideration given to the evidence by the state courts and the conclusion reached, The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Burton believe that the judgment should be affirmed.
Of course this Court does not have the corrective power over State courts that it has over the lower federal courts. See, e. g., McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332. In the main, the proper administration of the criminal law of the States rests with the State courts. The nature of the Due Process Clause, however, potentially gives wide range to the reviewing power of this Court over State-court convictions.
In the petitioner’s statements there was acknowledgment of the possession of an incriminating gun, the existence of which the police independently established. But a coerced confession is inadmissible under the Due Process Clause even though statements in it may be independently established as true. See Lisenba v. California, 314 U. S. 219, 236-237.
The validity of a conviction because an allegedly coerced confession was used has been called into question in the following cases:
(A) Confession was found to be procured under circumstances violative of the Due Process Clause in Haley v. Ohio, 332 U. S. 596; Malinski v. New York, 324 U. S. 401; Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143; Ward v. Texas, 316 U. S. 547; Lomax v. Texas, 313 U. S. 544; Vernon v. Alabama, 313 U. S. 547; White v. Texas, 310 U. S. 530; Canty v. Alabama, 309 U. S. 629; White v. Texas, 309 U. S. 631; Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227; Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278; and see Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 327 U. S. 274.
(13) Confession was found to have been procured under circumstances not violative of the Due Process Clause in Lyons v. Oklahoma, 322 U. S. 596, and Lisenba v. California, 314 U. S. 219.
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 Rehnquist
announced the judgment of the Court in an opinion in which The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Stewart, and Mr. Justice Powell join.
This case presents the question of whether the restrictions imposed by 28 U. S. C. § 753 on the availability to an indigent prisoner of a free trial transcript to aid him in preparing a petition for collateral relief are consistent with the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in contrast to every other Court of Appeals which has ruled on the issue, held that such prisoners have an absolute right to a transcript. We reverse.
I
Respondent was convicted of uttering forged currency in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 472 after a jury trial in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. On June 3, 1970, he was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. He did not appeal. Nearly two years later respondent, acting pro se, filed in the District Court a paper designated “Motion for Transcript in Forma Pauperis.” This was returned to respondent with the advice that he first had to file a motion pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2255 before the court could act on his request for a transcript.
Respondent then filed a “complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Injunctive Relief” in which he alleged that he “intends to move this Court for vacation of his sentence pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2255.” He asserted that he was unable to afford a transcript, that a transcript would show that he had not been afforded effective assistance of counsel, and that there was insufficient evidence to support the verdict of guilty. The complaint further alleged that without a transcript respondent would be “unable to frame his arguments for fair and effective review.” The complaint did not elaborate upon respondent’s two asserted grounds for relief.
The District Court treated this pleading as a motion under 28 U. S. C. § 2255, granted respondent leave to proceed in forma pauperis, appointed counsel, and held a hearing. After the hearing the court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Respondent appealed, and a divided panel of the Court of Appeals reversed, 511 F. 2d 1116 (1974), holding that respondent was entitled to a transcript “in order to assist him in the preparation of a post-conviction motion under 28 U. S. C. [§] 2255.” Id., at 1124.
II
Congress has expressly addressed the question of furnishing transcripts at public expense in 28 U. S. C. § 753 (f), which provides in pertinent part:
“Fees for transcripts furnished in criminal proceedings to persons proceeding under the Criminal Justice Act (18 U. S. C. [§] 3006A)) or in habeas corpus proceedings to persons allowed to sue, defend, or appeal in forma pauperis, shall be paid by the United States out of moneys appropriated for those purposes. Fees for transcripts furnished in proceedings brought under section 2255 of this title to persons permitted to sue or appeal in forma pau-peris shall be paid by the United States out of money appropriated for that purpose if the trial judge or a circuit judge certifies that the suit or appeal is not frivolous and that the transcript is needed to decide the issue presented by the suit or appeal. . . .”
The statute thus provides for a free transcript for indigent prisoners asserting a claim under § 2255 if a judge certifies that the asserted claim is “not frivolous” and that the transcript is “needed to decide the issue.” The District Court, by its conclusion that respondent failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, implicitly decided one of these two issues against respondent.
The Court of Appeals held that it was not necessary to declare § 753 (f) unconstitutional in order to grant respondent relief. Rather, the court held that the section “does not prohibit courts from . . . requiring the government to supply an imprisoned indigent with a free transcript before he files a § 2255 motion. Such a court order would simply fill a constitutional deficit not addressed by the statute.” (Emphasis added.) 511 F. 2d, at 1119-1120.
This is a novel approach to statutory construction. The established rule is that the expenditure of public funds is proper only when authorized by Congress, not that public funds may be expended unless prohibited by Congress. Reeside v. Walker, 11 How. 272, 291 (1851). This particular statute contains a limited grant of authority to the courts to authorize the expenditure of public funds for furnishing transcripts to plaintiffs in § 2255 actions. The fact that the statute does not “prohibit” the furnishing of free transcripts in other circumstances is of little significance, since most such statutes speak only in terms of granting authority for the expenditure of federal funds. Where Congress has addressed the subject as it has here, and authorized expenditures where a condition is met, the clear implication is that where the condition is not met, the expenditure is not authorized. Botany Mills v. United States, 278 U. S. 282, 289 (1929); Passenger Corp. v. Passengers Assn., 414 U. S. 453, 458 (1974).
It is true, as respondent observes, that the statute, as currently written, distinguishes between habeas corpus petitioners and parties proceeding under § 2255 in that only the latter must make a showing of need and nonfrivolousness in order to obtain a free transcript. Thus while it is still true that the “remedy” afforded by § 2255 is “exactly commensurate with that which had previously been available by habeas corpus . . . ,” Hill v. United States, 368 U. S. 424, 427 (1962), the right to pursue that remedy with a free transcript has now been somewhat limited by Congress. Respondent argues that this constitutes a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in violation of Art. I, § 9, cl. 2, of the Constitution.
This argument presupposes, inter alia, that a right to a free transcript is a necessary concomitant of the writ which the Founders declared could not be suspended. This is obviously not the case. The writ of habeas corpus operated until 1944 with no provision for free transcripts for indigents. See 58 Stat. 6, 28 U. S. C. § 9a (1940 ed., Supp. IV). Congress, when in that year it authorized free transcripts for the first time, could certainly have limited the authorization to nonfrivolous cases where a need had been shown. If Congress could have thus limited the writ directly without “suspending” it, it follows that it may do so indirectly. The only possible objection is a Fifth Amendment due process-equal protection claim, to which we now turn.
Ill
The Court of Appeals did not technically decide this constitutional issue, since it thought it had discovered a lacuna in the statute, but its reference to a “constitutional deficit” suggests its view on this question. Respondent urges that if the statute is read as we now read it, it violates both the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and his right to “equal protection.”
The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment does not establish any right to an appeal, see Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, 18 (1956) (plurality opinion), and certainly does not establish any right to collaterally attack a final judgment of conviction. In this case respondent was granted a statutory right of appeal without payment of costs if he were an indigent, and had he pursued that right § 753 (f) would have authorized the use of public funds to furnish him a transcript of the trial proceedings without any further showing on his part. Having forgone this right, which existed by force of statute only, he may not several years later successfully assert a due process right to review of his conviction and thereby obtain a free transcript on his own terms as an ancillary constitutional benefit. The conditions which Congress had imposed on obtaining such a transcript in § 753 (f) are not “so arbitrary and unreasonable ... as to require their invalidation,” Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353, 365 (1963) (Harlan, J., dissenting); rather they “comport with fair procedure,” id., at 357 (Court’s opinion).
Although the statutory conditions established in § 753 (f) with respect to furnishing a free transcript to mov-ants in § 2255 proceedings are therefore consistent with the due process requirements of the Fifth Amendment, it is undoubtedly true that they place an indigent in a somewhat less advantageous position than a person of means. But neither the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, nor the counterpart equal protection requirement embodied in the Fifth Amendment, guarantees “absolute equality or precisely equal advantages,” San Antonio School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 24 (1973). In the context of a criminal proceeding they require only “an adequate opportunity to present [one’s] claims fairly . . . .” Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U. S. 600, 616 (1974).
In Douglas v. California, supra, the Court held that the State must provide counsel for an indigent on his first appeal as of right. But in Ross v. Moffitt, supra, we declined to extend that holding to a discretionary second appeal from an intermediate appellate court to the Supreme Court of North Carolina. We think the distinction between these two holdings of the Court is of considerable assistance in resolving respondent’s equal protection claim. Respondent in this case had an opportunity for direct appeal, and had he chosen to pursue it he would have been furnished a free transcript of the trial proceedings. But having forgone that right, and instead some years later having sought to obtain a free transcript in order to make the best case he could in a proceeding under § 2255, respondent stands in a different position.
The Court has held that when a State grants a right to collateral review, it may not deny the right to an indigent simply because of inability to pay the required filing fee, Smith v. Bennett, 365 U. S. 708 (1961). There is no such impediment here; respondent was permitted to proceed in forma pauperis in his § 2255 action. The Court has also held that a State may not confide to the public defender the final decision as to whether a transcript shall be available to the criminal defendant who collaterally attacks his conviction, Lane v. Brown, 372 U. S. 477 (1963). There the Court observed that the state provision “confers upon a state officer outside the judicial system power to take from an indigent all hope of any appeal at all.” Id., at 485.
The congressional statute governing the furnishing of free transcripts to plaintiffs in § 2255 actions has no such infirmity. The decision as to the provisions of the transcript at public expense is made initially by an official at the very heart of the judicial system — a district judge in the judicial district in which the § 2255 plaintiff was tried. The district court has the power to order a free transcript furnished if it finds that the “suit ... is not frivolous and that the transcript is needed to decide the issue presented . . . .” 28 U. S. C. § 753 (f).
We think that the formula devised by Congress satisfies the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment. Respondent chose to forgo his opportunity for direct appeal with its attendant unconditional free transcript. This choice affects his later equal protection claim as well as his due process claim. Equal protection does not require the Government to furnish to the indigent a delayed duplicate of a right of appeal with attendant free transcript which it offered in the first instance, even though a criminal defendant of means might well decide to purchase such a transcript in pursuit of relief under § 2255. The basic question is one of adequacy of respondent’s access to procedures for review of his conviction, Ross v. Moffitt, supra, and it must be decided in the light of avenues which respondent chose not to follow as well as those he now seeks to widen. We think it enough at the collateral-relief stage that Congress has provided that the transcript be paid for by public funds if one demonstrates to a district judge that his § 2255 claim is not frivolous, and that the transcript is needed to decide the issue presented.
Respondent urged in oral argument that if trial counsel had done a poor job of representing a criminal defendant, such counsel might well urge the defendant to forgo his right of appeal in order to prevent a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel from being raised on the appeal. It is certainly conceivable that such a state of facts might exist, notwithstanding the fidelity to the interest of their clients demonstrated repeatedly by the overwhelming majority of the members of the legal profession. But § 753 (f) does not require that a § 2255 plaintiff must prove his claim in order to obtain a transcript, but only that he convince the district court that such claim is not frivolous. Had the District Court here been confronted not with merely a conclusory allegation, but with some factual allegations indicating a denial of respondent’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel, together with an additional explicit assertion that trial counsel had urged respondent to forgo his appeal, that court might have concluded that such a claim was not frivolous, and further decided that a free transcript should be furnished pursuant to § 753 (f) .
But that is not our case. Respondent made only a naked allegation of ineffective assistance of counsel. Since any discussion he may have had with his trial counsel as to the desirability of appeal would not normally appear in the transcript of proceedings at trial, the furnishing of such transcript would not have aided him in refreshing his recollection of such discussions. The failure to flesh out this aspect of respondent’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, then, is not likely to have been cured by a transcript.
We think this is an area of the law where the opinions of the courts of appeals are entitled to particular weight, since they represent not only expositions of federal and constitutional law, but also expressions of essentially practical judgment on questions which those courts must confront far more than we do. The fact that with the exception of the decision presently under review they have unanimously concluded that the conditions establishéd by § 753 (f) for the furnishing of a free transcript do not violate the Fifth Amendment is significant. A practical reason for their conclusion is well expressed by Judge Haynsworth in United States v. Shoaf, 341 F. 2d 832 (CA4 1964), in which he said for that court:
“The usual grounds for successful collateral attacks upon convictions arise out of occurrences outside of the courtroom or of events in the courtroom of which the defendant was aware and can recall without the need of having his memory refreshed by reading a transcript. He may well have a need of a transcript [to support his claim] but rarely, if ever, ... to become aware of the events or occurrences which constitute a ground for collateral attack,” Id., at 835.
We conclude that the fact that a transcript was available had respondent chosen to appeal from his conviction, and remained available on the conditions set forth in § 753 to an indigent proceeding under § 2255, afforded respondent an adequate opportunity to attack his conviction. To hold otherwise would be to place the indigent defendant in a more favorable position than a similarly situated prisoner of some, but not unlimited, means, who presumably would make an evaluation much like that prescribed in § 753 (f) before he spent his own funds for a transcript.
“[T]he fact that a particular service might be of benefit to an indigent defendant does not mean that the service is constitutionally required. The duty of the State under our cases is not to duplicate the legal arsenal that may be privately retained by a criminal defendant in a continuing effort to reverse his conviction, but only to assure the indigent defendant an adequate opportunity to present his claims fairly in the context of the State’s appellate process.” Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U. S., at 616.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is
Reversed.
Our Brother SteveNs would construe the pertinent part of § 753 (f) to “make transcripts available almost automatically in § 2255 proceedings . . . post, at 338. We think such a construction would do violence to the intent of Congress which clearly appears from the language of that section, supra, at 320. Congress did in that section make transcripts available automatically on direct appeal, but in the same section limited their availability in § 2255 motions to cases where the trial judge certifies that the § 2255 suit is not frivolous and that the transcript is needed to decide the issue presented by the suit. Our Brother Stevens advances what may well be very sound policy reasons for furnishing free transcripts as a matter of course to § 2255 plaintiffs, as well as to convicted defendants pursuing direct appeals. But it is plain from a reading of § 753 (f) that these considerations have not yet commended themselves to Congress.
The difference is not as great as it might appear to be, however, because habeas corpus petitioners who wish to proceed in forma pauperis must still overcome a “nonfrivolous” barrier under 28 U. S. C. § 1915. E. g., Kitchens v. Alderman, 376 F. 2d 262 (CA5 1967); Blair v. California, 340 F. 2d 741 (CA9 1965).
The constitutional treatment of habeas corpus, of course, is not contained in the Due Process Clause, but in Art. I, § 9, cl. 2, of the Constitution.
Since a § 2255 claim is usually presented to the trial judge he will likely have an independent recollection of counsel’s performance which may well lead him to conclude that a movant’s claim is nonfrivolous.
E. g., Ellis v. Maine, 448 F. 2d 1325 (CA1 1971); United States ex rel. Buford v. Henderson, 524 F. 2d 147 (CA2 1975); United States v. Shoaf, 341 F. 2d 832 (CA4 1964); United States v. Herrera, 474 F. 2d 1049 (CA5 1973); Hoover v. United States, 416 F. 2d 431 (CA6 1969); United States ex rel. Nunes v. Nelson, 467 F. 2d 1380 (CA9 1972) (habeas corpus); Taylor v. United States, 238 F. 2d 409 (CA9 1956) (§ 2255 motion); Hines v. Baker, 422 F. 2d 1002 (CA10 1970).
This opinion and other aspects of this question were thoroughly discussed shortly after the 1965 amendment to § 753 (f) in Black-mun, Allowance of In Forma Pauperis Appeals in § 2255 and Habeas Corpus Cases, 43 F. R. D. 343 (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:
|
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 taxpayer respondent during the taxable year 1952 mined limestone from its own quarry, crushed it, transported the crushed product two miles to its plant, and there, through the addition of other materials and further processing, manufactured the limestone into cement which it sold. It paid taxes for the year mentioned, based on a depletion allowance computed in accordance with Treasury Regulations. Thereafter taxpayer filed claim for refund and now prosecutes this suit on the ground that the depletion allowance should not have been based upon constructive income at the crushed limestone stage, but rather upon gross receipts from sales of the mining product after its “treatment processes” were completed and it became finished cement. The District Court found that the taxpayer’s depletion base was the income from the sale of finished cement, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. 301 F. 2d 488.
Section 23 (m) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, 53 Stat. 14, provided that in computing taxable net income certain percentage deductions from gross income should be allowed for depletion of mines. The Congress further provided, § 114 (b)(4) of the Code, as amended, c. 63, § 124(c)(B), 58 Stat. 45 (1944), that included within the term “mining” were “the ordinary treatment processes normally applied by mine owners or operators in order to obtain the commercially marketable mineral product____”
In United States v. Cannelton Sewer Pipe Co., 364 U. S. 76 (1960), we considered at some length the application of this term to the mining industry and held that the statutory percentage depletion allowance on the gross income of an integrated mining operator should be cut off at the point where the mineral first became suitable for industrial use or consumption. After careful study of the record here we believe that this case is controlled by Cannelton. We concluded there “that Congress intended to grant miners a depletion allowance based on the constructive income from the raw mineral product, if marketable in that form, and not on the value of the finished articles.” 364 U. S., at 86. We found that “the cut-off point where ‘gross income from mining’ stopped has been .the same” ever since the first depletion statute, namely, “where the ordinary miner shipped the product of his mine.” Id., at 87. It therefore appears from this record that the “product” with which the Code deals here is the taxpayer’s product at the point when “mining” terminated, i. e., when it reached the crushed limestone stage. This results in limiting the taxpayer’s basis for depletion to its constructive income from crushed limestone, rather than from finished cement.
The petition for certiorari is therefore granted, the judgment reversed, and the case is remanded for disposition in accordance with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice White took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
There is no question involved here under the Act of September 14, I960, 74 Stat. 1017, since taxpayer elected to pursue his claim for depletion on the finished cement product rather than accept as a correct cut-off point for depletion the prekiln feed stage of manufacture as permitted by that Act.
In this connection crushed limestone was not only “marketable in that form” but, according to the Preprint from Bureau of Mines Minerals Yearbook, 1952, Stone, p. 26, an exhibit in the record, it was actually sold in California in 1952 in an amount exceeding 1,500,000 tons. Sales in the United States for that year exceeded 216,000,000 tons. Both of these figures exclude the tonnage used in the manufacture of cement. A stipulation in the record shows that limestone sold or used for all purposes totaled almost 300,000,000 tons in 1952.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
L
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Vinson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The initial question in this case is one of jurisdiction— whether the petition for certiorari was filed within the period allowed by law. We hold that it was not.
The cause grows out of a proceeding initiated by petitioner, the Federal Trade Commission, in 1943. At that time, the Commission issued a three-count complaint against respondent. Count I charged a violation of § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act; Count II charged a violation of § 3 of the Clayton Act; Count III dealt with an alleged violation of § 2 (a) of the Clayton Act as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act. A protracted administrative proceeding followed. The Commission finally determined against respondent on all three counts, and it issued a cease and desist order, in three parts, covering each of the three violations.
Respondent petitioned the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to review and set aside this order. The Commission sought enforcement of all parts of its order in a cross-petition.
Respondent abandoned completely its attack on Parts I and II of the order. In briefs and in oral argument, respondent made it clear that the legality of Part III was the only contested issue before the Court of Appeals. Neither party briefed or argued any question arising out of Parts I and II.
On July 5, 1951, the Court of Appeals announced its decision. The opinion stated that since respondent did not “challenge Parts I and II of the order based on the first two counts of the complaint we shall make no further reference to them.” The court then went .on to hold that Part III of petitioner’s order could not be sustained by substantial evidence and should be reversed. 191 F. 2d 786. On the same day, the court entered its judgment, the pertinent portion reading as follows:
“. . . it is ordered and adjudged by this Court that Part III of the decision of the Federal Trade Commission entered in this cause on January 14, 1948, be, and the same is hereby, Reversed, and Count III of the complaint upon which it is based be, and the same is hereby Dismissed.”
The Court of Appeals requires petitions for rehearing to be filed “within 15 days after entry of judgment.” The Commission filed no such petition. On August 21, 1951, long after the expiration of this 15-day period, and after a certified copy of said judgment, in lieu of mandate, was issued, the Commission filed a memorandum with the court which reads in part as follows:
“On July 5, 1951 the Court entered its opinion and judgment reversing Part III of the decision of the Federal Trade Commission dated January 14, 1948 and dismissing Count III of the complaint upon which it is based. No disposition has been made of the Cross-Petition filed by the Commission for affirmance and enforcement of the entire decision. The Commission takes the position that its Cross-Petition should be in part sustained, i. e., to the extent that the Court should make and enter herein a decree affirming Parts I and II of the Commission’s order to cease and desist and commanding Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company to obey the same and comply therewith. . . .
“11. In its briefs filed herein the petitioner abandoned its attack upon Parts I and II of the order and challenged only the validity of Part III of the order (see page 1 of petitioner’s brief dated March 15, 1951). Thus, petitioner concedes the validity of Parts I and II of the order and does not contest the prayer of the Commission’s Cross-Petition and brief with respect to the affirmance and enforcement of Parts I and II of the order.”
Clearly, by this memorandum the Commission sought no alteration of the judgment relative to Part III; in fact, it acknowledged the entry of judgment reversing Part III on July 5, 1951. It did not even claim it to be a petition for rehearing. It was submitted that Parts I and II of the order were uncontested, and “In conclusion . . . submitted that the Court should make and enter ... a decree affirming and enforcing Parts I and II of the Commission’s order to cease and desist.”
On September 18, 1951, the Court of Appeals issued what it called its “Final Decree.” Again the court “ordered, adjudged and decreed” that Part III of the Commission’s order “is hereby reversed and Count III of the complaint upon which it is based be and the same is hereby dismissed.” The court then went on to affirm Parts I and II, and it entered a judgment providing for their enforcement, after reciting again that there was no contest over this phase of the order.
On December 14, 1951, the Commission filed its petition for certiorari. Obviously, the petition was out of time unless the ninety-day filing period began to run anew from the second judgment entered on September 18, 1951. In our order granting certiorari, 342 U. S. 940, we asked counsel to discuss the “timeliness of the application for the writ.”
Petitioner refers us to cases which have held that when a court considers on its merits an untimely petition for. a rehearing, or an untimely motion to amend matters of substance in a judgment, the time for appeal may begin to run anew from the date on which the court disposed of the untimely application.
Petitioner apparently would equate its memorandum of August 21, 1951, with an untimely petition for a rehearing affecting Part III. But certainly its language and every inference therein is to the contrary. When petitioner filed its memorandum, the time for seeking a rehearing had long since expired.
Moreover, the memorandum was labeled neither as a petition for a rehearing nor as a motion to amend the previous judgment, and in no manner did it purport to seek such relief. On the contrary, the Commission indicated that it was quite content to let the Court of Appeals’ decision of July 5 stand undisturbed. Since we cannot treat the memorandum of August 21 as petitioner would have us treat it, we cannot hold that the time for filing a petition for certiorari was enlarged simply because this paper may have prompted the court below to take some further action which had no effect on the merits of the decision that we are now asked to review in the petition for certiorari.
Petitioner tells us that the application must be deemed to be in time because “when a court actually changes its judgment, the time to appeal or petition begins to run anew irrespective of whether a petition for rehearing has been filed.” We think petitioner’s interpretation of our decisions is too liberal.
While it may be true that the Court of Appeals had the power to supersede the judgment of July 5 with a new one,, it is also true, as that court itself has recognized, that the time within which a losing party must seek review cannot be enlarged just because the lower court in its discretion thinks it should be enlarged. Thus, the mere fact that a judgment previously entered has been reentered or revised in an immaterial way does not toll the time within which review must be sought. Only when the lower court changes matters of substance, or resolves a genuine ambiguity, in a judgment previously rendered should the period within which an appeal must be taken or a petition for certiorari filed begin to run anew. The test is a practical one. The question is whether the lower court, in its second order, has disturbed or revised legal rights and obligations which, by its prior judgment, had been plainly and properly settled with finality.
The judgment of September 18, which petitioner now seeks to have us review, does not meet this test. It reiterated, without change, everything which had been decided on July 5. Since the one controversy between the parties related only to the matters which had been adjudicated on July 5, we cannot ascribe any significance, as far as timeliness is concerned, to the later judgment.
Petitioner puts great emphasis on the fact that the judgment of September 18 was labeled a “Final Decree” by the Court of Appeals, whereas the word “Final” was missing from the judgment entered on July 5. But we think the question of whether the time for petitioning for certiorari was to be enlarged cannot turn on the adjective which the court below chose to use in the caption of its second judgment. Indeed, the judgment of July 5 was for all purposes final. It put to rest the questions which the parties had litigated in the Court of Appeals. It was neither “tentative, informal nor incomplete.” Consequently, we cannot accept the Commission's view that a decision against it on the time question will constitute an invitation to other litigants to seek piecemeal review in this Court in the future.
Thus, while we do not mean to encourage applications for piecemeal review by today’s decision, we do mean to encourage applicants to this Court to take heed of another principle — the principle that litigation must at some definite point be brought to an' end. It is a principle reflected in the statutes which limit our appellate jurisdiction to those cases where review is sought within a prescribed period. Those statutes are not to be applied so as to permit a tolling of their time limitations because some event occurred in the lower court after judgment was rendered which is of no import to the matters to be dealt with on review.
Accordingly, the writ of certiorari is
Dismissed.
28 U. S. C. §2101 (e).
38 Stat. 719, 15 U. S. C. § 45.
38 Stat. 731, 15 ü. S. C. §14.
38 Stat. 730, as amended, 49 Stat. 1526, 15 U. S. C. § 13 (a).
Pfister v. Finance Corp., 317 U. S. 144, 149 (1942); Bowman v. Loperena, 311 U. S. 262, 266 (1940); Wayne United Gas Co. v. Owens-Illinois Co., 300 U. S. 131, 137-138 (1937).
Brief for petitioner, p. 43.
28 U. S. C. §452; see Zimmern v. United States, 298 U. S. 167 (1936).
See Fine v. Paramount Pictures, 181 F. 2d 300, 304 (1950).
Department of Banking v. Pink, 317 U. S. 264 (1942); Toledo Scale Co. v. Computing Scale Co., 261 U. S. 399 (1923); Credit Co., Ltd. v. Arkansas Central R. Co., 128 U. S. 258 (1888).
See Zimmern v. United States, 298 U. S. 167, 169 (1936); compare Department of Banking v. Pink, supra.
Compare Federal Power Commission v. Idaho Power Co., 344 U. S. 17 (1952).
Compare Rubber Co. v. Goodyear, 6 Wall. 153 (1868) (appeal allowed from a second decree, restating most provisions of the first because the first decree, at the time of entry, was only regarded by the parties and the court as tentative); Memphis v. Brown, 94 U. S. 715 (1877) (appeal allowed from second judgment on the ground that the second made material changes in the first). See United States v. Hark, 320 U. S. 531, 533-534 (1944); Hill v. Hawes, 320 U. S. 520, 523 (1944).
The suggestion is made that the September 18 judgment injected a new controversy into the litigation — the question of whether the Court of Appeals had the power to affirm and enforce the Commission’s order after it had cross-petitioned for such relief. Cf. Federal Trade Commission v. Ruberoid Co., 343 U. S. 470 (1952). But if the respondent had sought to contest that issue, it could have done so from the start, by raising objections to enforcement of all parts of the Commission’s cross-petition. Instead, respondent refused to contest these'parts of the Commission’s order. Having done so, it removed the question involved in the Ruberoid case from this case.
See Dickinson v. Petroleum Conversion Corp., 338 U. S. 507, 514 (1950).
See Matton Steamboat Co. v. Murphy, 319 U. S. 412, 415 (1943).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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 Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The precise question for consideration is this: Does a conviction by a State court for a State offense deny the “due process of law” required by the Fourteenth Amendment, solely because evidence that was admitted at the trial was obtained under circumstances which would have rendered it inadmissible in a prosecution for violation of a federal law in a court of the United States because there deemed to be an infraction of the Fourth Amendment as applied in Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383? The Supreme Court of Colorado has sustained convictions in which such evidence was admitted, 117 Col. 279, 187 P. 2d 926; 117 Col. 321, 187 P. 2d 928, and we brought the cases here. 333 U. S. 879.
Unlike the specific requirements and restrictions placed by the Bill of Rights (Amendments I to VIII) upon the administration of criminal justice by federal authority, the Fourteenth Amendment did not subject criminal justice in the States to specific limitations. The notion that the "due process of law” guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment is shorthand for the first eight amendments of the Constitution and thereby incorporates them has been rejected by this Court again and again, after impressive consideration. See, e. g., Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516; Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78; Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278; Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319. Only the other day the Court reaffirmed this rejection after thorough reexamination of the scope and function of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46. The issue is closed.
For purposes of ascertaining the restrictions which the Due Process Clause imposed upon the States in the enforcement of their criminal law, we adhere to the views expressed in Palko v. Connecticut, supra, 302 U. S. 319. That decision speaks to us with the great weight of the authority, particularly in matters of civil liberty, of a court that included Mr. Chief Justice Hughes, Mr. Justice Brandeis, Mr. Justice Stone and Mr. Justice Cardozo, to name only the dead. In rejecting the suggestion that the Due Process Clause incorporated the original Bill of Rights, Mr. Justice Cardozo reaffirmed on behalf of that Court a different but deeper and more pervasive conception of the Due Process Clause. This Clause exacts from the States for the lowliest and the most outcast all that is “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” 302 U. S. at 325.
Due process of law thus conveys neither formal nor fixed nor narrow requirements. It is the compendious expression for all those rights which the courts must enforce because they are basic to our free society. But basic rights do not become petrified as of any one time, even though, as a matter of human experience, some may not too rhetorically be called eternal verities. It is of the very nature of a free society to advance in its standards of what is deemed reasonable and right. Representing as it does a living principle, due process is not confined within a permanent catalogue of what may at a given time be deemed the limits or the essentials of fundamental rights.
To rely on a tidy formula for the easy determination of what is a fundamental right for purposes of legal enforcement may satisfy a longing for certainty but ignores the movements of a free society. It belittles the scale of the conception of due process. The real clue to the problem confronting the judiciary in the application of the Due Process Clause is not to ask where the line is once and for all to be drawn but to recognize that it is for the Court to draw it by the gradual and empiric process of “inclusion and exclusion.” Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97, 104. This was the Court’s insight when first called upon to consider the problem; to this insight the Court has on the whole been faithful as case after case has come before it since Davidson v. New Orleans was decided.
The security of one’s privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police — which is at the core of the Fourth Amendment — is basic to a free society. It is therefore implicit in “the concept of ordered liberty” and as such enforceable against the States through the Due Process Clause. The knock at the door, whether by day or by night, as a prelude to a search, without authority of law but solely on the authority of the police, did not need the commentary of recent history to be condemned as inconsistent with the conception of human rights enshrined in the history and the basic constitutional documents of English-speaking peoples.
Accordingly, we have no hesitation in saying that were a State affirmatively to sanction such police incursion into privacy it would run counter to the guaranty of the Fourteenth Amendment. But the ways of enforcing such a basic right raise questions of a different order. How such arbitrary conduct should be checked, what remedies against it should be afforded, the means by which the right should be made effective, are all questions that are not to be so dogmatically answered as to preclude the varying solutions which spring from an allowable range of judgment on issues not susceptible of quantitative solution.
In Weeks v. United States, supra, this Court held that in a federal prosecution the Fourth Amendment barred the use of evidence secured through an illegal search and seizure. This ruling was made for the first time in 1914. It was not derived from the explicit requirements of the Fourth Amendment; it was not based on legislation expressing Congressional policy in the enforcement of the Constitution. The decision was a matter of judicial implication. Since then it has been frequently applied and we stoutly adhere to it. But the immediate question is whether the basic right to protection against arbitrary intrusion by the police demands the exclusion of logically relevant evidence obtained by an unreasonable search and seizure because, in a federal prosecution for a federal crime, it would be excluded. As a matter of inherent reason, one would suppose this to be an issue as to which men with complete devotion to the protection of the right of privacy might give different answers. When we find that in fact most of. the English-speaking world does not regard as vital to such protection the exclusion of evidence thus obtained, we must hesitate to treat this remedy as an essential ingredient of the right. The contrariety of views of the States is particularly impressive in view of the careful reconsideration which they have given the problem in the light of the Weeks decision.
I. Before the Weeks decision 27 States had passed on the admissibility of evidence obtained by unlawful search and seizure.
(a) Of these, 26 States opposed the Weeks doctrine. (See Appendix, Table A.)
(b) Of these, 1 State anticipated the Weeks doctrine. (Table B.)
II. Since the Weeks decision 47 States all told have passed on the Weeks doctrine. (Table C.)
(a) Of these, 20 passed on it for the first time.
(1) Of the foregoing States, 6 followed the Weeks doctrine. (Table D.)
(2) Of the foregoing States, 14 rejected the Weeks doctrine. (Table E.)
(b) Of these, 26 States reviewed prior decisions contrary to the Weeks doctrine.
(1) Of these, 10 States have followed Weeks, overruling or distinguishing their prior decisions. (Table F.)
(2) Of these, 16 States adhered to their prior decisions against Weeks. (Table G.)
(c) Of these, 1 State repudiated its prior formulation of the Weeks doctrine. (Table H.)
III. As of today 31 States reject the Weeks doctrine, 16 States are in agreement with it. (Table I.)
IV. Of 10 jurisdictions within the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth of Nations which have passed on the question, none has held evidence obtained by illegal search and seizure inadmissible. (Table J.)
The jurisdictions which have rejected the Weeks doctrine have not left the right to privacy without other means of protection. Indeed, the exclusion of evidence is a remedy which directly serves only to protect those upon whose person or premises something incriminating has been found. We cannot, therefore, regard it as a departure from basic standards to remand such persons, together with those who emerge scatheless from a search, to the remedies of private action and such protection as the internal discipline of the police, under the eyes of an alert public opinion, may afford. Granting that in practice the exclusion of evidence may be an effective way of deterring unreasonable searches, it is not for this Court to condemn as falling below the minimal standards assured by the Due Process Clause a State’s reliance upon other methods which, if consistently enforced, would be equally effective. Weighty testimony against such an insistence on our own view is furnished by the opinion of Mr. Justice (then Judge) Cardozo in People v. Defore, 242 N. Y. 13, 150 N. E. 585. We cannot brush aside the experience of States which deem the incidence of such conduct by the police too slight to call for a deterrent remedy not by way of disciplinary measures but by overriding the relevant rules of evidence. There are, moreover, reasons for excluding evidence unreasonably obtained by the federal police which are less compelling in the case of police under State or local authority. The public opinion of a community can far more effectively be exerted against oppressive conduct on the part of police directly responsible to the community itself than can local opinion, sporadically aroused, be brought to bear upon remote authority pervasively exerted throughout the country.
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. And though we have interpreted the Fourth Amendment to forbid the admission of such evidence, a different question would be presented if Congress under its legislative powers were to pass a statute purporting to negate the Weeks doctrine. We would then be faced with the problem of the respect to be accorded the legislative judgment on an issue as to which, in default of that judgment, we have been forced to depend upon our own. Problems of a converse character, also not before us, would be presented should Congress under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment undertake to enforce the rights there guaranteed by attempting to make the Weeks doctrine binding upon the States.
Affirmed.
APPENDIX.
Table A.
STATES WHICH OPPOSED THE Weeks DOCTRINE BEFORE the Weeks case had been decided.
Ala. Shields v. State, 104 Ala. 35, 16 So. 85.
Ark. Starchman v. State, 62 Ark. 538, 36 S. W. 940.
Conn. State v. Griswold, 67 Conn. 290, 34 A. 1046.
Ga. Williams v. State, 100 Ga. 511, 28 S. E. 624.
Idaho State v. Bond, 12 Idaho 424, 439, 86 P. 43, 47.
Ill. Siebert v. People, 143 Ill. 571, 583, 32 N. E. 431, 434.
Kan. State v. Miller, 63 Kan. 62, 64 P. 1033.
Me. See State v. Gorham, 65 Me. 270, 272.
Md. Lawrence v. State, 103 Md. 17, 35, 63 A. 96, 103.
Mass. Commonwealth v. Dana, 2 Metc. 329.
Mich. People v. Aldorfer, 164 Mich. 676, 130 N. W. 351.
Minn. State v. Strait, 94 Minn. 384, 102 N. W. 913.
Mo. State v. Pomeroy, 130 Mo. 489, 32 S. W. 1002.
Mont. See State v. Fuller, 34 Mont. 12, 19, 85 P. 369, 373.
Neb. Geiger v. State, 6 Neb. 545.
N. H. State v. Flynn, 36 N. H. 64.
N. Y. People v. Adams, 176 N. Y. 351, 68 N. E. 636.
N. C. State v. Wallace, 162 N. C. 622, 78 S. E. 1.
Okla. Silva v. State, 6 Okla. Cr. 97, 116 P. 199.
Ore. State v. McDaniel, 39 Ore. 161, 169-70, 65 P. 520, 523.
S. C. State v. Atkinson, 40 S. C. 363, 371, 18 S. E. 1021, 1024.
S. D. State v. Madison, 23 S. D. 584, 591, 122 N. W. 647, 650.
Tenn. Cohn v. State, 120 Tenn. 61, 109 S. W. 1149.
Vt. State v. Mathers, 64 Vt. 101, 23 A. 590.
Wash. State v. Royce, 38 Wash. 111, 80 P. 268.
W. Va. See State v. Edwards, 51 W. Va. 220, 229, 41 S. E. 429, 432-33.
Table B.
STATE WHICH HAD FORMULATED THE Weeks DOCTRINE before the Weeks decision.
Iowa State v. Sheridan, 121 Iowa 164, 96 N. W. 730.
Table C.
states which have passed on the Weeks doctrine since the Weeks case was decided.
Every State except Rhode Island. But see State v. Lorenzo, 72 R. I. 175, 48 A. 2d 407 (holding that defendant had consented to the search, but that, even if he had not and even if the federal rule applied, the evidence was admissible because no timely motion to suppress had been made).
Table D.
STATES WHICH PASSED ON THE Weeks DOCTRINE FOR THE FIRST TIME AFTER the Weeks DECISION and in so doing followed it.
Fla. Atz v. Andrews, 84 Fla. 43, 94 So. 329.
Ind. Flum v. State, 193 Ind. 585, 141 N. E. 353.
Ky. Youman v. Commonwealth, 189 Ky. 152, 224 S. W. 860.
Miss. Tucker v. State, 128 Miss. 211, 90 So. 845.
Wis. Hoyer v. State, 180 Wis. 407, 193 N. W. 89.
Wyo. State v. George, 32 Wyo. 223, 231 P. 683.
Table E.
STATES WHICH PASSED ON THE Weeks DOCTRINE FOR THE FIRST TIME AFTER THE Weeks DECISION AND IN SO DOING REJECTED IT.
Ariz. Argetakis v. State, 24 Ariz. 599, 212, P. 372.
Calif. People v. Mayen, 188 Calif. 237, 205 P. 435 (adopting the general rule but distinguishing the cases then decided by this Court on the ground that they apply only when a timely motion for return of the property seized has been made).
Colo. Massantonio v. People, 77 Colo. 392, 236 P. 1019.
Del. State v. Chuchola, 32 Del. 133, 120 A. 212 (distinguishing this Court’s decisions).
La. State v. Fleckinger, 152 La. 337, 93 So. 115. The constitutional convention of 1921 refused to adopt an amendment incorporating the federal rule. See State v. Eddins, 161 La. 240, 108 So. 468.
Nev. State v. Chin Gim, 47 Nev. 431, 224 P. 798.
N. J. State v. Black, 5 N. J. Misc. 48, 135 A. 685.
N. M. State v. Dillon, 34 N. M. 366, 281 P. 474.
N. D. State v. Fahn, 53 N. D. 203, 205 N. W. 67.
Ohio State v. Lindway, 131 Ohio St. 166, 2 N. E. 2d 490.
Pa. Commonwealth v. Dabbierio, 290 Pa. 174, 138 A. 679.
Tex. Welchek v. State, 93 Tex. Cr. Rep. 271, 247 S. W. 524. In 1925 a statute changed the rule by providing that “No evidence obtained by an officer or other person in violation of any provisions of the Constitution or laws of the State of Texas, or of the Constitution of the United States of America, shall be admitted in evidence against the accused on the trial of any criminal case.” Texas Laws 1925, c. 49, as amended, 2 Vernon’s Tex. Stat., 1948 (Code of Crim. Proc.), Art. 727a.
Utah State v. Aime, 62 Utah 476, 220 P. 704.
Va. Hall v. Commonwealth, 138 Va. 727, 121 S. E. 154.
Table F.
STATES WHICH, AFTER THE Weeks DECISION, OVERRULED OR DISTINGUISHED PRIOR CONTRARY DECISIONS.
Idaho Idaho expressly refused to follow the Weeks decision in State v. Myers, 36 Idaho 396, 211 P. 440, but repudiated the Myers case and adopted the federal rule in State v. Arregui, 44 Idaho 43, 254 P. 788.
III. After two cases following the former state rule, Illinois adopted the federal rule in People v. Castree, 311 Ill. 392, 143 N. E. 112.
Mich. People v. Marxhausen, 204 Mich. 559, 171 N. W. 557 (distinguishing earlier cases on the ground that in them no preliminary motion to suppress had been made).
Mo. State v. Graham, 295 Mo. 695, 247 S. W. 194, supported the old rule in a dictum, but the federal rule was adopted in State v. Owens, 302 Mo. 348, 259 S. W. 100 (distinguishing earlier cases on the ground that in them no preliminary motion to dismiss had been made).
Mont. State ex rel. King v. District Court, 70 Mont. 191, 224 P. 862.
Okla. Gore v. State, 24 Okla. Cr. 394, 218 P. 545.
S. D. State v. Gooder, 57 S. D. 619, 234 N. W. 610. But cf. S. D. Laws 1935, c. 96, now S. D. Code § 34.1102 (1939), amending Rev. Code 1919, § 4606 (all evidence admissible under a valid search warrant is admissible notwithstanding defects in the issuance of the warrant).
Tenn. Hughes v. State, 145 Tenn. 544, 238 S. W. 588 (distinguishing Cohn v. State, supra, Table A).
Wash. State v. Gibbons, 118 Wash. 171, 203 P. 390.
W. Va. State v. Andrews, 91 W. Va. 720, 114 S. E. 257 (distinguishing earlier cases).
Table G.
STATES WHICH, AFTER THE Weeks DECISION, REVIEWED PRIOR CONTRARY DECISIONS AND IN SO DOING ADHERED TO THOSE DECISIONS.
Ala. Banks v. State, 207 Ala. 179, 93 So. 293.
Ark. Benson v. State, 149 Ark. 633, 233 S. W. 758.
Conn. State v. Reynolds, 101 Conn. 224, 125 A. 636.
Ga. Jackson v. State, 156 Ga. 647, 119 S. E. 525.
Kan. State v. Johnson, 116 Kan. 58, 226 P. 245.
Me. State v. Schoppe, 113 Me. 10, 16, 92 A. 867, 869 (alternative holding, not noticing Weeks).
Md. Meisinger v. State, 155 Md. 195, 141 A. 536, 142 A. 190. But cf. Md. Laws 1929, c. 194, as amended, Md. Code Ann., Art. 35, § 5 (1947 Supp.) (in trial of misdemeanors, evidence obtained by illegal search and seizure is inadmissible) .
Mass. Commonwealth v. Wilkins, 243 Mass. 356, 138 N. E. 11.
Minn. State v. Pluth, 157 Minn. 145, 195 N. W. 789.
Neb. Billings v. State, 109 Neb. 596, 191 N. W. 721.
N. H. State v. Agalos, 79 N. H. 241, 242, 107 A. 314, 315 (not noticing Weeks).
N.Y. People v. Defore, 242 N. Y. 13, 150 N. E. 585; People v. Richter’s Jewelers, 291 N. Y. 161, 169, 51 N. E. 2d 690, 693 (holding that adoption of Amendment to State Constitution in same language as Civil Rights Law construed in the Defore case is not occasion for changing interpretation, especially since proceedings of the convention which framed the amendment show that no change was intended).
N. C. State v. Simmons, 183 N. C. 684, 110 S. E. 591 (distinguishing between evidentiary articles and corpus delicti).
Ore. See State v. Folkes, 174 Ore. 568, 588-89, 150 P. 2d 17, 25. But see State v. Laundy, 103 Ore. 443, 493-95, 204 P. 958, 974-75.
S. C. After granting a motion to return illegally seized property in Blacksburg v. Beam, 104 S. C. 146, 88 S. E. 441, South Carolina reaffirmed its agreement with the general rule in State v. Green, 121 S. C. 230, 114 S. E. 317.
Vt. State v. Stacy, 104 Vt. 379, 401, 160 A. 257, 266.
Table H.
STATE WHICH HAS REPUDIATED ITS PRIOR FORMULATION of the Weeks doctrine.
Iowa State v. Rowley, 197 Iowa 977, 195 N. W. 881 (withdrawing earlier opinion in 187 N. W. 7).
Table I.
SUMMARY OF PRESENT POSITION OF STATES WHICH HAVE passed on the Weeks doctrine.
(a) States that reject Weeks:
Ala., Ariz., Ark., Calif., Colo., Conn., Del., Ga., Iowa, Kan., La., Me., Md., Mass., Minn., Neb., Nev., N. H., N. J., N. M., N. Y., N. C., N. D., Ohio, Ore., Pa., S. C., Texas, Utah, Vt., Va.
(b) States that are in agreement with Weeks:
Fla., Idaho, Ill., Ind., Ky., Mich., Miss., Mo., Mont., Okla., S. D., Tenn., Wash., W. Va., Wis., Wyo.
Table J.
JURISDICTIONS OP THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OP NATIONS WHICH HAVE HELD ADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE OBTAINED BY ILLEGAL SEARCH AND SEIZURE.
Australia Miller v. Noblet, [1927] S. A. S. R. 385.
Canada
Alta. Rex v. Nelson, [1922] 2 W. W. R. 381, 69 D. L. R. 180.
Man. Rex v. Duroussel, 41 Man. 15, [1933] 2 D. L. R. 446.
Ont. Regina v. Doyle, 12 Ont. 347.
Sask. Rex v. Kostachuk, 24 Sask. 485, 54 Can. C. C. 189.
England See Elias v. Pasmore, [1934] 2 K. B. 164.
India
All. Ali Ahmad Khan v. Emperor, 81 I. C. 615 (1).
Cal. Baldeo Bin v. Emperor, 142 I. C. 639.
Rang. Chwa Hum Htive v. Emperor, 143 I. C. 824.
Scotland See Hodgson v. Macpherson, [1913] S. C. (J.) 68, 73.
The common law provides actions for damages against the searching officer, e. g., Entick v. Carrington, 2 Wils. 275, 19 How. St. Tr. 1029; Grumon v. Raymond, 1 Conn. 40; Sandford v. Nichols, 13 Mass. 286; Halsted v. Brice, 13 Mo. 171; Hussey v. Davis, 58 N. H. 317; Reed v. Lucas, 42 Texas 529; against one who procures the issuance of a warrant maliciously and without probable cause, e. g., Gulsby v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 167 Ala. 122, 52 So. 392; Whitson v. May, 71 Ind. 269; Krehbiel v. Henkle, 152 Iowa 604, 129 N. W. 945; Olson v. Tvete, 46 Minn. 225, 48 N. W. 914; Boeger v. Langenberg, 97 Mo. 390, 11 S. W. 223; Doane v. Anderson, 60 Hun 586, 15 N. Y. S. 459; Shall v. Minneapolis, St. P. & S. S. M. R. Co., 156 Wis. 195, 145 N. W. 649; against a magistrate who has acted without jurisdiction in issuing a warrant, e. g., Williams v. Kozak, 280 F. 373 (C. A. 4th Cir.); Grumon v. Raymond, 1 Conn. 40; Kennedy v. Terrill, Hardin (Ky.) 490; Shaw v. Moon, 117 Ore. 558, 245 P. 318; and against persons assisting in the execution of an illegal search, e. g., Hebrew v. Pulis, 73 N. J. L. 621, 625, 64 A. 121, 122; Cartwright v. Canode, 138 S. W. 792 (Tex. Civ. App.), aff’d, 106 Texas 502, 171 S. W. 696. One may also without liability use force to resist an unlawful search. E. g., Commonwealth v. Martin, 105 Mass. 178; State v. Mann, 27 N. C. 45.
Statutory sanctions in the main provide for the punishment of one maliciously procuring a search warrant or willfully exceeding his authority in exercising it. E. g., 18 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) §§ 630, 631; Ala. Code, Tit. 15, § 99 (1940); Ariz. Code Ann. § 44-3513 (1939); Fla. Stat. Ann. §§ 933.16, 933.17 (1944); Iowa Code §§ 751.38, 751.39 (1946); Mont. Rev. Code Ann. §§ 10948, 10952 (1935); Nev. Comp. Laws §§ 10425, 10426 (1929); N. Y. Crim. Code §§ 811, 812, N. Y. Penal Law §§ 1786, 1847; N. D. Rev. Code §§ 12-1707, 12-1708 (1943); Okla. Stat. Ann., Tit. 21, §§ 536, 585, Tit. 22, §§ 1239, 1240 (1937); Ore. Comp. Laws Ann. § 26-1717 (1940); S. D. Code §§ 13.1213, 13.1234, 34.9904, 34.9905 (1939); Tenn. Code Ann. § 11905 (1934). Some statutes more broadly penalize unlawful searches. E. g., 18 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 53a; Idaho Code Ann. §§ 17-1004, 17-1024 (1932); Minn. Stat. §§ 613.54, 621.17 (1945); Va. Code Ann. § 4822d (Michie, 1942); Wash. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 2240-1, 2240-2. Virginia also makes punishable one who issues a general search warrant or a warrant unsupported by affidavit. Va. Code Ann. § 4822e (Michie, 1942). A few States have provided statutory civil remedies. See, e. g., Ga. Code Ann. § 27-301 (1935); Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 38, § 698 (Smith-Hurd, 1935); Miss. Code Ann. § 1592 (1942). And in one State, misuse of a search warrant may be an abuse of process punishable as contempt of court. See Mich. Stat. Ann. § 27.511 (1938).
“We hold, then, with the defendant that the evidence against him was the outcome of a trespass. The officer might have been resisted, or sued for damages, or even prosecuted for oppression (Penal Law, §§ 1846, 1847). Pie was subject to removal or other discipline at the hands of his superiors. These consequences are undisputed. The defendant would add another. We must determine whether evidence of criminality, procured by an act of trespass, is to be rejected as incompetent for the misconduct of the trespasser. . . .
“Those judgments [Weeks v. United States and cases which followed it] do not bind us, for they construe provisions of the Federal Constitution, the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, not applicable to the States. Even though not binding, they merit our attentive scrutiny. . . .
"In so holding [i. e., that evidence procured by unlawful search is not incompetent], we are not unmindful of the argument that unless the evidence is excluded, the statute becomes a form and its protection an illusion. This has a strange sound when the immunity is viewed in the light of its origin and history. The rule now embodied in the statute was received into English law as the outcome of the prosecution of Wilkes and Entick .... Wilkes sued the messengers who had ransacked his papers, and recovered a verdict of £4,000 against one and £1,000 against the other. Entick, too, had a substantial verdict .... We do not know whether the public, represented by its juries, is to-day more indifferent to its liberties than it was when the immunity was born. If so, the change of sentiment without more does not work a change of remedy. Other sanctions, penal and disciplinary, supplementing the right to damages, have already been enumerated. No doubt the protection of the statute would be greater from the point of view of the individual whose privacy had been invaded if the government were required to ignore what it had learned through the invasion. The question is whether protection for the individual would not be gained at a disproportionate loss of protection for society. On the one side is the social need that crime shall be repressed. On the other, the social need that law shall not be flouted by the insolence of office. There are dangers in any choice. The rule of the Adams case [176 N. Y. 351, 68 N. E. 636] strikes a balance between opposing interests.” 242 N. Y. at 19, 20, 24-25,150 N. E. at 586-87, 587, 588-89.
In the case of jurisdictions which have decided more than one case in point, the following Tables cite only the leading case.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
An Atomic Energy Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board approved the issuance of a construction permit to Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (NIPSCO) for a commercial nuclear powered electrical generating plant proposed to be built on the south shore of Lake Michigan, in Porter County, Ind., RAI-74-4, p. 557 (1974). On appeal, an AEC Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal Board, RAI-74-8, p. 244 (1974), sustained the approval. On petition for review by inter-venors in the administrative proceedings, a divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit set aside the approval on the ground that the Licensing Board and the Appeal Board failed to follow the Commission’s own regulations governing “population center distance” in the nuclear plant siting. 515 F. 2d 513 (1975). The petition for certiorari is granted, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
Title 10 CFR § 100.10 (b) (1975) of the Commission’s regulations provides that “the Commission will take . . . into consideration in determining the acceptability of a [proposed nuclear plant] site” the “population center distance,” defined in 10 CFR § 100.3 (c) (1975) as “the distance from the reactor to the nearest boundary of a densely populated center containing more than about 25,000 residents.” At the time of NIPSCO’s application and also at the time of the Court of Appeals’ decision, 10 CFR § 100.11 (a)(3) (1975) further provided, in pertinent part, that “[a]s an aid in evaluating a proposed site” for a nuclear power plant a permit applicant should determine for the proposed unit a
“population center distance of at least one and one-third times the distance from the reactor to the outer boundary of the low population zone. In applying this guide, due consideration should be given to the population distribution within the population center.”
Two miles was the minimum allowable “population center distance” determined administratively pursuant to § 100.11 (a) (3). Accepting this determination, the Court of Appeals held that issuance of the construction permit violated the agency’s own regulations because the corporate boundary of the city of Portage, Ind. — projected to have a population in excess of 25,000 by 1980 — lay within 1.1 miles of NIPSCO’s proposed site. In reaching this conclusion the Court of Appeals rejected the agency’s administrative interpretation of its regulations as prescribing computation of “population center distance” for § 100.11 (a) (3) purposes, where the difference is critical to the siting decision, not solely to a political boundary but to the boundary of “that portion of the population center at which the dense population starts,” RAI-74-4, at 565. Under that interpretation of the regulations the “population center distance” was an acceptable 4.5 miles.
The Court of Appeals erred in rejecting the agency’s interpretation of its own regulations. That interpretation is supported by the wording of the regulations and is consistent with prior agency decisions. The wording does not equate a “dense population center” with a city or other political entity, nor does it define a “boundary” in terms of pre-existing lines drawn for nonsiting purposes. Rather, the regulations require consideration of “population distribution within the population center” in applying the “population center distance” guide. Political boundaries, in contrast, may be drawn for many reasons irrelevant to safe reactor siting, and thus encompass areas never likely to harbor a significant population. But even if the meaning is not free from doubt, the agency’s reliance upon the actual boundaries of population density in its interpretation sensibly conforms to the purpose and wording of the regulations. In that circumstance, the Court of Appeals was “obligated to regard as controlling [such] a reasonable, consistently applied administrative interpretation . . . .” Ehlert v. United States, 402 U. S. 99, 105 (1971). See also Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S. 1, 16-17 (1965); Power Reactor Co. v. Electricians, 367 U. S. 396, 408 (1961); Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., 325 U. S. 410, 413-414 (1945).
The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for consideration of other contentions against the issuance of the construction permit not decided by the Court of Appeals.
So ordered.
Porter County Chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America, Inc.; Concerned Citizens Against Bailly Nuclear Site; Businessmen for the Public Interest, Inc.; James E. Newman; Mildred Warner; and George Hanks.
NIPSCO, the State of Illinois, and the city of Gary, Ind., intervened before the Court of Appeals.
We do not understand the Court of Appeals' discussion of the evidence regarding population distribution within Portage to imply an alternative ground for the holding that the agency violated its own regulations.
In re Consumers Power Co., 5 A. E. C. 214, 218 (1972) (although political boundary of nearby city was within low-population zone, “the reduced population distance was acceptable” since “populous areas” of the city were farther removed from the reactor site than one and one-third times the low-population zone radius); In re Consolidated Edison Co., 5 A. E. C. 43, 45 (1972); cf. In re Southern California Edison Co. (San Onofre Station), RAI-74-12, pp. 957, 960 n. 7 (1974).
The Court of Appeals’ opinion also notes that the boundaries of 1970 census enumeration districts, including an area within Portage’s political limits, lay less than a mile from the proposed reactor site. The location of these boundaries, however, without more, has no greater significance than the location of the corporate border.
Our decision does not rely upon a revision of 10 CFR § 100.11 (a)(3), 40 Fed. Reg. 26526 (1975), published after the decision of the Court of Appeals by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which, pursuant to the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, § 201, 88 Stat. 1242, 42 U. S. C. §5841 (1970 ed., Supp. IV), now discharges the licensing responsibility formerly exercised by the Atomic Energy Commission.
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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We decide here whether, during voir dire for a capital offense, a state trial court may, consistent with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, refuse inquiry into whether a potential juror would automatically impose the death penalty upon conviction of the defendant.
I
The trial of a capital offense in Illinois is conducted in two phases. The defendant must first be convicted of first-degree murder, as defined in Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, ¶ 9-1(a) (Supp. 1990). Illinois law uses the same jury that decided guilt to determine whether the death penalty shall be imposed, and upon conviction, a separate sentencing heating commences to determine the existence of aggravating and mitigating factors. ¶ 9—1(d)(1). To be eligible for the death penalty, the jury must find unanimously, ¶ 9—1(g), and beyond a reasonable doubt, ¶ 9-1(f), that the defendant was at least 18 years old at the time of the murder, and that at least 1 of 10 enumerated aggravating factors exists, ¶ 9—1(b). See, e. g., ¶ 9-1(b)(5) (murder for hire or by contract); ¶ 9-1(b)(10) (premeditated murder by preconceived plan). If the jury finds none of the statutory aggravating factors to exist, the defendant is sentenced to a term of imprisonment. ¶ 9-l(g). “If there is a unanimous finding by the jury that one or more of the factors set forth in subsection (b) exist, the jury shall consider aggravating and mitigating factors as instructed by the court and shall determine whether the sentence of death shall be imposed.” Ibid. As part of this balance, the jury is instructed to consider mitigating factors existing in the case, five of which are enumerated, but which are not exclusive. ¶ 9-1(c). The State may also present evidence of relevant aggravating factors beyond those enumerated by statute. Ibid. “If the jury determines unanimously that there are no mitigating factors sufficient to preclude the imposition of the death sentence, the court shall sentence the defendant to death.” ¶ 9-1 (g).
Petitioner Derrick Morgan was convicted in Cook County, Illinois, of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. The evidence at trial amply proved that petitioner was hired to kill a narcotics dealer apparently competing with the El Rukns, one of Chicago’s violent inner-city gangs. For $4,000, petitioner lured the dealer, who was a friend, into an abandoned apartment and shot him in the head six times. Upon consideration of factors in aggravation and mitigation, the jury sentenced him to death.
Three separate venires were required to be called before the jury was finally chosen. In accordance with Illinois law, the trial court, rather than the attorneys, conducted voir dire. People v. Gacy, 103 Ill. 2d 1, 36-37, 468 N. E. 2d 1171, 1184-1185 (1984). The State, having elected to pursue capital punishment, requested inquiry permitted by Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510 (1968), to determine whether any potential juror would in all instances refuse to impose the death penalty upon-conviction of the offense. Accordingly, the trial court, over opposition from the defense, questioned each venire whether any member had moral or religious principles so strong that he or she could not impose the death penalty “regardless of the facts.” App. 9, 78, 90. Seventeen potential jurors were excused when they expressed substantial doubts about their ability to follow Illinois law in deciding whether to impose a sentence of death. Id., at 9-22, 79-83, 90-94. All of the jurors eventually empaneled were also questioned individually under Wither-spoon, each receiving and responding in the negative to this question or a slight variation: “Would you automatically vote against the death penalty no matter what the facts of the case were?” App. 33; see id., at 36, 41, 48, 55, 59, 64, 69, 76, 88, 97, 103.
After seven members of the first venire had been questioned, including three who eventually became jurors, petitioner’s counsel requested the trial court to ask all prospective jurors the following question: “If you found Derrick Morgan guilty, would you automatically vote to impose the death penalty no matter what the facts are?” Id., at 44. The trial court refused this request, stating that it had “asked the question in a different vein substantially in that nature.” Ibid.
Prior to the voir dire of the three venires, the trial court had explained in general terms the dictates of Illinois procedure in capital trials, as outlined above. See id., at 24, 77-78, 90. During voir dire, the trial court received from 9 of the 12 jurors empaneled an affirmative response to variations of this question: “Would you follow my instructions on the law even though you may not agree?” Id., at 30; see id., at 38, 43, 49, 56, 60, 64, 69, 107. However, the trial court did not ask three of the jurors this question in any way. See id., at 73-77, 83-89, 94-100. Every juror eventually empaneled was asked generally whether each could be fair and impartial. Each juror responded appropriately to at least one of these questions, or a variation: (1) “Do you know of any reason why you cannot be fair and impartial?”, id., at 33; see id., at 41, 49, 64, 68, 75, 88, 99; (2) “Do you feel you can give both sides a fair trial?”, id., at 70; see id., at 35, 38, 43, 49, 56, 61, 65, 77, 100, 110. When empaneled, each member of the jury further swore an oath to “well and truly try the issues joined herein and true deliverance make between the People of the State of Illinois and the defendant at the bar and a true verdict render according to the law and the evidence.” 1 Tr. 601-602; see id., at 264, 370, 429, 507, 544, 575-576.
On appeal, the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed petitioner’s conviction and death sentence, rejecting petitioner’s claim that, pursuant to Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U. S. 81 (1988), voir dire must include the “life qualifying” or “reverse-Witherspoon” question upon request. The Illinois Supreme Court concluded that nothing requires a trial court to question potential jurors so as to identify and exclude any who would vote for the death penalty in every case after conviction for a capital offense. 142 Ill. 2d 410, 470, 568 N. E. 2d 755, 778 (1991). That court also found no violation of Ross, concluding instead that petitioner’s jury “was selected from a fair cross-section of the community, each juror swore to uphold the law regardless of his or her personal feelings, and no juror expressed any views that would call his or her impartiality into question.” 142 Ill. 2d, at 470, 568 N. E. 2d, at 778.
We granted certiorari because of the considerable disagreement among state courts of last resort on the question at issue in this ease. 502 U. S. 905 (1991). We now reverse the judgment of the Illinois Supreme Court.
) — I H-1
We have emphasized previously that there is not “any one right way for a State to set up its capital sentencing scheme,” Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U. S. 447, 464 (1984) (citations omitted), and that no State is constitutionally required by the Sixth Amendment or otherwise to provide for jury determination of whether the death penalty shall be imposed on a capital defendant, ibid. Illinois has chosen, however, to delegate to the jury this task in the penalty phase of capital trials in addition to its duty to determine guilt or innocence of the underlying crime. The issue, therefore, is whether petitioner is entitled to relief under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We conclude that he is, and in the course of doing so we deal with four issues: whether a jury provided to a capital defendant at the sentencing phase must be impartial; whether such defendant is entitled to challenge for cause and have removed on the ground of bias a prospective juror who will automatically vote for the death penalty irrespective of the facts or the trial court’s instructions of law; whether on voir dire the court must, on defendant’s request, inquire into the prospective jurors’ views on capital punishment; and whether the voir dire in this case was constitutionally sufficient.
A
Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968), held that the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed a right of jury trial in all state criminal cases which, were they tried in a federal court, would come within the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of trial by jury. Prior to this decision applying the Sixth Amendment’s jury trial provision to the States, we recognized in Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717 (1961), and in Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 466 (1965), that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause itself independently required the impartiality of any jury empaneled to try a cause:
“Although this Court has said that the Fourteenth Amendment does not demand the use of jury trials in a State’s criminal procedure, Fay v. New York, 332 U. S. 261 [(1947)]; Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319 [(1937)], every State has constitutionally provided trial by jury. See Columbia University Legislative Drafting Research Fund, Index Digest of State Constitutions, 578-579 (1959). In essence, the right to jury trial guarantees to the criminally accused a fair trial by a panel of impartial, ‘indifferent’ jurors. The failure to accord an accused a fair hearing violates even the minimal standards of due process. In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257 [(1948)]; Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510 [(1927)]. ‘A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process.’ In re Murchison, 349 U. S. 133, 136 [(1955)]. In the ultimate analysis, only the jury can strip a man of his liberty or his life. In the language of Lord Coke, a juror must be as ‘indifferent as he stands unsworne.’ Co. Litt. 155b. His verdict must be based upon the evidence developed at the trial. Cf. Thompson v. City of Louisville, 362 U. S. 199 [(I960)]. This is true, regardless of the heinousness of the crime charged, the apparent guilt of the offender or the station in life which he occupies. It was so written into our law as early as 1807 by Chief Justice Marshall in 1 Burr’s Trial 416 (1807). ‘The theory of the law is that a juror who has formed an opinion cannot he impartial.’ Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 155 [(1879)].” Irvin v. Dowd, supra, at 721-722 (footnote omitted).
In Turner v. Louisiana, we relied on this passage to delineate “the nature of the jury trial which the Fourteenth Amendment commands when trial by jury is what the State has purported to accord.” 379 U. S., at 471. In short, as reflected in the passage above, due process alone has long demanded that, if a jury is to be provided the defendant, regardless of whether the Sixth Amendment requires it, the jury must stand impartial and indifferent to the extent commanded by the Sixth Amendment. Id.,,at 472, and n. 10; cf. Groppi v. Wisconsin, 400 U. S. 505, 508-511 (1971).
Thus it is that our decisions dealing with capital sentencing juries and presenting issues most analogous to that which we decide here today, e. g., Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S., at 518; Adams v. Texas, 448 U. S. 38, 40 (1980); Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412, 423 (1985); Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U. S., at 85, have relied on the strictures dictated by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to ensure the impartiality of any jury that will undertake capital sentencing. See also Turner v. Murray, 476 U. S. 28, 36, and n. 9 (1986) (plurality opinion).
B
Witt held that “the proper standard for determining when a prospective juror may be excluded for cause because of his or her views on capital punishment... is 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.’ ” 469 U. S., at 424 (quoting Adams v. Texas, supra, at 45). Under this standard, it is clear from Witt and Adams, the progeny of Witherspoon, that a juror who in no case would vote for capital punishment, regardless of his or her instructions, is not an impartial juror and must be removed for cause.
Thereafter, in Ross v. Oklahoma, supra, a state trial court refused to remove for cause a juror who declared he would vote to impose death automatically if the jury found the defendant guilty. That juror, however, was removed by the defendant’s use of a peremptory challenge, and for that reason the death sentence could be affirmed. But in the course of reaching this result, we announced our considered view that because the Constitution guarantees a defendant on trial for his life the right to an impartial jury, 487 U. S., at 85, the trial court’s failure to remove the juror for cause was constitutional error under the standard, enunciated in Witt. We emphasized that “[h]ad [this juror] sat. on the jury that ultimately sentenced petitioner to death,' and had petitioner properly preserved his right to challenge the trial court’s failure to remove [the juror] for cause, the sentence would have to be overturned.” 487 U. S., at 85 (citing Adams, supra).
We reiterate this view today. A juror who will automatically vote for the death penalty in every case will fail in good faith to consider the evidence of aggravating and mitigating circumstances as the instructions require him to do. Indeed, because such a juror has already formed an opinion on the merits, the presence or absence of either aggravating or mitigating circumstances is entirely irrelevant to such a juror. Therefore, based on the requirement of impartiality embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a capital defendant may challenge for cause any prospective juror who maintains such views. If even one such juror is empaneled and the death sentence is imposed, the State is disentitled to execute the sentence.
C
Illinois, in fact, raises no challenge to the foregoing precepts, but argues instead that the trial court, in its discretion, may refuse direct inquiry into this matter, so long as its other questioning purports to assure the defendant a fair and impartial jury able to follow the law. It is true that “[v]oir dire ‘is conducted under the supervision of the court, and a great deal must, of necessity, be left to its sound discretion.’ ” Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U. S. 589, 594 (1976) (quoting Connors v. United States, 158 U. S. 408, 413 (1895)). The Constitution, after all, does not dictate a catechism for voir dire, but only that the defendant be afforded an impartial jury. Even so, part of the guarantee of a defendant’s right to an impartial jury is an adequate voir dire to identify unqualified jurors. Dennis v. United States, 339 U. S. 162, 171-172 (1950); Morford v. United States, 339 U. S. 258, 259 (1950). “Voir dire plays a critical function in assuring the criminal defendant that his [constitutional] right to an impartial jury will be honored. Without an adequate voir dire the trial judge’s responsibility to remove prospective jurors who will not be able impartially to follow the court’s instructions and evaluate the evidence cannot be fulfilled.” Rosales-Lopez v. United States, 451 U. S. 182, 188 (1981) (plurality opinion). Hence, “[t]he exercise of [the trial court’s] discretion, and the restriction upon inquiries at the request of counsel, [are] subject to the essential demands of fairness.” Aldridge v. United States, 283 U. S. 308, 310 (1931).
The adequacy of voir dire is not easily the subject of appellate review, Rosales-Lopez, supra, at 188, but we have not hesitated, particularly in capital cases, to find that certain inquiries must be made to effectuate constitutional protections, see, e. g., Turner v. Murray, supra, at 36-37; Ham v. South Carolina, 409 U. S. 524, 526-527 (1973). Our holding in Ham, for instance, was as follows:
“Since one of the purposes of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is to insure these ‘essential demands of fairness,’ e.g., Lisenba v. California, 314 U. S. 219, 236 (1941), and since a principal purpose of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment was to prohibit the States from invidiously discriminating on the basis of race, Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 81 (1873), we think that the Fourteenth Amendment required the judge in this case to interrogate the jurors upon the subject of racial prejudice. South Carolina law permits challenges for cause, and authorizes the trial judge to conduct voir dire examination of potential jurors. The State having created this statutory framework for the selection of juries, the essential fairness required by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that under the facts shown by this record the petitioner be permitted to have the jurors interrogated on the issue of racial bias.” Id., at 526-527.
We have also come to recognize that the principles first propounded in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510 (1968), the reverse of which are at issue here, demand inquiry into whether the views of prospective jurors on the death penalty would disqualify them from sitting. At its inception, With-erspoon conferred no “right” on a State, but was in reality a limitation of a State’s making unlimited challenges for cause to exclude those jurors who “might hesitate” to return a verdict imposing death. Id., at 512-513; see Adams v. Texas, 448 U. S., at 47-49. Upon consideration of the jury in With-erspoon, drawn as it was from a venire from which the State struck any juror expressing qualms about the death penalty, we found it “self-evident that, in its role as arbiter of the punishment to be imposed, this jury fell woefully short of that impartiality to which the petitioner was entitled under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.” 391 U. S., at 518. To preserve this impartiality, Witherspoon constrained the State’s exercise of challenges for cause:
“[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. Specifically, we hold 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 or expressed conscientious or religious scruples against its infliction. No defendant can constitutionally be put to death at the hands of a tribunal so selected.” Id., at 520-523 (footnotes omitted).
See also Lockhart v. McCree, 476 U. S. 162, 179-180 (1986). Witherspoon limited a State’s power broadly to exclude jurors hesitant in their ability to sentence a defendant to death, but nothing in that decision questioned “the power of a State to execute a defendant sentenced to death by a jury from which the only veniremen who were in fact excluded for cause were those who made unmistakably clear... that they would automatically vote against the imposition of capital punishment without regard to any evidence that might be developed at the trial of the case before them....” 391 U. S., at 522, n. 21 (emphasis in original); see also id., at 513-514.
In Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412 (1985), we revisited footnote 21 of Witherspoon, and held affirmatively that “the State may exclude from capital sentencing juries that ‘class’ of veniremen whose views would prevent or substantially impair the performance of their duties in accord-anee with their instructions or their oaths.” 469 U. S., at 424, n. 5; see also Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586, 595-596 (1978). Indeed, in Lockhart v. McCree we thereafter spoke in terms of “ ‘Witherspoon-exchidables’ ” whose removal for cause “serves the State’s entirely proper interest in obtaining a single jury that could impartially decide all of the issues in [a capital] case.” 476 U. S., at 180. From Witt, moreover, it was but a very short step to observe as well ■ in Lockhart:
“[T]he State may challenge for cause prospective jurors whose opposition to the death penalty is so strong that it would prevent them from impartially determining a capital defendant’s guilt or innocence. Ipso facto, the State must be given the opportunity to identify such prospective jurors by questioning them at voir dire about their views of the death penalty.” 476 U. S., at 170, n. 7.
This passage in Lockhart expanded but briefly upon what we had already recognized in Witt: “As with any other trial situation where an adversary wishes to exclude a juror because of bias, then, it is the adversary seeking exclusion who must demonstrate, through questioning, that the potential juror lacks impartiality.. It is then the trial judge’s duty to determine whether the challenge is proper.” 469 U. S., at 423 (citation omitted; emphasis added).
We deal here with petitioner’s ability to exercise intelligently his complementary challenge for cause against those biased persons on the venire who as jurors would unwaveringly impose, death after a finding of guilt. Were voir dire not available to lay bare the foundation of petitioner’s challenge for cause against those prospective jurors who would always impose death following conviction, his right not to be tried by such jurors would be rendered as nugatory and meaningless as the State’s right, in the absence of questioning, to strike those who would never do so.
D
The only issue remaining is whether the questions propounded by the trial court were sufficient to satisfy petitioner’s right to make inquiry. As noted above, Illinois suggests that general fairness and “follow the law” questions, of the like employed by the trial court here, are enough to detect those in the venire who automatically would vote for the death penalty. The State’s own request for questioning under Witherspoon and Witt of course belies this argument. Witherspoon and its succeeding cases would be in large measure superfluous were this Court convinced that such general inquiries could detect those jurors with views preventing or substantially impairing their duties in accordance with their instructions and oath. But such jurors — whether they be unalterably in favor of, or opposed to, the death penalty in every case — by definition are ones who cannot perform their duties in accordance with law, their protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.
As to general questions of fairness and impartiality, such jurors could in all truth and candor respond affirmatively, personally confident that such dogmatic views are fair and impartial, while leaving the specific concern unprobed. More importantly, however, the belief that death should be imposed ipso facto upon conviction of a capital offense reflects directly on that individual’s inability to follow the law. See supra, at 729. Any juror who would impose death regardless of the facts and circumstances of conviction cannot follow the dictates of law. See Turner v. Murray, 476 U. S., at 34-35 (plurality opinion). It may be that a juror could, in good conscience, swear to uphold the law and yet be unaware that maintaining such dogmatic beliefs about the death penalty would prevent him or her from doing so. A defendant on trial for his life must be permitted on voir dire to ascertain whether his prospective jurors function under such misconception. The risk that such jurors may have been empaneled in this case and “infected petitioner’s capital sentencing [is] unacceptable in light of the ease with which that risk could have been minimized.” Id., at 36 (footnote omitted). Petitioner was entitled, upon his request, to inquiry discerning those jurors who, even prior to the State’s case in chief, had predetermined the terminating issue of his trial, that being whether to impose the death penalty.
r-H HH I — I
The defendant may, however, elect to waive sentencing by the jury. Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, ¶ 9-1(d)(3) (Supp. 1990). The procedure and standards that guide a sentencing judge, ¶ 9-1(h), are identical to those that guide a jury, ¶ 9-1(g).
Such questioning led to the removal for cause of one prospective juror, following this exchange:
“Q Would you follow my instructions on the law in the case even though you might not agree?
“A Yes.
“Q Do you know any reason why you cannot give this defendant a fair trial?
“A I would have no problem during the trial. If it came — I had a friend’s parents murdered twelve years ago before capital punishment. I would give a fair trial. If he is found guilty, I would want him hung.
“Q You couldn’t be fair and impartial throughout the proceedings?
“A No.
“Q You are excused.” App. 72-73.
The Illinois Supreme Court has subsequently emphasized that decision in this case was not meant “to imply that the ‘reverse-Witherspoon’ question is inappropriate. Indeed, given the type of scrutiny capital cases receive on review, one would think trial courts would go out of their way to afford a defendant every possible safeguard. The ‘reverse-Witherspoon’ question may not be the only means of ensuring defendant an impartial jury, but it is certainly the most direct. The best way to ensure that a prospective juror would not automatically vote for the death penalty is to ask.” People v. Jackson, 145 Ill. 2d 43, 110, 582 N. E. 2d 125, 156 (1991). See also State v. Atkins, 303 S. C. 214, 222-223, 399 S. E. 2d 760, 765 (1990).
Delaware and South Carolina agree with Illinois that the “reverse-Witherspoon” inquiry is unnecessary so long as, by questions and oath, each juror swears to be fair and impartial and to follow the law. See Riley v. State, 585 A. 2d 719, 725-726 (Del. 1990), cert. denied, 501 U. S. 1223 (1991); State v. Hyman, 276 S. C. 559, 563, 281 S. E. 2d 209, 211-212 (1981), cert. denied, 458 U. S. 1122 (1982). Missouri appears to be of this view as well. State v. McMillin, 783 S. W. 2d 82, 94 (Mo.), cert. denied, 498 U. S. 881 (1990). California, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Utah, and Virginia disagree, see People v. Bittaker, 48 Cal. 3d 1046, 1083-1084, 774 P. 2d 659, 679 (1989); Skipper v. State, 257 Ga. 802, 806-807, 364 S. E. 2d 835, 839 (1988); State v. Henry, 196 La. 217, 232-234, 198 So. 910, 914-916 (1940); State v. Williams, 113 N. J. 393, 416-417, 550 A. 2d 1172, 1182-1184 (1988); State v. Rogers, 316 N. C. 203, 216-218, 341 S. E. 2d 713, 722 (1986); State v. Norton, 675 P. 2d 577, 588-589 (Utah 1983), cert. denied, 466 U. S. 942 (1984); Patterson v. Commonwealth, 222 Va. 653, 657-660, 283 S. E. 2d 212, 214-216 (1981), as apparently do Arkansas, Florida, and Kentucky, see Pickens v. State, 292 Ark. 362, 366-367, 730 S. W. 2d 230, 233-234, cert. denied, 484 U. S. 917 (1987); Gore v. State, 475 So. 2d 1205, 1206-1208 (Fla. 1985), cert. denied, 475 U. S. 1031 (1986); Morris v. Commonwealth, 766 S. W. 2d 58, 60 (Ky. 1989). Lower courts in Alabama also follow this latter view. See Bracewell v. State, 506 So. 2d 354, 358 (Ala. Crim. App. 1986); cf. Henderson v. State, 583 So. 2d 276, 283-284 (Ala. Crim. App. 1990) (no “plain error” in trial court’s failure sua sponte to “life qualify” the prospective jurors), aff’d, 583 So. 2d 305 (1991).
See Mu’Min v. Virginia, 500 U. S. 415, 425-426 (1991): “To be constitutionally compelled... it is not enough that such questions might be helpful. Rather, the trial court’s failure to ask these questions must render the defendant’s trial fundamentally unfair.”
Illinois argues that, because of the changed structure in death penalty jurisprudence since Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238 (1972), Witherspoon principles should no longer guide this area. But analogous arguments have been previously raised and rejected. Adams v. Texas, 448 U. S. 38, 45-47 (1980). When considering the Texas death penalty scheme in light of Witherspoon, we stated: “[JJurors in Texas must determine whether the evidence presented by the State convinces them beyond reasonable doubt that each of the three questions put to them must be answered in the affirmative. In doing so, they must consider both aggravating and mitigating circumstances, whether appearing in the evidence presented at the trial on guilt or innocence or during the sentencing proceedings. Jurors will characteristically know that affirmative answers to the questions will result in the automatic imposition of the death penalty, and each of the jurors whose exclusion is challenged by petitioner was so informed. In essence, Texas juries must be allowed to consider ‘on the basis of all relevant evidence not only why a death sentence should be imposed, but also why it should not be imposed.’ Jurek v. Texas, 428 U. S. 262, 271 (1976) (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.). 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.” Adams, supra, at 46 (citation omitted). The balancing approach chosen by Illinois vests considerably more discretion in the jurors considering the death penalty, and, with stronger reason, Witherspoon’s general principles apply. Cf. Turner v. Murray, 476 U. S. 28, 34-35 (1986) (plurality opinion).
As the Fifth Circuit has observed obiter dictum: “All veniremen are potentially biased. The process of voir dire is designed to cull from the venire persons who demonstrate that they cannot be fair to either side of the case. Clearly, the extremes must be eliminated — i. e., those who, in spite of the evidence, would automatically vote to convict or impose the death penalty or automatically vote to acquit or impose a life sentence.” Smith v. Balkcom, 660 F. 2d 573, 578 (1981) (emphasis in original), modified, 671 F. 2d 858, cert. denied, 459 U. S. 882 (1982).
Almost in passing the State also suggests that the “reverse-Witherspoon” inquiry is inapposite because of a putative “quantitative difference.” Illinois requires a unanimous verdict in favor of imposing death, see supra, at 721-722; thus any one juror can nullify the imposition of the death penalty. “Persons automatically for the death penalty would not carry the same weight,” Illinois argues, “because persons automatically for the death penalty would still need to persuade the remaining eleven jurors to vote for the death penalty.” Brief for Respondent 27. The dissent chooses to champion this argument, post, at 750, although it is clearly foreclosed by Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U. S. 81, 85 (1988), where we held that even one such juror on the panel would be one too many. See supra, at 728-729. In any event, the measure of a jury is taken by reference to the impartiality of each, individual juror. Illinois has chosen to provide a capital defendant 12 jurors to decide his fate, and each of these jurors must stand equally impartial in his or her ability to follow the law.
That certain prospective jurors maintain such inconsistent beliefs— that they can follow the law, but that they will always vote to impose death for conviction of a capital offense — has been demonstrated, even in this case. See n. 2, supra. Indeed, in Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412 (1985), we set forth the following exchange, highlighting this inconsistency in beliefs in regards to Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510 (1968):
“THE COURT: Wait a minute, ma’am. I haven’t made Up my mind yet. Just have a seat. Let me ask you these things. Do you have any prefixed ideas about this case at all?
“[A]: Not at all.
“THE COURT: Will you follow the law that I give
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.
An inspector of a division of the. Colorado Department of Health entered the outdoor premises of respondent without its knowledge or consent. It was daylight and the inspector entered the yard to make a Ringelmann test of plumes of smoke being emitted from' respondent’s chimneys. Since that time Colorado has. adopted a requirement for a seareh warrant for. violations of air quality standards. At the time of the instant inspection the state law required nó warrant and none was sought. Indeed, the. inspector entered no part of respondent’s plant to make the inspection.
A federal Act under the administration of the 'Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets certain air quality . standards, 81 Stat. 485, 42 U. S. C. § 1857 et seg. The States have the primary responsibility to assure the maintenance of air. quality standards, 42 U. S. C. § 1857c-2 (a). Yet if the EPA has approved'or promulgated “an applicable implementation” plan, a State may not adopt Or enforce a “less stringent” one, 42 U. S. C. §4857d-1. - There is no conflict between a federal standard and state. action, the sole question presented being whether Colorado has violated federal constitutional procedures in making the inspection in the manner described..
Respondent requested a hearing before Colorado’s Air Pollution Variance Board. The Board held a hearing and found that respondent’s, emissions were in violation of the state Act. While the test challenged here was made on June 4, 1969, the Board after noting that Colorado’s Health Department had been in conference with respondent “in regard to its air pollution violations since September, 1967,” after approving the readings made by the field inspector on the day in question, and after holding that tests submitted in rebuttal by respondent were not acceptable, denied a variance and entered a ceasé-and-desist order. Respondent sought review in the District Court for Weld County which set aside the Board’s decision. The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed, 610 P. 2d 907; and the Supreme Court denied certiorari.
The petition for certiorari which we granted, 414 U. S. 1166, raised three questions, presenting in differing postures questions under the Fourth Amendment, made applicable to the . States by the Fourteenth. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643.
The main, thrust of the opinion of the Court of Appeals is directed at the Fourth Amendment problem. It held that, under Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, and See v. City of Seattle, 387 U. S. 541, the act of conducting the tests on the premises of respondent without either a warrant or .the cóñsent’of anyone from respondent constituted an unreasonable search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. We adhere to Camara and See btit we think they are not applicable here. The field inspector' did not enter the plant or offices.- - He was not inspecting stacks, boilers; scrubbers, flues, grates, or furnaces; nor was his inspection related to respondent’s files or papers. He had sighted what anyone in the city who was near the plant could see in the sky — plumes of smoke. The Court in Hester v. United States, 265 U. S. 57, 59, speaking through Mr. Justice Holmes, refused to extend the Fourth Amendment to sights seen in “the . open fields.” The field inspector was on respondent’s property but we are not advised that he was on premises from which the public was excluded. Under the Noise Control Act of 1972, 86 Stat. 1234, 42 U. S. C. § 4901 et.seq. (1970 ed., Supp. II), an inspector may enter a railroad right-of-way to determine whether noise standards are being violated. The .invasion of privacy in either that case or the present one, if it can be said to exist, is abstract and theoretical. The EPA regm lation for conducting an opacity test requires the inspector to stand at a distance equivalent to approximately two stack heights away but not more than & quarter of a mile from the base of the stack with the sun to his back from a vantage point perpendicular to the plume; and he must take at least 25 readings, recording the data at 15-to 30-second intervals. Depending upon the layout of the-plant, the inspector may operate within or without the premises but in either case he is well within the “open fields” exception to-the Fourth Amendment'approved.in Hester.
The Court of Appeals went on to say that since respondent was not aware that the inspector had been on the premises until the cease-and-desist notice, the hearing it received “lacked the fundamental elements of due process of law-, since.the secret nature of the investigation foreclosed Western from putting on any rebuttal .evidence.”
Whether the Court referred to Colorado “due process” or ■ Fourteenth Amendmept “due process” is not clear. If it is the former, the question is a matter of state law beyond our purview. Since we are unsure of the grounds of that ruling we intimate no opinion on that issue. But on our remand we leave open that.and any other, questions that may be lurking' in the case.
Reversed and remanded.
This test is prescribed by Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 66-29-5 (Supp. 1967). It requires a'trained inspector to stand _iií a position where he' has an unobstructed view of the smoke plume, observe the smoke, and .rate it according to the opacity scale of the Ringelmann chart..- The person using the- chart matches the color and density of the sinoke • plume with • the numbered example on the chart. The Ringelmann test is generally sanctioned for use in measuring air pollution. See cases collected in Portland v. Fry Roofing Co., 3 Ore. App. 352, 355-358, 472 P. 2d 826, 827-829.
Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 66-29-8 (2) (d) (Supp. 1969).
The Air Pollution Variance Board, after the Division of Administration; Colorado Department of Health, had issued a cease- .and-desist order; received a request from respondent for a hearing which was granted and held September 11,1969.
EPA studies indicate that tests of stacks are expensive and may . require 300 man-hours of skilled work. 39 Fed. Reg. 9309. And see Schulze; The Economics of Environmental Quality Measurement, 23 J. Air Poll Control Assn. 671. (1973); 40 CFR § 60.85, Method 9.
510 P. 2d, at 909.
In the District Court’s opinion it is said that one challenge to the hearing before the Variance Board "was “whether or not due • process of law ánd equal protection of -the law contrary to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and Section 25, Article 2 of the Constitution of the State of Colorado was denied” by the Board. App. 136.
See California v. Krivda, 409 U. S. 33; Department of Mental Hygiene v. Kirchner, 380 U. S. 194; Minnesota v. National Tea Co., 309 U. S. 551,
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 Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the sources and scope of the power of an Indian tribe to regulate hunting and fishing by non-Indians on lands within its reservation owned in fee simple by non-Indians. Relying on its purported ownership of the bed of the Big Horn River, on the treaties which created its reservation, and on its inherent power as a sovereign, the Crow Tribe of Montana claims the authority to prohibit all hunting and fishing by nonmembers of the Tribe on non-Indian property within reservation boundaries. We granted certiorari, 445 U. S. 960, to review a decision of the United States Court of Appeals- for the Ninth Circuit that substantially upheld this claim.
The Crow Indians originated in Canada, but some three centuries ago they migrated to what is now southern Montana. In_the 19th century, warfare between the Crows and several other tribes led the tribes and the United States to sign the First Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1851, in which the signatory tribes acknowledged various designated lands as their respective territories. See 11 Stat. 749 and 2 C. Kap-pler, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties 594 (1904) (hereinafter Kappler). The treaty identified approximately 38.5 million acres as Crow territory and, in Article 5, specified that, by making the treaty, the tribes did not “surrender the privilege of hunting, fishing, or passing over” any of the lands in dispute. In 1868, the Second Treaty of Fort Laramie established a Crow Reservation of roughly 8 million acres, including land through which the Big Horn River flows. 15 Stat. 649. By Article II of the treaty, the United States agreed that the reservation “shall be... set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” of the Crow Tribe, and that no non-Indians except agents of the Government “shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in” the reservation.
Several subsequent Acts of Congress reduced the reservation to slightly fewer than 2.3 million acres. See 22 Stat. 42 (1882); § 31, 26 Stat. 1039-1040 (1891); ch. 1624, 33 Stat. 352 (1904); ch. 890, 50 Stat. 884 (1937). In addition, the General Allotment Act of 1887, ch. 119, 24 Stat. 388, and the Crow Allotment Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 751, authorized the issuance of patents in fee to individual Indian allottees within the reservation. Under these Acts, an allottee could alienate his land to a non-Indian after holding it for 25 years. Today, roughly 52 percent of the reservation is allotted to members of the Tribe and held by the United States in trust for them, 17 percent is held in trust for the Tribe itself, and approximately 28 percent is held in fee by non-Indians. The State of Montana owns in fee simple 2 percent of the reservation, the United States less than 1 percent.
Since the 1920’s, the State of Montana has stocked the waters of the reservation with fish, and the construction of a dam by the United States made trout fishing in the Big Horn River possible. The reservation also contains game, some of it stocked by the State. Since the 1950’s, the Crow Tribal Council has passed several resolutions respecting hunting and fishing on the reservation, including Resolution No. 74-05, the occasion for this lawsuit. That resolution prohibits hunting and fishing within the reservation by anyone who is not a member of the Tribe. The State of Montana, however, has continued to assert its authority to regulate hunting and fishing by non-Indians within the reservation.
On October 9, 1975, proceeding in its own right and as fiduciary for the Tribe, the United States endeavored to resolve the conflict between the Tribe and the State by filing the present lawsuit. The plaintiff sought (1) a declaratory judgment quieting title to the bed of the Big Horn River in the United States as trustee for the Tribe, (2) a declaratory judgment establishing that the Tribe and the United States have sole authority to regulate hunting and fishing within the reservation, and (3) an injunction requiring Montana to secure the permission of the Tribe before issuing hunting or fishing licenses for use within the reservation.
The District Court denied the relief sought. 457 F. Supp.. 599. In determining the ownership of the river, the court invoked the presumption that the United States does not intend to divest itself of its sovereign rights in navigable waters and reasoned that here, as in United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U. S. 49, the language and circumstances of the relevant treaties were insufficient to rebut the presumption. The court thus concluded that the bed and banks of the river had remained in the ownership of the United States until they passed to Montana on its admission to the Union. As to the dispute over the regulation of hunting and fishing, the court found that “[iImplicit in the Supreme Court’s decision in Oliphant [v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U. S. 191,] is the recognition that Indian tribes do not have the power, nor do they have the authority, to regulate non-Indians unless so granted by an act of Congress.” 457 F. Supp., at 609. Because no treaty or Act of Congress gave the Tribe authority to regulate hunting or fishing by non-Indians, the court held that the Tribe could not exercise such authority except by granting or withholding authority to trespass on tribal or Indian land. All other authority to regulate non-Indian hunting and fishing resided concurrently in the State of Montana and, under 18 U. S. C. § 1165 (which makes it a federal offense to trespass on Indian land to hunt or fish without permission), the United States.
The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the District Court. 604 F. 2d 1162. Relying on its opinion in United States v. Finch, 548 F. 2d 822, vacated on other grounds, 433 U. S. 676, the appellate court held that, pursuant to the treaty of 1868, the bed and banks of the river were held by the United States in trust for the Tribe. Relying on the treaties of 1851 and 1868, the court held that the Tribe could regulate hunting and fishing within the reservation by nonmembers, although the court noted that the Tribe could not impose criminal sanctions on those nonmembers. The court also held, however, that the two Allotment Acts implicitly deprived the Tribe of the authority to prohibit hunting and fishing on fee lands by resident nonmember owners of those lands. Finally, the court held that nonmembers permitted by the Tribe to hunt or fish within the reservation remained subject to Montana's fish and game laws.
II
The respondents seek to establish a substantial part of their claim of power to control hunting and fishing on the reservation by asking us to recognize their title to the bed of the Big Horn River. The question is whether the United States conveyed beneficial ownership of the riverbed to the Crow Tribe by the treaties of 1851 or 1868, and therefore continues to hold the land in trust for the use and benefit of the Tribe, or whether the United States retained ownership of the riverbed as public land which then passed to the State of Montana upon its admission to the Union. Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U. S. 620, 627-628.
Though the owners of land riparian to nonnavigable streams may own the adjacent riverbed, conveyance by the United States of land riparian to a navigable river carries no interest in the riverbed. Packer v. Bird, 137 U. S. 661, 672; Railroad Co. v. Schurmeir, 7 Wall. 272, 289; 33 U. S. C. § 10; 43 U. S. C. § 931. Rather, the ownership of land under navigable waters is an incident of sovereignty. Martin v. Waddell, 16 Pet. 367, 409-411. As a general principle, the Federal Government holds such lands in trust for future States, to be granted to such States when they enter the Union and assume sovereignty on an “equal footing” with the established States. Pollard’s Lessee v. Hagan, 3 How. 212, 222-223, 229. After a State enters the Union, title to the land is governed by state law. The State’s power over the beds of navigable waters remains subject to only one limitation: the paramount power of the United States to ensure that such waters remain free to interstate and foreign commerce. United States v. Oregon, 295 U. S. 1, 14. It is now established, however, that Congress may sometimes convey lands below the high-water mark of a navigable water,
“[and so defeat the title of a new State,] in order to perform international obligations, or to effect the improvement of such lands for the promotion and convenience of commerce with foreign nations and among the several States, or to carry out other public purposes appropriate to the objects for which the United States hold the Territory.” Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 48.
But because control over the property underlying navigable waters is so strongly identified with the sovereign power of government, United States v. Oregon, supra, at 14, it will not be held that the United States has conveyed such land except because of “some international duty or public exigency.” United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U. S., at 55. See also Shively v. Bowlby, supra, at 48. A court deciding a question of title to the bed of a navigable water must, therefore, begin with a strong presumption against conveyance by the United States, United States v. Oregon, supra, at 14, and must not infer such a conveyance “unless the intention was definitely declared or otherwise made plain,” United States v. Holt State Bank, supra, at 55, or was rendered “in clear and especial words,” Martin v. Waddell, supra, at 411, or “unless the claim confirmed in terms embraces the land under the waters of the stream,” Packer v. Bird, supra, at 672.
In United States v. Holt State Bank, supra, this Court applied these principles to reject an Indian Tribe’s claim of title to the bed of a navigable lake. The lake lay wholly within the boundaries of the Red Lake Indian Reservation, which had been created by treaties entered into before Minnesota joined the Union. In these treaties the United States promised to “set apart and withhold from sale, for the use of” the Chippewas, a large tract of land, Treaty of Sept. 30, 1854, 10 Stat. 1109, and to convey “a sufficient quantity of land for the permanent homes” of the Indians, Treaty of Feb. 22, 1855, 10 Stat. 1165. See Minnesota v. Hitchcock, 185 U. S. 373, 389. The Court concluded that there was nothing in the treaties “which even approaches a grant of rights in lands underlying navigable waters; nor anything evincing a purpose to depart from the established policy... of treating such lands as held for the benefit of the future State.” United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U. S., at 58-59. Rather, “[t]he effect of what was done was to reserve in a general way for the continued occupation of the Indians what remained of their aboriginal territory.” Id., at 58.
The Crow treaties in this case, like the Chippewa treaties in Holt State Bank, fail to overcome the established presumption that the beds of navigable waters remain in trust for future States and pass to the new States when they assume sovereignty. The 1851 treaty did not by its terms formally convey any land to the Indians at all, but instead chiefly represented a covenant among several tribes which recognized specific boundaries for their respective territories. Treaty of Fort Laramie, 1851, Art. 5, 2 Kappler 594-595. It referred to hunting and fishing only insofar as it said that the Crow Indians “do not surrender the privilege of hunting, fishing, or passing over any of the tracts of country heretofore described,” a statement that had no bearing on ownership of the riverbed. By contrast, the 1868 treaty did expressly convey land to the Crow Tribe. Article II of the treaty described the reservation land in detail and stated that such land would be “set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians herein named....” Second Treaty of Fort Laramie, May 7, 1868, Art. II, 15 Stat. 650. The treaty then stated:
“[T]he United States now solemnly agrees that no persons, except those herein designated and authorized to do so, and except such officers, agents, and employes of the Government as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in discharge of duties enjoined by law, shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory described in this article for the use of said Indians... Ibid.
Whatever property rights the language of the 1868 treaty created, however, its language is not strong enough to overcome the presumption against the sovereign’s conveyance of the riverbed. The treaty in no way expressly referred to the riverbed, Packer v. Bird, 137 U. S., at 672, nor was an intention to convey the riverbed expressed in “clear and especial words,” Martin v. Waddell, 16 Pet., at 411, or “definitely declared or otherwise made very plain,” United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U. S., at 55. Rather, as in Holt, “[t]he effect of what was done was to reserve in a general way for the continued occupation of the Indians what remained of their aboriginal territory.” Id., at 58.
Though Article 2 gave the Crow Indians the sole right to use and occupy the reserved land, and, implicitly, the power to exclude others from it, the respondents’ reliance on that provision simply begs the question of the precise extent of the conveyed lands to which this exclusivity attaches. The mere fact that the bed of a navigable water lies within the boundaries described in the treaty does not make the riverbed part of the conveyed land, especially when there is no express reference to the riverbed that might overcome the presumption against its conveyance. In the Court of Appeals’ Finch decision, on which recognition of the Crow Tribe’s title to the riverbed rested in this case, that court construed the language of exclusivity in the 1868 treaty as granting to the Indians all the lands, including the riverbed, within the described boundaries. United States v. Finch, 548 F. 2d, at 829. Such a construction, however, cannot survive examination. As the Court of Appeals recognized, ibid., and as the respondents concede, the United States retains a navigational easement in the navigable waters lying within the described boundaries for the benefit of the public, regardless of who owns the riverbed. Therefore, such phrases in the 1868 treaty as “absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” and “no persons, except those herein designated... shall ever be permitted,” whatever they seem to mean literally, do not give the Indians the exclusive right to occupy all the territory within the described boundaries. Thus, even if exclusivity were the same as ownership, the treaty language establishing this “right of exclusivity” could not have the meaning that the Court of Appeals ascribed to it.
Moreover, even though the establishment of an Indian reservation can be an “appropriate public purpose” within the meaning of Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S., at 48, justifying a congressional conveyance of a riverbed, see, e. g., Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U. S. 78, 85, the situation of the Crow Indians at the time of the treaties presented no “public exigency” which would have required Congress to depart from its policy of reserving ownership of beds under navigable waters for the future States. See Shively v. Bowlby, supra, at 48. As the record in this case shows, at the time of the treaty the Crows were a nomadic tribe dependent chiefly on buffalo, and fishing was not important to their diet or way of life. 1 App. 74. Cf., Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, supra, at 88; Skokomish Indian Tribe v. France, 320 F. 2d 205, 212 (CA9).
For these reasons, we conclude that title to the bed of the Big Horn River passed to the State of Montana upon its admission into the Union, and that the Court of Appeals was in error in holding otherwise.
Ill
Though the parties in this case have raised broad questions about the power of the Tribe to regulate hunting and fishing by non-Indians on the reservation, the regulatory issue before us is a narrow one. The Court of Appeals held that the Tribe may prohibit nonmembers from hunting or fishing on land belonging to the Tribe or held by the United States in trust for the Tribe, 604 F. 2d, at 1165-1166, and with this holding we can readily agree. We also agree with the Court of Appeals that if the Tribe permits nonmembers to fish or hunt on such lands, it may condition their entry by charging a fee or establishing bag and creel limits. Ibid. What remains is the question of the power of the Tribe to regulate non-Indian fishing and hunting on reservation land owned in fee by nonmembers of the Tribe. The Court of Appeals held that, with respect to fee-patented lands, the Tribe may regulate, but may not prohibit, hunting and fishing by nonmember resident owners or by those, such as tenants or employees, whose occupancy is authorized by the owners. Id., at 1169. The court further held that the Tribe may totally prohibit hunting and fishing on lands within the reservation owned by non-Indians who do not occupy that land. Ibid.
The Court of Appeals found two sources for this tribal regulatory power: the Crow treaties, “augmented” by 18 U. S. C. § 1165, and “inherent” Indian sovereignty. We believe that neither source supports the court’s conclusion.
A
The purposes of the 1851 treaty were to assure safe passage for settlers across the lands of various Indian Tribes; to compensate the Tribes for the loss of buffalo, other game animals, timber, and forage; to delineate tribal boundaries; to promote intertribal peace; and to establish a way of identifying Indians who committed depredations against non-Indians. As noted earlier, the treaty did not even create a reservation, although it did designate tribal lands. See Crow Tribe v. United States. 151 Ct. Cl. 281, 285-286, 289, 292-293, 284 F. 2d 361, 364, 366, 368. Only Article 5 of that treaty referred to hunting and fishing, and it merely provided that the eight signatory tribes “do not surrender the privilege of hunting, fishing, or passing over any of the tracts of country heretofore described.” 2 Kappler 595. The treaty nowhere suggested that Congress intended to grant authority to the Crow Tribe to regulate hunting and fishing by nonmembers on nonmember lands. Indeed, the Court of Appeals acknowledged that after the treaty was signed non-Indians, as well as members of other Indian tribes, undoubtedly hunted and fished within the treaty-designated territory of the Crows. 604 F. 2d, at 1167.
The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, 15 Stat. 649, reduced the size of the Crow territory designated by the 1851 treaty. Article II of the treaty established a reservation for the Crow Tribe, and provided that it be “set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians herein named, and for such other friendly tribes or individual Indians as from time to time they may be willing, with the consent of the United States, to admit amongst them...,” (emphasis added) and that “the United States now solemnly agrees that no persons, except those herein designated and authorized so to do... shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory described in this article for the use of said Indians....” The treaty, therefore, obligated the United States to prohibit most non-Indians from residing on or passing through reservation lands used and occupied by the Tribe, and, thereby, arguably conferred upon the Tribe the authority to control fishing and hunting on those lands. But that authority could only extend to land on which the Tribe exercises “absolute and undisturbed use and occupation.” And it is clear that the quantity of such land was substantially reduced by the allotment and alienation of tribal lands as a result of the passage of the General Allotment Act of 1887, 24 Stat. 388, as amended, 25 U. S. C. § 331 et seq., and the Crow Allotment Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 751. If the 1868 treaty created tribal power to restrict or prohibit non-Indian hunting and fishing on the reservation, that power cannot apply to lands held in fee by non-Indians.
In Puyallup Tribe v. Washington Game Dept., 433 U. S. 165 (Puyallup III), the relevant treaty included language virtually identical to that in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. The Puyallup Reservation was to be “set apart, and, so far as necessary, surveyed and marked out for their exclusive use... [and no] white man [was to] be permitted to reside upon the same without permission of the tribe... See id., at 174. The Puyallup Tribe argued that those words amounted to a grant of authority to fish free of state interference. But this Court rejected that argument, finding, in part, that it “clashe[d] with the subsequent history of the reservation...,” ibid., notably two Acts of Congress under which the Puyallups alienated, in fee simple, the great majority of the lands in the reservation, including all the land abutting the Puyallup River. Thus, “[n] either the Tribe nor its members continue to hold Puyallup River fishing grounds for their 'exclusive use.’ ” Ibid. Puyallup III indicates, therefore, that treaty rights with respect to reservation lands must be read in light of the subsequent alienation of those lands. Accordingly, the language of the 1868 treaty provides no support for tribal authority to regulate hunting and fishing on land owned by non-Indians.
The Court of Appeals also held that the federal trespass statute, 18 U. S. C. § 1165, somehow "augmented” the Tribe’s regulatory powers over non-Indian land. 604 F. 2d, at 1167. If anything, however, that statute suggests the absence of such authority, since Congress deliberately excluded fee-patented lands from the statute’s scope. The statute provides:
“Whoever, without lawful authority or permission, willfully and knowingly goes upon any land that belongs to any Indian or Indian tribe, band, or group and either are held by the United States in trust or are subject to a restriction against alienation imposed by the United States, or upon any lands of the United States that are reserved for Indian use, for the purpose of hunting, trapping, or fishing thereon, or for the removal of game, peltries, or fish therefrom, shall be fined....”
The statute is thus limited to lands owned by Indians, held in trust by the United States for Indians, or reserved for use by Indians. If Congress had wished to extend tribal jurisdiction to lands owned by non-Indians, it could easily have done so by incorporating in § 1165 the definition of “Indian country” in 18 U. S. C. § 1151: “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.” Indeed, a Subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary proposed that this be done. But the Department of the Interior recommended against doing so in a letter dated May 23, 1958. The Department pointed out that a previous congressional Report, H. R. Rep. No. 2593, 85th Cong., 2d Sess. (1958), had made clear that the bill contained no implication that it would apply to land other than that held or controlled by Indians or the United States. The Committee on the Judiciary then adopted the present language, which does not reach fee-patented lands within the boundaries of an Indian reservation.
B
Beyond relying on the Crow treaties and 18 U. S. C. § 1165 as source for the Tribe’s power to regulate non-Indian hunting and fishing on non-Indian lands within the reservation, the Court of Appeals also identified that power as an incident of the inherent sovereignty of the Tribe over the entire Crow Reservation. 604 F. 2d, at 1170. But “inherent sovereignty” is not so broad as to support the application of Resolution No. 74-05 to non-Indian lands.
This Court most recently reviewed the principles of inherent sovereignty in United States v. Wheeler, 435 U. S. 313. In that case, noting that Indian tribes are “unique aggregations possessing attributes of sovereignty over both their members and their territory,” id., at 323, the Court upheld the power of a tribe to punish tribal members who violate tribal criminal laws. But the Court was careful to note that, through their original incorporation into the United States as well as through specific treaties and statutes, the Indian tribes have lost many of the attributes of sovereignty. Id., at 326. The Court distinguished between those inherent powers retained by the tribes and those divested:
“The areas in which such implicit divestiture of sovereignty has been held to have occurred are those involving the relations between an Indian tribe and nonmembers of the tribe....
These limitations rest on the fact that the dependent status of Indian tribes within our territorial jurisdiction is necessarily inconsistent with their freedom independently to determine their external relations. But the powers of self-government, including the power to prescribe and enforce internal criminal laws, are of a different type. They involve only the relations among members of a tribe. Thus, they are not such powers as would necessarily be lost by virtue of a tribe’s dependent status.” Ibid. (Emphasis added.)
Thus, in addition to the power to punish tribal offenders, the Indian tribes retain their inherent power to determine tribal membership, to regulate domestic relations among members, and to prescribe rules of inheritance for members. Id., at 322, n. 18. But exercise of tribal power beyond what is necessary to protect tribal self-government or to control internal relations is inconsistent with the dependent status of the tribes, and so cannot survive without express congressional delegation. Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S. 145, 148; Williams v. Lee, 358 U. S. 217, 219-220; United States v. Kagama, 118 U. S. 375, 381-382; see McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, 411 U. S. 164, 171. Since regulation of hunting and fishing by nonmembers of a tribe on lands no longer owned by the tribe bears no clear relationship to tribal self-government or internal relations, the general principles of retained inherent sovereignty did not authorize the Crow Tribe to adopt Resolution No. 74-05.
The Court recently applied these general principles in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U. S. 191, rejecting a tribal claim of inherent sovereign authority to exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians. Stressing that Indian tribes cannot exercise power inconsistent with their diminished status as sovereigns, the Court quoted Justice Johnson’s words in his concurrence in Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch 87, 147 — the first Indian case to reach this Court — that the Indian tribes have lost any “right of governing every person within their limits except themselves.” 435 U. S., at 209. Though Oliphant only determined inherent tribal authority in criminal matters, the principles on which it relied support the general proposition that the inherent sovereign powers of an Indian tribe do not extend to the activities of nonmembers of the tribe. To be sure, Indian tribes retain inherent sovereign power to exercise some forms of civil jurisdiction over non-Indians on their reservations, even on non-Indian fee lands. A tribe may regulate, through taxation, licensing, or other means, the activities of nonmembers who enter consensual relationships with the tribe or its members, through commercial dealing, contracts, leases, or other arrangements. Williams v. Lee, supra, at 223; Morris v. Hitchcock, 194 U. S. 384; Buster v. Wright, 135 F. 947, 950 (CA8); see Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Indian Reservation, 447 U. S. 134, 152-154. A tribe may also retain inherent power to exercise civil authority over the conduct of non-Indians on fee lands within its reservation when that conduct threatens or has some direct effect on the political integrity, the economic security, or the health or welfare of the tribe. See Fisher v. District Court, 424 U. S. 382, 386; Williams v. Lee, supra, at 220; Montana Catholic Missions v. Missoula County, 200 U. S. 118, 128-129; Thomas v. Gay, 169 U. S. 264, 273.
No such circumstances, however, are involved in this case. Non-Indian hunters and fishermen on non-Indian fee land do not enter any agreements or dealings with the Crow Tribe so as to subject themselves to tribal civil jurisdiction. And nothing in this case suggests that such non-Indian hunting and fishing so threaten the Tribe's political or economic security as to justify tribal regulation. The complaint in the District Court did not allege that non-Indian hunting and fishing on fee lands imperil the subsistence or welfare of the Tribe. Furthermore, the District Court made express findings, left unaltered by the Court of Appeals, that the Crow Tribe has traditionally accommodated itself to the State's “near exclusive” regulation of hunting and fishing on fee lands within the reservation. 457 F. Supp., at 609-610. And the District Court found that Montana's statutory and regulatory scheme does not prevent the Crow Tribe from limiting or forbidding non-Indian hunting and fishing on lands still owned by or held in trust for the Tribe or its members. Id., at 609.
IV
For the reasons stated in this opinion, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
According to the respondents, the Crow Tribe’s interest in restricting hunting and fishing on the reservation focuses almost entirely on sports fishing and duck hunting in the waters and on the surface of the Big Horn River. The parties, the District Court, and the Court of Appeals have all assumed that ownership of the riverbed will largely determine the power to control these activities. Moreover, although the complaint in this case sought to quiet title only to the bed of the Big Horn River, we note the concession of the United States that if the bed of the river passed to Montana upon its admission to the Union, the State at the same time acquired ownership of the banks of the river as well.
Congress was, of course, aware of this presumption once it was established by this Court. See Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Kneip, 430 U. S. 584, 588.
The Hitchcock decision expressly stated that the Red Lake Reservation was “a reservation within the accepted meaning of the term.” 185 U. S., at 389.
“[C]ommeneing where the 107th degree of longitude west of Greenwich crosses the south boundary of Montana Territory; thence north along said 107th meridian to the mid-channel of the Yellowstone River; thence up said mid-channel of the Yellowstone to the point where it crosses the said southern boundary of Montana, being the 45th degree of north latitude; and thence east along said parallel of latitude to the place of beginning....” Second Treaty of Fort Laramie, May 7, 1868, Art. II, 15 Stat. 650.
In one recent case, Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U. S. 620, this Court did construe a reservation grant as including the bed of a navigable water, and the respondents argue that this case resembles Choctaw Nation more than it resembles the established line of cases to which Choctaw Nation is a singular exception. But the finding of a conveyance of the riverbed in Choctaw Nation was based on very peculiar circumstances not present in this case.
Those circumstances arose from the unusual history of the treaties there at issue, a history which formed an important basis of the decision. Id., at 622-628. Immediately after the Revolutionary War, the United States had signed treaties of peace and protection with the Cherokee and Choctaw Tribes, reserving them lands in Georgia and Mississippi. In succeeding years, the United States bought large areas of land from the Indians to make room for white settlers who were encroaching on tribal lands, but the Government signed new treaties guaranteeing that the Indians could live in peace on those lands not ceded. The United States soon betrayed that promise. It proposed that the Tribes be relocated in a newly acquired part of the Arkansas Territory, but the new territory was soon overrun by white settlers, and through a series of new cession agreements the Indians were forced to relocate farther and farther west. Ultimately, most of the Tribes’ members refused to leave their eastern lands, doubting the reliability of the Government’s promises of the new western land, but Georgia and Mississippi, anxious for the relocation westward so they could assert jurisdiction over the Indian lands, purported to abolish the Tribes and distribute the tribal lands. The Choctaws and Cherokees finally signed new treaties with the United States aimed at rectifying their past suffering at the hands of the Federal Government and the States.
Under the Choctaw treaty, the United States promised to convey new lands west of the Arkansas Territory in fee simple, and also pledged that “no Territory or State shall ever have a right to pass laws for the government of the Choctaw Nation... and that no part of the land granted to them shall ever be embraced in any Territory or State.” Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, Sept. 27, 1830, 7 Stat. 333-334, quoted in Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U. S., at 625. In 1835, the Cherokees signed a treaty containing similar provisions granting reservation lands in fee simple and promising that the tribal lands would not become part of any State or Territory. Id., at 626. In concluding that the United States had intended to convey the riverbed to the Tribes before the admission of Oklahoma to the Union, the Choctaw Court relied on these circumstances surrounding the treaties and placed special emphasis on the Government’s promise that the reserved lands would never become part of any State. Id., at 634-635. Neither the special historical origins of the Choctaw and Cherokee treaties nor the crucial provisions granting Indian lands in fee simple and promising freedom from state jurisdiction in those treaties have any counterparts in the terms and circumstances of the Crow treaties of 1851
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.
Respondent AT&T Technologies, Inc. (AT&T), manufactures electronics products at its Montgomery Works plant. The three petitioners, all of whom are women, have worked as hourly wage employees in that facility since the early 1970’s, and have been represented by respondent Local 1942, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO. Until 1979 all hourly wage earners accrued competitive seniority exclusively on the basis of years spent in the plant, and a worker promoted to the more highly skilled and better paid “tester” positions retained this plantwide seniority. A collective-bargaining agreement executed by respondents on July 23, 1979, altered the manner of calculating tester seniority. Thenceforth a tester’s seniority was to be determined not by length of plantwide service, but by time actually spent as a tester (though it was possible to regain full plantwide seniority after spending five years as a tester and completing a prescribed training program). The present action arises from that contractual modification.
Petitioners became testers between 1978 and 1980. During a 1982 economic downturn their low seniority under the 1979 collective-bargaining agreement caused them to be selected for demotion; they would not have been demoted had the former plantwide seniority system remained in place. Claiming that the present seniority system was the product of an intent to discriminate on the basis of sex, petitioners filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in April 1983. After the EEOC issued right-to-sue letters, petitioners in September 1983 filed the present lawsuit in the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and sought certification as class representatives for women employees of AT&T’s Montgomery Works plant who had lost plantwide seniority or whom the new system had deterred from seeking promotions to tester positions. Their complaint alleged that among hourly wage earners the tester positions had traditionally been held almost exclusively by men, and nontester positions principally by women, but that in the 1970’s an increasing number of women took the steps necessary to qualify for tester positions and exercised their seniority rights to become testers. They claimed that the 1979 alteration of the rules governing tester seniority was the product of a “conspir[acy] to change the seniority rules, in order to protect incumbent male testers and to discourage women from promoting into the traditionally-male tester jobs,” and that “[t]he purpose and the effect of this manipulation of seniority rules has been to protect male testers from the effects of the female testers’ greater plant seniority, and to discourage women from entering the traditionally-male tester jobs.” App. 20, 21-22.
On August 27, 1986, before deciding whether to certify the proposed class, the District Court granted respondents’ motion for summary judgment on the ground that petitioners had not filed their complaints with the EEOC within the applicable limitations period. 44 FEP Cases 1817, 1821. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed, concluding that petitioners’ claims were time barred because “the relevant discriminatory act that triggers the period of limitations occurs at the time an employee becomes subject to a facially neutral but discriminatory seniority system that the employee knows, or reasonably should know, is discriminatory.” 827 F. 2d 163, 167 (1987). We granted certiorari, 488 U. S. 887 (1988), to resolve a Circuit conflict on when the limitations period begins to run in a lawsuit arising out of a seniority system not alleged to be discriminatory on its face or as presently applied. Compare, e. g., case below with Cook v. Pan American World Airways, 771 F. 2d 635, 646 (CA2 1985), cert. denied, 474 U. S. 1109 (1986).
Section 706(e) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 260, as amended, provides that “[a] charge . . . shall be filed [with the EEOC] within [the applicable period] after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e-5(e). Assessing timeliness therefore “requires us to identify precisely the ‘unlawful employment practice’ of which [petitioners] complai[n].” Delaware State College v. Ricks, 449 U. S. 250, 257 (1980). Under § 703(a) of Title VII, it is an “unlawful employment practice” for an employer
“(1) ... to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or
“(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(a).
Petitioners’ allegation of a disparate impact on men and women would ordinarily suffice to state a claim under § 703 (a)(2), since that provision reaches “practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation,” Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424, 431 (1971); see Connecticut v. Teal, 457 U. S. 440, 446 (1982). “[Seniority systems,” however, “are afforded special treatment under Title VII,” Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, 432 U. S. 63, 81 (1977), by reason of § 703(h), which states:
“Notwithstanding any other provision of this sub-chapter, it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to apply different standards of compensation, or different terms, conditions, or privileges of employment pursuant to a bona fide seniority . . . system, . . . provided that such differences are not the result of an intention to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin . . . .” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2(h).
We have construed this provision to mean that “absent a discriminatory purpose, the operation of a seniority system cannot be an unlawful employment practice even if the system has some discriminatory consequences.” Hardison, supra, at 82; see American Tobacco Co. v. Patterson, 456 U. S. 63, 65, 69 (1982). Thus, for liability to be incurred “there must be a finding of actual intent to discriminate on [statutorily proscribed] grounds on the part of those who negotiated or maintained the [seniority] system.” Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U. S. 273, 289 (1982).
Petitioners do not allege that the seniority system treats similarly situated employees differently or that it has been operated in an intentionally discriminatory manner. Rather, they claim that its differential impact on the sexes is unlawful because the system “ha[d] its genesis in [sex] discrimination.” Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324, 356 (1977). Specifically, the complaint alleges that respondents “conspired to change the seniority rules, in order to protect incumbent male testers,” and that the resulting agreement effected a “manipulation of seniority rules” for that “purpose.” See App. 20-22 (emphasis added). This is in essence a claim of intentionally discriminatory alteration of their contractual rights. Seniority is a contractual right, Aaron, Reflections on the Legal Nature and Enforceability of Seniority Rights, 75 Harv. L. Rev. 1532, 1533 (1962), and a competitive seniority system establishes a “hierarchy [of such rights] ... according to which . . . various employment benefits are distributed,” Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U. S. 747, 768 (1976). Under the collective-bargaining agreements in effect prior to 1979, each petitioner had earned the right to receive a favorable position in the hierarchy of seniority among testers (if and when she became a tester), and respondents eliminated those rights for reasons alleged to be discriminatory. Because this diminution in employment status occurred in 1979 — well outside the period of limitations for a complaint filed with the EEOC in 1983 — the Seventh Circuit was correct to find petitioners’ claims time barred under § 706(e).
We recognize, of course, that it is possible to establish a different theoretical construct: to regard the employer as having been guilty of a continuing violation which “occurred,” for purposes of § 706(e), not only when the contractual right was eliminated but also when each of the concrete effects of that elimination was felt. Or it would be possible to interpret § 703 in such fashion that when the proviso of § 703(h) is not met (“provided that such differences are not the result of an intention to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin”) and that subsection’s protection becomes unavailable, nothing prevents suits against the later effects of the system on disparate-impact grounds under § 703(a)(2). The answer to these alternative approaches is that our cases have rejected them.
The continuing violation theory is contradicted most clearly by two decisions, Delaware State College v. Ricks, 449 U. S. 250 (1980), and United Air Lines, Inc. v. Evans, 431 U. S. 553 (1977). In Ricks, we treated an allegedly discriminatory denial of tenure — rather than the resulting nondiscriminatory termination of employment one year later — as the act triggering the limitations period under § 706(e). Because Ricks did not claim 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,” we held that “the only alleged discrimination occurred — and the filing limitations periods therefore commenced — at the time the tenure decision was made and communicated to Ricks.” 449 U. S., at 258. “That is so,” we found, “even though one of the effects of the denial of tenure — the eventual loss of a teaching position — did not occur until later.” Ibid, (emphasis in original). We concluded 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.’” Ibid, (emphasis in original); accord, Chardon v. Fernandez, 454 U. S. 6, 8 (1981) (per curiam).
In Evans, United Air Lines had discriminatorily dismissed the plaintiff after she had worked several years as a flight attendant, and when it rehired her some years later, gave her no seniority credit for her earlier service. Evans conceded that the discriminatory dismissal was time barred, but claimed that the seniority system impermissibly gave “present effect to a past act of discrimination.” 431 U. S., at 558. While agreeing with that assessment, we concluded under § 703(h) that “a challenge to a neutral system may not be predicated on the mere fact that a past event which has no present legal significance has affected the calculation of seniority credit, even if the past event might at one time have justified a valid claim against the employer.” Id,., at 560. Like Evans, petitioners in the present case have asserted a claim that is wholly dependent on discriminatory conduct occurring well outside the period of limitations, and cannot complain of a continuing violation.
The second alternative theory mentioned above would view § 703(h) as merely providing an affirmative defense to a cause of action brought under § 703(a)(2), rather than as making intentional discrimination an element of any Title VII action challenging a seniority system. The availability of this affirmative defense would not alter the fact that the claim asserted is one of discriminatory impact under § 703(a)(2), causing the statute of limitations to run from the time that impact is felt. As an original matter this is a plausible, and perhaps even the most natural, reading of § 703(h). (We have construed § 703(e), 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(e) — which deals with bona fide occupational qualifications — in this fashion. See Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U. S. 321, 333 (1977).) But such an interpretation of § 703(h) is foreclosed by our cases, which treat the proof of discriminatory intent as a necessary element of Title VII actions challenging seniority systems. At least as concerns seniority plans, we have regarded subsection (h) not as a defense to the illegality described in subsection (a)(2), but as a provision that itself “delineates which employment practices are illegal and thereby prohibited and which are not.” Franks, 424 U. S., at 758. Thus, in American Tobacco Co. we determined § 703(h) to mean that “the fact that a seniority system has a discriminatory impact is not alone sufficient to invalidate the system; actual intent to discriminate must be proved.” 456 U. S., at 65 (emphasis added). “To be cognizable,” we held, “a claim that a seniority system has discriminatory impact must be accompanied by proof of a discriminatory purpose.” Id., at 69 (emphasis added); accord, Pullman-Standard, 456 U. S., at 277, 289; Hardison, 432 U. S., at 82. Indeed, in California Brewers Assn. v. Bryant, 444 U. S. 598 (1980), after deciding that a challenged policy was part of a seniority system, we noted that on remand to the District Court the plaintiff would “remain free to show that . . . the seniority system ... is not ‘bona fide’ or that the differences in employment conditions that it has produced are ‘the result of an intention to discriminate because of race,’” id., at 610-611. Thus, petitioners’ claim depends on proof of intentionally discriminatory adoption of the system, which occurred outside the limitations period.
That being the case, Machinists v. NLRB, 362 U. S. 411 (1960), establishes that the limitations period will run from the date the system was adopted (at least where the adoption occurred after the effective date of Title VII, and a cause of action against it was available). Machinists was a decision under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), but we have often observed that the NLRA was the model for Title VII’s remedial provisions, and have found cases interpreting the former persuasive in construing the latter. See Ford Motor Co. v. EEOC, 458 U. S. 219, 226, n. 8 (1982); Teamsters, 431 U. S., at 366; Franks, supra, at 768-770; Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 419 (1975). Such reliance is particularly appropriate in the context presented here, since the highly unusual feature of requiring an administrative complaint before a civil action can be filed against a private party is common to the two statutes. The NLRA’s statute of limitations — which provides that “no complaint shall issue based upon any unfair labor practice occurring more than six months prior to the filing of the charge with the Board,” 29 U. S. C. § 160(b) — is even substantively similar to § 706(e) — which states that “[a] charge . . . shall be filed [with the EEOC] within one hundred and eighty days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred,” 42 U. S. C. §2000e-5(e). In Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 455 U. S. 385 (1982), we specifically relied on cases construing the NLRA’s timely filing requirement in determining whether § 706(e) — the very provision we construe here — constituted a waivable statute of limitations or rather a jurisdictional prerequisite to a Title VII action. “Because the time requirement for filing an unfair labor practice charge under the National Labor Relations Act operates as a statute of limitations subject to recognized equitable doctrines and not as a restriction of the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board,” we said, “the time limitations under Title VII should be treated likewise.” 455 U. S., at 395, n. 11 (citations omitted).
Machinists considered and rejected an approach to the limitations period identical to that advanced here. The suit involved the timeliness of an unfair labor practice complaint directed at a so-called “union security clause,” which required all employees to join the union within 45 days of the contract’s execution. Under the NLRB’s precedents, agreeing to such a clause when the union lacked majority status constituted an unfair labor practice, as did continued enforcement of the clause. 362 U. S., at 413-414. The agreement at issue in Machinists had been adopted more than six months before the complaint issued (outside the limitations period), but had been enforced well within the period of limitations. “Conceding that a complaint predicated on the execution of the agreement here challenged was barred by limitations,” the NLRB contended that “its complaint was nonetheless timely since it was ‘based upon’ the parties’ continued enforcement, within the period of limitations, of the union security clause.” Id., at 415 (emphasis in original). We found, however, that “the entire foundation of the unfair labor practice charged was the Union’s time-barred lack of majority status when the original collective-bargaining agreement was signed,” and that “[i]n the absence of that fact enforcement of this otherwise valid union security clause was wholly benign.” Id., at 417. “[W]here a complaint based upon that earlier event is time-barred,” we reasoned, “to permit the event itself” “to cloak with illegality that which was otherwise lawful” “in effect results in reviving a legally defunct unfair labor practice.” Ibid. This analysis is squarely in point here. Because the claimed invalidity of the facially nondiscriminatory and neutrally applied tester seniority system is wholly dependent on the alleged illegality of signing the underlying agreement, it is the date of that signing which governs the limitations period.
In holding that, when a seniority system is nondiscriminatory in form and application, it is the allegedly discriminatory adoption which triggers the limitations period, we respect not only §706(e)’s general “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 [claims],’” Ricks, 449 U. S., at 260 (citation omitted), but also the considerations underlying the “special treatment” accorded to seniority systems under § 703(h), see Hardison, 432 U. S., at 81. This “special treatment” strikes a balance between the interests of those protected against discrimination by Title VII and those who work — perhaps for many years — in reliance upon the validity of a facially lawful seniority system. There is no doubt, of course, that a facially discriminatory seniority system (one that treats similarly situated employees differently) can be challenged at any time, and that even a facially neutral system, if it is adopted with unlawful discriminatory motive, can be challenged within the prescribed period after adoption. But allowing a facially neutral system to be challenged, and entitlements under it to be altered, many years after its adoption would disrupt those valid reliance interests that § 703(h) was meant to protect. In the context of the present case, a female tester could defeat the settled (and worked-for) expectations of her co-workers whenever she is demoted or not promoted under the new system, be that in 1983, 1993, 2003, or beyond. Indeed, a given plaintiff could in theory sue successively for not being promoted, for being demoted, for being laid off, and for not being awarded a sufficiently favorable pension, so long as these acts — even if nondiscriminatory in themselves — could be attributed to the 1979 change in seniority. Our past cases, to which we adhere today, have declined to follow an approach that has such disruptive implications.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Justice O’Connor took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The type of seniority at issue here is not “benefit seniority,” which is used to “compute noncompetitive benefits earned under the contract of employment,” Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U. S. 747, 766 (1976) (emphasis added), but “competitive seniority,” which is “used to allocate entitlements to scarce benefits” such as promotion or nondemotion, id., at 766-767.
Under 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(e), a charge must be filed with the EEOC within 180 days of the alleged unfair employment practice unless the complainant has first instituted proceedings with a state or local agency, in which case the period is extended to a maximum of 300 days. Neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals ruled on the applicable limitations period in the present case, since both courts concluded that petitioners’ claims were time barred even if the applicable period was 300 days. See 827 F. 2d 163, 165, and n. 2 (CA7 1987). We may for the same reason avoid ruling on that point here.
The dissent attempts to distinguish Delaware State College v. Ricks on the ground that there “[t]he allegedly discriminatory denial of tenure . . . served notice to the plaintiff that his termination a year later would come as a ‘delayed, but inevitable, consequence.’” Post, at 917 (emphasis in original; citation omitted). This builds on its earlier criticism that “[o]n the day AT&T’s seniority system was adopted, there was no reason to believe that a woman who exercised her plantwide seniority to become a tester would ever be demoted as a result of the new system,” so that at that point the prospect of petitioners’ suffering “concrete] harm” was “speculative.” Post, at 914 (emphasis in original). Of course the benefits of a seniority system, like those of an insurance policy payable upon the occurrence of a noninevitable event, are by their nature speculative — if only because they depend upon the employee’s continuing desire to work for the particular employer. But it makes no more sense to say that no “concrete harm” occurs when an employer provides a patently less desirable seniority guarantee than what the law requires, than it does to say that no concrete harm occurs when an insurance company delivers an accident insurance policy with a face value of $10,000, when what has been paid for is a face value of $25,000. It is true that the injury to the employee becomes substantially more concrete when the less desirable seniority system causes his demotion, just as the injury to the policyholder becomes substantially more concrete when the accident occurs and the payment is $15,000 less than it should be. But that is irrelevant to whether there was any concrete injury at the outset. What the dissent means by “concrete harm” is what Ricks, 449 U. S., at 258, referred to as the point at which the injury becomes “most painful” — and that case rejected it as the point of reference for liability. Accord, Chardon v. Fernandez, 454 U. S. 6, 8 (1981) (per curiam).
Like Ricks and United Air Lines, Inc. v. Evans, 431 U. S. 553 (1977), our decision in Machinists v. NLRB also rejected an attempt to cure untimeliness by asserting a continuing violation:
“The applicability of these principles cannot be avoided here by invoking the doctrine of continuing violation. It may be conceded that the continued enforcement, as well as the execution, of this collective bargaining agreement constitutes an unfair labor practice, and that these are two logically separate violations, independent in the sense that they can be described in discrete terms. Nevertheless, the vice in the enforcement of this agreement is manifestly not independent of the legality of its execution, as would be the case, for example, with an agreement invalid on its face or with one validly executed, but unlawfully administered.” 362 U. S., at 422-423.
The dissent is mistaken to equate the application of a facially neutral but discriminatorily adopted system with the application of a system that is facially discriminatory. See post, at 916-917. With a facially neutral system the discriminatory act occurs only at the time of adoption, for each application is nondiscriminatory (seniority accrues for men and women on an identical basis). But a facially discriminatory system (e. g., one that assigns men twice the seniority that women receive for the same amount of time served) by definition discriminates each time it is applied. This is a material difference for purposes of the analysis we employed in Evans and Ricks — which focuses on the timing of the discriminatory acts for purposes of the statute of limitations. It is also why the dissent’s citation, post, at 915, of Bazemore v. Friday, 478 U. S. 385 (1986) — in which “[ejach week’s paycheck . . . deliverfed] less to a black than to a similarly situated white,” id., at 395 — is misplaced.
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.
This case is restored to the calendar for reargument. The parties are requested to brief and argue the following question:
“Whether or not the interpretation of 42 U. S. C. § 1981 adopted by this Court in Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U. S. 160 (1976), should be reconsidered?”
One might think from the dissents of our colleagues from the above order that our decision to hear argument as to whether the decision in Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U. S. 160 (1976), should be reconsidered is a “first” in the history of the Court. One would also think from the language of the dissents that we have decided today to overrule Runyon v. McCrary. We have of course done no such thing, but have decided, in light of the difficulties posed by petitioner’s argument for a fundamental extension of liability under 42 U. S. C. § 1981, to consider whether Runyon should be overruled. It is surely no affront to settled jurisprudence to request argument on whether a particular precedent should be modified or overruled.
Three Terms ago, for example, we requested the parties to reargue the validity of our decision in National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U. S. 833 (1976). Garcia v. San Anto nio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 468 U. S. 1213 (1984) (ordering reargument), 469 U. S. 528 (1985) (decision). Two Terms before that we requested the parties to reargue and brief the question whether the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule should apply where the evidence was obtained reasonably and in good faith. Illinois v. Gates, 459 U. S. 1028 (1982) (ordering reargument), 462 U. S. 213 (1983) (decision). In 1975, we ordered the parties in Alfred Dunhill of London, Inc. v. Republic of Cuba, 422 U. S. 1005 (1975) (ordering reargument), 425 U. S. 682 (1976) (decision), to address whether we should reconsider our holding in Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U. S. 398, 439 (1964), which had reaffirmed the Court’s adherence to the “act of state” doctrine. And in Benton v. Maryland, 393 U. S. 994 (1968) (ordering reargument), 395 U. S. 784 (1969) (decision), the Court requested reargument on the question whether the “concurrent sentence doctrine” had continuing validity.
In addition, we have explicitly overruled statutory precedents in a host of cases. See, e. g., Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978), overruling Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167 (1961); Continental T. V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U. S. 36 (1977), overruling United States v. Arnold, Schwinn & Co., 388 U. S. 365 (1967); Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm’n, 427 U. S. 132 (1976), overruling Auto Workers v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Bd., 336 U. S. 245 (1949); Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Kentucky, 410 U. S. 484 (1973), overruling Ahrens v. Clark, 335 U. S. 188 (1948); Andrews v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 406 U. S. 320 (1972), overruling Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co., 312 U. S. 630 (1941); Boys Markets, Inc. v. Retail Clerks, 398 U. S. 235 (1970), overruling Sinclair Refining Co. v. Atkinson, 370 U. S. 195 (1962); Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U. S. 54 (1968), overruling McNally v. Hill, 293 U. S. 131 (1934). These actions do not mean that the Court has been insensitive to considerations of stare decisis, but only that we recognize it as “ ‘a principle of policy and not a mechanical formula,’” Boys Markets, supra, at 241 (quoting Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U. S. 106, 119 (1940) (Frankfurter, J.)).
Both of the dissents intimate that the statutory question involved in Runyon v. McCrary should not be subject to the same principles of stare decisis as other decisions because it benefited civil rights plaintiffs by expanding liability under the statute. We do not believe that the Court may recognize any such exception to the abiding rule that it treat all litigants equally: that is, that the claim of any litigant for the application of a rule to its case should not be influenced by the Court’s view of the worthiness of the litigant in terms of extralegal criteria. We think this is what Congress meant when it required each Justice or judge of the United States to swear to “administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich . . . .” 28 U. S. C. § 453.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We are called upon to decide whether 28 U. S. C. § 1915(d) authorizes a federal court to require an unwilling attorney to represent an indigent litigant in a civil case. We hold that it does not.
I
Section 1915(d) provides: “The court may request an attorney to represent any [person claiming informapauperis status] unable to employ counsel and may dismiss the case if the allegation of poverty is untrue, or if satisfied that the action is frivolous or malicious.” In Nelson v. Redfield Lithograph Printing, 728 F. 2d 1003, 1005 (1984), the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ordered “the chief judge of each district to seek the cooperation of the bar associations and the federal practice committees of the judge’s district to obtain a sufficient list of attorneys practicing throughout the district so as to supply the court with competent attorneys who will serve in pro bono situations,” such as in forma pauperis proceedings conducted under 28 U. S. C. § 1915. The District Court for the Southern District of Iowa heeded the Court of Appeals’ command. Under the system in force since February 1986, once the District Court has determined that an indigent party qualifies for representation under § 1915(d), the Clerk of the Court forwards a copy of the court file to the Volunteer Lawyers Project (VLP), a joint venture of the Legal Services Corporation of Iowa and the Iowa State Bar Association. The VLP keeps a copy of a roster prepared by the District Court of all attorneys admitted to practice before the court and in good standing. After deleting the names of lawyers who have volunteered for VLP referrals of pro bono state-court cases, the VLP selects lawyers from the list nonalphabetically for § 1915(d) assignments. Lawyers who are chosen under the plan may apply to the District Court for reimbursement of out-of-pocket costs. They may also keep any fee award provided by statute, but are not guaranteed even minimal compensation for their own services. The VLP assists lawyers assigned to litigate in areas of the law with which they are unfamiliar by providing written materials, holding periodic seminars, and facilitating consultations with experienced attorneys.
Petitioner Mallard was admitted to practice before the District Court in January 1987, and entered his first appearance the following month. In June 1987 he was asked by the VLP to represent two current inmates and one former inmate who sued prison officials under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, alleging that prison guards and administrators had filed false disciplinary reports against them, mistreated them physically, and endangered their lives by exposing them as informants. After reviewing the case file, Mallard filed a motion to withdraw with the District Court. In his motion, petitioner stated that he had no familiarity with the legal issues presented in the case, that he lacked experience in deposing and cross-examining witnesses, and that he would willingly volunteer his services in an area in which he possessed some expertise, such as bankruptcy and securities law. App. 4-8. The VLP opposed petitioner’s motion, claiming that he was competent, that he had an ethical duty to do whatever was necessary to try the case, and that permitting an exception to the rule of assignment would create a dangerous precedent. A Magistrate denied petitioner’s motion.
Mallard then appealed to the District Court. Although he reiterated his unfamiliarity with § 1983 actions, he contended that he should be permitted to withdraw not because of his inexperience in interpreting the statute and its case law, but because he was not a litigator by training or temperament. Forcing him to represent indigent inmates in a complex action requiring depositions and discovery, cross-examination of witnesses, and other trial skills, Mallard asserted, would compel him to violate his ethical obligation to take on only those cases he could handle competently and would exceed the court’s authority under § 1915(d). Id., at 19-29. In an accompanying affidavit, Mallard added: “I do not like the role of confronting other persons in a litigation setting, accusing them of misdeeds, or questioning their veracity. Because of my reluctance to become involved in these activities, I do not feel confident that I would be effective in litigating a case such as the instant case.” Id., at 38.
Unmoved, the District Court upheld the Magistrate’s decision. App. to Pet. for Cert. 2a-4a. Based on the quality of petitioner’s brief in support of his motion to withdraw, the court pronounced him competent, notwithstanding his very slight acquaintance with trial litigation. The court also held that § 1915(d) empowers federal courts to make compulsory appointments in civil actions. In November 1987, Mallard sought a writ of mandamus from the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to compel the District Court to allow his withdrawal. The Court of Appeals denied the petition without opinion. Id., at la. We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals over whether § 1915(d) authorizes compulsory assignments of attorneys in civil eases. 488 U. S. 815 (1988). We now reverse.
II
Interpretation of a statute must begin with the statute’s language. E. g., United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235, 241 (1989); Landreth Timber Co. v. Landreth, 471 U. S. 681, 685 (1985). Section 1915(d)’s operative term is “request”: “The court may request an attorney to represent” an indigent litigant. The import of the term seems plain. To request that somebody do something is to express a desire that he do it, even though he may not generally be disciplined or sanctioned if he declines. Of course, somebody who frequently refuses another person’s requests might not win that person’s favor. A soldier who regularly fails to fulfill his superior’s requests might not rise in the ranks as rapidly as would someone who was more compliant. But somebody who refuses a request, as the word is ordinarily used, may not be penalized formally for doing so, as a soldier who disobeyed orders might be court-martialed. In everyday speech, the closest synonyms of the verb “request” are “ask,” “petition,” and “entreat.” See, e. g., Webster’s New International Dictionary 1929 (3d ed. 1981); Black’s Law Dictionary 1172 (5th ed. 1979). The verbs “require” and “demand” are not usually interchangeable with it.
There is little reason to think that Congress did not intend “request” to bear its most common meaning when it used the word in § 1915(d). Although “request” may double for “demand” or “command” when it is used as a noun, particularly when employed as a term of art in connection with wills, trusts, and probate proceedings, its ordinary and natural signification when used as a verb was precatory when Congress enacted the provision now appearing at 28 U. S. C. § 1915(d) in 1892. See, e. g., Black’s Law Dictionary 1027 (1st ed. 1891); 2 B. Abbott, Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence 415 (1879); 7 Judicial and Statutory Definitions of Words and Phrases 6120-6122 (West 1905).
Perhaps the clearest proof that Congress did not intend § 1915(d) to license compulsory appointments of counsel is the contrast between that subsection and § 1915(c). Whereas § 1915(d) merely empowers a court to request an attorney to represent a litigant proceeding in forma pauperis, § 1915(c) — adopted at the very same time as § 1915(d) — treats court officers and witnesses differently: “The officers of the court shall issue and serve all process, and perform all duties in such cases. Witnesses shall attend as in other cases, and the same remedies shall be available as are provided for by law in other cases.” (Emphasis added.) Congress evidently knew how to require service when it deemed compulsory service appropriate. Its decision to allow federal courts to request attorneys to represent impoverished litigants, rather than command, as in the case of court officers, that lawyers shall or must'take on cases assigned to them, bespeaks an intent not to authorize mandatory appointments of counsel.
An examination of state statutes governing informa pauperis proceedings at the time § 1915(d) became law bolsters this conclusion. By the late 19th century, at least 12 States had statutes permitting courts to assign counsel to represent indigent litigants. The Congress that adopted § 1915(d) was undoubtedly aware of those statutes, for the brief and otherwise unilluminating Report of the House Judiciary Committee states that the bill containing § 1915(d) was designed to enable persons unable to afford legal representation to avail themselves of the courts, as “[m]any humane and enlightened States” that had similar laws allowed them to do. H. R. Rep. No. 1079, 52d Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1892). None of those state statutes, however, provided that a court could merely request that an attorney serve without compensation. All of them provided instead that a court could assign or appoint counsel. Ark. Stat. § 1053 (1884) (assign); Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 26, §3 (1845) (assign); Ind. Rev. Stat., Vol. 2, pt. 2, ch. 1, Art. 2, § 15 (1852) (assign); Ky. Stat. § 884 (1915) (Act of May 27, 1892) (assign); Mo. Rev. Stat. § 2918 (1889) (assign); N. J. Gen. Stat., Vol. 2, Practice §369, p. 2598 (1896) (enacted 1799) (assign); 1876 N. Y. Laws, ch. 448, Art. 3, §460 (assign); 1869 N. C. Pub. Laws, ch. 96, § 2 (assign); Tenn. Code §3980 (1858) (appoint and assign); Tex. Rev. Stat., Art. 1125 (1879) (enacted 1846) (appoint); Va. Code Ann. §3538 (1904) (appeared in 1849 Code) (assign); W. Va. Code, ch. 138, § 1 (1891) (assign). Cf. N. Mex. Comp. Laws §2289 (1884) (judge may appoint attorney to represent Territory if Territory’s attorneys are unable to attend by reason of sickness or inability); Nev. Comp. Laws §3126 (1900) (court may appoint attorney to appear on behalf of absent defendant in certain contract actions). To the extent that the “assignment” or “appointment” of counsel denotes the imposition of a duty to undertake representation that courts may enforce, Congress’ decision to allow' the federal courts to do no more than “request” attorneys to serve, in full awareness of more stringent state practices, seems to evince a desire to permit attorneys to decline representation of indigent litigants if in their view their personal, professional, or ethical concerns bid them do so.
Moreover, the extent to which state statutes empowering courts to “assign” or “appoint” counsel in informa pauperis proceedings also authorized courts to sanction attorneys who refused to serve without compensation is unclear, because few appointments were made pursuant to those statutes, because many legal proceedings went unrecorded, and because lawyers seem rarely to have balked at courts’ assignments. It is nevertheless significant that no reported decision exists in the above States prior to 1892 holding that a lawyer could not decline representation without compensation, see Shapiro, The Enigma of the Lawyer’s Duty to Serve, 55 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 735, 749-762 (1980) (hereinafter Shapiro), for it suggests that Congress did not intend to replicate a system of coercive appointments when it enacted § 1915(d), particularly when it used the weaker verb “request” in place of the words “assign” or “appoint.” English precedents from the 15th to the late 19th century, on which the States apparently relied and which Congress might have had in mind, were equally murky. New appointments were made in either civil or criminal cases; and although sergeants-at-law were expected to represent indigent persons upon demand of the court, they held public office and were court officers in a much fuller sense than advocates who appeared before it. Again, no reported decisions involve the imposition of sanctions on lawyers unwilling to serve. See id., at 740-749. Professor Shapiro concludes: “To justify coerced, uncompensated legal services on the basis of a firm tradition in England and the United States is to read into that tradition a story that is not there.” Id., at 753.
Comparing § 1915(d) with similar federal statutes strengthens our conclusion that Congress did not authorize mandatory appointments. The sole federal statute antedating § 1915(d) that provided for court-ordered representation allowed a capital defendant “to make his full defence by counsel learned in the law” and stated that “the court before whom such person shall be tried, or some judge thereof, shall . . . immediately, upon his request . . . assign to such person such counsel, not exceeding two, as such person shall desire. . . .” Act of April 30, 1790, ch. 9, §29, 1 Stat. 118, presently codified as amended at 18 U. S. C. § 3005 (emphasis added). Thus, when Congress enacted § 1915(d), the verb “assign” was already part of the federal statutory lexicon; Congress’ decision to depart from prior usage in fashioning a rule for civil cases involving indigent litigants might be taken to display a reluctance to require attorneys to serve, even though Congress apparently mandated service in the much more serious case of criminal defendants facing the death penalty.
This inference finds additional support in Congress’ actions subsequent to § 1915(d)’s enactment. Every federal statute still in force that was passed after 1892 and that authorizes courts to provide counsel states that courts may “assign” or “appoint” attorneys, just as did the 1790 capital representation statute. See 18 U. S. C. § 3006A (1982 ed. and Supp. V) (appoint; criminal defendant); 18 U. S. C. § 3503(c) (assign; criminal defendant at deposition to preserve testimony); 18 U. S. C. § 4109 (appoint; proceeding to verify offender’s consent to transfer to or from United States); 25 U. S. C. § 1912(b) (appoint; Indian child custody proceedings); 42 U. S. C. § 1971(f) (assign; defendant in voting rights case); 42 U. S. C. §2000a-3(a) (appoint; complainant seeking injunction under civil rights laws); 42 U. S. C. §2000e-5(f)(1) (appoint; Title VII complainant); 42 U. S. C. §3413(1) (assign; commitment of narcotics addict); see also Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 44 (assign; criminal defendant); cf. 10 U. S. C. §827 (courts-martial shall “detail” trial counsel and defense counsel). Congress’ decision to promulgate these apparently coercive representation statutes when § 1915(d) was already on the books and after it had been extended to cover criminal as well as civil cases, see Act of June 25, 1910, Pub. L. 317, ch. 435, 36 Stat. 866, suggests that § 1915(d)’s use of “request” instead of “assign” or “appoint” was understood to signify that § 1915(d) did not authorize compulsory appointments. In any case, Congress’ enactments after 1892 afford no reason to believe that the plain meaning of § 1915(d) is not its intended meaning.
Contrary to respondents’ assertion, Brief for Respondents 7-9, construing § 1915(d) to allow courts to ask but not compel lawyers to represent indigent litigants does not render § 1915(d) a nullity. Respondents contend that statutory authorization is unnecessary for a court simply to ask an attorney to represent someone; § 1915(d) would be superfluous if it did no more than that, and thus it must be read to confer coercive power upon the federal courts. Respondents’ major premise, however, is too strong. Statutory provisions may simply codify existing rights or powers. Section 1915(d), for example, authorizes courts to dismiss a “frivolous or malicious” action, but there is little doubt they would have power to do so even in the absence of this statutory provision. Nor do respondents’ premises compel their conclusion. Section 1915(d) plays a useful role in the statutory scheme if it informs lawyers that the court’s requests to provide legal assistance are appropriate requests, hence not to be ignored or disregarded in the mistaken belief that they are improper, like a judge’s request to cut short cross-examination so that he can go fishing. Section 1915(d) may meaningfully be read to legitimize a court’s request to represent a poor litigant and therefore to confront a lawyer with an important ethical decision; one need not interpret it to authorize the imposition of sanctions should a lawyer decide not to serve in order to give purpose to the provision.
Ill
Mallard’s petition to this Court followed the Court of Appeals’ denial of his application for a writ of mandamus. “The traditional use of the writ in aid of appellate jurisdiction both at common law and in the federal courts has been to confine an inferior court to a lawful exercise of its prescribed jurisdiction or to compel it to exercise its authority when it is its duty to do so.” Roche v. Evaporated Milk Assn., 319 U. S. 21, 26 (1943). See also Will v. Calvert Fire Ins. Co., 437 U. S. 655, 661 (1978); Kerr v. United States District Court for Northern District of California, 426 U. S. 394, 402 (1976); Will v. United States, 389 U. S. 90, 95 (1967). Mallard alleged that the District Court did not lawfully exercise its jurisdiction in appointing him and that the Court of Appeals should therefore order the District Court to grant his motion to dismiss his appointment; he did not seek to compel the District Court to exercise some authority it wrongfully declined to use. Although “we have not limited the use of mandamus by an unduly narrow and technical understanding of what constitutes a matter of ‘jurisdiction,'” Kerr, supra, at 402; see Will v. United States, supra, at 95, we have required that petitioners demonstrate a “clear abuse of discretion,” Bankers Life & Casualty Co. v. Holland, 346 U. S. 379, 383 (1953), or conduct amounting to “usurpation of [the judicial] power,” De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. v. United States, 325 U. S. 212, 217 (1945), to be entitled to issuance of the writ. To ensure that mandamus remains an extraordinary remedy, petitioners must show that they lack adequate alternative means to obtain the relief they seek, see, e. g., Kerr, supra, at 403; Allied Chemical Corp. v. Daiflon, Inc., 449 U. S. 33, 35 (1980) (per curiam), and carry “the burden of showing that [their] right to issuance of the writ is ‘clear and indisputable,’” Bankers Life, supra, at 384, quoting United States v. Duell, 172 U. S. 576, 582 (1899).
Mallard met this demanding standard. In resting its decision solely on § 1915(d) — the only ground for decision properly before us — the District Court plainly acted beyond its “jurisdiction” as our decisions have interpreted that term, for, as we decide today, § 1915(d) does not authorize coercive appointments of counsel. In addition, Mallard had no alternative remedy available to him. And the principal reasons for our reluctance to condone use of the writ — the undesirability of making a district court judge a litigant and the inefficiency of piecemeal appellate litigation, see, e. g., Kerr, supra, at 402-403; Allied Chemical Corp., supra, at 35 — are not present here. The District Court Judge was never made a party to this action, nor did Mallard’s petition attempt to sever one element of the merits litigation from the rest. Thus, Mallard discharged his burden of proving that he was entitled to a writ of mandamus, and the Court of Appeals erred when it denied his application.
IV
We emphasize that our decision today is limited to interpreting § 1915(d). We do not mean to question, let alone denigrate, lawyers’ ethical obligation to assist those who are too poor to afford counsel, or to suggest that requests made pursuant to § 1915(d) may be lightly declined because they give rise to no ethical claim. On the contrary, in a time when the need for legal services among the poor is growing and public funding for such services has not kept pace, lawyers’ ethical obligation to volunteer their time and skills pro bono publico is manifest. Nor do we express an opinion on the question whether the federal courts possess inherent authority to require lawyers to serve. Although respondents and their amici urge us to affirm the Court of Appeals’ judgment on the ground that the federal courts do have such authority, the District Court did not invoke its inherent power in its opinion below, and the Court of Appeals did not offer this ground for denying Mallard’s application for a writ of mandamus. We therefore leave that issue for another day. We hold only that § 1915(d) does not authorize the federal courts to make coercive appointments of counsel. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
In February 1986, the Iowa State Bar Association sent a letter to all lawyers licensed to practice before the United States District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of Iowa describing the referral system. According to the letter, 130 appointments were made between June 1984 and June 1985. The combined lists for both Districts embraced roughly 3,500 lawyers. Each lawyer was eligible to be chosen every third year, making her odds of being selected roughly 1 in 9 in those years. App. to Brief for Respondents 1-5.
Compare, e. g., Caruth v. Pinkney, 683 F. 2d 1044, 1049 (CA7 1982) (§ 1915(d) does not authorize compulsory appointments), cert denied, 459 U. S. 1214 (1983); United States v. 30.64 Acres of Land, 795 F. 2d 796, 801-803 (CA9 1986) (same), with, e. g., Peterson v. Nadler, 452 F. 2d 754, 757 (CA8 1971) (§ 1915(d) permits mandatory assignments); Whisenant v. Yuam, 739 F. 2d 160, 163, n. 3 (CA4 1984) (same).
The sole reference to compulsory service in the short floor debate in the House supports this inference. In response to a statement by Representative Stone that the bill would compel court officers to work without pay, Representative Culberson said: “We are simply in these cases of charity and humanity compelling these officers, all of whom make good salaries, to do this work for nothing. That is all the bill does. There may be one such case upon a docket of five hundred; and they are not required to do much ex-officio service.” 23 Cong. Rec. 5199 (1892). No one spoke of compelling lawyers to serve without compensation.
In claiming that “state courts had statutory authority to order lawyers to render assistance to indigent civil litigants in a dozen States” in 1892, post, at 314, the dissent ignores recent scholarship questioning the extent of that authority and casting doubt on unqualified and poorly documented assertions of its existence by contemporary writers, such as Cooley. See Shapiro 751-753. In view of the complete absence of precedent evincing state courts’ power to sanction attorneys unwilling to provide free representation, the dissent’s surmise that Congress meant to grant this power to federal judges, and indeed to confer on them as much authority as judges in the “most progressive” States exercised, post, at 314, seems somewhat extravagant. Lower federal-court decisions construing § 1915(d) within a decade of its enactment, on which the dissent relies, see id., at 316, certainly do not support this inference. On the contrary, they tell against it. In Whelan v. Manhattan R. Co., 86 F. 219, 221 (CC SDNY 1898), cited approvingly a year later regarding attorney assignments in Brinkley v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 95 F. 345, 353 (CC WD Tenn. 1899), the court said: “If the attorney who brought the action is willing to continue the litigation [without compensation, unless the plaintiff prevails and recovers an amount sufficient to pay him a fair fee], he will be assigned to represent plaintiff; if not, the court will find some other attorney to prosecute her case.” Courts at the time evidently believed that attorneys were free to decline a judge’s request to represent an indigent plaintiff under § 1915(d).
The dissent’s claim that Congress intended § 1915(d) to mirror state statutes permitting coercive appointments seems particularly tenuous when Congress departed from States’ use of the verbs “appoint” and “assign,” and when it plainly distinguished between attorneys and salaried court officers in the text of the statute. To be sure, the statute was introduced in both Houses as an Act “providing when plaintiff may sue as a poor person, and when counsel shall be assigned by the court.” 23 Cong. Rec. 5199, 6264 (1892). But the word “assign” does not appear in the statute itself or the relevant section of the United States Code, and it is the statutory language that guides our resolution of this case. The dicta cited by the dissent, see post, at 312-314, regarding lawyers’ obligation as members of a bar to represent poor criminal defendants do not appreciably strengthen its argument that this statutory provision licenses compulsory appointments in civil cases, whatever force they might lend to the contention that federal courts possess inherent authority to compel lawyers to serve or that attorneys are under a strong ethical obligation to render assistance.
The dissent’s further argument that Mallard’s “admission to practice implicitly included an obligation to participate” in the District Court’s program for providing representation to indigent civil litigants because the program was established before he joined the bar, see post, at 317, is equally unavailing. The District Court’s program derived its putative authority from § 1915(d) alone. See Nelson v. Redfield Lithograph Printing, 728 F. 2d 1003 (CA8 1984). Whether Mallard incurred an obligation to represent indigent civil litigants by virtue of his membership in the bar therefore depends upon whether § 1915(d) in fact authorizes compulsory representation. To argue the reverse — that Mallard assumed an obligation by accepting membership in the bar after the program was in place, hence the program, and derivatively Mallard’s obligation, must have a legitimate statutory ground in § 1915(d) — is simply bootstrapping.
Although § 1915(d) now pertains to “the commencement, prosecution or defense of any suit, action or proceeding, civil or criminal, or appeal therein,” 28 U. S. C. § 1915(a), as originally drafted it apparently applied only to suits commenced by an indigent person. Act of July 20, 1892, ch. 209, § 1, 27 Stat. 252. Since a private individual may not institute a criminal prosecution, the scope of § 1915(d) was limited to persons bringing civil suits. The legislative history of the bill containing § 1915(d) corroborates this inference. The House Report refers exclusively to litigation over property. See H. R. Rep. No. 1079, 52d Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1892). And the floor debate in the House speaks only of poor persons suing as plaintiffs. See 23 Cong. Rec. 5199 (1892).
We do not decide today whether, or under what conditions, 18 U. S. C. § 3005 or any other federal statute providing for the “assignment” or “appointment” of counsel authorizes federal courts to compel an unwilling attorney to render service. Nor do we offer an opinion on the constitutionality of compulsory assignments.
These federal statutes empowering courts to assign or appoint counsel were all passed well after § 1915 attained its present broad coverage. See Act of Aug. 10, 1956, Pub. L. 1028, §827, 70A Stat. 46, 10 U. S. C. §827; Pub. L. 88-455, 78 Stat. 552 (1964), 18 U. S. C. § 3006A; Pub. L. 91-452, 84 Stat. 934 (1970), 18 U. S. C. § 3503(c); Pub. L. 95-144, 91 Stat. 1218 (1977), 18 U. S. C. § 4109; Pub. L. 95-608, 92 Stat. 3071 (1978), 25 U. S. C. § 1912(b); Pub. L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241 (1964), 42 U. S. C. § 1971(f); Pub. L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 244 (1964), 42 U. S. C. §2000a-3(a); Pub. L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 259 (1964), 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(f)(1); Pub. L. 89-793, 80 Stat. 1445 (1966), 42 U. S. C. § 3413(1).
Although we do not reach the question whether the federal courts have inherent authority to order attorneys to represent litigants without pay, see Part IV, infra, it bears noting that if respondents’ argument regarding the function of § 1915(d) were correct, it would seriously undermine respondents’ assertion that the federal courts possess inherent power to direct unwilling lawyers to serve. If the federal courts already had the authority to compel representation, then by respondents’ reasoning § 1915(d) would have been otiose; respondents would therefore have to conclude, it seems, that the federal courts lacked inherent authority to sanction lawyers for failing to heed the courts’ orders to provide legal counsel free of charge.
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 GINSBURGannounced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE, Justice BREYER, and Justice SOTOMAYOR join.
John Yates, a commercial fisherman, caught undersized red grouper in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico. To prevent federal authorities from confirming that he had harvested undersized fish, Yates ordered a crew member to toss the suspect catch into the sea. For this offense, he was charged with, and convicted of, violating 18 U.S.C. § 1519, which provides:
"Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both."
Yates was also indicted and convicted under § 2232(a), which provides:
"Destruction or Removal of Property to Prevent Seizure.-Whoever, before, during, or after any search for or seizure of property by any person authorized to make such search or seizure, knowingly destroys, damages, wastes, disposes of, transfers, or otherwise takes any action, or knowingly attempts to destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, transfer, or otherwise take any action, for the purpose of preventing or impairing the Government's lawful authority to take such property into its custody or control or to continue holding such property under its lawful custody and control, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both."
Yates does not contest his conviction for violating § 2232(a), but he maintains that fish are not trapped within the term "tangible object," as that term is used in § 1519.
Section 1519was enacted as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, 116 Stat. 745, legislation designed to protect investors and restore trust in financial markets following the collapse of Enron Corporation. A fish is no doubt an object that is tangible; fish can be seen, caught, and handled, and a catch, as this case illustrates, is vulnerable to destruction. But it would cut § 1519loose from its financial-fraud mooring to hold that it encompasses any and all objects, whatever their size or significance, destroyed with obstructive intent. Mindful that in Sarbanes-Oxley, Congress trained its attention on corporate and accounting deception and cover-ups, we conclude that a matching construction of § 1519is in order: A tangible object captured by § 1519, we hold, must be one used to record or preserve information.
I
On August 23, 2007, the Miss Katie,a commercial fishing boat, was six days into an expedition in the Gulf of Mexico. Her crew numbered three, including Yates, the captain. Engaged in a routine offshore patrol to inspect both recreational and commercial vessels, Officer John Jones of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission decided to board the Miss Katieto check on the vessel's compliance with fishing rules. Although the Miss Katie was far enough from the Florida coast to be in exclusively federal waters, she was nevertheless within Officer Jones's jurisdiction. Because he had been deputized as a federal agent by the National Marine Fisheries Service, Officer Jones had authority to enforce federal, as well as state, fishing laws.
Upon boarding the Miss Katie,Officer Jones noticed three red grouper that appeared to be undersized hanging from a hook on the deck. At the time, federal conservation regulations required immediate release of red grouper less than 20 inches long. 50 C.F.R. § 622.37(d)(2)(ii)(effective April 2, 2007). Violation of those regulations is a civil offense punishable by a fine or fishing license suspension. See 16 U.S.C. §§ 1857(1)(A), (G), 1858(a), (g).
Suspecting that other undersized fish might be on board, Officer Jones proceeded to inspect the ship's catch, setting aside and measuring only fish that appeared to him to be shorter than 20 inches. Officer Jones ultimately determined that 72 fish fell short of the 20-inch mark. A fellow officer recorded the length of each of the undersized fish on a catch measurement verification form. With few exceptions, the measured fish were between 19 and 20 inches; three were less than 19 inches; none were less than 18.75 inches. After separating the fish measuring below 20 inches from the rest of the catch by placing them in wooden crates, Officer Jones directed Yates to leave the fish, thus segregated, in the crates until the Miss Katie returned to port. Before departing, Officer Jones issued Yates a citation for possession of undersized fish.
Four days later, after the Miss Katie had docked in Cortez, Florida, Officer Jones measured the fish contained in the wooden crates. This time, however, the measured fish, although still less than 20 inches, slightly exceeded the lengths recorded on board. Jones surmised that the fish brought to port were not the same as those he had detected during his initial inspection. Under questioning, one of the crew members admitted that, at Yates's direction, he had thrown overboard the fish Officer Jones had measured at sea, and that he and Yates had replaced the tossed grouper with fish from the rest of the catch.
For reasons not disclosed in the record before us, more than 32 months passed before criminal charges were lodged against Yates. On May 5, 2010, he was indicted for destroying property to prevent a federal seizure, in violation of § 2232(a), and for destroying, concealing, and covering up undersized fish to impede a federal investigation, in violation of § 1519.By the time of the indictment, the minimum legal length for Gulf red grouper had been lowered from 20 inches to 18 inches. See 50 C.F.R. § 622.37(d)(2)(iv)(effective May 18, 2009). No measured fish in Yates's catch fell below that limit. The record does not reveal what civil penalty, if any, Yates received for his possession of fish undersized under the 2007 regulation. See 16 U.S.C. § 1858(a).
Yates was tried on the criminal charges in August 2011. At the end of the Government's case in chief, he moved for a judgment of acquittal on the § 1519charge. Pointing to § 1519's title and its origin as a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Yates argued that the section sets forth "a documents offense" and that its reference to "tangible object[s]" subsumes "computer hard drives, logbooks, [and] things of that nature," not fish. App. 91-92. Yates acknowledged that the Criminal Code contains "sections that would have been appropriate for the [G]overnment to pursue" if it wished to prosecute him for tampering with evidence. App. 91. Section 2232(a), set out supra,at 1-2, fit that description. But § 1519, Yates insisted, did not.
The Government countered that a "tangible object" within § 1519's compass is "simply something other than a document or record." App. 93. The trial judge expressed misgivings about reading "tangible object" as broadly as the Government urged: "Isn't there a Latin phrase [about] construction of a statute.... The gist of it is... you take a look at [a] line of words, and you interpret the words consistently. So if you're talking about documents, and records, tangible objects are tangible objects in the nature of a document or a record, as opposed to a fish." Ibid.The first-instance judge nonetheless followed controlling Eleventh Circuit precedent. While recognizing that § 1519was passed as part of legislation targeting corporate fraud, the Court of Appeals had instructed that "the broad language of § 1519is not limited to corporate fraud cases, and 'Congress is free to pass laws with language covering areas well beyond the particular crisis du jourthat initially prompted legislative action.' " No. 2:10-cr-66-FtM-29SPC (MD Fla., Aug. 8, 2011), App. 116 (quoting United States v. Hunt,526 F.3d 739, 744 (C.A.11 2008)). Accordingly, the trial court read "tangible object" as a term "independent" of "record" or "document." App. 116. For violating § 1519and § 2232(a), the court sentenced Yates to imprisonment for 30 days, followed by supervised release for three years. App. 118-120. For life, he will bear the stigma of having a federal felony conviction.
On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit found the text of § 1519 "plain." 733 F.3d 1059, 1064 (2013). Because "tangible object" was "undefined" in the statute, the Court of Appeals gave the term its "ordinary or natural meaning," i.e.,its dictionary definition, "[h]aving or possessing physical form." Ibid.(quoting Black's Law Dictionary 1592 (9th ed. 2009)).
We granted certiorari, 572 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 1935, 188 L.Ed.2d 959 (2014), and now reverse the Eleventh Circuit's judgment.
II
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, all agree, was prompted by the exposure of Enron's massive accounting fraud and revelations that the company's outside auditor, Arthur Andersen LLP, had systematically destroyed potentially incriminating documents. The Government acknowledges that § 1519was intended to prohibit, in particular, corporate document-shredding to hide evidence of financial wrongdoing. Brief for United States 46. Prior law made it an offense to "intimidat[e], threate[n], or corruptly persuad[e] another person" to shred documents. § 1512(b) (emphasis added). Section 1519cured a conspicuous omission by imposing liability on a person who destroys records himself. See S.Rep. No. 107-146, p. 14(2002) (describing § 1519as "a new general anti shredding provision" and explaining that "certain current provisions make it a crime to persuade another person to destroy documents, but not a crime to actually destroy the same documents yourself"). The new section also expanded prior law by including within the provision's reach "any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States." Id.,at 14-15.
In the Government's view, § 1519extends beyond the principal evil motivating its passage. The words of § 1519, the Government argues, support reading the provision as a general ban on the spoliation of evidence, covering all physical items that might be relevant to any matter under federal investigation.
Yates urges a contextual reading of § 1519, tying "tangible object" to the surrounding words, the placement of the provision within the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and related provisions enacted at the same time, in particular § 1520 and § 1512(c)(1), see infra,at 1083, 1084 - 1085. Section 1519, he maintains, targets not all manner of evidence, but records, documents, and tangible objects used to preserve them, e.g.,computers, servers, and other media on which information is stored.
We agree with Yates and reject the Government's unrestrained reading. "Tangible object" in § 1519, we conclude, is better read to cover only objects one can use to record or preserve information, not all objects in the physical world.
A
The ordinary meaning of an "object" that is "tangible," as stated in dictionary definitions, is "a discrete... thing," Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1555 (2002), that "possess[es] physical form," Black's Law Dictionary 1683 (10th ed. 2014). From this premise, the Government concludes that "tangible object," as that term appears in § 1519, covers the waterfront, including fish from the sea.
Whether a statutory term is unambiguous, however, does not turn solely on dictionary definitions of its component words. Rather, "[t]he plainness or ambiguity of statutory language is determined [not only] by reference to the language itself, [but as well by] the specific context in which that language is used, and the broader context of the statute as a whole."Robinson v. Shell Oil Co.,519 U.S. 337, 341, 117 S.Ct. 843, 136 L.Ed.2d 808 (1997). See also Deal v. United States,508 U.S. 129, 132, 113 S.Ct. 1993, 124 L.Ed.2d 44 (1993)(it is a "fundamental principle of statutory construction (and, indeed, of language itself) that the meaning of a word cannot be determined in isolation, but must be drawn from the context in which it is used"). Ordinarily, a word's usage accords with its dictionary definition. In law as in life, however, the same words, placed in different contexts, sometimes mean different things.
We have several times affirmed that identical language may convey varying content when used in different statutes, sometimes even in different provisions of the same statute. See, e.g.,FAA v. Cooper,566 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 132 S.Ct. 1441, 1448-1449, 182 L.Ed.2d 497 (2012), ("actual damages" has different meanings in different statutes); Wachovia Bank, N.A. v. Schmidt,546 U.S. 303, 313-314, 126 S.Ct. 941, 163 L.Ed.2d 797 (2006)("located" has different meanings in different provisions of the National Bank Act); General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc. v. Cline,540 U.S. 581, 595-597, 124 S.Ct. 1236, 157 L.Ed.2d 1094 (2004)("age" has different meanings in different provisions of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967); United States v. Cleveland Indians Baseball Co.,532 U.S. 200, 213, 121 S.Ct. 1433, 149 L.Ed.2d 401 (2001)("wages paid" has different meanings in different provisions of Title 26 U.S.C.); Robinson,519 U.S., at 342-344, 117 S.Ct. 843("employee" has different meanings in different sections of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964); Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson,478 U.S. 804, 807-808, 106 S.Ct. 3229, 92 L.Ed.2d 650 (1986)( "arising under" has different meanings in U.S. Const., Art. III, § 2, and 28 U.S.C. § 1331); District of Columbia v. Carter,409 U.S. 418, 420-421, 93 S.Ct. 602, 34 L.Ed.2d 613 (1973)("State or Territory" has different meanings in 42 U.S.C. § 1982and § 1983); Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers, Inc. v. United States,286 U.S. 427, 433-437, 52 S.Ct. 607, 76 L.Ed. 1204 (1932)("trade or commerce" has different meanings in different sections of the Sherman Act). As the Court observed in Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers,286 U.S., at 433, 52 S.Ct. 607:
"Most words have different shades of meaning and consequently may be variously construed.... Where the subject matter to which the words refer is not the same in the several places where [the words] are used, or the conditions are different, or the scope of the legislative power exercised in one case is broader than that exercised in another, the meaning well may vary to meet the purposes of the law, to be arrived at by a consideration of the language in which those purposes are expressed, and of the circumstances under which the language was employed."
In short, although dictionary definitions of the words "tangible" and "object" bear consideration, they are not dispositive of the meaning of "tangible object" in § 1519.
Supporting a reading of "tangible object," as used in § 1519, in accord with dictionary definitions, the Government points to the appearance of that term in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16. That Rule requires the prosecution to grant a defendant's request to inspect "tangible objects" within the Government's control that have utility for the defense. See Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 16(a)(1)(E).
Rule 16's reference to "tangible objects" has been interpreted to include any physical evidence. See 5 W. LaFave, J. Israel, N. King, & O. Kerr, Criminal Procedure § 20.3(g), pp. 405-406, and n. 120 (3d ed. 2007). Rule 16is a discovery rule designed to protect defendants by compelling the prosecution to turn over to the defense evidence material to the charges at issue. In that context, a comprehensive construction of "tangible objects" is fitting. In contrast, § 1519is a penal provision that refers to "tangible object" not in relation to a request for information relevant to a specific court proceeding, but rather in relation to federal investigations or proceedings of every kind, including those not yet begun.See Commissioner v. National Carbide Corp.,167 F.2d 304, 306 (C.A.2 1948)(Hand, J.) ("words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment"). Just as the context of Rule 16supports giving "tangible object" a meaning as broad as its dictionary definition, the context of § 1519tugs strongly in favor of a narrower reading.
B
Familiar interpretive guides aid our construction of the words "tangible object" as they appear in § 1519.
We note first § 1519's caption: "Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy." That heading conveys no suggestion that the section prohibits spoliation of any and all physical evidence, however remote from records. Neither does the title of the section of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in which § 1519was placed, § 802: "Criminal penalties for altering documents." 116 Stat. 800. Furthermore, § 1520, the only other provision passed as part of § 802, is titled "Destruction of corporate audit records" and addresses only that specific subset of records and documents. While these headings are not commanding, they supply cues that Congress did not intend "tangible object" in § 1519to sweep within its reach physical objects of every kind, including things no one would describe as records, documents, or devices closely associated with them. See Almendarez-Torres v. United States,523 U.S. 224, 234, 118 S.Ct. 1219, 140 L.Ed.2d 350 (1998)("[T]he title of a statute and the heading of a section are tools available for the resolution of a doubt about the meaning of a statute." (internal quotation marks omitted)). If Congress indeed meant to make § 1519an all-encompassing ban on the spoliation of evidence, as the dissent believes Congress did, one would have expected a clearer indication of that intent.
Section 1519's position within Chapter 73 of Title 18 further signals that § 1519was not intended to serve as a cross-the-board ban on the destruction of physical evidence of every kind. Congress placed § 1519(and its companion provision § 1520) at the end of the chapter, following immediately after the pre-existing § 1516, § 1517, and § 1518, each of them prohibiting obstructive acts in specific contexts. See § 1516 (audits of recipients of federal funds); § 1517 (federal examinations of financial institutions); § 1518 (criminal investigations of federal health care offenses).
See also S.Rep. No. 107-146, at 7(observing that § 1517 and § 1518 "apply to obstruction in certain limited types of cases, such as bankruptcy fraud, examinations of financial institutions, and healthcare fraud").
But Congress did not direct codification of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act's other additions to Chapter 73 adjacent to these specialized provisions. Instead, Congress directed placement of those additions within or alongside retained provisions that address obstructive acts relating broadly to official proceedings and criminal trials: Section 806, "Civil Action to protect against retaliation in fraud cases," was codified as § 1514A and inserted between the pre-existing § 1514, which addresses civil actions to restrain harassment of victims and witnesses in criminal cases, and § 1515, which defines terms used in § 1512 and § 1513. Section 1102, "Tampering with a record or otherwise impeding an official proceeding," was codified as § 1512(c) and inserted within the pre-existing § 1512, which addresses tampering with a victim, witness, or informant to impede any official proceeding. Section 1107, "Retaliation against informants," was codified as § 1513(e) and inserted within the pre-existing § 1513, which addresses retaliation against a victim, witness, or informant in any official proceeding. Congress thus ranked § 1519, not among the broad proscriptions, but together with specialized provisions expressly aimed at corporate fraud and financial audits. This placement accords with the view that Congress' conception of § 1519's coverage was considerably more limited than the Government's.
The contemporaneous passage of § 1512(c)(1), which was contained in a section of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act discrete from the section embracing § 1519and § 1520, is also instructive. Section 1512(c)(1) provides:
"(c) Whoever corruptly-
"(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding
.....
"shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both."
The legislative history reveals that § 1512(c)(1) was drafted and proposed after § 1519. See 148 Cong. Rec. 12518, 13088-13089 (2002). The Government argues, and Yates does not dispute, that § 1512(c)(1)'s reference to "other object" includes any and every physical object. But if § 1519's reference to "tangible object" already included all physical objects, as the Government and the dissent contend, then Congress had no reason to enact § 1512(c)(1): Virtually any act that would violate § 1512(c)(1) no doubt would violate § 1519as well, for § 1519applies to "the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States... or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter," not just to "an official proceeding."
The Government acknowledges that, under its reading, § 1519and § 1512(c)(1)"significantly overlap." Brief for United States 49. Nowhere does the Government explain what independent function § 1512(c)(1)would serve if the Government is right about the sweeping scope of § 1519. We resist a reading of § 1519that would render superfluous an entire provision passed in proximity as part of the same Act.See Marx v. General Revenue Corp.,568 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 1166, 1178, 185 L.Ed.2d 242 (2013)( "[T]he canon against surplusage is strongest when an interpretation would render superfluous another part of the same statutory scheme.").
The words immediately surrounding "tangible object" in § 1519-"falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record [or] document"-also cabin the contextual meaning of that term. As explained in Gustafson v. Alloyd Co.,513 U.S. 561, 575, 115 S.Ct. 1061, 131 L.Ed.2d 1 (1995), we rely on the principle of noscitur a sociis-a word is known by the company it keeps-to "avoid ascribing to one word a meaning so broad that it is inconsistent with its accompanying words, thus giving unintended breadth to the Acts of Congress." (internal quotation marks omitted). See also United States v. Williams,553 U.S. 285, 294, 128 S.Ct. 1830, 170 L.Ed.2d 650 (2008)("a word is given more precise content by the neighboring words with which it is associated"). In Gustafson,we interpreted the word "communication" in § 2(10) of the Securities Act of 1933 to refer to a public communication, rather than any communication, because the word appeared in a list with other words, notably "notice, circular, [and] advertisement," making it "apparent that the list refer[red] to documents of wide dissemination." 513 U.S., at 575-576, 115 S.Ct. 1061. And we did so even though the list began with the word "any."
The noscitur a sociiscanon operates in a similar manner here. "Tangible object" is the last in a list of terms that begins "any record [or] document." The term is therefore appropriately read to refer, not to any tangible object, but specifically to the subset of tangible objects involving records and documents, i.e., objects used to record or preserve information. See United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual § 2J1.2, comment., n. 1 (Nov. 2014) (" 'Records, documents, or tangible objects' includes (A) records, documents, or tangible objects that are stored on, or that are, magnetic, optical, digital, other electronic, or other storage mediums or devices; and (B) wire or electronic communications.").
This moderate interpretation of "tangible object" accords with the list of actions § 1519proscribes. The section applies to anyone who "alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies,or makes a false entry inany record, document, or tangible object" with the requisite obstructive intent. (Emphasis added.) The last two verbs, "falsif[y]" and "mak[e] a false entry in," typically take as grammatical objects records, documents, or things used to record or preserve information, such as logbooks or hard drives. See, e.g., Black's Law Dictionary 720 (10th ed. 2014) (defining "falsify" as "[t]o make deceptive; to counterfeit, forge, or misrepresent; esp., to tamper with (a document, record, etc.)"). It would be unnatural, for example, to describe a killer's act of wiping his fingerprints from a gun as "falsifying" the murder weapon. But it would not be strange to refer to "falsifying" data stored on a hard drive as simply "falsifying" a hard drive. Furthermore, Congress did not include on § 1512(c)(1)'s list of prohibited actions "falsifies" or "makes a false entry in." See § 1512(c)(1)(making it unlawful to "alte[r], destro [y], mutilat[e], or concea[l] a record, document, or other object" with the requisite obstructive intent). That contemporaneous omission also suggests that Congress intended "tangible object" in § 1519to have a narrower scope than "other object" in § 1512(c)(1).
A canon related to noscitur a sociis, ejusdem generis,counsels: "Where general words follow specific words in a statutory enumeration, the general words are [usually] construed to embrace only objects similar in nature to those objects enumerated by the preceding specific words." Washington State Dept. of Social and Health Servs. v. Guardianship Estate of Keffeler,537 U.S. 371, 384, 123 S.Ct. 1017, 154 L.Ed.2d 972 (2003)(internal quotation marks omitted). In Begay v. United States,553 U.S. 137, 142-143, 128 S.Ct. 1581, 170 L.Ed.2d 490 (2008), for example, we relied on this principle to determine what crimes were covered by the statutory phrase "any crime... that... is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another,"18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). The enumeration of specific crimes, we explained, indicates that the "otherwise involves" provision covers "only similar crimes, rather than every crime that 'presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.' " 553 U.S., at 142, 128 S.Ct. 1581. Had Congress intended the latter "all encompassing" meaning, we observed, "it is hard to see why it would have needed to include the examples at all." Ibid.See also CSX
Transp., Inc. v. Alabama Dept. of Revenue,562 U.S. 277, ----, 131 S.Ct. 1101, 1113, 179 L.Ed.2d 37 (2011)("We typically use ejusdem generis to ensure that a general word will not render specific words meaningless."). Just so here. Had Congress intended "tangible object" in § 1519to be interpreted so generically as to capture physical objects as dissimilar as documents and fish, Congress would have had no reason to refer specifically to "record" or "document." The Government's unbounded reading of "tangible object" would render those words misleading surplusage.
Having used traditional tools of statutory interpretation to examine markers of congressional intent within the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and § 1519itself, we are persuaded that an aggressive interpretation of "tangible object" must be rejected. It is highly improbable that Congress would have buried a general spoliation statute covering objects of any and every kind in a provision targeting fraud in financial record-keeping.
The Government argues, however, that our inquiry would be incomplete if we failed to consider the origins of the phrase "record, document, or tangible object." Congress drew that phrase, the Government says, from a 1962 Model Penal Code (MPC) provision, and reform proposals based on that provision. The MPC provision and proposals prompted by it would have imposed liability on anyone who "alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, or removes a record, document or thing." See ALI, MPC § 241.7(1), p. 175 (1962). Those proscriptions were understood to refer to all physical evidence. See MPC § 241.7, Comment 3, at 179 (1980) (provision "applies to any physical object"). Accordingly, the Government reasons, and the dissent exuberantly agrees, post,at 4-5, Congress must have intended § 1519to apply to the universe of physical evidence.
The inference is unwarranted. True, the 1962 MPC provision prohibited tampering with any kind of physical evidence. But unlike § 1519, the MPC provision did not prohibit actions that specifically relate to records, documents, and objects used to record or preserve information. The MPC provision also ranked the offense as a misdemeanor and limited liability to instances in which the actor "believ[es] that an official proceeding or investigation is pending or about to be instituted." MPC § 241.7(1), at 175. Yates would have had scant reason to anticipate a felony prosecution, and certainly not one instituted at a time when even the smallest of the fish he caught came within the legal limit. See supra,at 1080; cf. Bond v. United States,572 U.S. ----, ----, 134 S.Ct. 2077, 2089-2090, 189 L.Ed.2d 1 (2014)(rejecting "boundless reading" of a statutory term given "deeply serious consequences" that reading would entail). A proposed federal offense in line with the MPC provision, advanced by a federal commission in 1971, was similarly qualified. See Final Report of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws § 1323, pp. 116-117 (1971).
Section 1519conspicuously lacks the limits built into the MPC provision and the federal proposal. It describes not a misdemeanor, but a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. And the section covers conduct intended to impede any federal investigation or proceeding, including one not even on the verge of commencement. Given these significant differences, the meaning of "record, document, or thing" in the MPC provision and a kindred proposal is not a reliable indicator of the meaning Congress assigned to "record, document, or tangible object" in § 1519. The MPC provision, in short, tells us neither "what Congress wrote [nor] what Congress wanted," cf. post,at 1098, concerning Yates's small fish as the subject of a federal felony prosecution.
C
Finally, if our recourse to traditional tools of statutory construction leaves any doubt about the meaning of "tangible object," as that term is used in § 1519, we would invoke the rule that "ambiguity concerning the ambit of criminal statutes should be resolved in favor of lenity." Cleveland v. United States,531 U.S. 12, 25, 121 S.Ct. 365, 148 L.Ed.2d 221 (2000)(quoting Rewis v. United States,401 U.S. 808, 812, 91 S.Ct. 1056, 28 L.Ed.2d 493 (1971)). That interpretative principle is relevant here, where the Government urges a reading of § 1519that exposes individuals to 20-year prison sentences for tampering with anyphysical object that mighthave evidentiary value in anyfederal investigation into anyoffense, no matter whether the investigation is pending or merely contemplated, or whether the offense subject to investigation is criminal or civil. See Liparota v. United States,471 U.S. 419, 427, 105 S.Ct. 2084, 85 L.Ed.2d 434 (1985)("Application of the rule of lenity ensures that criminal statutes will provide fair warning concerning conduct rendered illegal and strikes the appropriate balance between the legislature, the prosecutor, and the court in defining criminal liability."). In determining the meaning of "tangible object" in § 1519, "it is appropriate, before we choose the harsher alternative, to require that Congress should have spoken in language that is clear and definite." See Cleveland,531 U.S., at 25, 121 S.Ct. 365(quoting United States v. Universal C.I.T. Credit Corp.,344 U.S. 218, 222
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.
In 1966 the District Court for the Western District of Tennessee approved a plan of respondent Board of Education for the desegregation of the Memphis school system. In July 1968 petitioners made a motion that the court order the Board to adopt a new plan prepared with the assistance of the Title IV Center of the University of Tennessee. The Center is funded by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The 1966 plan permitted unrestricted free transfers, and petitioners desired a plan without such a provision, and one that would also provide among other things for complete faculty desegregation. The District Court denied the motion as filed but on May 15, 1969, in an unreported opinion, directed respondent Board to file a revised plan which would incorporate the existing plan (as respondent proposed during the hearing to supplement it), and which also would contain a modified transfer provision, a provision for the appointment of a Director of Desegregation charged with responsibility to devise ways and means “of assisting the Board in its affirmative duty to convert to a unitary sj^stem in which racial discrimination will be eliminated root and branch,” and provision for faculty desegregation. The court also directed that, prior to January 1, 1970, the Board file a map of proposed revised zone boundary lines and enrollment figures by race within the revised zones to enable the court then to “reconsider the adequacy of the transfer plan.” The District Court expressly found that such further steps were necessary because, although the respondent Board “has acted in good faith,” “the existing and proposed [supplemental] plans do not have real prospects for dismantling the state-imposed dual system at the ‘earliest practicable date.' ”
Petitioners appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In June 1969 they filed a Motion for Summary Reversal and on November 3, 1969, after this Court’s decision in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 396 U. S. 19 (1969), a motion to require adoption of a unitary system now. Both motions were denied on December 19, 1969, and the case was remanded to the District Court; the Court of Appeals stated that action on its part would be premature “until the United States District Court has had submitted to it the ordered plan, and has had opportunity to consider and act upon it.”
Petitioners thereupon filed in the Court of Appeals a motion for injunction pending certiorari which, in reliance upon Alexander v. Holmes County Board, sought an injunction requiring respondent Board “to prepare and file on or before January 5, 1970, in addition to the adjusted zone lines it is presently required to file, a plan for the operation of the City of Memphis public schools as a unitary system during the current 1969-70 school year.” The motion was denied on January 12, 1970, on the ground that Alexander v. Holmes County Board was inapplicable to the case because “[the Court of Appeals is] satisfied that the respondent Board of Education of Memphis is not now operating a ‘dual school system’ and has, subject to complying with the present commands of the District Judge, converted its pre-Brown dual system into a unitary system ‘within which no person is to be effectively excluded because of race or color.’ ”
Petitioners, on January 30, 1970, filed in this Court a petition for certiorari and a motion for injunction pending certiorari “requiring the preparation, with the assistance of H. E. W. or the H. E. W.-funded University of Tennessee Title IV Center, of a plan of complete pupil and faculty integration affecting all phases of the operations of the Memphis public school system, for implementation during the 1969-70 school year in conformity with . . . Alexander v. Holmes County Bd. . . .”
The petition for certiorari is granted. We hold that the Court of Appeals erred in the following respects:
1. Since the findings of the District Court — that the state-imposed dual system had not been dismantled under the 1966 plan and that that plan and the Board’s proposed supplemental plan did “not have real prospects for dismantling [it] ... at the ‘earliest practicable date’ ” — are supported by substantial evidence, the Court of Appeals erred in substituting its own finding that respondent Board “is not now operating a ‘dual school system’. . . .”
2. Since it appears that neither the revised plan of desegregation filed on June 9, 1969, nor the revised school zones and updated enrollment figures which were ordered to be filed on or before January 1, 1970, were properly before the Court of Appeals for review, it was premature for the Court of Appeals to rule that the Board “has, subject to complying with the present commands of the District Judge, converted its pre-Brown dual system into a unitary system ‘within which no person is to be effectively excluded because of race or color.’ ”
3. In holding that Alexander v. Holmes County Board is inapplicable to this case.
The Court of Appeals’ order of remand of December 19, 1969, is affirmed, but with direction that the District Court proceed promptly to consider the issues before it and to decide the case consistently with Alexander v. Holmes County Board. The order of the Court of Appeals of January 12, 1970, denying injunctive relief is affirmed. The motion for injunction pending cer-tiorari filed in this Court is denied.
The judgment herein shall issue forthwith.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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.
A Nevada jury convicted petitioner Michael Damon Rippo of first-degree murder and other offenses and sentenced him to death. During his trial, Rippo received information that the judge was the target of a federal bribery probe, and he surmised that the Clark County District Attorney's Office-which was prosecuting him-was playing a role in that investigation. Rippo moved for the judge's disqualification under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, contending that a judge could not impartially adjudicate a case in which one of the parties was criminally investigating him. But the trial judge declined to recuse himself, and (after that judge's indictment on federal charges) a different judge later denied Rippo's motion for a new trial. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed on direct appeal, reasoning in part that Rippo had not introduced evidence that state authorities were involved in the federal investigation. Rippo v. State, 113 Nev. 1239, 1246-1250, 946 P.2d 1017, 1023-1024 (1997) (per curiam ).
In a later application for state postconviction relief, Rippo advanced his bias claim once more, this time pointing to documents from the judge's criminal trial indicating that the district attorney's office had participated in the investigation of the trial judge. See, e.g., App. to Pet. for Cert. 236-237, 397. The state postconviction court denied relief, and the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. Rippo v. State, 132 Nev. ----, ----, 368 P.3d 729, 743-745 (2016). It likened Rippo's claim to the "camouflaging bias" theory that this Court discussed in Bracy v. Gramley, 520 U.S. 899, 117 S.Ct. 1793, 138 L.Ed.2d 97 (1997). The Bracy petitioner argued that a judge who accepts bribes to rule in favor of some defendants would seek to disguise that favorable treatment by ruling against defendants who did not bribe him. Id., at 905, 117 S.Ct. 1793. We explained that despite the "speculative" nature of that theory, the petitioner was entitled to discovery because he had also alleged specific facts suggesting that the judge may have colluded with defense counsel to rush the petitioner's case to trial. See id., at 905-909, 117 S.Ct. 1793. The Nevada Supreme Court reasoned that, in contrast, Rippo was not entitled to discovery or an evidentiary hearing because his allegations "d[id] not support the assertion that the trial judge was actually biased in this case." 132 Nev., at ----, 368 P.3d, at 744.
We vacate the Nevada Supreme Court's judgment because it applied the wrong legal standard. Under our precedents, the Due Process Clause may sometimes demand recusal even when a judge " 'ha[s] no actual bias.' " Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Lavoie, 475 U.S. 813, 825, 106 S.Ct. 1580, 89 L.Ed.2d 823 (1986). Recusal is required when, objectively speaking, "the probability of actual bias on the part of the judge or decisionmaker is too high to be constitutionally tolerable." Withrow v. Larkin, 421 U.S. 35, 47, 95 S.Ct. 1456, 43 L.Ed.2d 712 (1975) ; see Williams v. Pennsylvania, 579 U.S. ----, ----, 136 S.Ct. 1899, 1905, 195 L.Ed.2d 132 (2016) ("The Court asks not whether a judge harbors an actual, subjective bias, but instead whether, as an objective matter, the average judge in his position is likely to be neutral, or whether there is an unconstitutional potential for bias" (internal quotation marks omitted)). Our decision in Bracy is not to the contrary: Although we explained that the petitioner there had pointed to facts suggesting actual, subjective bias, we did not hold that a litigant must show as a matter of course that a judge was "actually biased in [the litigant's] case," 132 Nev., at ----, 368 P.3d, at 744 -much less that he must do so when, as here, he does not allege a theory of "camouflaging bias." The Nevada Supreme Court did not ask the question our precedents require: whether, considering all the circumstances alleged, the risk of bias was too high to be constitutionally tolerable. As a result, we grant the petition for writ of certiorari and the motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis, and we vacate the judgment below and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The court further relied on its bias holding to determine that Rippo had not established cause and prejudice to overcome various state procedural bars. 132 Nev., at ----, 368 P.3d, at 745. Because the court below did not invoke any state-law grounds "independent of the merits of [Rippo's] federal constitutional challenge," we have jurisdiction to review its resolution of federal law. Foster v. Chatman, 578 U.S. ----, ----, 136 S.Ct. 1737, 1746, 195 L.Ed.2d 1 (2016).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
D
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U. S. 579 (1993), this Court focused upon the admissibility of scientific expert testimony. It pointed out that such testimony is admissible only if it is both relevant and reliable. And it held that the Federal Rules of Evidence “assign to the trial judge the task of ensuring that an expert’s testimony both rests on a reliable foundation and is relevant to the task at hand.” Id., at 597. The Court also discussed certain more specific factors, such as testing, peer review, error rates, and “acceptability” in the relevant scientific community, some or all of which might prove helpful in determining the reliability of a particular scientific “theory or technique.” Id., at 593-594.
This case requires us to decide how Daubert applies to the testimony of engineers and other experts who are not scientists. We conclude that Dauberfs general holding— setting forth the trial judge’s general “gatekeeping” obligation — applies not only to testimony based on “scientific” knowledge, but also to testimony based on “technical” and “other specialized” knowledge. See Fed. Rule Evid. 702. We also conclude that a trial court may consider one or more of the more specific factors that Daubert mentioned when doing so will help determine that testimony’s reliability. But, as the Court stated in Daubert, the test of reliability is “flexible,” and Dauberfs list of specific factors neither necessarily nor exclusively applies to all experts or in every case. Rather, the law grants a district court the same broad latitude when it decides how to determine reliability as it enjoys in respect to its ultimate reliability determination. See General Electric Co. v. Joiner, 522 U. S. 136, 143 (1997) (courts of appeals are to apply “abuse of discretion” standard when reviewing district court’s reliability determination). Applying these standards, we determine that the District Court’s decision in this case — not to admit certain expert testimony — was within its discretion and therefore lawful.
H
On July 6,1993, the right rear tire of a minivan driven by Patrick Carmichael blew out. In the accident that followed, one of the passengers died, and others were severely injured. In October 1993, the Carmichaels brought this diversity suit against the tire’s maker and its distributor, whom we refer to collectively as Kumho Tire, claiming that the tire was defective. The plaintiffs rested their case in significant part upon deposition testimony provided by an expert in tire failure analysis, Dennis Carlson, Jr., who intended to testify in support of their conclusion.
Carlson’s upon technology that are not in dispute. A steel-belted radial tire like the Carmichaels’ is made up of a “carcass” containing many layers of flexible cords, called “plies,” along which (between the cords and the outer tread) are laid steel strips called “belts.” Steel wire loops, called “beads,” hold the cords together at the plies’ bottom edges. An outer layer, called the “tread,” encases the carcass, and the entire tire is bound together in rubber, through the application of heat and various chemicals. See generally, e. g., J. Dixon, Tires, Suspension and Handling 68-72 (2d ed. 1996). The bead of the tire sits upon a “bead seat,” which is part of the wheel assembly. That assembly contains a “rim flange,” which extends over the bead and rests against the side of the tire. See M. Mavrigian, Performance Wheels & Tires 81,83 (1998) (illustrations).
Carlson’s testimony also accepted certain background facts about the tire in question. He assumed that before the blowout the tire had traveled far. (The tire was made in 1988 and had been installed some time before the Carmi-chaels bought the used minivan in March 1993; the Carmi-chaels had driven the van approximately 7,000 additional miles in the two months they had owned it.) Carlson noted that the tire’s tread depth, which was % of an inch when new, App. 242, had been worn down to depths that ranged from %2 of an inch along some parts of the tire, to nothing at all along others. Id., at 287. He conceded that the tire tread had at least two punctures which had been inadequately repaired. Id., at 258-261, 322.
Despite the tire’s age and history, Carlson concluded that a defect in its manufacture or design caused the blowout. He rested this conclusion in part upon three premises which, for present purposes, we must assume are not in dispute: First, a tire’s carcass should stay bound to the inner side of the tread for a significant period of time after its tread depth has worn away. Id., at 208-209. Second, the tread of the tire at issue had separated from its inner steel-belted carcass prior to thé accident. Id., at 336. Third, this “separation” caused the blowout. Ibid.
Carlson’s conclusion that a defect caused the separation, however, rested upon certain other propositions, several of which the defendants strongly dispute. First, Carlson said that if a separation is not caused by a certain kind of tire misuse called “overdeflection” (which consists of underinflat-ing the tire or causing it to carry too much weight, thereby generating heat that can undo the chemical tread/carcass bond), then, ordinarily, its cause is a tire defect. Id., at 193-195, 277-278. Second, he said that if a tire has been subject to sufficient overdeflection to cause a separation, it should reveal certain physical symptoms. These symptoms include (a) tread wear on the tire’s shoulder that is greater than the tread wear along the tire’s center, id., at 211; (b) signs of a “bead groove,” where the beads have been pushed too hard against the bead seat on the inside of the tire’s rim, id., at 196-197; (e) sidewalls of the tire with physical signs of deterioration, such as discoloration, id., at 212; and/or (d) marks on the tire’s rim flange, id., at 219-220. Third, Carlson said that where he does not find at least two of the four physical signs just mentioned (and presumably where there is no reason to suspect a less common cause of separation), he concludes that a manufacturing or design defect caused the separation. Id., at 223-224.
Carlson added that he had inspected the tire in question. He conceded that the tire to a limited degree showed greater wear on the shoulder than in the center, some signs of “bead groove,” some discoloration, a few marks on the rim flange, and inadequately filled puncture holes (which can also cause heat that might lead to separation). Id., at 256-257, 258-261, 277, 303-304, 308. But, in each instance, he testified that the symptoms were not significant, and he explained why he believed that they did not reveal overdeflection. For example, the extra shoulder wear, he said, appeared primarily on one shoulder, whereas an overdeflected tire would reveal equally abnormal wear on both shoulders. Id., at 277. Carlson concluded that the tire did not bear at least two of the four overdefleetion symptoms, nor was there any less obvious cause of separation; and since neither overde-flection nor the punctures caused the blowout, a defect must have done so.
Kumho Tire moved the District Court to exclude Carlson’s testimony on the ground that his methodology failed Rule 702’s reliability requirement. The court agreed with Kumho that it should act as a Daubert-type reliability “gatekeeper,” even though one might consider Carlson’s testimony as “technical,” rather than “scientific.” See Carmichael v. Samyang Tires, Inc., 923 F. Supp. 1514, 1521-1522 (SD Ala. 1996). The court then examined Carlson’s methodology in light of the reliability-related factors that Daubert mentioned, such as a theory’s testability, whether it “has been a subject of peer review or publication,” the “known or potential rate of error,” and the “degree of acceptance ... within the relevant scientific community.” 923 F. Supp., at 1520 (citing Daubert, 509 U. S., at 589-595). The District Court found that all those factors argued against the reliability of Carlson’s methods, and it granted the motion to exclude the testimony (as well as the defendants’ accompanying motion for summary judgment).
The plaintiffs, arguing that the court’s application of the Daubert factors was too “inflexible,” asked for reconsideration. And the court granted that motion. Carmichael v. Samyang Tires, Inc., Civ. Action No. 93-0860-CB-S (SD Ala., June 5, 1996), App. to Pet. for Cert. 1c. After reconsidering the matter, the court agreed with the plaintiffs that Daubert should be applied flexibly, that its four factors were simply illustrative, and that other factors could argue in favor of admissibility. It conceded that there may be widespread acceptance of a “visual-inspection method” for some relevant purposes. But the court found insufficient indications of the reliability of
“the component of Carlson's tire failure analysis which most concerned the Court, namely, the methodology employed by the expert in analyzing the data obtained in the visual inspection, and the scientific basis, if any, for such an analysis.” Id., at 6c.
It consequently affirmed its earlier order declaring Carlson’s testimony inadmissible and granting the defendants’ motion for judgment.
The Eleventh Circuit reversed. See Carmichael v. Samyang Tire, Inc., 131 F. 3d 1433 (1997). It “reviewed]... de novo” the “district court’s legal decision to apply Daubert Id., at 1485. It noted that “the Supreme Court in Daubert explicitly limited its holding to cover only the ‘scientific context,’ ” adding that “a Daubert analysis” applies only where an expert relies “on the application of scientific principles,” rather than “on skill- or experience-based observation.” Id., at 1435-1436. It concluded that Carlson’s testimony, which it viewed as relying on experience, “falls outside the scope of Daubert,” that “the district court erred as a matter of law by applying Daubert in this case,” and that the case must be remanded for further (non-Daubert-type) consideration under Rule 702. 131 F. 3d, at 1436.
mine whether a trial court “may” consider Dauberts specific “factors” when determining the “admissibility of an engineering expert’s testimony.” Pet. for Cert. i. We granted certiorari in light of uncertainty among the lower courts about whether, or how, Daubert applies to expert testimony that might be characterized as based not upon “scientific” knowledge, but rather upon “technical” or “other specialized” knowledge. Fed. Rule Evid. 702; compare, e. g., Watkins v. Telsmith, Inc., 121 F. 3d 984, 990-991 (CA5 1997), with, e. g., Compton v. Subaru of America, Inc., 82 F. 3d 1513, 1518-1519 (CA10), cert. denied, 519 U. S. 1042 (1996).
II
A
In Daubert, this Court held that Federal Rule of Evidence 702 imposes a special obligation upon a trial judge to “ensure that any and all scientific testimony ... is not only relevant, but reliable.” 509 U. S., at 589. The initial question before us is whether this basic gatekeeping obligation applies only to “scientific” testimony or to all expert testimony. We, like the parties, believe that it applies to all expert testimony. See Brief for Petitioners 19; Brief for Respondents 17.
For one thing, Rule 702 itself says:
“If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise.”
This language makes no relevant distinction between “scientific” knowledge and “technical” or “other specialized” knowledge. It makes clear that any such knowledge might become the subject of expert testimony. In Daubert, the Court specified that it is the Rule’s word “knowledge,” not the words (like “scientific”) that modify that word, that “establishes a standard of evidentiary reliability.” 509 U. S., at 589-590. Hence, as a matter of language, the Rule applies its reliability standard to all “scientific,” “technical,” or “other specialized” matters within its scope. We concede that the Court in Daubert referred only to “scientific” knowledge. But as the Court there said, it referred to “scientific” testimony “because that [wa]s the nature of the expertise” at issue. Id., at 590, n. 8.
Neither is the evidentiary Court’s basic Daubert “gatekeeping” determination limited to “scientific” knowledge. Daubert pointed out that Federal Rules 702 and 708 grant expert witnesses testimonial latitude unavailable to other witnesses on the “assumption that the expert’s opinion will have a reliable basis in the knowledge and experience of his discipline.” Id., at 592 (pointing out that experts may testify to opinions, including those that are not based on firsthand knowledge or observation). The Rules grant that latitude to all experts, not just to “scientific” ones.
Finally, it would prove difficult, if not impossible, for judges to administer evidentiary rules under which a gate-keeping obligation depended upon a distinction between “scientific” knowledge and “technical” or “other specialized” knowledge. There is no clear line that divides the one from the others. Disciplines such as engineering rest upon scientific knowledge. Pure scientific theory itself may depend for its development upon observation and properly engineered machinery. And conceptual efforts to distinguish the two are unlikely to produce clear legal lines capable of application in particular cases. Cf. Brief for National Academy of Engineering as Amicus Curiae 9 (scientist seeks to understand nature while the engineer seeks nature’s modification); Brief for Rubber Manufacturers Association as Amicus Curiae 14-16 (engineering, as an “‘applied science,’” relies on “scientific reasoning and methodology”); Brief for John Allen et al. as Amici Curiae 6 (engineering relies upon “scientific knowledge and methods”).
Neither is there a convincing need to make such distinctions. Experts of all kinds tie observations to conclusions through the use of what Judge Learned Hand called “general truths derived from... specialized experience.” Hand, Historical and Practical Considerations Regarding Expert Testimony, 15 Harv. L. Rev. 40, 54 (1901). And whether the specific expert testimony focuses upon specialized observations, the specialized translation of those observations into theory, a specialized theory itself, or the application of such a theory in a particular case, the expert’s testimony often will rest “upon an experience confessedly foreign in kind to [the jury’s] own.” Ibid. The trial judge’s effort to assure that the specialized testimony is reliable and relevant can help the jury evaluate that foreign experience, whether the testimony reflects scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge.
We conclude that Daubert’s general principles apply to the expert matters described in Rule 702. The Rule, in respect to all such matters, “establishes a standard of evidentiary reliability.” 509 U. S., at 590. It “requires a valid ... connection to the pertinent inquiry as a precondition to admissibility.” Id., at 592. And where such testimony’s factual basis, data, principles, methods, or their application are called sufficiently into question, see Part III, infra, the trial judge must determine whether the testimony has “a reliable basis in the knowledge and experience of [the relevant] discipline.” 509 U. S., at 592.
B
Petitioners ask more specifically whether a trial judge determining the “admissibility of an engineering expert’s testimony” may consider several more specific factors that Daubert said might “bear on” a judge’s gatekeeping determination. Brief for Petitioners i. These factors include:
—Whether a “theory or technique . . . can be (and has been) tested”;
—Whether it “has been subjected to peer review and publication”;
—Whether, in respect to a particular technique, there is a high “known or potential rate of error” and whether there are “standards controlling the technique’s operation”; and
—Whether the theory or technique enjoys “ ‘general acceptance’” within a “‘relevant scientific community.’”
509 U. S., at 592-594.
Emphasizing the word “may” in the question, we answer that question yes.
Engineering upon the reliability of which will be at issue in some eases. See, e. g., Brief for Stephen N. Bobo et al. as Amici Curiae 23 (stressing the scientific bases of engineering disciplines). In other cases, the relevant reliability concerns may focus upon personal knowledge or experience. As the Solicitor General points out, there are many different kinds of experts, and many different kinds of expertise. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 18-19, and n. 5 (citing eases involving experts in drug terms, handwriting analysis, criminal modus operandi, land valuation, agricultural practices, railroad procedures, attorney’s fee valuation, and others). Our emphasis on the word “may” thus reflects Dauberfs description of the Rule 702 inquiry as “a flexible one.” 509 U. S., at 594. Daubert makes clear that the factors it mentions do not constitute a “definitive checklist or test.” Id., at 593. And Daubert adds that the gatekeeping inquiry must be “ ‘tied to the facts’ ” of a particular “case.” Id., at 591 (quoting United States v. Downing, 758 F. 2d 1224, 1242 (CA3 1985)). We agree with the Solicitor General that “[t]he factors identified in Daubert may or may not be pertinent in assessing reliability, depending on the nature of the issue, the expert’s particular expertise, and the subject of his testimony.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 19. The conclusion, in our view, is that we can neither rule out, nor rule in, for all cases and for all time the applicability of the factors mentioned in Daubert, nor can we now do so for subsets of eases categorized by category of expert or by kind of evidence. Too mueh depends upon the particular circumstances of the particular case at issue.
Daubert itself is not to the contrary. It made clear that its list of factors was meant to be helpful, not definitive. Indeed, those factors do not all necessarily apply even in every instance in which the reliability of scientific testimony is challenged. It might not be surprising in a particular case, for example, that a claim made by a scientific witness has never been the subject of peer review, for the particular application at issue may never previously have interested any scientist. Nor, on the other hand, does the presence of Dau-bert’s general acceptance factor help show that an expert’s testimony is reliable where the discipline itself lacks reliability, as, for example, do theories grounded in any so-called generally accepted principles of astrology or necromancy.
same time, and contrary to the Court of Appeals’ view, some of Daubertfs questions can help to evaluate the reliability even of experience-based testimony. In certain cases, it will be appropriate for the trial judge to ask, for example, how often an engineering expert’s experience-based methodology has produced erroneous results, or whether such a method is generally accepted in the relevant engineering community. Likewise, it will at times be useful to ask even of a witness whose expertise is based purely on experience, say, a perfume tester able to distinguish among 140 odors at a sniff, whether his preparation is of a kind that others in the field would recognize as acceptable.
disagree with the Eleventh Circuit’s holding that a trial judge may ask questions of the sort Dau-bert mentioned only where an expert “relies on the application of scientific principles,” but not where an expert relies “on skill- or experience-based observation,” 131 F. 3d, at 1435. We do not believe that Rule 702 creates a schematism that segregates expertise by type while mapping certain kinds of questions to certain kinds of experts. Life and the legal cases that it generates are too complex to warrant so definitive a match.
To say this is not to deny the importance of Dauberte gatekeeping requirement. The objective of that requirement is to ensure the reliability and relevancy of expert testimony. It is to make certain that an expert, whether basing testimony upon professional studies or personal experience, employs in the courtroom the same level of intellectual rigor that characterizes the practice of an expert in the relevant field. Nor do we deny that, as stated in Dau-bert, the particular questions that it mentioned will often be appropriate for use in determining the reliability of challenged expert testimony. Rather, we conclude that the trial judge must have considerable leeway in deciding in a particular case how to go about determining whether particular expert testimony is reliable. That is to say, a trial court should consider the specific factors identified in Daubert where they are reasonable measures of the reliability of expert testimony.
C
The trial court must have the same kind of latitude in deciding how to test an expert’s reliability, and to decide whether or when special briefing or other proceedings are needed to investigate reliability, as it enjoys when it decides whether that expert’s relevant testimony is reliable. Our opinion in Joiner makes clear that a court of appeals is to apply an abuse-of-discretion standard when it “review[s] a trial court’s decision to admit or exclude expert testimony.” 522 U. S., at 138-139. That standard applies as much to the trial court’s decisions about how to determine reliability as to its ultimate conclusion. Otherwise, the trial judge would lack the discretionary authority needed both to avoid unnecessary “reliability” proceedings in ordinary cases where the reliability of an expert’s methods is properly taken for granted, and to require appropriate proceedings in the less usual or more complex cases where cause for questioning the expert’s reliability arises. Indeed, the Rules seek to avoid “unjustifiable expense and delay” as part of their search for “truth” and the “jus[t] determination]” of proceedings. Fed. Rule Evid. 102. Thus, whether Daubert’s specific factors are, or are not, reasonable measures of reliability in a particular case is a matter that the law grants the trial judge broad latitude to determine. See Joiner, supra, at 143. And the Eleventh Circuit erred insofar as it held to the contrary.
Ill
We further explain the way in which a trial judge “may” consider Dauberts factors by applying these considerations to the case at hand, a matter that has been briefed exhaustively by the parties and their 19 amici. The District Court did not doubt Carlson’s qualifications, which included a masters degree in mechanical engineering, 10 years’ work at Michelin America, Inc., and testimony as a tire failure consultant in other tort eases. Rather, it excluded the testimony because, despite those qualifications, it initially doubted, and then found unreliable, “the methodology employed by the expert in analyzing the data obtained in the visual inspection, and the scientific basis, if any, for such an analysis.” Civ. Action No. 93-0860-CB-S (SD Ala., June 5, 1996), App. to Pet. for Cert. 6c. After examining the transcript in “some detail,” 923 F. Supp., at 1518-1519, n. 4, and after considering respondents’ defense of Carlson’s methodology, the District Court determined that Carlson’s testimony was not reliable. It fell outside the range where experts might reasonably differ, and where the jury must decide among the conflicting views of different experts, even though the evidence is “shaky.” Daubert, 509 U. S., at 596. In our view, the doubts that triggered the District Court’s initial inquiry here were reasonable, as was the court’s ultimate conclusion.
For one thing, and contrary to respondents’ suggestion, the specific issue before the court was not the reasonableness in general of a tire expert’s use of a visual and tactile inspection to determine whether overdeflection had caused the tire’s tread to separate from its steel-belted carcass. Rather, it was the reasonableness of using such an approach, along with Carlson’s particular method of analyzing the data thereby obtained, to draw a conclusion regarding the ‘particular matter to which the expert testimony was directly relevant. That matter concerned the likelihood that a defect in the tire at issue caused its tread to separate from its carcass. The tire in question, the expert conceded, had traveled far enough so that some of the tread had been worn bald; it should have been taken out of service; it had been repaired (inadequately) for punctures; and it bore some of the very marks that the expert said indicated, not a defect, but abuse through overdefleetion. See supra, at 143-144; App. 293-294. The relevant issue was whether the expert could reliably determine the cause of this tire’s separation.
was eral theory that, in the absence of evidence of abuse, a defect will normally have caused a tire’s separation. Rather, the expert employed a more specific theory to establish the existence (or absence) of such abuse. Carlson testified precisely that in the absence of at least two of four signs of abuse (proportionately greater tread wear on the shoulder; signs of grooves caused by the beads; discolored sidewalls; marks on the rim flange), he concludes that a defect caused the separation. And his analysis depended upon acceptance of a further implicit proposition, namely, that his visual and tactile inspection could determine that the tire before him had not been abused despite some evidence of the presence of the very signs for which he looked (and two punctures).
For another thing, the transcripts support both the trial court’s initial uncertainty and its final conclusion. Those transcripts cast considerable doubt upon the reliability of both the explicit theory (about the need for two signs of abuse) and the implicit proposition (about the significance of visual inspection in this case). Among other things, the expert could not say whether the tire had traveled more than 10, or 20, or 30, or 40, or 50 thousand miles, adding that 6,000 miles was “about how far” he could “say with any certainty.” Id, at 265. The court could reasonably have wondered about the reliability of a method of visual and tactile inspection sufficiently precise to ascertain with some certainty the abuse-related significance of minute shoulder/center relative tread wear differences, but insufficiently precise to tell “with any certainty” from the tread wear whether a tire had traveled less than 10,000 or more than 50,000 miles. And these concerns might have been augmented by Carlson’s repeated reliance on the “subjective[ness]” of his mode of analysis in response to questions seeking specific information regarding how he could differentiate between a tire that actually had been overdeflected and a tire that merely looked as though it had been. Id., at 222, 224-225, 285-286. They would have been further augmented by the fact that Carlson said he had inspected the tire itself for the first time the morning of his first deposition, and then only for a few hours. (His initial conclusions were based on photographs.) Id., at 180.
Moreover, prior to his first deposition, Carlson had issued a signed report in which he concluded that the tire had “not been . . . overloaded or underinflated,” not because of the absence of “two of four” signs of abuse, but simply because “the rim flange impressions ... were normal.” Id., at 335-336. That report also said that the “tread depth remaining was %2 inch,” id., at 336, though the opposing expert’s (apparently undisputed) measurements indicate that the tread depth taken at various positions around the tire actually ranged from % of an inch to Vzz of an inch, with the tire apparently showing greater wear along both shoulders than along the center, id., at 432-433.
respect to one sign of abuse, bead grooving, the expert seemed to deny the sufficiency of his own simple visual-inspection methodology. He testified that most tires have some bead groove pattern, that where there is reason to suspect an abnormal bead groove he would ideally “look at a lot of [similar] tires” to know the grooving's significance, and that he had not looked at many tires similar to the one at issue. Id., at 212-213, 214, 217.
Finally, the court, methodology as applied in these circumstances, found no convincing defense. Rather, it found (1) that “none” of the DaubeH factors, including that of “general acceptance” in the relevant expert community, indicated that Carlson’s testimony was reliable, 923 F. Supp., at 1521; (2) that its own analysis “revealed no countervailing factors operating in favor of admissibility which could outweigh those identified in Daubert,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 4c; and (3) that the “parties identified no such factors in their briefs,” ibid. For these three reasons taken together, it concluded that Carlson’s testimony was unreliable.
Respondents now argue to us, as they to Court, that a method of tire failure analysis that employs a visual/tactile inspection is a reliable method, and they point both to its use by other experts and to Carlson’s long experience working for Miehelin as sufficient indication that that is so. But no one denies that an expert might draw a conclusion from a set of observations based on extensive and specialized experience. Nor does anyone deny that, as a general matter, tire abuse may often be identified by qualified experts through visual or tactile inspection of the tire. See Affidavit of H. R. Baumgardner 1-2, cited in Brief for National Academy of Forensic Engineers as Amicus Curiae 16 (Tire engineers rely on visual examination and process of elimination to analyze experimental test tires). As we said before, supra, at 153-154, the question before the trial court was specific, not general. The trial court had to decide whether this particular expert had sufficient specialized knowledge to assist the jurors “in deciding the particular issues in the ease.” 4 J. McLaughlin, Weinstein’s Federal Evidence ¶ 702.05[1], p. 702-33 (2d ed. 1998); see also Advisory Committee’s Note on Proposed Fed. Rule Evid. 702, Preliminary Draft of Proposed Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Evidence: Request for Comment 126 (1998) (stressing that district courts must “scrutinize” whether the “principles and methods” employed by an expert “have been properly applied to the facts of the case”).
use son’s two-factor test and his related use of visual/tactile inspection to draw conclusions on the basis of what seemed small observational differences. We have found no indication in the record that other experts in the industry use Carlson’s two-factor test or that tire experts such as Carlson normally make the very fine distinctions about, say, the symmetry of comparatively greater shoulder tread wear that were necessary, on Carlson’s own theory, to support his conclusions. Nor, despite the prevalence of tire testing, does anyone refer to any articles or papers that validate Carlson’s approach. Cf. Bobo, Tire Flaws and Separations, in Mechanics of Pneumatic Tires 636-637 (S. Clark ed. 1981); C. Schnuth, R. Fuller, G. Folien, G. Gold, & J. Smith, Compression Grooving and Rim Flange Abrasion as Indicators of Over-Deflected Operating Conditions in Tires, presented to Rubber Division of the American Chemical Society, Oct. 21-24, 1997; J. Walter & R. Kiminecz, Bead Contact Pressure Measurements at the Tire-Rim Interface, presented to the Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc., Feb. 24-28, 1975. Indeed, no one has argued that Carlson himself, were he still working for Michelin, would have concluded in a report to his employer that a similar tire was similarly defective on grounds identical to those upon which he rested his conclusion here. Of course, Carlson himself claimed that his method was accurate, but, as we pointed out in Joiner, “nothing in either Daubert or the Federal Rules of Evidence requires a district court to admit opinion evidence that is connected to existing data only by the ipse dixit of the expert.” 522 U. S., at 146.
Respondents additionally argue that the District Court too rigidly applied Dauberts criteria. They read its opinion to hold that a failure to satisfy any one of those criteria automatically renders expert testimony inadmissible. The District Court’s initial opinion might have been vulnerable to a form of this argument. There, the court, after rejecting respondents’ claim that Carlson’s testimony was "exempted from Daubert-style scrutiny” because it was "technical analysis” rather than “scientific evidence,” simply added that “none of the four admissibility criteria outlined by the Dau-bert court are satisfied.” 923 F. Supp., at 1521. Subsequently, however, the court granted respondents’ motion for reconsideration. It then explicitly recognized that the relevant reliability inquiry "should be ‘flexible,’” that its "‘overarching subject [should be]... validity’ and reliability,” and that “Daubert was intended neither to be exhaustive nor to apply in every case.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 4c (quoting Daubert, 509 U. S., at 594-595). And the court ultimately based its decision upon Carlson’s failure to satisfy either Dauberfs factors or any other set of reasonable reliability criteria. In light of the record as developed by the parties, that conclusion was within the District Court’s lawful discretion.
In sum, Rule 702 grants the district judge the ary authority, reviewable for its abuse, to determine reliability in light of the particular facts and circumstances of the particular case. The District Court did not abuse its discretionary authority in this case. Hence, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
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:
|
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 Jackson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania holds the petitioner prisoner under a life sentence as an habitual criminal. His claim here, protesting denial by the State Supreme Court of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, is that the Federal Constitution requires Pennsylvania to release him on due process of law grounds because (1) he was sentenced as a fourth offender without counsel or offer of counsel; (2) one of the convictions on which the sentence is based occurred before the enactment of the Pennsylvania Habitual Criminal Act and the statute is therefore unconstitutionally retroactive and ex post jacto; and (3) sentencing under this Act unconstitutionally subjects him to double jeopardy.
At the outset, we face the suggestion that the ease cannot properly be decided on the merits by this Court because, as a matter of state law, the attack on the life sentence may be premature since petitioner would be validly restrained on prior sentences not expiring until at least February 1949, even if the life sentence were to be invalidated. Some members of the Court prefer to affirm the judgment on that ground. However, since the state law question is not free from difficulty, the issue was not fully litigated in this Court, and since, on the merits, the same conclusion is reached, we dispose of the case in that manner.
Beginning in 1927, at the age of seventeen, this petitioner has been arrested eight times for crimes of violence, followed in each instance by plea of guilty or by conviction. Respondent states, and petitioner does not deny, that of the last 20 years of his life, over 13 years have been spent in jail. A schedule of his pleas or convictions and pertinent data is appended, post, p. 732, those in italics being the four on the basis of which an information was filed charging him to be a fourth offender. Brought into court on that limited charge, he acknowledged his identity as the convict in each of the previous cases and he was given a life sentence pursuant to the Act. He was without counsel and it is said that he was neither advised of his right to obtain counsel nor was counsel offered to him.
It rather overstrains our credulity to believe that one who had been a defendant eight times and for whom counsel had twice waged defenses, albeit unsuccessful ones, did not know of his right to engage counsel. No request to do so appears. The only question of fact before the court on the fourth offender charge was whether he was the same person who was convicted in the four cases. This he then admitted and does not now deny. The only other question was sentence, and it does not appear that any information helpful to petitioner was unknown to the court.
It is said that the sentencing judge prejudiced the defendant by a mistake in construing the Pennsylvania Habitual Criminal Act in that he regarded as mandatory a sentence which is discretionary. It is neither clear that the sentencing court so construed the statute, nor if he did that we are empowered to pronounce it an error of Pennsylvania law. It is clear that the trial court, in view of defendant’s long criminal record, considered he had a duty to impose the life sentence and referred to it as one “required by the Act.” But there is nothing to indicate that he felt constrained to impose the penalty except as the facts before him warranted it. And it in any event is for the Pennsylvania courts to say under its law what duty or discretion the court may have had. Nothing in the record impeaches the fairness and temperateness with which the trial judge approached his task. His action has been affirmed by the highest court of the Commonwealth. We are not at liberty to conjecture that the trial court acted under an interpretation of the state law different from that which we might adopt' and then set up our own interpretation as a basis for declaring that due process has been denied. We cannot treat a mere error of state law, if one occurred, as a denial of due process; otherwise, every erroneous decision by a state court on state law would come here as a federal constitutional question.
We have just considered at length the obligation of the States to provide counsel to defendants who plead guilty to non-capital offenses. Bute v. Illinois, 333 U. S. 640. Notwithstanding the resourceful argument of assigned counsel in this Court, we think that precedent settles the issue here, that no exceptional circumstances are present and that, under the circumstances disclosed by the record before us, 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.
Nor do we think the fact that one of the convictions that entered into the calculations by which petitioner became a fourth offender occurred before the Act was passed, makes the Act in validly retroactive or subjects the petitioner to double jeopardy. The sentence as a fourth offender or habitual criminal is not to be viewed as either a new jeopardy or additional penalty for the earlier crimes. It is a stiffened penalty for the latest crime, which is considered to be an aggravated offense because a repetitive one. Cf. Moore v. Missouri, 159 U. S. 673; McDonald v. Massachusetts, 180 U. S. 311; Graham v. West Virginia, 224 U. S. 616; Carlesi v. New York, 233 U. S. 51; Pennsylvania ex rel. Sullivan v. Ashe, 302 U. S. 51.
The judgment is
Affirmed.
§ 1108 of the Penal Code of 1939, 18 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 5108.
Respondent contested the case below and in this Court on the merits. We assume that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania passed on petitioner’s allegations of deprivation of federal constitutional rights and that those issues are therefore open here. Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U. S. 242, 247.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has frequently held that the state constitutional provision according defendants the right to be heard by counsel does not require appointment of counsel in non-capital cases. See, for example, Commonwealth ex rel. McGlinn v. Smith, 344 Pa. 41, 24 A. 2d 1; Commonwealth ex rel. Withers v. Ashe, 350 Pa. 493, 39 A. 2d 610. See also Betts v. Brady, 316 U. S. 455, 465. The Pennsylvania statutes require only that destitute defendants accused of murder shall be assigned counsel. Act of March 22, 1907, 19 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 784.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) provides that a court of appeals may consider errors that are plain and affect substantial rights, even though they are raised for the first time on appeal. This case concerns the bounds of that discretion, and whether a miscalculation of the United States Sentencing Guidelines range, that has been determined to be plain and to affect a defendant's substantial rights, calls for a court of appeals to exercise its discretion under Rule 52(b) to vacate the defendant's sentence. The Court holds that such an error will in the ordinary case, as here, seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings, and thus will warrant relief.
I
A
Each year, thousands of individuals are sentenced to terms of imprisonment for violations of federal law. District courts must determine in each case what constitutes a sentence that is "sufficient, but not greater than necessary," 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), to achieve the overarching sentencing purposes of "retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation." Tapia v. United States, 564 U.S. 319, 325, 131 S.Ct. 2382, 180 L.Ed.2d 357 (2011) ; 18 U.S.C. §§ 3551(a), 3553(a)(2). Those decisions call for the district court to exercise discretion. Yet, to ensure " 'certainty and fairness' " in sentencing, district courts must operate within the framework established by Congress. United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 264, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 991(b)(1)(B) ).
The Sentencing Guidelines serve an important role in that framework.
" '[D]istrict courts must begin their analysis with the Guidelines and remain cognizant of them throughout the sentencing process.' " Peugh v. United States, 569 U.S. 530, 541, 133 S.Ct. 2072, 186 L.Ed.2d 84 (2013) (quoting Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 50, n. 6, 128 S.Ct. 586, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007) ; emphasis in original). Courts are not bound by the Guidelines, but even in an advisory capacity the Guidelines serve as "a meaningful benchmark" in the initial determination of a sentence and "through the process of appellate review." 569 U.S., at 541, 133 S.Ct. 2072.
Of course, to consult the applicable Guidelines range, a district court must first determine what that range is. This can be a "complex" undertaking. Molina-Martinez v. United States, 578 U.S. ----, ----, 136 S.Ct. 1338, 1342, 194 L.Ed.2d 444 (2016). The United States Probation Office, operating as an arm of the district court, first creates a presentence investigation report, "which includes a calculation of the advisory Guidelines range it considers to be applicable." Id., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1342 ; see Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 32(c)(1)(A), (d)(1) ; United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual § 1B1.1(a) (Nov. 2016) (USSG). That calculation derives from an assessment of the "offense characteristics, offender characteristics, and other matters that might be relevant to the sentence." Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 342, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). Specifically, an offense level is calculated by identifying a base level for the offense of conviction and adjusting that level to account for circumstances specific to the defendant's case, such as how the crime was committed and whether the defendant accepted responsibility. See USSG §§ 1B1.1(a)(1)-(5). A numerical value is then attributed to any prior offenses committed by the defendant, which are added together to generate a criminal history score that places the defendant within a particular criminal history category. §§ 1B1.1(a)(6), 4A1.1. Together, the offense level and the criminal history category identify the applicable Guidelines range. § 1B1.1(a)(7).
B
The district court has the ultimate responsibility to ensure that the Guidelines range it considers is correct, and the "[f]ailure to calculate the correct Guidelines range constitutes procedural error." Peugh, 569 U.S., at 537, 133 S.Ct. 2072. Given the complexity of the calculation, however, district courts sometimes make mistakes. It is unsurprising, then, that "there will be instances when a district court's sentencing of a defendant within the framework of an incorrect Guidelines range goes unnoticed" by the parties as well, which may result in a defendant raising the error for the first time on appeal. Molina-Martinez, 578 U.S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1343. Those defendants are not entirely without recourse.
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) provides that "[a] plain error that affects substantial rights may be considered even though it was not brought to the [district] court's attention." In United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993), the Court established three conditions that must be met before a court may consider exercising its discretion to correct the error. "First, there must be an error that has not been intentionally relinquished or abandoned. Second, the error must be plain-that is to say, clear or obvious. Third, the error must have affected the defendant's substantial rights." Molina-Martinez, 578 U.S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1343 (citations omitted). To satisfy this third condition, the defendant ordinarily must "'show a reasonable probability that, but for the error,' the outcome of the proceeding would have been different." Ibid. (quoting United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 76, 82, 124 S.Ct. 2333, 159 L.Ed.2d 157 (2004) ). Once those three conditions have been met, "the court of appeals should exercise its discretion to correct the forfeited error if the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings." Molina-Martinez, 578 U.S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1343 (internal quotation marks omitted). It is this last consideration, often called Olano's fourth prong, that we are asked to clarify and apply in this case.
C
Petitioner Florencio Rosales-Mireles pleaded guilty to illegal reentry in violation of 8 U.S.C. §§ 1326(a), (b)(2). The Probation Office in its presentence investigation report mistakenly counted a 2009 state conviction of misdemeanor assault twice. This double counting resulted in a criminal history score of 13, which placed Rosales-Mireles in criminal history category VI. Combined with his offense level of 21, that yielded a Guidelines range of 77 to 96 months. Had the criminal history score been calculated correctly, Rosales-Mireles would have been in criminal history category V, and the resulting Guidelines range would have been 70 to 87 months. See USSG ch. 5, pt. A (sentencing table).
Rosales-Mireles did not object to the double-counting error before the District Court. Relying on the erroneous presentence investigation report, and after denying Rosales-Mireles' request for a downward departure, the District Court sentenced Rosales-Mireles to 78 months of imprisonment, one month above the lower end of the Guidelines range that everyone thought applied.
On appeal, Rosales-Mireles argued for the first time that his criminal history score and the resulting Guidelines range were incorrect because of the double counting of his 2009 conviction. Because he had not objected in the District Court, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reviewed for plain error. 850 F.3d 246, 248 (2017).
Applying the Olano framework, the Fifth Circuit concluded that Rosales-Mireles had established that the Guidelines miscalculation constituted an error that was plain, satisfying Olano's first two conditions. It also held that the error affected Rosales-Mireles' substantial rights, thus satisfying the third condition, because there was "a reasonable probability that he would have been subject to a different sentence but for the error." 850 F.3d, at 249. In reaching that conclusion, the Fifth Circuit rejected the Government's argument that Rosales-Mireles would have received the same sentence regardless of the Guidelines error, because the District Court had denied a downward departure "based, in part, on Rosales-Mireles' criminal history," which "erroneously included an extra conviction." Ibid.
The Fifth Circuit nevertheless declined to exercise its discretion to vacate and remand the case for resentencing because it concluded that Rosales-Mireles failed to establish that the error would seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. In its view, "the types of errors that warrant reversal are ones that would shock the conscience of the common man, serve as a powerful indictment against our system of justice, or seriously call into question the competence or integrity of the district judge." Id., at 250 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). Because Rosales-Mireles' sentence of 78 months fell within the correct range of 70 to 87 months, the Fifth Circuit held that neither the error nor the resulting sentence "would shock the conscience." Ibid.
The Fifth Circuit's articulation of Olano's fourth prong is out of step with the practice of other Circuits. We granted certiorari to resolve that conflict, 582 U.S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 55, 198 L.Ed.2d 781 (2017), and now reverse.
II
A
Although " Rule 52(b) is permissive, not mandatory," Olano, 507 U.S., at 735, 113 S.Ct. 1770 it is well established that courts "should" correct a forfeited plain error that affects substantial rights "if the error'seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.' " Id., at 736, 113 S.Ct. 1770 (quoting United States v. Atkinson, 297 U.S. 157, 160, 56 S.Ct. 391, 80 L.Ed. 555 (1936) ; alteration omitted); see also Molina-Martinez, 578 U.S., at ---- - ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1342-1343. The Court in Olano rejected a narrower rule that would have called for relief only " 'in those circumstances in which a miscarriage of justice would otherwise result,' " that is to say, where a defendant is actually innocent. 507 U.S., at 736, 113 S.Ct. 1770 (quoting United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 15, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 84 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985) ). By focusing instead on principles of fairness, integrity, and public reputation, the Court recognized a broader category of errors that warrant correction on plain-error review. See 507 U.S., at 736-737, 113 S.Ct. 1770.
Like the miscarriage-of-justice rule that the Court rejected in Olano, the Fifth Circuit's standard is unduly restrictive. To be sure, a conclusion that an error "shock[s] the conscience of the common man, serve[s] as a powerful indictment against our system of justice, or seriously call[s] into question the competence or integrity of the district judge," 850 F.3d, at 250 (internal quotation marks omitted), would demand an exercise of discretion to correct the error. Limiting relief only to those circumstances, however, too narrowly confines the extent of a court of appeals' discretion.
The "shock the conscience" standard typically is employed when determining whether governmental action violates due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. See County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 847, n. 8, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998) ("[I]n a due process challenge to executive action, the threshold question is whether the behavior of the governmental officer is so egregious, so outrageous, that it may fairly be said to shock the contemporary conscience"). This Court has said that the "shock the conscience" standard is satisfied where the conduct was "intended to injure in some way unjustifiable by any government interest," or in some circumstances if it resulted from deliberate indifference. Id., at 849-850, 118 S.Ct. 1708.
That standard is not reflected in Rule 52(b) itself, nor in how this Court has applied the plain-error doctrine. The Court repeatedly has reversed judgments for plain error on the basis of inadvertent or unintentional errors of the court or the parties below. See, e.g., Silber v. United States, 370 U.S. 717, 717-718, 82 S.Ct. 1287, 8 L.Ed.2d 798 (1962) (per curiam ) (reversing judgment for plain error as a result of insufficient indictment); Brasfield v. United States, 272 U.S. 448, 449-450, 47 S.Ct. 135, 71 L.Ed. 345 (1926) (reversing judgment for plain error where the trial judge improperly inquired of a jury's numerical division); Clyatt v. United States, 197 U.S. 207, 222, 25 S.Ct. 429, 49 L.Ed. 726 (1905) (reversing judgment for plain error where the Government presented insufficient evidence to sustain conviction). The Court also "routinely remands" cases involving inadvertent or unintentional errors, including sentencing errors, for consideration of Olano's fourth prong with the understanding that such errors may qualify for relief. Hicks v. United States, 582 U.S. ----, ----, 137 S.Ct. 2000, 2000-2001, 198 L.Ed.2d 718 (2017) (GORSUCH, J., concurring).
The Fifth Circuit's additional focus on errors that "serve as a powerful indictment against our system of justice, or seriously call into question the competence or integrity of the district judge," 850 F.3d, at 250 (internal quotation marks omitted), similarly alters the Rule 52(b) standard. The Court has never said that errors must amount to a "powerful indictment" of the system, a phrase which implies by its terms that the only errors worthy of correction are those that rise to the level of grossly serious misconduct. Similarly, the Fifth Circuit's emphasis on the "competence or integrity of the district judge" narrows Olano's instruction that an error should be corrected if it seriously affects "judicial proceedings." In articulating such a high standard, the Fifth Circuit substantially changed Olano's fourth prong.
B
The effect of the Fifth Circuit's heightened standard is especially pronounced in a case like this one. A plain Guidelines error that affects a defendant's substantial rights is precisely the type of error that ordinarily warrants relief under Rule 52(b).
In Molina-Martinez, the Court recognized that "[w]hen a defendant is sentenced under an incorrect Guidelines range-whether or not the defendant's ultimate sentence falls within the correct range-the error itself can, and most often will, be sufficient to show a reasonable probability of a different outcome absent the error." 578 U.S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1345. In other words, an error resulting in a higher range than the Guidelines provide usually establishes a reasonable probability that a defendant will serve a prison sentence that is more than "necessary" to fulfill the purposes of incarceration. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) ; Tapia, 564 U.S., at 325, 131 S.Ct. 2382. "To a prisoner," this prospect of additional "time behind bars is not some theoretical or mathematical concept." Barber v. Thomas, 560 U.S. 474, 504, 130 S.Ct. 2499, 177 L.Ed.2d 1 (2010) (KENNEDY, J., dissenting). "[A]ny amount of actual jail time" is significant, Glover v. United States, 531 U.S. 198, 203, 121 S.Ct. 696, 148 L.Ed.2d 604 (2001), and "ha[s] exceptionally severe consequences for the incarcerated individual [and] for society which bears the direct and indirect costs of incarceration," United States v. Jenkins, 854 F.3d 181, 192 (C.A.2 2017). The possibility of additional jail time thus warrants serious consideration in a determination whether to exercise discretion under Rule 52(b). It is crucial in maintaining public perception of fairness and integrity in the justice system that courts exhibit regard for fundamental rights and respect for prisoners "as people." T. Tyler, Why People Obey the Law 164 (2006).
The risk of unnecessary deprivation of liberty particularly undermines the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings in the context of a plain Guidelines error because of the role the district court plays in calculating the range and the relative ease of correcting the error. Unlike "case[s] where trial strategies, in retrospect, might be criticized for leading to a harsher sentence," Guidelines miscalculations ultimately result from judicial error. Glover, 531 U.S., at 204, 121 S.Ct. 696 ; see also Peugh, 569 U.S., at 537, 133 S.Ct. 2072. That was especially so here where the District Court's error in imposing Rosales-Mireles' sentence was based on a mistake made in the presentence investigation report by the Probation Office, which works on behalf of the District Court. Moreover, "a remand for resentencing, while not costless, does not invoke the same difficulties as a remand for retrial does." Molina-Martinez, 578 U.S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1348-1349 (internal quotation marks omitted). "A resentencing is a brief event, normally taking less than a day and requiring the attendance of only the defendant, counsel, and court personnel." United States v. Williams, 399 F.3d 450, 456 (C.A.2 2005).
Ensuring the accuracy of Guidelines determinations also serves the purpose of "providing certainty and fairness in sentencing" on a greater scale. 28 U.S.C. § 994(f) ; see also § 991(b)(1)(B) ; Booker, 543 U.S., at 264, 125 S.Ct. 738. The Guidelines assist federal courts across the country in achieving uniformity and proportionality in sentencing. See Rita, 551 U.S., at 349, 127 S.Ct. 2456. To realize those goals, it is important that sentencing proceedings actually reflect the nature of the offense and criminal history of the defendant, because the United States Sentencing Commission relies on data developed during sentencing proceedings, including information in the presentence investigation report, to determine whether revisions to the Guidelines are necessary. See id., at 350, 127 S.Ct. 2456. When sentences based on incorrect Guidelines ranges go uncorrected, the Commission's ability to make appropriate amendments is undermined.
In broad strokes, the public legitimacy of our justice system relies on procedures that are "neutral, accurate, consistent, trustworthy, and fair," and that "provide opportunities for error correction." Bowers & Robinson, Perceptions of Fairness and Justice: The Shared Aims and Occasional Conflicts of Legitimacy and Moral Credibility, 47 Wake Forest L. Rev. 211, 215-216 (2012). In considering claims like Rosales-Mireles', then, "what reasonable citizen wouldn't bear a rightly diminished view of the judicial process and its integrity if courts refused to correct obvious errors of their own devise that threaten to require individuals to linger longer in federal prison than the law demands?" United States v. Sabillon-Umana, 772 F.3d 1328, 1333-1334 (C.A.10 2014) (Gorsuch, J.). In the context of a plain Guidelines error that affects substantial rights, that diminished view of the proceedings ordinarily will satisfy Olano's fourth prong, as it does in this case. As the Fifth Circuit itself concluded, there is a reasonable probability that, without correction of the Guidelines error, Rosales-Mireles will spend more time in prison than the District Court otherwise would have considered necessary. 850 F.3d, at 249. That error was based on a mistake by the Probation Office, a mistake that can be remedied through a relatively inexpensive resentencing proceeding.
Of course, any exercise of discretion at the fourth prong of Olano inherently requires "a case-specific and fact-intensive" inquiry. Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 142, 129 S.Ct. 1423, 173 L.Ed.2d 266 (2009) ; see also Young, 470 U.S., at 16-17, n. 14, 105 S.Ct. 1038. There may be instances where countervailing factors satisfy the court of appeals that the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of the proceedings will be preserved absent correction. But on the facts of this case, there are no such factors.
III
The United States and the dissent agree with Rosales-Mireles that the Fifth Circuit's formulation of the standard for the exercise of discretion under Rule 52(b)"is an inaccurate description" of Olano's fourth prong. Brief for United States 34; post, at 1911, n. 1 (opinion of THOMAS, J.) ("[T]he Fifth Circuit's standard is higher than the one articulated in this Court's precedents"). They nevertheless maintain that Rosales-Mireles is not entitled to relief. We are unpersuaded, though a few points merit brief discussion.
First, the United States and the dissent caution that a grant of relief in Rosales-Mireles' case and in others like his would be inconsistent with the Court's statements that discretion under Rule 52(b) should be exercised "sparingly," Jones v. United States, 527 U.S. 373, 389, 119 S.Ct. 2090, 144 L.Ed.2d 370 (1999), and reserved for "exceptional circumstances," Atkinson, 297 U.S., at 160, 56 S.Ct. 391. As an initial matter, Jones and the cases it relies on for the point that discretion should be exercised "sparingly" would have required additional jury proceedings on remand, either at resentencing or retrial. See 527 U.S., at 384, 389, 119 S.Ct. 2090 ; see also Young, 470 U.S. 1, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 84 L.Ed.2d 1 ; United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982) ; Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U.S. 145, 97 S.Ct. 1730, 52 L.Ed.2d 203 (1977). As we have explained, a decision remanding a case to the district court for resentencing on the basis of a Guidelines miscalculation is far less burdensome than a retrial, or other jury proceedings, and thus does not demand such a high degree of caution.
In any event, the circumstances surrounding Rosales-Mireles' case are exceptional within the meaning of the Court's precedent on plain-error review, as they are reasonably likely to have resulted in a longer prison sentence than necessary and there are no countervailing factors that otherwise further the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. The fact that, as a result of the Court's holding, most defendants in Rosales-Mireles' situation will be eligible for relief under Rule 52(b) does not justify a decision that ignores the harmful effects of allowing the error to persist.
Second, the United States and the dissent assert that, because Rosales-Mireles' sentence falls within the corrected Guidelines range, the sentence is presumptively reasonable and "less likely to indicate a serious injury to the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings." Brief for United States 20-21; see also post, at 1916. A substantive reasonableness determination, however, is an entirely separate inquiry from whether an error warrants correction under plain-error review.
Before a court of appeals can consider the substantive reasonableness of a sentence, "[i]t must first ensure that the district court committed no significant procedural error, such as failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range." Gall, 552 U.S., at 51, 128 S.Ct. 586. This makes eminent sense, for the district court is charged in the first instance with determining whether, taking all sentencing factors into consideration, including the correct Guidelines range, a sentence is "sufficient, but not greater than necessary." 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). If the district court is unable properly to undertake that inquiry because of an error in the Guidelines range, the resulting sentence no longer bears the reliability that would support a "presumption of reasonableness" on review. See Gall, 552 U.S., at 51, 128 S.Ct. 586. Likewise, regardless of its ultimate reasonableness, a sentence that lacks reliability because of unjust procedures may well undermine public perception of the proceedings. See Hollander-Blumoff, The Psychology of Procedural Justice in the Federal Courts, 63 Hastings L.J. 127, 132-134 (2011) (compilation of psychology research showing that the fairness of procedures influences perceptions of outcomes). The mere fact that Rosales-Mireles' sentence falls within the corrected Guidelines range does not preserve the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the proceedings.
Third, the United States and the dissent contend that our decision "creates the very opportunity for'sandbagging' that Rule 52(b) is supposed to prevent." Post, at 1903; Brief for United States 17-18, 27. But that concern fails to account for the realities at play in sentencing proceedings. As this Court repeatedly has explained, "the Guidelines are 'the starting point for every sentencing calculation in the federal system,' " Hughes v. United States, 584 U.S. ----, ----, 138 S.Ct. 1765, ----, ---L.Ed.2d ----, 2018 WL 2465187 (2018) (slip op., at 9) (quoting Peugh, 569 U.S., at 542, 133 S.Ct. 2072 ). It is hard to imagine that defense counsel would "deliberately forgo objection now " to a plain Guidelines error that would subject her client to a higher Guidelines range, "because [counsel] perceives some slightly expanded chance to argue for 'plain error' later." Henderson v. United States, 568 U.S. 266, 276, 133 S.Ct. 1121, 185 L.Ed.2d 85 (2013) (emphasis in original). Even setting aside the conflict such a strategy would create with defense counsel's ethical obligations to represent her client vigorously and her duty of candor toward the court, any benefit from such a strategy is highly speculative. There is no guarantee that a court of appeals would agree to a remand, and no basis to believe that a district court would impose a lower sentence upon resentencing than the court would have imposed at the original sentencing proceedings had it been aware of the plain Guidelines error.
IV
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the Fifth Circuit abused its discretion in applying an unduly burdensome articulation of Olano's fourth prong and declining to remand Rosales-Mireles' case for resentencing. In the ordinary case, as here, the failure to correct a plain Guidelines error that affects a defendant's substantial rights will seriously affect the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of judicial proceedings. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice THOMAS, with whom Justice ALITO joins, dissenting.
The Court holds that, "in the ordinary case," a miscalculation of the advisory Sentencing Guidelines range will "seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings." Ante, at 1903. In other words, a defendant who does not alert the district court to a plain miscalculation of his Guidelines range-and is not happy with the sentence he receives-can raise the Guidelines error for the first time on appeal and ordinarily get another shot at a more favorable sentence. The Court's decision goes far beyond what was necessary to answer the question presented. And it contravenes long-established principles of plain-error review. I respectfully dissent.
I
Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b), "[a] plain error that affects substantial rights may be considered even though it was not brought to the court's attention." (Emphasis added.) The "point of the plain-error rule" is to "requir[e] defense counsel to be on his toes." United States v. Vonn, 535 U.S. 55, 73, 122 S.Ct. 1043, 152 L.Ed.2d 90 (2002). Its demanding standard is meant to "encourage timely objections and reduce wasteful reversals by demanding strenuous exertion to get relief for unpreserved error." United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 82, 124 S.Ct. 2333, 159 L.Ed.2d 157 (2004). If the standard were not stringent, there would be nothing "prevent [ing] a litigant from'"sandbagging"'the court-remaining silent about his objection and belatedly raising the error only if the case does not conclude in his favor."
Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 134, 129 S.Ct. 1423, 173 L.Ed.2d 266 (2009). Satisfying the plain-error standard "is difficult, 'as it should be.' " Id., at 135, 129 S.Ct. 1423.
This Court has held that Rule 52(b) is satisfied only when four requirements are met: "(1) there is 'an error,' (2) the error is 'plain,' " "(3) the error 'affect[s] substantial rights,' " and "(4)... 'the error "seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings."'" Henderson v. United States, 568 U.S. 266, 272, 133 S.Ct. 1121, 185 L.Ed.2d 85 (2013). The fourth requirement-the one at issue here-is discretionary. Ibid. It should "be applied on a case-specific and fact-intensive basis." Puckett, supra, at 142, 129 S.Ct. 1423. And it cannot be satisfied by "a plain error affecting substantial rights..., without more,... for otherwise the discretion afforded by Rule 52(b) would be illusory." United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 737, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993). Instead, "only 'particularly egregious errors' " will meet the fourth prong's rigorous standard. United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 15, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 84 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985) (quoting United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 163, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982) ); see also United States v. Atkinson, 297 U.S. 157, 160, 56 S.Ct. 391, 80 L.Ed. 555 (1936) (explaining that courts should provide relief under plain-error review only in "exceptional circumstances").
II
The Court holds that Guidelines errors will "ordinar[ily]" satisfy the fourth prong of plain-error review. Ante, at 1911. This result contravenes several established principles from our precedents.
To begin, the Court's decision is at odds with the principle that the fourth prong of plain-error review "be applied on a case-specific and fact-intensive basis." Puckett, supra, at 142, 129 S.Ct. 1423. By holding that a Guidelines error "ordinarily will satisfy [the] fourth prong" absent "countervailing factors," ante, at 1908, the Court creates what is essentially a rebuttable presumption that plain Guidelines errors satisfy Rule 52(b). And, based on the Court's application of it today, this presumption certainly must be difficult to rebut. The Court matter-of-factly asserts, in a single sentence with no analysis, that "there are no [countervailing] factors" in this case that counsel in favor of affirmance. Ante, at 1908. It does so without even discussing the particular details of the defendant's crime, what happened at his sentencing, the reasoning that the District Court employed, the difference between the defendant's calculated Guidelines range and the correct one, or where his sentence fell relative to the correct Guidelines range. This approach is neither "case-specific" nor "fact-intensive." Puckett, supra, at 142, 129 S.Ct. 1423. The Court candidly admits as much. See ante, at 1908, n. 4. But this is exactly the kind of " 'per se approach to plain-error review' " that we have consistently rejected. Puckett, supra, at 142, 129 S.Ct. 1423.
The Court's rebuttable presumption also renders the fourth prong of plain-error review "illusory" in most Guidelines cases. Olano, supra, at 737, 113 S.Ct. 1770. The Court expressly states that Guidelines errors will satisfy the fourth prong in "the ordinary case." Ante, at 1911. But this Court has repeatedly held that the fourth prong limits courts' discretion to "correct [ing] only 'particularly egregious errors.' " Young, supra, at 15, 105 S.Ct. 1038. Because Rule 52(b)" 'is not a run-of-the-mill remedy,' " Frady, supra, at 163, n. 14, 102 S.Ct. 1584 relief should be granted "sparingly" in " 'the rare case,' "
Jones v. United States, 527 U.S. 373, 389, 119 S.Ct. 2090, 144 L.Ed.2d 370 (1999), and only in "exceptional circumstances," Atkinson, supra
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court.
Last Term, this Court decided Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 2551, 192 L.Ed.2d 569 (2015). Johnson considered the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). The Court held that provision void for vagueness. The present case asks whether Johnson is a substantive decision that is retroactive in cases on collateral review.
I
Federal law prohibits any felon-meaning a person who has been convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year in prison-from possessing a firearm. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). A person who violates that restriction can be sentenced to prison for up to 10 years. § 924(a)(2). For some felons, however, the Armed Career Criminal Act imposes a much more severe penalty. Under the Act, a person who possesses a firearm after three or more convictions for a "serious drug offense" or a "violent felony" is subject to a minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum sentence of life in prison. § 924(e)(1). Because the ordinary maximum sentence for a felon in possession of a firearm is 10 years, while the minimum sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act is 15 years, a person sentenced under the Act will receive a prison term at least five years longer than the law otherwise would allow.
The Act defines "violent felony" as
"any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year ... that-
"(i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or
"(ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another." § 924(e)(2)(B).
Subsection (i) of this definition is known as the elements clause. The end of subsection (ii)-"or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another"-is known as the residual clause. See Johnson, supra, at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2555-2556. It is the residual clause that Johnson held to be vague and invalid.
The text of the residual clause provides little guidance on how to determine whether a given offense "involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury." This Court sought for a number of years to develop the boundaries of the residual clause in a more precise fashion by applying the statute to particular cases. See James v. United States, 550 U.S. 192, 127 S.Ct. 1586, 167 L.Ed.2d 532 (2007) (residual clause covers Florida offense of attempted burglary); Begay v. United States, 553 U.S. 137, 128 S.Ct. 1581, 170 L.Ed.2d 490 (2008) (residual clause does not cover New Mexico offense of driving under the influence of alcohol); Chambers v. United States, 555 U.S. 122, 129 S.Ct. 687, 172 L.Ed.2d 484 (2009) (residual clause does not cover Illinois offense of failure to report to a penal institution); Sykes v. United States, 564 U.S. 1, 131 S.Ct. 2267, 180 L.Ed.2d 60 (2011) (residual clause covers Indiana offense of vehicular flight from a law-enforcement officer). In Johnson, a majority of this Court concluded that those decisions did not bring sufficient clarity to the scope of the residual clause, noting that the federal courts remained mired in "pervasive disagreement" over how the clause should be interpreted. Johnson, 576 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2560.
The Johnson Court held the residual clause unconstitutional under the void-for-vagueness doctrine, a doctrine that is mandated by the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment (with respect to the Federal Government) and the Fourteenth Amendment (with respect to the States). The void-for-vagueness doctrine prohibits the government from imposing sanctions "under a criminal law so vague that it fails to give ordinary people fair notice of the conduct it punishes, or so standardless that it invites arbitrary enforcement." Id., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2556. Johnson determined that the residual clause could not be reconciled with that prohibition.
The vagueness of the residual clause rests in large part on its operation under the categorical approach. The categorical approach is the framework the Court has applied in deciding whether an offense qualifies as a violent felony under the Armed Career Criminal Act. See id., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2556-2557. Under the categorical approach, "a court assesses whether a crime qualifies as a violent felony 'in terms of how the law defines the offense and not in terms of how an individual offender might have committed it on a particular occasion.' " Ibid. (quoting Begay, supra, at 141, 128 S.Ct. 1581 ). For purposes of the residual clause, then, courts were to determine whether a crime involved a "serious potential risk of physical injury" by considering not the defendant's actual conduct but an "idealized ordinary case of the crime." 576 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2561.
The Court's analysis in Johnson thus cast no doubt on the many laws that "require gauging the riskiness of conduct in which an individual defendant engages on a particular occasion ." Ibid. The residual clause failed not because it adopted a "serious potential risk" standard but because applying that standard under the categorical approach required courts to assess the hypothetical risk posed by an abstract generic version of the offense. In the Johnson Court's view, the "indeterminacy of the wide-ranging inquiry" made the residual clause more unpredictable and arbitrary in its application than the Constitution allows. Id., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2557. "Invoking so shapeless a provision to condemn someone to prison for 15 years to life," the Court held, "does not comport with the Constitution's guarantee of due process." Id., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 2560.
II
Petitioner Gregory Welch is one of the many offenders sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act before Johnson was decided. Welch pleaded guilty in 2010 to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. The Probation Office prepared a presentence report finding that Welch had three prior violent felony convictions, including a Florida conviction for a February 1996 "strong-arm robbery." The relevant Florida statute prohibits taking property from the person or custody of another with "the use of force, violence, assault, or putting in fear." Fla. Stat. § 812.13(1) (1994). The charging document from the 1996 Florida case tracked that statutory language. App. 187a. The 2010 federal presentence report provides more detail. It states that, according to the robbery victim, Welch punched the victim in the mouth and grabbed a gold bracelet from his wrist while another attacker grabbed a gold chain from his neck.
Welch objected to the presentence report, arguing (as relevant here) that this conviction was not a violent felony conviction under the Armed Career Criminal Act. The District Court overruled the objection. It concluded that the Florida offense of strong-arm robbery qualified as a violent felony both under the elements clause, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i), and the residual clause, § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). The District Court proceeded to sentence Welch to the Act's mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.
The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed. That court did not decide whether the conviction at issue could qualify as a violent felony under the elements clause. Instead, it held only that the conviction qualified under the residual clause. This Court denied certiorari, see Welch v. United States, 568 U.S. ----, 133 S.Ct. 913, 184 L.Ed.2d 702 (2013), and Welch's conviction became final.
In December 2013, Welch appeared pro se before the District Court and filed a collateral challenge to his conviction and sentence through a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. He argued, among other points, that his strong-arm robbery conviction itself was "vague" and that his counsel was ineffective for allowing him to be sentenced as an armed career criminal. The District Court denied the motion and denied a certificate of appealability.
Still proceeding pro se, Welch applied to the Court of Appeals for a certificate of appealability. His application noted that Johnson was pending before this Court. Welch argued, in part, that his "armed career offender status is unconstitutional and violate[s] [his] Fifth Amendment right to notice of the state priors." App. 20a. Two months later, Welch filed a motion asking the Court of Appeals to hold his case in abeyance until Johnson could be decided, "based on the fact he was sentenced under the [residual clause]." App. 15a.
In June 2015, the Court of Appeals entered a brief single-judge order denying the motion for a certificate of appealability. Less than three weeks later, this Court issued its decision in Johnson holding, as already noted, that the residual clause is void for vagueness. Welch filed a motion asking the Court of Appeals for additional time to seek reconsideration of its decision in light of Johnson, but the court returned that motion unfiled because Welch's time to seek reconsideration already had expired.
Welch then filed a pro se petition for certiorari. His petition presented two questions: whether the District Court erred in denying his § 2255 motion because his Florida robbery conviction does not qualify as a violent felony conviction under the Armed Career Criminal Act; and whether Johnson announced a substantive rule that has retroactive effect in cases on collateral review. Pet. for Cert. i. This Court granted the petition. 577 U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 790, 193 L.Ed.2d 534 (2016). Because the United States, as respondent, agrees with Welch that Johnson is retroactive, the Court appointed Helgi C. Walker as amicus curiae in support of the judgment of the Court of Appeals. She has ably discharged her responsibilities.
III
A
This case comes to the Court in a somewhat unusual procedural posture. Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, there can be no appeal from a final order in a § 2255 proceeding unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1). A certificate of appealability may issue "only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right." § 2253(c)(2). That standard is met when "reasonable jurists could debate whether (or, for that matter, agree that) the petition should have been resolved in a different manner." Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484, 120 S.Ct. 1595, 146 L.Ed.2d 542 (2000). Obtaining a certificate of appealability "does not require a showing that the appeal will succeed," and "a court of appeals should not decline the application ...
merely because it believes the applicant will not demonstrate an entitlement to relief." Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 337, 123 S.Ct. 1029, 154 L.Ed.2d 931 (2003).
The decision under review here is the single-judge order in which the Court of Appeals denied Welch a certificate of appealability. Under the standard described above, that order determined not only that Welch had failed to show any entitlement to relief but also that reasonable jurists would consider that conclusion to be beyond all debate. See Slack, supra, at 484, 120 S.Ct. 1595. The narrow question here is whether the Court of Appeals erred in making that determination. That narrow question, however, implicates a broader legal issue: whether Johnson is a substantive decision with retroactive effect in cases (like Welch's) on collateral review. If so, then on the present record reasonable jurists could at least debate whether Welch should obtain relief in his collateral challenge to his sentence. On these premises, the Court now proceeds to decide whether Johnson is retroactive.
B
The normal framework for determining whether a new rule applies to cases on collateral review stems from the plurality opinion in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989). That opinion in turn drew on the approach outlined by the second Justice Harlan in his separate opinions in Mackey v. United States, 401 U.S. 667, 91 S.Ct. 1160, 28 L.Ed.2d 404 (1971), and Desist v. United States, 394 U.S. 244, 89 S.Ct. 1030, 22 L.Ed.2d 248 (1969). The parties here assume that the Teague framework applies in a federal collateral challenge to a federal conviction as it does in a federal collateral challenge to a state conviction, and we proceed on that assumption. See Chaidez v. United States, 568 U.S. ----, ----, n. 16, 133 S.Ct. 1103, 1113, n. 16, 185 L.Ed.2d 149 (2013) ; Danforth v. Minnesota, 552 U.S. 264, 269, n. 4, 128 S.Ct. 1029, 169 L.Ed.2d 859 (2008).
Under Teague, as a general matter, "new constitutional rules of criminal procedure will not be applicable to those cases which have become final before the new rules are announced." 489 U.S., at 310, 109 S.Ct. 1060. Teague and its progeny recognize two categories of decisions that fall outside this general bar on retroactivity for procedural rules. First, "[n]ew substantive rules generally apply retroactively." Schriro v. Summerlin, 542 U.S. 348, 351, 124 S.Ct. 2519, 159 L.Ed.2d 442 (2004) ; see Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. ----, ----, 136 S.Ct. 718, 728, 193 L.Ed.2d 599 (2016) ; Teague, supra, at 307, 311, 109 S.Ct. 1060. Second, new " 'watershed rules of criminal procedure,' " which are procedural rules "implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding," will also have retroactive effect. Saffle v. Parks, 494 U.S. 484, 495, 110 S.Ct. 1257, 108 L.Ed.2d 415 (1990) ; see Teague, supra, at 311-313, 109 S.Ct. 1060.
It is undisputed that Johnson announced a new rule. See Teague, supra, at 301, 109 S.Ct. 1060 ("[A] case announces a new rule if the result was not dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction became final"). The question here is whether that new rule falls within one of the two categories that have retroactive effect under Teague . The parties agree that Johnson does not fall into the limited second category for watershed procedural rules. Welch and the United States contend instead that Johnson falls into the first category because it announced a substantive rule.
"A rule is substantive rather than procedural if it alters the range of conduct or the class of persons that the law punishes." Schriro, 542 U.S., at 353, 124 S.Ct. 2519. "This includes decisions that narrow the scope of a criminal statute by interpreting its terms, as well as constitutional determinations that place particular conduct or persons covered by the statute beyond the State's power to punish." Id., at 351-352, 124 S.Ct. 2519 (citation omitted); see Montgomery, supra, at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 728. Procedural rules, by contrast, "regulate only the manner of determining the defendant's culpability." Schriro, 542 U.S., at 353, 124 S.Ct. 2519. Such rules alter "the range of permissible methods for determining whether a defendant's conduct is punishable." Ibid . "They do not produce a class of persons convicted of conduct the law does not make criminal, but merely raise the possibility that someone convicted with use of the invalidated procedure might have been acquitted otherwise." Id., at 352, 124 S.Ct. 2519.
Under this framework, the rule announced in Johnson is substantive. By striking down the residual clause as void for vagueness, Johnson changed the substantive reach of the Armed Career Criminal Act, altering "the range of conduct or the class of persons that the [Act] punishes." Schriro, supra, at 353, 124 S.Ct. 2519. Before Johnson, the Act applied to any person who possessed a firearm after three violent felony convictions, even if one or more of those convictions fell under only the residual clause. An offender in that situation faced 15 years to life in prison. After Johnson, the same person engaging in the same conduct is no longer subject to the Act and faces at most 10 years in prison. The residual clause is invalid under Johnson, so it can no longer mandate or authorize any sentence. Johnson establishes, in other words, that "even the use of impeccable factfinding procedures could not legitimate" a sentence based on that clause. United States v. United States Coin & Currency, 401 U.S. 715, 724, 91 S.Ct. 1041, 28 L.Ed.2d 434 (1971). It follows that Johnson is a substantive decision.
By the same logic, Johnson is not a procedural decision. Johnson had nothing to do with the range of permissible methods a court might use to determine whether a defendant should be sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act. See Schriro, 542 U.S., at 353, 124 S.Ct. 2519. It did not, for example, "allocate decisionmaking authority" between judge and jury, ibid., or regulate the evidence that the court could consider in making its decision, see Whorton v. Bockting, 549 U.S. 406, 413-414, 417, 127 S.Ct. 1173, 167 L.Ed.2d 1 (2007) ; Mackey, supra, at 700-701, 91 S.Ct. 1160 (opinion of Harlan, J.). Unlike those cases, Johnson affected the reach of the underlying statute rather than the judicial procedures by which the statute is applied. Johnson is thus a substantive decision and so has retroactive effect under Teague in cases on collateral review.
C
Amicus urges the Court to adopt a different understanding of the Teague framework. She contends courts should apply that framework by asking whether the constitutional right underlying the new rule is substantive or procedural. Under that approach, amicus concludes that Johnson is a procedural decision because the void-for-vagueness doctrine that Johnson applied is based, she asserts, on procedural due process.
Neither Teague nor its progeny support that approach. As described above, this Court has determined whether a new rule is substantive or procedural by considering the function of the rule, not its underlying constitutional source. See, e.g., Schriro, supra, at 351-353, 124 S.Ct. 2519.
That is for good reason. The Teague framework creates a balance between, first, the need for finality in criminal cases, and second, the countervailing imperative to ensure that criminal punishment is imposed only when authorized by law. That balance turns on the function of the rule at issue, not the constitutional guarantee from which the rule derives. If a new rule regulates only the procedures for determining culpability, the Teague balance generally tips in favor of finality. The chance of a more accurate outcome under the new procedure normally does not justify the cost of vacating a conviction whose only flaw is that its procedures "conformed to then-existing constitutional standards." Teague, supra, at 310, 109 S.Ct. 1060. On the other hand, if a new rule changes the scope of the underlying criminal proscription, the balance is different. A change of that character will "necessarily carry a significant risk that a defendant stands convicted of 'an act that the law does not make criminal.' " Bousley v. United States, 523 U.S. 614, 620, 118 S.Ct. 1604, 140 L.Ed.2d 828 (1998) (quoting Davis v. United States, 417 U.S. 333, 346, 94 S.Ct. 2298, 41 L.Ed.2d 109 (1974) ). By extension, where the conviction or sentence in fact is not authorized by substantive law, then finality interests are at their weakest. As Justice Harlan wrote, "[t]here is little societal interest in permitting the criminal process to rest at a point where it ought properly never to repose." Mackey, 401 U.S., at 693, 91 S.Ct. 1160 (opinion of Harlan, J.).
The Teague balance thus does not depend on whether the underlying constitutional guarantee is characterized as procedural or substantive. It depends instead on whether the new rule itself has a procedural function or a substantive function-that is, whether it alters only the procedures used to obtain the conviction, or alters instead the range of conduct or class of persons that the law punishes. See Schriro, supra, at 353, 124 S.Ct. 2519 ; Montgomery, 577 U.S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 732-733. The emphasis by amicus on the constitutional guarantee behind the new rule, then, would untether the Teague framework from its basic purpose.
The approach amicus suggests also would lead to results that cannot be squared with prior precedent. Decisions from this Court show that a rule that is procedural for Teague purposes still can be grounded in a substantive constitutional guarantee. For instance, the Court has adopted certain rules that regulate capital sentencing procedures in order to enforce the substantive guarantees of the Eighth Amendment. The consistent position has been that those rules are procedural, even though their ultimate source is substantive. See, e.g., Beard v. Banks, 542 U.S. 406, 408, 416-417, 124 S.Ct. 2504, 159 L.Ed.2d 494 (2004) ; Sawyer v. Smith, 497 U.S. 227, 233, 241-242, 110 S.Ct. 2822, 111 L.Ed.2d 193 (1990). From the converse perspective, there also can be substantive rules based on constitutional protections that, on the theory amicus advances, likely would be described as procedural. For instance, a decision that invalidates as void for vagueness a statute prohibiting "conduct annoying to persons passing by," cf. Coates v. Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611, 612, 614, 91 S.Ct. 1686, 29 L.Ed.2d 214 (1971), would doubtless alter the range of conduct that the law prohibits. That would make it a substantive decision under our precedent, see Schriro, 542 U.S., at 353, 124 S.Ct. 2519 even if the reasons for holding that statute invalid could be characterized as procedural.
Amicus next relies on language from this Court's cases describing substantive decisions as those that "place particular conduct or persons ... beyond the State's power to punish," id., at 352, 124 S.Ct. 2519 or that "prohibi[t] a certain category of punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or offense," Saffle, 494 U.S., at 494, 110 S.Ct. 1257 (internal quotation marks omitted). Cases such as these, in which the Constitution deprives the Government of the power to impose the challenged punishment, "represen[t] the clearest instance" of substantive rules for which retroactive application is appropriate. Mackey, supra, at 693, 91 S.Ct. 1160 (opinion of Harlan, J.). Drawing on those decisions, amicus argues that Johnson is not substantive because it does not limit Congress' power: Congress is free to enact a new version of the residual clause that imposes the same punishment on the same persons for the same conduct, provided the new statute is precise enough to satisfy due process.
Although this Court has put great emphasis on substantive decisions that place certain conduct, classes of persons, or punishments beyond the legislative power of Congress, the Court has also recognized that some substantive decisions do not impose such restrictions. The clearest example comes from Bousley, supra . In Bousley, the Court was asked to determine what retroactive effect should be given to its decision in Bailey v. United States, 516 U.S. 137, 116 S.Ct. 501, 133 L.Ed.2d 472 (1995). Bailey considered the "use" prong of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1), which imposes increased penalties on the use of a firearm in relation to certain crimes. The Court held as a matter of statutory interpretation that the "use" prong punishes only "active employment of the firearm" and not mere possession. 516 U.S., at 144, 116 S.Ct. 501. The Court in Bousley had no difficulty concluding that Bailey was substantive, as it was a decision "holding that a substantive federal criminal statute does not reach certain conduct." Bousley, supra, at 620, 118 S.Ct. 1604 ; see Schriro, supra, at 354, 124 S.Ct. 2519 ("A decision that modifies the elements of an offense is normally substantive rather than procedural"). The Court reached that conclusion even though Congress could (and later did) reverse Bailey by amending the statute to cover possession as well as use. See United States v. O'Brien, 560 U.S. 218, 232-233, 130 S.Ct. 2169, 176 L.Ed.2d 979 (2010) (discussing statutory amendment known as the "Bailey fix"). Bousley thus contradicts the contention that the Teague inquiry turns only on whether the decision at issue holds that Congress lacks some substantive power.
Amicus recognizes that Bousley does not fit the theory that, in her view, should control this case. She instead proposes an ad hoc exception, contending that Bousley "recognized a separate subcategory of substantive rules" for decisions that interpret statutes (but not those, like Johnson, that invalidate statutes). Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae in Support of Judgment Below 40. For support, amicus looks to the separation-of-powers doctrine. Her argument is that statutory construction cases are substantive because they define what Congress always intended the law to mean-unlike Johnson, which struck down the residual clause regardless of Congress' intent.
That argument is not persuasive. Neither Bousley nor any other case from this Court treats statutory interpretation cases as a special class of decisions that are substantive because they implement the intent of Congress. Instead, decisions that interpret a statute are substantive if and when they meet the normal criteria for a substantive rule: when they "alte[r] the range of conduct or the class of persons that the law punishes." Schriro, supra, at 353, 124 S.Ct. 2519.
The separation-of-powers argument that amicus raises is also misplaced. Bousley noted that the separation of powers prohibits a court from imposing criminal punishment beyond what Congress meant to enact. 523 U.S., at 620-621, 118 S.Ct. 1604 ("[I]t is only Congress, and not the courts, which can make conduct criminal"). But a court likewise is prohibited from imposing criminal punishment beyond what Congress in fact has enacted by a valid law. In either case a court lacks the power to exact a penalty that has not been authorized by any valid criminal statute.
Treating decisions as substantive if they involve statutory interpretation, but not if they involve statutory invalidation, would produce unusual outcomes. "It has long been our practice ... before striking a federal statute as impermissibly vague, to consider whether the prescription is amenable to a limiting construction." Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S. 358, 405-406, 130 S.Ct. 2896, 177 L.Ed.2d 619 (2010). Amicus acknowledges that a decision that saves a vague statute by adopting a limiting construction is substantive, so anyone who falls outside the limiting construction can use that decision to seek relief on collateral review. But amicus also contends that, if a court takes the further step of striking down the whole statute as vague, that decision is procedural, so no one can use it to seek relief on collateral review. That arbitrary distinction has no place in the Teague framework.
It should be noted, of course, that not every decision striking down a statute is ipso facto a substantive decision. A decision that strikes down a procedural statute-for example, a statute regulating the types of evidence that can be presented at trial-would itself be a procedural decision. It would affect only the "manner of determining the defendant's culpability," not the conduct or persons to be punished. Schriro, 542 U.S., at 353, 124 S.Ct. 2519 (emphasis deleted). A decision of this kind would have no retroactive effect under Teague unless it could be considered a "watershed" procedural rule. See Teague, 489 U.S., at 311-313, 109 S.Ct. 1060. Johnson, however, struck down part of a criminal statute that regulates conduct and prescribes punishment. It thereby altered "the range of conduct or the class of persons that the law punishes." Schriro, supra, at 353, 124 S.Ct. 2519. It follows that Johnson announced a substantive rule that has retroactive effect in cases on collateral review.
* * *
It may well be that the Court of Appeals on remand will determine on other grounds that the District Court was correct to deny Welch's motion to amend his sentence. For instance, the parties continue to dispute whether Welch's strong-arm robbery conviction qualifies as a violent felony under the elements clause of the Act, which would make Welch eligible for a 15-year sentence regardless of Johnson . On the present record, however, and in light of today's holding that Johnson is retroactive in cases on collateral review, reasonable jurists at least could debate whether Welch is entitled to relief. For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
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 Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These consolidated cases present the question whether a federal court in a diversity action may exercise supplemental jurisdiction over additional plaintiffs whose claims do not satisfy the minimum amount-in-controversy requirement, provided the claims are part of the same case or controversy as the claims of plaintiffs who do allege a sufficient amount in controversy. Our decision turns on the correct interpretation of 28 U. S. C. § 1367. The question has divided the Courts of Appeals, and we granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 543 U. S. 924 (2004).
We hold that, where the other elements of jurisdiction are present and at least one named plaintiff in the action satisfies the amount-in-controversy requirement, § 1367 does authorize supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of other plaintiffs in the same Article III case or controversy, even if those claims are for less than the jurisdictional amount specified in the statute setting forth the requirements for diversity jurisdiction. We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in No. 04-70, and we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in No. 04-79.
I
In 1991, about 10,000 Exxon dealers filed a class-action suit against the Exxon Corporation in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida. The dealers alleged an intentional and systematic scheme by Exxon under which they were overcharged for fuel purchased from Exxon. The plaintiffs invoked the District Court’s § 1332(a) diversity jurisdiction. After a unanimous jury verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, the District Court certified the case for interlocutory review, asking whether it had properly exercised § 1367 supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of class members who did not meet the jurisdictional minimum amount in controversy.
The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the District Court’s extension of supplemental jurisdiction to these class members. Allapattah Services, Inc. v. Exxon Corp., 333 F. 3d 1248 (2003). “[W]e find,” the court held, “that §1367 clearly and unambiguously provides district courts with the authority in diversity class actions to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of class members who do not meet the minimum amount in controversy as long as the district court has original jurisdiction over the claims of at least one of the class representatives.” Id., at 1256. This decision accords with the views of the Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits. See Rosmer v. Pfizer, Inc., 263 F. 3d 110 (CA4 2001); Olden v. LaFarge Corp., 383 F. 3d 495 (CA6 2004); Stromberg Metal Works, Inc. v. Press Mechanical, Inc., 77 F. 3d 928 (CA7 1996); In re Brand Name Prescription Drugs Antitrust Litigation, 123 F. 3d 599 (CA7 1997). The Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Ninth Circuits, adopting a similar analysis of the statute, have held that in a diversity class action the unnamed class members need not meet the amount-in-eontroversy requirement, provided the named class members do. These decisions, however, are unclear on whether all the named plaintiffs must satisfy this requirement. In re Abbott Labs., 51 F. 3d 524 (CA5 1995); Gibson v. Chrysler Corp., 261 F. 3d 927 (CA9 2001).
In the other case now before us the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit took a different position on the meaning of § 1367(a). 370 F. 3d 124 (2004). In that case, a 9-year-old girl sued Star-Kist in a diversity action in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, seeking damages for unusually severe injuries she received when she sliced her finger on a tuna can. Her family joined in the suit, seeking damages for emotional distress and certain medical expenses. The District Court granted summary judgment to Star-Kist, finding that none of the plaintiffs met the minimum amount-in-eontroversy requirement. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, however, ruled that the injured girl, but not her family members, had made allegations of damages in the requisite amount.
The Court of Appeals then addressed whether, in light of the fact that one plaintiff met the requirements for original jurisdiction, supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining plaintiffs’ claims was proper under § 1367. The court held that § 1367 authorizes supplemental jurisdiction only when the district court has original jurisdiction over the action, and that in a diversity case original jurisdiction is lacking if one plaintiff fails to satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement. Although the Court of Appeals claimed to “express no view” on whether the result would be the same in a class action, id., at 143, n. 19, its analysis is inconsistent with that of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit’s view of § 1367 is, however, shared by the Courts of Appeals for the Third, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits, and the latter two Courts of Appeals have expressly applied this rule to class actions. See Meritcare, Inc. v. St. Paul Mercury Ins. Co., 166 F. 3d 214 (CA3 1999); Trimble v. Asarco, Inc., 232 F. 3d 946 (CA8 2000); Leonhardt v. Western Sugar Co., 160 F. 3d 631 (CA10 1998).
II
A
The district courts of the United States, as we have said many times, are “courts of limited jurisdiction. They possess only that power authorized by Constitution and statute,” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of America, 511 U. S. 375, 377 (1994). In order to provide a federal forum for plaintiffs who seek to vindicate federal rights, Congress has conferred on the district courts original jurisdiction in federal-question cases — civil actions that arise under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. 28 U. S. C. § 1331. In order to provide a neutral forum for what have come to be known as diversity cases, Congress also has granted district courts original jurisdiction in civil actions between citizens of different States, between U. S. citizens and foreign citizens, or by foreign states against U. S. citizens. § 1332. To ensure that diversity jurisdiction does not flood the federal courts with minor disputes, § 1332(a) requires that the matter in controversy in a diversity case exceed a specified amount, currently $75,000.
Although the district courts may not exercise jurisdiction absent a statutory basis, it is well established — in certain classes of cases — that, once a court has original jurisdiction over some claims in the action, it may exercise supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims that are part of the same case or controversy. The leading modern case for this principle is Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715 (1966). In Gibbs, the plaintiff alleged the defendant’s conduct violated both federal and state law. The District Court, Gibbs held, had original jurisdiction over the action based on the federal claims. Gibbs confirmed that the District Court had the additional power (though not the obligation) to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over related state claims that arose from the same Article III case or controversy. Id., at 725 (“The federal claim must have substance sufficient to confer subject matter jurisdiction on the court.... [Assuming substantiality of the federal issues, there is power in federal courts to hear the whole”).
As we later noted, the decision allowing jurisdiction over pendent state claims in Gibbs did not mention, let alone come to grips with, the text of the jurisdictional statutes and the bedrock principle that federal courts have no jurisdiction without statutory authorization. Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545, 548 (1989). In Finley, we nonetheless reaffirmed and rationalized Gibbs and its progeny by inferring from it the interpretive principle that, in cases involving supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims between parties properly in federal court, the jurisdictional statutes should be read broadly, on the assumption that in this context Congress intended to authorize courts to exercise their full Article III power to dispose of an “ ‘entire action before the court [which] comprises but one constitutional “case.” ’ ” 490 U. S., at 549 (quoting Gibbs, supra, at 725).
We have not, however, applied Gibbs’ expansive interpretive approach to other aspects of the jurisdictional statutes. For instance, we have consistently interpreted § 1332 as requiring complete diversity: In a case with multiple plaintiffs and multiple defendants, the presence in the action of a single plaintiff from the same State as a single defendant deprives the district court of original diversity jurisdiction over the entire action. Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch 267 (1806); Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365, 375 (1978). The complete diversity requirement is not mandated by the Constitution, State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Tashire, 386 U. S. 523, 530-531 (1967), or by the plain text of § 1332(a). The Court, nonetheless, has adhered to the complete diversity rule in light of the purpose of the diversity requirement, which is to provide a federal forum for important disputes where state courts might favor, or be perceived as favoring, home-state litigants. The presence of parties from the same State on both sides of a case dispels this concern, eliminating a principal reason for conferring § 1332 jurisdiction over any of the claims in the action. See Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections v. Schacht, 524 U. S. 381, 389 (1998); Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U. S. 826, 829 (1989). The specific purpose of the complete diversity rule explains both why we have not adopted Gibbs’ expansive interpretive approach to this aspect of the jurisdictional statute and why Gibbs does not undermine the complete diversity rule. In order for a federal court to invoke supplemental jurisdiction under Gibbs, it must first have original jurisdiction over at least one claim in the action. Incomplete diversity destroys original jurisdiction with respect to all claims, so there is nothing to which supplemental jurisdiction can adhere.
In contrast to the diversity requirement, most of the other statutory prerequisites for federal jurisdiction, including the federal-question and amount-in-controversy requirements, can be analyzed claim by claim. True, it does not follow by necessity from this that a district court has authority to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over all claims provided there is original jurisdiction over just one. Before the enactment of § 1367, the Court declined in contexts other than the pendent-claim instance to follow Gibbs’ expansive approach to interpretation of the jurisdictional statutes. The Court took a more restrictive view of the proper interpretation of these statutes in so-called pendent-party cases involving supplemental jurisdiction over claims involving additional parties — plaintiffs or defendants — where the district courts would lack original jurisdiction over claims by each of the parties standing alone.
Thus, with respect to plaintiff-specific jurisdictional requirements, the Court held in Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc., 306 U. S. 583 (1939), that every plaintiff must separately satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement. Though Clark was a federal-question case, at that time federal-question jurisdiction had an amount-in-controversy requirement analogous to the amount-in-controversy requirement for diversity cases. “Proper practice,” Clark held, “requires that where each of several plaintiffs is bound to establish the jurisdictional amount with respect to his own claim, the suit should be dismissed as to those who fail to show that the requisite amount is involved.” Id., at 590. The Court reaffirmed this rule, in the context of a class action brought invoking § 1332(a) diversity jurisdiction, in Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291 (1973). It follows “inescapably” from Clark, the Court held in Zahn, that “any plaintiff without the jurisdictional amount must be dismissed from the case, even though others allege jurisdictionally sufficient claims.” 414 U. S., at 300.
The Court took a similar approach with respect to supplemental jurisdiction over claims against additional defendants that fall outside the district courts’ original jurisdiction. In Aldinger v. Howard, 427 U. S. 1 (1976), the plaintiff brought a Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, action against county officials in District Court pursuant to the statutory grant of jurisdiction in 28 U. S. C. § 1343(3) (1976 ed.). The plaintiff further alleged the court had supplemental jurisdiction over her related state-law claims against the county, even though the county was not suable under § 1983 and so was not subject to § 1343(3)’s original jurisdiction. The Court held that supplemental jurisdiction could not be exercised because Congress, in enacting § 1343(3), had declined (albeit implicitly) to extend federal jurisdiction over any party who could not be sued under the federal civil rights statutes. 427 U. S., at 16-19. “Before it can be concluded that [supplemental] jurisdiction [over additional parties] exists,” Al-dinger held, “a federal court must satisfy itself not only that Article] III permits it, but that Congress in the statutes conferring jurisdiction has not expressly or by implication negated its existence.” Id., at 18.
In Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545 (1989), we confronted a similar issue in a different statutory context. The plaintiff in Finley brought a Federal Tort Claims Act negligence suit against the Federal Aviation Administration in District Court, which had original jurisdiction under § 1346(b). The plaintiff tried to add related claims against other defendants, invoking the District Court’s supplemental jurisdiction over so-called pendent parties. We held that the District Court lacked a sufficient statutory basis for exercising supplemental jurisdiction over these claims. Relying primarily on Zahn, Aldinger, and Kroger, we held in Finley that “a grant of jurisdiction over claims involving particular parties does not itself confer jurisdiction over additional claims by or against different parties.” 490 U. S., at 556. While Finley did not “limit or impair” Gibbs’ liberal approach to interpreting the jurisdictional statutes in the context of supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims involving the same parties, 490 U. S., at 556, Finley nevertheless declined to extend that interpretive assumption to claims involving additional parties. Finley held that in the context of parties, in contrast to claims, “we will not assume that the full constitutional power has been congressionally authorized, and will not read jurisdictional statutes broadly.” Id., at 549.
As the jurisdictional statutes existed in 1989, then, here is how matters stood: First, the diversity requirement in § 1332(a) required complete diversity; absent complete diversity, the district court lacked original jurisdiction over all of the claims in the action. Strawbridge, 3 Cranch, at 267-268; Kroger, 437 U. S., at 373-374. Second, if the district court had original jurisdiction over at least one claim, the jurisdictional statutes implicitly authorized supplemental jurisdiction over all.other claims between the same parties arising out of the same Article III case or controversy. Gibbs, 383 U. S., at 725. Third, even when the district court had original jurisdiction over one or more claims between particular parties, the jurisdictional statutes did not authorize supplemental jurisdiction over additional claims involving other parties. Clark, 306 U. S., at 590; Zahn, supra, at 300-301; Finley, supra, at 556.
B
In Finley we emphasized that “[w]hatever we say regarding the scope of jurisdiction conferred by a particular statute can of course be changed by Congress.” 490 U. S., at 556. In 1990, Congress accepted the invitation. It passed the Judicial Improvements Act, 104 Stat. 5089, which enacted § 1367, the provision which controls these cases.
Section 1367 provides, in relevant part:
“(a) Except as provided in subsections (b) and (c) or as expressly provided otherwise by Federal statute, in any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction, the district courts shall have supplemental jurisdiction over all other claims that are so related to claims in the action within such original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or controversy under Article III of the United States Constitution. Such supplemental jurisdiction shall include claims that involve the joinder or intervention of additional parties.
“(b) In any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction founded solely on section 1332 of this title, the district courts shall not have supplemental jurisdiction under subsection (a) over claims by plaintiffs against persons made parties under Rule 14,19,20, or 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or over claims by persons proposed to be joined as plaintiffs under Rule 19 of such rules, or seeking to intervene as plaintiffs under Rule 24 of such rules, when exercising supplemental jurisdiction over such claims would be inconsistent with the jurisdictional requirements of section 1332.”
All parties to this litigation and all courts to consider the question agree that § 1367 overturned the result in Finley. There is no warrant, however, for assuming that § 1367 did no more than to overrule Finley and otherwise to codify the existing state of the law of supplemental jurisdiction. We must not give jurisdictional statutes a more expansive interpretation than their text warrants, 490 U. S., at 549, 556; but it is just as important not to adopt an artificial construction that is narrower than what the text provides. No sound canon of interpretation requires Congress to speak with extraordinary clarity in order to modify the rules of federal jurisdiction within appropriate constitutional bounds. Ordinary principles of statutory construction apply. In order to determine the scope of supplemental jurisdiction authorized by § 1367, then, we must examine the statute’s text in light of context, structure, and related statutory provisions.
Section 1367(a) is a broad grant of supplemental jurisdiction over other claims within the same case or controversy, as long as the action is one in which the district courts would have original jurisdiction. The last sentence of § 1367(a) makes it clear that the grant of supplemental jurisdiction extends to claims involving joinder or intervention of additional parties. The single question before us, therefore, is whether a diversity ease in which the claims of some plaintiffs satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement, but the claims of other plaintiffs do not, presents a “civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction.” If the answer is yes, § 1367(a) confers supplemental jurisdiction over all claims, including those that do not independently satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement, if the claims are part of the same Article III case or controversy. If the answer is no, § 1367(a) is inapplicable and, in light of our holdings in Clark and Zahn, the district court has no statutory basis for exercising supplemental jurisdiction over the additional claims.
We now conclude the answer must be yes. When the well-pleaded complaint contains at least one claim that satisfies the amount-in-controversy requirement, and there are no other relevant jurisdictional defects, the district court, beyond all question, has original jurisdiction over that claim. The presence of other claims in the complaint, over which the district court may lack original jurisdiction, is of no moment. If the court has original jurisdiction over a single claim in the complaint, it has original jurisdiction over a “civil action” within the meaning of § 1367(a), even if the civil action over which it has jurisdiction comprises fewer claims than were included in the complaint. Once the court determines it has original jurisdiction over the civil action; it can turn to the question whether it has a constitutional and statutory basis for exercising supplemental jurisdiction over the other claims in the action.
Section 1367(a) commences with the direction that §§ 1367(b) and (c), or other relevant statutes, may provide specific exceptions, but otherwise § 1367(a) is a broad jurisdictional grant, with no distinction drawn between pendent-claim and pendent-party cases. In fact, the last sentence of § 1367(a) makes clear that the provision grants supplemental jurisdiction over claims involving joinder or intervention of additional parties. The terms of § 1367 do not acknowledge any distinction between pendent jurisdiction and the doctrine of so-called ancillary jurisdiction. Though the doctrines of pendent and ancillary jurisdiction developed separately as a historical matter, the Court has recognized that the doctrines are “two species of the same generic problem,” Kroger, 437 U. S., at 370. Nothing in § 1367 indicates a congressional intent to recognize, preserve, or create some meaningful, substantive distinction between the jurisdictional categories we have historically labeled pendent and ancillary.
If § 1367(a) were the sum total of the relevant statutory language, our holding would rest on that language alone. The statute, of course, instructs us to examine § 1367(b) to determine if any of its exceptions apply, so we proceed to that section. While § 1367(b) qualifies the broad rule of § 1367(a), it does not withdraw supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of the additional parties at issue here. The specific exceptions to § 1367(a) contained in § 1367(b), moreover, provide additional support for our conclusion that § 1367(a) confers supplemental jurisdiction over these claims. Section 1367(b), which applies only to diversity cases, withholds supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of plaintiffs proposed to be joined as indispensable parties under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19, or who seek to intervene pursuant to Rule 24. Nothing in the text of § 1367(b), however, withholds supplemental jurisdiction over the claims of plaintiffs permissively joined under Rule 20 (like the additional plaintiffs in No. 04-79) or certified as class-action members pursuant to Rule 23 (like the additional plaintiffs in No. 04-70). The natural, indeed the necessary, inference is that § 1367 confers supplemental jurisdiction over claims by Rule 20 and Rule 23 plaintiffs. This inference, at least with respect to Rule 20 plaintiffs, is strengthened by the fact that § 1367(b) explicitly excludes supplemental jurisdiction over claims against defendants joined under Rule 20.
We cannot accept the view, urged by some of the parties, commentators, and Courts of Appeals, that a district court lacks original jurisdiction over a civil action unless the court has original jurisdiction over every claim in the complaint. As we understand this position, it requires assuming either that all claims in the complaint must stand or fall as a single, indivisible “civil action” as a matter of definitional necessity — what we will refer to as the “indivisibility theory” — or else that the inclusion of a claim or party falling outside the district court’s original jurisdiction somehow contaminates every other claim in the complaint, depriving the court of original jurisdiction over any of these claims — what we will refer to as the “contamination theory.”
The indivisibility theory is easily dismissed, as it is inconsistent with the whole notion of supplemental jurisdiction. If a district court must have original jurisdiction over every claim in the complaint in order to have “original jurisdiction” over a “civil action,” then in Gibbs there was no civil action of which the district court could assume original jurisdiction under § 1331, and so no basis for exercising supplemental jurisdiction over any of the claims. The indivisibility theory is further belied by our practice — in both federal-question and diversity cases — of allowing federal courts to cure jurisdictional defects by dismissing the offending parties rather than dismissing the entire action. Clark, for example, makes clear that claims that are jurisdictionally defective as to amount in controversy do not destroy original jurisdiction over other claims. 306 U. S., at 590 (dismissing parties who failed to meet the amount-in-controversy requirement but retaining jurisdiction over the remaining party). If the presence of jurisdictionally problematic claims in the complaint meant the district court was without original jurisdiction over the single, indivisible civil action before it, then the district court would have to dismiss the whole action rather than particular parties.
We also find it unconvincing to say that the definitional indivisibility theory applies in the context of diversity cases but not in the context of federal-question cases. The broad and general language of the statute does not permit this result. The contention is premised on the notion that the phrase “original jurisdiction of all civil actions” means different things in §§ 1331 and 1332. It is implausible, however, to say that the identical phrase means one thing (original jurisdiction in all actions where at least one claim in the complaint meets the following requirements) in § 1331 and something else (original jurisdiction in all actions where every claim in the complaint meets the following requirements) in §1332.
The contamination theory, as we have noted, can make some sense in the special context of the complete diversity requirement because the presence of nondiverse parties on both sides of a lawsuit eliminates the justification for providing a federal forum. The theory, however, makes little sense with respect to the amount-in-controversy requirement, which is meant to ensure that a dispute is sufficiently important to warrant federal-court attention. The presence of a single nondiverse party may eliminate the fear of bias with respect to all claims, but the presence of a claim that falls short of the minimum amount in controversy does nothing to reduce the importance of the claims that do meet this requirement.
It is fallacious to suppose, simply from the proposition that §1332 imposes both the diversity requirement and the amount-in-controversy requirement, that the contamination theory germane to the former is also relevant to the latter. There is no inherent logical connection between the amount-in-controversy requirement and §1332 diversity jurisdiction. After all, federal-question jurisdiction once had an amount-in-controversy requirement as well. If such a requirement were revived under § 1331, it is clear beyond peradventure that § 1367(a) provides supplemental jurisdiction over federal-question cases where some, but not all, of the federal-law claims involve a sufficient amount in controversy. In other words, § 1367(a) unambiguously overrules the holding and the result in Clark. If that is so, however, it would be quite extraordinary to say that § 1367 did not also overrule Zahn, a case that was premised in substantial part on the holding in Clark.
In addition to the theoretical difficulties with the argument that a district court has original jurisdiction over a civil action only if it has original jurisdiction over each individual claim in the complaint, we have already considered and rejected a virtually identical argument in the closely analogous context of removal jurisdiction. In Chicago v. In ternational College of Surgeons, 522 U. S. 156 (1997), the plaintiff brought federal- and state-law claims in state court. The defendant removed to federal court. The plaintiff objected to removal, citing the text of the removal statute, § 1441(a). That statutory provision, which bears a striking similarity to the relevant portion of §1367, authorizes removal of “any civil action... of which the district courts of the United States have original jurisdiction....” The College of Surgeons plaintiff urged that, because its state-law claims were not within the District Court’s original jurisdiction, § 1441(a) did not authorize removal. We disagreed. The federal-law claims, we held, “suffice to make the actions ‘civil actions’ within the ‘original jurisdiction’ of the district courts.... Nothing in the jurisdictional statutes suggests that the presence of related state law claims somehow alters the fact that [the plaintiff’s] complaints, by virtue of their federal claims, were ‘civil actions’ within the federal courts’ ‘original jurisdiction.’” Id., at 166. Once the case was removed, the District Court had original jurisdiction over the federal-law claims and supplemental jurisdiction under § 1367(a) over the state-law claims. Id., at 165.
The dissent in College of Surgeons argued that because the plaintiff sought on-the-record review of a local administrative agency decision, the review it sought was outside the scope of the District Court’s jurisdiction. Id., at 177 (opinion of Ginsburg, J.). We rejected both the suggestion that state-law claims involving administrative appeals are beyond the scope of § 1367 supplemental jurisdiction, id., at 168-172 (opinion of the Court), and the claim that the administrative review posture of the case deprived the District Court of original jurisdiction over the federal-law claims in the case, id., at 163-168. More importantly for present purposes, College of Surgeons stressed that a district court has original jurisdiction of a civil action for purposes of § 1441(a) as long as it has original jurisdiction over a subset of the claims constituting the action. Even the College of Surgeons dissent, which took issue with the Court’s interpretation of § 1367, did not appear to contest this view of § 1441(a).
Although College of Surgeons involved additional claims between the same parties, its interpretation of § 1441(a) applies equally to cases involving additional parties whose claims fall short of the jurisdictional amount. If we were to adopt the contrary view that the presence of additional parties means there is no “civil action... of which the district courts... have original jurisdiction,” those cases simply would not be removable. To our knowledge, no court has issued a reasoned opinion adopting this view of the removal statute. It is settled, of course, that absent complete diversity a case is not removable because the district court would lack original jurisdiction. Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61, 73 (1996). This, however, is altogether consistent with our view of § 1441(a). A failure of complete diversity, unlike the failure of some claims to meet the requisite amount in controversy, contaminates every claim in the action.
We also reject the argument, similar to the attempted distinction of College of Surgeons discussed above, that while the presence of additional claims over which the district court lacks jurisdiction does not mean the civil action is outside the purview of § 1367(a), the presence of additional parties does. The basis for this distinction is not altogether clear, and it is in considerable tension with statutory text. Section 1367(a) applies by its terms to any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction, and the last sentence of § 1367(a) expressly contemplates that the court may have supplemental jurisdiction over additional parties. So it cannot be the case that the presence of those parties destroys the court’s original jurisdiction, within the meaning of § 1367(a), over a civil action otherwise properly before it. Also, § 1367(b) expressly withholds supplemental jurisdiction in diversity cases over claims by plaintiffs joined as indispensable parties under Rule 19. If joinder of such parties were sufficient to deprive the district court of original jurisdiction over the civil action within the meaning of § 1367(a), this specific limitation on supplemental jurisdiction in § 1367(b) would be superfluous. The argument that the presence of additional parties removes the civil action from the scope of § 1367(a) also would mean that § 1367 left the Finley result undisturbed. Finley, after all, involved a Federal Tort Claims Act suit against a federal defendant and state-law claims against additional defendants not otherwise subject to federal jurisdiction. Yet all concede that one purpose of § 1367 was to change the result reached in Finley.
Finally, it is suggested that our interpretation of § 1367(a) creates an anomaly regarding the exceptions listed in § 1367(b): It is not immediately obvious why Congress would withhold supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs joined as parties “needed for just adjudication” under Rule 19 but would allow supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs permissively joined under Rule 20. The omission of Rule 20 plaintiffs from the list of exceptions in § 1367(b) may have been an “unintentional drafting gap,” Meritcare, 166 F. 3d, at 221, and n. 6. If that is the case, it is up to Congress rather than the courts to fix it. The omission may seem odd, but it is not absurd. An alternative explanation for the different treatment of Rules 19 and 20 is that Congress was concerned that extending supplemental jurisdiction to Rule 19 plaintiffs would allow circumvention of the complete diversity rule: A nondiverse plaintiff might be omitted intentionally from the original action, but joined later under Rule 19 as a necessary party. See Stromberg Metal Works, 77 F. 3d, at 932. The contamination theory described above, if applicable, means this ruse would fail, but Congress may have wanted to make assurance double sure. More generally, Congress may have concluded that federal jurisdiction is only appropriate if the district court would have original jurisdiction over the claims of all those plaintiffs who are so essential to the action that they could be joined under Rule 19.
To the extent that the omission of Rule 20 plaintiffs from the list of § 1367(b) exceptions is anomalous, moreover, it is no more anomalous than the inclusion of Rule 19 plaintiffs in that list would be if the alternative view of § 1367(a) were to prevail. If the district court lacks original jurisdiction over a civil diversity action where any plaintiff’s claims fail to comply with all the requirements of § 1332, there is no need for a special § 1367(b) exception for Rule 19 plaintiffs who do not meet these requirements. Though the omission of Rule 20 plaintiffs from § 1367(b) presents something of a puzzle on our view of the statute, the inclusion of Rule 19 plaintiffs in this section is at least as difficult to explain under the alternative view.
And so we circle back to the original question. When the well-pleaded complaint in district court includes multiple claims, all part of the same ease or controversy, and some, but not all, of the claims are within the court’s original jurisdiction, does the court have before it “any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction”? It does. Under § 1367, the court has original jurisdiction over the civil action comprising the claims for which there is no jurisdictional defect. No other reading of § 1367 is plausible in light of the text and structure of the jurisdictional statute. Though the special nature and purpose of the diversity requirement mean that a single nondiverse party can contaminate every other claim in the lawsuit, the contamination does not occur with respect to jurisdictional defects that go only to the substantive importance of individual claims.
It follows from this conclusion that the threshold requirement of § 1367(a) is satisfied in cases, like those now before us, where some, but not all, of the plaintiffs in a diversity action allege a sufficient amount in controversy. We hold that § 1367 by its plain text overruled Clark and Zahn and authorized supplemental jurisdiction over all claims by diverse parties arising out of the same Article III case or controversy, subject only to enumerated exceptions not applicable in the cases now before us.
C
The proponents of the alternative view of § 1367 insist that the statute is at least ambiguous and that we should look to other interpretive tools, including the legislative history of § 1367, which supposedly demonstrate Congress did not intend § 1367 to overrule Zahn. We can reject this argument at the very outset simply because § 1367 is not ambiguous. For the reasons elaborated above, interpreting § 1367 to foreclose supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs in diversity cases who do not meet the minimum amount in controversy is inconsistent with the text, read in light of other statutory provisions and our established jurisprudence. Even if we were to stipulate, however, that the reading these proponents urge upon us is textually plausible, the legislative history cited to support it would not alter our view as to the best interpretation
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 Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this appeal, we must determine whether § 54(1) of the Michigan Campaign Finance Act, 1976 Mich. Pub. Acts 388, violates either the First or the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Section 54(1) prohibits corporations from using corporate treasury funds for independent expenditures in support of, or in opposition to, any candidate in elections for state office. Mich. Comp. Laws § 169.254(1) (1979). Corporations are allowed, however, to make such expenditures from segregated funds used solely for political purposes. § 169.255(1). In response to a challenge brought by the Michigan State Chamber of Commerce (Chamber), the Sixth Circuit held that § 54(1) could not be applied to the Chamber, a Michigan nonprofit corporation, without violating the First Amendment. 856 F. 2d 783 (1988). Although we agree that expressive rights are implicated in this case, we hold that application of § 54(1) to the Chamber is constitutional because the provision is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I
Section 54(1) of the Michigan Campaign Finance Act prohibits corporations from making contributions and independent expenditures in connection with state candidate elections. The issue before us is only the constitutionality of the State’s ban on independent expenditures. The Act defines “expenditure” as “a payment, donation, loan, pledge, or promise of payment of money or anything of ascertainable monetary value for goods, materials, services, or facilities in assistance of, or in opposition to, the nomination or election of a candidate.” § 169.206(1). An expenditure is considered independent if it is “not made at the direction of, or under the control of, another person and if the expenditure is not a contribution to a committee.” § 169.209(1); see § 169.203(4) (defining “committee” as a group that “receives contributions or makes expenditures for the purpose of influencing or attempting to influence the action of the voters for or against the nomination or election of a candidate”). The Act exempts from this general prohibition against corporate political spending any expenditure made from a segregated fund. § 169.255(1). A corporation may solicit contributions to its political fund only from an enumerated list of persons associated with the corporation. See §§ 169.255(2), (3).
The Chamber, a nonprofit Michigan corporation, challenges the constitutionality of this statutory scheme. The Chamber comprises more than 8,000 members, three-quarters of whom are for-profit corporations. The Chamber’s general treasury is funded through annual dues required of all members. Its purposes, as set out in the bylaws, are to promote economic conditions favorable to private enterprise; to analyze, compile, and disseminate information about laws of interest to the business community and to publicize to the government the views of the business community on such matters; to train and educate its members; to foster ethical business practices; to collect data on, and investigate matters of, social, civic, and economic importance to the State; to receive contributions and to make expenditures for political purposes and to perform any other lawful political activity; and to coordinate activities with other similar organizations.
In June 1985 Michigan scheduled a special election to fill a vacancy in the Michigan House of Representatives. Although the Chamber had established and funded a separate political fund, it sought to use its general treasury funds to place in a local newspaper an advertisement supporting a specific candidate. As the Act made such an expenditure punishable as a felony, see § 169.254(5), the Chamber brought suit in District Court for injunctive relief against enforcement of the Act, arguing that the restriction on expenditures is unconstitutional under both the First and the Fourteenth Amendments.
The District Court upheld the statute. 643 F. Supp. 397 (WD Mich. 1986). The Sixth Circuit reversed, reasoning that the expenditure restriction, as applied to the Chamber, violated the First Amendment. We noted probable jurisdiction, 490 U. S. 1045 (1989), and now reverse.
II
To determine whether Michigan’s restriction on corporate political expenditures may constitutionally be applied to the Chamber, we must ascertain whether it burdens the exercise of political speech and, if it does, whether it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 44-45 (1976) (per curiam). Certainly, the use of funds to support a political candidate is “speech”; independent campaign expenditures constitute “political expression ‘at .the core of our electoral process and of the First Amendment freedoms.’” Id., at 39 (quoting Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23, 32 (1968)). The mere fact that the Chamber is a corporation does not remove its speech from the ambit of the First Amendment. See, e. g., First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, 777 (1978).
A
This Court concluded in FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc., 479 U. S. 238 (1986) (MCFL), that a federal statute requiring corporations to make independent political expenditures only through special segregated funds, 2 U. S. C. §441b, burdens corporate freedom of expression. MCFL, 479 U. S., at 252 (plurality opinion); id., at 266 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). The Court reasoned that the small nonprofit corporation in that case would face certain organizational and financial hurdles in establishing and administering a segregated political fund. For example, the statute required the corporation to appoint a treasurer for its segregated fund, keep records of all contributions, file a statement of organization containing information about the fund, and update that statement periodically. Id., at 253 (plurality opinion). In addition, the corporation was permitted to solicit contributions to its segregated fund only from “members,” which did not include persons who merely contributed to or indicated support for the organization. Id., at 254 (plurality opinion). These hurdles “impose[d] administrative costs that many small entities [might] be unable to bear” and “create[d] a disincentive for such organizations to engage in political speech.” Ibid; see also id., at 265-266 (O’Connor, J.).
Despite the Chamber’s success in administering its separate political fund, see, e. g., Tr. 443 (Chamber expected to have over $140,000 in its segregated fund available for use in the 1986 elections), Michigan’s segregated fund requirement still burdens the Chamber’s exercise of expression because “the corporation is not free to use its general funds for campaign advocacy purposes.” MCFL, supra, at 252 (plurality opinion). The Act imposes requirements similar to those in the federal statute involved in MCFL: a segregated fund must have a treasurer, § 169.221; and its administrators must keep detailed accounts of contributions, § 169.224, and file with state officials a statement of organization, ibid. In addition, a nonprofit corporation like the Chamber may solicit contributions to its political fund only from members, stockholders of members, officers or directors of members, and the spouses of any of these persons. § 169.255. Although these requirements do not stifle corporate speech entirely, they do burden expressive activity. See MCFL, 479 U. S., at 252 (plurality opinion); id., at 266 (O’Connor, J.). Thus, they must be justified by a compelling state interest.
B
The State contends that the unique legal and economic characteristics of corporations necessitate some regulation of their political expenditures-to avoid corruption or the appearance of corruption. See FEC v. National Conservative Political Action Committee, 470 U. S. 480, 496-497 (1985) (NCPAC) (“[Preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption are the only legitimate and compelling government interests thus far identified for restricting campaign finances”). State law grants corporations special advantages — such as limited liability, perpetual life, and favorable treatment of the accumulation and distribution of assets — that enhance their ability to attract capital and to deploy their resources in ways that maximize the return on their shareholders’ investments. These state-created advantages not only allow corporations to play a dominant role in the Nation’s economy, but also permit them to use “resources amassed in the economic marketplace” to obtain “an unfair advantage in the political marketplace.” MCFL, 479 U. S., at 257. As the Court explained in MCFL, the political advantage of corporations is unfair because
“[t]he resources in the treasury of a business corporation . . . are not an indication of popular support for the corporation’s political ideas. They reflect instead the economically motivated decisions of investors and customers. The availability of these resources may make a corporation a formidable political presence, even though the power of the corporation may be no reflection of the power of its ideas.” Id., at 258.
We therefore have recognized that “the compelling governmental interest in preventing corruption supports] the restriction of the influence of political war chests tunneled through the corporate form.” NCPAC, supra, at 500-501; see also MCFL, supra, at 257.
The Chamber argues that this concern about corporate domination of the political process is insufficient to justify a restriction on independent expenditures. Although this Court has distinguished these expenditures from direct contributions in the context of federal laws regulating individual donors, Buckley, 424 U. S., at 47, it has also recognized that a legislature might demonstrate a danger of real or apparent corruption posed by such expenditures when made by corporations to influence candidate elections, Bellotti, supra, at 788, n. 26. Regardless of whether this danger of “financial quid pro quo” corruption, see NCPAC, supra, at 497; post, at 702-705 (Kennedy, J., dissenting), may be sufficient to justify a restriction on independent expenditures, Michigan’s regulation aims at a/ different type of corruption in the political arena: the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s political ideas. See swpra, at 658-659. The Act does not attempt “to equalize the relative influence of speakers on elections,” post, at 705 (Kennedy, J., dissenting); see also post, at 684 (Scalia, J., dissenting); rather, it ensures that expenditures reflect actual public support for the political ideas espoused by corporations. We emphasize that the mere fact that corporations may accumulate large amounts of wealth is not the justification for §q4; rather, the unique state-conferred corporate structure that facilitates the amassing of large treasuries warrants the limit on independent expenditures. Corporate wealth qpi unfairly influence elections when it is deployed in the form of independent expenditures, just as it can when it assumes the guise of political contributions. We therefore hold that the State has articulated a sufficiently compelling rationale to support its restriction on independent expenditures by corporations.
C
We next turn to the question whether the Act is sufficiently narrowly tailored to achieve its goal. We find that the Act is precisely targeted to eliminate the distortion caused by corporate spending while also allowing corporations to express their political views. Contrary to the dissents’ critical assumptions, see post, at 698, 699, 706 (Kennedy, J.); post, at 680, 682-683 (Scalia, J.), the Act does not impose an absolute ban on all forms of corporate political spending but permits corporations to make independent political expenditures through separate segregated funds. Because persons contributing to such funds understand that their money will be used solely for political purposes, the speech generated accurately reflects contributors’ support for the corporation’s political views. See MCFL, supra, at 258.
The Chamber argues that §54(1) is substantially overinclusive, because it includes within its scope closely held corporations that do not possess vast reservoirs of capital. We rejected a similar argument in FEC v. National Right to Work Committee, 459 U. S. 197 (1982) (NRWC), in the context of federal restrictions on the persons' from whom corporations could solicit contributions to their segregated funds. The Court found that the federal campaign statute, 2 U. S. C. § 441b, “reflected] a legislative judgment that the special characteristics of the corporate structure require particularly careful regulation. While § 441b restricts the solicitation of corporations and labor unions without great financial resources, as well as those more fortunately situated, we accept Congress’ judgment that it is the potential for such influence that demands regulation.” 459 U. S., at 209-210 (citation omitted; emphasis added). Although some closely held corporations, just as some publicly held ones, may not have accumulated significant amounts of wealth, they receive from the State the special benefits conferred by the corporate structure and present the potential for distorting the political process. This potential for distortion justifies § 54(l)’s general applicability to all corporations. The section therefore is not substantially overbroad.
Ill
The Chamber contends that even if the Campaign Finance Act is constitutional with respect to for-profit corporations, it nonetheless cannot be applied to a nonprofit ideological corporation like a chamber of commerce. In MCFL, we held that the nonprofit organization there had “features more akin to voluntary political associations than business firms, and therefore should not have to bear burdens on independent spending solely because of [its] incorporated status.” 479 U. S., at 263. In reaching that conclusion, we enumerated three characteristics of the corporation that were “essential” to our holding. Ibid. Because the Chamber does not share these crucial features, the Constitution does not require that it be exempted from the generally applicable provisions of §54(1).
The first characteristic of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc., that distinguished it from ordinary business corporations was that the organization “was formed for the express purpose of promoting political ideas, and cannot engage in business activities.” Id., at 264. Its articles of incorporation indicated that its purpose was “[t]o foster respect for human life and to defend the right to life of all human beings, born and unborn, through educational, political and other forms of activities,” id., at 241-242, and all of the organization’s activities were “designed to further its agenda,” id., at 242. MCFL’s narrow political focus thus “ensure[d] that [its] political resources reflected] political support.” Id., at 264.
In contrast, the Chamber’s bylaws set forth more varied purposes, see supra, at 656, several of which are not inherently political. For instance, the Chamber compiles and disseminates information relating to social, civic, and economic conditions, trains and educates its members, and promotes ethical business practices. Unlike MCFL’s, the Chamber’s educational activities are not expressly tied to political goals; many of its seminars, conventions, and publications are politically neutral and focus on business and economic issues. The Chamber’s president and chief executive officer stated that one of the corporation’s main purposes is to provide “service to [its] membership that includes everything from group insurance to educational seminars, and . . . litigation activities on behalf of the business community.” Deposition of E. James Barrett, Nov. 12, 1985, p. 11. See also PR News-wire, July 21, 1989 (Chamber cosponsored the Automotive Management Briefing Seminar); PR Newswire, May 9, 1989 (Chamber cosponsored the Michigan New Product Awards competition); PR Newswire, June 14, 1988 (Chamber sponsored seminar on product liability losses and lawsuits); PR Newswire, Feb. 4, 1988 (Chamber cosponsored outreach program to increase awareness of investment opportunities in the Caribbean Basin). The Chamber’s nonpolitical activities therefore suffice to distinguish it from MCFL in the context of this characteristic.
We described the second feature of MCFL as the absence of “shareholders or other persons affiliated so as to have a claim on its assets or earnings. This ensures that persons connected with the organization will have no economic disincentive for disassociating with it if they disagree with its political activity.” 479 U. S., at 264. Although the Chamber also lacks shareholders, many of its members may be similarly reluctant to withdraw as members even if they disagree with the Chamber’s political expression, because they wish to benefit from the Chamber’s nonpolitical programs and to establish contacts with other members of the business community. The Chamber’s political agenda is sufficiently distinct from its educational and outreach programs that members who disagree with the former may continue to pay dues to participate in the latter. Justice Kennedy ignores these disincentives for withdrawing as a member of the Chamber, stating only that “[o]ne need not become a member ... to earn a living.” Post, at 710 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). Certainly, members would be disinclined to terminate their involvement with the organization on the basis of less extreme disincentives than the loss of employment. Thus, we are persuaded that the Chamber’s members are more similar to shareholders of a business corporation than to the members of MCFL in this respect.
The final characteristic upon which we relied in MCFL was the organization’s independence from the influence of business corporations. On this score, the Chamber differs most greatly from the Massachusetts organization. MCFL was not established by, and had a policy of not accepting contributions from, business corporations. Thus it could not “serv[e] as [a] condui[t] for the type of direct spending that creates a threat to the political marketplace.” 479 U. S., at 264. In striking contrast, more than three-quarters of the Chamber’s members are business corporations, whose political contributions and expenditures can constitutionally be regulated by the State. See Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S., at 29 (upholding restrictions on political contributions); supra, at 658-661 (regarding independent expenditures). As we read the Act, a corporation’s payments into the Chamber’s general treasury would not be considered payments to influence an election, so they would not be “contributions” or “expenditures,” see §§ 169.204(1), 169.206, and would not be subject to the Act’s limitations. Business corporations therefore could circumvent the Act’s restriction by tunneling money through the Chamber’s general treasury. Because the Chamber accepts money from for-profit corporations, it could, absent application of § 54(1), serve as a conduit for corporate political spending. In sum, the Chamber does not possess the features that would compel the State to exempt it from restriction on independent political expenditures.
IV
The Chamber also attacks § 54(1) as underinclusive because it does not regulate the independent expenditures of unincorporated labor unions. Whereas unincorporated unions, and indeed individuals, may be able to amass large treasuries, they do so without the significant state-conferred advantages of the corporate structure; corporations are “by far the most prominent example of entities that enjoy legal advantages enhancing their ability to accumulate wealth.” MCFL, 479 U. S., at 258, n. 11. The desire to counterbalance those advantages unique to the corporate form is the State’s compelling interest in this case; thus, excluding from the statute’s coverage unincorporated entities that also have the capacity to accumulate wealth “does not undermine its justification for regulating corporations.” Ibid.
Moreover, labor unions differ from corporations in that union members who disagree with a union’s political activities need not give up full membership in the organization to avoid supporting its political activities. Although a union and an employer may require that all bargaining unit employees become union members, a union may not compel those employees to support financially “union activities beyond those germane to collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment.” Communications Workers v. Beck, 487 U. S. 735, 745 (1988). See also Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., 431 U. S. 209 (1977) (holding that compelling nonmember employees to contribute to union’s political activities infringes employees’ First Amendment rights). An employee who objects to a union’s political activities thus can decline to contribute to those activities, while continuing to enjoy the benefits derived from the union’s performance of its duties as the exclusive representative of the bargaining unit on labor-management issues. As a result, the funds available for a union’s political activities more accurately reflects members’ support for the organization’s political views than does a corporation’s general treasury. Michigan’s decision to exclude unincorporated labor unions from the scope of § 54(1) is therefore justified by the crucial differences between unions and corporations.
V
Because we hold that §54(1) does not violate the First Amendment, we must address the Chamber’s contention that the provision infringes its rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Chamber argues that the statute treats similarly situated entities unequally. Specifically, it contends that the State should also restrict the independent expenditures of unincorporated associations with the ability to accumulate large treasuries and of corporations engaged in the media business.
Because the right to engage in political expression is fundamental to our constitutional system, statutory classifications impinging upon that right must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest. Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92, 101 (1972). We find that, even under such strict scrutiny, the statute’s classifications pass muster under the Equal Protection Clause. As we explained in the context of our discussions of whether the statute was overinclusive, supra, at 660-661, or under inclusive, supra, ■ at 665 and this page, the State’s decision to regulate only corporations is precisely tailored to serve the compelling state interest of eliminating from the political process the corrosive effect of political “war chests” amassed with the aid of the legal advantages given to corporations.
Similarly, we find that the Act’s exemption of media corporations from the expenditure restriction does not render the statute unconstitutional. The “media exception” ex-eludes from the definition of “expenditure” any “expenditure by a broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other periodical or publication for any news story, commentary, or editorial in support of or opposition to a candidate for elective office ... in the regular course of publication or broadcasting,” § 169.206(3)(d). The Court of Appeals did not address the Chamber’s equal protection argument because it found that the application of §54(1) to the Chamber violates the First Amendment. See 856 F. 2d, at 790. The District Court, however, appeared to hold that the media exception does not implicate the Equal Protection Clause because “[a]ny corporation . . . may avail itself of the exemption” by entering the news broadcasting or publishing business. 643 F. Supp., at 405. We are persuaded, however, that a. Fourteenth Amendment analysis is necessary in this case. It is true that the exemption does not refer expressly to “media corporations.” Nevertheless, the exception will undoubtedly result in the imposition of fewer restrictions on the expression of corporations that are in the media business. Thus, it cannot be regarded as neutral, and the distinction must be justified by a compelling state purpose.
Although all corporations enjoy the same state-conferred benefits inherent in the corporate form, media corporations differ significantly from other corporations in that their resources are devoted to the collection of information and its dissemination to the public. We have consistently recognized the unique role that the press plays in “informing and educating the public, offering criticism, and providing a forum for discussion and debate.” Bellotti, 435 U. S., at 781. See also Mills v. Alabama, 384 U. S. 214, 219 (1966) (“[T]he press serves and was designed to serve as a powerful antidote to any abuses of power by governmental officials and as a constitutionally chosen means for keeping officials elected by the people responsible to all the people whom they were selected to serve”). The Act’s definition of “expenditure,” § 169.206, conceivably could be interpreted to encompass election-related news stories and editorials. The Act’s restriction on independent expenditures therefore might discourage incorporated news broadcasters or publishers from serving their crucial societal role. The media exception ensures that the Áct does not hinder or'prevent the institutional press from reporting on, and publishing editorials about, newsworthy events. Cf. H. R. Rep. No. 93-1239, p. 4 (1974) (explaining a similar federal media exception, 2 U. S. C. §431(9)(B)(i), as “assuring] the unfettered right of the newspapers, TV networks, and other media to cover and comment on political campaigns”); 15 U. S. C. §§ 1801-1804 (enacting a limited exemption from the antitrust laws for newspapers in part because of the recognition of the special role of the press). A valid distinction thus exists between corporations that are part of the media industry and other corporations that are not involved in the regular business of imparting news to the public. Although the press’ unique societal role may not entitle the press to greater protection under the Constitution, Bellotti, supra, at 782, and n. 18, it does provide a compelling reason for the State to exempt media corporations from the scope of political expenditure limitations. We therefore hold that the Act does not violate the Equal Protection Clause.
VI
Michigan identified as a serious danger the significant possibility that corporate political expenditures will undermine the integrity of the political process, and it has implemented a narrowly tailored solution to that problem. By requiring corporations to make all independent political expenditures through a separate fund made up of money solicited expressly for political purposes, the Michigan Campaign Finance Act reduces the threat that huge corporate treasuries amassed with the aid of favorable state laws will be used to influence unfairly the outcome of elections. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce does not exhibit the characteristics identified in MCFL that would require the State to exempt it from a generally applicable restriction on independent corporate expenditures. We therefore reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
Section 54(1) is modeled on a provision of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, 86 Stat. 11, as amended, 2 U. S. C. §§ 431-455, that requires corporations and labor unions to use segregated funds to finance independent expenditures made in federal elections. § 441b.
A requirement that the Chamber disclose the nature and extent of its political activities, see post, at 707 (Kennedy, J., dissenting), would not eliminate the possible distortion of the political process inherent in independent expenditures from general corporate funds. Given the significant incentive for members to continue their financial support for the Chamber in spite of their disagreement with its political agenda, disclosure will not ensure that the funds in the Chamber’s treasury correspond to members’ support for its ideas.
A nonprofit corporation’s segregated fund, on the other hand, apparently cannot receive contributions from corporations. See Mich. Comp. Laws § 169.255(3) (1979) (allowing contributions only from “(a) Members of the corporation who are individuals, (b) Stockholders of members of the corporation, (c) Officers or directors of members of the corporation”). In addition, a corporation’s payment to a segregated fund would likely be considered a contribution or expenditure because the sole purpose of such segregated funds is to make political contributions and expenditures. § 169.255(1). The segregated fund, therefore, could not be used as a conduit for business corporations’ political spending.
The Federal Election Campaign Act restricts the independent expenditures of labor organizations as well as those of corporations. 2 U. S. C. § 441b(a).
The Federal Election Campaign Act contains a similar exemption that excludes from the definition of expenditure “any news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, unless such facilities are owned or controlled by any political party, political committee, or candidate.” 2 U. S. C. § 431(9)(B)(i).
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 Goldberg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These appeals raise the question of whether the McGuire Act, 66 Stat. 631, 15 U. S. C. §§ 45 (a)(l)-(5), permits the application and enforcement of the Ohio Fair Trade Act against appellant in support of appellees’ systems of retail price maintenance. For the reasons stated below, we hold that the Ohio Act, as applied to the facts of these cases, comes within the provisions of the McGuire Act exempting certain resale price systems from the prohibitions of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U. S. C. § 1 et seg.
The two appeals, one involving The Upjohn Co. and one involving Eli Lilly & Co., were considered together in the Ohio courts. For simplicity we state only the facts of the Lilly case. Appellant, Hudson Distributors, Inc., owns and operates a retail drug chain in Cleveland, Ohio. Appellee, Eli Lilly & Co., manufactures pharmaceutical products bearing its trademarks and trade names. Lilly sells its products directly to wholesalers and makes no sales to retailers. Hudson purchases Lilly brand products from Regal D. S., Inc., a Michigan wholesaler.
In June 1959, the Ohio Legislature enacted a new Fair Trade Act, Ohio Revised Code §§ 1333.27-1333.34. Subsequently Lilly sent letters to all Ohio retailers of Lilly products, including Hudson, to notify them of Lilly’s intention to establish minimum retail resale prices for its trademarked products pursuant to the new Ohio Act and to invite the retailers to enter into written fair-trade contracts. More than 1,400 Ohio retailers of Lilly products (about 65% of all the retail pharmacists in Ohio) signed fair-trade contracts with Lilly. Hudson, however, refused to enter into a written contract with Lilly and ignored the specified minimum resale prices. Lilly formally notified Hudson that the Ohio Act required Hudson to observe the minimum retail resale prices for Lilly commodities. Hudson, nevertheless, continued to purchase and then to resell Lilly products at less than the stipulated minimum retail resale prices.
Hudson thereupon filed a petition in the Court of Common Pleas for Cuyahoga County, Ohio, for a judgment declaring the Ohio Act invalid under the State Constitution and federal law. Lilly answered and cross-petitioned for enforcement of the Ohio Act against Hudson. The Court of Common Pleas held the Ohio Act unconstitutional under the State Constitution. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, after discussing the federal and state legislation, 117 Ohio App. 207, 176 N. E. 2d 236, reversed the trial court and entered a judgment declaring that the Ohio Act was not “in violation of the Constitution of the State of Ohio nor of the Constitution of the United States . . . The court remanded the case “for further proceedings according to law with respect to the cross-petition . ...” On further appeal, the Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeals. 174 Ohio St. 487, 190 N. E. 2d 460. This Court noted probable jurisdiction. 375 U. S.938, 939.
Hudson contends that the provisions of the Ohio Act under which Lilly established minimum resale prices are not authorized by the McGuire Act, 66 Stat. 631, 15 U. S. C. §§45 (a)(l)-(5). Section 2 of the McGuire Act provides in pertinent part as follows:
“Nothing contained in this section or in any of the Antitrust Acts shall render unlawful any contracts or agreements prescribing minimum or stipulated prices, . . . when contracts or agreements of that description are lawful as applied to intrastate transactions under any statute, law, or public policy now or hereafter in effect in any State . . .
Section 3 of the McGuire Act reads as follows:
“Nothing contained in this section or in any of the Antitrust Acts shall render unlawful the exercise or the enforcement of any right or right of action created by any statute, law, or public policy now or hereafter in effect in any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, which in substance provides that willfully and knowingly advertising, offering for sale, or selling any commodity at less than the price or prices prescribed in such contracts or agreements whether the person so advertising, offering for sale, or selling is or is not a party to such a contract or agreement, is unfair competition and is actionable at the suit of any person damaged thereby.”
Before the enactment of the McGuire Act, this Court in 1951 in Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 341 U. S. 384, considered whether the Miller-Tydings Act, 50 Stat. 693, 15 U. S. C. § 1, removed from the prohibition of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U. S. C. § 1 et seq., a state statute which authorized a trademark owner, by notice, to require a retailer who had not executed a written contract to observe resale price maintenance. Respondents in that case argued that since the Sherman Act outlawed “contracts” in restraint of trade and since the Miller-Tydings amendment to the Sherman Act excepted “contracts or agreements prescribing minimum prices for the resale” of a commodity where such contracts or agreements were lawful under state law, the Miller-Tydings Act therefore immunized all arrangements involving resale price maintenance authorized by state law. 341 U. S., at 387. After examining the history of the Miller-Tydings Act, the Court concluded that Congress had intended the words “contracts or agreements” as contained in that Act to be used “in their normal and customary meaning,” id., at 388, and to cover only arrangements whereby the retailer voluntarily agreed to be bound by the resale price restrictions. The Court held therefore that the state resale price maintenance law could not be applied to nonsigners — “recalcitrants . . . dragged in by the heels and compelled to submit to price fixing.” Id., at 390. The Court stated that:
“It should be remembered that it was the state laws that the federal law was designed to accommodate. Federal regulation was to give way to state regulation. When state regulation provided for resale price maintenance by both those who contracted and those who did not, and the federal regulation was relaxed only as respects 'contracts or agreements/ the inference is strong that Congress left the noncontracting group to be governed by preexisting law.” Id., at 395.
Shortly after the Schwegmann decision, Congress passed the McGuire Act, 66 Stat. 631, 15 U. S. C. §§ 45 (a) (l)-(5). The Report of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, which accompanied the McGuire Act, declared that:
"The primary purpose of the [McGuire] bill is to reaffirm the very same proposition which, in the committee’s opinion, the Congress intended to enact into law when it passed the Miller-Tydings Act . . . , to the effect that the application and enforcement of State fair-trade laws — including the nonsigner provisions of such laws — with regard to interstate transactions shall not constitute a violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act or the Sherman Antitrust Act. This reaffirmation is made necessary because of the decision of a divided Supreme Court in Schwegmann v. Calvert Distillers Corpora tion (341 U. S. 384, May 21, 1951). In that case, six members of the Court held that the Miller-Tydings Act did not exempt from these Federal laws enforcement of State fair trade laws with respect to nonsigners. Three members of the Court held that the Miller-Tydings Act did so apply.
“The end result of the Supreme Court decision has been seriously to undermine the effectiveness of the Miller-Tydings Act and, in turn, of the fair-trade laws enacted by 45 States. H. R. 5767, as amended, is designed to restore the effectiveness of these acts by making it abundantly clear that Congress means to let State fair-trade laws apply in their totality; that is, with respect to nonsigners as well as signers.” (Emphasis added.) H. R. Rep. No. 1437, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., at 1-2.
This authoritative report evinces the clear intention of Congress that, where sanctioned by a state fair-trade act, a trademark owner such as Lilly could be permitted to enforce, even against a nonsigning retailer such as Hudson, the stipulated minimum prices established by written contracts with other retailers.
Without disputing this interpretation of the McGuire Act, Hudson argues that the Ohio Act as interpreted by the Ohio courts reaches beyond the exemptive terms of the federal Act by permitting the maintenance of resale prices “by notice alone” where no contract has been entered into between the owner of the trademark and any retailer. Hudson emphasizes that the Ohio courts sustained the Ohio Act under the State Constitution on the theory that Hudson, simply by acquiring Lilly’s products with notice of the stipulated prices, impliedly contracted to observe the minimum prices. This implied contract theory was deemed necessary by the Ohio Legislature and by the Ohio courts to satisfy the State Constitution which had recently been held to invalidate the enforcement of resale prices against nonsigners. Union Carbide & Carbon Corp. v. Bargain Fair, Inc., 167 Ohio St. 182, 147 N. E. 2d 481 (1958). Whatever merit there may be in the argument that the logic of the Ohio implied contract theory would apply to prices set by notice alone and without any conventional or express contracts, on the facts of the present case we need not and do not consider whether a state statute so applied would involve “contracts or agreements” in the sense in which those terms are used in the McGuire Act. The undisputed facts show that Lilly had established a system of resale price maintenance involving written contracts with some 1,400 Ohio retailers. Section 1333.29 (A) of the Ohio Act authorizes the establishment of minimum prices through such contracts. Under these circumstances the fact that the Ohio law, as construed for purposes of assessing its validity under the State Constitution, regards Hudson as a “contractor” (or “implied contractor”) rather than as a nonsigner does not control the application and effect of the federal statute — the McGuire Act. Section 3 of the federal Act plainly upholds “any right or right of action created by any statute ... in effect in any State . . . which in substance” permits enforcement of resale prices prescribed in contracts whether or not the violating seller was a party to those contracts. For the purposes of § 3 of the McGuire Act, therefore, it is clear that these cases involve the requisite contracts with retailers, that, regardless of whether Hudson itself entered into “contracts” within the meaning of the McGuire Act, Hudson was at least a nonsigner, and that under such circumstances Congress plainly intended “to let State fair-trade laws apply . . . with respect to nonsigners as well as signers.” H. R. Rep. No. 1437, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., at 2. Accordingly we hold that the Ohio Act, as applied to the facts of these cases, comes within the terms of the McGuire Act.
Hudson also argues that the Ohio statute can be read to authorize fair-trade prices to be established by persons other than the owner of the trademark or trade name. This contention raises a hypothetical issue: Lilly is the owner of all trademarks affixed to its goods and the Ohio Supreme Court has not interpreted the statute as applying to persons other than owners. Hudson further argues that § 1333.29 (A) of the Ohio Act authorizes a proprietor to establish minimum resale prices for wholesale distributors with whom it competes and therefore conflicts with the McGuire Act under this Court’s decision in United States v. McKesson & Robbins, Inc., 351 U. S. 305. This argument also raises a hypothetical question for, as noted, Lilly sells only to wholesalers and does not sell to retailers.
The questions raised by Hudson in its second amended answer to the cross-petition, including the contention that Paragraph 6 of the Lilly fair-trade contracts compels retailers to enter into allegedly unlawful horizontal price-fixing agreements in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act, are not properly before us. They are pending and unresolved in the Ohio Court of Common Pleas, Cuyahoga County. Hudson’s remaining questions are not properly presented for resolution on this appeal; they concern issues involving alleged interpretations of the Ohio Act not made or considered by the Ohio courts or not raised by the facts of the case. Asbury Hospital v. Cass County, 326 U. S. 207, 213-214; Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450, 470-471.
The price fixing authorized by the Ohio Fair Trade Act and involving goods moving in interstate commerce would be, absent approval by Congress, clearly illegal under the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209,15 U. S. C. § 1 et seq. Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co., 220 U. S. 373. “Fixing minimum prices, like other types of price fixing, is illegal per se.” Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp., supra, at 386. Congress, however, in the McGuire Act has approved state statutes sanctioning resale price maintenance schemes such as those involved here. Whether it is good policy to permit such laws is a matter for Congress to decide. Where the statutory language and the legislative history clearly indicate the purpose of Congress that purpose must be upheld. We therefore affirm the judgments of the Supreme Court of Ohio.
Affirmed.
The Supreme Court of Ohio stated: “The facts in both cases are similar and the law applicable is the same. The appeals will be treated together, since the assignments of errors in both cases are exactly the same.” 174 Ohio St. 487, 190 N. E. 2d 460.
Hudson, in its second amended answer to the cross-petition, allegedly raised the following defenses:
“(1) Hudson did not wilfully resell at less than Lilly’s fair trade prices;
“(2) Lilly, a foreign corporation, was not properly licensed to transact business in the State of Ohio;
“(3) paragraph 6 of Lilly’s fair trade contract [which provides that: “Retailer agrees not to knowingly sell any of Manufacturer’s ‘Identified Commodities’ to any dealer who fails to observe the minimum retail resale prices established under Paragraph 3 hereof”] compelled retailers to enter into unlawful horizontal price fixing agreements in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act . . . ;
“(4) Lilly was not uniformly enforcing its fair trade program on trade-marked commodities in Ohio; and
“(5) Lilly modified its fair trade program by abandoning enforcement on its prescription products in Ohio.”
The issues on the cross-petition are pending in the Court of Common Pleas, Cuyahoga County; further proceedings have been stayed by that court pending the outcome of this appeal.
The decision was affirmed by a 3-to-4 vote. The Ohio Constitution, Art. IV, §2, provides: “No law shall be held unconstitutional and void by the supreme court without the concurrence of at least all but one of the judges, except in the affirmance of a judgment of the court of appeals declaring a law unconstitutional and void.”
The fact that separate and unresolved issues are pending in the Ohio courts and subject to “further proceedings” therein on the cross-petition does not render the judgment of the Ohio Supreme Court on the issue here considered and decided nonfinal or unappealable within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 1257. Cf. Local No. 488 Construction & General Laborers’ Union, AFL-CIO, v. Curry, 371 U. S. 542, 548-552; Mercantile Nat. Bank v. Langdeau, 371 U. S. 555, 557-558.
The McGuire Act amended § 5 (a) of the Federal Trade Commission Act, as amended. Section 5 (a) (2) of the latter statute as thus amended, 15 U. S. C. §45 (a)(2), is referred to herein simply as Section 2 of the McGuire Act, and §5 (a)(3), 15 U. S. C. §45 (a) (3), is referred to as Section 3 of the McGuire Act.
The purpose o'f the McGuire Act is stated in its preamble: “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it is the purpose of this Act to protect the rights of States under the United States Constitution to regulate their internal affairs and more particularly to enact statutes and laws, and to adopt policies, which authorize contracts and agreements prescribing minimum or stipulated prices for the resale of commodities and to extend the minimum or stipulated prices prescribed by such contracts and agreements to persons who are not parties thereto. It is the further purpose of this Act to permit such statutes, laws, and public policies to apply to commodities, contracts, agreements, and activities in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce.” 66 Stat. 631-632.
See United States v. McKesson & Robbins, Inc., 351 U. S. 305, 311, n. 14: “The McGuire Act . . . specifically exempts from the antitrust laws price fixing under 'fair trade’ agreements which bind not only retailers who are parties to the agreement but also retailers who refuse to sign the agreement.”
See Note, 77 Harv. L. Rev. 763, 766-767 (1964).
The Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County expressly noted that: “These [manufacturers] have entered into many written contracts with retail pharmaceutical establishments in Ohio, determining the retail resale price for their trademarked or branded commodities and have caused notice of these contracts and the prices therein established to be served on [Hudson].” 117 Ohio App. 207, 208; 176 N. E. 2d 236, 237.
Hudson contends that the Upjohn case is distinguishable in this regard for Upjohn allegedly does not sell only to retailers. It is clear, however, that this contention was reserved for future determination by the Ohio courts pursuant to a stipulation of the parties and was not in any event passed upon in the decision from which the present appeal is taken.
See note 2, 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:
|
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 Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether the Constitution prohibits a jury from considering a “victim impact statement” during the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial.
I — I
In 1983, Irvin Bronstein, 78, and his wife Rose, 75, were robbed and murdered in their West Baltimore home. The murderers, John Booth and Willie Reid, entered the victims’ home for the apparent purpose of stealing money to buy heroin. Booth, a neighbor of the Bronsteins, knew that the elderly couple could identify him. The victims were bound and gagged, and then stabbed repeatedly in the chest with a kitchen knife. The bodies were discovered two days later by the Bronsteins’ son.
A jury found Booth guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of robbery, and conspiracy to commit robbery. The prosecution requested the death penalty, and Booth elected to have his sentence determined by the jury instead of the judge. See Md. Ann. Code, Art. 27, § 413(b) (1982). Before the sentencing phase began, the State Division of Parole and Probation (DPP) compiled a presentence report that described Booth’s background, education and employment history, and criminal record. Under a Maryland statute, the presentence report in all felony cases also must include a victim impact statement (VIS), describing the effect of the crime on the victim and his family. Md. Ann. Code, Art. 41, § 4-609(c) (1986). Specifically, the report shall:
“(i) Identify the victim of the offense;
“(ii) Itemize any economic loss suffered by the victim as a result of the offense;
“(iii) Identify any physical injury suffered by the victim as a result of the offense along with its seriousness and permanence;
“(iv) Describe any change in the victim’s personal welfare or familial relationships as a result of the offense;
“(v) Identity any request for psychological services initiated by the victim or the victim’s family as a result of the offense; and
“(vi) Contain any other information related to the impact of the offense upon the victim or the victim’s family that the trial court requires.” §4-609(c)(3).
Although the VIS is compiled by the DPP, the information is supplied by the victim or the victim’s family. See §§ 4— 609(c)(4), (d). The VIS may be read to the jury during the sentencing phase, or the family members may be called to testify as to the information.
The VIS in Booth’s case was based on interviews with the Bronsteins’ son, daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter. Many of their comments emphasized the victims’ outstanding personal qualities, and noted how deeply the Bronsteins would be missed. Other parts of the VIS described the emotional and personal problems the family members have faced as a result of the crimes. The son, for example, said that he suffers from lack of sleep and depression, and is “fearful for the first time in his life.” App. 61. He said that in his opinion, his parents were “butchered like animals.” Ibid. The daughter said she also suffers from lack of sleep, and that since the murders she has become withdrawn and distrustful. She stated that she can no longer watch violent movies or look at kitchen knives without being reminded of the murders. The daughter concluded that she could not forgive the murderer, and that such a person could “[n]ever be rehabilitated.” Id., at 62. Finally, the granddaughter described how the deaths had ruined the wedding of another close family member that took place a few days after the bodies were discovered. Both the ceremony and the reception were sad affairs, and instead of leaving for her honeymoon, the bride attended the victims’ funeral. The VIS also noted that the granddaughter had received counseling for several months after the incident, but eventually had stopped because she concluded that “no one could help her.” Id., at 63.
The DPP official who conducted the interviews concluded the VIS by writing:
“It became increasingly apparent to the writer as she talked to the family members that the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Bronstein is still such a shocking, painful, and devastating memory to them that it permeates every aspect of their daily lives. It is doubtful that they will ever be able to fully recover from this tragedy and not be haunted by the memory of the brutal manner in which their loved ones were murdered and taken from them.” Id., at 63-64.
Defense counsel moved to suppress the VIS on the ground that this information was both irrelevant and unduly inflammatory, and that therefore its use in a capital case violated the Eighth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. The Maryland trial court denied the motion, ruling that the jury was entitled to consider “any and all evidence which would bear on the [sentencing decision].” Id., at 6. Booth’s lawyer then requested that the prosecutor simply read the VIS to the jury rather than call the family members to testify before the jury. Defense counsel was concerned that the use of live witnesses would increase the inflammatory effect of the information. The prosecutor agreed to this arrangement.
The jury sentenced Booth to death for the murder of Mr. Bronstein and to life imprisonment for the murder of Mrs. Bronstein. On automatic appeal, the Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction and the sentences. 306 Md. 172, 507 A. 2d 1098 (1986). The court rejected Booth’s claim that the VIS injected an arbitrary factor into the sentencing decision. The court noted that it had considered this argument in Lodowski v. State, 302 Md. 691, 490 A. 2d 1228 (1985), vacated on other grounds, 475 U. S. 1078 (1986), and concluded that a VIS serves an important interest by informing the sentencer of the full measure of harm caused by the crime. The Court of Appeals then examined the VIS in Booth’s case, and concluded that it is a “relatively straightforward and factual description of the effects of these murders on members of the Bronstein family.” 306 Md., at 223, 507 A. 2d, at 1124. It held that the death sentence had not been imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or other arbitrary factors. See Md. Ann. Code, Art. 27, § 414(e)(1) (1982).
We granted certiorari to decide whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits a capital sentencing jury from considering victim impact evidence. 479 U. S. 882 (1986). We conclude that it does, and now reverse.
i — I I — I
It is well settled that a jury’s discretion to impose the death sentence must be “suitably directed and limited so as to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action.” Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 189 (1976) (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.); California v. Ramos, 463 U. S. 992, 999 (1983). Although this Court normally will defer to a state legislature’s determination of what factors are relevant to the sentencing decision, the Constitution places some limits on this discretion. See, e. g., id., at 1000-1001. Specifically, we have said that a jury must make an “individualized determination” whether the defendant in question should be executed, based on “the character of the individual and the circumstances of the crime.” Zant v. Stephens, 462 U. S. 862, 879 (1983) (emphasis in original). See also Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U. S. 104, 112 (1982). And while this Court has never said that the defendant’s record, characteristics, and the circumstances of the crime are the only permissible sentencing considerations, a state statute that requires consideration of other factors must be scrutinized to ensure that the evidence has some bearing on the defendant’s “personal responsibility and moral guilt.” Enmund v. Florida, 458 U. S. 782, 801 (1982). To do otherwise would create the risk that a death sentence will be based on considerations that are “constitutionally impermissible or totally irrelevant to the sentencing process.” See Zant v. Stephens, supra, at 885.
The VIS in this case provided the jury with two types of information. First, it described the personal characteristics of the victims and the emotional impact of the crimes on the family. Second, it set forth the family members’ opinions and characterizations of the crimes and the defendant. For the reasons stated below, we- find that this information is irrelevant to a capital sentencing decision, and that its admission creates a constitutionally unacceptable risk that the jury may impose the death penalty in an arbitrary and capricious manner.
A
The greater part of the VIS is devoted to a description of the emotional trauma suffered by the family and the personal characteristics of the victims. The State claims that this evidence should be considered a “circumstance” of the crime because it reveals the full extent of the harm caused by Booth’s actions. In the State’s view, there is a direct, foreseeable nexus between the murders and the harm to the family, and thus it is not “arbitrary” for the jury to consider these consequences in deciding whether to impose the death penalty. Although “victim impact” is not an aggravating factor under Maryland law, the State claims that by knowing the extent of the impact upon and the severity of the loss to the family, the jury was better able to assess the “ ‘gravity or aggravating quality’ ” of the offense. Brief for Respondent 21 (quoting Lodowski v. State, 302 Md., at 741-742, 490 A. 2d, at 1254).
While the full range of foreseeable consequences of a defendant’s actions may be relevant in other criminal and civil contexts, we cannot agree that it is relevant in the unique circumstance of a capital sentencing hearing. In such a case, it is the function of the sentencing jury to “express the conscience of the community on the ultimate question of life or death.” Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510, 519 (1968). When carrying out this task the jury is required to focus on the defendant as a “uniquely individual human bein[g].” Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, 304 (1976) (plurality opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.). The focus of a VIS, however, is not on the defendant, but on the character and reputation of the victim and the effect on his family. These factors may be wholly unrelated to the blameworthiness of a particular defendant. As our cases have shown, the defendant often will not know the victim, and therefore will have no knowledge about the existence or characteristics of the victim’s family. Moreover, defendants rarely select their victims based on whether the murder will have an effect on anyone other than the person murdered. Allowing the jury to rely on a VIS therefore could result in imposing the death sentence because of factors about which the defendant was unaware, and that were irrelevant to the decision to kill. This evidence thus could divert the jury’s attention away from the defendant’s background and record, and the circumstances of the crime.
It is true that in certain cases some of the information contained in a VIS will have been known to the defendant before he committed the offense. As we have recognized, a defendant’s degree of knowledge of the probable consequences of his actions may increase his moral culpability in a constitutionally significant manner. See Tison v. Arizona, 481 U. S. 137, 157-158 (1987). We nevertheless find that because of the nature of the information contained in a VIS, it creates an impermissible risk that the capital sentencing decision will be made in an arbitrary manner.
As evidenced by the full text of the VIS in this case, see Appendix to this opinion, the family members were articulate and persuasive in expressing their grief and the extent of their loss. But in some cases the victim will not leave behind a family, or the family members may be less articulate in describing their feelings even though their sense of loss is equally severe. The fact that the imposition of the death sentence may turn on such distinctions illustrates the danger of allowing juries to consider this information. Certainly the degree to which a family is willing and able to express its grief is irrelevant to the decision whether a defendant, who may merit the death penalty, should live or die. See 306 Md., at 233, 507 A. 2d, at 1129 (Cole, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (concluding that it is arbitrary to make capital sentencing decisions based on a VIS, “which vary greatly from case to case depending upon the ability of the family member to express his grief”).
Nor is there any justification for permitting such a decision to turn on the perception that the victim was a sterling member of the community rather than someone of questionable character. This type of information does not provide a “principled way to distinguish [cases] in which the death penalty was imposed, from the many cases in which it was not.” Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U. S. 420, 433 (1980) (opinion of Stewart, J.). See also Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U. S. 1, 14-15 (1986) (Powell, J., concurring in judgment).
We also note that it would be difficult — if not impossible— to provide a fair opportunity to rebut such evidence without shifting the focus of the sentencing hearing away from the defendant. A threshold problem is that victim impact information is not easily susceptible to rebuttal. Presumably the defendant would have the right to cross-examine the de-clarants, but he rarely would be able to show that the family members have exaggerated the degree of sleeplessness, depression, or emotional trauma suffered. Moreover, if the state is permitted to introduce evidence of the victim’s personal qualities, it cannot be doubted that the defendant also must be given the chance to rebut this evidence. See Gardner v. Florida, 430 U. S. 349, 362 (1977) (opinion of Stevens, J.) (due process requires that defendant be given a chance to rebut presentence report). See also Md. Ann. Code, Art. 27, § 413(c)(v) (1982). Putting aside the strategic risks of attacking the victim’s character before the jury, in appropriate cases the defendant presumably would be permitted to put on evidence that the victim was of dubious moral character, was unpopular, or was ostracized from his family. The prospect of a “mini-trial” on the victim’s character is more than simply unappealing; it could well distract the sentencing jury from its constitutionally required task— determining whether the death penalty is appropriate in light of the background and record of the accused and the particular circumstances of the crime. We thus reject the contention that the presence or absence of emotional distress of the victim’s family, or the victim’s personal characteristics, are proper sentencing considerations in a capital case.
B
The second type of information presented to the jury in the VIS was the family members’ opinions and characterizations of the crimes. The Bronsteins’ son, for example, stated that his parents were “butchered like animals,” and that he “doesn’t think anyone should be able to do something like that and get away with it.” App. 61. The VIS also noted that the Bronstein’s daughter
“could never forgive anyone for killing [her parents] that way. She can’t believe that anybody could do that to someone. The victims’ daughter states that animals wouldn’t do this. [The perpetrators] didn’t have to kill because there was no one to stop them from looting.... The murders show the viciousness of the killers’ anger. She doesn’t feel that the people who did this could ever be rehabilitated and she doesn’t want them to be able to do this again or put another family through this.” Id., at 62.
One can understand the grief and anger of the family caused by the brutal murders in this case, and there is no doubt that jurors generally are aware of these feelings. But the formal presentation of this information by the State can serve no other purpose than to inflame the jury and divert it from deciding the case on the relevant evidence concerning the crime and the defendant. As we have noted, any decision to impose the death sentence must “be, and appear to be, based on reason rather than caprice or emotion.” Gardner v. Florida, supra, at 358 (opinion of Stevens, J.). The admission of these emotionally charged opinions as to what conclusions the jury should draw from the evidence clearly is inconsistent with the reasoned decisionmaking we require in capital cases.
Ill
We conclude that the introduction of a VIS at the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial violates the Eighth Amendment, and therefore the Maryland statute is invalid to the extent it requires consideration of this information. The decision of the Maryland Court of Appeals is vacated to the extent that it affirmed the capital sentence. The case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT
‘VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT
[The Victim Impact Statement in this case was prepared by the Maryland Division of Parole and Probation. See n. 2, supra. ]
“Mr. and Mrs. Bronstein’s son, daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter were interviewed for purposes of the Victim Impact Statement. There are also four other grandchildren in the family. The victims’ son reports that his parents had been married for fifty-three years and enjoyed a very close relationship, spending each day together. He states that his father had worked hard all his life and had been retired for eight years. He describes his mother as a woman who was young at heart and never seemed like an old lady. She taught herself to play bridge when she was in her seventies. The victims’ son relates that his parents were amazing people who attended the senior citizens’ center and made many devout friends. He indicates that he was very close to his parents, and that he talked to them every day. The victims’ daughter also spent lots of time with them.
“The victims’ son saw his parents alive for the last time on May 18th. They were having their lawn manicured and were excited by the onset of spring. He called them on the phone that evening and received no answer. He had made arrangements to pick Mr. Bronstein up on May 20th. They were both to be ushers in a granddaughter’s wedding and were going to pick up their tuxedos. When he arrived at the house on May 20th he noticed that his parents’ car wasn’t there. A neighbor told him that he hadn’t seen the car in several days and he knew something was wrong. He went to his parents’ house and found them murdered. He called his sister crying and told her to come right over because something terrible had happened and their parents were both dead.
“The victims’ daughter recalls that when she arrived at her parents’ house, there were police officers and television crews everywhere. She felt numb and cold. She was not allowed to go into the house and so she went to a neighbor’s home. There were people and reporters everywhere and all she could feel was cold. She called her older daughter and told her what had happened. She told her daughter to get her husband and then tell her younger daughter what had happened. The younger daughter was to be married two days later.
“The victims’ granddaughter reports that just before she received the call from her mother she had telephoned her grandparents and received no answer. After her mother told her what happened she turned on the television and heard the news reports about it. The victims’ son reports that his children first learned about their grandparents death from the television reports.
“Since the Jewish religion dictates that birth and marriage are more important than death, the granddaughter’s wedding had to proceed on May 22nd. She had been looking forward to it eagerly, but it was a sad occasion with people crying. The reception, which normally would have lasted for hours, was very brief. The next day, instead of going on her honeymoon, she attended her grandparents’ funerals. The victims’ son, who was an usher at the wedding, cannot remember being there or coming and going from his parents’ funeral the next day. The victims’ granddaughter, on the other hand, vividly remembers every detail of the days following her grandparents’ death. Perhaps she described the impact of the tragedy most eloquently when she stated that it was a completely devastating and life altering experience.
“The victims’ son states that he can only think of his parents in the context of how he found them that day, and he can feel their fear and horror. It was 4:00 p.m. when he discovered their bodies and this stands out in his mind. He is always aware of when 4:00 p.m. comes each day, even when he is not near a clock. He also wakes up at 4:00 a.m. each morning. The victims’ son states that he suffers from lack of sleep. He is unable to drive on the streets that pass near his parents’ home. He also avoids driving past his father’s favorite restaurant, the supermarket where his parents shopped, etc. He is constantly reminded of his parents. He sees his father coming out of synagogues, sees his parents’ car, and feels very sad whenever he sees old people. The victims’ son feels that his parents were not killed, but were butchered like animals. He doesn’t think anyone should be able to do something like that and get away with it. He is very angry and wishes he could sleep and not feel so depressed all the time. He is fearful for the first time in his life, putting all the lights on and checking the locks frequently. His children are scared for him and concerned for his health. They phone him several times a day. At the same time he takes a fearful approach to the whereabouts of his children. He also calls his sister every day. He states that he is frightened by his own reaction of what he would do if someone hurt him or a family member. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be the same again.
“The victims’ daughter and her husband didn’t eat dinner for three days following the discovery of Mr. and Mrs. Bron-stein’s bodies. They cried together every day for four months and she still cries every day. She states that she doesn’t sleep through a single night and thinks a part of her died too when her parents were killed. She reports that she doesn’t find much joy in anything and her powers of concentration aren’t good. She feels as if her brain is on overload. The victims’ daughter relates that she had to clean out her parents’ house and it took several weeks. She saw the bloody carpet, knowing that her parents had been there, and she felt like getting down on the rug and holding her mother. She wonders how this could have happened to her family because they’re just ordinary people. The victims’ daughter reports that she had become noticeably withdrawn and depressed at work and is now making an effort to be more outgoing. She notes that she is so emotionally tired because she doesn’t sleep at night, that she has a tendency to fall asleep when she attends social events such as dinner parties or the symphony. The victims’ daughter states that wherever she goes she sees and hears her parents. This happens every day. She cannot look at kitchen knives without being reminded of the murders and she is never away from it. She states that she can’t watch movies with bodies or stabbings in it. She can’t tolerate any reminder of violence. The victims’ daughter relates that she used to be very trusting, but is not any longer. When the doorbell rings she tells her husband not to answer it. She is very suspicious of people and was never that way before.
“The victims’ daughter attended the defendant’s trial and that of the co-defendant because she felt someone should be there to represent her parents. She had never been told the exact details of her parents’ death and had to listen to the medical examiner’s report. After a certain point, her mind blocked out and she stopped hearing. She states that her parents were stabbed repeatedly with viciousness and she could never forgive anyone for killing them that way. She can’t believe that anybody could do that to someone. The victims’ daughter states that animals wouldn’t do this. They didn’t have to kill because there was no one to stop them from looting. Her father would have given them anything. The murders show the viciousness of the killers’ anger. She doesn’t feel that the people who did this could ever be rehabilitated and she doesn’t want them to be able to do this again or put another family through this. She feels that the lives of her family members will never be the same again.
“The victims’ granddaughter states that unless you experience something like this you can’t understand how it feels. You are in a state of shock for several months and then a terrible depression sets in. You are so angry and feel such rage. She states that she only dwells on the image of their death when thinking of her grandparents. For a time she would become hysterical whenever she saw dead animals on the road. She is not able to drive near her grandparents’ house and will never be able to go into their neighborhood again. The victims’ granddaughter also has a tendency to turn on all the lights in her house. She goes into a panic if her husband is late coming home from work. She used to be an avid reader of murder mysteries, but will never be able to read them again. She has to turn off the radio or T.V. when reports of violence come on because they hit too close to home. When she gets a newspaper she reads the comics and throws the rest away. She states that it is the small everyday things that haunt her constantly and always will. She saw a counselor for several months but stopped because she felt that no one could help her.
“The victims’ granddaughter states that the whole thing has been very hard on her sister too. Her wedding anniversary will always be bittersweet and tainted by the memory of what happened to her grandparents. This year on her anniversary she and her husband quietly went out of town. The victims’ granddaughter finds that she is unable to look at her sister’s wedding pictures. She also has a picture of her grandparents, but had to put it away because it was too painful to look at it.
“The victims’ family members note that the trials of the suspects charged with these offenses have been delayed for over a year and the postponements have been very hard on the family emotionally. The victims’ son notes that he keeps seeing news reports about his parents’ murder which show their house and the police removing their bodies. This is a constant reminder to him. The family wants the whole thing to be over with and they would like to see swift and just punishment.
“As described by their family members, the Bronsteins were loving parents and grandparents whose family was most important to them. Their funeral was the largest in the history of the Levinson Funeral Home and the family received over one thousand sympathy cards, some from total strangers. They attempted to answer each card personally. The family states that Mr. and Mrs. Bronstein were extremely good people who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Because of their loss, a terrible void has been put into their lives and every day is still a strain just to get through. It became increasingly apparent to the writer as she talked to the family members that the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Bronstein is still such a shocking, painful, and devastating memory to them that it permeates every aspect of their daily lives. It is doubtful that they will ever be able to fully recover from this tragedy and not be haunted by the memory of the brutal manner in which their loved ones were murdered and taken from them.” App. 59-64.
Booth’s accomplice, Willie Reid, was convicted and sentenced to death as a principal in the first degree to the murder of Mrs. Bronstein. His conviction was affirmed and his sentence is currently under review. See Reid v. State, 305 Md. 9, 501 A. 2d 436 (1985).
When the statute was enacted it was unclear whether a VIS was admissible in a capital case. See § 4-609(c)(2)(i) (1986) (VIS required if victim suffered injury, whereas for a misdemeanor, VIS required if victim suffers injury or death); Lodowski v. State, 302 Md. 691, 761, 490 A. 2d 1228, 1264 (1985) (Cole, J., concurring), vacated on other grounds, 475 U. S. 1078 (1986). In 1983, the Maryland General Assembly amended the VIS provision to provide that:
“In any ease in which the death penalty is requested... a presen-tence investigation, including a victim impact statement, shall be completed by the Division of Parole and Probation, and shall be considered by the court or jury before whom the separate sentencing proceeding is con-ducted_” §4-609(d) (1986).
The VIS stated:
“[T]he victims’ son reports that his parents had been married for fifty-three years and enjoyed a very close relationship, spending each day together. He states that his father had worked hard all his life and had been retired for eight years. He describes his mother as a woman who was young at heart and never seemed like an old lady. She taught herself to play bridge when she was in her seventies. The victims’ son relates that his parents were amazing people who attended the senior citizens’ center and made many devout friends.” App. 69.
“As described by their family members, the Bronsteins were loving parents and grandparents whose family was most important to them. Their funeral was the largest in the history of the Levinson Funeral Home and the family received over one thousand sympathy cards, some from total strangers.” Id,., at 63.
The complete VIS is reprinted in the Appendix to this opinion.
The Eighth Amendment provides: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” The prohibitions of the Eighth Amendment apply to the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660, 666 (1962).
Before the jury may impose a capital sentence, it must find that at least one of the following aggravating circumstances are present:
“(1) The victim was a law enforcement officer who was murdered while in the performance of his duties.
“(2) The defendant committed the murder at a time when he was confined in any correctional institution.
“(3) The defendant committed the murder in furtherance of an escape or an attempt to escape from or to evade the lawful custody, arrest, or detention of or by an officer or guard of a correctional institution or by a law enforcement officer.
“(4) The victim.was taken or attempted to be taken in the course of a kidnapping or abduction, or an attempt to kidnap or abduct.
“(5) The victim was a child abducted in violation of § 2 of this article.
“(6) The defendant committed the murder pursuant to an agreement or contract for remuneration or the promise of remuneration to commit the murder.
“(7) The defendant engaged or employed another person to commit the murder and the murder was committed pursuant to an agreement or contract for remuneration or the promise of remuneration.
“(8) At the time of the murder the defendant was under sentence of death or imprisonment for life.
“(9) The defendant committed more than one offense of murder in the first degree arising out of the same incident.
“(10) The defendant committed the murder while committing or attempting to commit a robbery, arson, or rape, or sexual offense in the first degree.” See Md. Ann. Code, Art. 27, § 413(d) (1982 and Supp. 1986). Because the impact of the crime on the victim is not a statutorily defined aggravating circumstance, it would not be sufficient, standing alone, to support a capital sentence. § 413(f).
As one state court has noted:
“We think it obvious that a defendant’s level of culpability depends not on fortuitous circumstances such as the composition of his victim’s family, but on circumstances over which he has control. A defendant may choose, or decline, to premeditate, to act callously, to attack a vulnerable victim, to commit a crime while on probation, or to amass a record of offenses.... In contrast, the fact that a victim’s family is irredeemably bereaved can be attributable to no act of will of the defendant other than his commission of homicide in the first place. Such bereavement is relevant to damages in a civil action, but it has no relationship to the proper purposes of sentencing in a criminal case.” People v. Levitt, 156 Cal. App. 3d 500, 516-517, 203 Cal. Rptr. 276, 287-288 (1984).
We are troubled by the implication that defendants whose victims were assets to their community are more deserving of punishment than those whose victims are perceived to be less worthy. Of course, our system of justice does not tolerate such distinctions. Cf. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 242 (1972) (Douglas, J., concurring).
See n. 3, supra. The Maryland sentencing statute does not expressly permit evidence of the victim’s character and community status to be included in the VIS. The Maryland Court of Appeals, however, apparently has determined that the statute only establishes the minimum amount of information that must be provided. Consideration of other information in the VIS is subject to the trial judge’s discretion. See Reid v. State, 302 Md. 811, 820-821, 490 A. 2d 1289, 1294 (1985).
This type of information is not unique to the VIS in Booth’s case. In Lodowski v. State, the trial court admitted a VIS based on an interview with the victim’s wife that said in part:
“[The victim] was the perfect family person, he was totally devoted to his family. It was like a miracle to find a man like him — we had something very special. We had created a love that could withstand anything in life. We were not only husband and wife, but best friends.” 302 Md., at 766, 490 A. 2d, at 1266 (Cole, J., concurring)
The court in Lodowski found that VIS evidence in general is not constitutionally proscribed, and is relevant to a capital sentencing determination. Id., at 751, 752, 490 A. 2d, at 1259.
Our disapproval of victim impact statements at the sentencing phase of a capital case does not mean, however, that this type of information will never be relevant in any context. Similar types of information may well be admissible because they relate directly to the circumstances of the crime. Facts about the victim and family also may be relevant in a non-capital criminal trial. Moreover, there may be times that the victim’s personal characteristics are relevant to rebut an argument offered by the defendant. See, e. g., Fed. Rule Evid. 404(a)(2) (prosecution may show peaceable nature of victim to rebut charge that victim was aggressor). The trial judge, of course, continues to have the primary responsibility for deciding when this information is sufficiently relevant to some legitimate consideration to be admissible, and when its probative value outweighs any prejudicial effect. Cf. Fed. Rule Evid. 403.
The same problem is presented by the VIS summary written by the DPP that might be viewed by the jury as representing the views of the State. As noted supra, at 500, the writer concluded that the crimes had a “shocking, painful, and devast[at]ing” effect on the family, and that “[i]t is doubtful that they will ever be able to fully recover.” App. 63-64. See Appendix to this opinion.
We note, however, that our decision today is guided by the fact death is a “punishment different from
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.
Section 244 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (Act), 66 Stat. 214, as amended, 8 U. S. C. § 1254 (a)(1), provides that the Attorney General in his discretion may suspend deportation and adjust the status of an otherwise deportable alien who (1) has been physically present in the United States for not less than seven years; (2) is a person of good moral character; and (3) is “a person whose deportation would, in the opinion of the Attorney General, result in extreme hardship to the alien or to his spouse, parent, or child, who is a citizen of the United States or an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence.” The Attorney General is authorized to delegate his powers under the Act, 8 U. S. C. § 1103, and his authority under § 244 has been delegated by regulation to specified authorities in the Immigration and Naturalization Service. 8 CFR §2.1 (1979).
The § 244 issue usually arises in an alien’s deportation hearing. It can arise, however, as it did in this case, on a motion to reopen after deportation has been duly ordered. The Act itself does not expressly provide for a motion to reopen, but regulations promulgated under the Act allow such a procedure. The regulations also provide that the motion to reopen shall “state the new fact to be proved at the reopened hearing and shall be supported by affidavits or other evidentiary material.” 8 CFR § 3.8 (a) (1979). Motions to reopen are thus permitted in those cases in which the events or circumstances occurring after the order of deportation would satisfy the extreme-hardship standard of § 244. Such motions will not be granted “when a prima facie case of eligibility for the relief sought has not been established.” Matter of Lam, 141. & N. Dec. 98 (BIA 1972). See Matter of Sipus, 14 I. & N. Dec. 229 (BIA 1972).
Respondents, husband and wife, are natives and citizens of Korea who first entered the United States in January 1970 as nonimmigrant treaty traders. They were authorized to remain until January 10, 1972, but they remained beyond that date without permission and were found deportable after a hearing in November 1974. They were granted the privilege of voluntarily departing by February 1, 1975. They did not do so. Instead, they applied for adjustment of status under § 245 of the Act, 8 U. S. C. § 1255, but were found ineligible for this relief after a hearing on July 15, 1975. Their appeal from this ruling was dismissed by the Board of Immigration Appeals in October 1977. Respondents then filed a second motion to reopen their deportation proceedings in December 1977, this time claiming suspension under § 244 of the Act. Respondents by then had satisfied the 7-year-continuous-physical-presence requirement of that section. The motion alleged that deportation would result in extreme hardship to respondents’ two American-born children because neither child spoke Korean and would thus lose “educational opportunities” if forced to leave this country. Respondents also claimed economic hardship to themselves and their children resulting from the forced liquidation of their assets at a possible loss. None of the allegations was sworn or otherwise supported by evidentiary materials, but it appeared that all of respondents’ close relatives, aside from their children, resided in Korea and that respondents had purchased a dry-cleaning business in August 1977, some three years after they had been found deportable. The business was valued at $75,000 and provided an income of $650 per week. Respondents also owned a home purchased in 1974 and valued at $60,000. They had $24,000 in a savings account and some $20,000 in miscellaneous assets. Liabilities were approximately $81,000.
The Board of Immigration Appeals denied respondents’ motion to reopen without a hearing, concluding that they had failed to demonstrate a prima facie case that deportation would result in extreme hardship to either themselves or their children so as to entitle them to discretionary relief under the Act. The Board noted that a mere showing of economic detriment is not sufficient to establish extreme hardship under the Act. See Pelaez v. INS, 513 F. 2d 303 (CA5), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 892 (1975). This was particularly true since respondents had “significant financial resources and there [was] nothing to suggest that the college-educated male respondent could not find suitable employment in Korea.” With respect to the claims involving the children, the Board ruled that the alleged loss of educational opportunities to the young children of relatively affluent, educated Korean parents did not constitute extreme* hardship within the meaning of § 244.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed. 622 F. 2d 1341 (1980). Contrary to the Board’s holding, the Court of Appeals found that respondents had alleged a sufficient prima facie case of extreme hardship to entitle them to a hearing. The court reasoned that the statute should be liberally construed to effectuate its ameliorative purpose. The combined effect of the allegation of harm to the minor children, which the court thought was hard to discern without a hearing, and the impact on respondents’ economic interests was sufficient to constitute a prima facie case requiring a hearing where the Board would “consider the total potential effect of deportation on the alien and his family.” Id., at 1349.
The Court of Appeals erred in two respects. First, the court ignored the regulation which requires the alien seeking suspension to allege and support by affidavit or other eviden-tiary material the particular facts claimed to constitute extreme hardship. Here, the allegations of hardship were in the main conclusory and unsupported by affidavit. By requiring a hearing on such a motion, the Court of Appeals circumvented this aspect of the regulation, which was obviously designed to permit the Board to select for hearing only those motions reliably indicating the specific recent events that would render deportation a matter of extreme hardship for the alien or his children.
Secondly, and more fundamentally, the Court of Appeals improvidently encroached on the authority which the Act confers on the Attorney General and his delegates. The crucial question in this case is what constitutes “extreme hardship.” These words are not self-explanatory, and reasonable men could easily differ as to their construction. But the Act commits their definition in the first instance to the Attorney General and his delegates, and their construction and application of this standard should not be overturned by a reviewing court simply because it may prefer another interpretation of the statute. Here, the Board considered the facts alleged and found that neither respondents nor their children would suffer extreme hardship. The Board considered it well settled that a mere showing of economic detriment was insufficient to satisfy the requirements of § 244 and in any event noted that respondents had significant financial resources while finding nothing to suggest that Mr. Wang could not find suitable employment in Korea. It also followed that respondents’ two children would not suffer serious economic deprivation if they returned to Korea. Finally, the Board could not believe that the two “young children of affluent, educated parents” would be subject to such educational deprivations in Korea as to amount to extreme hardship. In making these determinations, the Board was acting within its authority. As we see it, nothing in the allegations indicated that this is a particularly unusual case requiring the Board to reopen the deportation proceedings.
The Court of Appeals nevertheless ruled that the hardship requirement of § 244 is satisfied if an alien produces sufficient evidence to suggest that the “hardship from deportation would be different and more severe than that suffered by the ordinary alien who is deported.” 622 F. 2d, at 1346. Also, as Judge Goodwin observed in dissent, the majority of the Court of Appeals also strongly indicated that respondents should prevail under such an understanding of the statute. Id., at 1352. In taking this course, the Court of Appeals extended its “writ beyond its proper scope and deprived the Attorney General of a substantial portion of the discretion which § 244 (a) vests in him.” Id., at 1351 (Sneed, J., dissenting).
The Attorney General and his delegates have the authority to construe “extreme hardship” narrowly should they deem it wise to do so. Such a narrow interpretation is consistent with the “extreme hardship” language, which itself indicates the exceptional nature of the suspension remedy. Moreover, the Government has a legitimate interest in creating official procedures for handling motions to reopen deportation proceedings so as readily to identify those cases raising new arid meritorious considerations. Under the standard applied by the court below, many aliens could obtain a hearing based upon quite minimal showings. As stated in dissent below, “by using the majority opinion as a blueprint, any foreign visitor who has fertility, money, and the ability to stay out of trouble with the police for seven years can change his status from that of tourist or student to that of permanent resident without the inconvenience of immigration quotas. This strategy is not fair to those waiting for a quota.” Id., at 1352 (Goodwin, J., dissenting). Judge Goodwin further observed that the relaxed standard of the majority opinion “is likely to shift the administration of hardship deportation cases from the Immigration and Naturalization Service to this court.” Id., at 1351.
We are convinced that the Board did not exceed its authority and that the Court of Appeals erred in ordering that the case be reopened. Accordingly, the petition for certio-rari is granted, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
So ordered.
Justices Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun would grant the petition for certiorari and give the case plenary consideration.
Initially, the Attorney General had no discretion in ordering deportation, and an alien’s sole remedy was to obtain a private bill from Congress. See Foti v. INS, 375 U. S. 217, 222 (1963). The first measure of statutory relief was included in the Alien Registration Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 670. Under the statutory predecessor of §244, suspension of a deportation order could be granted only if the alien demonstrated “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship.” Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, §244 (a)(1), Pub. L. 414, 66 Stat. 214. This provision was amended to require that the alien show that deportation would result in “extreme hardship,” Act of Oct. 24, 1962, Pub. L. 87-885, § 4, 76 Stat. 1248.
Section 2.1 of the regulations delegates the Attorney General’s power to the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, and permits the Commissioner to redelegate the authority through appropriate regulations. The power to consider § 244 applications in deportation hearings is delegated to special inquiry officers, whose decisions are subject to review by the Board of Immigration Appeals, 8 CFR §§242.8, 242.21 (1979). See Bastidas v. INS, 609 F. 2d 101, 103, n. 1 (CA3 1979). The Board of Immigration Appeals has the power to consider the question if it is raised on a motion to reopen where the Board has already made a decision in the case. 8 CFR §3.2 (1979).
Title 8 CFR §3.2 (1979) provides in pertinent part:
“Motions to reopen in deportation proceedings shall not be granted unless it appears to the Board that evidence sought to be offered is material and was not available and could not have been discovered or presented at the former hearing; nor shall any motion to reopen for the purpose of affording the alien an opportunity to apply for any form of discretionary relief be granted . . . unless the relief is sought on the basis of circumstances which have arisen subsequent to the hearing.”
Relief was denied because the immigration judge determined that visa numbers for nonpreference Korean immigrants were not available, thus rendering respondents ineligible for the requested relief. The immigration judge also stated that he would have denied the application given respondents’ failure to move to Salt Labe City where Mr. Wang’s sponsoring employer was located, thus causing doubt whether his services were in fact needed.
Other Courts of Appeals have enforced the evidentiary requirement stated in 8 CFR § 3.8 (1979). See, e. g., Oum v. INS, 613 F. 2d 51, 54 (CA4 1980); Acevedo v. INS, 538 F. 2d 918, 920 (CA2 1976). See also Tupacyupanqui-Marin v. INS, 447 F. 2d 603, 607 (CA7 1971); Luna-Benalcazar v. INS, 414 F. 2d 254, 256 (CA6 1969).
Prior to the present procedures, the grant or denial of a motion to reopen was solely within the discretion of the Board. See Arabas v. Zimmerman, 200 F. 2d 322, 323-324, and n. 2 (CA3 1952). The present regulation is framed negatively; it directs the Board not to reopen unless certain showings are made. It does not affirmatively require the Board to reopen the proceedings under any particular condition. Thus, the regulations may be construed to provide the Board with discretion in determining under what circumstances proceedings should be reopened. See Villena v. INS, 622 F. 2d 1352 (CA9 1980) (en banc) (Wallace, J., dissenting). In his dissent, Judge Wallace stated that INS had discretion beyond requiring proof of a prima facie case:
“If INS discretion is to mean anything, it must be that the INS has some latitude in deciding when to reopen a case. The INS should have the right to be restrictive. Granting such motions too freely will permit endless delay of deportation by aliens creative and fertile enough to continuously produce new and material facts sufficient to establish a prima facie case. It will also waste the time and efforts of immigration judges called upon to preside at hearings automatically required by the prima facie allegations.” Id., at 1362.
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 O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case requires us to decide whether the use of race as a factor in student admissions by the University of Michigan Law School (Law School) is unlawful.
A
The Law School ranks among the Nation’s top law schools. It receives more than 3,500 applications each year for a class of around 350 students. Seeking to “admit a group of students who individually and collectively are among the most capable,” the Law School looks for individuals with “substantial promise for success in law school” and “a strong likelihood of succeeding in the practice of law and contributing in diverse ways to the well-being of others.” App. 110. More broadly, the Law School seeks “a mix of students with varying backgrounds and experiences who will respect and learn from each other.” Ibid. In 1992, the dean of the Law School, charged a faculty committee with crafting a written admissions policy to implement these goals. In particular, the Law School sought to ensure that its efforts to achieve student body diversity complied with this Court’s most recent ruling on the use of race in university admissions. See Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978). Upon the unanimous adoption of the committee’s report by the Law School faculty, it became the Law School’s official admissions policy.
The hallmark of that policy is its focus on academic ability coupled with a flexible assessment of applicants’ talents, experiences, and potential “to contribute to the learning of those around them.” App. 111. The policy requires admissions officials to evaluate each applicant based on all the information available in the file, including a personal statement, letters of recommendation, and an essay describing the ways in which the applicant will contribute to the life and diversity of the Law School. Id., at 83-84,114-121. In reviewing an applicant’s file, admissions officials must consider the applicant’s undergraduate grade point average (GPA) and Law School Admission Test (LSAT) score because they are important (if imperfect) predictors of academic success in law school. Id., at 112. The policy stresses that “no applicant should be admitted unless we expect that applicant to do well enough to graduate with no serious academic problems.” Id., at 111.
The policy makes clear, however, that even the highest possible score does not guarantee admission to the Law School. Id., at 113. Nor does a low score automatically disqualify an applicant. Ibid. Rather, the policy requires admissions officials to look beyond grades and test scores to other criteria that are important to the Law School’s educational objectives. Id., at 114. So-called “‘soft’ variables” such as “the enthusiasm of reeommenders, the quality of the undergraduate institution, the quality of the applicant’s essay, and the areas and difficulty of undergraduate course selection” are all brought to bear in assessing an “applicant’s likely contributions to the intellectual and social life of the institution.” Ibid.
The policy aspires to “achieve that diversity which has the potential to enrich everyone’s education and thus make a law school class stronger than the sum of its parts.” Id., at 118. The policy does not restrict the types of diversity contributions eligible for “substantial weight” in the admissions process, but instead recognizes “many possible bases for diversity admissions.” Id., at 118,120. The policy does, however, reaffirm the Law School’s longstanding commitment to “one particular type of diversity,” that is, “racial and ethnic diversity with special reference to the inclusion of students from groups which have been historically discriminated against, like African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans, who without this commitment might not be represented in our student body in meaningful numbers.” Id., at 120. By enrolling a “ ‘critical mass’ of [underrepresented] minority students,” the Law School seeks to “ensur[e] their ability to make unique contributions to the character of the Law School.” Id., at 120-121.
The policy does not define diversity “solely in terms of racial and ethnic status.” Id., at 121. Nor is the policy “insensitive to the competition among all students for admission to the [L]aw [S]chool.” Ibid. Rather, the policy seeks to guide admissions officers in “producing classes both diverse and academically outstanding, classes made up of students who promise to continue the tradition of outstanding contribution by Michigan Graduates to the legal profession.” Ibid.
B
Petitioner Barbara Grutter is a white Michigan resident who applied to the Law School in 1996 with a 3.8 GPA and 161 LSAT score. The Law School initially placed petitioner on a waiting list, but subsequently rejected her application. In December 1997, petitioner filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan against the Law School, the Regents of the University of Michigan, Lee Bollinger (Dean of the Law School from 1987 to 1994, and President of the University of Michigan from 1996 to 2002), Jeffrey Lehman (Dean of the Law School), and Dennis Shields (Director of Admissions at the Law School from 1991 until 1998). Petitioner alleged that respondents discriminated against her on the basis of race in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment; Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 252, 42 U. S. C. § 2000d; and Rev. Stat. § 1977, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1981.
Petitioner further alleged that her application was rejected because the Law School uses race as a “predominant” factor, giving applicants who belong to certain minority groups “a significantly greater chance of admission than students with similar credentials from disfavored racial groups.” App. 33-34. Petitioner also alleged that respondents “had no compelling interest to justify their use of race in the admissions process.” Id., at 34. Petitioner requested compensatory and punitive damages, an order requiring the Law School to offer her admission, and an injunction prohibiting the Law School from continuing to discriminate on the basis of race. Id., at 36. Petitioner clearly has standing to bring this lawsuit. Northeastern Fla. Chapter, Associated Gen. Contractors of America v. Jacksonville, 508 U. S. 656, 666 (1993).
The District Court granted petitioner’s motion for class certification and for bifurcation of the trial into liability and damages phases. The class was defined as “ ‘all persons who (A) applied for and were not granted admission to the University of Michigan Law School for the academic years since (and including) 1995 until the time that judgment is entered herein; and (B) were members of those racial or ethnic groups, including Caucasian, that Defendants treated less favorably in considering their applications for admission to the Law School.’” App. to Pet. for Cert. 191a-192a.
The District Court heard oral argument on the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment on December 22,2000. Taking the motions under advisement, the District Court indicated that it would decide as a matter of law whether the Law School’s asserted interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body was compelling. The District Court also indicated that it would conduct a bench trial on the extent to which race was a factor in the Law School’s admissions decisions, and whether the Law School’s consideration of race in admissions decisions constituted a race-based double standard.
During the 15-day bench trial, the parties introduced extensive evidence concerning the Law School’s use of race in the admissions process. Dennis Shields, Director of Admissions when petitioner applied to the Law School, testified that he did not direct his staff to admit a particular percentage or number of minority students, but rather to consider an applicant’s race along with all other factors. Id., at 206a. Shields testified that at the height of the admissions season, he would frequently consult the so-called “daily reports” that kept track of the racial and ethnic composition of the class (along with other information such as residency status and gender). Id., at 207a. This was done, Shields testified, to ensure that a critical mass of underrepresented minority students would be reached so as to realize the educational benefits of a diverse student body. Ibid. Shields stressed, however, that he did not seek to admit any particular number or percentage of underrepresented minority students. Ibid.
Erica Munzel, who succeeded Shields as Director of Admissions, testified that “ ‘critical mass’ ” means “ ‘meaningful numbers’” or “‘meaningful representation,’” which she understood to mean a number that encourages underrepresented minority students to participate in the classroom and not feel isolated. Id., at 208a-209a. Munzel stated there is no number, percentage, or range of numbers or percentages that constitute critical mass. Id., at 209a. Munzel also asserted that she must consider the race of applicants because a critical mass of underrepresented minority students could not be enrolled if admissions decisions were based primarily on undergraduate GPAs and LSAT scores. Ibid.
The current Dean of the Law School, Jeffrey Lehman, also testified. Like the other Law School witnesses, Lehman did not quantify critical mass in terms of numbers or percentages. Id., at 211a. He indicated that critical mass means numbers such that underrepresented minority students do not feel isolated or like spokespersons for their race. Ibid. When asked about the extent to which race is considered in admissions, Lehman testified that it varies from one applicant to another. Ibid. In some cases, according to Lehman’s testimony, an applicant’s race may play no role, while in others it may be a “ ‘determinative’ ” factor. Ibid.
The District Court heard extensive testimony from Professor Richard Lempert, who chaired the faculty committee that drafted the 1992 policy. Lempert emphasized that the Law School seeks students with diverse interests and backgrounds to enhance classroom discussion and the educational experience both inside and outside the classroom. Id., at 213a. When asked about the policy’s “ ‘commitment to racial and ethnic diversity with special reference to the inclusion of students from groups which have been historically discriminated against,’ ” Lempert explained that this language did not purport to remedy past discrimination, but rather to include students who may bring to the Law School a perspective different from that of members of groups Which have not been the victims of such discrimination. Ibid. Lemp-ert acknowledged that other groups, such as Asians and Jews, have experienced discrimination, but explained they were not mentioned in the policy because individuals who are members of those groups were already being admitted to the Law School in significant numbers. Ibid.
Kent Syverud was the final witness to testify about the Law School’s use of race in admissions decisions. Syverud was a professor at the Law School when the 1992 admissions policy was adopted and is now Dean of Vanderbilt Law School. In addition to his testimony at trial, Syverud submitted several expert reports on the educational benefits of diversity. Syverud’s testimony indicated that when a critical mass of underrepresented minority students is present, racial stereotypes lose their force because nonminority students learn there is no “ ‘minority viewpoint’ ” but rather a variety of viewpoints among minority students. Id., at 215a.
In an attempt to quantify the extent to which the Law School actually considers race in making admissions decisions, the parties introduced voluminous evidence at trial. Relying on data obtained from the Law School, petitioner’s expert, Dr. Kinley Larntz, generated and analyzed “admissions grids” for the years in question (1995-2000). These grids show the number of applicants and the number of ad-mittees for all combinations of GPAs and LSAT scores. Dr. Larntz made “ ‘cell-by-cell’ ” comparisons between applicants of different races to determine whether a statistically significant relationship existed between race and admission rates. He concluded that membership in certain minority groups “‘is an extremely strong factor in the decision for acceptance,’ ” and that applicants from these minority groups ‘“are given an extremely large allowance for admission’” as compared to applicants who are members of nonfavored groups. Id., at 218a-220a. Dr. Larntz conceded, however, that race is not the predominant factor in the Law School’s admissions calculus. 12 Tr. 11-13 (Feb. 10, 2001).
Dr. Stephen Raudenbush, the Law School’s expert, focused on the predicted effect of eliminating race as a factor in the Law School’s admission process. In Dr. Raudenbush’s view, a race-blind admissions system would have a “‘very dramatic,’” negative effect on underrepresented minority admissions. App. to Pet. for Cert. 223a. He testified that in 2000, 35 percent of underrepresented minority applicants were admitted. Ibid. Dr. Raudenbush predicted that if race were not considered, only 10 percent of those applicants would have been admitted. Ibid. Under this scenario, underrepresented minority students would have constituted 4 percent of the entering class in 2000 instead of the actual figure of 14.5 percent. Ibid.
In the end, the District Court concluded that the Law School’s use of race as a factor in admissions decisions was unlawful. Applying strict scrutiny, the District Court determined that the Law School’s asserted interest in assembling a diverse student body was not compelling because “the attainment of a racially diverse class... was not recognized as such by Bakke and it is not a remedy for past discrimination.” Id., at 246a. The District Court went on to hold that even if diversity were compelling, the Law School had not narrowly tailored its use of race to further that interest. The District Court granted petitioner’s request for declaratory relief and enjoined the Law School from using race as a factor in its admissions decisions. The Court of Appeals entered a stay of the injunction pending appeal.
Sitting en banc, the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s judgment and vacated the injunction. The Court of Appeals first held that Justice Powell’s opinion in Bakke was binding precedent establishing diversity as a compelling state interest. According to the Court of Appeals, Justice Powell’s opinion with respect to diversity constituted the controlling rationale for the judgment of this Court under the analysis set forth in Marks v. United States, 430 U. S. 188 (1977). The Court of Appeals also held that the Law School’s use of race was narrowly tailored because race was merely a “potential ‘plus’ factor” and because the Law School’s program was “virtually identical” to the Harvard admissions program described approvingly by Justice Powell and appended to his Bakke opinion. 288 F. 3d 732, 746, 749 (CA6 2002).
Four dissenting judges would have held the Law School’s use of race unconstitutional. Three of the dissenters, rejecting the majority’s Marks analysis, examined the Law School’s interest in student body diversity on the merits and concluded it was not compelling. The fourth dissenter, writing separately, found it unnecessary to decide whether diversity was a compelling interest because, like the other dissenters, he believed that the Law School’s use of race was not narrowly tailored to further that intérest.
We granted certiorari, 537 U. S. 1043 (2002), to resolve the disagreement among the Courts of Appeals on a question of national importance: Whether diversity is a compelling interest that can justify the narrowly tailored use of race in selecting applicants for admission to public universities. Compare Hopwood v. Texas, 78 F. 3d 932 (CA5 1996) (Hopwood I) (holding that diversity is not a compelling state interest), with Smith v. University of Wash. Law School, 233 F. 3d 1188 (CA9 2000) (holding that it is).
II
A
We last addressed the use of race in public higher education over 25 years ago. In the landmark Bakke case, we reviewed a racial set-aside program that reserved 16 out of 100 seats in a medical school class for members of certain minority groups. 438 U. S. 265 (1978). The decision produced six separate opinions, none of which commanded a majority of the Court. Four Justices would have upheld the program against all attack on the ground that the government can use race to “remedy disadvantages cast on minorities by past racial prejudice.” Id., at 325 (joint opinion of Brennan, White, Marshall, and Blackmun, JJ., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). Four other Justices avoided the constitutional question altogether and struck down the program on statutory grounds. Id., at 408 (opinion of Stevens, J., joined by Burger, C. J., and Stewart and Rehnquist, JJ., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). Justice Powell provided a fifth vote not only for invalidating the set-aside program, but also for reversing the state court’s injunction against any use of race whatsoever. The only holding for the Court in Bakke was that a “State has a substantial interest that legitimately may be served by a properly devised admissions program involving the competitive consideration of race and ethnic origin.” Id., at 320. Thus, we reversed that part of the lower court’s judgment that enjoined the university “from any consideration of the race of any applicant.” Ibid.
Since this Court’s splintered decision in Bakke, Justice Powell’s opinion announcing the judgment of the Court has served as the touchstone for constitutional analysis of race-conscious admissions policies. Public and private universities across the Nation have modeled their own admissions programs on Justice Powell’s views on permissible race-conscious policies. See, e. g., Brief for Judith Areen et al. as Amici Curiae 12-13 (law school admissions programs employ “methods designed from and based on Justice Powell’s opinion in Bakke”); Brief for Amherst College et al. as Amici Curiae 27 (“After Bakke, each of the amici (and undoubtedly other selective colleges and universities as well) reviewed their admissions procedures in light of Justice Powell’s opinion... and set sail accordingly”). We therefore discuss Justice Powell’s opinion in some detail.
Justice Powell began by stating that “[t]he guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color. If both are not accorded the same protection, then it is not equal.” Bakke, 438 U. S., at 289-290. In Justice Powell’s view, when governmental decisions “touch upon an individual’s race or ethnic background, he is entitled to a judicial determination that the burden he is asked to bear on that basis is precisely tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest.” Id., at 299. Under this exacting standard, only one of the interests asserted by the university survived Justice Powell’s scrutiny.
First, Justice Powell rejected an interest in “ ‘reducing the historic deficit of traditionally disfavored minorities in medical schools and in the medical profession’” as an unlawful interest in racial balancing. Id., at 306-307. Second, Justice Powell rejected an interest in remedying societal discrimination because such measures would risk placing unnecessary burdens on innocent third parties “who bear no responsibility for whatever harm the beneficiaries of the special admissions program are thought to have suffered.” Id., at 310. Third, Justice Powell rejected an interest in “increasing the number of physicians who will practice in communities currently underserved,” concluding that even if such an interest could be compelling in some circumstances the program under review was not “geared to promote that goal.” Id., at 306, 310.
Justice Powell approved the university’s use of race to further only one interest: “the attainment of a diverse student body.” Id., at 311. With the important proviso that “constitutional limitations protecting individual rights may not be disregarded,” Justice Powell grounded his analysis in the academic freedom that “long has been viewed as a special concern of the First Amendment.” Id., at 312, 314. Justice Powell emphasized that nothing less than the “ ‘nation’s future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure’ to the ideas and mores of students as diverse as this Nation of many peoples.” Id., at 313 (quoting Keyishian v. Board of Regents of Univ. of State of N. Y., 385 U. S. 589, 603 (1967)). In seeking the “right to select those students who will contribute the most to the ‘robust exchange of ideas,’ ” a university seeks “to achieve a goal, that is of paramount importance in the fulfillment of its mission.” 438 U. S., at 313. Both “tradition and experience lend support to the view that the contribution of diversity is substantial.” Ibid.
Justice Powell was, however, carefiil to emphasize that in his view race “is only one element in a range of factors a university properly may consider in attaining the goal of a heterogeneous student body.” Id., at 314. For Justice Powell, “[i]t 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. Id., at 315. Rather, “[t]he diversity that furthers a compelling state interest encompasses a far broader array of qualifications and characteristics of which racial or ethnic origin is but a single though important element.” Ibid.
In the wake of our fractured decision in Bakke, courts have struggled to discern whether Justice Powell’s diversity rationale, set forth in part of the opinion joined by no other Justice, is nonetheless binding precedent under Marks. In that case, we explained that “[w]hen a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds.” 430 U. S., at 193 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). As the divergent opinions of the lower courts demonstrate, however, “[t]his test is more easily stated than applied to the various opinions supporting the result in [Bakke].” Nichols v. United States, 511 U. S. 738, 745-746 (1994). Compare, e. g., Johnson v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Ga., 263 F. 3d 1234 (CA11 2001) (Justice Powell’s diversity rationale was not the holding of the Court); Hopwood v. Texas, 236 F. 3d 256, 274-275 (CA5 2000) (Hopwood II) (same); Hop-wood I, 78 F. 3d 932 (CA5 1996) (same), with Smith v. University of Wash. Law School, 233 F. 3d, at 1199 (Justice Powell’s opinion, including the diversity rationale, is controlling under Marks).
We do not find it necessary to decide whether Justice Powell’s opinion is binding under Marks. It does not seem “useful to pursue the Marks inquiry to the utmost logical possibility when it has so obviously baffled and divided the lower courts that have considered it.” Nichols v. United States, supra, at 745-746. More important, for the reasons set out below, today we endorse Justice Powell’s view that student body diversity is a compelling state interest that can justify the use of race in university admissions.
B
The Equal Protection Clause provides that no State shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 14, §2. Because the Fourteenth Amendment “protects] persons, not groups,” all “governmental action based on race — a group classification long recognized as in most circumstances irrelevant and therefore prohibited — should be subjected to detailed judicial inquiry to ensure that the personal right to equal protection of the laws has not been infringed.” Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U. S. 200, 227 (1995) (emphasis in original; internal quotation marks and citation omitted). We are a “free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.” Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 11 (1967) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). It follows from that principle that “government may treat people differently because of their race only for the most compelling reasons.” Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U. S., at 227.
We have held that all racial classifications imposed by government “must be analyzed by a reviewing court under strict scrutiny.” Ibid. This means that such classifications are constitutional only if they are narrowly tailored to further compelling governmental interests. “Absent searching judicial inquiry into the justification for such race-based measures,” we have no way to determine what “classifications are ‘benign’ or ‘remedial’ and what classifications are in fact motivated by illegitimate notions of racial inferiority or simple racial politics.” Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 493 (1989) (plurality opinion). We apply strict scrutiny to all racial classifications to “‘smoke out’ illegitimate uses of race by assuring that [government] is pursuing a goal important enough to warrant use of a highly suspect tool.” Ibid.
Strict scrutiny is not “strict in theory, but fatal in fact.” Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, supra, at 237 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Although all governmental uses of race are subject to strict scrutiny, not all are invalidated by it. As we have explained, “whenever the government treats any person unequally because of his or her race, that person has suffered an injury that falls squarely within the language and spirit of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.” 515 U. S., at 229-230. But that observation “says nothing about the ultimate validity of any particular law; that determination is the job of the court applying strict scrutiny.” Id., at 230. When race-based action is necessary to further a compelling governmental interest, such action does not violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection so long as the narrow-tailoring requirement is also satisfied.
Context matters when reviewing race-based governmental action under the Equal Protection Clause. See Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 343-344 (1960) (admonishing that, “in dealing with claims under broad provisions of the Constitution, which derive content by an interpretive process of inclusion and exclusion, it is imperative that generalizations, based on and qualified by the concrete situations that gave rise to them, must not be applied out of context in disregard of variant controlling facts”). In Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, we made clear that strict scrutiny must take “ ‘relevant differences’ into account.” 515 U. S., at 228. Indeed, as we explained, that is its “fundamental purpose.” Ibid. Not every decision influenced by race is equally objectionable, and strict scrutiny is designed to provide a framework for carefully examining the importance and the sincerity of the reasons advanced by the governmental deci-sionmaker for the use of race in that particular context.
III
A
With these principles in mind, we turn to the question whether the Law School’s use of race is justified by a compelling state interest. Before this Court, as they have throughout this litigation, respondents assert only one justification for their use of race in the admissions process: obtaining “the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body.” Brief for Respondent Bollinger et al. i. In other words, the Law School asks us to recognize, in the context of higher education, a compelling state interest in student body diversity.
We first wish to dispel the notion that the Law School’s argument has been foreclosed, either expressly or implicitly, by our affirmative-action cases decided since Bakke. It is true that some language in those opinions might be read to suggest that remedying past discrimination is the only permissible justification for race-based governmental action. See, e. g., Richmond v. J A. Croson Co., supra, at 493 (plurality opinion) (stating that unless classifications based on race are “strictly reserved for remedial settings, they may in fact promote notions of racial inferiority and lead to a politics of racial hostility”). But we have never held that the only governmental use of race that can survive strict scrutiny is remedying past discrimination. Nor, since Bakke, have we directly addressed the use of race in the context of public higher education. Today, we hold that the Law School has a compelling interest in attaining a diverse student body.
The Law School’s educational judgment that such diversity is essential to its educational mission is one to which we defer. The Law School’s assessment that diversity will, in fact, yield educational benefits is substantiated by respondents and their amici. Our scrutiny of the interest asserted by the Law School is no less strict for taking into account complex educational judgments in an area that lies primarily within the expertise of the university. Our holding today is in keeping with our tradition of giving a degree of deference to a university’s academic decisions, within constitutionally prescribed limits. See Regents of Univ. of Mich. v. Ewing, 474 U. S. 214, 225 (1985); Board of Curators of Univ. of Mo. v. Horowitz, 435 U. S. 78, 96, n. 6 (1978); Bakke, 438 U. S., at 319, n. 53 (opinion of Powell, J.).
We have long recognized that, given the important purpose of public education and the expansive freedoms of speech and thought associated with the university environment, universities occupy a special niche in our constitutional tradition. See, e. g., Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183, 195 (1952) (Frankfurter, J., concurring); Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U. S. 234, 250 (1957); Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, 487 (1960); Keyishian v. Board of Regents of Univ. of State of N. Y., 385 U. S., at 603. In announcing the principle of student body diversity as a compelling state interest, Justice Powell invoked our cases recognizing a constitutional dimension, grounded in the First Amendment, of educational autonomy: “The freedom of a university to make its own judgments as to education includes the selection of its student body.” Bakke, supra, at 312. From this premise, Justice Powell reasoned that by claiming “the right to select those students who will contribute the most to the ‘robust exchange of ideas,’ ” a university “seek[s] to achieve a goal that is of paramount importance in the fulfillment of its mission.” 438 U. S., at 313 (quoting Keyishian v. Board of Regents of Univ. of State of N. Y., supra, at 603). Our conclusion that the Law School has a compelling interest in a diverse student body is informed by our view that attaining a diverse student body is at the heart of the Law School’s proper institutional mission, and that “good faith” on the part of a university is “presumed” absent “a showing to the contrary.” 438 U. S., at 318-319.
As part of its goal of “assembling a class that is both exceptionally academically qualified and broadly diverse,” the Law School seeks to “enroll a ‘critical mass’ of minority students.” Brief for Respondent Bollinger et al. 13. The Law School’s interest is not simply “to assure within its student body some specified percentage of a particular group merely because of its race or ethnic origin.” Bakke, 438 U. S., at 307 (opinion of Powell, J.). That would amount to outright racial balancing, which is patently unconstitutional. Ibid.; Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U. S. 467, 494 (1992) (“Racial balance is not to be achieved for its own sake”); Richmond v. J A. Croson Co., 488 U. S., at 507. Rather, the Law School's concept of critical mass is defined by reference to the educational benefits that diversity is designed to produce.
These benefits are substantial. As the District Court emphasized, the Law School’s admissions policy promotes “cross-racial understanding,” helps to break down racial stereotypes, and “enables [students] to better understand persons of different races.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 246a. These benefits are “important and laudable,” because “classroom discussion is livelier, more spirited, and simply more enlightening and interesting” when the students have “the greatest possible variety of backgrounds.” Id., at 246a, 244a.
The Law School’s claim of a compelling interest is further bolstered by its amici, who point to the educational benefits that flow from student body diversity. In addition to the expert studies and reports entered into evidence at trial, numerous studies show that student body diversity promotes learning outcomes, and “better prepares students for an increasingly diverse workforce and society, and better prepares them as professionals.” Brief for American Educational Research Association et al. as Amici Curiae 3; see, e.g., W. Bowen & D. Bok, The Shape of the River (1998); Diversity Challenged: Evidence on the Impact of Affirmative Action (G. Orfield & M. Kurlaender eds. 2001); Compelling Interest: Examining the Evidence on Racial Dynamics in Colleges and Universities (M. Chang, D. Witt, J. Jones, & K. Hakuta eds. 2003).
These benefits are not theoretical but real, as major American businesses have made clear that the skills needed in today’s increasingly global marketplace can only be developed through exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints. Brief for 3M et al. as Amici Curiae 5; Brief for General Motors Corp. as Amicus Curiae 3-4. What is more, high-ranking retired officers and civilian leaders of the United States military assert that, “[biased on [their] decades of experience,” a “highly qualified, racially diverse officer corps... is essential to the military’s ability to fulfill its principle mission to provide national security.” Brief for Julius W. Beeton, Jr., et al. as Amici Curiae 5. The primary sources for the Nation’s officer corps are the service academies and the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), the latter comprising students already admitted to participating colleges and universities. Ibid. At present, “the military cannot achieve an officer corps that is both highly qualified and racially diverse unless the service academies and the ROTC used limited race-conscious recruiting and admissions policies.” Ibid. (emphasis in original). To fulfill its mission, the military “must be selective in admissions for training and education for the officer corps, and it must train and educate a highly qualified, racially diverse officer corps in a racially diverse educational setting.” Id., at 29 (emphasis in original). We agree that “[i]t requires only a small step from this analysis to conclude that our country’s other most selective institutions must remain both diverse and selective.” Ibid.
We have repeatedly acknowledged the overriding impor-. tance of preparing students for work and citizenship, describing education as pivotal to “sustaining our political and cultural heritage” with a fundamental role in maintaining the fabric of society. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U. S. 202, 221 (1982). This Court has long recognized that “education... is the very foundation of good citizenship.” Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 493 (1954). For this reason, the diffusion of knowledge and opportunity through public institutions of higher education must be accessible to all individuals regardless of race or ethnicity. The United States, as amicus curiae, affirms that “[e]nsuring that public institutions are open and available to all segments of American society, including people of all races and ethnicities, represents a paramount government objective.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 13. And, “[n
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 Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioners, Pereira and Brading, were convicted in the District Court for the Western District of Texas under three counts of an indictment charging violation of the mail fraud statute, 18 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 1341, violation of the National Stolen Property Act, 18 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 2314, and a conspiracy to commit the aforesaid substantive offenses, 18 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 371. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. 202 F. 2d 830. This Court granted certiorari to consider questions which are important to the proper administration of criminal justice in the federal courts. 345 U. S. 990.
On April 19, 1951, Mrs. Gertrude Joyce, a wealthy widow, fifty-six years old, and her younger half-sister, Miss Katherine Joyner, were accosted by the petitioner Brading as they were about to enter a hotel in El Paso, Texas. Mrs. Joyce and her sister had just arrived from their home in Roswell, New Mexico, and were preparing to register at the hotel. Brading identified himself, assisted them in parking their car, and invited them into the hotel bar to meet a friend of his. They accepted. The friend was petitioner Pereira, thirty-three years of age. After a few drinks, the men suggested that they all go to Juarez for dinner. The women accepted, and after dinner visited some night clubs with the petitioners. Pereira devoted himself to Mrs. Joyce, telling her that their meeting was an “epoch” in his life. He mentioned that he was getting a divorce. This same performance was repeated the following night. When Pereira said that he would like to return to Roswell with the women, Mrs. Joyce invited the two men to be her house guests, and they accepted. Pereira commenced to make love to Mrs. Joyce, and she responded to his attentions. On May 3, Pereira exhibited a telegram to Mrs. Joyce, in the presence of Brading and Miss Joyner, stating that his divorce would be granted on May 27, but that he would not receive his share of the property settlement, some $48,000, for a month.
Brading represented himself as a prosperous oil man, dealing in leases, and Pereira as the owner and operator of several profitable hotels. Brading then told Mrs. Joyce that Pereira was about to lose an opportunity to share in the profits of some excellent oil leases because of the delay in the divorce property settlement, and persuaded her to lend Pereira $5,000.
Pereira suggested that he and Mrs. Joyce take a trip together to “become better acquainted.” He borrowed $1,000 from her to finance the trip. Brading joined them at Wichita Falls, and the three of them continued the trip together as far as Dallas. Pereira discussed his purported hotel business in Denver during this part of the trip. He stated that he was giving two hotels to his divorced wife, but intended to re-enter the hotel business in the fall. In the meantime, he was going to “play a little oil” with Brading. In Hot Springs, Arkansas, Pereira proposed marriage and was accepted. Brading reappeared on the scene, expressing great joy at the impending marriage. Pereira then told Brading, in the presence of Mrs. Joyce, that he would have to withdraw from further oil deals and get a hotel to assure himself of a steady income.
Pereira and Mrs. Joyce were married May 25, 1951, in Kansas City, Missouri. While there, Pereira persuaded Mrs. Joyce to procure funds to enable him to complete an arrangement to purchase a Cadillac through a friend. She secured a check for $6,956.55 from her Los Angeles broker, and drawn on a California bank, which she endorsed over to Pereira. The price of the car was $4,750, and she instructed Pereira to return the balance of the proceeds of the check to her. He kept the change.
From that time on, Pereira and Brading, in the presence of Mrs. Joyce, discussed a hotel which by words and conduct they represented that Pereira was to buy in Greenville, Texas. They took Mrs. Joyce — by this time Mrs. Pereira — to see it, and exhibited an option for its purchase for $78,000 through a supposed broker, “E. J. Wilson.” Pereira asked his then wife if she would join him in the hotel venture and advance $35,000 toward the purchase price of $78,000. She agreed. It was then agreed, betwéen her and Pereira, that she would sell some securities that she possessed in Los Angeles, and bank the money in a bank of his choosing in El Paso. On June 15, she received the check for $35,000 on the Citizens National Bank of Los Angeles from her brokers in Los Angeles, and gave it to Pereira, who endorsed it for collection to the State National Bank of El Paso. The check cleared, and on June 18, a cashier’s check for $35,000 was drawn in favor of Pereira.
At five o’clock in the morning of June 19, Pereira and Brading, after telling their victim that they were driving the Cadillac to a neighboring town to sign some oil leases, left her at home in Roswell, New Mexico, promising to return by noon. Instead Pereira picked up the check for $35,000 at the El Paso Bank, cashed it there, and with Brading left with the money and the Cadillac.
That was the last Mrs. Joyce saw of either petitioner, or of her money, until the trial some seven months later. She divorced Pereira on November 16, 1951.
The record clearly shows that Brading was not an oil man; that Pereira was not a hotel owner; that there was no divorce or property settlement pending in Denver; that Pereira arranged to have the telegram concerning the divorce sent to him by a friend in Denver; that there were no oil leases; that the hotel deal was wholly fictitious; and that “E. J. Wilson” was the petitioner Brad-ing. The only true statements which the petitioners made concerned the purchase of the Cadillac, and they took that with them. Pereira and Brading contrived all of the papers used to lend an air of authenticity to their deals. In short, their activities followed the familiar pattern of the “confidence game.”
The petitioners challenge the admissibility of Mrs. Joyce’s testimony as being based on confidential communications between Mrs. Joyce and Pereira during the marriage. Petitioners do not now contend that Mrs. Joyce was not a competent witness against her ex-husband. They concede that the divorce removed any bar of incompetency. That is the generally accepted rule. Wigmore, Evidence, § 2237; 58 Am. Jur., Witnesses, § 204. Petitioners rely on the proposition that while divorce removes the bar of incompetency, it does not terminate the privilege for confidential marital communications. Wigmore, Evidence, § 2341 (2); 58 Am. Jur., Witnesses, § 379. This is a correct statement of the rule, but it is inapplicable to bar the communications involved in this case, since under the facts of the case, it cannot be said that these communications were confidential. Although marital communications are presumed to be confidential, that presumption may be overcome by proof of facts showing that they were not intended to be private. Blau v. United States, 340 U. S. 332; Wolfle v. United States, 291 U. S. 7. The presence of a third party negatives the presumption of privacy. Wigmore, Evidence, § 2336. So too, the intention that the information conveyed be transmitted to a third person. Id., § 2336. The privilege, generally, extends only to utterances, and not to acts. Id., § 2337. A review of Mrs. Joyce’s testimony reveals that it involved primarily statements made in the presence of Brading or Miss Joyner, or both, acts of Pereira which did not amount to communications, trips taken with third parties, and her own acts. Much of her testimony related to matters occurring prior to the marriage. Any residuum which may have been intended to be confidential was so slight as to be immaterial. Cf. United States v. Mitchell, 137 F. 2d 1006, 1009.
The court below was not in error in admitting Mrs. Joyce’s testimony.
The petitioners challenge their conviction on the substantive counts on the ground that there was no evidence of any mailing or of transporting stolen property interstate, the gist of the respective offenses. These contentions are without merit.
The mail fraud statute provides:
Ҥ 1341. Frauds and swindles.
“Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, or to sell, dispose of, loan, exchange, alter, give away, distribute, supply, or furnish or procure for unlawful use any counterfeit or spurious coin, obligation, security, or other article, or anything represented to be or intimated or held out to be such counterfeit or spurious article, for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice or attempting so to do, places in any post office or authorized depository for mail matter, any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by the Post Office Department, or takes or receives therefrom, any such matter or thing, or knowingly causes to be delivered by mail according to the direction thereon, or at the place at which it is directed to be delivered by the person to whom it is addressed, any such matter or thing, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.” 18 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 1341.
The National Stolen Property Act provides:
Ҥ 2314. Transportation of stolen goods, securities, monies, or articles used in counterfeiting.
“Whoever transports in interstate or foreign commerce any goods, wares, merchandise, securities or money, of the value of $5,000 or more, knowing the same to have been stolen, converted or taken by fraud ....
“Shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. . . .” 18 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 2314.
To constitute a violation of these provisions, it is not necessary to show that petitioners actually mailed or transported anything themselves; it is sufficient if they caused it to be done. 18 U. S. C. (Supp. Y) § 2 (b).
Petitioners do not deny that the proof offered establishes that they planned to defraud Mrs. Joyce. Collecting the proceeds of the check was an essential part of that scheme. For this purpose, Pereira delivered the check drawn on a Los Angeles bank to the El Paso bank. There was substantial evidence to show that the check was mailed from Texas to California, in the ordinary course of business.
The elements of the offense of mail fraud under 18 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 1341 are (1) aécheme to defraud, and (2) the mailing of a letter, etc., for the purpose of executing the scheme. It is not necessary that the scheme contemplate the use of the mails as an essential element. United States v. Young, 232 U. S. 155. Here, the scheme to defraud is established, and the mailing of the check by the bank, incident to an essential part of the scheme, is established. There remains only the question whether Pereira “caused” the mailing. That question is easily -answered. Where one does an act with knowledge that the use of the mails will follow in the ordinary course of business, or where such use can reasonably be foreseen, even though not actually intended, then he “causes” the mails to be used. United States v. Kenofskey, 243 U. S. 440. The conclusion that Pereira’s conviction under this count was proper follows naturally from these factors.
As to the charge of causing stolen property to be transported in interstate commerce, the validity of Pereira’s conviction is even more apparent. Sections 1341 and 2314 of Title 18 constitute two separate offenses, and a defendant may be convicted of both even though the charges arise from a single act or series of acts, so long as each requires the proof of a fact not essential to the other. Gavieres v. United States, 220 U. S. 338; Blockburger v. United States, 284 U. S. 299. 18 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 2314 requires (1) knowledge that certain property has been stolen or obtained by fraud, and (2) transporting it, or causing it to be transported, in interstate commerce. It is obvious that the mail fraud offense requires different proof. The transporting charge does not require proof that any specific means of transporting were used, or that the acts were done pursuant to a scheme to defraud, as is required for the mail fraud charge. United States v. Sheridan, 329 U. S. 379. When Pereira delivered the check, drawn on an out-of-state bank, to the El Paso bank for collection, he “caused” it to be transported in interstate commerce. It is common knowledge that such checks must be sent to the drawee bank for collection, and it follows that Pereira intended the El Paso bank to send this check across state lines. United States v. Sheridan, supra, at 391. The trial court charged the jury that one who “aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures” the commission of an act is as responsible for that act as if he had directly committed the act himself. See 18 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 2 (a). Nye & Nissen v. United States, 336 U. S. 613. The jury found Brading guilty in the light of this instruction. The Court of Appeals affirmed on the ground that the evidence supported conviction under this charge.
The evidence is clear and convincing that Brading was a participant in the fraud from beginning to end. Brad-ing made the initial contact with the victim. He persuaded her to part with $5,000, as a loan to Pereira for investment in some nonexistent oil leases. He was present and participated in conversations about buying the hotel lease. He engaged a telephone-answering service under the name of “E. J. Wilson,” the name of Pereira’s purported broker. The evidence established that he sent a telegram to Pereira authorizing an extension of the supposed option to purchase the hotel, signing it “E. J. Wilson.” He supplied the false excuse for Pereira’s departure from the victim, and went with Pereira to collect the proceeds of the check. He and Pereira fled together with the money.
The “aiding and abetting” instruction entitled the jury to draw inferences supplying any lack of evidence directly connecting the petitioner Brading with the specific acts charged in the indictment from the abundant circumstantial evidence offered. The jury was properly charged on this theory. There is ample evidence of the petitioners’ collaboration and close cooperation in the fraud from which the jury could conclude that Brading aided, abetted, or counseled Pereira in the commission of the specific acts charged. See Nye & Nissen v. United States, supra, at 619. The Court of Appeals has passed on the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain Brading’s conviction on this theory. We see no reason to upset the findings of the courts below.
The petitioners allege that their conviction on both the substantive counts and a conspiracy to commit the crimes charged in the substantive counts constitutes double jeopardy. It is settled law in this country that the commission of a substantive offense and a conspiracy to commit it are separate and distinct crimes, and a plea of double jeopardy is no defense to a conviction for both. See Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U. S. 640, 643-644, and cases cited therein. Only if the substantive offense and the conspiracy are identical does a conviction for both constitute double jeopardy. Cf. Gavieres v. United States, 220 U. S. 338. The substantive offenses with which petitioners were charged do not require more than one person for their commission; either could be accomplished by a single individual. The essence of the conspiracy charge is an agreement to use the mails to defraud and/or to transport in interstate commerce property known to have been obtained by fraud. Pereira’s conviction on the substantive counts does not depend on any agreement, he being the principal actor. Similarly, Brading’s conviction does not turn on the agreement. Aiding, abetting, and counseling are not terms which presuppose the existence of an agreement. Those terms have a broader application, making the defendant a principal when he consciously shares in a criminal act, regardless of the existence of a conspiracy. Nye & Nissen v. United States, supra, at 620. Thus, the charge of conspiracy requires proof not essential to the convictions on the substantive offenses — proof of an agreement to commit an offense against the United States — and it cannot be said that the substantive offenses and the conspiracy are identical, any more than that the two substantive offenses are identical.
Petitioners further contend that there was no evidence that they agreed to use the mails in furtherance of the scheme to defraud Mrs. Joyce or that they agreed to transport stolen property in interstate commerce. It is not necessary that an agreement to use the mails or transport stolen property exist from the inception of the scheme to defraud. If there was such an agreement at any time, it is sufficient. The existence of a conspiracy to defraud Mrs. Joyce is not denied. Pereira obtained a check from the victim for the purchase of an automobile. That check was drawn on a Los Angeles bank by Mrs. Joyce’s brokers. When the subject of purchasing the hotel was broached, Mrs. Joyce told Pereira that she would have to have her California broker sell some stocks to obtain the funds for the purchase. When there was a delay in contacting the broker, Brading, as “E. J. Wilson,” sent a telegram extending the spurious option for the purchase of the hotel. There is no doubt about Pereira’s knowledge that a check on an out-of-state bank would be involved. From what we have said with regard to the substantive offenses, it is also clear that an intent to collect on the check would include an intent to use the mails or to transport the check in interstate commerce. It was certainly not improper to allow the jury to determine from the circumstances whether Brading shared Pereira’s knowledge and agreed with him as to the use of the only appropriate means of collecting the money. It would be unreasonable to suppose that Brading would be so closely associated with Pereira in the scheme to defraud without knowing the details related to the realization of their common goal. There is no reason for this Court to upset the jury’s finding of conspiracy.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment below is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Reed took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The Government argues that Brading’s conviction on the substantive offenses can be affirmed on the basis of Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U. S. 640, since the record demonstrates that he conspired to defraud Mrs. Joyce and the acts charged in the substantive offenses were acts in furtherance of that design. The Pinkerton case, however, is inapplicable here since the jury was not instructed in terms of that theory. Nye & Nissen v. United States, 336 U. S. 613.
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 delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Russell Bartlett sued petitioners-two police officers-alleging that they retaliated against him for his protected First Amendment speech by arresting him for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. The officers had probable cause to arrest Bartlett, and we now decide whether that fact defeats Bartlett's First Amendment claim as a matter of law.
I
A
Bartlett was arrested during "Arctic Man," a weeklong winter sports festival held in the remote Hoodoo Mountains near Paxson, Alaska. Paxson is a small community that normally consists of a few dozen residents. But once a year, upwards of 10,000 people descend on the area for Arctic Man, an event known for both extreme sports and extreme alcohol consumption. The mainstays are high-speed ski and snowmobile races, bonfires, and parties. During that week, the Arctic Man campground briefly becomes one of the largest and most raucous cities in Alaska.
The event poses special challenges for law enforcement. Snowmobiles, alcohol, and freezing temperatures do not always mix well, and officers spend much of the week responding to snowmobile crashes, breaking up fights, and policing underage drinking. Given the remote location of the event, Alaska flies in additional officers from around the State to provide support. Still, the number of police remains limited. Even during the busiest periods of the event, only six to eight officers are on patrol at a time.
On the last night of Arctic Man 2014, Sergeant Luis Nieves and Trooper Bryce Weight arrested Bartlett. The parties dispute certain details about the arrest but agree on the general course of events, some of which were captured on video by a local news reporter.
At around 1:30 a.m., Sergeant Nieves and Bartlett first crossed paths. Nieves was asking some partygoers to move their beer keg inside their RV because minors had been making off with alcohol. According to Nieves, Bartlett began belligerently yelling to the RV owners that they should not speak with the police. Nieves approached Bartlett to explain the situation, but Bartlett was highly intoxicated and yelled at him to leave. Rather than escalate the situation, Nieves left. Bartlett disputes that account. According to Bartlett, he was not drunk at that time and never yelled at Nieves. He claims it was Nieves who became aggressive when Bartlett refused to speak with him.
Several minutes later, Bartlett saw Trooper Weight asking a minor whether he and his underage friends had been drinking. According to Weight, Bartlett approached in an aggressive manner, stood between Weight and the teenager, and yelled with slurred speech that Weight should not speak with the minor. Weight claims that Bartlett then stepped very close to him in a combative way, so Weight pushed him back. Sergeant Nieves saw the confrontation and rushed over, arriving right after Weight pushed Bartlett. Nieves immediately initiated an arrest, and when Bartlett was slow to comply with his orders, the officers forced him to the ground and threatened to tase him.
Again, Bartlett tells a different story. He denies being aggressive, and claims that he stood close to Weight only in an effort to speak over the loud background music. And he was slow to comply with Nieves's orders, not because he was resisting arrest, but because he did not want to aggravate a back injury. After Bartlett was handcuffed, he claims that Nieves said: "[B]et you wish you would have talked to me now." 712 Fed. Appx. 613, 616 (C.A.9 2017).
The officers took Bartlett to a holding tent, where he was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He had sustained no injuries during the episode and was released a few hours later.
B
The State ultimately dismissed the criminal charges against Bartlett, and Bartlett then sued the officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which provides a cause of action for state deprivations of federal rights. As relevant here, he claimed that the officers violated his First Amendment rights by arresting him in retaliation for his speech. The protected speech, according to Bartlett, was his refusal to speak with Nieves earlier in the evening and his intervention in Weight's discussion with the underage partygoer. The officers responded that they arrested Bartlett because he interfered with an investigation and initiated a physical confrontation with Weight. The District Court granted summary judgment for the officers. The court determined that the officers had probable cause to arrest Bartlett and held that the existence of probable cause precluded Bartlett's First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim.
The Ninth Circuit disagreed. 712 Fed. Appx. 613. Relying on its prior decision in Ford v. Yakima, 706 F. 3d 1188 (2013), the court held that a plaintiff can prevail on a First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim even in the face of probable cause for the arrest. According to the Ninth Circuit, Bartlett needed to show only (1) that the officers' conduct would "chill a person of ordinary firmness from future First Amendment activity," and (2) that he had advanced evidence that would "enable him ultimately to prove that the officers' desire to chill his speech was a but-for cause" of the arrest. 712 Fed. Appx. at 616 (internal quotation marks omitted). The court concluded that Bartlett had satisfied both requirements: A retaliatory arrest is sufficiently chilling, and Bartlett had presented enough evidence that his speech was a but-for cause of the arrest. The only causal evidence relied on by the court was Bartlett's affidavit alleging that Sergeant Nieves said "bet you wish you would have talked to me now." If that allegation were true, the court reasoned, a jury might conclude that the officers arrested Bartlett in retaliation for his statements earlier that night.
The officers petitioned for review in this Court, and we granted certiorari. 585 U.S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 2709, 201 L.Ed.2d 1095 (2018).
II
We are asked to resolve whether probable cause to make an arrest defeats a claim that the arrest was in retaliation for speech protected by the First Amendment. We have considered this issue twice in recent years. On the first occasion, we ultimately left the question unanswered because we decided the case on the alternative ground of qualified immunity. See Reichle v. Howards, 566 U.S. 658, 132 S.Ct. 2088, 182 L.Ed.2d 985 (2012). We took up the question again last Term in Lozman v.Riviera Beach, 585 U.S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 1945, 201 L.Ed.2d 342 (2018). Lozman involved unusual circumstances in which the plaintiff was arrested pursuant to an alleged "official municipal policy" of retaliation. Id., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1954. Because those facts were "far afield from the typical retaliatory arrest claim," we reserved judgment on the broader question presented and limited our holding to arrests that result from official policies of retaliation. Id., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1953-1954. In such cases, we held, probable cause does not categorically bar a plaintiff from suing the municipality. Id., at ---- - ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1954-1955. We now take up the question once again, this time in a more representative case.
A
"[A]s a general matter the First Amendment prohibits government officials from subjecting an individual to retaliatory actions" for engaging in protected speech. Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 250, 256, 126 S.Ct. 1695, 164 L.Ed.2d 441 (2006). If an official takes adverse action against someone based on that forbidden motive, and "non-retaliatory grounds are in fact insufficient to provoke the adverse consequences," the injured person may generally seek relief by bringing a First Amendment claim. Ibid. (citing Crawford-El v. Britton, 523 U.S. 574, 593, 118 S.Ct. 1584, 140 L.Ed.2d 759 (1998) ; Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 283-284, 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977) ).
To prevail on such a claim, a plaintiff must establish a "causal connection" between the government defendant's "retaliatory animus" and the plaintiff's "subsequent injury." Hartman, 547 U.S. at 259, 126 S.Ct. 1695. It is not enough to show that an official acted with a retaliatory motive and that the plaintiff was injured-the motive must cause the injury. Specifically, it must be a "but-for" cause, meaning that the adverse action against the plaintiff would not have been taken absent the retaliatory motive. Id., at 260, 126 S.Ct. 1695 (recognizing that although it "may be dishonorable to act with an unconstitutional motive," an official's "action colored by some degree of bad motive does not amount to a constitutional tort if that action would have been taken anyway").
For example, in Mt. Healthy, a teacher claimed that a school district refused to rehire him in retaliation for his protected speech. We held that even if the teacher's "protected conduct played a part, substantial or otherwise, in [the] decision not to rehire," he was not entitled to reinstatement "if the same decision would have been reached" absent his protected speech. 429 U.S. at 285, 97 S.Ct. 568. Regardless of the motives of the school district, we concluded that the First Amendment "principle at stake is sufficiently vindicated if such an employee is placed in no worse a position than if he had not engaged in the [protected speech]." Id., at 285-286, 97 S.Ct. 568.
For a number of retaliation claims, establishing the causal connection between a defendant's animus and a plaintiff's injury is straightforward. Indeed, some of our cases in the public employment context "have simply taken the evidence of the motive and the discharge as sufficient for a circumstantial demonstration that the one caused the other," shifting the burden to the defendant to show he would have taken the challenged action even without the impermissible motive. Hartman, 547 U.S. at 260, 126 S.Ct. 1695 (citing Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S. at 287, 97 S.Ct. 568 ;
Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 270, n. 21, 97 S.Ct. 555, 50 L.Ed.2d 450 (1977) ). But the consideration of causation is not so straightforward in other types of retaliation cases.
In Hartman, for example, we addressed retaliatory prosecution cases, where "proving the link between the defendant's retaliatory animus and the plaintiff's injury... 'is usually more complex than it is in other retaliation cases.' " Lozman, 585 U.S., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1952-1953 (quoting Hartman, 547 U.S. at 261, 126 S.Ct. 1695 ). Unlike most retaliation cases, in retaliatory prosecution cases the official with the malicious motive does not carry out the retaliatory action himself-the decision to bring charges is instead made by a prosecutor, who is generally immune from suit and whose decisions receive a presumption of regularity. Lozman, 585 U.S., at ---- - ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1952-1953. Thus, even when an officer's animus is clear, it does not necessarily show that the officer "induced the action of a prosecutor who would not have pressed charges otherwise." Hartman, 547 U.S. at 263, 126 S.Ct. 1695.
To account for this "problem of causation" in retaliatory prosecution claims, Hartman adopted the requirement that plaintiffs plead and prove the absence of probable cause for the underlying criminal charge. Ibid. ; see id., at 265-266, 126 S.Ct. 1695. As Hartman explained, that showing provides a "distinct body of highly valuable circumstantial evidence" that is "apt to prove or disprove" whether retaliatory animus actually caused the injury: "Demonstrating that there was no probable cause for the underlying criminal charge will tend to reinforce the retaliation evidence and show that retaliation was the but-for basis for instigating the prosecution, while establishing the existence of probable cause will suggest that prosecution would have occurred even without a retaliatory motive." Id., at 261, 126 S.Ct. 1695. Requiring plaintiffs to plead and prove the absence of probable cause made sense, we reasoned, because the existence of probable cause will be at issue in "practically all" retaliatory prosecution cases, has "high probative force," and thus "can be made mandatory with little or no added cost." Id., at 265, 126 S.Ct. 1695. Moreover, imposing that burden on plaintiffs was necessary to suspend the presumption of regularity underlying the prosecutor's charging decision-a presumption we "do not lightly discard." Id., at 263, 126 S.Ct. 1695 ; see also id., at 265, 126 S.Ct. 1695. Thus, Hartman requires plaintiffs in retaliatory prosecution cases to show more than the subjective animus of an officer and a subsequent injury; plaintiffs must also prove as a threshold matter that the decision to press charges was objectively unreasonable because it was not supported by probable cause.
B
Officers Nieves and Weight argue that the same no-probable-cause requirement should apply to First Amendment retaliatory arrest claims. Their primary contention is that retaliatory arrest claims involve causal complexities akin to those we identified in Hartman, and thus warrant the same requirement that plaintiffs plead and prove the absence of probable cause. Brief for Petitioners 20-30.
As a general matter, we agree. As we recognized in Reichle and reaffirmed in Lozman, retaliatory arrest claims face some of the same challenges we identified in Hartman : Like retaliatory prosecution cases, "retaliatory arrest cases also present a tenuous causal connection between the defendant's alleged animus and the plaintiff's injury." Reichle, 566 U.S. at 668, 132 S.Ct. 2088. The causal inquiry is complex because protected speech is often a "wholly legitimate consideration" for officers when deciding whether to make an arrest. Ibid. ; Lozman, 585 U.S., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1953. Officers frequently must make "split-second judgments" when deciding whether to arrest, and the content and manner of a suspect's speech may convey vital information-for example, if he is "ready to cooperate" or rather "present[s] a continuing threat." Id., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1953 (citing District of Columbiav.Wesby, 583 U.S. ----, ----, 138 S.Ct. 577, 587-588, 199 L.Ed.2d 453 (2018) ("suspect's untruthful and evasive answers to police questioning could support probable cause")). Indeed, that kind of assessment happened in this case. The officers testified that they perceived Bartlett to be a threat based on a combination of the content and tone of his speech, his combative posture, and his apparent intoxication.
In addition, "[l]ike retaliatory prosecution cases, evidence of the presence or absence of probable cause for the arrest will be available in virtually every retaliatory arrest case." Reichle, 566 U.S. at 668, 132 S.Ct. 2088. And because probable cause speaks to the objective reasonableness of an arrest, see Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 736, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011), its absence will-as in retaliatory prosecution cases-generally provide weighty evidence that the officer's animus caused the arrest, whereas the presence of probable cause will suggest the opposite.
To be sure, Reichle and Lozman also recognized that the two claims give rise to complex causal inquiries for somewhat different reasons. Unlike retaliatory prosecution cases, retaliatory arrest cases do not implicate the presumption of prosecutorial regularity or necessarily involve multiple government actors (although this case did). Reichle, 566 U.S. at 668-669, 132 S.Ct. 2088 ; Lozman, 585 U.S., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1953-1954. But regardless of the source of the causal complexity, the ultimate problem remains the same. For both claims, it is particularly difficult to determine whether the adverse government action was caused by the officer's malice or the plaintiff's potentially criminal conduct. See id., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1953 (referring to "the complexity of proving (or disproving) causation" in retaliatory arrest cases). Because of the "close relationship" between the two claims, Reichle, 566 U.S. at 667, 132 S.Ct. 2088, their related causal challenge should lead to the same solution: The plaintiff pressing a retaliatory arrest claim must plead and prove the absence of probable cause for the arrest.
Bartlett, in defending the decision below, argues that the "causation in retaliatory-arrest cases is not inherently complex" because the "factfinder simply must determine whether the officer intended to punish the plaintiff for the plaintiff's protected speech." Brief for Respondent 36-37; see also post, at 1737 - 1738 (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting). That approach fails to account for the fact that protected speech is often a legitimate consideration when deciding whether to make an arrest, and disregards the resulting causal complexity previously recognized by this Court. See Reichle, 566 U.S. at 668, 132 S.Ct. 2088 ; Lozman, 585 U.S., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1953.
Bartlett's approach dismisses the need for any threshold showing, moving directly to consideration of the subjective intent of the officers. In the Fourth Amendment context, however, "we have almost uniformly rejected invitations to probe subjective intent." al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 737, 131 S.Ct. 2074 ; see also Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452, 464, 131 S.Ct. 1849, 179 L.Ed.2d 865 (2011) ("Legal tests based on reasonableness are generally objective, and this Court has long taken the view that evenhanded law enforcement is best achieved by the application of objective standards of conduct, rather than standards that depend upon the subjective state of mind of the officer." (internal quotation marks omitted)). Police officers conduct approximately 29,000 arrests every day-a dangerous task that requires making quick decisions in "circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving." Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 397, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989). To ensure that officers may go about their work without undue apprehension of being sued, we generally review their conduct under objective standards of reasonableness. See Atwater v. Lago Vista, 532 U.S. 318, 351, and n. 22, 121 S.Ct. 1536, 149 L.Ed.2d 549 (2001) ; Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 814-819, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). Thus, when reviewing an arrest, we ask "whether the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify [the challenged] action," and if so, conclude "that action was reasonable whatever the subjective intent motivating the relevant officials." al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 736, 131 S.Ct. 2074 (internal quotation marks omitted). A particular officer's state of mind is simply "irrelevant," and it provides "no basis for invalidating an arrest." Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 153, 155, 125 S.Ct. 588, 160 L.Ed.2d 537 (2004).
Bartlett's purely subjective approach would undermine that precedent by allowing even doubtful retaliatory arrest suits to proceed based solely on allegations about an arresting officer's mental state. See Lozman, 585 U.S., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1953. Because a state of mind is "easy to allege and hard to disprove," Crawford-El, 523 U.S. at 585, 118 S.Ct. 1584, a subjective inquiry would threaten to set off "broad-ranging discovery" in which "there often is no clear end to the relevant evidence," Harlow, 457 U.S. at 817, 102 S.Ct. 2727. As a result, policing certain events like an unruly protest would pose overwhelming litigation risks. Any inartful turn of phrase or perceived slight during a legitimate arrest could land an officer in years of litigation. Bartlett's standard would thus "dampen the ardor of all but the most resolute, or the most irresponsible, in the unflinching discharge of their duties." Gregoire v. Biddle, 177 F. 2d 579, 581 (C.A.2 1949) (Learned Hand, C.J.). It would also compromise evenhanded application of the law by making the constitutionality of an arrest "vary from place to place and from time to time" depending on the personal motives of individual officers. Devenpeck, 543 U.S. at 154, 125 S.Ct. 588. Yet another "predictable consequence" of such a rule is that officers would simply minimize their communication during arrests to avoid having their words scrutinized for hints of improper motive-a result that would leave everyone worse off. Id., at 155, 125 S.Ct. 588.
Adopting Hartman's no-probable-cause rule in this closely related context addresses those familiar concerns. Absent such a showing, a retaliatory arrest claim fails. But if the plaintiff establishes the absence of probable cause, "then the Mt. Healthy test governs: The plaintiff must show that the retaliation was a substantial or motivating factor behind the [arrest], and, if that showing is made, the defendant can prevail only by showing that the [arrest] would have been initiated without respect to retaliation." Lozman, 585 U.S., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1952-1953 (citing Hartman, 547 U.S. at 265-266, 126 S.Ct. 1695 ).
C
Our conclusion is confirmed by the common law approach to similar tort claims. When defining the contours of a claim under § 1983, we look to "common-law principles that were well settled at the time of its enactment." Kalina v. Fletcher, 522 U.S. 118, 123, 118 S.Ct. 502, 139 L.Ed.2d 471 (1997) ; Manuelv.Joliet, 580 U.S. ----, ----, 137 S.Ct. 911, 1920-1921, 197 L.Ed.2d 312 (2017) (common law principles "guide" the definition of claims under § 1983 ).
As the parties acknowledge, when § 1983 was enacted in 1871, there was no common law tort for retaliatory arrest based on protected speech. See Brief for Petitioners 43; Brief for Respondent 20. We therefore turn to the common law torts that provide the "closest analogy" to retaliatory arrest claims. Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 484, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994). The parties dispute whether the better analog is false imprisonment or malicious prosecution. At common law, false imprisonment arose from a "detention without legal process," whereas malicious prosecution was marked "by wrongful institution of legal process." Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 389-390, 127 S.Ct. 1091, 166 L.Ed.2d 973 (2007). Here, both claims suggest the same result: The presence of probable cause should generally defeat a First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim. See generally Lozman, 585 U.S., at ---- - ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1950-1951 (THOMAS, J., dissenting).
Malicious prosecution required the plaintiff to show that the criminal charge against him "was unfounded, and that it was made without reasonable or probable cause, and that the defendant in making or instigating it was actuated by malice." Wheeler v. Nesbitt, 65 U.S. 544, 24 How. 544, 549-550, 16 L.Ed. 765 (1861) ; see also Restatement of Torts § 653 (1938). It has long been "settled law" that malicious prosecution requires proving "the want of probable cause," and Bartlett does not argue otherwise. Brown v. Selfridge, 224 U.S. 189, 191, 32 S.Ct. 444, 56 L.Ed. 727 (1912) ; see also Wheeler, 24 How. at 550 (noting that "[w]ant of reasonable and probable cause" is an "element in the action for a malicious criminal prosecution").
For claims of false imprisonment, the presence of probable cause was generally a complete defense for peace officers. See T. Cooley, Law of Torts 175 (1880); 1 F. Hilliard, The Law of Torts or Private Wrongs 207-208, and n. (a) (1859). In such cases, arresting officers were protected from liability if the arrest was "privileged." At common law, peace officers were privileged to make warrantless arrests based on probable cause of the commission of a felony or certain misdemeanors. See Restatement of Torts §§ 118, 119, 121 (1934) ; see also Cooley, Law of Torts, at 175-176 (stating that peace officers who make arrests based on probable cause "will be excused, even though it appear afterwards that in fact no felony had been committed"); see generally Atwater, 532 U.S. at 340-345, 121 S.Ct. 1536 (reviewing the history of warrantless arrests for misdemeanors). Although the exact scope of the privilege varied somewhat depending on the jurisdiction, the consistent rule was that officers were not liable for arrests they were privileged to make based on probable cause.
D
Although probable cause should generally defeat a retaliatory arrest claim, a narrow qualification is warranted for circumstances where officers have probable cause to make arrests, but typically exercise their discretion not to do so. In such cases, an unyielding requirement to show the absence of probable cause could pose "a risk that some police officers may exploit the arrest power as a means of suppressing speech." Lozman, 585 U.S., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1953-1954.
When § 1983 was adopted, officers were generally privileged to make warrantless arrests for misdemeanors only in limited circumstances. See Restatement of Torts § 121, Comments e, h, at 262-263. Today, however, "statutes in all 50 States and the District of Columbia permit warrantless misdemeanor arrests" in a much wider range of situations-often whenever officers have probable cause for "even a very minor criminal offense." Atwater, 532 U.S. at 344-345, 354, 121 S.Ct. 1536 ; see id., at 355-360, 121 S.Ct. 1536 (listing state statutes).
For example, at many intersections, jaywalking is endemic but rarely results in arrest. If an individual who has been vocally complaining about police conduct is arrested for jaywalking at such an intersection, it would seem insufficiently protective of First Amendment rights to dismiss the individual's retaliatory arrest claim on the ground that there was undoubted probable cause for the arrest. In such a case, because probable cause does little to prove or disprove the causal connection between animus and injury, applying Hartman's rule would come at the expense of Hartman's logic.
For those reasons, we conclude that the no-probable-cause requirement should not apply when a plaintiff presents objective evidence that he was arrested when otherwise similarly situated individuals not engaged in the same sort of protected speech had not been. Cf. United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 465, 116 S.Ct. 1480, 134 L.Ed.2d 687 (1996). That showing addresses Hartman's causal concern by helping to establish that "non-retaliatory grounds [we]re in fact insufficient to provoke the adverse consequences." 547 U.S. at 256, 126 S.Ct. 1695. And like a probable cause analysis, it provides an objective inquiry that avoids the significant problems that would arise from reviewing police conduct under a purely subjective standard. Because this inquiry is objective, the statements and motivations of the particular arresting officer are "irrelevant" at this stage. Devenpeck, 543 U.S. at 153, 125 S.Ct. 588. After making the required showing, the plaintiff's claim may proceed in the same manner as claims where the plaintiff has met the threshold showing of the absence of probable cause. See Lozman, 585 U.S., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1952-1953.
* * *
In light of the foregoing, Bartlett's retaliation claim cannot survive summary judgment. As an initial matter, the record contains insufficient evidence of retaliation on the part of Trooper Weight. The only evidence of retaliatory animus identified by the Ninth Circuit was Bartlett's affidavit stating that Sergeant Nieves said "bet you wish you would have talked to me now." 712 Fed. Appx. at 616. But that allegation about Nieves says nothing about what motivated Weight, who had no knowledge of Bartlett's prior run-in with Nieves. Cf. Lozman, 585 U.S., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1953-1954 (plaintiff "likely could not have maintained a retaliation claim against the arresting officer" when there was "no showing that the officer had any knowledge of [the plaintiff's] prior speech").
In any event, Bartlett's claim against both officers cannot succeed because they had probable cause to arrest him. As the Court of Appeals explained:
"When Sergeant Nieves initiated Bartlett's arrest, he knew that Bartlett had been drinking, and he observed Bartlett speaking in a loud voice and standing close to Trooper Weight. He also saw Trooper Weight push Bartlett back.... [T]he test is whether the information the officer had at the time of making the arrest gave rise to probable cause. We agree with the district court that it did; a reasonable officer in Sergeant Nieves's position could have concluded that Bartlett stood close to Trooper Weight and spoke loudly in order to challenge him, provoking Trooper Weight to push him back." 712 Fed. Appx. at 615 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
Because there was probable cause to arrest Bartlett, his retaliatory arrest claim fails as a matter of law. Accordingly, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice THOMAS, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
When 42 U.S.C. § 1983 was enacted, "the common law recognized probable cause as an important element for ensuring that arrest-based torts did not unduly interfere with the objectives of law enforcement." Lozman v.Riviera Beach, 585 U.S. ----, ----, 138 S.Ct. 1945, 1958, 201 L.Ed.2d 342 (2018) (THOMAS, J., dissenting). Applying that principle resolves this case: "[P]laintiffs bringing a First Amendment retaliatory-arrest claim under § 1983 should have to plead and prove a lack of probable cause." Ibid. The Court acknowledges as much, ante, at 1726 - 1727, and I join the portions of the Court's opinion adopting that rule. I do not join Part II-D, however, because I do not agree that "a narrow qualification is warranted for circumstances where officers have probable cause to make arrests, but typically exercise their discretion not to do so." Ante, at 1727. That qualification has no basis in either the common law or our First Amendment precedents.
As the Court explains, "[w]hen defining the contours of a claim under § 1983, we look to 'common-law principles that were well settled at the time of its enactment.' " Ante, at 1726. Because no common-law tort for retaliatory arrest in violation of the freedom of speech existed when § 1983 was enacted, we "look to the common-law torts that 'provid[e] the closest analogy' to this claim." Lozman, 585 U.S., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 1957 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). Here, those torts are false imprisonment, malicious arrest, and malicious prosecution. Ibid.
The existence of probable cause generally excused an officer from liability for these three torts, without regard to the treatment of similarly situated individuals. For instance, a constable who made an arrest "on reasonable grounds of belief" that a felony had been committed was "excused" from liability for false imprisonment. T. Cooley, Law of Torts 175 (1879) (Cooley); Lozman, supra, at 1721 - 1722, 138 S.Ct., at 1957-1958 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). And the absence of probable cause was central to both malicious arrest and malicious prosecution. Cooley 180-181; Lozman, supra, at 1722 - 1723, 138 S.Ct., at 1957-1958 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). As the Court puts it, "the consistent rule was that officers were not liable for arrests they were privileged to make based on probable cause." Ante, at 1727.
Rather than adhere to this rule, the majority carves out an exception to the no-probable-cause requirement for plaintiffs who "presen[t] objective evidence" that they were "arrested when otherwise similarly situated individuals not engaged in the same sort of protected speech had not been." Ante, at 1727. The common law provides no support for this exception. Indeed, the majority cites not a single common-law case that supports imposing liability based on an officer's treatment of similarly situated individuals. The majority instead suggests that its exception responds to the fact that States today " 'permit warrantless misdemeanor arrests' " for many "'minor criminal offense[s],' " whereas "[w]hen § 1983 was adopted, officers were generally privileged to make warrantless arrests for misdemeanors only in limited circumstances." Ibid. But discomfort with the number of warrantless arrests that are privileged today is an issue for state legislatures, not a license for this Court to fashion an exception to a previously "consistent rule." Ante, at 1726 - 1727.
The majority's exception is also untethered from our First Amendment preced
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
C
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The questions presented by this case are (1) whether a white defendant has standing to raise a Sixth Amendment challenge to the prosecutor’s exercise of peremptory challenges to exclude all black potential jurors from his petit jury, and (2) whether such exclusion violates his Sixth Amendment right to trial by an impartial jury.
H
Petitioner Daniel Holland was charged in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, with aggravated kidnaping, rape, deviate sexual assault, armed robbery, and aggravated battery. According to his allegations, a venire of 30 potential jurors was assembled, 2 of whom were black. Petitioner’s counsel objected to those of the State’s peremptory challenges that struck the two black venire members from the petit jury, on the ground that petitioner had a Sixth Amendment right to “be tried by a representative cross section of the community.” App. 7-8. The trial judge overruled the objection, and petitioner was subsequently convicted of all except the aggravated battery charge. The convictions were reversed by the Illinois Appellate Court, First District, 147 Ill. App. 3d 323, 497 N. E. 2d 1230 (1986), on grounds that are irrelevant here, but on further appeal by the State were reinstated by the Illinois Supreme Court, which rejected petitioner’s Equal Protection Clause and Sixth Amendment challenges to the exclusion of the black jurors. 121 Ill. 2d 136, 520 N. E. 2d 270 (1987). We granted Holland’s petition for certiorari asserting that the Sixth Amendment holding was error. 489 U. S. 1051 (1989).
rH h-i
The threshold question is whether petitioner, who is white, has standing to raise a Sixth Amendment challenge to the exclusion of blacks from his jury. We hold that he does.
In Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79, 96 (1986), we said that to establish a prima facie Equal Protection Clause violation in the discriminatory exclusion of petit jurors, the defendant “must show that he is a member of a cognizable racial group . . . and that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges to remove from the venire members of the defendant's race.” (Emphasis added.) We have never suggested, however, that such a requirement of correlation between the group identification of the defendant and the group identification of excluded venire members is necessary for Sixth Amendment standing. To the contrary, our cases hold that the Sixth Amendment entitles every defendant to object to a venire that is not designed to represent a fair cross section of the community, whether or not the systematically excluded groups are groups to which he himself belongs. See, e. g., Duren v. Missouri, 439 U. S. 357 (1979); Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U. S. 522 (1975). Thus, in Taylor, we found standing in circumstances analogous to petitioner’s:
“The State first insists that Taylor, a male, has no standing to object to the exclusion of women from his jury. But Taylor’s claim is that he was constitutionally entitled to a jury drawn from a venire constituting a fair cross section of the community and that the jury that tried him was not such a jury by reason of the exclusion of women. Taylor was not a member of the excluded class; but there is no rule that claims such as Taylor presents may be made only by those defendants who are members of the group excluded from jury service. ” Id., at 526.
Of course, in this case petitioner seeks an extension of the fair-cross-section requirement from the venire to the petit jury—but that variation calls into question the scope of the Sixth Amendment guarantee, not his standing to assert it. We proceed, then, to the merits of the claim.
III
Petitioner asserts that the prosecutor intentionally used his peremptory challenges to strike all black prospective jurors solely on the basis of their race, thereby preventing a distinctive group in the community from being represented on his jury. This, he contends, violated the Sixth Amendment by denying him a “fair possibility” of a petit jury representing a cross section of the community. Petitioner invites us to remedy the perceived violation by incorporating into the Sixth Amendment the test we devised in Batson to permit black defendants to establish a prima facie violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Under petitioner’s approach, a defendant of any race could establish a prima facie violation of the Sixth Amendment by objecting to the use of peremptory challenges to exclude all blacks from the jury. The burden would then shift to the prosecutor to show that the exercise of his peremptory challenges was not based on intentional discrimination against the black potential jurors solely because of their race. Only if the prosecutor could then show nonracial grounds for the strikes would no Sixth Amendment violation be found.
We reject petitioner’s fundamental thesis that a prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges to eliminate a distinctive group in the community deprives the defendant of a Sixth Amendment right to the “fair possibility” of a representative jury. While statements in our prior cases have alluded to such a “fair possibility” requirement, satisfying it has not been held to require anything beyond the inclusion of all cognizable groups in the venire, see Lockhart v. McCree, 476 U. S. 162 (1986); Duren, supra; Taylor, supra, and the use of a jury numbering at least six persons, see Ballew v. Georgia, 435 U. S. 223 (1978); Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78 (1970). A prohibition upon the exclusion of cognizable groups through peremptory challenges has no conceivable basis in the text of the Sixth Amendment, is without support in our prior decisions, and would undermine rather than further the constitutional guarantee of an impartial jury.
It has long been established that racial groups cannot be excluded from the venire from which a jury is selected. That constitutional principle was first set forth not under the Sixth Amendment but under the Equal Protection Clause. Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880). In that context, the object of the principle and the reach of its logic are not established by our common-law traditions of jury trial, but by the Fourteenth Amendment’s prohibition of unequal treatment in general and racial discrimination in particular. That prohibition therefore has equal application at the petit jury and the venire stages, as our cases have long recognized. Thus, in a decision rendered only 12 years after the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted, striking down a West Virginia law that excluded blacks from jury service, we said:
“[I]t is hard to see why the statute of West Virginia should not be regarded as discriminating against a colored man when he is put upon trial for an alleged criminal offence against the State. It is not easy to comprehend how it can be said that while every white man is entitled to a trial by a jury selected from persons of his own race or color, or, rather, selected without discrimination against his color, and a negro is not, the latter is equally protected by the law with the former. Is not protection of life and liberty against race or color prejudice, a right, a legal right, under the constitutional amendment? And how can it be maintained that compelling a colored man to submit to a trial for his life by a jury drawn from a panel from which the State has expressly excluded every man of his race, because of color alone, however well qualified in other respects, is not a denial to him of equal legal protection?” Strauder, supra, at 309.
Four Terms ago, in Batson, we squarely held that race-based exclusion is no more permissible at the individual petit jury stage than at the venire stage — not because the two stages are inseparably linked, but because the intransigent prohibition of racial discrimination contained in the Fourteenth Amendment applies to both of them.
Our relatively recent cases, beginning with Taylor v. Louisiana, hold that a fair-cross-section venire requirement is imposed by the Sixth Amendment, which provides in pertinent part: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed . . . The fair-cross-section venire requirement is obviously not explicit in this text, but is derived from the traditional understanding of how an “impartial jury” is assembled. That traditional understanding includes a representative ve-nire, so that the jury will be, as we have said, “drawn from a fair cross section of the community,” Taylor, 419 U. S., at 527 (emphasis added). But it has never included the notion that, in the process of drawing the jury, that initial representativeness cannot be diminished by allowing both the accused and the State to eliminate persons thought to be inclined against their interests — which is precisely how the traditional peremptory-challenge system operates. As we described that system in Swain v. Alabama. 380 U. S. 202 (1965):
“[The peremptory challenge] is often exercised ... on grounds normally thought irrelevant to legal proceedings or official action, namely, the race, religion, nationality, occupation or affiliations of people summoned for jury duty. For the question a prosecutor or defense counsel must decide is not whether a juror of a particular race or nationality is in fact partial, but whether one from a different group is less likely to be.” Id., at 220-221 (citation and footnote omitted).
The Sixth Amendment requirement of a fair cross section on the venire is a means of assuring, not a representative jury (which the Constitution does not demand), but an impartial one (which it does). Without that requirement, the State could draw up jury lists in such manner as to produce a pool of prospective jurors disproportionately ill disposed towards one or all classes of defendants, and thus more likely to yield petit juries with similar disposition. The State would have, in effect, unlimited peremptory challenges to compose the pool in its favor. The fair-cross-section venire requirement assures, in other words, that in the process of selecting the petit jury the prosecution and defense will compete on an equal basis.
But to say that the Sixth Amendment deprives the State of the ability to “stack the deck” in its favor is not to say that each side may not, once a fair hand is dealt, use peremptory challenges to eliminate prospective jurors belonging to groups it believes would unduly favor the other side. Any theory of the Sixth Amendment leading to that result is implausible. The tradition of peremptory challenges for both the prosecution and the accused was already venerable at the time of Blackstone, see 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries 346-348 (1769), was reflected in a federal statute enacted by the same Congress that proposed the Bill of Rights, see Act of Apr. 30, 1790, ch. 9, §30, 1 Stat. 119, was recognized in an opinion by Justice Story to be part of the common law of the United States, see United States v. Marchant, 12 Wheat. 480, 483-484 (1827), and has endured through two centuries in all the States, see Swain, supra, at 215-217. The constitutional phrase “impartial jury” must surely take its content from this unbroken tradition. One could plausibly argue (though we have said the contrary, see Stilson v. United States, 250 U. S. 583, 586 (1919)) that the requirement of an “impartial jury” impliedly compels peremptory challenges, but in no way could it be interpreted directly or indirectly to prohibit them. We have gone out of our way to make this clear in our opinions. In Lockhart, we said: “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.” 476 U. S., at 173. In Taylor, we “emphasized that in holding that petit juries must be drawn from a source fairly representative of the community we impose no requirement that petit juries actually chosen must mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the population. Defendants are not entitled to a jury of any particular composition.” 419 U. S., at 538. Accord, Duren v. Missouri, 439 U. S., at 363-364, and n. 20.
The fundamental principle underlying today’s decision is the same principle that underlay Lockhart, which rejected the claim that allowing challenge for cause, in the guilt phase of a capital trial, to jurors unalterably opposed to the death penalty (so-called “Wii/ierspoow-excludables”) violates the fair-cross-section requirement. It does not violate that requirement, we said, to disqualify a group for a reason that is related “to the ability of members of the group to serve as jurors in a particular case.” 476 U. S., at 175 (emphasis added). The “representativeness” constitutionally required at the venire stage can be disrupted at the jury-panel stage to serve a State’s “legitimate interest.” Ibid. In Lockhart the legitimate interest was “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.” Id., at 175-176. Here the legitimate interest is the assurance of impartiality that the system of peremptory challenges has traditionally provided.
The rule we announce today is not only the only plausible reading of the text of the Sixth Amendment, but we think it best furthers the Amendment’s central purpose as well. Although the constitutional guarantee runs only to the individual and not to the State, the goal it expresses is jury impartiality with respect to both contestants: neither the defendant nor the State should be favored. This goal, it seems to us, would positively be obstructed by a petit jury cross-section requirement which, as we have described, would cripple the device of peremptory challenge. We have acknowledged that that device occupies “an important position in our trial procedures,” Batson, 476 U. S., at 98, and has indeed been considered “a necessary part of trial by jury,” Swain v. Alabama, 880 U. S., at 219. Peremptory challenges, by enabling each side to exclude those jurors it believes will be most partial toward the other side, are a means of “eliminat[ing] extremes of partiality on both sides,” ibid., thereby “assuring the selection of a qualified and unbiased jury,” Batson, supra, at 91 (emphasis added).
Petitioner seeks to minimize the harm that recognition of his claim would cause to the peremptory challenge system by assuring us that the striking of identifiable community groups other than blacks need not be accorded similar treatment. That is a comforting assurance, but the theory of petitioner’s case is not compatible with it. If the goal of the Sixth Amendment is representation of a fair cross section of the community on the petit jury, then intentionally using peremptory challenges to exclude any identifiable group should be impermissible — which would, as we said in Lockhart, “likely require the elimination of peremptory challenges.” 476 U. S., at 178.
Justice Marshall argues that prohibiting purposeful peremptory challenge of members of distinctive groups “would leave the peremptory challenge system almost entirely untouched” because the Court is unlikely to recognize many groups as “distinctive.” Post, at 502. Misplaced optimism on this subject is cost free to those who in any event “would . . . eliminat[e] peremptory challenges entirely in criminal cases,” Batson, supra at 107 (Marshall, J., concurring), but we see no justification for indulging it. To support his prediction, Justice Marshall states that the only groups the Court has recognized as distinctive thus far have been women and certain racial groups, post, at 502 (citing Lock-hart, 476 U. S., at 175). That is true enough, but inasmuch as those groups happen to constitute all the groups we have considered in the venire context, what it demonstrates is not how difficult it is to meet our standards for distinctiveness, but how few groups are systematically excluded from the venire. As we have discussed, however, many groups are regularly excluded from the petit jury through peremptory challenge. Lockhart itself suggests, quite rightly, that even so exotic a group as “Witherspoon-ex.clu&shles” would be a distinctive group whose rejection at the venire stage would violate the Sixth Amendment. 476 U. S., at 176. If, as Justice Marshall would have it, rejection at the venire stage and rejection at the panel stage are one and the same, there is every reason to believe that many commonly exercised bases for peremptory challenge would be rendered unavailable.
Dispassionate analysis does not bear out Justice Marshall’s contentions that we have “ignor[ed] precedent after precedent,” post, at 503, “rejected]. . . the principles underlying a whole line of cases,” ibid., and suffer from “selective amnesia with respect to our cases in this area,” post, at 500. His dissent acknowledges that the fair-cross-section decisions it discusses — Taylor, Duren, and Lockhart — “Yeierr[ed] to exclusion of prospective jurors from venires, not their exclusion from petit juries by means of peremptory challenges,” post, at 496. It nonetheless counts those cases as “well-grounded precedents,” post, at 490, because “the particular context does not affect the analysis,” post, at 496. That may be the dissent’s view, but it was assuredly not the view expressed in the cases themselves. As noted earlier, all three of those opinions specifically disclaimed application of their analysis to the petit jury. See supra, at 482-483. Last Term, in Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989), we were asked to decide the very same question we decide today— “whether,” as Justice O’Connor’s plurality opinion put it, “the Sixth Amendment’s fair cross section requirement should now be extended to the petit jury.” Id., at 292. We did not reach that question because the four-Justice plurality, with Justice White agreeing as to the result, held that “new constitutional rules of criminal procedure will not be applicable to those cases which have become final before the new rules are announced,” id., at 310, and found that in asserting a fair-cross-section requirement at the petit jury stage petitioner was urging adoption of such a “new rule,” id., at 301 — that is, a rule producing a result “not dictated by [prior] precedent,” ibid, (emphasis in original). Though there were four Justices in dissent, only two of them expressed the view that a petit jury fair-cross-section requirement was compelled by prior precedent. See id., at 340-344 (Brennan, J., dissenting). In short, there is no substance to the contention that what we hold today “ignor[es] precedent after precedent.”
Justice Marshall’s dissent rolls out the ultimate weapon, the accusation of insensitivity to racial discrimination — which will lose its intimidating effect if it continues to be fired so randomly. It is not remotely true that our opinion today “lightly . . . set[s] aside” the constitutional goal of “eliminat[ing] racial discrimination in our system of criminal justice.” Post, at 503-504. The defendant in this case is not a black man, but a convicted white rapist who seeks to use the striking of blacks from his jury to overturn his conviction. His Sixth Amendment claim would be just as strong if the object of the exclusion had been, not blacks, but postmen, or lawyers, or clergymen, or any number of other identifiable groups. Race as such has nothing to do with the legal issue in this case. We do not hold that the systematic exclusion of blacks from the jury system through peremptory challenges is lawful; it obviously is not, see Batson, supra. . We do not even hold that the exclusion of blacks through peremptory challenges in this particular trial was lawful. Nor do we even hold that this particular (white) defendant does not have a valid constitutional challenge to such racial exclusion. All we hold is that he does not have a valid constitutional challenge based on the Sixth Amendment — which no more forbids the prosecutor to strike jurors on the basis of race than it forbids him to strike them on the basis of innumerable other generalized characteristics.
To be sure, as Justice Marshall says, the Sixth Amendment sometimes operates “as a weapon to combat racial discrimination,” post, at 504, n. 2 — just as statutes against murder sometimes operate that way. But it is no more reasonable to portray this as a civil rights case than it is to characterize a proposal for increased murder penalties as an antidiscrimination law. Since only the Sixth Amendment claim, and not the equal protection claim, is at issue, the question before us is not whether the defendant has been unlawfully discriminated against because he was white, or whether the excluded jurors have been unlawfully discriminated against because they were black, but whether the defendant has been denied the right to “trial ... by an impartial jury.” The earnestness of this Court’s commitment to racial justice is not to be measured by its willingness to expand constitutional provisions designed for other purposes beyond their proper bounds.
The judgment of the Illinois Supreme Court is
Affirmed.
Justice Stevens asserts that our “historical claims are significantly overstated,” and that we “will have to do better than Blackstone and the 1790 Congress” for support. Post, at 518, n. 15. As to the former, he quotes “[w]hat Blackstone actually said” — namely, that the King had no peremptory challenges but only challenges for cause. Ibid. But Justice Stevens’ quotation should have continued to the next two sentences of what Blackstone actually said: “However it is held, that the king need not assign his cause of challenge, till all the panel is gone through, and unless there cannot be a full jury without the persons so challenged. And then, and not sooner, the king’s counsel must shew the cause: otherwise the juror shall be sworn.” 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries 347 (1769).
íhe 1790 legislation provided that if, in a treason or capital prosecution, the defendant should refuse to plead, or should repeatedly exercise peremptory challenges past a certain number (35 for treason, 20 for other capital cases), “the court . . . shall notwithstanding proceed to . . . trial ... as if [the defendant] had pleaded not guilty.” 1 Stat. 119. The statute’s relevance to the present inquiry is that it constitutes acknowledgment of the common-law practice of peremptory challenge, a practice that unquestionably extended to defense and prosecution alike. The Supreme Court decision cited in text, United States v. Marchant, 12 Wheat. 480 (1827), specifically interpreted the Act to permit “[t]he acknowledged right of peremptory challenge existing in the crown before the statute of 33 Edw. I., and the uniform practice which has prevailed since that statute,” id., at 484 (emphasis added). Justice Stevens relies upon a later case, United States v. Shackleford, 18 How. 588, 590 (1856), which said that the 1790 Act does not demand that prosecutorial peremptory challenges remain available in all federal courts despite the Act of July 20, 1840, 5 Stat. 394, which required peremptory challenges to conform with state law. This entirely misses our point — which is not that the 1790 Act made the prosecutor’s peremptory challenge a part of federal statutory law, but merely that (as Marchant held) it acknowledged the prosecutor’s peremptory challenge to be part of the well-established common law that formed the background of the Sixth Amendment. Far from refuting this, Shackleford reinforces it, referring to the “qualified right [of peremptory challenge], existing at common law, by the government.” 18 How., at 590.
Justice Stevens contends that the historical record is in any event of not much importance to the question before us, since “[t]he Court has forsworn reliance on venerable history to give meaning to the Sixth Amendment’s numerosity and unanimity requirements,” and so should not rely upon it here either. Post, at 518. We have certainly held that a departure from historical practice regarding number and unanimity of jurors does not necessarily deny the right of jury trial. But that is quite different from saying that adherence to historical practice can deny the right of jury trial. Under a historically unencumbered Sixth Amendment of the sort Justice Stevens apparently envisions, it would be conceivable that a 12-person or a unanimous jury is unconstitutional.
Justice Stevens states that a prosecutor’s “assumption that a black juror may be presumed to be partial simply because he is black ... is impermissible since Batson.” Post, at 519. It is undoubtedly true that, since Batson, -such an assumption violates the Equal Protection Clause. That has nothing to do with whether it (and, necessarily, many other group-based assumptions) violates the Sixth Amendment.
As noted at the outset, petitioner did not seek review of the denial of his Equal Protection Clause claim. Our grant of certiorari was limited to the Sixth Amendment question, and the equal protection question has been neither briefed nor argued.
Justice Stevens’ contention that the equal protection question should nonetheless be decided, post, at 506-507, contradicts this Court’s Rule 14.1(a), which states: “Only the questions set forth in the petition, or fairly included therein, will be considered by the Court.” It is almost unprecedented to accept certiorari on a question involving one constitutional provision and then to decide the ease under a different constitutional provision neither presented, briefed, nor argued. The exception was Batson, where, as accurately described in Chief Justice Burger’s dissent, “the Court departed] dramatically from its normal procedure without any explanation.” 476 U. S., at 115. Justice Stevens asserts that Batson “makes it appropriate” to reach the equal protection claim here, post, at 507. We decline to convert Batson from an unexplained departure to an unexplained rule.
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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner was convicted in an Illinois state court of criminal contempt and sentenced to imprisonment for 24 months for willfully petitioning to admit to probate a will falsely prepared and executed after the death of the putative testator. Petitioner made a timely demand for jury trial which was refused. Since in Duncan v. Louisiana, ante, p. 145, the Constitution was held to guarantee the right to jury trial in serious criminal cases in state courts, we must now decide whether it also guarantees the right to jury trial for a criminal contempt punished by a two-year prison term.
I.
Whether federal and state courts may try criminal contempt cases without a jury has been a recurring question in this Court. Article III, § 2, of the Constitution provides that “[t]he Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury....” The Sixth Amendment states that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury....” The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid both the Federal Government and the States from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Notwithstanding these provisions, until United States v. Barnett, 376 U. S. 681, rehearing denied, 377 U. S. 973 (1964), the Court consistently upheld the constitutional power of the state and federal courts to punish any criminal contempt without a jury trial. Eileribecker v. District Court of Plymouth County, 134 U. S. 31, 36-39 (1890); I. C. C. v. Brimson, 154 U. S. 447, 488-489 (1894); In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564, 594-596 (1895); Gompers v. United States, 233 U. S. 604, 610-611 (1914) ; Green v. United States, 356 U. S. 165, 183-187 (1958). These cases construed the Due Process Clause and the otherwise inclusive language of Article III and the Sixth Amendment as permitting summary trials in contempt cases because at common law contempt was tried without a jury and because the power of courts to punish for contempt without the intervention of any other agency was considered essential to the proper and effective functioning of the courts and to the administration of justice.
United States v. Barnett, supra, signaled a possible change of view. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit certified to this Court the question whether there was a right to jury trial in an impending contempt proceeding. Following prior cases, a five-man majority held that there was no constitutional right to jury trial in all contempt cases. Criminal contempt, intrinsically and aside from the particular penalty imposed, was not deemed a serious offense requiring the protection of the constitutional guarantees of the right to jury trial. However, the Court put aside as not raised in the certification or firmly settled by prior cases, the issue whether a severe punishment would itself trigger the right to jury trial and indicated, without explication, that some members of the Court were of the view that the Constitution limited the punishment which could be imposed where the contempt was tried without a jury. 376 U. S., at 694^695 and n. 12.
Two years later, in Cheff v. Schnackenberg, 384 U. S. 373 (1966), which involved a prison term of six months for contempt of a federal court, the Court rejected the claim that the Constitution guaranteed a right to jury trial in all criminal contempt cases. Contempt did not “of itself” warrant treatment as other than a petty offense; the six months’ punishment imposed permitted dealing with the case as a prosecution for “a petty offense, which under our decisions does not require a jury trial.” 384 U. S. 373, 379-380 (1966). See Callan v. Wilson, 127 U. S. 540 (1888); Schick v. United States, 195 U. S. 65 (1904); District of Columbia v. Clawans, 300 U. S. 617 (1937). It was not necessary in Chef to consider whether the constitutional guarantees of the right to jury trial applied to a prosecution for a serious contempt. Now, however, because of our holding in Duncan v. Louisiana, supra, that the right to jury trial extends to the States, and because of Bloom’s demand for a jury in this case, we must once again confront the broad rule that all criminal contempts can be constitutionally tried without a jury. Barnett presaged a re-examination of this doctrine at some later time; that time has now arrived.
In proceeding with this task, we are acutely aware of the responsibility we assume in entertaining challenges to a constitutional principle which is firmly entrenched and which has behind it weighty and ancient authority. Our deliberations have convinced us, however, that serious contempts are so nearly like other serious crimes that they are subject to the jury trial provisions of the Constitution, now binding on the States, and that the traditional rule is constitutionally infirm insofar as it permits other than petty contempts to be tried without honoring a demand for a jury trial. We accept the judgment of Barnett and Cheff that criminal contempt is a petty offense unless the punishment makes it a serious one; but, in our view, dispensing with the jury in the trial of contempts subjected to severe punishment represents an unacceptable construction of the Constitution, "an unconstitutional assumption of powers by the [courts] which no lapse of time or respectable array of opinion should make us hesitate to correct.” Black & White Taxicab & Transfer Co. v. Brown & Yellow Taxicab & Transfer Co., 276 U. S. 518, 533 (1928) (Holmes, J., dissenting). The rule of our prior cases has strong, though sharply challenged, historical support; but neither this circumstance nor the considerations of necessity and efficiency normally offered in defense of the established rule, justify denying a jury trial in serious criminal contempt cases. The Constitution guarantees the right to jury trial in state court prosecutions for contempt just as it does for other crimes.
II.
Criminal contempt is, a crime in the ordinary sense; it is a violation of the law, a public wrong which is punishable by fine or imprisonment or both. In the words of Mr. Justice Holmes:
“These contempts are infractions of the law, visited with punishment as such. If such acts are not criminal, we are in error as to the most fundamental characteristic of crimes as that word has been understood in English speech.” Compers v. United States, 233 U. S. 604, 610 (1914).
Criminally contemptuous conduct may violate other provisions of the criminal law; but even when this is not the case convictions for criminal contempt are indistinguishable from ordinary criminal convictions, for their impact on the individual defendant is the same. Indeed, the role of criminal contempt and that of many ordinary criminal laws seem identical — protection of the institutions of our government and enforcement of their mandates.
Given that criminal contempt is a crime in every fundamental respect, the question is whether it is a crime to which the jury trial provisions of the Constitution apply. We hold that it is, primarily because in terms of those considerations which make the right to jury trial fundamental in criminal cases, there is no substantial difference between serious contempts and other serious crimes. Indeed, in contempt cases an even more compelling argument can be made for providing a right to jury trial as a protection against the arbitrary exercise of official power. Contemptuous conduct, though a public wrong, often strikes at the most vulnerable and human qualities of a judge’s temperament. Even when the contempt is not a direct insult to the court or the judge, it frequently represents a rejection of judicial authority, or an interference with the judicial process or with the duties of officers of the court.
The court has long recognized the potential for abuse in exercising the summary power to imprison for contempt — it is an “arbitrary” power which is “liable to abuse.” Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289, 313 (1888). “[I]ts exercise is a delicate one and care is needed to avoid arbitrary or oppressive conclusions.” Cooke v. United States, 267 U. S. 517, 539 (1925).
These apprehensions about the unbridled power to punish summarily for contempt are reflected in the march of events in both Congress and the courts since our Constitution was adopted. The federal courts were established by the Judiciary Act of 1789; § 17 of the Act provided that those courts “shall have power to... punish by fine or imprisonment, at the discretion of said courts, all contempts of authority in any cause or hearing before the same....” 1 Stat. 83. See Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204, 227-228 (1821). This open-ended authority to deal with contempt, limited only as to mode of punishment, proved unsatisfactory to Congress. Abuses under the 1789 Act culminated in the unsuccessful impeachment proceedings against James Peck, a federal district judge who had imprisoned and disbarred one Lawless for publishing a criticism of one of Peck’s opinions in a case which was on appeal. The result was drastic curtailment of the contempt power in the Act of 1831, 4 Stat. 487. Ex parte Robinson, 19 Wall. 505, 510-511 (1874); In re Savin, 131 U. S. 267, 275-276 (1889). That Act limited the contempt power to misbehavior in the presence of the court or so near thereto as to obstruct justice; misbehavior of court officers in their official transactions; and disobedience of or resistance to the lawful writ, process, order, or decree of the court. This major revision of the contempt power in the federal sphere, which “narrowly confined” and “substantially curtailed” the authority to punish contempt summarily, Nye v. United States, 313 U. S. 33, 47-48 (1941), has continued to the present day as the basis for the general power to punish criminal contempt. 62 Stat. 701, 18 U. S. C. § 401.
The courts also proved sensitive to the potential for abuse which resides in the summary power to punish contempt. Before the 19th century was out, a distinction had been carefully drawn between contempts occurring within the view of the court, for which a hearing and formal presentation of evidence were dispensed with, and all other contempts where more normal adversary procedures were required. Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289 (1888); In re Savin, 131 U. S. 267 (1889). Later, the Court could say “it is certain that in proceedings for criminal contempt the defendant is presumed to be innocent, he must be proved to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and cannot be compelled to testify against himself.” Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co., 221 U. S. 418, 444 (1911). See Michaelson v. United States ex rel. Chicago, St. P., M. & O. R. Co., 266 U. S. 42, 66 (1924). Chief Justice Taft speaking for a unanimous Court in Cooke v. United States, 267 U. S. 517, 537 (1925), said:
“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.”
Cf. Blackmer v. United States, 284 U. S. 421, 440 (1932). It has also been recognized that the defendant in criminal contempt proceedings is entitled to a public trial before an unbiased judge, In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257 (1948); Offutt v. United States, 348 U. S. 11 (1954); see Ungar v. Sarafite, 376 U. S. 575 (1964); but cf. Levine v. United States, 362 U. S. 610 (1960). In the federal system many of the procedural protections available to criminal contemnors are set forth in Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 42.
Judicial concern has not been limited to procedure. In Toledo Newspaper Co. v. United States, 247 U. S. 402 (1918), the Court endorsed a broad construction of the language of the Act of 1831 permitting summary-trial of contempts “so near [to the court] as to obstruct the administration of justice.” It required only that the conduct have a “tendency to prevent and obstruct the discharge of judicial duty Id., at 419. See Craig v. Hecht, 263 U. S. 255, 277 (1923). This view proved aberrational and was overruled in Nye v. United States, 313 U. S. 33, 47-52 (1941), which narrowly limited the conduct proscribed by the 1831 Act to “misbehavior in the vicinity of the court disrupting to quiet and order or actually interrupting the court in the conduct of its business.” Id., at 52. Cf. Toledo Newspaper Co. v. United States, supra, at 422 (Holmes, J., dissenting). The congressional purpose to fence in the power of the federal courts to punish contempt summarily was further implemented in Cammer v. United States, 350 U. S. 399, 407-408 (1956). A lawyer, the Court held, “is not the kind of ‘officer’ who can be summarily tried for contempt under 18 U. S. C. § 401 (2).” In another development, the First Amendment was invoked to ban punishment for a broad category of arguably contemptuous out-of-court conduct. Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252 (1941); Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331 (1946); Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S. 367 (1947). Finally, over the years in the federal system there has been a recurring necessity to set aside punishments for criminal contempt as either unauthorized by statute or too harsh. E. g., Ex parte Robinson, 19 Wall. 505 (1874); United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258 (1947); Yates v. United States, 355 U. S. 66 (1957).
This course of events demonstrates the unwisdom of vesting the judiciary with completely untrammeled power to punish contempt, and makes clear the need for effective safeguards against that power’s abuse. Prosecutions for contempt play a significant role in the proper functioning of our judicial system; but despite the important values which the contempt power protects, courts and legislatures have gradually eroded the power of judges to try contempts of their own authority. In modern times, procedures in criminal contempt cases have come to mirror those used in ordinary criminal cases. Our experience teaches that convictions for criminal contempt, not infrequently resulting in extremely serious penalties, see United States v. Barnett, 376 U. S. 681, 751 (Goldberg, J., dissenting), are indistinguishable from those obtained under ordinary criminal laws. If the right to jury trial is a fundamental matter in other criminal cases, which we think it is, it must also be extended to criminal contempt cases.
III.
Nor are there compelling reasons for a contrary result. As we read the earlier cases in this Court upholding the power to try contempts without a jury, it was not doubted that the summary power was subject to abuse or that the right to jury trial would be an effective check. Rather, it seems to have been thought that summary power was necessary to preserve the dignity, independence, and effectiveness of the judicial process— “To submit the question of disobedience to another tribunal, be it a jury or another court, would operate to deprive the proceeding of half its efficiency.” In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564, 595 (1895). It is at this point that we do not agree: in our judgment, when serious punishment for contempt is contemplated, rejecting a demand for jury trial cannot be squared with the Constitution or justified by considerations of efficiency or the desirability of vindicating the authority of the court.
We cannot say that the need to further respect for judges and courts is entitled to more consideration than the interest of the individual not to be subjected to serious criminal punishment without the benefit of all the procedural protections worked out carefully over the years and deemed fundamental to our system of justice. Genuine respect, which alone can lend true dignity to our judicial establishment, will be engendered, not by the fear of unlimited authority, but by the firm administration of the law through those institutionalized procedures which have been worked out over the centuries.
We place little credence in the notion that the independence of the judiciary hangs on the power to try contempts summarily and are not persuaded that the additional time and expense possibly involved in submitting serious contempts to juries will seriously handicap the effective functioning of the courts. We do not deny that serious punishment must sometimes be imposed for contempt, but we reject the contention that such punishment must be imposed without the right to jury trial. The goals of dispatch, economy, and efficiency are important, but they are amply served by preserving the power to commit for civil contempt and by recognizing that many contempts are not serious crimes but petty offenses not within the jury trial provisions of the Constitution. When a serious contempt is at issue, considerations of efficiency must give way to the more fundamental interest of ensuring the even-handed exercise of judicial power. In isolated instances recalcitrant or irrational juries may acquit rather than apply the law to the case before them. Our system has wrestled with this problem for hundreds of years, however, and important safeguards have been devised to minimize miscarriages of justice through the malfunctioning of the jury system. Perhaps to some extent we sacrifice efficiency, expedition, and economy, but the choice in favor of jury trial has been made, and retained, in the Constitution. We see no sound reason in logic or policy not to apply it in the area of criminal contempt.
Some special mention of contempts in the presence of the judge is warranted. Rule 42 (a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provides that “[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.” This rule reflects the common-law rulé which is widely if not uniformly followed in the States. Although Rule 42 (a) is based in part on the premise that it is not necessary specially to present the facts of a contempt which occurred in the very presence of the judge, it also rests on the need to maintain order and a deliberative atmosphere in the courtroom. The power of a judge to quell disturbance cannot attend upon the impaneling of a jury. There is, therefore, a strong temptation to make exception to the rule we establish today for disorders in the courtroom. We are convinced, however, that no such special rule is needed. It is old law that the guarantees of jury trial found in Article III and the Sixth Amendment do not apply to petty offenses. Only today we have reaffirmed that position. Duncan v. Louisiana, supra, at 159-162. By deciding to treat criminal contempt like other crimes insofar as the right to jury trial is concerned, we similarly place it under the rule that petty crimes need not be tried to a jury.
IV.
Petitioner Bloom was held in contempt of court for filing a spurious will for probate. At his trial it was established that the putative testator died on July 6, 1964, and that after that date Pauline Owens, a practical nurse for the decedent, engaged Bloom to draw and execute a will in the decedent’s name. The will was dated June 21, 1964. Bloom knew the will was false when he presented it for admission in the Probate Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County. The State’s Attorney of that county filed a complaint charging Bloom with contempt of court. At trial petitioner’s timely motion for a jury trial was denied. Petitioner was found guilty of criminal contempt and sentenced to imprisonment for 24 months. On direct appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, his conviction was affirmed. That court held that neither state law nor the Federal Constitution provided a right to jury trial in criminal contempt proceedings. 35 Ill. 2d 255, 220 N. E. 2d 475 (1966). We granted certiorari, 386 U. S. 1003 (1967).
Petitioner Bloom contends that the conduct for which he was convicted of criminal contempt constituted the crime of forgery under Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 38, § 17-3. Defendants tried under that statute enjoy a right to jury trial and face a possible sentence of one to 14 years, a fine not to exceed $1,000, or both. Petitioner was not tried under this statute, but rather was convicted of criminal contempt. Under Illinois law no maximum punishment is provided for convictions for criminal contempt. People v. Stollar, 31 Ill. 2d 154, 201 N. E. 2d 97 (1964). In Duncan we have said that we need not settle “the exact location of the line between petty offenses and serious crimes” but that “a crime punishable by two years in prison is... a serious crime and not a petty offense.” Supra, at 161, 162. Bloom was sentenced to imprisonment for two years. Our analysis of Barnett, supra, and Cheff v. Schnackenberg, 384 U. S. 373. makes it clear that criminal contempt is not a crime of the sort that requires the right to jury trial regardless of the penalty involved. Under the rule in Cheff, when the legislature has not expressed a judgment as to the seriousness of an offense by fixing a maximum penalty Which may be imposed, we are to look to the penalty actually imposed as the best evidence of the seriousness of the offense. See Duncan, supra, at 162, n. 35. Under this rule it is clear that Bloom was entitled to the right to trial by jury, and it was constitutional error to deny him that right. Accordingly, we reverse and remand for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Many more cases have supported the rule that courts may punish criminal contempt summarily, or accepted that rule without question. See cases collected in Green v. United States, 356 U. S. 165, 191, n. 2 (1958) (concurring opinion); United States v. Barnett, 376 U. S. 681, 694, n. 12 (1964). The list of the Justices of this Court who have apparently subscribed to this view is long. See Green v. United States, supra, at 192.
The argument that the power to punish contempt was an inherent power of the courts not subject to regulation by Congress was rejected in Michaelson v. United States ex rel. Chicago, St. P., M. & O. R. Co., 266 U. S. 42, 65-67 (1924), which upheld the maximum sentence and jury trial provisions of the Clayton Act. Cf. Lar-remore, Constitutional Regulation of Contempt of Court, 13 Harv. L. Rev. 615 (1900).
Blackstone’s description of the common-law practice in contempt cases appears in 4 Commentaries on the Laws of England 286-287:
“The process of attachment for these and the like contempts must necessarily be as ancient as the laws themselves; for laws without a competent authority to secure their administration from disobedience and contempt would be vain and nugatory. A power, therefore, in the supreme courts of justice, to suppress such contempts by an immediate attachment of the offender results from the first principles of judicial establishments, and must be an inseparable attendant upon every superior tribunal.
“If the contempt be committed in the face of the court, the offender may be instantly apprehended and imprisoned, at the discretion of the judges, without any further proof or examination. But in matters that arise at a distance, and of which the court cannot have so perfect a knowledge, unless by the confession of the party or the testimony of others, if the judges upon affidavit see sufficient ground to suspect that a contempt has been committed, they either make a rule on the suspected party to show cause why an attachment should not issue against him, or, in very flagrant instances of contempt, the attachment issues in the first instance; as it also does if no sufficient cause be shown to discharge; and thereupon the court confirms and makes absolute the original rule.” And see id., at 280. A similar account is contained in 2 W. Hawkins, A Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown 4, 141 (2d ed. 1724).
Of course, “Blackstone’s Commentaries are accepted as the most satisfactory exposition of the common law of England.... [U]n-doubtedly the framers of the Constitution were familiar with it.” Schick v. United States, 195 U. S. 65, 69 (1904).
Blackstone, however, was acutely aware that this practice was a significant departure from ordinary principles: “It cannot have escaped the attention of the reader that this method of making the defendant answer upon oath to a criminal charge is not agreeable to the genius of the common law in any other instance....” 4 Blackstone, supra, at 287.
The unalloyed doctrine that by “immemorial usage” all criminal contempts could be tried summarily seems to derive from Mr. Justice (later Chief Justice) Wilmot’s undelivered opinion in The King v. Almon (1765), first brought to public light by the posthumous publication of his papers, Wilmot, Notes 243 (1802), reprinted in 97 Eng. Rep. 94. Wilmot’s opinion appears to have been the source of Blackstone’s view, but did not become an authoritative part of the law of England until Rex v. Clement, 4 Barn. & Ald. 218, 233, 106 Eng. Rep. 918, 923 (K. B. 1821). Cf. Roach v. Garvan, 2 Atk. 469, 26 Eng. Rep. 683 (Ch. 1742). See discussion in 8 How. St. Tr. 14, 22-23, 49-59, and the subsequent civil action, Burdett v. Abbot, 14 East 1, 138, 104 Eng. Rep. 501, 554 (K. B. 1811); 4 Taunt. 401, 128 Eng. Rep. 384 (Ex. 1812); 5 Dow 165, 202, 3 Eng. Rep. 1289, 1302 (H. L. 1817). The historical authenticity of this view has been vigorously challenged, initially by Solly-Flood, The Story of Prince Henry of Monmouth and Chief-Justice Gascoign, 3 Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (N. S.) 47, 61-64, 147-150 (1886). This led to the massive reappraisal of the contempt power undertaken by Sir John Fox: The King v. Almon, Pts. 1 & 2, 24 L. Q. Rev. 184, 266 (1908); The Summary Process to Punish Contempt, Pts. 1 & 2, 25 L. Q. Rev. 238, 354 (1909); Eccentricities of the Law of Contempt of Court, 36 L. Q. Rev. 394 (1920); The Nature of Contempt of Court, 37 L. Q. Rev. 191 (1921); The Practice in Contempt of Court Cases, 38 L. Q. Rev. 185 (1922); The Writ of Attachment, 40 L. Q. Rev. 43 (1924); J. Fox, The History of Contempt of Court (1927). On contempt generally, see R. Goldfarb, The Contempt Power (1963).
Learned writers have interpreted Fox’s work as showing that until the late 17th or early 18th centuries, apart from the extraordinary proceedings of the Star Chamber, English courts neither had, nor claimed, power to punish contempts, whether in or out of court, by summary process. Frankfurter.& Landis, Power of Congress over Procedure in Criminal Contempts in “Inferior” Federal Courts — A Study in Separation of Powers, 37 Harv. L. Rev. 1010, 1042-1052 (1924). Cf. J. Oswald, Contempt of Court 3, n. (g) (Robertson ed., 1910). Fox’s own appraisal of the evidence, however, seems to have been that prior to the 18th century there probably was no valid basis for summary punishment of a libel on the court by a stranger to the proceedings, but that summary punishment for contempts outside the court consisting in resistance to a lawful process or order of the court, or contumacious behavior by an officer of the court, was probably permissible. J. Fox, The History of Contempt of Court 4, 49-50, 98-100, 108-110, 208-209 (1927); Fox, The Summary Process to Punish Contempt, Pt. 1, 25 L. Q. Rev. 238, 244-246 (1909). Although jury trials had been provided in some instances of contempt in the face of the court, Fox does not seem to have questioned that such contempts could be punished summarily. J. Fox, The History of Contempt of Court 50 (1927).
We do not find the history of criminal contempt sufficiently simple or unambiguous to rest rejection of our prior decisions entirely on historical grounds, particularly since the Court has been aware of Solly-Flood’s and Fox’s work for many years. See Gompers v. United States, 233 U. S. 604, 611 (1914); Michaelson v. United States ex rel. Chicago, St. P., M. & O. R. Co., 266 U. S. 42, 66-67 (1924); Green v. United States, 356 U. S. 165, 185, n. 18 (1958). In any event, the ultimate question is not whether the traditional doctrine is historically correct but whether the rule that criminal contempts are never entitled to a jury trial is a necessary or an acceptable construction of the Constitution. Cf. Thompson v. Utah, 170 U. S. 343, 350 (1898).
See also New Orleans v. The Steamship Co., 20 Wall. 387, 392 (1874) (“[c]ontempt of court is a specific criminal offence”); O’Neal v. United States, 190 U. S. 36, 38 (1903) (an adjudication for contempt is “in effect a judgment in a criminal case”); Bessette v. W. B. Conkey Co., 194 U. S. 324, 336 (1904) (that criminal contempt proceedings are “criminal in their nature has been constantly affirmed”); Michaelson v. United States ex rel. Chicago, St. P., M. & O. R. Co., 266 U. S. 42, 66 (1924) (“[t]he fundamental characteristics of both [crimes and criminal contempts] are the same”); Green v. United States, 356 U. S. 165, 201 (1958) (BlacK, J., dissenting) (“criminal contempt is manifestly a crime by every relevant test of reason or history”). The Court also held in Bessette, supra, at 335, that criminal contempt “'cannot be considered as an infamous crime.”
“That contempt power over counsel, summary or otherwise, is capable of abuse is certain. Men who make their way to the bench sometimes exhibit vanity, irascibility, narrowness, arrogance, and other weaknesses to which human flesh is heir.” Sacher v. United States, 343 U. S. 1, 12 (1952). See also Ex parte Hudgings, 249 U. S. 378 (1919); Nye v. United States, 313 U. S. 33 (1941); Cammer v. United States, 350 U. S. 399 (1956).
Section 1 of the Act of 1831 stated:
“That the power of the several courts of the United States to issue attachments and inflict summary punishments for contempts of court, shall not be construed to extend to any cases except the misbehaviour of any person or persons in the presence of the said courts, or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice, the mis-behaviour of any of the officers of the said courts in their official transactions, and the disobedience or resistance by any officer of the said courts, party, juror, witness, or any.other person or persons, to any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of the said courts.” Fox concluded that the 1831 Act was in accord with the general common law of England. See J. Fox, The History of Contempt of Court 208 (1927). Section 2 of the Act provided for prosecution by the regular criminal procedures of those guilty of obstruction of justice. See generally Nelles & King, Pts. 1 & 2, Contempt by Publication in the United States, 28 Col. L. Rev. 401, 525 (1928).
At a later date, when passing the Clayton Act, Congress focused its attention on conduct which was not only criminally contemptuous but which also constituted other crimes under federal or state law. Contempts of this nature, unless committed in the presence of the court or so near thereto as to obstruct justice, or unless they involved disobedience to a court writ, process, order, or decree in a case brought by the United States, were required to be tried to a jury, and the possible punishment was limited to six months, a fine of $1,000, or both. 38 Stat. 738, § 21, now 18 U. S. C. § 402. Circumscription of the contempt power was carried further in the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which extended the right to jury trial to contempt cases arising out of injunctions issued in labor disputes. 47 Stat. 72, § 11, now 18 U. S. C. § 3692. The Civil Rights Act of 1957, 71 Stat. 638, § 151, 42 U. S. C. § 1995, provides a right to a de novo trial by jury to all criminal contemnors convicted in cases arising under the Act who are fined in excess of $300 or sentenced to imprisonment for more than 45 days, exception being made for contempts committed in the presence of the court or so near thereto as to obstruct justice, and misbehavior, misconduct, or disobedience
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 Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in this case is whether appellant, publisher of Life Magazine, was denied constitutional protections of speech and press by the application by the New York courts of §§ 50-51 of the New York Civil Rights Law to award appellee damages on allegations that Life falsely, reported that a new play portrayed an experience suffered by appellee and his family.
The article appeared in Life in February 1955. It was entitled “True Crime Inspires Tense Play,” with the subtitle, “The ordeal of a family trapped by convicts gives Broadway a new thriller, ‘The Desperate Hours.’ ” The text of the article reads as follows:
“Three years ago Americans all over the country read about the desperate ordeal of the James Hill family, who were held prisoners in their home outside Philadelphia by three escaped convicts. Later they read about it in Joseph Hayes’s novel, The Desperate Hours, inspired by the family’s experience. Now they can see the story re-enacted in Hayes’s Broadway play based on the book, and next year will see it in his movie, which has been filmed but is being held up until the play has a chance to pay off.
“The play, directed by Robert Montgomery and expertly acted, is a heart-stopping account of how a family rose to heroism in a crisis. Life photographed the play during its Philadelphia tryout, transported some of the actors to the actual house where the Hills were besieged. On the next page scenes from the play are re-enacted on the site of the crime.”
The pictures on the ensuing two pages included an enactment of the son being “roughed up” by one of the convicts, entitled “brutish convict,” a picture of the daughter biting the hand of a convict to make him drop a gun, entitled “daring daughter,” and one of the father throwing his gun through the door after a “brave try” to save his family is foiled.
The James Hill referred to in the article is the appel-lee. He and his wife and five children involuntarily became the subjects of a front-page news story after being held hostage by three escaped convicts in their suburban, Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania, home for 19 hours on September 11-12, 1952. The family was releaséd unharmed. In an interview with newsmen after the convicts departed, appellee stressed that the convicts had treated the family courteously, had not molested them, and had not been at all violent. The convicts were thereafter apprehended in a widely publicized encounter with the police which resulted in the killing of two of the convicts. Shortly thereafter the family moved to Connecticut. The appellee discouraged all efforts to. keep them in the public spotlight through magazine articles or appearances on television.
In the spring of 1953, Joseph Hayes’ novel, The Desperate Hours, was published. The story depicted the experience of a family of four held hostage by three escaped convicts in the family’s suburban home. But, unlike Hill’s experience, the family of the story suffer violence at the hands of the convicts; the father and son are beaten and the daughter subjected to a verbal sexual insult.
The book was made into a play, also entitled The Desperate Hours, and it is Life’s article about the play which is the subject of appellee’s action. The complaint sought damages under §§ 50-51 on allegations that the Life article was intended to, and did, give the impression that the play mirrored the Hill family’s experience, which, to the knowledge of defendant “... was false and untrue.” Appellant’s defense was that the article was “a subject of legitimate news interest,” “a subject of general interest and of value and concern to the public” at the time of publication, and that it was “published in good faith without any malice whatsoever....” A motion to dismiss the complaint for substantially these reasons was made at the close of the case and was denied by the trial judge on the ground that the proofs presented a jury question as to the truth of the article.
The jury awarded appellee $50,000 compensatory and $25,000 punitive damages. On appeal the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court ordered a new trial as to damages but sustained the jury verdict of liability. The court said as to liability:
“Although the play was fictionalized, Life’s article portrayed it as a re-enactment of the Hills’ experience. It is an inescapable conclusion that this was done to advertise and attract further attention to the play, and to increase present and future magazine circulation as well. It is evident that the article cannot be characterized as a mere dissemination of news, nor even an effort to supply legitimate newsworthy information in which the public had, or might have a proper interest.” 18 App. Div. 2d 485, 489, 240 N. Y. S. 2d 286, 290.
At the new trial on damages, a jury was waived and the court awarded $30,000 compensatory damages without punitive damages.
The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the Appellate Division “on the majority and concurring opinions at the Appellate Division,” two judges dissenting. 15 N. Y. 2d 986, 207 N. E. 2d 604. We noted probable jurisdiction of the appeal to consider the important constitutional questions of freedom of speech and press involved. 382 U. S. 936. After argument last Term, the case was restored to the docket for reargument, 384 U. S. 995. We reverse and remand the case to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
I.
Since the reargument, we have had the advantage of an opinion of the Court of Appeals of New York which has materially aided us in our understanding of that court’s construction of the statute. It is the opinion of Judge Keating for the court in Spahn v. Julian Messner, Inc., 18 N. Y. 2d 324, 221 N. E. 2d 543 (1966). The statute was enacted in 1903 following the decision of the Court of Appeals in 1902 in Roberson v. Rochester Folding Box Co., 171 N. Y. 538, 64 N. E. 442. Roberson was an action against defendants for adorning their flour bags with plaintiff’s picture without her consent. It was grounded upon an alleged invasion of a “right of privacy,” defined by the Court of Appeals to be “the claim that a man has the right to pass through this world, if he wills, without having his picture published... or his eccentricities commented upon either in handbills, circulars, catalogues, periodicals or newspapers....” 171 N. Y., at 544, 64 N. E., at 443. The Court of Appeals traced the theory to the celebrated article of Warren and Brandéis, entitled The Right to Privacy, published in 1890. 4 Harv. L. Rev. 193. The Court of Appeals, however, denied the existence of such a right at common law but observed that “[t]he legislative body could very well interfere and arbitrarily provide that no one should be permitted for his own selfish purpose to use the picture dr the name of another for advertising purposes without his consent.” 171 N. Y., at 545, 64 N. E., at 443. The legislature enacted §§ 50-51 in response to that observation.
Although “Right of Privacy” is the caption of §§ 50-51, the term nowhere appears in the text of the statute itself. The text of the statute appears to proscribe only conduct of the kind involved in Roberson, that is, the appropriation and use in advertising or to promote the sale of goods, of another’s name, portrait or picture without his consent. An application of that limited scope would present different questions of violation of the constitutional protections for speech and press. Compare Valentine v. Chrestensen, 316 U. S. 52, with New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 265-266.
The New York courts have, however, construed the statute to operate much more broadly. In Spahn the Court of Appeals stated that “Over the years since the statute’s enactment in 1903, its social desirability and remedial nature have led to its being given a liberal construction consonant with its over-all purpose....” 18 N. Y. 2d, at 327, 221 N. E. 2d, at 544. Specifically, it has been held in some circumstances to authorize a remedy against the press and other communications media which publish the names, pictures, or portraits of people without their consent. Reflecting the fact, however, that such applications may raise serious questions of conflict with the constitutional protections for speech and press, decisions under the statute have tended to limit the statute’s application. “[E]ver mindful that the written word or picture is involved, courts have engrafted exceptions and restrictions onto the statute to avoid any conflict with the free dissemination of thoughts, ideas, newsworthy events, and matters of public interest.” Id., 18 N. Y. 2d, at 328, 221 N. E. 2d, at 544-545.
In the light of questions that counsel were asked to argue on reargument, it is particularly relevant that the Court of Appeals made crystal clear in the Spahn opinion that truth is a complete defense in actions under the statute based upon reports of newsworthy people or events. The opinion states: “The factual reporting of newsworthy persons and events is in the public interest and is protected.” 18 N. Y. 2d, at 328, 221 N. E. 2d, at 545. Constitutional questions which might arise if truth were not a defense are therefore of no concern. Cf. Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64, 72-75.
But although the New York statute affords “little protection” to the “privacy” of a newsworthy person, “whether he be such by choice or involuntarily” the statute gives him a right of action when his name, picture, or portrait is the subject of a “fictitious” report or article. Spahn points up the distinction. Spahn was an action under the statute brought by the well-known professional baseball pitcher, Warren Spahn. He sought an injunction and damages against the unauthorized publication of what purported to be a biography of his life. The trial judge had found that “the record unequivocally establishes that the book publicizes areas of Warren Spahn’s personal and private life, albeit inaccurate and distorted, and consists of a host, a preponderant percentage, of factual errors, distortions and fanciful passages... 43 Misc. 2d 219, 232, 250 N. Y. S. 2d 529, 542. The Court of Appeals sustained the holding that in these circumstances the publication was proscribed by § 51 of the Civil Rights Law and was not within the exceptions and restrictions for newsworthy events engrafted onto the statute. The Court of Appeals said:
“But it is erroneous to confuse privacy with ‘personality’ or to assume that privacy, though lost for a certain time or in a certain context, goes forever unprotected.... Thus it may be appropriate to say that the plaintiff here, Warren Spahn, is a public personality and that, insofar as his professional career is involved, he is substantially without a right to privacy. That is not to say, however, that his ‘personality’ may be fictionalized and that,.as fictionalized, it may be exploited for the defendants’ commercial benefit through the medium of an unauthorized biography.” Spahn, supra, at 328, 221 N. E. 2d, at 545.
As the instant case went to the jury, appellee, too, was regarded to be a newsworthy person “substantially without a right to privacy” insofar as his hostage experience was involved, but ¡to be entitled to his action insofar as that experience w^s “fictionalized” and “exploited for the defendants’ commercial benefit.” “Fictionalization,” the Spahn opinion states, “is the heart of the cases in point.” 18 N. Y. 2d, at 328, 221 N. E. 2d, at 545.
The opinion goes on to say that the “establishment of minor errors in an otherwise accurate” report does not prove “fictionalization.” Material and substantial falsification is the test. However, it is not clear whether proof of knowledge of the falsity or that the article was prepared with reckless.,disregard for the truth is also required. In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, we held that the Constitution delimits a State’s? j power to award damages for libel in actions brought by I public officials against critics of their official conduct. | Factual error, content defamatory of official reputation, or both, are insufficient for an award of damages for false statements unless actual malice — knowledge that the statements are false or in reckless disregard of the truth— is alleged and proved. The Spahn opinion reveals that the defendant in that case relied on New York Times as the basis of an argument that application of the statute to the publication of a substantially fictitious biography would run afoul of the constitutional guarantees. The Court of Appeals held that New York Times had no application. The court, after distinguishing the cases on the ground that Spahn did not deal with public officials or official conduct, then says, “The free speech which is encouraged and essential to the operation of a healthy government is something quite different from an individual’s attempt to enjoin the publication of a fictitious biography of him. No public interest is served by protecting the dissemination of the latter. We perceive no constitutional infirmities in this respect.” 18 N. Y. 2d, at 329, 221 N. E. 2d, at 546.
If this is meant to imply that proof of knowing or reckless falsity is not essential to a constitutional application of the statute in these cases, we disagree with the Court of Appeals. We hold that the constitutional protections for speech and press preclude the application of the New York statute to redress false reports of matters of public interest in the absence of proof that the defendant published the report with knowledge of its falsity or in reckless disregard of the truth.
The guarantees for speech and press are not the preserve of political expression or comment upon public affairs, essential as those are to healthy government. One need only pick up any newspaper or magazine to comprehend the vast range of published matter which exposes persons to public view, both private citizens and public officials. Exposure of the self to others in varying degrees is a concomitant of life in a civilized community. The risk of this exposure is an essential incident of life in a society which places a primary value on freedom of speech and of press. “Freedom of discussion, if it would fulfill its historic function in this nation, must embrace all issues about which information is needed or appropriate to enable the members of society to cope with the exigencies of their period.” Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 102. “No suggestion can be found in the Constitution that the freedom there guaranteed for speech and the press bears an inverse ratio to the timeliness and importance of the ideas seeking expression.” Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252, 269. We have no doubt that the subject of the Life article, the opening of a rrew play linked to an actual incident, is a matter of public interest. “The line between the informing and the entertaining is too elusive for the protection of... [freedom of the press].” Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 510. Erroneous statement is no less inevitable in such a case than in the case of comment upon public affairs, and in both, if innocent or merely negligent, “... it must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to have the ‘breathing space’ that they ‘need... to survive’....” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra, at 271-272. As James Madison said, “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 Elliot’s Debates on the Federal Constitution 571 (1876 ed.). We create a grave risk of serious impairment of the indispensable service of a free press in a free society if we saddle the press with the impossible burden of verifying to a certainty the facts associated in news articles with a person’s name, picture or portrait, particularly as related to non-defamatory matter. Even negligence would be a most elusive standard, especially when the content of the speech itself affords no warning of prospective harm to another through falsity. A negligence test would place on the press the intolerable burden of guessing how a jury might assess the reasonableness of steps taken by it to verify the accuracy of every reference to a name, picture or portrait.
In this context, sanctions against either innocent or negligent misstatement would present a grave hazard of discouraging the press from exercising the constitutional guarantees. Those guarantees are not for the benefit of the press so much as for the benefit of all of us. A broadly defined freedom of the press assures the maintenance of our political system and_ an open society. Fear of large verdicts in damage suits for innocent or merely negligent misstatement, even fear of the expense involved in their defense, must inevitably cause publishers to “steer... wider of the unlawful zone,” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S., at 279; see also Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 526; Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 153-154; and thus “create the danger that the legitimate utterance will be penalized.” Speiser v. Randall, supra, at 526.
But the constitutional guarantees can tolerate sanctions against calculated falsehood without significant impairment of their essential function. We held in New York Times that calculated falsehood enjoyed no immunity in the case of alleged defamation of a public official concerning his official conduct. Similarly, calculated falsehood should enjoy no immunity in the situation here presented us. What we said in Garrison v. Louisiana, supra, at 75, is equally applicable:
“The use of calculated falsehood... would put a different cast on the constitutional question. Although honest utterance, even if inaccurate, may further the fruitful exercise of the right of free speech, it does not follow that the lie, knowingly and deliberately published... should enjoy a like immunity.... Eor the use of the known lie as a tool is at once at odds with the premises of democratic government and with the orderly manner in which economic, social, or political change is to be effected. Calculated falsehood falls into that class of utterances which ‘are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality....’ Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572. Hence the knowingly false statement and the false statement made with reckless disregard' of the truth, do not enjoy constitutional protection.”
We find applicable here the standard of knowing or reckless falsehood, not through blind application of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, relating solely to libel actions by public officials, but only upon consideration of the factors which arise in the particular context of the application of the New York statute in cases involving private individuals. This is neither a libel action by a private individual nor a statutory action by a public official; Therefore, although the First Amendment principles pronounced in New York Times guide our conclusion, we reach that conclusion only by applying these principles in this discrete context. It therefore serves no purpose to distinguish the facts here from those in New York Times. Were this a libel action, the distinction which has been suggested between the relative opportunities of the public official and the private individual to rebut defamatory charges might be germane. And the additional state interest in the protection of the individual against damage to his reputation would be involved. Cf. Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U. S. 75, 91 (Stewart, J., concurring). Moreover, a different test might be required in a statutory action by a public official, as opposed to a libel action by a public official or a statutory action by a private individual. Different considerations might arise concerning the degree of “waiver” of the protection the State might afford. But the question whether the same standard should be applicable both to persons voluntarily and involuntarily thrust into the public limelight is not here before us.
II.
Turning to the facts of the present case, the proofs reasonably would support either a jury finding of innocent or merely negligent misstatement by Life, or a finding that Life portrayed the play as a re-enactment of the Hill family’s experience reckless of the truth or with actual knowledge that the portrayal was false. The relevant testimony is as follows:
Joseph Hayes, author of the book, also wrote the play. The story theme was inspired by the desire to write about “true crime” and for years before writing the book, he collected newspaper clippings of stories of hostage incidents. His story was not shaped by any single incident, but by several, including incidents which occurred in California, New York, and Detroit. He said that he did not consciously portray any member of the Hill family, or the Hill family’s experience, although admitting that “in a very direct way” the Hill experience “triggered” the writing of the book and the play.
The Life article was prepared at the direction and under the supervision of its entertainment editor, Prideaux. He learned of the production of the play from a news story. The play’s director, Robert Montgomery, later suggested to him that its interesting stage setting would make the play a worthwhile subject for an article in Life. At about the same time, Prideaux ran into a friend of author Hayes, a free-lance photographer, who told Prideaux in casual conversation that the play had a “substantial connection with a true-life incident of a family being held by escaped convicts near Philadelphia.” As the play was trying out in Philadelphia, Prideaux decided to contact the author. Hayes confirmed that an incident somewhat similar to the play had occurred in Philadelphia, and agreed with Prideaux to find out whether the former Hill residence would be available for the shooting of pictures for a Life article. Prideaux then met with Hayes in Philadelphia where he saw the play and drove with Hayes to the former Hill residence to test its suitability for a picture story. Neither then nor thereafter did Prideaux question Hayes about the extent to which the play was based on the Hill incident. “A specific question of that nature was never asked, but a discussion of the play itself, what the play was about, in the light of my own knowledge of what the true incident was about, confirmed in my mind beyond any doubt that there was a relationship, and Mr. Hayes’ presence at this whole negotiation was tacit proof of that.”
Prideaux sent photographers to the Hill residence for location photographs of scenes of the play enacted in the home, and proceeded to construct the text of the article. In his “story file” were several news clippings about the Hill incident which revealed its nonviolent character, and a New York Times article by Hayes in which he stated that the play “was based on various news stories,” mentioning incidents in New York, California, Detroit and Philadelphia.
Prideaux’s first draft made no mention of the Hill name except for the caption of one of the photographs. The text related that a true story of a suburban Philadelphia family had “sparked off” Hayes to write the novel, that the play was a “somewhat fictionalized” account of the family’s heroism in time of crisis. Pri-deaux’s research assistant, whose task it was to cheek the draft for accuracy, put a question mark over the words “somewhat fictionalized.” Prideaux testified that the question mark “must have been” brought to his attention, although he did not recollect having seen it. The draft was also brought before the copy editor, who, in the presence of Prideaux, made several changes in emphasis and substance. The first sentence was changed to focus on the Hill incident, using the family’s name; the novel was said to have been “inspired” by that incident, and the play-was referred to as a “re-enactment.” The words “somewhat fictionalized” were deleted.
Prideaux labeled as “emphatically untrue” defense counsel’s suggestion during redirect examination that from the beginning he knew that the play had no relationship to the Hill incident apart from being a hostage incident. Prideaux admitted that he knew the play was “between a little bit and moderately fictionalized,” but stated that he thought beyond doubt that the important quality, the “heart and soul” of the play, was the Hill incident.
The jury might reasonably conclude from this evidence — particularly that the New York Times article was in the story file, that the copy editor deleted “somewhat fictionalized” after the research assistant questioned its accuracy, and that Prideaux admitted that he knew the play was “between a little bit and moderately fictionalized” — that Life knew the falsity of, or was reckless of the truth in, stating in the article that “the story re-enacted” the Hill family’s experience. On the other hand, the jury might reasonably predicate a finding of innocent or only negligent misstatement on the testimony that a statement was made to Prideaux by the free-lance photographer that linked the play to an incident in Philadelphia, that the author Hayes cooperated in arranging for the availability of the former Hill home, and that Prideaux thought beyond doubt that the “heart and soul” of the play was the Hill incident.
III.
We do not think, however, that the instructions confined the jury to a verdict of liability based on a finding that the statements in the article were made with knowledge of their falsity or in reckless disregard of the truth. The jury was instructed that liability could not be found under §§ 50-51 “merely because of some incidental mistake of fact, or some incidental incorrect statement,” and that a verdict of liability could rest only on findings that (1) Life published the article, “not to disseminate news, but was using plaintiffs’ names, in connection with a fictionalized episode as to plaintiffs’ relationship to The Desperate Hours”; the Court variously restated this “fictionalization” requirement in terms such as whether appellant “altered or changed the true facts concerning plaintiffs' relationship to The Desperate Hours, so that the article, as published, constituted substantially fiction or a fictionalized version...,” whether the article constituted “fiction,” or was “fictionalized”; and that (2) the article was published to advertise the play or “for trade purposes.” This latter purpose was variously defined as one “to amuse, thrill, astonish or move the reading public so as to increase the circulation of the magazine or for some other material benefit,” “to increase circulation or enhance the standing of the magazine with its readers,” and “for the publisher’s profits through increased circulation, induced by exploitation of the plaintiffs.”
The court also instructed the jury that an award of punitive damages was justified if the jury found that the appellant falsely connected appellee to the play “knowingly or through failure to make a reasonable investigation,” adding “You do not need to find that there was any actual ill will or personal malice toward the plaintiffs if you find a reckless or wanton disregard of the plaintiffs’ rights.”
Appellee argues that the instructions to determine whether Life “altered or changed” the true facts, and whether, apart from incidental errors, the article was a “substantial fiction” or a “fictionalized version” were tantamount to instructions that the jury must find that Life knowingly falsified the facts. We do not think that the instructions bear that interpretation, particularly in light of the marked contrast in the instructions on compensatory and punitive damages. The element of “knowingly” is mentioned only in the instruction that punitive damages must be supported by a finding that Life falsely connected the Hill family with the play “knowingly or through failure to make a reasonable investigation.” Moreover, even as to punitive damages, the instruction that such damages were justified on the basis of “failure to make a reasonable investigation” is an instruction that proof of negligent misstatement is enough, and we have rejected the test of negligent misstatement as inadequate. Next, the trial judge plainly did not regard his instructions as limiting the jury to a verdict of liability based on a finding of knowing or reckless falsity; he denied appellant’s motion to dismiss after the close of the evidence because he perceived that it was for the jury to find “whether the Life article was true or whether an inference could be obtained from reading it that it was not true.” This implies a view that “fictionalization” was synonymous with “falsity” without regard to knowledge or even negligence, except for the purpose of an award of punitive damages. Finally, nothing in the New York cases decided at the time of trial limited liability to cases of knowing or reckless falsity and Spahn, decided since, has left the question in doubt.
The requirement that the jury also find that the article was published “for trade purposes,” as defined in the charge, cannot save the charge from constitutional infirmity. “That books, ‘newspapers, and magazines are published and sold for profit does not prevent them from being a form of expression whose liberty is safeguarded by the First Amendment.” Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495, 501-502; see New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S., at 266; Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 150; cf. Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727, 733; Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U. S. 233; Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444.
IV.
The appellant argues that the statute should be declared unconstitutional on its face if construed by the New York courts to impose liability without proof of knowing or reckless falsity. Such a declaration would not be warranted even if it were entirely clear that this had previously been the view of the New York courts. The New York Court of Appeals, as the Spahn opinion demonstrates, has been assiduous in construing the statute to avoid invasion of the constitutional protections of speech and press. We, therefore, confidently expect that the New York courts will apply the statute consistently with the constitutional command. Any possible difference with us as to the thrust of the constitutional command is narrowly limited in this case to the failure of the trial judge to instruct the jury that a verdict of liability could be predicated only on a finding of knowing or reckless falsity in the publication of the Life article.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is set aside and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The complete text of the New York Civil Rights Law §§ 50-51 is as follows:
Ҥ 50. Right of privacy
“A person, firm or corporation that uses for advertising purposes, or for the purposes of trade, the name, portrait or picture of any-living person without having first obtained the written consent of such person, or if a minor of his or her parent or guardian, is guilty of a misdemeanor.”
Ҥ 51. Action for injunction and for damages
“Any person whose name, portrait or picture is used within this state for advertising purposes or for the purposes of trade without the written consent first obtained as above provided may maintain an equitable action in the supreme court of this state against the person, firm or corporation so using his name, portrait or picture, to prevent and restrain the use thereof; and may also sue and recover damages for any injuries sustained by reason of such use and if the defendant shall have knowingly used such person’s name, portrait or picture in such manner as is forbidden or declared to be unlawful by the last section, the jury, in its discretion, may award exemplary damages. But nothing contained in this act shall be so construed as to prevent any person, firm or corporation, practicing the profession of photography, from exhibiting in or about his or its establishment specimens of the work of such establishment, unless the same is continued by such person, firm or corporation after written notice objecting thereto has been-given by the person portrayed; and nothing contained in this act shall be so construed as to prevent any person, firm or corporation from using the name, portrait or picture of any manufacturer or dealer in connection with the goods, wares and merchandise manufactured, produced or dealt in by him which he has sold or disposed of with such name, portrait or picture used in connection therewith; or from using the name, portrait or picture of any author, composer or artist in connection with his literary, musical or artistic productions which he has sold or disposed of with such name, portrait or picture used in connection therewith.”
Initially, appellee's wife was joined in the action, and was awarded $75,000 compensatory and $25,000 punitive damages by the jury. However, her action was apparently dismissed by stipulation prior to remand, because the action has since proceeded solely upon appellee’s judgment.
The various facets of this “right” have been the subject of much comment. See, e. g., Beaney, The Constitutional Right to Privacy in the Supreme Court, 1962 Sup. Ct. Rev. 212; Prosser, Privacy, 48 Calif. L. Rev. 383 (1960); Westin, Science, Privacy, and Freedom: Issues and Proposals for the 1970’s (Part I), 66 Col. L. Rev. 1003 (1966); Feinberg, Recent Developments in the Law of Privacy, 48 Col. L. Rev. 713, 717-726 (1948). The latest collection of articles appears in 31 Law & Contemp. Prob. 251-435 (1966). The commentary relates not so much to the assertion of constitutional protections against intrusions by government, see Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, as to rights of action for injunctive relief or damages to combat intrusive behavior in the private sector of society.
Utah’s statute was modeled on New York’s and, following early New York decisions, the Utah Supreme Court has construed it to afford a cause of action only in such cases. Donahue v. Warner Bros. Pictures Dist. Corp., 2 Utah 2d 256, 272 P. 2d 177 (1954).
See, e. g., Sidis v. F-R Pub. Corp., 113 F. 2d 806 (C. A. 2d Cir.), cert. denied, 311 U. S. 711 (1940); Sweenek v. Pathe News, Inc., 16 F. Supp. 746 (D. C. E. D. N. Y. 1936); Gautier v. Pro-Football, Inc., 278 App. Div. 431, 106 N. Y. S. 2d 553 (1951), aff'd, 304 N. Y. 354, 107 N. E. 2d 485 (1952); Molony v. Boy Comics Pubs., Inc., 277 App. Div. 166, 98 N. Y. S. 2d 119 (1950); Humiston v. Universal Film Mfg. Co., 189 App. Div. 467, 178 N. Y. Supp. 752 (1919); Colyer v. Richard K. Fox Pub. Co., 162 App. Div. 297, 146 N. Y. Supp
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
C
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court in part.
In Custis v. United States, 511 U.S. 485 (1994), we addressed whether a defendant sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984 (ACCA), 18 U. S. C. § 924(e), could collaterally attack the validity of previous state convictions used to enhance his federal sentence. We held that, with the sole exception of convictions obtained in violation of the right to counsel, a defendant has no right to bring such a challenge in his federal sentencing proceeding. 511 U.S., at 487. We now consider whether, after the sentencing proceeding has concluded, the individual who was sentenced may challenge his federal sentence through a motion under 28 U. S. C. §2255 (1994 ed., Supp. V) on the ground that his prior convictions were unconstitutionally obtained. We hold that, as a general rule, he may not. There may be rare circumstances in which §2255 would be available, but we need not address the issue here.
I
In 1994, petitioner Earthy D. Daniels, Jr., was tried and convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 922(g)(1). The Government then sought to enhance his sentence under the ACCA. App. 4-5. The ACCA imposes a mandatory minimum 15-year sentence on anyone who violates § 922(g)(1) and who has three previous convictions for a violent felony or a serious drug offense. § 924(e)(1). Petitioner had been convicted in California in 1978 and 1981 for robbery, and in 1977 and 1979 for first degree burglary. Id., at 14. The District Court found petitioner to be an armed career criminal within the meaning of the ACCA and, after granting a downward departure, the District Court sentenced petitioner to 176 months. Id., at 14, 18. Had petitioner not been adjudged an armed career criminal, he would have received at most a 120-month sentence. 18 U. S. C. § 924(a)(2). On direct appeal, petitioner argued unsuccessfully that his two burglary convictions did not qualify as predicate offenses under the ACCA. See 86 F. 3d 1164 (CA9 1996) (table).
Petitioner then filed a motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §2255 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Section 2255, a posteonviction remedy for federal prisoners, permits "[a] prisoner in custody under sentence of a [federal] court” to “move the court which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence” upon the ground that “the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States.” Petitioner asserted that his current federal sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution because it was based in part on his 1978 and 1981 robbery convictions. Those prior convictions, he alleged, were themselves unconstitutional because they both were based on guilty pleas that were not knowing and voluntary, and because the 1981 conviction was also the product of ineffective assistance of counsel. App. 51-52. He did not contend that §2255 relief was appropriate because his current sentence was imposed in violation of the ACCA. Cf. Brief for Petitioner 13.
The District Court denied the §2255 motion, App. 58-67, and a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, 195 F. 3d 501 (1999). The court held that our decision in Custis “bar[s] federal habeas review of the validity of a prior conviction used for federal sentencing enhancement unless the petitioner raises a . . . claim [under Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963)].” 195 F. 3d, at 503 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Because the Courts of Appeals are divided as to whether Custis bars relief under §2255 as well as in federal sentencing proceedings, we granted certiorari. 530 U. S. 1299 (2000).
HH H-=H
The petitioner in Custis attempted, during his federal sentencing proceeding, to attack prior state convictions used to enhance his sentence under the ACCA. Like petitioner here, Custis challenged his prior convictions as the product of allegedly faulty guilty pleas and ineffective assistance of counsel. 511 U. S., at 488. We held that with the sole exception of convictions obtained in violation of the right to counsel, Custis had no right under the ACCA or the Constitution “to collaterally attack prior convictions” in the course of his federal sentencing proceeding. Id., at 490-497. While the “failure to appoint counsel for an indigent defendant was a unique constitutional defect” that justified the exception for challenges concerning Gideon v. Wainwright, 872 U.S. 835 (1963), 511 U.S., at 496, challenges of the type Custis sought to bring did not “ris[e] to the level of a jurisdictional defect,” ibid.
Two considerations supported our constitutional conclusion in Custis: ease of administration and the interest in promoting the finality of judgments. With respect to the former, we noted that resolving non-Gideon-type constitutional attacks on prior convictions “would require sentencing courts to rummage through frequently nonexistent or difficult to obtain state-court transcripts or records.” 511 U. S., at 496. With respect to the latter, we observed that allowing collateral attacks would “inevitably delay and impair the orderly administration of justice” and “deprive the state-court judgment of its normal force and effect.” Id., at 497 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted).
A
Petitioner contends that the Custis rule should not extend to §2255 proceedings because the concerns we articulated in Gustis are not present in the §2255 context. Brief for Petitioner 22-26. We disagree. First, a district court evaluating a §2255 motion is as unlikely as a district court engaged in sentencing to have the documents necessary to evaluate claims arising from long-past proceedings in a different jurisdiction. While petitioner is quite right that federal district courts are capable of evaluating fact-intensive constitutional claims raised by way of a habeas petition, id., at 22-23, institutional competence does not make decades-old state court records and transcripts any easier to locate.
The facts of this case only reinforce our concern. For example, petitioner contends that he entered his 1978 and 1981 guilty pleas without a full understanding of the essential elements of the crimes with which he was charged, and therefore the resulting convictions violated due process. App. 40-42, 50-51. These claims by their nature require close scrutiny of the record below. Yet petitioner has not placed the transcript from either plea colloquy in the record. In fact, he has admitted that the 1978 transcript is missing from the state court file. Cf. id., at 38, n. 3. Under these circumstances, it would be an almost Mile exercise for a district court to attempt to determine accurately what was communicated to petitioner more than two decades ago.
With respeet to the concern for finality, petitioner argues that because he has served the complete sentences for his 1978 and 1981 convictions, the State would suffer little, if any, prejudice if those convictions were invalidated through a collateral challenge under §2255. Brief for Petitioner 24-26. To the contrary, even after a defendant has served the full measure of his sentence, a State retains a strong interest in preserving the convictions it has obtained. States impose a wide range of disabilities on those who have been convicted of crimes, even after their release. For example, in California, where petitioner committed his crimes, persons convicted of a felony may be disqualified from holding public office, subjected to restrictions on professional licensing, and barred from possessing firearms. See U. S. Dept, of Justice, Office of the Pardon Attorney, Civil Disabilities of Convicted Felons: A State-By-State Survey 29-32 (Oct. 1996). Further, each of the 50 States has a statute authorizing enhanced sentences for recidivist offenders. E. g., Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 667 (West 1999). See also Parke v. Raley, 506 U.S. 20, 26-27 (1992).
At oral argument, petitioner suggested that invalidating a prior conviction on constitutional grounds for purposes of its use under the ACCA would have no effect beyond the federal proceeding. Tr. of Oral Arg. 8-10. Although that question is not squarely presented here, if a state conviction were determined to be sufficiently unreliable that it could not be used to enhance a federal sentence, the State’s ability to use that judgment subsequently for its own purposes would be, at the very least, greatly undermined. Thus, the State does have a real and continuing interest in the integrity of its judgments.
B
On the most fundamental level, petitioner attempts to distinguish Custis as a decision only about the appropriate forum in which a defendant may challenge prior convictions used to enhance a federal sentence. The issue in Custis, according to petitioner, was “'where, not whether, the defendant could attack a prior conviction for constitutional infirmity.’” Brief for Petitioner 14 (quoting Nichols v. United States, 511 U.S. 738, 765 (1994) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (original emphasis deleted)). The appropriate forum for such a challenge, petitioner argues, at least where no other forum is available, is a federal proceeding under §2255. Brief for Petitioner 16.
The premise underlying petitioner’s argument — that defendants may challenge their convictions for constitutional infirmity — is quite correct. It is beyond dispute that convictions must be obtained in a manner that comports with the Federal Constitution. But it does not necessarily follow that a §2255 motion is an appropriate vehicle for determining whether a conviction later used to enhance a federal sentence was unconstitutionally obtained.
Our system affords a defendant convicted in state court numerous opportunities to challenge the constitutionality of his conviction. He may raise constitutional claims on direct appeal, in postconvietion proceedings available under state law, and in a petition for a writ of habeas corpus brought pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §2254 (1994 ed. and Supp. V). See generally 1 J. Liebman & R. Hertz, Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure § 5.1.a (3d ed. 1998). These vehicles for review, however, are not available indefinitely and without limitation. Procedural barriers, such as statutes of limitations and rules concerning procedural default and exhaustion of remedies, operate to limit access to review on the merits of a constitutional claim. See, e. g., United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 731 (1993) (“ 'No procedural principle is more familiar to this Court than that a constitutional right... may be forfeited in criminal as well as civil cases by the failure to make timely assertion of the right before a tribunal having jurisdiction to determine it’” (quoting Yakus v. United States, 321U. S. 414,444 (1944))). One of the principles vindicated by these limitations is a "presumption deeply rooted in our jurisprudence: the 'presumption of regularity* that attaches to final judgments, even when the question is waiver of constitutional rights.” Parke, supra, at 29.
Thus, we have held that if, by the time of sentencing under the ACCA, a prior conviction has not been set aside on direct or collateral review, that conviction is presumptively valid and may be used to enhance the federal sentence. See Cus-tis, 511 U. S., at 497. This rule is subject to only one exception: If an enhanced federal sentence will be based in part on a prior conviction obtained in violation of the right to counsel, the defendant may challenge the validity of his prior conviction during his federal sentencing proceedings. Id., at 496. No other constitutional challenge to a prior conviction may be raised in the sentencing forum. Id., at 497.
After an enhanced federal sentence has been imposed pursuant to the ACCA, the person sentenced may pursue any channels of direct or collateral review still available to challenge his prior conviction. In Custis, we noted the possibility that the petitioner there, who was still in custody on his prior convictions, could “attack his state sentences [in state court] or through federal habeas review.” Ibid. If any such challenge to the underlying conviction is successful, the defendant may then apply for reopening of his federal sentence. As in Custis, we express no opinion on the appropriate disposition of such an application. Cf. ibid.
If, however, a prior conviction used to enhance a federal sentence is no longer open to direct or collateral attack in its own right because the defendant failed to pursue those remedies while they were available (or because the defendant did so unsuccessfully), then that defendant is without recourse. The presumption of validity that attached to the prior conviction at the time of sentencing is conclusive, and the defendant may not collaterally attack his prior conviction through a motion under § 2255. A defendant may challenge a prior conviction as the product of a Gideon violation in a §2255 motion, but generally only if he raised that claim at his federal sentencing proceeding. See United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 167-168 (1982) (holding that procedural default rules developed in the habeas corpus context apply in §2255 eases); see also Reed v. Farley, 512 U. S. 339, 354-355 (1994).
Justice Souter says that our holding here “rul[es] out the application of §2255 when the choice is relief under §2255 or no relief at all.” Post, at 390 (dissenting opinion). This all-or-nothing characterization of the problem misses the point. As we have said, a defendant generally has ample opportunity to obtain constitutional review of a state conviction. Supra, at 381. But once the “door” to such review “has been closed,” post, at 388, by the defendant himself— either because he failed to pursue otherwise available remedies or because he failed to prove a constitutional violation— the conviction becomes final and the defendant is not entitled to another bite at the apple simply because that conviction is later used to enhance another sentence.
To be sure, the text of §2255 is broad enough to cover a claim that an enhanced federal sentence violates due process. See ibid. See also n. 2, infra. But when such a due process claim is predicated on the consideration at sentencing of a fully expired prior conviction, we think that the goals of easy administration and finality have ample “horsepower” to justify foreclosing relief under §2255. Were we to allow defendants sentenced under the ACCA to collaterally attack prior convictions through a §2255 motion, we would effectively permit challenges far too stale to be brought in their own right, and sanction an end run around statutes of limitations and other procedural barriers that would preclude the movant from attacking the prior conviction directly. Nothing in the Constitution or our precedent requires such a result.
C
We recognize that there may be rare cases in which no channel of review was actually available to a defendant with respect to a prior conviction, due to no fault of his own. The circumstances of this ease do not require us to determine whether a defendant could use a motion under § 2255 to chai-lenge a federal sentence based on such a conviction. C£, e. g., 28 U. S. C. §2255 (1994 ed., Supp. V) (allowing a second or successive §2255 motion if there is "newly discovered evidence that, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable factfinder would have found the movant guilty of the offense”); ibid, (tolling 1-year limitation period while movant is prevented from making a §2255 motion by an “impediment... created by governmental action in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States”).
Ill
No such claim is made here. The sole basis on which petitioner Daniels challenges his current federal sentence is that two of his prior state convictions were the products of inadequate guilty pleas and ineffective assistance of counsel. Petitioner could have pursued his claims while he was in custody on those convictions. As his counsel conceded at oral argument, there is no indication that petitioner did so or that he was prevented from doing so by some external force. Tr. of Oral Arg. 3-4, 6.
Petitioner’s federal sentence was properly enhanced pursuant to the ACCA based on his four facially valid prior state convictions. Because petitioner failed to pursue remedies that were otherwise available to him to challenge his 1978 and 1981 convictions, he may not now use a §2255 motion to collaterally attack those convictions. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is therefore affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Souter is concerned that a defendant may forgo “direct challenge because the penalty was not practically worth challenging, and... collateral attack because he had no counsel to speak for him.” Post, at 391 (dissenting opinion). Whatever incentives may exist at the time of conviction, the fact remains that avenues of redress are generally available if sought in a timely manner. If a person chooses not to pursue those remedies, he does so with the knowledge that the conviction will stay on his record. This knowledge should serve as an incentive not to commit a subsequent crime and risk having the sentence for that crime enhanced under a recidivist sentencing statute.
After comparing the text of §§2254 and 2255, Justice Scaiia concludes that “Congress did not expect challenges to state convictions (used to enhance federal convictions) to be brought under §2255.” Post, at 386 (opinion concurring in part). This is, of course, true. But it is also beside the point, as the subject of the §2255 motion in this circumstance is the enhanced federal sentence, not the prior state conviction.
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.
These are companion cases to No. 67, Terry v. Ohio, ante, p. 1, decided today. They present related questions under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, but the cases arise in the context of New York’s “stop-and-frisk” law, N. Y. Code Crim. Proc. § 180-a. This statute provides:
“1. A police officer may stop any person abroad in a public place whom he reasonably suspects is committing, has committed or is about to commit a felony or any of the offenses specified in section five hundred fifty-two of this chapter, and may demand of him his name, address and an explanation of his actions.
“2. When a police officer has stopped a person for questioning pursuant to this section and reasonably suspects that he is in danger of life or limb, he may-search such person for a dangerous weapon. If the police officer finds such a weapon or any other thing the possession of which may constitute a crime, he may take and keep it until the completion of the questioning, at which time he shall either return it, if lawfully possessed, or arrest such person.”
The appellants, Sibron and Peters, were both convicted of crimes in New York state courts on the basis of evidence seized from their persons by police officers. The Court of Appeals of New York held that the evidence was properly admitted, on the ground that the searches which uncovered it were authorized by the statute. People v. Sibron, 18 N. Y. 2d 603, 219 N. E. 2d 196, 272 N. Y. S. 2d 374 (1966) (memorandum); People v. Peters, 18 N. Y. 2d 238, 219 N. E. 2d 595, 273 N. Y. S. 2d 217 (1966). Sibron and Peters have appealed their convictions to this Court, claiming that §. 180-a is unconstitutional on its face and as construed and applied, because the searches and seizures which it was held to have authorized violated their rights under the Fourth Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961). We noted probable jurisdiction, 386 U. S. 954 (1967); 386 U. S. 980 (1967), and consolidated the two cases for argument with No. 67.
The facts in these cases may be stated briefly. Sibron, the appellant in No. 63, was convicted of the unlawful possession of heroin. He moved before trial to suppress the heroin seized from his person by the arresting officer, Brooklyn Patrolman Anthony Martin. After the trial court denied his motion, Sibron pleaded guilty to the charge, preserving his right to appeal the evidentiary ruling. At the hearing on the motion to suppress, Officer Martin testified that while he was patrolling his beat in uniform on March 9, 1965, he observed Sibron “continually from the hours of 4:00 P. M. to 12:00, midnight... in the vicinity of 742 Broadway.” He stated that during this period of time he saw Sibron in conversation with six or eight persons whom he (Patrolman Martin) knew from past experience to be narcotics addicts. The officer testified that he did not overhear any of these conversations, and that he did not see anything pass between Sibron and any of the others. Late in the evening Sibron entered a restaurant. Patrolman Martin saw Sibron speak with three more known addicts inside the restaurant. Once again, nothing was overheard and nothing was seen to pass between Sibron and the addicts. Sibron sat down and ordered pie and coffee, and, as he was eating, Patrolman Martin approached him and told him to come outside. Once outside, the officer said to Sibron, “You know what I am after.” According to the officer, Sibron “mumbled something and reached into his pocket.” Simultaneously, Patrolman Martin thrust his hand into the same pocket, discovering several glassine envelopes, which, it turned out, contained heroin.
The State has had some difficulty in settling upon a theory for the admissibility of these envelopes of heroin. In his sworn complaint Patrolman Martin stated:
“As the officer approached the defendant, the latter being in the direction of the officer and seeing him, he did put his hand in his left jacket pocket and pulled out a tinfoil envelope and did attempt to throw same to the ground. The officer never losing sight of the said envelope seized it from the def[endan]t’s left hand, examined it and found it to contain ten glascine [sic] envelopes with a white substance alleged to be Heroin.”
This version of the encounter, however, bears very little resemblance to Patrolman Martin’s testimony at the hearing on the motion to suppress. In fact, he discarded the abandonment theory at the hearing. Nor did the officer ever seriously suggest that he was in fear of bodily harm and that he searched Sibron in self-protection to find weapons.
The prosecutor’s theory at the hearing was that Patrolman Martin had probable cause to believe that Sibron was in possession of narcotics because he had seen him conversing with a number of known addicts over an eight-hour period. In the absence of any knowledge on Patrolman Martin’s part concerning the nature of the intercourse between Sibron and the addicts, however, the trial court was inclined to grant the motion to suppress. As the judge stated, “All he knows about the unknown men: They are narcotics addicts. They might have been talking about the World Series. They might have been talking about prize fights.” The prosecutor, however, reminded the judge that Sibron had admitted on the stand, in Patrolman Martin’s absence, that he had been talking to the addicts about narcotics. Thereupon, the trial judge changed his mind and ruled that the officer had probable cause for an arrest.
Section 180-a, the “stop-and-frisk” statute, was not mentioned at any point in the trial court. The Appellate Term of the Supreme Court affirmed the conviction without opinion. In the Court of Appeals of New York, Sibron’s case was consolidated with the Peters case, No. 74. The Court of Appeals held that the search in Peters was justified under the statute, but it wrote no opinion in Sibron’s case. The dissents of Judges Fuld and Van Voorhis, however, indicate that the court rested its holding on § 180-a. At any rate, in its Brief in Opposition to the Jurisdictional Statement in this Court, the State sought to justify the search on the basis of the statute. After we noted probable jurisdiction, the District Attorney for Kings County confessed error.
Peters, the appellant in No. 74, was convicted of possessing burglary tools under circumstances evincing an intent to employ them in the commission of a crime. The tools were seized from his person at the time of his arrest, and like Sibron he made a pretrial motion to suppress them. When the trial court denied the motion, he too pleaded guilty, preserving his right to appeal. Officer Samuel Lasky of the New York City Police Department testified at the hearing on the motion that he was at home in his apartment in Mount Vernon, New York, at about 1 p. m. on July 10, 1964. He had just finished taking a shower and was drying himself when he heard a noise at his door. His attempt to investigate was interrupted by a telephone call, but when he returned and looked through the peephole into the hall, Officer Lasky saw “two men tiptoeing out of the alcove toward the stairway.” He immediately called the police, put on some civilian clothes and armed himself with his service revolver. Returning to the peephole, he saw “a tall man tiptoeing away from the alcove and followed by this shorter man, Mr. Peters, toward the stairway.” Officer Lasky testified that he had lived in the 120-unit building for 12 years and that he did not recognize either of the men as tenants. Believing that he had happened upon the two men in the course of an attempted burglary, Officer Lasky opened his door, entered the hallway and slammed the door loudly behind him. This precipitated a flight down the stairs on the part of the two men, and Officer Lasky gave chase. His apartment was located on the sixth floor, and he apprehended Peters between the fourth and fifth floors. Grabbing Peters by the collar, he continued down another flight in unsuccessful pursuit of the other man. Peters explained his presence in the building to Officer Lasky by saying that he was visiting a girl friend. However, he declined to reveal the girl friend’s name, on the ground that she was a married woman. Officer Lasky patted Peters down for weapons, and discovered a hard object in his pocket. He stated at the hearing that the object did not feel like a gun, but that it might have been a knife. He removed the object from Peters’ pocket. It was an opaque plastic envelope, containing burglar’s tools.
The trial court explicitly refused to credit Peters’ testimony that he was merely in the building to visit his girl friend. It found that Officer Lasky had the requisite “reasonable suspicion” of Peters under § 180-a to stop him and question him. It also found that Peters’ response was “clearly unsatisfactory,” and that “under the circumstances Lasky’s action in frisking Peters for a dangerous weapon was reasonable, even though Lasky was himself armed.” It held that the hallway of the apartment building was a “public place” within the meaning of the statute. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court affirmed without opinion. The Court of Appeals also affirmed, essentially adopting the reasoning of the trial judge, with Judges Fuld and Van Voorhis dissenting separately.
I.
At the outset we must deal with the question whether we have jurisdiction in No. 63. It is asserted that because Sibron has completed service of the six-month sentence imposed upon him as a result of his conviction, the case has become moot under St. Pierre v. United States, 319 U. S. 41 (1943). We have concluded that the case is not moot.
In the first place, it is clear that the broad dictum with which the Court commenced its discussion in St. Pierre — that “the case is moot because, after petitioner’s service of his sentence and its expiration, there was no longer a subject matter on which the judgment of this Court could operate” (319 U. S., at 42) — fails to take account of significant qualifications recognized in St. Pierre and developed in later cases. Only a few days ago we held unanimously that the writ of habeas corpus was available to test the constitutionality of a state conviction where the petitioner had been in custody when he applied for the writ, but had been released before this Court could adjudicate his claims. Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U. S. 234 (1968). On numerous occasions in the past this Court has proceeded to adjudicate the merits of criminal cases in which the sentence had been fully served or the probationary period during which a suspended sentence could be reimposed had terminated. Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S. 629 (1968); Pollard v. United States, 352 U. S. 354 (1957); United States v. Morgan, 346 U. S. 502 (1954); Fiswick v. United States, 329 U. S. 211 (1946). Thus mere release of the prisoner does not mechanically foreclose consideration of the merits by this Court.
St. Pierre itself recognized two possible exceptions to its “doctrine” of mootness, and both of them appear to us to be applicable here. The Court stated that “[i]t does not appear that petitioner could not have brought his case to this Court for review before the expiration of his sentence,” noting also that because the petitioner’s conviction was for contempt and because his controversy with the Government was a continuing one, there was a good chance that there would be “ample opportunity to review” the important question presented on the merits in a future proceeding. 319 U. S., at 43. This was a plain recognition of the vital importance of keeping open avenues of judicial review of deprivations of constitutional right. There was no way for Sibron to bring his case here before his six-month sentence expired. By statute he was precluded from obtaining bail pending appeal, and by virtue of the inevitable delays of the New York court system, he was released less than a month after his newly appointed appellate counsel had been supplied with a copy of the transcript and roughly two months before it was physically possible to present his case to the first tier in the state appellate court system. This was true despite the fact that he took all steps to perfect his appeal in a prompt, diligent, and timely manner.
Many deep and abiding constitutional problems are encountered primarily at a level of “low visibility” in the criminal process — in the context of prosecutions for “minor” offenses which carry only short sentences. We do not believe that the Constitution contemplates that people deprived of constitutional rights at this level should be left utterly remediless and defenseless against repetitions of unconstitutional conduct. A State may not cut off federal review of whole classes of such cases by the simple expedient of a blanket denial of bail pending appeal. As St. Pierre clearly recognized, a State may not effectively deny a convict access to its appellate courts until he has been released and then argue that his case has been mooted by his failure to do what it alone prevented him from doing.
The second exception recognized in St. Pierre permits adjudication of the merits of a criminal case where “under either state or federal law further penalties or disabilities can be imposed... as a result of the judgment which has... been satisfied.” 319 U. S., at 43. Subsequent cases have expanded this exception to the point where it may realistically be said that inroads have been made upon the principle itself. St. Pierre implied that the burden was upon the convict to show the existence of collateral legal consequences. Three years later in Fiswick v. United States, 329 U. S. 211 (1946), however, the Court held that a criminal case had not become moot upon release of the prisoner, noting that the convict, an alien, might be subject to deportation for having committed a crime of “moral turpitude” — even though it had never been held (and the Court refused to hold) that the crime of which he was convicted fell into this category. The Court also pointed to the fact that if the petitioner should in the future decide he wanted to become an American citizen, he might have difficulty proving that he was of “good moral character.” Id., at 222.
The next case which dealt with the problem of collateral consequences was United States v. Morgan, 346 U. S. 502 (1954). There the convict had probably been subjected to a higher sentence as a recidivist by a state court on account of the old federal conviction which he sought to attack. But as the dissent pointed out, there was no indication that the recidivist increment would be removed from his state sentence upon invalidation of the federal conviction, id., at 516, n. 4, and the Court chose to rest its holding that the case was not moot upon a broader view of the matter. Without canvassing the possible disabilities which might be imposed upon Morgan or alluding specifically to the recidivist sentence, the Court stated:
“Although the term has been served, the results of the conviction may persist. Subsequent convictions may carry heavier penalties, civil rights may be affected. As the power to remedy an invalid sentence exists, we think, respondent is entitled to an opportunity to attempt to show that this conviction was invalid.” Id., at 512-513.
Three years later, in Pollard v. United States, 352 U. S. 354 (1957), the Court abandoned all inquiry into the actual existence of specific collateral consequences and in effect presumed that they existed. With nothing more than citations to Morgan and Fiswick, and a statement that “convictions may entail collateral legal disadvantages in the future,” id., at 358, the Court concluded that “[t]he possibility of consequences collateral to the imposition of sentence is sufficiently substantial to justify our dealing with the merits.” Ibid. The Court thus acknowledged the obvious fact of life that most criminal convictions do in fact entail adverse collateral legal consequences. The mere “possibility” that this will be the case is enough to preserve a criminal case from ending “ignominiously in the limbo of mootness.” Parker v. Ellis, 362 U. S. 574, 577 (1960) (dissenting opinion).
This case certainly meets that test for survival. Without pausing to canvass the possibilities in detail, we note that New York expressly provides by statute that Sibron’s conviction may be used to impeach his character should he choose to put it in issue at any future criminal trial, N. Y. Code Crim. Proc. § 393-e, and that it must be submitted to a trial judge for his consideration in sentencing should Sibron again be convicted of a crime, N. Y. Code Crim. Proc. § 482. There are doubtless other collateral consequences. Moreover, we see no relevance in the fact that Sibron is a multiple offender. Morgan was a multiple offender, see 346 U. S. at 503-504, and so was Pollard, see 352 U. S., at 355-357. A judge or jury faced with a question of character, like a sentencing judge, may be inclined to forgive or at least discount a limited number of minor transgressions, particularly if they occurred at some time in the relatively distant past. It is impossible for this Court to say at what point the number of convictions on a man’s record renders his reputation irredeemable. And even if we believed that an individual had reached that point, it would be impossible for us to say that he had no interest in beginning the process of redemption with the particular case sought to be adjudicated. We cannot foretell what opportunities might present themselves in the future for the removal of other convictions from an individual’s record. The question of the validity of a criminal conviction can arise in many contexts, compare Burgett v. Texas, 389 U. S. 109 (1967), and the sooner the issue is fully litigated the better for all concerned. It is always preferable to litigate a matter when it is directly and principally in dispute, rather than in a proceeding where it is collateral to the central controversy. Moreover, litigation is better conducted when the dispute is fresh and additional facts may, if necessary, be taken without a substantial risk that witnesses will die or memories fade. And it is far better to eliminate the source of a potential legal disability than to require the citizen to suffer the possibly unjustified consequences of the disability itself for an indefinite period of time before he can secure adjudication of the State’s right to impose it on the basis of some past action. Cf. Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U. S. 54, 64 (1968).
None of the concededly imperative policies behind the constitutional rule against entertaining moot controversies would be served by a dismissal in this case. There is nothing abstract, feigned, or hypothetical about Sibron’s appeal. Nor is there any suggestion that either Sibron or the State has been wanting in diligence or fervor in the litigation. We have before us a fully developed record of testimony about contested historical facts, which reflects the “impact of actuality” to a far greater degree than many controversies accepted for adjudication as a matter of course under the Federal Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U. S. C. § 2201.
St. Pierre v. United States, supra, must be read in light of later cases to mean that a criminal case is moot only if it is shown that there is no possibility that any collateral legal consequences will be imposed on the basis of the challenged conviction. That certainly is not the ease here. Sibron “has a substantial stake in the judgment of conviction which survives the satisfaction of the sentence imposed on him.” Fiswick v. United States, supra, at 222. The case is not moot.
II.
We deal next with the confession of error by the District Attorney for Kings County in No. 63. Confessions of error are, of course, entitled to and given great weight, but they do not “relieve this Court of the performance of the judicial function.” Young v. United States, 315 U. S. 257, 258 (1942). It is the uniform practice of this Court to conduct its own examination of the record in all cases where the Federal Government or a State confesses that a conviction has been erroneously obtained. For one thing, as we noted in Young, “our judgments are precedents, and the proper administration of the criminal law cannot be left merely to the stipulation of parties.” 315 U. S., at 259. See also Marino v. Ragen, 332 U. S. 561 (1947). This consideration is entitled to special weight where, as in this case, we deal with a judgment of a State’s highest court interpreting a state statute which is challenged on constitutional grounds. The need for such authoritative declarations of state law in sensitive constitutional contexts has been the very reason for the development of the abstention doctrine by this Court. See, e. g., Railroad Comm’n v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496 (1941). Such a judgment is the final product of a sovereign judicial system, and is deserving of respectful treatment by this Court. Moreover, in this case the confession of error on behalf of the entire state executive and judicial branches is made, not by a state official, but by the elected legal officer of one political subdivision within the State. The District Attorney for Kings County seems to have come late to the opinion that this conviction violated Sibron’s constitutional rights. For us to accept his view blindly in the circumstances, when a majority of the Court of Appeals of New York has expressed the contrary view, would be a disservice to the State of New York and an abdication of our obligation to lower courts to decide cases upon proper constitutional grounds in a manner which permits them to conform their future behavior to the demands of the Constitution. We turn to the merits.
III.
The parties on both sides of these two cases have urged that the principal issue before us is the constitutionality of § 180-a “on its face.” We decline, however, to be drawn into what we view as the abstract and unproductive exercise of laying the extraordinarily elastic categories of § 180-a next to the categories of the Fourth Amendment in an effort to determine whether the two are in some sense compatible. The constitutional validity of a warrantless search is pre-eminently the sort of question which can only be decided in the concrete factual context of the individual case. In this respect it is quite different from the question of the adequacy of the procedural safeguards written into a statute which purports to authorize the issuance of search warrants in certain circumstances. See Berger v. New York, 388 U. S. 41 (1967). No search required to be made under a warrant is valid if the procedure for the issuance of the warrant is inadequate to ensure the sort of neutral contemplation by a magistrate of the grounds for the search and its proposed scope, which lies at the heart of the Fourth Amendment. E. g., Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U. S. 108 (1964); Giordenello v. United States, 357 U. S. 480 (1958). This Court held last Term in Berger v. New York, supra, that N. Y. Code Crim Proc. § 813-a, which established a procedure for the issuance of search warrants to permit electronic eavesdropping, failed to embody the safeguards demanded by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Section 180-a, unlike § 813-a, deals with the substantive validity of certain types of seizures and searches without warrants. It purports to authorize police officers to “stop” people, “demand” explanations of them and “search [them] for dangerous weapon [s]” in certain circumstances upon “reasonable suspicion” that they are engaged in criminal activity and that they represent a danger to the policeman. The operative categories of § 180-a are not the categories of the Fourth Amendment, and they are susceptible of a wide variety of interpretations. New York is, of course, free to develop its own law of search and seizure to meet the needs of local law enforcement, see Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23, 34 (1963), and in the process it may call the standards it employs by any names it may choose. It may not, however, authorize police conduct which trenches upon Fourth Amendment rights, regardless of the labels which it attaches to such conduct. The question in this Court upon review of a state-approved search or seizure “is not whether the search [or seizure] was authorized by state law. The question is rather whether the search was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Just as a search authorized by state law may be an unreasonable one under that amendment, so may a search not expressly authorized by state law be justified as a constitutionally reasonable one.” Cooper v. California, 386 U. S. 58, 61 (1967).
Accordingly, we make no pronouncement on the facial constitutionality of § 180-a. The constitutional point with respect to a statute of this peculiar sort, as the Court of Appeals of New York recognized, is “not so much... the language employed as... the conduct it authorizes.” People v. Peters, 18 N. Y. 2d 238, 245, 219 N. E. 2d 595, 599, 273 N. Y. S. 2d 217, 222 (1966). We have held today in Terry v. Ohio, ante, p. 1, that police conduct of the sort with which § 180-a deals must be judged under the Reasonable Search and Seizure Clause of the Fourth Amendment. The inquiry under that clause may differ sharply from the inquiry set up by the categories of § 180-a. Our constitutional inquiry would not be furthered here by an attempt to pronounce judgment on the words of the statute. We must confine our review instead to the reasonableness of the searches and seizures which underlie these two convictions.
IV.
Turning to the facts of Sibron’s case, it is clear that the heroin was inadmissible in evidence against him. The prosecution has quite properly abandoned the notion that there was probable cause to arrest Sibron for any crime at the time Patrolman Martin accosted him in the restaurant, took him outside and searched him. The officer was not acquainted with Sibron and had no information concerning him. He merely saw Sibron talking to a number of known narcotics addicts over a period of eight hours. It must be emphasized that Patrolman Martin was completely ignorant regarding the content.of these conversations, and that he saw nothing pass between Sibron and the addicts. So far as he knew, they might indeed “have been talking about the World Series.” The inference that persons who talk to narcotics addicts are engaged in the criminal traffic in narcotics is simply not the sort of reasonable inference required to support an intrusion by the police upon an individual’s personal security. Nothing resembling probable cause existed until after the search had turned up the envelopes of heroin. It is axiomatic that an incident search may not precede an arrest and serve as part of its justification. E. g., Henry v. United States, 361 U. S. 98 (1959); Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 16-17 (1948). Thus the search cannot be justified as incident to a lawful arrest.
If Patrolman Martin lacked probable cause for an arrest, however, his seizure and search of Sibron might still have been justified at the outset if he had reasonable grounds to believe that Sibron was armed and dangerous. Terry v. Ohio, ante, p. 1. We are not called- upon to decide in this case whether there was a “seizure” of Sibron inside the restaurant antecedent to the physical seizure which accompanied the search. The record is unclear with respect to what transpired between Sibron and the officer inside the restaurant. It is totally barren of any indication whether Sibron accompanied Patrolman Martin outside in submission to a show of force or authority which left him no choice, or whether he went voluntarily in a spirit of apparent cooperation with the officer’s investigation. In any event, this deficiency in the record is immaterial, since Patrolman Martin obtained no new information in the interval between his initiation of the encounter in the restaurant and his physical seizure and search of Sibron outside.
Although the Court of Appeals of New York wrote no opinion in this case, it seems to have viewed the search here as a self-protective search for weapons and to have affirmed on the basis of § 180-a, which authorizes such a search when the officer “reasonably suspects that he is in danger of life or limb.” The Court of Appeals has, at any rate, justified searches during field interrogation on the ground that “[t]he answer to the question propounded by the policeman may be a bullet; in any case the exposure to danger could be very great.” People v. Rivera, 14 N. Y. 2d 441, 446, 201 N. E. 2d 32, 35, 252 N. Y. S. 2d 458, 463 (1964), cert. denied, 379 U. S. 978 (1965). But the application of this reasoning to the facts of this case proves too much. The police officer is not entitled to seize and search every person whom he sees on the street or of whom he makes inquiries. Before he places a hand on the person of a citizen in search of anything, he must have constitutionally adequate, reasonable grounds for doing so. In the case of the self-protective search for weapons, he must be able to point to particular facts from which he reasonably inferred that the individual was armed and dangerous. Terry v. Ohio, supra. Patrolman Martin's testimony reveals no such facts. The suspect’s mere act of talking with a number of known narcotics addicts over an eight-hour period no more gives rise to reasonable fear of life or limb on the part of the police officer than it justifies an arrest for committing a crime. Nor did Patrolman Martin urge that when Sibron put his hand in his pocket, he feared that he was going for a weapon and acted in self-defense. His opening statement to Sibron — “You know what I am after” — made it abundantly clear that he sought narcotics, and his testimony at the hearing left no doubt that he thought there were narcotics in Sibron’s pocket.
Even assuming arguendo that there were adequate grounds to search Sibron for weapons, the nature and scope of the search conducted by Patrolman Martin were so clearly unrelated to that justification as to render the heroin inadmissible. The search for weapons approved in Terry consisted solely of a limited patting of the outer clothing of the suspect for concealed objects which might be used as instruments of assault. Only when he discovered such objects did the officer in Terry place his hands in the pockets of the men he searched. In this case, with no attempt at an initial limited exploration for arms, Patrolman Martin thrust his hand into Sibron’s pocket and took from him envelopes of heroin. His testimony shows that he was looking for narcotics, and he found them. The search was not reasonably limited in scope to the accomplishment of the only goal which might conceivably have justified its inception — the protection of the officer by disarming a potentially dangerous man. Such a search violates the guarantee of the Fourth Amendment, which protects the sanctity of the person against unreasonable intrusions on the part of all government agents.
V.
We think it is equally clear that the search in Peters’ case was wholly reasonable under the Constitution. The Court of Appeals of New York held that the search was made legal by § 180-a, since Peters was “abroad in a public place,” and since Officer Lasky was reasonably suspicious of his activities and, once he had stopped Peters, reasonably suspected that he was in danger of life or limb, even though he held Peters at gun point. This may be the justification for the search under state law. We think, however, that for purposes of the Fourth Amendment the search was properly incident to a lawful arrest. By the time Officer Lasky caught up with Peters on the stairway between the fourth and fifth floors of the apartment building, he had probable cause to arrest him for attempted burglary. The officer heard strange noises at his door which apparently led him to believe that someone sought to force entry. When he investigated these noises he saw two men, whom he had never seen before in his 12 years in the building, tiptoeing furtively about the hallway. They were still engaged in these maneuvers after he called the police and dressed hurriedly. And when Officer Lasky entered the hallway, the men fled down the stairs. It is difficult to conceive of stronger grounds for an arrest, short of actual eyewitness observation of criminal activity. As the trial court explicitly recognized, deliberately furtive actions and flight at the approach of strangers or law officers are strong indicia of mens rea, and when coupled with specific knowledge on the part of the officer relating the suspect to the evidence of crime, they are proper factors to be considered in the decision to make an arrest. Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160 (1949); Husty v. United States, 282 U. S. 694 (1931); see Henry v. United States, 361 U. S. 98, 103 (1959).
As we noted in Sibron’s case, a search incident to a lawful arrest may not precede the arrest and serve as part of its justification. It is a question of fact precisely when, in each case, the arrest took place. Rios v. United States, 364 U. S. 253, 261-262 (1960). And while there was some inconclusive discussion in the trial court concerning when Officer Lasky “arrested” Peters, it is clear that the arrest had, for purposes of constitutional justification, already taken place before the search commenced. When the policeman grabbed Peters by the collar, he abruptly “seized” him and curtailed his freedom of movement on the basis of probable cause to believe that he was engaged in criminal activity. See Henry v. United States, supra, at 103. At that point he had the authority to search Peters, and the incident search was obviously justified “by the need to seize weapons and other things which might be used to assault an officer or effect an escape, as well as by the need to prevent the destruction of evidence of the crime.” Preston v. United States, 376 U. S. 364, 367 (1964). Moreover, it was reasonably limited in scope by these purposes. Officer Lasky did not engage in an unrestrained and thoroughgoing examination of Peters and his personal effects. He seized him to cut short his flight, and he searched him primarily for weapons. While patting down his outer clothing, Officer Lasky discovered an object in his pocket which might have been used as a weapon. He seized it and discovered it to be a potential instrument of the crime of burglary.
We have concluded that Peters’ conviction fully comports with the commands of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, and must be affirmed. The conviction in No. 63, however, must be reversed, on the ground that the heroin was unconstitutionally admitted in evidence against the appellant.
It is so ordered.
N. Y. Pub. Health Law § 3305 makes the unauthorized possession of any narcotic drug unlawful, and §§ 1751 and 1751-a of the
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The State of Illinois, the Illinois Commerce Commission, and the Milwaukee Road Commuters’ Association, aggrieved by an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission fixing intrastate passenger fares for the Milwaukee Road’s Chicago suburban commuter service higher than the fares authorized by the State Commission, brought this action in the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, seeking relief under 28 U. S. C. § 1336. The ICC order, 297 I. C. C. 353, was made under 49 U. S. C. § 13 (4), which authorizes the ICC to prescribe intrastate fares if it finds that “. . . any such . . . [existing intrastate] fare . . . causes . . . any undue, unreasonable, or unjust discrimination against interstate . . . commerce.” The three-judge District Court set aside the order, enjoined its enforcement, and remanded the case to the ICC for further proceedings. 146 F. Supp. 195. The District Court held, inter alia, that the ICC failed to make findings appropriate to show that the existing fares caused undue, unreasonable or unjust discrimination against interstate commerce. The judgment was appealed under 28 U. S. C. § 1253. We noted probable jurisdiction, 352 U. S. 939.
The ICC found that the Milwaukee Road’s 1954 passenger revenues from the Chicago suburban commuter service fell short by $306,038 of meeting the out-of-pocket cost of the service. This was the basis of the conclusion that the existing intrastate fares caused undue discrimination against interstate commerce. To remove this discrimination the ICC prescribed fares to produce $383,000 additional annual revenue, enough to eliminate the determined out-of-pocket loss and to allow $77,000 annually as a contribution to indirect costs and taxes. The question for our decision is whether the District Court properly set aside the ICC order as void for lack of findings necessary to support an order under § 13 (4).
The Chicago suburban commuter service, except for a relatively insignificant exception mentioned below, is entirely an intrastate service. It is provided in two directions from Chicago’s Union Station. One direction, wholly within Illinois, is west from Chicago some 37 route miles to Elgin, Illinois. The other direction is north from Chicago to Walworth, Wisconsin; however, 62 of the 74 route miles in that direction, and 24 of the 26 station stops, are located within Illinois. Total 1954 passenger revenues from this service were $1,796,231 from 4,869,064 passengers. Commuters traveling on commutation and multiple-ride tickets numbered 3,910,526 of this total and accounted for $1,374,261 of the revenue.
Commuter fares of most of the railroads providing commuter service in the Chicago area have been determined, at least since 1950, in joint hearings conducted by the ICC and the State Commission under 49 U. S. C. § 13 (3). 297 I. C. C. 353, 354. On July 24, 1952, however, the Milwaukee Road, instead of filing petitions or schedules with both Commissions, filed a petition with the State Commission only requesting
“authority to discontinue all off-peak Chicago suburban passenger trains and'consolidate certain peak-hour trains and also to increase one-way, round-trip and commutation fares to such extent as will after taking into consideration the economy effected by such discontinuances and consolidation of trains, give respondent sufficient revenues to permit operation of the Chicago 'suburban service without an out-of-pocket loss.” 297 I. C. C., at 355.
The State Commission did not act on the application until 1954. Meanwhile the Milwaukee Road changed the suburban service from a steam to a diesel operation. The State Commission found that the cost savings effected by this change eliminated the out-of-pocket loss and, on November 10, 1954, denied the application. The Milwaukee Road thereupon, in February 1955, petitioned the ICC for relief under § 13 (4).
This case presents once again the problem of adjusting state and federal interests in the regulation of intrastate rates. These intrastate rates are primarily the State’s concern and federal power is dominant “only so far as necessary to alter rates which injuriously affect interstate transportation.” North Carolina v. United States, 325 U. S. 507, 511. Thus, whenever this federal power is exerted within what would otherwise be the domain of state power, the justification for its exercise must “clearly appear.” Florida v. United States, 282 U. S. 194, 212. The statute provides a practical method of minimizing the inevitable irritations inherent in the conflict by requiring the ICC to notify the State whenever there is brought before it any fare imposed by state authority. In addition, the ICC may confer with the state regulatory authority, or may hold joint hearings with the state agency, when the State’s rate-making authority may be affected by the action taken by the ICC. 49 U. S. C. § 13 (3).
The occasion for the exercise of the federal power asserted by § 13 (4) is the necessity for effecting the required contribution by intrastate traffic of its proportionate share of the revenues necessary to pay a carrier’s operating cost and to yield a fair return. When intrastate revenues fall short of producing their fair proportionate share of required total revenues, they work an undue discrimination against interstate commerce, and the ICC may remove the discrimination by fixing intrastate rates high enough reasonably to protect interstate commerce. Illinois Commerce Comm’n v. United States, 292 U. S. 474, 479; Wisconsin R. Comm’n v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 257 U. S. 563, 586; United States v. Louisiana, 290 U. S. 70, 75. In determining whether an undue revenue discrimination against interstate commerce is caused by intrastate rates, the ICC may consider “among other things, the need, in the public interest, of adequate and efficient railway transportation service and the need of revenues sufficient to sustain such service,” a standard written into 49 U. S. C. § 15a (2). King v. United States, 344 U. S. 254, 264. No formal requirements are prescribed for the findings to be made by the ICC under § 13 (4). United States v. Louisiana, 290 U. S. 70, 80. Reasonable determinations suffice. Florida v. United States, 292 U. S. 1, 9. But the justification for the exercise of this exceptional federal power to interfere with intrastate rates must be made definitely and clearly apparent. Florida v. United States, 282 U. S. 194, 212.
In the instant case the ICC interfered with suburban commuter rates — intrastate rates peculiarly localized in impact upon the Chicago suburban community. In substance, the ICC found that because this single segment of the Milwaukee Road’s intrastate operations in Illinois did not meet out-of-pocket costs, there was an undue discrimination against the road’s interstate operations, without regard to the contribution of other Illinois intrastate revenues, freight or passenger, concerning which both the record and the findings are entirely silent.
We think this is a case where the ICC cannot be sustained in altering intrastate rates merely because the Chicago suburban commuter traffic — of the Milwaukee Road’s total intrastate Illinois traffic, freight and passenger — is not remunerative or reasonably compensatory. Cf. Florida v. United States, 282 U. S. 194; North Carolina v. United States, 325 U. S. 507. The limited and exceptional federal power asserted by § 13 (4) over intrastate rates must be exercised with “scrupulous regard for maintaining the [primary] power of the state in this field.” North Carolina v. United States, 325 U. S. 507, 511. It is of course desirable that each particular intrastate service should as nearly as may be pay its own way and return a profit — but the State Commission, not the ICC, has the responsibility in the first instance to achieve that desired end. Passenger deficits have become chronic in the railroad industry and it has become necessary to make up these deficits from more remunerative services. The ICC has recognized this practical reality of today’s railroading and has changed its rate-fixing policy so that if interstate passenger service inevitably and inescapably cannot bear its direct costs and its share of joint or indirect costs, the ICC feels compelled in a general rate case to take the passenger deficit into account in the adjustment of interstate freight rates and charges. King v. United States, 344 U. S. 254, 261. An equally broad power must be conceded to a state commission in the exercise of its primary authority to prescribe and adjust intrastate rates.
In view of that policy, we do not think that the deficit from this single commuter operation can fairly be adjudged to work an undue discrimination against the Milwaukee Road’s interstate operations without findings which take the deficit into account in the light of the carrier’s other intrastate revenues from Illinois traffic, freight and passenger. The basic objective of § 13 (4), applied in the light of § 15a (2) to this case, is to prevent a discrimination against the carrier’s interstate traffic which would result from saddling that traffic with an undue burden of providing intrastate services. A fair picture of the intrastate operation, and whether the intrastate traffic unduly discriminates against interstate traffic, is not shown, in this case, by limiting consideration to the particular commuter service in disregard of the revenue contributed by the other intrastate services.
A requirement for findings which reflect the commuter service deficit in the totality of intrastate revenues is not a departure from previous holdings of this Court. The precise situation presented by this case has not heretofore been considered by the Court. The previous cases involving Commission orders increasing intrastate rates in the interest of the carrier’s revenue (as distinguished from cases of discrimination against particular persons and localities, see Houston, E. & W. T. R. Co. v. United States, 234 U. S. 342) involved statewide orders raising intrastate rates. In passenger fare cases, ICC orders were sustained on a showing that following general increases in interstate passenger rates, state commissions refused to increase intrastate passenger rates to the same level for what were essentially identical services. Wiscon sin R. Comm’n v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 257 U. S. 563; New York v. United States, 257 U. S. 591. It was held that the state passenger rates in that circumstance were not producing their fair proportionate share. In North Carolina v. United States, 325 U. S. 507, also a passenger fare case, the ICC order was not sustained because the findings were held to be insufficient. Nonpassenger fare cases in which ICC orders raising intrastate rates were sustained were United States v. Louisiana, 290 U. S. 70; Florida v. United States, 292 U. S. 1; and King v. United States, 344 U. S. 254. The order was not sustained, however, in an earlier Florida case, Florida v. United States, 282 U. S. 194. The only case ostensibly based upon a revenue discrimination caused by a local operation was not a passenger fare case. Illinois Commerce Comm’n v. United States, 292 U. S. 474. Basically the discrimination there complained of, however, was a persons-and-locality discrimination against interstate shippers.
It should also be noted that in King v. United States, supra, the Court adverted to those very factors among the ICC’s findings whose absence in the present case we find to be a fatal defect. The Court there emphasized the ICC finding that the entire intrastate traffic, freight and passenger, constituted a revenue drain upon the carrier’s revenues from interstate traffic. Since the Commission has not in this case found whether or not the commuter rates, viewed in the light of the Illinois intrastate operation as a whole, constitute an undue revenue discrimination against the Milwaukee Road’s interstate operations, the judgment of the District Court in remanding the case to the Commission for further consideration must be affirmed.
The District Court also held that the ICC erred in considering evidence which was not presented by the Milwaukee Road to the State Commission. The evidence in question concerned certain depreciation and maintenance-of-way expenses totaling $258,172, which the ICC took into account in computing out-of-pocket costs. The District Court said:
“If different evidence is to be offered or a different basis of fares is to be urged before the interstate commission, the state commission should have been given a chance to fix fares on the same evidence and the same basis.
“Where a railroad seeks the fixing of higher intrastate rates by the interstate commission after failing in such endeavor before a state commission, § 13 (4) does not contemplate that the state commission is to be considered only a way station in a journey to the interstate commission.” 146 F. Supp. 195, 201, 202.
This holding in effect restricts the ICC in decisions under § 13 (4) to the identical evidence presented by the railroad to the State Commission. So to restrict the ICC’s consideration as to whether intrastate rates work an undue discrimination against interstate commerce might seriously interfere with the Commission’s duty to remove the discrimination to protect the exclusive federal domain of interstate commerce. It is contrary to this Court’s holding in Florida v. United States, 282 U. S. 194. There the State Commission had not affirmatively prescribed the existing rates which the ICC increased. It was urged that until the State Commission did so § 13 (4) granted no power to the ICC to prescribe higher rates. This Court rejected this contention, saying “To hold . . . that there can be no adjustment of intrastate rates by the Interstate Commerce Commission so far as may be needed to protect interstate commerce until the State itself has first 'sat in judgment on the issue of the lawfulness of those intrastate rates’ would be to impose a limitation not required by the terms of the statute and repugnant to the grant of authority.” Id., at 210.
In this case the ICC might more wisely have arranged for joint hearings under § 13 (3) or have deferred action pending an opportunity for the State Commission to consider this evidence. However, nothing in the statute compels either course or denies the ICC the power to determine the question presented by the railroad’s petition, whatever may have been the evidence presented before the State Commission. See North Carolina v. United States, 128 F. Supp. 718, affirmed, 350 U. S. 805; Illinois v. United States, 101 F. Supp. 36, 47, affirmed, 342 U. S. 930.
Finally, it is argued that the District Court erred in setting aside so much of the ICC order as authorized an increase in the interstate fares to the two Wisconsin points. We believe, however, that these rates are so interwoven with and so closely bound to the intrastate rates that a proper disposition of this case reasonably requires that the Commission reconsider them as part of its reconsideration of the entire Chicago suburban commuter service. The only reason why the ICC increased the interstate rates was to make them conform to the increased intrastate rates.
Paragraph 3 of the District Court judgment dated June 14, 1956, is modified to provide that the remand to the ICC shall be for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
24 Stat. 383, as amended, 41 Stat. 484, 49 U. S. C. § 13 (4):
“Whenever in any such investigation the commission, after full hearing, finds that any such rate, fare, charge, classification, regulation, or practice causes any undue or unreasonable advantage, preference, or prejudice as between persons or localities in intrastate commerce on the one hand and interstate or foreign commerce on the other hand, or any undue, unreasonable, or unjust discrimination against interstate or foreign commerce, which is forbidden and declared to be unlawful, it shall prescribe the rate, fare, or charge, or the maximum or minimum, or maximum and minimum, thereafter to be charged, and the classification, regulation, or practice thereafter to be observed, in such manner as, in its judgment, will remove such advantage, preference, prejudice, or discrimination. Such rates, fares, charges, classifications, regulations, and practices shall be observed while in effect by the carriers parties to such proceeding affected thereby, the law of any State or the decision or order of any State authority to the contrary notwithstanding.”
The injunction was stayed pending the hearing of the appeal to this Court. The excess fares are being impounded under a provision of the stay order providing for their refund to the persons who paid them in the event the judgment appealed from is affirmed.
The Milwaukee Road is the appellant in No. 12. The United States is the appellant in No. 27. The ICC is the appellant in No. 28. Bach appeals from the particular provisions of the judgment by which it is aggrieved.
The interstate fares to the two Wisconsin points were also raised in this proceeding by an ICC order entered November 21, 1955, and Order No. 26550, Passenger Fares and Surcharges, 214 I. C. C. 174, was modified so as to permit the rates to be made effective. No affirmative order raising the intrastate rates was made, however, until March 2, 1956. The ICC report allowed the Milwaukee Road and the Illinois Commerce Commission 60 days in which to adjust the intrastate rates on the bases prescribed in the report. Failing such adjustment the order of March 2, 1956, prescribing the intrastate rates was entered and Order No. 11703, Intrastate Rates Within Illinois, 59 I. C. C. 350, was modified to permit the Milwaukee Road to make the intrastate rates effective.
24 Stat. 383, as amended, 41 Stat. 484, 49 U. S. C. § 13 (3):
“Whenever in any investigation under the provisions of this chapter, or in any investigation instituted upon petition of the carrier concerned, which petition is authorized to be filed, there shall be brought in issue any rate, fare, charge, classification, regulation, or practice, made or imposed by authority of any State, the commission, before proceeding to hear and dispose of such issue, shall cause the State or States interested to be notified of the proceeding. The commission may confer with the authorities of any State having regulatory jurisdiction over the class of persons and corporations subject to this chapter or chapter 12 of this title with respect to the relationship between rate structures and practices of carriers subject to the jurisdiction of such State bodies and of the commission; and to that end is authorized and empowered, under rules to be prescribed by it, and which may be modified from time to time, to hold joint hearings with any such State regulating bodies on any matters wherein the commission is empowered to act and where the rate-making authority of a State is or may be affected by the action taken by the commission. The commission is also authorized to avail itself of the cooperation, services, records, and facilities of such State authorities in the enforcement of any provision of this chapter or chapter 12 of this title.”
Wisconsin R. Comm’n v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 257 U. S. 563, 586. “The effective operation of the [Interstate Commerce] act will reasonably and justly require that intrastate traffic should pay a fair proportionate share of the cost of maintaining an adequate railway system.”
This would seem to be particularly required here in light of the Commission’s recognition “that the deficit from the [Milwaukee Road’s] total passenger operations is relatively greater than from its suburban operations.” 297 I. C. C. 353, 359.
The Commission found that the Milwaukee Road earned in 1954 from its freight operations $37,293,050, and suffered a deficit from all passenger operations of $22,824,532, resulting in a net railway operating income of $14,568,518. This represented a return of approximately 2%.
We agree with the District Court that that portion of the prescribed increases designed to produce $77,000 annually as a contribution to indirect costs and taxes is not based upon adequate findings. There is no finding of the total of indirect costs and taxes to which contribution is to be made, nor any finding from which we may infer how the ICC derived its conclusion that a $77,000 contribution was fair. It is axiomatic that to know whether something is a fair proportionate part of something else, we must be told what the something else is.
On the other hand we cannot agree with the District Court that there was not support in the evidence for the ICC’s finding that the prescribed rates would be just and reasonable for the future. The ICC did not rely solely upon the comparison with the similar fares of the Northwestern, for there was ample other evidence in the record to sustain their findings. But the factors which determine the reasonableness of a rate are so different from the factors which determine what is a fair proportionate share of a carrier’s total income that a finding of the reasonableness of the rates prescribed does not embrace all the findings necessary to support the exercise of the § 13 (4) power.
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 judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.
Mr. Justice Stewart took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
H
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Alito
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, 50 U. S. C. § 1881a (2006 ed., Supp. V), allows the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to acquire foreign intelligence information by jointly authorizing the surveillance of individuals who are not “United States persons” and are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States. Before doing so, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence normally must obtain the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s approval. Respondents are United States persons whose work, they allege, requires them to engage in sensitive international communications with individuals who they believe are likely targets of surveillance under § 1881a. Respondents seek a declaration that § 1881a is unconstitutional, as well as an injunction against § 1881a-authorized surveillance. The question before us is whether respondents have Article III standing to seek this prospective relief.
Respondents assert that they can establish injury in fact because there is an objectively reasonable likelihood that their communications will be acquired under § 1881a at some point in the future. But respondents’ theory of future injury is too speculative to satisfy the well-established requirement that threatened injury must be “certainly impending.” E. g., Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U. S. 149, 158 (1990). And even if respondents could demonstrate that the threatened injury is certainly impending, they still would not be able to establish that this injury is fairly traceable to § 1881a. As an alternative argument, respondents contend that they are suffering present injury because the risk of § 1881a-authorized surveillance already has forced them to take costly and burdensome measures to protect the confidentiality of their international communications. But respondents cannot manufacture standing by choosing to make expenditures based on hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending. We therefore hold that respondents lack Article III standing.
I
A
In 1978, after years of debate, Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to authorize and regulate certain governmental electronic surveillance of communications for foreign intelligence purposes. See 92 Stat. 1783, 50 U. S. C. § 1801 et seq.; 1 D. Kris & J. Wilson, National Security Investigations & Prosecutions §§3.1, 3.7 (2d ed. 2012) (hereinafter Kris & Wilson). In enacting FISA, Congress legislated against the backdrop of our decision in United States v. United States Dist. Court for Eastern Dist. of Mich., 407 U. S. 297 (1972) (Keith), in which we explained that the standards and procedures that law enforcement officials must follow when conducting “surveillance of ‘ordinary crime’ ” might not be required in the context of surveillance conducted for domestic national-security purposes. Id., at 322-323. Although the Keith opinion expressly disclaimed any ruling “on the scope of the President’s surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign powers,” id., at 308, it implicitly suggested that a special framework for foreign intelligence surveillance might be constitutionally permissible, see id., at 322-323.
In constructing such a framework for foreign intelligence surveillance, Congress created two specialized courts. In FISA, Congress authorized judges of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to approve electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes if there is probable cause to believe that “the target of the electronic surveillance is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power,” and that each of the specific “facilities or places at which the electronic surveillance is directed is being used, or is about to be used, by a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.” § 105(a)(3), 92 Stat. 1790; see §§ 105(b)(1)(A), (b)(1)(B), ibid.; 1 Kris & Wilson §7:2, at 194-195; id., § 16:2, at 528-529. Additionally, Congress vested the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review with jurisdiction to review any denials by the FISC of applications for electronic surveillance. § 103(b), 92 Stat. 1788; 1 Kris & Wilson §5:7, at 151-153.
In the wake of the September 11th attacks, President George W. Bush authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct warrantless wiretapping of telephone and e-mail communications where one party to the communication was located outside the United States and a participant in “the call was reasonably believed to be a member or agent of al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 403a. See id., at 263a-265a, 268a, 273a-279a, 292a-293a; American Civil Liberties Union v. NSA, 493 F. 3d 644, 648 (CA6 2007) (ACLU) (opinion of Batchelder, J.). In January 2007, the FISC issued orders authorizing the Government to target international communications into or out of the United States where there was probable cause to believe that one participant to the communication was a member or agent of al Qaeda or an associated terrorist organization. App. to Pet. for Cert. 3Í2a, 398a, 405a. These FISC orders subjected any electronic surveillance that was then occurring under the NSA’s program to the approval of the FISC. Id., at 405a; see id., at 312a, 404a. After a FISC Judge subsequently narrowed the FISC’s authorization of such surveillance, however, the Executive asked Congress to amend FISA so that it would provide the intelligence community with additional authority to meet the challenges of modern technology and international terrorism. Id., at 315a-318a, 331a-333a, 398a; see id., at 262a, 277a-279a, 287a.
When Congress enacted the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FISA Amendments Act), 122 Stat. 2436, it left much of FISA intact, but it “established a new and independent source of intelligence collection authority, beyond that granted in traditional FISA.” 1 Kris & Wilson §9:11, at 349-360. As relevant here, § 702 of FISA, 50 U. S. C. § 1881a (2006 ed., Supp. V), which was enacted as part of the FISA Amendments Act, supplements pre-existing FISA authority by creating a new framework under which the Government may seek the FISC’s authorization of certain foreign intelligence surveillance targeting the communications of non-U. S. persons located abroad. Unlike traditional FISA surveillance, § 1881a does not require the Government to demonstrate probable cause that the target of the electronic surveillance is a foreign power or agent of a foreign power. Compare §§ 1805(a)(2)(A), (a)(2)(B), with §§ 1881a(d)(l), (i)(3)(A); 638 F. 3d 118, 126 (CA2 2011); 1 Kris & Wilson § 16:16, at 584. And, unlike traditional FISA, § 1881a does not require the Government to specify the nature and location of each of the particular facilities or places at which the electronic surveillance will occur. Compare §§ 1805(a)(2)(B), (c)(1) (2006 ed. and Supp. V) with §§ 1881a(d)(l), (g)(4), (i)(3)(A); 638 F. 3d, at 125-126; 1 Kris & Wilson §16:16, at 585.
The present case involves a constitutional challenge to § 1881a. Surveillance under § 1881a is subject to statutory conditions, judicial authorization, congressional supervision, and compliance with the Fourth Amendment. Section 1881a provides that, upon the issuance of an order from the FISC, “the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence may authorize jointly, for a period of up to 1 year..., the targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information.” § 1881a(a). Surveillance under § 1881a may not be intentionally targeted at any person known to be in the United States or any U. S. person reasonably believed to be located abroad. §§ 1881a(b)(l)-(3); see also §1801(i). Additionally, acquisitions under § 1881a must comport with the Fourth Amendment. § 1881a(b)(5). Moreover, surveillance under § 1881a is subject to congressional oversight and several types of Executive Branch review. See § § 1881a(f )(2), (0; Amnesty Int’l USA v. McConnell, 646 F. Supp. 2d 633, 640-641 (SDNY 2009).
Section 1881a mandates that the Government obtain the FISC’s approval of “targeting” procedures, “minimization” procedures, and a governmental certification regarding proposed surveillance. §§ 1881a(a), (c)(1), (i)(2), (i)(3). Among other things, the Government’s certification must attest that (1) procedures are in place “that have been approved, have been submitted for approval, or will be submitted with the certification for approval by the [FISC] that are reasonably designed” to ensure that an acquisition is “limited to targeting persons reasonably believed to be located outside” the United States; (2) minimization procedures adequately restrict the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of nonpublic information about unconsenting U. S. persons, as appropriate; (3) guidelines have been adopted to ensure compliance with targeting limits and the Fourth Amendment; and (4) the procedures and guidelines referred to above comport with the Fourth Amendment. § 1881a(g)(2); see § 1801(h).
The FISC’s role includes determining whether the Government’s certification contains the required elements. Additionally, the court assesses whether the targeting procedures are “reasonably designed” (1) to “ensure that an acquisition... is limited to targeting persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States” and (2) to “prevent the intentional acquisition of any communication as to which the sender and all intended recipients are known... to be located in the United States.” § 1881a(i)(2)(B). The court analyzes whether the minimization procedures “meet the definition of minimization procedures under section 1801(h)..., as appropriate.” § 1881a(i)(2)(C). The court also assesses whether the targeting and minimization procedures are consistent with the statute and the Fourth Amendment. See § 1881a(i)(3)(A).
B
Respondents are attorneys and human rights, labor, legal, and media organizations whose work allegedly requires them to engage in sensitive and sometimes privileged telephone and e-mail communications with colleagues, clients, sources, and other individuals located abroad. Respondents believe that some of the people with whom they exchange foreign intelligence information are likely targets of surveillance under § 1881a. Specifically, respondents claim that they communicate by telephone and e-mail with people the Government “believes or believed to be associated with terrorist organizations,” “people located in geographic areas that are a special focus” of the Government’s counterterrorism or diplomatic efforts, and activists who oppose governments that are supported by the United States Government. App. to Pet. for Cert. 399a.
Respondents claim that § 1881a compromises their ability to locate witnesses, cultivate sources, obtain information, and communicate confidential information to their clients. Respondents also assert that they “have ceased engaging” in certain telephone and e-mail conversations. Id., at 400a. According to respondents, the threat of surveillance will compel them to travel abroad in order to have in-person conversations. In addition, respondents declare that they have undertaken “costly and burdensome measures” to protect the confidentiality of sensitive communications. Ibid.
C
On the day when the FISA Amendments Act was enacted, respondents filed this action seeking (1) a declaration that § 1881a, on its face, violates the Fourth Amendment, the First Amendment, Article III, and separation-of-powers principles and (2) a permanent injunction against the use of § 1881a. Respondents assért what they characterize as two separate theories of Article III standing. First, they claim that there is an objectively reasonable likelihood that their communications will be acquired under § 1881a at some point in the future, thus causing them injury. Second, respondents maintain that the risk of surveillance under § 1881a is so substantial that they have been forced to take costly and burdensome measures to protect the confidentiality of their international communications; in their view, the costs they have incurred constitute present injury that is fairly traceable to § 1881a.
After both parties moved for summary judgment, the District Court held that respondents do not have standing. 646 F. Supp. 2d, at 636. On appeal, however, a panel of the Second Circuit reversed. The panel agreed with respondents’ argument that they have standing due to the objectively reasonable likelihood that their communications will be intercepted at some time in the future. 638 F. 3d, at 133, 134, 139. In addition, the panel held that respondents have established that they are suffering “present injuries in fact— economic and professional harms—stemming from a reasonable fear of future harmful government conduct.” Id., at 138. The Second Circuit denied rehearing en banc by an equally divided vote. 667 F. 3d 163 (2011).
Because of the importance of the issue and the novel view of standing adopted by the Court of Appeals, we granted certiorari, 566 U. S. 1009 (2012), and we now
II
Article III of the Constitution limits federal courts’ jurisdiction to certain “Cases” and “Controversies.” As we have explained, “[n]o principle is more fundamental to the judiciary’s proper role in our system of government than the constitutional limitation of federal-court jurisdiction to actual cases or controversies.” DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U. S. 332, 341 (2006) (internal quotation marks omitted); Raines v. Byrd, 521 U. S. 811, 818 (1997) (internal quotation marks omitted); see, e. g., Summers v. Earth Island Institute, 555 U. S. 488, 492-493 (2009). “One element of the case-or-eontroversy requirement” is that plaintiffs “must establish that they have standing to sue.” Raines, supra, at 818; see also Summers, supra, at 492-493; DaimlerChrysler Corp., supra, at 342; Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560 (1992).
The law of Article III standing, which is built on separation-of-powers principles, serves to prevent the judicial process from being used to usurp the powers of the political branches. Summers, supra, at 492-493; Daimler-Chrysler Corp., supra, at 341-342, 353; Raines, supra, at 818-820; Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 471-474 (1982); Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War, 418 U. S. 208, 221-222 (1974). In keeping with the purpose of this doctrine, “our standing inquiry has been especially rigorous when reaching the merits of the dispute would force us to decide whether an action taken by one of the other two branches of the Federal Government was unconstitutional.” Raines, supra, at 819-820; see Valley Forge Christian College, supra, at 473-474; Schlesinger, supra, at 221-222. “Relaxation of standing requirements is directly related to the expansion of judicial power,” United States v. Richardson, 418 U. S. 166, 188 (1974) (Powell, J., concurring); see also Summers, supra, at 492-493; Schlesinger, supra, at 222, and we have often found a lack of standing in cases in which the Judiciary has been requested to review actions of the political branches in the fields of intelligence gathering and foreign affairs, see, e. g., Richardson, supra, at 167-170 (plaintiff lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of a statute permitting the Central Intelligence Agency to account for its expenditures solely on the certificate of the CIA Director); Schlesinger, supra, at 209-211 (plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the Armed Forces Reserve membership of Members of Congress); Laird v. Tatum, 408 U. S. 1, 11-16 (1972) (plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge an Army intelligence-gathering program).
To establish Article III standing, an injury must be “concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; fairly traceable to the challenged action; and redressable by a favorable ruling.” Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, 561 U. S. 139, 149 (2010); see also Summers, supra, at 493; Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S., at 560-561. “Although imminence is coneededly a somewhat elastic concept, it cannot be stretched beyond its purpose, which is to ensure that the alleged injury is not too speculative for Article III purposes—that the injury is certainly impending.” Id., at 565, n. 2 (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, we have repeatedly reiterated that “threatened injury must be certainly impending to constitute injury in fact,” and that “[allegations of possible future injury” are not sufficient. Whitmore, 495 U. S., at 158 (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted); see also Defenders of Wildlife, supra, at 565, n. 2, 567, n. 3; see Daimler Chrysler Corp., supra, at 345; Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U. S. 167, 190 (2000); Babbitt v. Farm Workers, 442 U. S. 289, 298 (1979).
i—I 1—I H-4
A
Respondents assert that they can establish injury in fact that is fairly traceable to § 1881a because there is an objectively reasonable likelihood that their communications with their foreign contacts will be intercepted under § 1881a at some point in the future. This argument fails. As an initial matter, the Second Circuit’s “objectively reasonable likelihood” standard is inconsistent with our requirement that “threatened injury must be certainly impending to constitute injury in fact.” Whitmore, supra, at 158 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Daimler Chrysler Corp., supra, at 345; Laidlaw, supra, at 190; Defenders of Wildlife, supra, at 565, n. 2; Babbitt, supra, at 298. Furthermore, respondents’ argument rests on their highly speculative fear that: (1) the Government will decide to target the communications of non-U. S. persons with whom they communicate; (2) in doing so, the Government will choose to invoke its authority under § 1881a rather than utilizing another method of surveillance; (3) the Article III judges who serve on the FISC will conclude that the Government’s proposed surveillance procedures satisfy § 188 la’s many safeguards and are consistent with the Fourth Amendment; (4) the Government will succeed in intercepting the communications of respondents’ contacts; and (5) respondents will be parties to the particular communications that the Government intercepts. As discussed below, respondents’ theory of standing, which relies on a highly attenuated chain of possibilities, does not satisfy the requirement that threatened injury must be certainly impending. See Summers, supra, at 496 (rejecting a standing theory premised on a speculative chain of possibilities); Whitmore, supra, at 157-160 (same). Moreover, even if respondents could demonstrate injury in fact, the second link in the above-described chain of contingencies—which amounts to mere speculation about whether surveillance would be under § 1881a or some other authority—shows that respondents cannot satisfy the requirement that any injury in fact must be fairly traceable to § 1881a.
First, it is speculative whether the Government will imminently target communications to which respondents are parties. Section 1881a expressly provides that respondents, who are U. S. persons, cannot be targeted for surveillance under § 1881a. See §§ 1881a(b)(1)-(3); 667 F. 3d, at 173 (Raggi, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). Accordingly, it is no surprise that respondents fail to offer any evidence that their communications have been monitored under § 1881a, a failure that substantially undermines their standing theory. See ACLU, 493 F. 3d, at 655-656, 673-674 (opinion of Batchelder, J.) (concluding that plaintiffs who lacked evidence that their communications had been intercepted did not have standing to challenge alleged NS A surveillance). Indeed, respondents do not even allege that the Government has sought the FISC’s approval for surveillance of their communications. Accordingly, respondents’ theory necessarily rests on their assertion that the Government will target other individuals—namely, their foreign contacts.
Yet respondents have no actual knowledge of the Government’s § 1881a targeting practices. Instead, respondents merely speculate and make assumptions about whether their communications with their foreign contacts will be acquired under § 1881a. See 667 F. 3d, at 185-187 (opinion of Raggi, J.). For example, journalist Christopher Hedges states: “I have no choice but to assume that any of my international communications may be subject to government surveillance, and I have to make decisions... in light of that assumption.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 366a (emphasis added and deleted). Similarly, attorney Scott McKay asserts that, “[bjecause of the [FISA Amendments Act], we now have to assume that every one of our international communications may be monitored by the government.” Id., at 375a (emphasis added); see also id., at 337a, 343a-344a, 350a, 356a. “The party in-yoking federal jurisdiction bears the burden of establishing” standing—and, at the summary judgment stage, such a party “can no longer rest on... ‘mere allegations,’ but must ‘set forth’ by affidavit or other evidence ‘specific facts.’” Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S., at 561. Respondents, however, have set forth no specific facts demonstrating that the communications of their foreign contacts will be targeted. Moreover, because § 1881a at most authorizes—but does not mandate or direct—the surveillance that respondents fear, respondents’ allegations are necessarily conjectural. See United Presbyterian Church in U. S. A. v. Reagan, 738 F. 2d 1375, 1380 (CADC 1984) (Scalia, J.); 667 F. 3d, at 187 (opinion of Raggi, J.). Simply put, respondents can only speculate as to how the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence will exercise their discretion in determining which communications to target.
Second, even if respondents could demonstrate that the targeting of their foreign contacts is imminent, respondents can only speculate as to whether the Government will seek to use § 1881a-authorized surveillance (rather than other methods) to do so. The Government has numerous other methods of conducting surveillance, none of which is challenged here. Even after the enactment of the FISA Amendments Act, for example, the Government may still conduct electronic surveillance of persons abroad under the older provisions óf FISA so long as it satisfies the applicable requirements, including a demonstration of probable cause to believe that the person is a foreign power or agent of a foreign power. See § 1805. The Government may also obtain information from the intelligence services of foreign nations. Brief for Petitioners 33. And, although we do not reach the question, the Government contends that it can conduct FISA-exempt human and technical surveillance programs that are governed by Executive Order 12333. See Exec. Order No. 12333, §§ 1.4, 2.1-2.5, 3 CFR 202, 210-212 (1981), reprinted as amended, note following 50 U. S. C. §401, pp. 543, 547-548. Even if respondents could demonstrate that their foreign contacts will imminently be targeted— indeed, even if they could show that interception of their own communications will imminently occur—they would still need to show that their injury is fairly traceable to § 1881a. But, because respondents can only speculate as to whether any (asserted) interception would be under § 1881a or some other authority, they cannot satisfy the “fairly traceable” requirement.
Third, even if respondents could show that the Government will seek the FISC’s authorization to acquire the communications of respondents’ foreign contacts under § 1881a, respondents can only speculate as to whether that court will authorize such surveillance. In the past, we have been reluctant to endorse standing theories that require guesswork as to how independent decisionmakers will exercise their judgment. In Whitmore, for example, the plaintiff’s theory of standing hinged largely on the probability that he would obtain federal habeas relief and be convicted upon retrial. In holding that the plaintiff lacked standing, we explained that “[i]t is just not possible for a litigant to prove in advance that the judicial system will lead to any particular result in his case.” 495 U. S., at 159-160; see Defenders of Wildlife, supra, at 562.
We decline to abandon our usual reluctance to endorse standing theories that rest on speculation about the decisions of independent actors. Section 1881a mandates that the Government must obtain the FISC’s approval of targeting procedures, minimization procedures, and a governmental certification regarding proposed surveillance. §§ 1881a(a), (e)(1), (i)(2), (i)(3). The court must, for example, determine whether the Government’s procedures are “reasonably designed... to minimize the acquisition and retention, and prohibit the dissemination, of nonpublicly available information concerning unconsenting United States persons.” § 1801(h); see §§ 1881a(i)(2), (i)(3)(A). And, critically, the court must also assess whether the Government’s targeting and minimization procedures comport with the Fourth Amendment. § 1881a(i)(3)(A).
Fourth, even if the Government were to obtain the FISC’s approval to target respondents’ foreign contacts under § 1881a, it is unclear whether the Government would succeed in acquiring the communications of respondents’ foreign contacts. And fifth, even if the Government were to conduct surveillance of respondents’ foreign contacts, respondents can only speculate as to whether their own communications with their foreign contacts would be incidentally acquired.
In sum, respondents’ speculative chain of possibilities does not establish that injury based on potential future surveillance is certainly impending or is fairly traceable to § 1881a.
B
Respondents’ alternative argument—namely, that they can establish standing based on the measures that they have undertaken to avoid § 1881a-authorized surveillance—fares no better. Respondents assert that they are suffering ongoing injuries that are fairly traceable to § 1881a because the risk of surveillance under § 1881a requires them to take' costly and burdensome measures to protect the confidentiality of their communications. Respondents claim, for instance, that the threat of surveillance sometimes compels them to avoid certain e-mail and phone conversations, to “tal[k] in generalities rather than specifics,” or to travel so that they can have in-person conversations. Tr. of Oral Arg. 38; App. to Pet. for Cert. 338a, 345a, 367a, 400a. The Second Circuit panel concluded that, because respondents are already suffering such ongoing injuries, the likelihood of interception under § 1881a is relevant only to the question whether respondents’ ongoing injuries are “fairly traceable” to § 1881a. See 638 F. 3d, at 133-134; 667 F. 3d, at 180 (opinion of Raggi, J.). Analyzing the “fairly traceable” element of standing under a relaxed reasonableness standard, see 638 F. 3d, at 133-134, the Second Circuit then held that “plaintiffs have established that they suffered present injuries in fact— economic and professional harms—stemming from a reasonable fear oí future harmful government conduct,” id., at 138.
The Second Circuit’s analysis improperly allowed respondents to establish standing by asserting that they suffer present costs and burdens that are based on a fear of surveillance, so long as that fear is not “fanciful, paranoid, or otherwise unreasonable.” See id., at 134. This improperly waters down the fundamental requirements of Article III. Respondents’ contention that they have standing because they incurred certain costs as a reasonable reaction to a risk of harm is unavailing—because the harm respondents seek to avoid is not certainly impending. In other words, respondents cannot manufacture standing merely by inflicting harm on themselves based on their fears of hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending. See Pennsylvania v. New Jersey, 426 U. S. 660, 664 (1976) (per curiam); National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Assn., Inc. v. Gonzales, 468 F. 3d 826, 831 (CADC 2006). Any ongoing injuries that respondents are suffering are not fairly traceable to § 1881a.
If the law were otherwise, an enterprising plaintiff would be able to secure a lower standard for Article III standing simply by making an expenditure based on a nonparanoid fear. As Judge Raggi accurately noted, under the Second Circuit panel’s reasoning, respondents could, “for the price of a plane ticket,... transform their standing burden from one requiring a showing of actual or imminent... interception to one requiring a showing that their subjective fear of such interception is not fanciful, irrational, or clearly unreasonable.” 667 F. 3d, at 180 (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, allowing respondents to bring this action based on costs they incurred in response to a speculative threat would be tantamount to accepting a repackaged version of respondents’ first failed theory of standing. See ACLU, 493 F. 3d, at 656-657 (opinion of Batchelder, J.).
Another reason that respondents’ present injuries are not fairly traceable to § 1881a is that even before § 1881a was enacted, they had a similar incentive to engage in many of the countermeasures that they are now taking. See id., at 668-670. For instance, respondent Scott McKay’s declaration describes—and the dissent heavily relies on—McKay’s “knowledge” that thousands of communications involving one of his clients were monitored in the past. App. to Pet. for Cert. 370a; post, at 426-426, 429. But this surveillance was conducted pursuant to FISA authority that predated § 1881a. See Brief for Petitioners 32, n. 11; Al-Kidd v. Gonzales, No. 06-cv-93, 2008 WL 5123009 (D Idaho, Dec. 4, 2008). Thus, because the Government was allegedly conducting surveillance of McKay’s client before Congress enacted § 1881a, it is difficult to see how the safeguards that McKay now claims to have implemented can be traced to § 1881a.
Because respondents do not face a threat of certainly impending interception under § 1881a, the costs that they have incurred to avoid surveillance are simply the product of their fear of surveillance, and our decision in Laird makes it clear that such a fear is insufficient to create standing. See 408 U. S., at 10-15. The plaintiffs in Laird argued that their exercise of First Amendment rights was being “chilled by the mere existence, without more, of [the Army’s] investigative and data-gathering activity.” Id., at 10. While acknowledging that prior cases had held that constitutional violations may arise from the chilling effect of “regulations that fall short of a direct prohibition against the exercise of First Amendment rights,” the Court declared that none of those cases involved a “chilling effect arising] merely from the individual’s knowledge that a governmental agency was engaged in certain activities or from the individual’s concomitant fear that, armed with the fruits of those activities, the agency might in the future take some other and additional action detrimental to that individual.” Id., at 11. Because “[allegations of a subjective ‘chill’ are not an adequate substitute for a claim of specific present objective harm or a threat of specific future harm,” id., at 13-14, the plaintiffs in Laird—and respondents here—lack standing. See ibid.) ACLU, supra, at 661-662 (opinion of Batchelder, J.) (holding that plaintiffs lacked standing because they “allege[d] only a subjective apprehension” of alleged NS A surveillance and “a personal (self-imposed) unwillingness to communicate”); United Presbyterian Church, 738 F. 2d, at 1378 (holding that plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the legality of ah Executive Order relating to surveillance because “the ‘chilling effect’ which is produced by their fear of being subjected to illegal surveillance and which deters them from conducting constitutionally protected activities, is foreclosed as a basis for standing” by Laird).
For the reasons discussed above, respondents’ self-inflicted injuries are not fairly traceable to the Government’s purported activities under § 1881a, and their subjective fear of surveillance does not give rise to standing.
IV
A
Respondents incorrectly maintain that “[t]he kinds of injuries incurred here—injuries incurred because of [respondents’] reasonable efforts to avoid greater injuries that are otherwise likely to flow from the conduct they challenge— are the same kinds of injuries that this Court held to support. standing in cases such as” Laidlaw, Meese v. Keene, 481 U. S. 465 (1987), and Monsanto. Brief for Respondents 24. As an initial matter, none of these cases holds or even suggests that plaintiffs can establish standing simply by claiming that they.experienced a “chilling effect” that resulted from a governmental policy that does not regulate, constrain, or compel any action on their part. Moreover, each of these cases was very different from the present case.
In Laidlaw, plaintiffs’ standing was based on “the proposition that a company’s continuous and pervasive illegal discharges of pollutants into a river would cause nearby residents to curtail their recreational use of that waterway and would subject them to other economic and aesthetic harms.” 528 U. S., at 184. Because the unlawful discharges of pollutants were “concededly ongoing,” the only issue was whether “nearby residents”—who were members of the organizational plaintiffs—acted reasonably in refraining from using the polluted area. Id., at 183-184. Laidlaw is therefore quite unlike the present case, in which it is not “concede[d]” that respondents would be subject to unlawful surveillance but for their decision to take preventive measures. See ACLU, 493 F. 3d, at 686 (opinion of Batchelder, J.) (distinguishing Laidlaw on this ground); id., at 689-690 (
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 Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case arises out of the Nation’s longest railroad labor dispute, much of the history of which is recorded in the pages of the United States and federal reports. The events most pertinent to the present litigation began on April 24, 1966, when the Florida East Coast Railway Company (FEC), having exhausted all procedures required by the Railway Labor Act for the resolution of a “major dispute,” unilaterally changed its operating employees’ rates of pay, rules, and working conditions. Petitioners, who represent FEC’s operating employees, responded by calling a strike and thereafter by picketing the various locations at which FEC carried on its operations, including the premises of the respondent, Jacksonville Terminal Company.
On the complaint of respondent and two railroads other than FEC, a United States District Court issued a temporary restraining order several hours after the picketing began, and later enjoined petitioners from picketing respondent’s premises except at a “reserved gate” set aside for FEC employees. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 47 Stat. 70, 29 U. S. C. § 101 et seq., prevented issuance of a federal injunction. Railroad Trainmen v. Atlantic C. L. R. Co., 362 F. 2d 649 (1966). We affirmed by an equally divided Court. 385 U. S. 20 (1966).
While that litigation was pending in the federal courts, respondent instituted the present action for injunctive relief in the Florida Circuit Court. Petitioners removed the action to the United States District Court, which promptly remanded to the state court. The Florida court issued a temporary injunction, substantially identical to the earlier federal order, which it made final after a full hearing. On appeal, the Florida District Court of Appeal affirmed per curiam. The Supreme Court of Florida denied certiorari and dismissed the appeal. We granted certiorari, 392 U. S. 904 (1968), to determine the extent of state power to regulate the economic combat of parties subject to the Railway Labor Act.
I.
Respondent, a Florida corporation, operates a passenger and freight rail terminal facility in Jacksonville, Florida, through which rail traffic passes to and from the Florida peninsula. The corporation is jointly owned and controlled by four railroad carriers, including FEC, which enjoy the common use of the terminal’s facilities and services, and share equally in its operation.
FEC carries on substantial daily operations at the terminal, interchanging freight cars with the other railroads; it accounts for approximately 30% of all interchanges on the premises. Respondent provides various services necessary to FEC’s operations, including switching, signalling, track maintenance, and repairs on FEC cars and engines. Without the work and cooperation of employees of respondent (and the other railroads) FEC could not carry on its normal activities at the terminal. In short, "despite the legal separateness of the Terminal Company’s entity and operation, it cannot be disputed that the facilities and services provided by the Terminal Company in fact constitute an integral part of the day-to-day operations of the FEC....” Railroad Trainmen v. Atlantic C. L. R. Co., 362 F. 2d 649, 651 (1966).
Respondent maintains a “reserved gate” for the exclusive use of all FEC employees entering the terminal premises on foot to begin their workday. Notices to this effect are posted, but compliance is not policed: FEC employees use other entrances as well, and other employees use the FEC reserved entrance. The terminal has a number of other foot, road, and rail entrances, through which pass employees of respondent and the railroads using the premises. No entrances are set aside to separate those employees of respondent and the other railroads who provide services for FEC from those who do not; nor, with one or two possible exceptions, do trains making interchanges with FEC pass through different gateways from those which do not. The joint and common use of the premises and facilities would, presumably, render such separations impracticable.
On May 4, 1966, petitioners began to picket almost every entrance to the terminal. The signs stated clearly that the dispute was with FEC alone, and urged “fellow railroad men” not to “cross” and not to “assist FEC.” The picketing was entirely peaceful. It lasted only a few hours, until it was curtailed by a federal temporary restraining order, and thereafter by a series of federal and state injunctions.
The Florida Circuit Court found that resumption of general picketing “would result in a virtual cessation of activities... of the Terminal Company,” and would cause serious economic damage to the entire State. Joint App. 183. The court held that the picketing constituted a secondary boycott illegal under state law; that it unjustifiably interfered with respondent’s business relations; that it violated the State’s restraint of trade laws, Fla. Stat. § 542.01 et seq. (1965); and that it sought to force respondent to violate its duties as a carrier under the Florida Transportation Act. On this basis, the court enjoined petitioners from picketing the terminal except at the FEC reserved gate, and from causing or inducing respondent’s employees to cease performing their duties of employment in connection with the FEC dispute.
II.
We consider initially petitioners’ argument that the jurisdiction of the Florida court was ousted by the primary and exclusive jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board. Cf. San Diego Unions v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236 (1959).
It is not disputed that petitioners, the respondent and its employees, and the railroads (including FEC) that use the terminal as well as their employees, are subject to the Railway Labor Act. See §§ 1 First, Fourth, 44 Stat. 577, as amended, 45 U. S. C. §§ 151 First, Fourth; Interstate Commerce Act, as amended, § 1 (3), 24 Stat. 379, 49 U. S. C. § 1 (3). The petitioner organizations “are composed predominantly and overwhelmingly of employees... subject to the Railway Labor Act,” Joint App. 93; all pickets were members of local lodges composed solely of such employees, and were employees of the FEC. Id., at 94. However, the organizations’ national membership includes a small percentage of employees who are not subject to the Railway Labor Act, and who may be subject to the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 Stat. 136, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. Petitioners contend that this is sufficient to bring the present dispute arguably within the NLRA, and they assert that until the National Labor Relations Board decides otherwise, no court may assume jurisdiction over the controversy. Cf. Marine Engineers v. Interlake Steamship Co., 370 U. S. 173 (1962).
This argument proves too much. For on petitioners’ theory, it is hard to conceive of any railway labor dispute that is not “arguably” subject to the NLRB’s primary jurisdiction. A serious question would be presented whether the parties to such a dispute were ever obligated to pursue the Railway Labor Act’s procedures, and whether the Mediation and Adjustment Boards could ever concern themselves with a dispute- — until the matter had first been submitted to the NLRB and that agency had determined that it lacked jurisdiction.
This was not meant to be. The NLRA came into being against the background of pre-existing comprehensive federal legislation regulating railway labor disputes. Sections 2 (2) and (3) of the NLRA, 29 U. S. C. §§ 152 (2), (3), expressly exempt from the Act’s coverage employees and employers subject to the Railway Labor Act. And when the traditional railway labor organizations act on behalf of employees subject to the Railway Labor Act in a dispute with carriers subject to the Railway Labor Act, the organizations must be deemed, pro tanto, exempt from the National Labor Relations Act. See NLRA § 2 (5), 29 U. S. C. § 152 (5). Marine Engineers, supra, is inapposite. For assuming, arguendo, that this is a “doubtful case,” 370 U. S., at 182, we were not there concerned with a conflict between two independent and mutually exclusive federal labor schemes.
Whatever might be said where railway organizations act as agents for, or as joint venturers with, unions subject to the NLRA, see Electrical Workers v. NLRB, 122 U. S. App. D. C. 8, 350 F. 2d 791 (1965); or where railway unions are engaged in a dispute on behalf of their nonrail employees; or where a rail carrier seeks a remedy against the conduct of nonrailway employees, see Steelworkers v. NLRB, 376 U. S. 492, 501 (1964); Teamsters Union v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 350 U. S. 155 (1956), none of these is this case. This is a railway labor dispute, pure and simple. And although we shall make use of analogies drawn from the NLRA to determine the rights of employees subject to the Railway Labor Act, see infra, Parts V-VII, the NLRA has no direct application to the present case.
III.
The heart of the Railway Labor Act is the duty, imposed by § 2 First upon management and labor, “to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, and working conditions, and to settle all disputes... in order to avoid any interruption to commerce or to the operation of any carrier growing out of any dispute between the carrier and the employees thereof.”
The Act provides a detailed framework to facilitate the voluntary settlement of major disputes. A party desiring to effect a change of rates of pay, rules, or working conditions must give advance written notice. § 6. The parties must confer, § 2 Second, and if conference fails to resolve the dispute, either or both may invoke the services of the National Mediation Board, which may also proffer its services sua sponte if it finds a labor emergency to exist. § 5 First. If mediation fails, the Board must endeavor to induce the parties to submit the controversy to binding arbitration, which can take place, however, only if both consent. §§ 5 First, 7. If arbitration is rejected and the dispute threatens “substantially to interrupt interstate commerce to a degree such as to deprive any section of the country of essential transportation service, the Mediation Board shall notify the President,” who may create an emergency board to investigate and report on the dispute. § 10. While the dispute is working its way through these stages, neither party may unilaterally alter the status quo. §§ 2 Seventh, 5 First, 6, 10.
Nowhere does the text of the Railway Labor Act specify what is to take place once these procedures have been exhausted without yielding resolution of the dispute. Implicit in the statutory scheme, however, is the ultimate right of the disputants to resort to self-help— “the inevitable alternative in a statutory scheme which deliberately denies the final power to compel arbitration.” Florida E. C. R. Co. v. Railroad Trainmen, 336 F. 2d 172, 181 (1964). We have consistently so held in a long line of decisions. Railway Clerks v. Florida E. C. R. Co., 384 U. S. 238, 244 (1966); Locomotive Engineers v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 372 U. S. 284 (1963); Railroad Telegraphers v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co., 362 U. S. 330 (1960); Elgin, J. & E. R. Co. v. Burley, 325 U. S. 711, 725 (1945).
Both before and after enactment of the Railway Labor Act, as well as during congressional debates on the bill itself, proposals were advanced for replacing this final resort to economic warfare with compulsory arbitration and antistrike laws. But although Congress and the Executive have taken emergency ad hoc measures to compel the resolution of particular controversies, no such general provisions have ever been enacted. And for the settlement of major disputes,
“the statutory scheme retains throughout the traditional voluntary processes of negotiation, mediation, voluntary arbitration, and conciliation. Every facility for bringing about agreement is provided and pressures for mobilizing public opinion are applied. The parties are required to submit to the successive procedures designed to induce agreement. § 5 First (b). But compulsions go only to insure that those procedures are exhausted before resort can be had to self-help. No authority is empowered to decide the dispute and no such power is intended, unless the parties themselves agree to arbitration.” Elgin, J. & E. R. Co. v. Burley, supra, at 725.
IV.
We have not previously had occasion to consider whether the Railway Labor Act circumscribes state power to regulate economic warfare between disputants subject to the Act. Read narrowly, the decisions cited above, at 379, do no more than negate the “implication” of an independent federal remedy against self-help, and do not foreclose a State from bringing its own sanctions to bear on such conduct. On this theory, once the Act’s required processes have been exhausted, a State would be free to impose whatever restrictions it wished on the parties’ use of self-help.
The Act is silent on this question, as is its legislative history. We think it clear, however, that the exercise of plenary state authority to curtail or entirely prohibit self-help would frustrate effective implementation of the Act’s processes. The disputants’ positions in the course of negotiation and mediation, and their willingness to submit to binding arbitration or abide by the recommendations of a presidential commission, would be seriously affected by the knowledge that after these procedures were exhausted a State would, say, prohibit the employees from striking or prevent the railroad from taking measures necessary to continue operating in the face of a strike. Such interference would be compounded if the disputants were — as they frequently would be — subjected to various and divergent state laws. Railway (and airline) labor disputes typically present problems of national magnitude. A strike in one State often paralyzes transportation in an entire section of the United States, and transportation labor disputes frequently result in simultaneous work stoppages in many States.
The Railway Labor Act’s entire scheme for the resolution of major disputes would become meaningless if the States could prohibit the parties from engaging in any self-help. And the potentials for conflict, see San Diego Unions v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 249, 250 (1959) (concurring opinion), and for the imposition of inconsistent state obligations, cf. Clearfield Trust Co. v. United States, 318 U. S. 363 (1943), are simply too great to allow each State which happens to gain personal jurisdiction over a party to a railroad labor dispute to decide for itself what economic self-help that party may or may not pursue. The determination of the permissible range of self-help “cannot be left to the laws of the many States, for it would be fatal to the goals of the Act” if conduct were prohibited by state laws “even though in furtherance of the federal scheme. The needs of the subject matter manifestly call for uniformity.” Machinists v. Central Airlines, Inc., 372 U. S. 682, 691-692 (1963).
It follows that even though the Florida courts may have jurisdiction over this litigation, the application of state law is limited by paramount federal policies of nationwide import.
V.
We are presented, then, with the problem of delineating the area of labor combat protected against infringement by the States. The text and legislative history of the Railway Labor Act, and the decisional law thereunder, provide little guidance. To refer to the “general” labor law, as it existed around the time the Act came into being, would be ahistorical. Like forays into economic due process, see Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726 (1963); Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 488 (1955), this judge-made law of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was based on self-mesmerized views of economic and social theory, see F. Frankfurter & N. Green, The Labor Injunction 1-46, 199-205 (1930); A. Cox & D. Bok, Cases on Labor Law 101-105 (5th ed. 1962), and on statutory misconstruction, see United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U. S. 219 (1941). We need not hold that the Norris-LaGuardia Act applies directly to this case to find in its enactment a clear disapproval of these free-wheeling judicial exercises. See Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea Co., 381 U. S. 676, 697, 700-709, 718 (1965) (separate opinion of Mr. Justice Goldberg).
To the extent that there exists today any relevant corpus of “national labor policy,” it is in the law developed during the more than 30 years of administering our most comprehensive national labor scheme, the National Labor Relations Act. This Act represents the only existing congressional expression as to the permissible bounds of economic combat. It has, moreover, presented problems of federal-state relations analogous to those at bar. The Court has in the past referred to the NLRA for assistance in construing the Railway Labor Act, see, e. g., Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U. S. 192, 200-201 (1944); Railroad Trainmen v. Toledo, P. & W. R. Co., 321 U. S. 50, 61, n. 18 (1944), and we do so again here. Indeed, even if we were to revive the “common law” of labor relations, the common law has always been dynamic and adaptable to changing times, and we would today look to these legislatively based principles for guidance. Cf. Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448, 456-457 (1957).
It should be emphasized from the outset, however, that the National Labor Relations Act cannot be imported wholesale into the railway labor arena. Even rough analogies must be drawn circumspectly, with due regard for the many differences between the statutory schemes. Cf. Railroad Trainmen v. Chicago River & I. R. Co., 353 U. S. 30, 31, n. 2 (1957). We refer to the NLRA’s policies not in order to “apply” them to petitioners’ conduct — for we conclude that this would be neither justified nor practicable — but only to determine whether it is within the general penumbra of conduct held protected under the Act or whether it is beyond the pale of any activity thought permissible.
In order to gain better perspective for viewing the central issue in this case — petitioners’ alleged “secondary” activities — we examine first what we find to be polar examples of protected and unprotected conduct — primary strikes and picketing on the one hand, violence and intimidation on the other.
VI.
The Court has indicated, without reference to the National Labor Relations Act, that employees subject to the Railway Labor Act enjoy the right to engage in primary strikes over major disputes. In Railway Clerks v. Florida E. C. R. Co., 384 U. S. 238, 244 (1966), we held that:
“The unions, having made their demands and having exhausted all the procedures provided by Congress, were therefore warranted in striking. For the strike has been the ultimate sanction of the union, compulsory arbitration not being provided.”
Similarly, in Florida E. C. R. Co. v. Railroad Trainmen, 336 F. 2d 172, 181 (1964), the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit concluded that “when the machinery of industrial peace fails, the policy in all national labor legislation is to let loose the full economic power of each [party]. On the side of labor, it is the cherished right to strike.” Whether the source of this right be found in a particular provision of the Railway Labor Act or in the scheme as a whole, it is integral to the Act. State courts may not enjoin a peaceful strike by covered railway employees, no matter how economically harmful the consequences may be. Cf. Bus Employees v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 340 U. S. 383 (1951); Automobile Workers v. O’Brien, 339 U. S. 454 (1950).
The Court has consistently held peaceful primary picketing incident to a lawful strike to be protected conduct under the National Labor Relations Act. “Picketing has traditionally been a major weapon to implement the goals of a strike,” Steelworkers v. NLRB, 376 U. S. 492, 499 (1964), and “it is implicit in the Act that the public interest is served by freedom of labor to use the weapon of picketing.” Garner v. Teamsters, 346 U. S. 485, 500 (1953). We see no possible grounds for distinguishing picketing under the Railway Labor Act. Peaceful primary strikes and picketing incident thereto lie within the core of protected self-help under the Railway Labor Act.
On the other hand, the National Labor Relations Act gives no colorable protection to violent and coercive conduct incident to a labor dispute. Allen-Bradley Local v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 315 U. S. 740, 750 (1942). The state interest in preventing “conduct marked by violence and imminent threats to public order” is compelling, San Diego Unions v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 247 (1959), and such conduct may be enjoined by state courts. Youngdahl v. Rainfair, 355 U. S. 131 (1957); Automobile Workers v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 351 U. S. 266 (1956). Cf. Automobile Workers v. Russell, 356 U. S. 634 (1958); Construction Workers v. Laburnum Construction Corp., 347 U. S. 656 (1954). The federal concern for protecting such conduct when engaged in by railway employees is no less tenuous. The States’ interest in preventing it is no less compelling.
VII.
Petitioners committed no acts of violence. But their picketing, albeit peaceful, could not be characterized as purely “primary.” Respondent asserts, in essence, that, because the picketing had secondary aspects, it was necessarily unprotected and therefore subject to proscription by the state court. The matter, however, is not so simply resolved.
No cosmic principles announce the existence of secondary conduct, condemn it as an evil, or delimit its boundaries. These tasks were first undertaken by judges, intermixing metaphysics with their notions of social and economic policy. And the common law of labor relations has created no concept more elusive than that of “secondary” conduct; it has drawn no lines more arbitrary, tenuous, and shifting than those separating “primary” from “secondary” activities. See F. Frankfurter & N. Green, The Labor Injunction 43-46, 170 (1930); 1 L. Teller, Labor Disputes and Collective Bargaining § 145 (1940); E. Oakes, Organized Labor and Industrial Conflicts, § 407 et seq. (1927); Barnard & Graham, Labor and the Secondary Boycott, 15 Wash. L. Rev. 137 (1940); Hellerstein, Secondary Boycotts in Labor Disputes, 47 Yale L. J. 341 (1938). Cf. Aaron, Labor Injunctions in the State Courts — Pt. I: A Survey, 50 Va. L. Rev. 950, 971-977 (1964). For these reasons, as well as those stated above, at 382-383, this body of common law offers no guidance for the problem at hand.
It was widely assumed that, prior to 1947, the Norris-LaGuardia Act prevented federal courts from enjoining any “secondary boycotts.” See 93 Cong. Rec. 4198 (remarks of Senator Taft); Bakery Drivers v. Wagshal, 333 U. S. 437, 442 (1948). Indeed, in an opinion written by Judge Learned Hand, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that secondary conduct was fully protected by the Wagner Act. NLRB v. Peter Cailler Kohler Swiss Chocolates Co., 130 F. 2d 503 (1942). The 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments, 61 Stat. 140, and the 1959 Landrum-Griffln amendments, 73 Stat. 545, explicitly narrowed the scope of protected employee conduct under the National Labor Relations Act; §§ 8 (b) (4) and 8 (e) of the Act proscribed a variety of secondary activities. But Congress enacted “no... sweeping prohibition” of secondary conduct. Carpenters v. NLRB, 367 U. S. 93, 98 (1958). And despite their relative precision of language, the experience under these amendments amply demonstrates that — -as at common law — bright lines cannot be drawn between “legitimate ‘primary activity’ and banned ‘secondary activity’....” Electrical Workers v. NLRB, 366 U. S. 667, 673 (1961).
The fuzziness of this distinction stems from the overlapping characteristics of the two opposing concepts, and from the vagueness of the concepts themselves. The protected primary strike “is aimed at applying economic pressure by halting the day-to-day operations of the struck employer,” Steelworkers v. NLRB, 376 U. S. 492, 499 (1964); and protected primary picketing “has characteristically been aimed at all those approaching the situs whose mission is selling, delivering or otherwise contributing to the operations which the strike is endeavoring to halt,” ibid., including other employers and their employees. “The gravamen of a secondary boycott,” on the other hand, “is that its sanctions bear, not upon the employer who alone is a party to the dispute, but upon some third party who has no concern in it. Its aim is to compel him to stop business with the employer in the hope that this will induce the employer to give in to his employees’ demands.” Electrical Workers v. NLRB, 181 F. 2d 34, 37 (1950); see also Woodwork Manufacturers v. NLRB, 386 U. S. 612, 623 (1967). These principles often come into conflict, and attempts to harmonize them in the context of § 8 (b) (4) of the National Labor Relations Act have created ramified sets of rules.
The problem of delineating the scope of permissible picketing at a “common situs” — a place, such as respondent’s terminal, where both the struck employer and “secondary” or “neutral” employers are carrying on business activities — has been among the most mooted and complex under the Act. See generally Electrical Workers v. NLRB, 366 U. S. 667, 674-679 (1961); Moore Dry Dock Co., 92 N. L. R. B. 547 (1950); Lesnick, The Gravamen of the Secondary Boycott, 62 Col. L. Rev. 1363 (1962); Koretz, Federal Regulation of Secondary Strikes and Boycotts — Another Chapter, 59 Col. L. Rev. 125 (1959). It is difficult to formulate many generalizations governing common situs picketing, but it is clear that secondary employers are not necessarily protected against picketing aimed directly at their employees. In Electrical Workers v. NLRB, supra, for example, we noted that striking employees could picket at a gate on the struck employer’s premises which was reserved exclusively for employees of the secondary employer, to induce those employees to refuse to perform work for their employer which was connected with the struck employer’s normal business operations. The Court affirmed this principle in Steelworkers v. NLRB, supra, where it held that striking employees could picket to induce a neutral railroad’s employees to refuse to pick up and deliver cars for the struck employer — even though the picketed gate was owned by the railroad, and the railroad’s employees would have to pass by the place of picketing to pick up and deliver cars for other plants that were not struck.
If the common situs rules were applied to the facts of this case — considering, for example, FEC’s substantial regular business activities on the terminal premises, FEC’s relationships with respondent and the other railroads using the premises, the mixed use in fact of the purportedly separate entrances, and the terminal’s characteristics which made it impossible for the pickets to single out and address only those secondary employees engaged in work connected with FEC’s ordinary operations on the premises — the state injunction might well be found to forbid petitioners from engaging in conduct protected by the National Labor Relations Act. The fact that respondent, the other roads, or other industries in the State suffered serious economic injury as a consequence of petitioners’ activities would not, of course, in itself render the picketing unlawful. Woodwork Manufacturers v. NLRB, 386 U. S. 612, 627 (1967); see NLRB v. Fruit & Vegetable Packers, 377 U. S. 58 (1964); cf. Bus Employees v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 340 U. S. 383 (1951).
In short, to condemn all of the petitioners’ picketing which carries any “secondary” implications would be to paint with much too broad a brush.
VIII.
We have thus far concluded that although the Florida courts are not pre-empted of jurisdiction over this cause, Part II, supra, the issues therein are governed by federal law, Parts III, IV, supra; that the Railway Labor Act permits railway employees to engage in some forms of self-help, free from state interference, ibid.; and, drawing upon labor policies evinced by the National Labor Relations Act, Part V, supra, that such protected self-help includes peaceful “primary” strikes and nonviolent picketing in support thereof, Part VI, supra, and that it cannot categorically be said that all picketing carrying “secondary" implications is prohibited, Part VII, supra. Given these conclusions, it remains to be considered whether, under the present framework of congressional legislation, this Court should undertake precisely to mark out which of the petitioners’ picketing activities at respondent’s premises are federally protected, and therefore immune from state interference, and which of them are subject to prohibition by the State. We believe that such a course would be a wholly inappropriate one for us to take in the absence of a much clearer manifestation of congressional policy than is to be found in existing laws.
Certainly we could not proceed to such a task under the common law of labor relations. For even on the unjustified hypothesis that all secondary conduct is necessarily wrongful, we would lack meaningful standards for separating primary from secondary activities. Nor do the terms of the Railway Labor Act offer assistance. As we have indicated, the Act is wholly inexplicit as to the scope of allowable self-help.
Nor can we properly dispose of this case simply by undertaking to determine to what precise extent petitioners’ picketing activities would be protected or proscribed under the terms of the National Labor Relations Act. For although, in the absence of any other viable guidelines, we have resorted to the NLRA for assistance in mapping out very general boundaries of self-help under the Railway Labor Act, there is absolutely no warrant for incorporating into that Act the panoply of detailed law developed by the National Labor Relations Board and courts under 18(b)(4). The NLRA, as we have noted, exempts employees who are subject to the Railway Labor Act, supra, at 376-377; and the inapplicability of § 8 (b) to railroad employees was specifically pointed out during the congressional debates on the NLRA, supra, at 376-377, n. 10.
Even if the task of adapting the NLRA’s principles to railway disputes could be managed and implemented by an agency with administrative expertise, but cf. NLRB v. Insurance Agents, 361 U. S. 477, 497-498 (1960), Congress has invested no agency with even colorable authority to perform this function. The very complexity of the distinctions examined in Part VII, supra, if nothing else, plainly demonstrates that we lack the expertise and competence to undertake this task ourselves.
Moreover, “[f]rom the point of view of industrial relations our railroads are largely a thing apart.... ‘The railroad world is like a state within a state.’ ” Elgin, J. & E. R. Co. v. Burley, 325 U. S. 711, 751 (1945) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). Thus, if Congress should now find that abuses in the nature of secondary activities have arisen in the railroad industry, see supra, at 376-377, n. 10, it might well decide — as it did when it considered the garment and construction industries, see NLRA § 8 (e) — that this field requires extraordinary treatment of some sort. Cf., e. g., Railroad Trainmen v. Atlantic C. L. R. Co., 362 F. 2d 649, 654-655 (1966). Certainly, it is for the Congress, and not the courts, to strike the balance “between the uncontrolled power of management and labor to further their respective interests.” Carpenters v. NLRB, 357 U. S. 93, 100 (1958); see Woodwork Manufacturers v. NLRB, 386 U. S. 612 (1967); id., at 648-650 (separate memorandum). The Congress has not yet done so.
In short, we have been furnished by Congress neither usable standards nor access to administrative expertise in a situation where both are required. In these circumstances there is no really satisfactory judicial solution to the problem at hand. However, we conclude that the least unsatisfactory one is to allow parties who have unsuccessfully exhausted the Railway Labor Act’s procedures for resolution of a major dispute to employ the full range of whatever peaceful economic power they can muster, so long as its use conflicts with no other obligation imposed by federal law. Hence, until Congress acts, picketing — whether characterized as primary or secondary — must be deemed conduct protected against state proscription. Cf. Electrical Workers v. NLRB, 122 U. S. App. D. C. 8, 9-10, 350 F. 2d 791, 792-793 (1965) (dissenting opinion); NLRB v. Peter Cailler Kohler Swiss Chocolates Co., 130 F. 2d 503 (1942). Any other solution — apart from the rejected one of holding that no conduct is protected — would involve the courts once again in a venture for which they are institutionally unsuited.
The judgment of the Florida District Court of Appeal is accordingly
Reversed.
Me. Justice Fortas and Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
See Railway Clerks v. Florida E. C. R. Co., 384 U. S. 238 (1966); Railroad Trainmen v. Atlantic C. L. R. Co., 362 F. 2d 649, aff’d, 385 U. S. 20 (1966); Florida E. C. R. Co. v. Railroad Trainmen, 336 F. 2d 172 (1964). Cf. Locomotive Engineers v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 372 U. S. 284 (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:
|
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.
This case requires us to decide whether state courts have concurrent jurisdiction over civil actions brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), Pub. L. 91-452, Title IX, 84 Stat. 941, as amended, 18 U. S. C. §§ 1961-1968.
I
The underlying litigation arises from the failure of Old Court Savings & Loan, Inc. (Old Court), a Maryland savings and loan association, and the attendant collapse of the Maryland Savings-Share Insurance Corp. (MSSIC), a state-chartered nonprofit corporation created to insure accounts in Maryland savings and loan associations that were not federally insured. See Brandenburg v. Seidel, 859 F. 2d 1179, 1181-1183 (CA4 1988) (reviewing history of Maryland’s savings and loan crisis). Petitioners are nonresidents of Maryland who hold unpaid certificates of deposit issued by Old Court. Respondents are the former officers and directors of Old Court, the former officers and directors of MSSIC, the law firm of Old Court and MSSIC, the accounting firm of Old Court, and the State of Maryland Deposit Insurance Fund Corp., the state-created successor to MSSIC. Petitioners allege various state law causes of action as well as claims under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act), 48 Stat. 881, 15 U. S. C. §78a et seq., and RICO.
The District Court granted respondents’ motions to dismiss, concluding that petitioners had failed to state a claim under the Exchange Act and that, because state courts have concurrent jurisdiction over civil RICO claims, federal abstention was appropriate for the other causes of action because they had been raised in pending litigation in state court. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. 865 F. 2d 595 (1989). The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that the Old Court certificates of deposit were not “securities” within the meaning of the Exchange Act, see 15 U. S. C. §78c(a)(10), and that petitioners’ Exchange Act claims were therefore properly dismissed. 865 F. 2d, at 598-599. The Court of Appeals further held, in reliance on its prior decision in Brandenburg v. Seidel, supra, that “a RICO action could be instituted in a state court and that Maryland’s ‘comprehensive scheme for the rehabilitation and liquidation of insolvent state-chartered savings and loan associations,’ 859 F. 2d at 1191, provided a proper basis for the district court to abstain under the authority of Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315 (1943).” 865 F. 2d, at 600 (citations omitted).
To resolve a conflict among the federal appellate courts and state supreme courts, we granted certiorari limited to the question whether state courts have concurrent jurisdiction over civil RICO claims. 490 U. S. 1089 (1989). We hold that they do and accordingly affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
II
We begin with the axiom that, under our federal system, the States possess sovereignty concurrent with that of the Federal Government, subject only to limitations imposed by the Supremacy Clause. Under this system of dual sovereignty, we have consistently held that state courts have inherent authority, and are thus presumptively competent, to adjudicate claims arising under the laws of the United States. See, e. g., Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheat. 1, 25-26 (1820); Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U. S. 130, 136-137 (1876); Plaquemines Tropical Fruit Co. v. Henderson, 170 U. S. 511, 517 (1898); Charles Dowd Box Co. v. Courtney, 368 U. S. 502, 507-508 (1962); Gulf Offshore Co. v. Mobil Oil Corp., 453 U. S. 473, 477-478 (1981). As we noted in Claflin, “if exclusive jurisdiction be neither express nor implied, the State courts have concurrent jurisdiction whenever, by their own constitution, they are competent to take it.” 93 U. S., at 136; see also Dowd Box, supra, at 507-508 (“We start with the premise that nothing in the concept of our federal system prevents state courts from enforcing rights created by federal law. Concurrent jurisdiction has been a common phenomenon in our judicial history, and exclusive federal court jurisdiction over cases arising under federal law has been the exception rather than the rule”). See generally 1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law *400; The Federalist No. 82 (A. Hamilton); F. Frankfurter & J. Landis, The Business of the Supreme Court 5-12 (1927); H. Friendly, Federal Jurisdiction: A General View 8-11 (1973).
This deeply rooted presumption in favor of concurrent state court jurisdiction is, of course, rebutted if Congress affirmatively ousts the state courts of jurisdiction over a particular federal claim. See, e. g., Claflin, supra, at 137 (“Congress may, if it see[s] fit, give to the Federal courts exclusive jurisdiction”) (citations omitted); see also Houston, supra, at 25-26. As we stated in Gulf Offshore:
“In considering the propriety of state-court jurisdiction over any particular federal claim, the Court begins with the presumption that state courts enjoy concurrent jurisdiction. Congress, however, may confine jurisdiction to the federal courts either explicitly or implicitly. Thus, the presumption of concurrent jurisdiction can be rebutted by an explicit statutory directive, by unmistakable implication from legislative history, or by a clear incompatibility between state-court jurisdiction and federal interests.” 453 U. S., at 478 (citations omitted).
See also Clafiin, supra, at 136 (state courts have concurrent jurisdiction “where it is not excluded by express provision, or by incompatibility in its exercise arising from the nature of the particular case”). The parties agree that these principles, which have “remained unmodified through the years,” Dowd Box, supra, at 508, provide the analytical framework for resolving this case.
Ill
The precise question presented, therefore, is whether state courts have been divested of jurisdiction to hear civil RICO claims “by an explicit statutory directive, by unmistakable implication from legislative history, or by a clear incompatibility between state-court jurisdiction and federal interests.” Gulf Offshore, supra, at 478. Because we find none of these factors present with respect to civil claims arising under RICO, we hold that state courts retain their presumptive authority to adjudicate such claims.
At the outset, petitioners concede that there is nothing in the language of RICO — much less an “explicit statutory directive” — to suggest that Congress has, by affirmative enactment, divested the state courts of jurisdiction to hear civil RICO claims. The statutory provision authorizing civil RICO claims provides in full:
“Any person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of section 1962 of this chapter may sue therefor in any appropriate United States district court and shall recover threefold the damages he sustains and the cost of the suit, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.” 18 U. S. C. § 1964(c) (emphasis added).
This grant of federal jurisdiction is plainly permissive, not mandatory, for “[t]he statute does not state nor even suggest that such jurisdiction shall be exclusive. It provides that suits of the kind described ‘may’ be brought in the federal district courts, not that they must be.” Dowd Box, supra, at 506. Indeed, “[i]t is black letter law. . . that the mere grant of jurisdiction to a federal court does not operate to oust a state court from concurrent jurisdiction over the cause of action.” Gulf Offshore, supra, at 479 (citing United States v. Bank of New York & Trust Co., 296 U. S. 463, 479 (1936)).
Petitioners thus rely solely on the second and third factors suggested in Gulf Offshore, arguing that exclusive federal jurisdiction over civil RICO actions is established “by unmistakable implication from legislative history, or by a clear incompatibility between state-court jurisdiction and federal interests,” 453 U. S., at 478.
Our review of the legislative history, however, reveals no evidence that Congress even considered the question of concurrent state court jurisdiction over RICO claims, much less any suggestion that Congress affirmatively intended to confer exclusive jurisdiction over such' claims on the federal courts. As the Courts of Appeals that have considered the question have concluded, “[t]he legislative history contains no indication that Congress ever expressly considered the question of concurrent jurisdiction; indeed, as the principal draftsman of RICO has remarked, ‘no one even thought of the issue.’” Brandenburg, 859 F. 2d, at 1193 (quoting Flaherty, Two States Lay Claim to RICO, Nat. L. J., May 7, 1984, p. 10, col. 2); see also Lou v. Belzberg, 834 F. 2d 730, 736 (CA9 1987) (“The legislative history provides ‘no evidence that Congress ever expressly considered the question of jurisdiction; indeed, the evidence establishes that its attention was focused solely on whether to provide a private right of action’”) (citation omitted), cert. denied, 485 U. S. 993 (1988); Chivas Products Ltd. v. Owen, 864 F. 2d 1280, 1283 (CA6 1988) (“There is no ‘smoking gun’ legislative history in which RICO sponsors indicated an express intention to commit civil RICO to the federal courts”). Petitioners nonetheless insist that if Congress had considered the issue, it would have granted federal courts exclusive jurisdiction over civil RICO claims. This argument, however, is misplaced, for even if we could reliably discern what Congress’ intent might have been had it considered the question, we are not at liberty to so speculate; the fact that Congress did not even consider the issue readily disposes of any argument that Congress unmistakably intended to divest state courts of concurrent jurisdiction.
Sensing this void in the legislative history, petitioners rely, in the alternative, on our decisions in Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479 (1985), and Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Assocs., 483 U. S. 143 (1987), in which we noted that Congress modeled § 1964(c) after § 4 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 15(a). See Sedima, supra, at 489; Agency Holding, supra, at 151-152. Petitioners assert that, because we have interpreted § 4 of the Clayton Act to confer exclusive jurisdiction on the federal courts, see, e. g., General Investment Co. v. Lake Shore & M. S. R. Co., 260 U. S. 261, 286-288 (1922), and because Congress may be presumed to have been aware of and incorporated those interpretations when it used similar language in RICO, cf. Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 694-699 (1979), Congress intended, by implication, to grant exclusive federal jurisdiction over claims arising under § 1964(c).
This argument is also flawed. To rebut the presumption of concurrent jurisdiction, the question is not whether any intent at all may be divined from legislative silence on the issue, but whether Congress in its deliberations may be said to have affirmatively or unmistakably intended jurisdiction to be exclusively federal. In the instant case, the lack of any indication in RICO’s legislative history that Congress either considered or assumed that the importing of remedial language from the Clayton Act into RICO had any jurisdictional implications is dispositive. The “mere borrowing of statutory language does not imply that Congress also intended to incorporate all of the baggage that may be attached to the borrowed language.” Lou, supra, at 737. Indeed, to the extent we impute to Congress knowledge of our Clayton Act precedents, it makes no less sense to impute to Congress knowledge of Claflin and Dowd Box, under which Congress, had it sought to confer exclusive jurisdiction over civil RICO claims, would have had every incentive to do so expressly.
Sedima and Agency Holding are not to the contrary. Although we observed in Sedima that “[t]he clearest current in [the legislative] history [of § 1964(c)] is the reliance on the Clayton Act model,” 473 U. S., at 489, that statement was made in the context of noting the distinction between “private and governmental actions” under the Clayton Act. Ibid. We intimated nothing as to whether Congress’ reliance on the Clayton' Act implied any intention to establish exclusive federal jurisdiction for civil RICO claims, and in Sedima itself we rejected any requirement of proving “racketeering injury,” noting that to borrow the “antitrust injury” requirement from antitrust law would “creat[e] exactly the problems Congress sought to avoid.” Id., at 498-499. Likewise, in Agency Holding we were concerned with “borrowing,” in light of legislative silence on the issue, an appropriate statute of limitations period from an “analogous” statute. 483 U. S., at 146. Under such circumstances, we found it appropriate to borrow the statute of limitations from the Clayton Act. Id., at 152. In this case, by contrast, where the issue is whether jurisdiction is exclusive or concurrent, we are not free to add content to a statute via analogies to other statutes unless the legislature has specifically endorsed such action. Under Gulf Offshore, legislative silence counsels, if not compels, us to enforce the presumption of concurrent jurisdiction. In short, in both Sedima and Agency Holding we looked to the Clayton Act in interpreting RICO without the benefit of a background juridical presumption of the type present in this case. Thus, to whatever extent the Clayton Act analogy may be relevant to our interpretation of RICO generally, it has no place in our inquiry into the jurisdiction of state courts.
Petitioners finally urge that state court jurisdiction over civil RICO claims would be clearly incompatible with federal interests. We noted in Gulf Offshore that factors indicating clear incompatibility “include the desirability of uniform interpretation, the expertise of federal judges in federal law, and the assumed greater hospitality of federal courts to peculiarly federal claims.” 453 U. S., at 483-484 (citation and footnote omitted). Petitioners’ primary contention is that concurrent jurisdiction is clearly incompatible with the federal interest in uniform interpretation of federal criminal laws, see 18 U. S. C. § 3231, because state courts would be required to construe the federal crimes that constitute predicate acts defined as “racketeering activity,” see 18 U. S. C. §§ 1961(1)(B), (C), and (D). Petitioners predict that if state courts are permitted to interpret federal criminal statutes, they will create a body of precedent relating to those statutes and that the federal courts will consequently lose control over the orderly and uniform development of federal criminal law.
We perceive no “clear incompatibility” between state court jurisdiction over civil RICO actions and federal interests. As a preliminary matter, concurrent jurisdiction over § 1964(c) suits is clearly not incompatible with § 3231 itself, for civil RICO claims are not “offenses against the laws of the United States,” §3231, and do not result in the imposition of criminal sanctions — uniform or otherwise. See Shearson/American Express Inc. v. McMahon, 482 U. S. 220, 240-241 (1987) (civil RICO intended to be primarily remedial rather than punitive).
More to the point, however, our decision today creates no significant danger of inconsistent application of federal criminal law. Although petitioners’ concern with the need for uniformity and consistency of federal criminal law is well taken, see Ableman v. Booth, 21 How. 506, 517-518 (1859); cf. Musser v. Utah, 333 U. S. 95, 97 (1948) (vague criminal statutes may violate the Due Process Clause), federal courts, pursuant to § 3231, would retain full authority and responsibility for the interpretation and application of federal criminal law, for they would not be bound by state court interpretations of the federal offenses constituting RICO’s predicate acts. State courts adjudicating civil RICO claims will, in addition, be guided by federal court interpretations of the relevant federal criminal statutes, just as federal courts sitting in diversity are guided by state court interpretations of state law, see, e. g., Commissioner v. Estate of Bosch, 387 U. S. 456, 465 (1967). State court judgments misinterpreting federal criminal law would, of course, also be subject to direct review by this Court. Thus, we think that state court adjudication of civil RICO actions will, in practice, have at most a negligible effect on the uniform interpretation and application of federal criminal law, cf. Pan-American Petroleum Corp. v. Superior Court of Delaware, Newcastle County, 366 U. S. 656, 665-666 (1961) (rejecting claim that uniform interpretation of the Natural Gas Act will be jeopardized by concurrent jurisdiction), and will not, in any event, result in any more inconsistency than that which a multimembered, multi-tiered federal judicial system already creates, cf. H. J. Inc. v. Northwestern Bell Telephone Co., 492 U. S. 229, 235, n. 2 (1989) (surveying conflict among federal appellate courts over RICO’s “pattern of racketeering activity” requirement).
Moreover, contrary to petitioners’ fears, we have full faith in the ability of state courts to handle the complexities of civil RICO actions, particularly since many RICO cases involve asserted violations of state law, such as state fraud claims, over which state courts presumably have greater expertise. See 18 U. S. C. § 1961(1)(A) (listing state law offenses constituting predicate acts); Gulf Offshore, supra, at 484 (“State judges have greater expertise in applying” laws “whose governing rules are borrowed from state law”); see also Sedima, 473 U. S., at 499 (RICO “has become a tool for everyday fraud cases”); BNA, Civil RICO Report, Vol. 2, No. 44, p. 7 (Apr. 14, 1987) (54.9% of all RICO cases after Sedima involved “common law fraud” and another 18% involved either “nonsecurities fraud” or “theft or conversion”). To hold otherwise would not only denigrate the respect accorded coequal sovereigns, but would also ignore our “consistent history of hospitable acceptance of concurrent jurisdiction,” Dowd Box, 368 U. S., at 508. Indeed, it would seem anomalous to rule that state courts are incompetent to adjudicate civil RICO suits when we have recently found no inconsistency in subjecting civil RICO claims to adjudication by arbitration. See Shear son/American Express, supra, at 239 (rejecting argument that “RICO claims are too complex to be subject to arbitration” and that “there is an irreconcilable conflict between arbitration and RICO’s underlying purposes”).
Petitioners further note, as evidence of incompatibility, that RICO’s procedural mechanisms include extended venue and service-of-process provisions that are applicable only in federal court, see 18 U. S. C. § 1965. We think it sufficient, however, to observe that we have previously found concurrent state court jurisdiction even where federal law provided for special procedural mechanisms similar to those found in RICO. See, e. g., Dowd Box, supra (finding concurrent jurisdiction over Labor Management Relations Act § 301(a) suits, despite federal enforcement and venue provisions); Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1, 3, n. 1 (1980) (finding concurrent jurisdiction over 42 U. S. C. § 1983 suits, despite federal procedural provisions in § 1988); cf. Hathorn v. Lovorn, 457 U. S. 255, 269 (1982) (finding concurrent jurisdiction over disputes regarding the applicability of §5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c, despite provision for a three-judge panel). Although- congressional specification of procedural mechanisms applicable only in federal court may tend to suggest that Congress intended exclusive federal jurisdiction, it does not by itself suffice to create a “clear incompatibility” with federal interests.
Finally, we note that, far from disabling or frustrating federal interests, “[permitting state courts to entertain federal causes of action facilitates the enforcement of federal rights.” Gulf Offshore, 453 U. S., at 478, n. 4; see also Dowd Box, supra, at 514 (conflicts deriving from concurrent jurisdiction are “not necessarily unhealthy”). Thus, to the extent that Congress intended RÍCO to serve broad remedial purposes, see, e. g., Pub. L. 91-452, § 904(a), 84 Stat. 947 (RICO must “be liberally construed to effectuate its remedial purposes”); Sedima, supra, at 492, n. 10 (“[I]f Congress’ liberal-construction mandate is to be applied anywhere, it is in § 1964, where RICO’s remedial purposes are most evident”), concurrent state court jurisdiction over civil RICO claims will advance rather than jeopardize federal policies underlying the statute.
For all of the above reasons, we hold that state courts have concurrent jurisdiction to consider civil claims arising under RICO. Nothing in the language, structure, legislative history, or underlying policies of RICO suggests that Congress intended otherwise. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Affirmed.
Compare McCarter v. Mitcham, 883 F. 2d 196, 201 (CA3 1989) (concurrent jurisdiction); Brandenburg v. Seidel, 859 F. 2d 1179, 1193-1195 (CA4 1988) (same); Lou v. Belzberg, 834 F. 2d 730, 738-739 (CA9 1987) (same), cert. denied, 485 U. S. 993 (1988); Simpson Elec. Corp. v. Leucadia, Inc., 72 N. Y. 2d 450, 530 N. E. 2d 860 (1988) (same); Rice v. Janovich, 109 Wash. 2d 48, 742 P. 2d 1230 (1987) (same); Cianci v. Superior Court, 40 Cal. 3d 903, 710 P. 2d 375 (1985) (same); County of Cook v. MidCon Corp., 773 F. 2d 892, 905, n. 4 (CA7 1985) (dictum); Dubroff v. Dubroff, 833 F. 2d 557, 562 (CA5 1987) (civil RICO claims can “probably” be brought in state court), with Chivas Products Ltd. v. Owen, 864 F. 2d 1280, 1286 (CA6 1988) (exclusive jurisdiction); VanderWeyst v. First State Bank of Benson, 425 N. W. 2d 803, 812 (Minn.) (expressing “serious reservations” about assuming concurrent RICO jurisdiction), cert. denied, 488 U. S. 943 (1988). See generally Note, 57 Ford. L. Rev. 271, 271, n. 9 (1988) (listing federal and state courts in conflict); Note, 73 Cornell L. Rev. 1047, 1047, n. 5 (1988) (same); Note, 62 St. John’s L. Rev. 301, 303, n. 7 (1988) (same).
Title 18 U. S. C. §3231 provides in full:
“The district courts of the United States shall have original jurisdiction, exclusive of the courts of the States, of all offenses against the laws of the United States.
“Nothing in this title shall be held to take away or impair the jurisdiction of the courts of the several States under the laws thereof.”
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.
Per Curiam.
Petitioner Edward Norwell, on a plea of not guilty, was convicted of a violation of Cincinnati’s disorderly conduct ordinance. The charge was that petitioner “did unlawfully and wilfully conduct himself in a disorderly manner, with intent to annoy some person.” The judgment of conviction was affirmed by the Ohio Court of Appeals. Further appeal to the Supreme Court of Ohio was dismissed by that court sua sponte “for the reason that no substantial constitutional question exists herein.”
We are persuaded that the ordinance, as applied to this petitioner on the facts of his case, operated to punish his constitutionally protected speech. We therefore grant certiorari and reverse.
The ordinance, § 901-D4 of the city’s Municipal Code, reads:
“No person shall wilfully conduct himself or herself in a noisy, boisterous, rude, insulting or other disorderly manner, with the intent to abuse or annoy any person . . . .”
Petitioner, 69 years of age and an immigrant 20 years ago, is employed by his son who manages and is part owner of a “pony keg,” a small package liquor store. Petitioner works at the pony keg every evening and helps his son “because it is very dangerous.” There have been break-ins at the store on several occasions and a former owner was killed there.
On Christmas night, 1971, the pony keg closed about 10:30. The son drove home, but petitioner “wanted to take a walk and get home at 11:00 to hear the news.” Down the street, he was approached by Officer Johnson, who had been notified that a “suspicious man” was in the neighborhood of the pony keg. Officer Johnson testified that he approached petitioner and asked him if he lived in the area. Petitioner looked at him, “and then he turned around and walked away.” The officer twice attempted to stop him, but each time petitioner threw off his arm and protested, “I don’t tell you people anything.” He did not run. Petitioner then was placed under arrest for disorderly conduct. Officer Johnson said he had to “push the man approximately half a block to get him into the police car. He didn’t understand why he was being arrested.”
Petitioner testified that he “was far from the pony keg” when the officer drove up in his car and called out something which petitioner did not understand.
“He told me something, but I couldn’t understand .... I said — I asked him, 'What do you want from me?’ He said, 'Why are you on the street?’ I said, 'I am walking on the street.’ After then, he said, 'Where are you going?’ I said, T go home.’ After then, he didn’t ask me anything. He was in a car. I continued to walk.”
The officer pursued petitioner and grabbed him. Petitioner testified, “I didn’t resist because I was concerned about my health and my life.”
There is no indication in the record that it was the physical act of pushing off the officer’s arm that precipitated the arrest or supported the conviction. Had this been so, one could argue, perhaps, that Mr. Norwell might have been properly charged for disorderly conduct or under a statute or ordinance that made it illegal to interfere with a police officer in the performance of his duty. That, however, is not this case. Officer Johnson testified that he “didn’t charge the man with resisting because I didn’t think it was a warranted cause,” but that he arrested petitioner for “being loud and boisterous,” and “ [h] e was annoying me.” The municipal judge found that petitioner was “hostile” to the officer. “I’m sure [the officer] had no feeling against this man, but this man had a feeling against him, at this time, and was not at a liberty to say.” The court proceeded to find Mr. Norwell “guilty of disorderly conduct with the intent to annoy” and fined him $10 and costs “for being so noisy.”
Upon this record, we are convinced that petitioner was arrested and convicted merely because he verbally and negatively protested Officer Johnson’s treatment of him. Surely, one is not to be punished for nonprovoca-tively voicing his objection to what he obviously felt was a highly questionable detention by a police officer. Regardless of what the motivation may have been behind the expression in this case, it is clear that there was no abusive language or fighting words. If there had been, we would have a different case. See Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568 (1942).
The petition for certiorari is granted. The judgment is 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:
|
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.
The Georgia statute which appellants attack as violative of the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Amendments provides that county unit votes shall determine the outcome of a primary election. Each county is allotted a number of unit votes, ranging from six for the eight most populous counties, to two for most of the counties. The candidate who receives the highest popular vote in the county is awarded the appropriate number of unit votes. Appellants, residents of the most populous county in the State, contend that their votes and those of all other voters in that county have on the average but one-tenth the weight of those in the other counties. Urging that this amounts to an unconstitutional discrimination against them, appellants brought this suit to restrain adherence to the statute in the forthcoming Democratic Party primary for United States Senator, Governor and other state offices.
The court below dismissed appellants’ petition. 89 F. Supp. 672. We affirm. Federal courts consistently refuse to exercise their equity powers in cases posing political issues arising from a state’s geographical distribution of electoral strength among its political subdivisions. See MacDougall v. Green, 335 U. S. 281 (1948); Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549 (1946); Wood v. Broom, 287 U. S. 1, 8 (1932); cf. Johnson v. Stevenson, 170 F. 2d 108 (C. A. 5th Cir., 1948).
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Douglas,
with whom
Mr. Justice Black concurs, dissenting.
I suppose that if a State reduced the vote of Negroes, Catholics, or Jews so that each got only one-tenth of a vote, we would strike the law down. The right to vote in a primary was held in Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536, to be covered by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. And where, as in Georgia, a party primary election is an integral part of the state election machinery, the right to vote in it is protected by the Fifteenth Amendment. Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649. And see United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299. Under both Amendments discriminations based on race, creed or color fall beyond the pale.
Yet there is evidence in this case showing that Georgia’s County Unit System of consolidating votes in primary elections makes an equally invidious discrimination. Under this primary law the nomination does not go to the candidate who gets the majority or plurality of votes. Votes are counted county by county. The winner in each county gets a designated number of votes — six in the most populous counties, four in the next most populous, two in each of the rest.
Plaintiffs are registered voters in Georgia’s most populous county — Fulton County. They complain that their votes will be counted so as drastically to reduce their voting strength.
They show that a vote in one county will be worth over 120 times each of their votes. They show that in 45 counties a vote will be given twenty times the weight of each of theirs. They show that on a state-wide average each vote outside Fulton County will have over 11 times the weight of each vote of the plaintiffs.
Population figures show that there is a heavy Negro population in the large cities. There is testimony in the record that only in those areas have Negroes been able to vote in important numbers. Yet the County Unit System heavily disenfranchises that urban Negro population. The County Unit System has indeed been called the “last loophole” around our decisions holding that there must be no discrimination because of race in primary as well as in general elections.
The racial angle of the case only emphasizes the bite of the decision which sustains the County Unit System of voting. The discrimination against citizens in the more populous counties of Georgia is plain. Because they are city folks their voting power is only an eleventh or a hundred and twentieth of the voting power of other citizens. I can see no way to save that classification under the Equal Protection Clause. The creation by law of favored groups of citizens and the grant to them, of preferred political rights is the worst of all discriminations under a democratic system of government.
The County Unit System has other constitutional infirmities. Article I, § 2 of the Constitution provides that members of the House of Representatives shall be “chosen” by the people. And the Seventeenth Amendment provides that Senators shall be “elected by the people.” These constitutional rights extend to the primary where that election is an integral part of the procedure of choosing Representatives or Senators, or where in fact the primary effectively controls the choice. United States v. Classic, supra. In Georgia’s primary to be held on June 28, 1950, a United States Senator will be nominated. Certainly in a State like Georgia, where the Democratic nomination is equivalent to election, it would be a travesty to say that the true election in the constitutional sense comes later.
There is more to the right to vote than the right to mark a piece of paper and drop it in a box or the right to pull a lever in a voting booth. The right to vote includes the right to have the ballot counted. United States v. Classic, supra; Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651. It also includes the right to have the vote counted at full value without dilution or discount. United States v. Saylor, 322 U. S. 385. That federally protected right suffers substantial dilution in this case. The favored group has full voting strength. The groups not in favor have their votes discounted.
In Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549, we had before us a ease involving the division of Illinois into congressional districts in such a way that gross inequalities in voting resulted. Citizens of heavily populated districts sued to enjoin state officials from holding an election under the Illinois law governing congressional districts. There was an argument, persuasive to three members of the Court, that the issue presented was of a political nature and not justiciable, that it was an effort to get the federal courts “to reconstruct the electoral process of Illinois in order that it may be adequately represented in the councils of the Nation.” 328 U. S. 552. And in MacDougall v. Green, 335 U. S. 281, the Court on a closely divided vote refused to interfere with the provisions of the Illinois law governing the formation of a new political party. There is no such force in the argument that the question in the present case is political and not justiciable.
Plaintiffs sue as individuals to enforce rights political in origin and relating to political action. But as Mr. Justice Holmes said of the same argument in Nixon v. Herndon, supra, p. 540, it is “little more than a play upon words” to call it a political suit and therefore a non justiciable one. The rights they seek to enforce are personal and individual. Moreover, no decree which we need enter would collide either with Congress or with the election. Georgia need not be remapped politically. The Georgia legislature need not take new action after our decree. There is no necessity that we supervise an election. There need be no change or alteration in the place of the election, its time, the ballots that are used, or the regulations that govern its conduct. The wrong done by the County Unit System takes place not only after the ballots are in the box but also after they have been counted. The impact of the decree would be on the tallying of votes and the determination of what names go on the general election ballot. The interference with the political processes of the state is no greater here than it is when ballot boxes are stuffed or other tampering with the votes occurs and we take action to correct the practice. And related considerations, which led Mr. Justice Rutledge to conclude in Colegrove v. Green that the Court should not exercise its equity powers in that election, are lacking here. There is time to act, since the state primary is called for June 28, 1950. Relief can be certain. No conflict with any policy of Congress is possible. There is no overhauling of the State’s electoral process.
The case is of greater importance than the rights of plaintiffs in this next election may appear to be. We have here a system of discrimination in primary voting that undermines the advances made by the Nixon, Classic, and Allwright cases. Those decisions are defeated by a device as deeply rooted in discrimination as the practice which keeps a man from the voting booth because of his race, creed or color, or which fails to count his vote after it has been cast.
It is said that the dilution of plaintiffs’ votes in the present case is justified because equality of voting is unnecessary in the nomination of United States Senators. Thus it is pointed out that in some states nomination is by conventions. But that proves too much. If that premise is allowed, then the whole ground is cut from under our primary cases since Nixon v. Herndon, which have insisted that where there is voting there be equality. Indeed the only tenable premise under the Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Seventeenth Amendments is that where nominations are made in primary elections, there shall be no inequality in voting power by reason of race, creed, color or other invidious discrimination.
Ga. Code Ann. §§34-3212 et seq. (1936). Although this particular statute was enacted in 1917, the county unit has been basic in the state electoral scheme since Georgia’s first constitution in 1777.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to decide whether a witness who, while under investigation for possible criminal activity, is called to testify before a grand jury and who is later indicted for perjury committed before the grand jury, is entitled to have the false testimony suppressed on the ground that no effective warning of the Fifth Amendment privilege to remain silent was given.
(1)
Rose Wong, the respondent, came to the United States from China in early childhood. She was educated in public schools in San Francisco, where she completed eight grades of elementary education. Because her husband does not speak English, respondent generally speaks in her native tongue in her household.
In September 1973 respondent was subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury in the Northern District of California. The grand jury was investigating illegal gambling and obstruction of state and local law enforcement in San Francisco. At the time of her grand jury appearance, the Government had received reports that respondent paid bribes to two undercover San Francisco police officers -and agreed to make future payments to them. Before any interrogation began, respondent was advised of her Fifth Amendment privilege; she then denied having given money or gifts to police officers or having discussed gambling activities with them. It is undisputed that this testimony was false.
(2)
Respondent was indicted for perjury in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1623. She moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that, due to her limited command of English, she had not understood the warning of her right not to answer incriminating questions. At a suppression hearing, defense counsel called an interpreter and two language specialists as expert witnesses and persuaded the District Judge that respondent had not comprehended the prosecutor’s explanation of the Fifth Amendment privilege; the court accepted respondent’s testimony that she had thought she was required to answer all questions. Based upon informal oral findings to this effect, the District Court ordered the testimony suppressed as evidence of perjury.
Accepting the District Court’s finding that respondent had not understood the warning, the Court of Appeals held that due process required suppression where “the procedure employed by the government was fraught with the danger ... of placing [respondent] in the position of either perjuring or incriminating herself.” 553 F. 2d 576, 578 (CA9 1974). Absent effective warnings of the right to remain silent, the court concluded, a witness suspected of criminal involvement by the Government will “not understand the right to remain silent, and [will] be compelled by answering to subject himself to criminal liability.” Ibid. In the Court of Appeals’ view, the ineffectiveness of the prosecutor’s warning meant that “the unfairness of the procedure remained undissipated, and due process requires the testimony be suppressed.” Id., at 579'.
Following our decision in United States v. Mandujano, 425 U. S. 564 (1976), we granted certiorari. 426 U. S. 905 (1976). We now reverse.
(3)
Under findings which the Government does not challenge, respondent, in legal effect, was unwarned of her Fifth Amendment privilege. Resting on the finding that no effective warning was given, respondent contends that both the Fifth Amendment privilege and Fifth Amendment due process require suppression of her false testimony. As to her claim under the Fifth Amendment testimonial privilege, respondent argues that, without effective warnings, she was in effect forced by the Government to answer all questions, and that her choice was confined either to incriminating herself or lying under oath. From this premise, she contends that such testimony, even if knowingly false, is inadmissible against her as having been obtained in violation of the constitutional privilege. With respect to her due process claim, she contends, and the Court of Appeals held, that, absent warnings, a witness is placed in the dilemma of engaging either in self-incrimination or perjury, a situation so inherently unfair as to require suppression of perjured testimony. We reject both contentions.
As our holding in Mandujano makes clear, and indeed as the Court of Appeals recognized, the Fifth Amendment privilege does not condone perjury. It grants a privilege to remain silent without risking contempt, but it “does not endow the person who testifies with a license to commit perjury.” Glickstein v. United States, 222 U. S. 139, 142 (1911). The failure to provide a warning of the privilege, in addition to the oath to tell the truth, does not call for a different result. The contention is that warnings inform the witness of the availability of the privilege and thus eliminate the claimed dilemma of self-incrimination or perjury. Cf. Garner v. United States, 424 U. S. 648, 657-658 (1976). However, in United States v. Knox, 396 U. S. 77 (1969), the Court held that even the predicament of being forced to choose between incriminatory truth and falsehood, as opposed to refusing to answer, does not justify perjury. In that case, a taxpayer was charged with filing false information on a federal wagering tax return. At the time of the offense, federal law commanded the filing of a tax return even though' the effect of that requirement, in some circumstances, was to make it a crime not to supply the requested information to the Government. To justify the deliberate falsehood contained in his tax return, Knox, like respondent here, argued that the false statements were not made voluntarily, but were compelled by the tax laws and therefore violated the Fifth Amendment. The Court rejected that contention. Although it recognized that tax laws which compelled filing the returns injected an “element of pressure into Knox’s predicament at the time he filed the forms,” id., at 82, the Court held that by answering falsely the taxpayer took “a course that the Fifth Amendment gave him no privilege to take.” Ibid.
In this case respondent stands in no better position than Knox; her position, in fact, is weaker since her refusal to give inculpatory answers, unlike Knox, would not have constituted a crime. It follows that our holding in Mandujano, that the Fifth Amendment privilege does not protect perjury, is equally applicable to this case.
(4)
Respondent also relies on the Court of Appeals’ holding that the failure to inform a prospective defendant of the constitutional privilege of silence at the time- of a grand jury appearance is so fundamentally unfair as to violate due process. In the Court of Appeals’ view, the Government’s conduct in this case, although in good faith, so thwarted the adversary model of our criminal justice system as to require suppression of the testimony in any subsequent perjury case based on the falsity of the sworn statement. We disagree.
First, the “unfairness” urged by respondent was also present in the taxpayer’s predicament in Knox, yet the Court there found no constitutional infirmity in the taxpayer’s conviction for making false statements on his returns. Second, accepting, arguendo, respondent’s argument as to the dilemma posed in the grand jury procedures here, perjury is nevertheless not a permissible alternative. The “unfairness” perceived by respondent is not the act of calling a prospective defendant to testify before a grand jury but rather the failure effectively to inform a prospective defendant of the Fifth Amendment privilege, Thus, the core of respondent’s due process argument, and of the Court of Appeals’ holding, in reality relates to the protection of values served by the Fifth Amendment privilege, a privilege which does not protect perjury.
Finally, to characterize these proceedings as “unfair” by virtue of inadequate Fifth Amendment warnings is essentially to say that the Government acted unfairly or oppressively by asking searching questions of a witness uninformed of the privilege. But, as the Court has consistently held, perjury is not a permissible way of objecting to the Government’s questions. “Our legal system provides methods for challenging the Government’s right to ask questions — lying is not one of them.” (Footnote omitted.) Bryson v. United States, 396 U. S. 64, 72 (1969); United States v. Mandujano, 425 U. S., at 577, 585 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 609 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment). Indeed, even if the Government could, on pain of criminal sanctions, compel an answer to its incriminating questions, a citizen is not at liberty to answer falsely. United States v. Knox, supra, at 82-83. If the citizen answers the question, the answer must be truthful.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
In United States v. Mandujano, 425 U. S. 564 (1976), we held that false testimony by a grand jury witness suspected by federal prosecutors of criminal involvement was admissible in a subsequent perjury trial. Although the witness in Mandujano had been warned of the Fifth Amendment privilege, the Court of Appeals had mandated suppression of the perjurious testimony on the ground that the witness had not been provided with full Miranda warnings. In this Court, three separate opinions expressed varying reasons, but all eight participating Justices agreed that the perjured testimony was improperly suppressed.
The prosecutor gave respondent the following warnings:
“You . . . need not answer any question which you feel may ... incriminate you. . . . [Y]ou [have] the right to refuse to answer any question which you feel might incriminate you. ... [I]f you do give an answer, that answer may be used against you in a subsequent criminal prosecution, if in fact the Government should decide to prosecute you for any crime. . . .' You also have the right to consult with an attorney prior to answering any question here today. ... [I]f you cannot afford an attorney, ... we would see that an attorney is afforded to represent you. ... [I]f you do answer any questions and should you knowingly give any false testimony, or false answers to any questions, you would be subject to prosecution for the crime of perjury under the Federal Laws.” 2 Tr. 52-53.
The District Court found, however, that respondent understood the oath and the consequences of giving false testimony, and that she understood the questions that were asked of her. Thus, no issue regarding the due process consequences, if any, of the absence of either factor was addressed by the District Court or the Court of Appeals.
The Court of Appeals rejected respondent’s argument that the Fifth Amendment privilege required suppression. The court held:
“[T]he privilege against self-incrimination does not afford a defense to a witness under compulsion who, rather than refusing to answer (or, if improperly compelled to answer, giving incriminating answers), gives false testimony.” 553 F. 2d 576, 577.
Knox filed the false return prior to this Court’s decisions in Marchetti v. United States, 390 U. S. 39 (1968), and Grosso v. United States, 390 U. S. 62 (1968).
The Court of Appeals did not suggest why, assuming a due process violation had occurred, suppression of respondent's testimony was constitutionally required.
Cf. United States v. Mandujano, 425 U. S., at 594-598 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment).
There is no constitutional prohibition against summoning potential defendants to testify before a grand jury. United States v. Dionisio, 410 U. S. 1, 10 n. 8 (1973); United States v. Mandujano, supra, at 584 n. 9, 594 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment). The historic availability of the Fifth Amendment privilege in grand jury proceedings, Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547 (1892), attests to the Court’s recognition that potentially incriminating questions will frequently be asked of witnesses subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury; the very purpose of the inquiry is to ferret out criminal conduct, and sometimes potentially guilty persons are prime sources of information.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented by this case is whether a union violates § 8 (b)(4) of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, as amended, by picketing an entrance, used exclusively by railroad personnel, to a railroad spur track located on a right-of-way owned by the railroad and adjacent to the struck employer’s premises.
On March 2, 1960, after the petitioning union and the respondent company, Carrier Corporation, failed to agree upon a collective bargaining contract the union, which was the certified bargaining agent, called a strike in support of its demands. During the course of the strike the union picketed the several entrances to the plant. Along the south boundary of Carrier’s property was a 35-foot railroad right-of-way used by the railroad for deliveries to Carrier and to three other companies in the area, General Electric, Western Electric, and Brace-Mueller-Huntley. The railroad spur ran across Thompson Road, a public thoroughfare which bounded Carrier’s property on the west, and through a gate in a continuous chain-link fence which enclosed both the property of Carrier Corporation and the railroad right-of-way. The gate was locked when the spur was not in use and was accessible only to railroad employees. The picketing with which we are concerned occurred at this gate.
Between March 2 and March 10, railroad personnel made several trips through the gate for the purpose of switching out cars for General Electric, Western Electric and Brace-Mueller-Huntley, and also to supply coal to Carrier and General Electric. On March 11 a switch engine manned by a regular switching crew made one trip serving the three nonstruck corporations. It then returned, this time manned by supervisory personnel, with 14 empty boxcars. The pickets, being aware that these cars were destined for use by Carrier, milled around the engine from the time it reached the western side of Thompson Road, attempting to impede its progress. By inching its way across the road, however, the locomotive succeeded in reaching and entering the gate. After uncoupling the empties just inside the railroad right-of-way, for future use by Carrier, the engine picked up 16 more cars which Carrier wanted shipped out and made its way back toward the gate. This time resistance from the picketing strikers was more intense. Some of the men stood on the footboard of the engine, others prostrated themselves across the rails and one union official parked his car on the track. Invective and threats were directed toward the operators of the train, and only after the pickets were dispersed by deputies of the Onondaga County sheriff’s office was it able to pass.
Acting upon charges filed by Carrier, the Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against the international and local union organizations and individual officials of each, alleging violations of §§ 8 (b)(1)(A) and 8(b)(4)(i) and (ii)(B) of the National Labor Relations Act. The Trial Examiner found the union in violation of both sections and recommended appropriate cease-and-desist orders. The National Labor Relations Board sustained the Examiner’s finding that an unfair labor practice had been committed under §8 (b)(1)(A) and entered an order accordingly. The union does not contest this determination by the Board. The Board further concluded, however, that the picketing was primary activity and therefore saved from § 8 (b)(4)(B)’s proscription by the proviso that “nothing contained in this clause (B) shall be construed to make unlawful, where not otherwise unlawful, any primary strike or primary picketing.” Noting the conceded fact that the deliveries and removals by the railroad in this case were made in connection with the normal operations of the struck employer, the Board regarded as dis-positive this Court’s decision in Electrical Workers Local No. 761 v. Labor Board, 366 U. S. 667, the General Electric case. 132 N. L. R. B. 127.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the Board’s decision on the ground that the picketing at the railroad gate was directed solely at the neutral railroad employees and could not be regarded as incident to what the court considered the only legitimate union objective: publicizing the labor dispute to the employees involved therein, those working for Carrier. This Court’s holding in General Electric was deemed inapposite since the gate in the present case is located on premises belonging to the neutral employer. 311 F. 2d 135. Chief Judge Lumbard dissented. Because of the asserted conflict with General Electric and the importance of the problem to the national labor policy we granted certio-rari. 373 U. S. 908. We reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.
The activities of the union in this case clearly fall within clauses (i) and (ii) of §8 (b)(4); likewise the objective, to induce the railroad to cease providing freight service to Carrier for the duration of the strike, is covered by the language of subsection (B), exclusive of the proviso. The question we have is whether the activities of the union, although literally within the definition of secondary activities contained in clauses (i) and (ii) of § 8 (b)(4), are nevertheless within the protected area of primary picketing carved out by Congress in the proviso to subsection (B).
The dividing line between forbidden secondary activity and protected primary activity has been the subject of intense litigation both before and after the 1959 amendments to § 8 (b) (4), which broadened the coverage of the section but also added the express exceptions for the primary strike and primary picketing. We need not detail the course of this sometimes confusing litigation; for in the General Electric case, supra, the Court undertook to survey the cases dealing with picketing at both primary and secondary sites and the result reached in that case largely governs this one. In the General Electric case, because the union’s object was to enmesh “employees of the neutral employers in its dispute” with the primary employer, the Board ordered the union to cease picketing a separate gate used exclusively by employees of certain independent contractors who had been doing work on the primary premises on a regular and continuous basis for a considerable period of time. 123 N. L. R. B. 1547. In this Court, the Board conceded that when the struck premises are occupied by the primary employer alone, the right of the union to engage in primary activity at or in connection with the primary premises may be given unlimited effect — “all union attempts, by picketing and allied means, to cut off deliveries, pickups, and employment at the primary employer’s plant will be regarded as primary and outside the purview of Section 8 (b)(4)(A).” But the Board insisted that the facts presented a common situs problem since the regular work of the contractors was continuously done on the primary premises and hence the rules of the Moore Dry Dock case should be applied. The union, on the other hand, argued that no picketing at the primary premises should be considered as secondary activity.
The Court accepted the approach neither of the Board nor of the Union. The location of the picketing, though important, was not deemed of decisive significance; picketing was not to be protected simply because it occurred at the site of the primary employer’s plant. Neither, however, was all picketing forbidden where occurring at gates not used by primary employees. The legality of separate gate picketing depended upon the type of work being done by the employees who used that gate; if the duties of those employees were connected with the normal operations of the employer, picketing directed at them was protected primary activity, but if their work was unrelated to the day-to-day operation of the employer’s plant, the picketing was an unfair labor practice. The order of the NLRB was vacated to permit determination of the case in accordance with the proper test.
It seems clear that the rejection of the Board’s position in General Electric leaves no room for the even narrower approach of the Court of Appeals in this case, which is that the picketing at the site of a strike could be directed at secondary employees only where incidental to appeals to primary employees. Under this test, no picketing at gates used only by employees of delivery men would be permitted, a result expressly disapproved by the Court in General Electric: “On the other hand, if a separate gate were devised for regular plant deliveries, the barring of picketing at that location would make a clear invasion on traditional primary activity of appealing to neutral employees whose tasks aid the employer’s everyday operations.” 366 U. S., at 680-681.
Although the picketing in the General Electric case occurred-prior to the 1959 amendments to § 8 (b) (4), the decision was rendered in 1961 and the Court bottomed its decision upon the amended law and its legislative history. We think General Electric’s construction of the proviso to § 8 (b) (4) (B) is sound and we will not disturb it. The primary strike, which is protected by the proviso, is aimed at applying economic pressure by halting the day-to-day operations of the struck employer. But Congress not only preserved the right to strike; it also saved “primary picketing” from the secondary ban. Picketing has traditionally been a major weapon to implement the goals of a strike and has characteristically been aimed at all those approaching the situs whose mission is selling, delivering or otherwise contributing to the operations which the strike is endeavoring to halt. In light of this traditional goal of primary pressures we think Congress intended to preserve the right to picket during a strike a gate reserved for employees of neutral delivery men furnishing day-to-day service essential to the plant’s regular operations.
Nor may the General Electric case be put aside for the reason that the picketed gate in the present case was located on property owned by New York Central Railroad and not upon property owned by the primary employer. The location of the picketing is an important but not decisive factor, and in this case we agree with Judge Lumbard that the location of the picketed gate upon New York Central property has little, if any, significance:
“In this case, it is undisputed that the railroad’s operations for Carrier were in furtherance of Carrier’s normal business. It is equally clear from the record that the picketing employees made no attempt to interfere with any of the railroad’s operations for plants other than Carrier. The railroad employees were not encouraged to, nor did they, refuse to serve the other plants. The picketing was designed to accomplish no more than picketing outside one of Carrier’s own delivery entrances might have accomplished. Because the fence surrounding the railroad’s right of way was a continuation of the fence surrounding the Carrier plant, there was no other place where the union could have brought home to the railroad workers servicing Carrier its dispute with Carrier.” 311 F. 2d 135, 154.
The railroad gate adjoined company property and was in fact the railroad entrance gate to the Carrier plant. For the purposes of § 8 (b)(4) picketing at a situs so proximate and related to the employer’s day-to-day operations is no more illegal than if it had occurred at a gate owned by Carrier.
Carrier, however, has another argument: holding this picketing protected thwarts the purpose of the 1959 amendment to bring railroads within the protection of §8 (b)(4). The definitions of “employer” and “employee” in §§ 2 (2) and 2 (3) of the Act specifically exclude “any person subject to the Railway Labor Act” and the employees of any such “person.” Prior to 1959, §8 (b)(4) prohibited secondary inducements to “the employees” of any “employer” and there arose a conflict of authority between the Board and several Courts of Appeals as to whether or not the secondary boycott provisions applied to any appeals to railroad employees. Congress resolved this question in 1959 by revising §8 (b)(4) to proscribe inducement of secondary work stoppages by “any individual employed by any person.” There is no indication whatever that Congress intended by the revision to do more than to eliminate the uncertainty deriving from the words “employer” and “employee” and thereby to extend to railroads the same protections which other employers enjoyed. Our holding does not derogate from this equality of treatment. On the contrary, the rule for which Carrier contends would place the railroad on a better footing than all other employers who do business with the struck plant. It would distinguish between picketing an entrance to a struck plant which is owned by the primary employer and picketing a gate which by design or otherwise had been conveyed to a neutral furnishing delivery service, an anomaly which we do not believe Congress intended.
Finally, we reject Carrier’s argument that whatever the rule may be in the ordinary case of separate gate picketing, the picketing of the railroad gate in this case was violative of § 8 (b) (4) because it was accompanied by threats and violence. Under § 8 (b) (4) the distinction between primary and secondary picketing carried on at a separate gate maintained on the premises of the primary employer, does not rest upon the peaceful or violent nature of the conduct, but upon the type of work being done by the picketed secondary employees. Such picketing does not become illegal secondary activity when violence is involved but only when it interferes with business intercourse not connected with the ordinary operations of the employer. This is not to say, of course, that violent primary picketing is in all respects legal but only that it is not forbidden by § 8 (b) (4); it would escape neither the provisions of the federal law nor the local law if violative thereof.
This is all, we think, that was intended by the proviso to §8 (b)(4) which provides that nothing in subsection (B) “shall be construed to make unlawful, where not otherwise unlawful, any primary strike or primary picketing.” (Emphasis supplied.) It is possible to read this language to mean that the proviso does not save from proscription under §8 (b)(4) union activity violative of other laws, but this interpretation would condemn as secondary conduct any and all picketing directed toward neutral employers so long as the conduct, as in the case of violence, was forbidden by some other law. In our view, the words “where not otherwise unlawful” were inserted only to make clear that the proviso, while excluding the conduct from the § 8 (b)(4) sanctions did not also legalize it under other laws, state or federal. The legality of violent picketing, if “primary,” must be determined under other sections of the statute or under state law.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Douglas concurs in the result.
Mr. Justice Goldberg took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Section 8 (b)(4) provides in pertinent part as follows:
“(4)(i) to engage in, or to induce or encourage any individual employed by any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce to engage in, a strike or a refusal in the course of his employment to use, manufacture, process, transport, or otherwise, handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services; or (ii) to threaten, coerce, or restrain any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce, where in either case an object thereof is—
“(B) forcing or requiring any person to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in the products of any other producer, processor, or manufacturer, or to cease doing business with any other person, or forcing or requiring any other employer to recognize or bargain with a labor organization as the representative of his employees unless such labor organization has been certified as the representative of such employees under the provisions of section 159 of this title: Provided, That nothing contained in this clause (B) shall be construed to make unlawful, where not otherwise unlawful, any primary strike or primary picketing.” 29 U. S. C. (Supp. IV) §158 (b)(4).
The union made no objection to the deliveries of coal to Carrier, since the nonstruck General Electric plant obtained its coal from Carrier.
Brief for the National Labor Relations Board, Electrical Workers Local 761 v. Labor Board, No. 321, October Term, 1960, p. 31.
Sailors’ Union of the Pacific, 92 N. L. R. B. 647.
The Court said: “The 1959 Amendments to the National Labor Relations Act, which removed the word ‘concerted’ from the boycott provisions, included a proviso that ‘nothing contained in this clause (B) shall be construed to make unlawful, where not otherwise unlawful,. any primary strike or primary picketing.’ 29 U. S. C. (Supp. I, 1959) §158 (b)(4)(B). The proviso was directed against the fear that the removal of ‘concerted’ from the statute might be interpreted so that ‘the picketing at the factory violates section 8 (b) (4) (A) because the pickets induce the truck drivers employed by the trucker not to perform their usual services where an object is to compel the trucking firm not to do business with the . . . manufacturer during the strike.’ Analysis of the bill prepared by Senator Kennedy and Representative Thompson, 105 Cong. Rec. 16589.” 366 U. S., at 681.
See H. R. Rep. No. 741, on H. R. 8342, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 21, 80; H. R. Rep. No. 1147, on S. 1555, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 38; 2 Leg. Hist, of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 1575-1576, 1707, 1857.
Compare International Brotherhood of Teamsters (The International Rice Milling Co.), 84 N. L. R. B. 360; International Woodworkers of America (Smith Lumber Co.), 116 N. L. R. B. 1756; International Brotherhood of Teamsters (The Alling & Cory Company), 121 N. L. R. B. 315; and Lumber & Sawmill Workers Local Union 2409 (Great Northern Railway Co.), 122 N. L. R. B. 1403, with International Rice Milling Co. v. Labor Board, 183 F. 2d 21 (C. A. 5th Cir.); Smith Lumber Co. v. Labor Board, 246 F. 2d 129 (C. A. 5th Cir.); Great Northern Railway Co. v. Labor Board, 272 F. 2d 741 (C. A. 9th Cir.).
Compare Labor Board v. Rice Milling Co., 341 U. S. 665, 672, in which the Court said: “In the instant case the violence on the picket line is not material. The complaint was not based upon that violence, as such. To reach it, the complaint more properly would have relied upon § 8 (b) (1) (A) or would have addressed itself to local authorities. The substitution of violent coercion in place of peaceful persuasion would not in itself bring the complained-of conduct into conflict with § 8 (b) (4). It is the object of union encouragement that is proscribed by that section, rather than the means adopted to make it felt.”
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 Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Robert Van Arsdall was convicted of murder in a Delaware trial court. The Supreme Court of Delaware reversed his conviction on the ground that the trial court, by improperly restricting defense counsel’s cross-examination designed to show bias on the part of a prosecution witness, had violated respondent’s confrontation rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and that such violation required automatic reversal. 486 A. 2d 1 (1984). While we agree that the trial court’s ruling was contrary to the mandate of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, we conclude that the Supreme Court of Delaware was wrong when it declined to consider whether that ruling was harmless in the context of the trial as a whole.
Shortly after midnight on January 1, 1982, Doris Epps was stabbed to death in an apartment in Smyrna, Delaware, after an all-day New Year’s Eve party. Respondent and Daniel Pregent, who by respondent’s testimony were the only two people in the apartment with Epps at the time she was killed, were arrested at the scene of the crime and charged with Epps’ murder. At separate trials, respondent was convicted and Pregent was acquitted.
The State’s case against respondent was based on circumstantial evidence, and proceeded on the theory that respondent had either killed Epps or assisted Pregent in doing so. Several of the partygoers testified about the party and the scene after the killing. The party, which lasted from late in the morning of December 31, 1981, until shortly before midnight, was held in the adjacent apartments of Pregent and Robert Fleetwood. Respondent, who was one of at least a dozen guests who attended the party during the course of the day, had stopped in for two brief periods in the late afternoon and early evening and then returned for a third time at about 11:30 p.m. By that time the party was over. Pregent had quarreled with a female guest, kicked a hole in a hallway wall and had to be restrained. An intoxicated Epps had been placed on a sofa bed in Pregent’s apartment after passing out. And shortly before 11 p.m., a second altercation of some kind occurred, prompting Fleetwood to close the party in his apartment to everyone except his two friends, Alice Meinier and Mark Mood. When respondent returned to Pregent’s apartment at about 11:30, only Pregent and Epps were present.
Robert Fleetwood was the 10th of 16 prosecution witnesses. In addition to recounting uncontroverted facts about the party, he testified that sometime between 11 and 11:30 p.m. he walked across the hall, looked into Pregent’s living room from the doorway, and saw respondent sitting on the edge of the sofa bed next to Pregent’s feet. Fleetwood, who did not have a complete view of the bed, did not see Epps or anyone else in the apartment. Upon returning to his own apartment, Fleetwood stayed awake long enough to hear nearby bells ring in the New Year, at which point he passed out. App. 82-85.
Meinier, who with Mood had remained awake in Fleet-wood’s apartment, testified that at roughly 1 a.m. respondent knocked at Fleetwood’s door. Respondent’s shirt and hands were spattered with blood, and he was holding a long, blood-covered knife. According to Meinier, respondent stated that “he had gotten in a fight” but that he “got them back.” Id., at 130. After turning the knife over to Mood and washing his hands, respondent said “I think there’s something wrong across the hall.” Id., at 132. Meinier went to Pregent’s apartment and discovered Epps’ body lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. Mood then summoned the police, who found respondent in Fleetwood’s apartment and Pregent asleep on the blood-splattered sofa bed in his living room.
In addition to the testimony of the partygoers and the arresting officers, the State introduced Pregent’s postarrest statement, respondent’s two postarrest statements, and the testimony of a forensic expert. Among other things, the expert testified about the nature and source of the bloodstains on respondent’s clothing.
During Fleetwood’s cross-examination, defense counsel sought to impeach Fleetwood by questioning him about the dismissal of a criminal charge against him — being drunk on a highway — after he had agreed to speak with the prosecutor about Epps’ murder. When the prosecutor objected, the trial court allowed counsel to question Fleetwood on the matter outside the presence of the jury. Fleetwood acknowledged that the drunkenness charge had been dropped in exchange for his promise to speak with the prosecutor about the murder, but he denied that the agreement had affected his testimony. The trial court barred any cross-examination about that agreement, citing Delaware Rule of Evidence 403. The court also refused to permit defense counsel to cross-examine Fleetwood about his being questioned by the police in connection with an unrelated homicide that had occurred after Epps’ murder. On voir dire conducted outside the presence of the jury, Fleetwood denied that he had been offered any favors, inducements, promises, or deals concerning that homicide investigation in exchange for his testimony at respondent’s trial.
Respondent was the only defense witness. Consistent with his second statement to the police, he attributed Epps’ murder to Pregent. Consistent with Fleetwood’s testimony, he stated that he had returned to Pregent’s apartment, after drinking with friends, by about 11:30 p.m.
Defense counsel admitted in their opening and closing arguments to the jury that respondent was in Pregent’s apartment when Epps was killed. In closing argument, after attempting to discredit Fleetwood’s testimony (largely by emphasizing his intoxication), counsel stressed that all that testimony proved was what respondent “never denied,” that “he was at Danny Pregent’s apartment before Doris Epps was murdered.” App. 188-189. The jury found respondent guilty of first-degree murder and possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony.
bn appeal, the Delaware Supreme Court reversed respondent’s conviction on the authority of the Confrontation Clause. Noting that “the bias of a witness is subject to exploration at trial and is ‘always relevant as discrediting the witness and affecting the weight of his testimony,”’ 486 A. 2d, at 6 (quoting Davis v. Alaska, 415 U. S. 308, 316 (1974)), the court found that the trial judge’s ruling denied respondent his constitutional right to effective cross-examination. By barring any cross-examination of Fleetwood about the dismissal of the public drunkenness charge, the ruling kept from the jury facts concerning bias that were central to assessing Fleetwood’s reliability. The court rejected the State’s argument that since “Fleetwood’s basic testimony was cumulative in nature and unimportant,” the Confrontation Clause error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. 486 A. 2d, at 7. The court held that “a blanket prohibition against exploring potential bias through cross-examination” is “a per se error,” so that “the actual prejudicial impact of such an error is not examined.” Ibid.
We granted certiorari, 473 U. S. 923 (1985), and now vacate and remand.
The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment guarantees the right of an accused in a criminal prosecution “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” The right of confrontation, which is secured for defendants in state as well as federal criminal proceedings, Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400 (1965), “means more than being allowed to confront the witness physically.” Davis v. Alaska, 415 U. S., at 315. Indeed, “‘[t]he main and essential purpose of confrontation is to secure for the opponent the opportunity of cross-examination.’” Id., at 315-316 (quoting 5 J. Wig-more, Evidence § 1395, p. 123 (3d ed. 1940)) (emphasis in original). Of particular relevance here, “[w]e have recognized that the exposure of a witness’ motivation in testifying is a proper and important function of the constitutionally protected right of cross-examination.” Davis, supra, at 316-317 (citing Greene v. McElroy, 360 U. S. 474, 496 (1959)). It does not follow, of course, that the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment prevents a trial judge from imposing any limits on defense counsel’s inquiry into the potential bias of a prosecution witness. On the contrary, trial judges retain wide latitude insofar as the Confrontation Clause is concerned to impose reasonable limits on such cross-examination based on concerns about, among other things, harassment, prejudice, confusion of the issues, the witness’ safety, or interrogation that is repetitive or only marginally relevant. And as we observed earlier this Term, “the Confrontation Clause guarantees an opportunity for effective cross-examination, not cross-examination that is effective in whatever way, and to whatever extent, the defense might wish.” Delaware v. Fensterer, 474 U. S. 15, 20 (1985) (per curiam) (emphasis in original).
In this case, however, the trial court prohibited all inquiry into the possibility that Fleetwood would be biased as a result of the State’s dismissal of his pending public drunkenness charge. By thus cutting off all questioning about an event that the State conceded had taken place and that a jury might reasonably have found furnished the witness a motive for favoring the prosecution in his testimony, the court’s ruling violated respondent’s rights secured by the Confrontation Clause.
The State somewhat tentatively suggests that a defendant should have to show “outcome determinative” prejudice in order to state a violation of the Confrontation Clause: Unless the particular limitation on cross-examination created a reasonable possibility that the jury returned an inaccurate guilty verdict, that limitation would not violate the Confrontation Clause. We disagree. While some constitutional claims by their nature require a showing of prejudice with respect to the trial as a whole, see, e. g., Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984) (ineffective assistance of counsel), the focus of the Confrontation Clause is on individual witnesses. Accordingly, the focus of the prejudice inquiry in determining whether the confrontation right has been violated must be on the particular witness, not on the outcome of the entire trial. It would be a contradiction in terms to conclude that a defendant denied any opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses against him nonetheless had been afforded his right to “confrontation]” because use of that right would not have affected the jury’s verdict. We think that a criminal defendant states a violation of the Confrontation Clause by showing that he was prohibited from engaging in otherwise appropriate cross-examination designed to show a prototypical form of bias on the part of the witness, and thereby “to expose to the jury the facts from which jurors . . . could appropriately draw inferences relating to the reliability of the witness.” Davis v. Alaska, supra, at 318. Respondent has met that burden here: A reasonable jury might have received a significantly different impression of Fleetwood’s credibility had respondent’s counsel been permitted to pursue his proposed line of cross-examination.
After concluding that the trial judge’s ruling was constitutional error, the Delaware Supreme Court rebuffed the State’s effort to show “beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained,” Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18, 24 (1967). In so doing, it offered no explanation why the Chapman harmless-error standard, which we have applied in other Confrontation Clause cases, e. g., Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250 (1969); Schneble v. Florida, 405 U. S. 427 (1972), is inapplicable here. We find respondent’s efforts to defend the automatic reversal rule unconvincing.
As we have stressed on more than one occasion, the Constitution entitles a criminal defendant to a fair trial, not a perfect one. E. g., United States v. Hasting, 461 U. S. 499, 508-509 (1983); Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123, 135 (1968). In Chapman, this Court rejected the argument that all federal constitutional errors, regardless of their nature or the circumstances of the case, require reversal of a judgment of conviction. The Court reasoned that in the context of a particular case, certain constitutional errors, no less than other errors, may have been “harmless” in terms of their effect on the factfinding process at trial. Since Chapman, we have repeatedly reaffirmed the principle that an otherwise valid conviction should not be set aside if the reviewing court may confidently say, on the whole record, that the constitutional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. E. g., United States v. Hasting, supra (improper comment on defendant’s silence at trial); Moore v. Illinois, 434 U. S. 220, 232 (1977) (admission of identification obtained in violation of right to counsel); Harrington v. California, supra (admission of nontestifying codefendant’s statement). The harmless-error doctrine recognizes the principle that the central purpose of a criminal trial is to decide the factual question of the defendant’s guilt or innocence, United States v. Nobles, 422 U. S. 225, 230 (1975), and promotes public respect for the criminal process by focusing on the underlying fairness of the trial rather than on the virtually inevitable presence of immaterial error. Cf. R. Traynor, The Riddle of Harmless Error 50 (1970) (“Reversal for error, regardless of its effect on the judgment, encourages litigants to abuse the judicial process and bestirs the public to ridicule it”).
At the same time, we have observed that some constitutional errors — such as denying a defendant the assistance of counsel at trial, or compelling him to stand trial before a trier of fact with a financial stake in the outcome — are so fundamental and pervasive that they require reversal without regard to the facts or circumstances of the particular case. Chapman, supra, at 23, n. 8 (citing, inter alia, Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963), and Turney v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510 (1927)). The error at issue here is obviously quite different, however, as this Court’s post -Chapman decisions demonstrate. In Harrington v. California, for example, we expressly rejected the claim that the admission into evidence of a statement made by a nontestifying codefendant, in violation of Bruton v. United States, supra, can never be harmless. Harrington, which we have expressly reaffirmed on more than one occasion, see, e. g., Schneble v. Florida, supra; Brown v. United States, 411 U. S. 223 (1973), demonstrates that the denial of the opportunity to cross-examine an adverse witness does not fit within the limited category of constitutional errors that are deemed prejudicial in every case.
Respondent seeks to blunt the force of Harrington in essentially two ways. First, he suggests that this Court’s decision in Davis v. Alaska forecloses application of harmless-error analysis to the particular sort of Confrontation Clause violation involved here, citing the following language near the end of the Court’s opinion:
“[Davis] was thus denied the right of effective cross-examination which ‘ “would be constitutional error of the first magnitude and no amount of showing of want of prejudice would cure it.” Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U. S. 1, 3.’” 415 U. S., at 318 (quoting Smith v. Illinois, 390 U. S. 129, 131 (1968)).
Read properly, however, Davis does not support an automatic reversal rule, and the above-quoted language merely reflects the view that on the facts of that case the trial court’s error had done “serious damage” to the petitioner’s defense.
Davis was charged with stealing a safe from a bar. The police found the stolen safe abandoned near the home of Richard Green, who testified at trial that he had seen Davis engaged in suspicious activity near this site on the day of the crime. Defense counsel was barred from eliciting on cross-examination that Green was on juvenile probation for burglary both at the time of his pretrial identification of Davis and at the time of trial. The defense sought to suggest that Green may have slanted his account in the State’s favor either to shift suspicion away from himself or to avoid revocation of probation for failing to “cooperate.” 415 U. S., at 310-311. This Court reversed Davis’ conviction, emphasizing that Green’s tesimony was “crucial” and that there was a “real possibility” that pursuit of the excluded line of impeachment evidence would have done “[sjerious damage to the strength of the State’s case.” Id., at 319. So despite the absence of a reference to Chapman, Davis plainly rests on the conclusion that on the facts of that case, the error might well have contributed to the guilty verdict. Davis should not be read as establishing, without analysis, a categorical exception to the harmless-error rule.
Respondent’s second argument in support of a per se reversal rule is that the Confrontation Clause error in this case, which like Davis involved the exclusion of evidence, is analytically distinct from that in Harrington v. California, which involved the erroneous admission of harmless testimony. Because it is impossible to know how wrongfully excluded evidence would have affected the jury, the argument runs, reversal is mandated. But Harrington cannot be so easily dispatched. Respondent, like Harrington, was denied an opportunity to cast doubt on the testimony of an adverse witness. In both cases the prosecution was thus able to introduce evidence that was not subject to constitutionally adequate cross-examination. And in both cases the reviewing court should be able to decide whether the not-fully-impeached evidence might have affected the reliability of the factfinding process at trial.
Accordingly, we hold that the constitutionally improper denial of a defendant’s opportunity to impeach a witness for bias, like other Confrontation Clause errors, is subject to Chapman harmless-error analysis. The correct inquiry is whether, assuming that the damaging potential of the cross-examination were fully realized, a reviewing court might nonetheless say that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Whether such an error is harmless in a particular case depends upon a host of factors, all readily accessible to reviewing courts. These factors include the importance of the witness’ testimony in the prosecution’s case, whether the testimony was cumulative, the presence or absence of evidence corroborating or contradicting the testimony of the witness on material points, the extent of cross-examination otherwise permitted, and, of course, the overall strength of the prosecution’s case. Cf. Harrington, 395 U. S., at 254; Schneble v. Florida, 405 U. S., at 432.
We believe that the determination whether the Confrontation Clause error in this case was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt is best left to the Delaware Supreme Court in the first instance. Accordingly, that court’s judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
When asked about his understanding of why the charge was dropped, respondent stated:
“Well, I did understand that I did feel that you wanted to make sure that I knew what I was talking about and I do feel that you wanted to make sure I had my story together before coming in here. So that is why I did feel that it was dropped.” App. 106.
Delaware Rule of Evidence 403, which is virtually identical to Federal Rule of Evidence 403, provides:
“Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.”
Respondent asserts that this Court is without jurisdiction to hear this case because the Delaware Supreme Court’s automatic reversal rule rests on an adequate and independent state ground. He argues that the rule was adopted not on the basis of federal constitutional law but as a prophylactic device, announced under that court’s “superintending” authority, to “send an unequivocal message” to state trial judges about the importance of permitting liberal cross-examination. Brief for Respondent 41. We disagree.
“[W]e will not assume that a state-court decision rests on adequate and independent state grounds when the ‘state court decision fairly appears to rest primarily on federal law, or to be interwoven with the federal law, and when the adequacy and independence of any possible state law ground is not clear from the face of the opinion.’” Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U. S. 320, 327 (1985) (quoting Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032, 1040-1041 (1983)). The opinion of the Delaware Supreme Court, which makes use of both federal and state eases in its analysis, lacks the requisite “plain statement” that it rests on state grounds. Michigan v. Long, supra, at 1042, 1044. Indeed, the opinion makes no reference to any “superintending” authority, and nowhere suggests the existence of a state prophylactic rule designed to insure protection for a federal constitutional right. We read the decision below as resting on federal law.
The Delaware Supreme Court did not decide whether the trial court erred in preventing respondent from cross-examining Fleetwood about the unrelated homicide investigation. 486 A. 2d 1, 7, n. 3 (1984). We likewise decline to consider that question.
Bruton had held that the receipt at a joint trial of the incriminating statement of a nontestifying codefendent deprived Bruton of his right to cross-examine an adverse witness. In Harrington, the trial court admitted the pretrial statements of two codefendants who did not testify. The statements implicated Harrington by placing him at the scene of the robbery, and their admission plainly violated Bruton. This Court nevertheless affirmed Harrington’s conviction, over his objection that Bruton error could never be harmless. Noting that the wrongfully admitted evidence was cumulative and that the untainted proof of the defendant’s guilt was overwhelming, the Court concluded that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. 395 U. S., at 254.
Respondent does not contend that he was denied the opportunity to elicit exculpatory evidence from Fleetwood.
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.
The question here is whether a corporation organized under the laws of the British Virgin Islands is a “citize[n] or subjec[t] of a foreign state” for the purposes of alienage diversity jurisdiction, 28 U. S. C. § 1332(a)(2). We hold that it is.
I
Respondent Traffic Stream (BVI) Infrastructure Ltd. is a corporation organized under the laws of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom. In 1998, petitioner Chase Manhattan Bank, now JPMorgan Chase Bank, agreed to finance some ventures Traffic Stream had organized to construct and operate toll roads in China, with the parties’ contract to “be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of New York,” App. 85a. Traffic Stream agreed to “submi[t] to the jurisdiction” of federal courts in Manhattan, and to “waiv[e] any immunity from [their] jurisdiction.” Ibid.
Chase subsequently charged Traffic Stream with defaulting on its obligations. It sued in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, which found subject-matter jurisdiction under the alienage diversity statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1332(a)(2), and granted summary judgment to Chase. When Traffic Stream appealed, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sua sponte raised the question whether Traffic Stream was a citizen or subject of a foreign state for the purposes of alienage diversity jurisdiction. The court relied on its precedent in Matimak Trading Co. v. Khalily, 118 F. 3d 76 (1997), in answering that because Traffic Stream was a citizen of an Overseas Territory and not an independent foreign state, jurisdiction was lacking: 251 F. 3d 334, 337 (2001). The judgment of the District Court was reversed, and the case ordered to be remanded with instructions to dismiss the complaint. Ibid. Chase was denied rehearing en banc.
Because the Second Circuit’s decision conflicts with those of other Circuits, see Southern Cross Overseas Agencies, Inc. v. Wah Kwong Shipping Group Ltd., 181 F. 3d 410, 413 (CA3 1999); Koehler v. Dodwell, 152 F. 3d 304, 308 (CA4 1998); Wilson v. Humphreys (Cayman) Ltd., 916 F. 2d 1239, 1242-1243 (CA7 1990), and implicates serious issues of foreign relations, we granted certiorari, 534 U. S. 1074 (2001). We now reverse.
II
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1332(a)(2) provides district courts with “original jurisdiction of all civil actions where the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $75,000 . . . and is between . . . citizens of a State and citizens or subjects of a foreign state.” A “corporation of a foreign State is, for purposes of jurisdiction in the courts of the United States, to be deemed, constructively, a citizen or subject of such State.” Steamship Co. v. Tugman, 106 U. S. 118, 121 (1882). Cf. Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States §213 (1986) (“For purposes of international law, a corporation has the nationality of the state under the laws of which the corporation is organized”). In spite of this general rule of corporate citizenship, this case presents two issues about the application of the statute to Traffic Stream: whether Traffic Stream has been incorporated under the laws of a “foreign state” given the BVI’s status as an Overseas Territory, and whether the BVI’s corporate citizens are “citizens or subjects” within the meaning of § 1332(a)(2).
A
The argument that the status of the BVI renders the statute inapplicable begins by assuming that Traffic Stream, organized under BVI law, must be a citizen or subject of the BVI alone. Since the BVI is a British Overseas Territory, unrecognized by the United States Executive Branch as an independent foreign state, it is supposed to follow that for purposes of alienage jurisdiction Traffic Stream is not a citizen or subject of a “foreign state” within the meaning of § 1332(a)(2).
Even on the assumption, however, that a foreign state must be diplomatically recognized by our own Government to qualify as such under the jurisdictional statute (an issue we need not decide here), we have never held that the requisite status as citizen or subject must be held directly from a formally recognized state, as distinct from such a state’s legal dependency. On the contrary, a consideration of the relationships of the BVI and the recognized state of the United Kingdom convinces us that any such distinction would be entirely beside the point of the statute providing alienage jurisdiction.
1
The current BVI Constitution was established when the Crown of the United Kingdom, in the exercise of power granted by the West Indies Act, 1962, c. 19, §5(1), issued the Virgin Islands (Constitution) Order 1976, SI 1976/2145. Under that order, the United Kingdom exercises pervasive authority over the territory. The Constitution provides, for example, that the BVI Government shall include a Governor and Deputy Governor appointed by the Queen to “hold office during Her Majesty’s pleasure,” id., pt. II, §3(1), an Executive Council mainly appointed by the Governor on the basis of the popular election for the Legislative Council, §§ 14-15, and a Legislature comprising the Queen and a Legislative Council of mainly popularly elected representatives, §§25-26.
Bills take effect as laws only when approved by the royally appointed Governor or by the Queen acting through a Secretary of State, § 42. The Governor is instructed to withhold assent from any bill that may conflict with the laws of the United Kingdom or is “likely to prejudice the Royal prerogative.” §42(2)(b). The Queen, acting through a Secretary of State, has authority to annul any BVI statute, §43(1), and “[tjhere is reserved to Her Majesty full power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Virgin Islands,” § 71. “[I]f the Legislative Council fails to pass ... a Bill or motion . . . the Governor may, at any time that he thinks fit, . . . declare that such Bill or motion shall have effect as if it had been passed . .. .” §44.
The Crown’s representatives have not slept on their powers, which have recently been exercised to impose laws and international obligations upon the territory, as in the Caribbean Territories (Abolition of Death Penalty for Murder) Order 1991, and the Merchant Shipping (Salvage Convention) (Overseas Territories) Order 1997, the latter of which brought the BVI into compliance with the International Convention on Salvage, 1989. In a very practical sense, then, the statutes that permit incorporation in the BVI, see BVI Companies Act (CAP. 285); BVI International Business Companies Act (CAP. 291), are laws enacted in the exercise of the political authority of the United Kingdom, and it seems fair to regard a BVI company as a citizen or subject of this ultimate political authority. This view of the relationship seems especially reasonable when such a corporation is engaged in an international transaction, since the United Kingdom acts on the BVI’s behalf in the international arena. See 6 Halsbury, Laws of England ¶983, p. 471 (4th ed. 1991) (“Her Majesty’s government in the United Kingdom is internationally responsible for the external affairs of United Kingdom dependent territories”); see also United Nations Act, 1946, c. 45 (empowering the Crown to bring “His Majesty’s dominions” into compliance with directives of the United Nations Security Council).
2
The Second Circuit nonetheless takes the position that the relationship between the United Kingdom and its territories is “too attenuated” for the United Kingdom to be viewed as a governing authority for purposes of the relationship assumed by § 1332(a)(2). Matimak Trading Co., 118 F. 3d, at 86. This, of course, depends upon the statute’s objective.
Both during and after the Revolution, state courts were notoriously frosty to British creditors trying to collect debts from American citizens, and state legislatures went so far as to hobble British debt collection by statute, despite the specific provision of the 1783 Treaty of Paris that creditors in the courts of either country would “meet with no lawful impediment” to debt collection. Definitive Treaty of Peace, United States-Great Britain, Art. IV, 8 Stat. 82. See Holt, “To Establish Justice”: Politics, the Judiciary Act of 1789, and the Invention of the Federal Courts, 1989 Duke L. J. 1421, 1438-1449. Ultimately, the States’ refusal to honor the treaty became serious enough to prompt protests by the British Secretary of State, particularly when irked by American demands for treaty compliance on the British side. See 31 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, pp. 781-784 (J. Fitzpatrick ed. 1934).
This penchant of the state courts to disrupt international relations and discourage foreign investment led directly to the alienage jurisdiction provided by Article III of the Constitution. See U. S. Const., Art. Ill, §2 (federal jurisdiction “extend[s] to . . . Controversies . . . between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects”). “[T]he proponents of the Constitution ... made it quite clear that the elimination or amelioration of difficulties with credit was the principal reason for having the alienage and diversity jurisdictions, and that it was one of the most important reasons for a federal judiciary.” Holt, supra, at 1473. This is how James Wilson put it during the debates at the Pennsylvania ratification convention:
“Let us suppose the case, that a wicked law is made in some one of the states, enabling a debtor to pay his creditor with the fourth, fifth, or sixth part of the real value of the debt, and this creditor, a foreigner, complains to his prince ... of the injustice that has been done him_ Bound by inclination, as well as duty, to redress the wrong his subject sustains ... [h]e must therefore apply to the United States; the United States must be accountable. ‘My subject has received a flagrant injury: do me justice, or I will do myself justice.’ If the United States are answerable for the injury, ought they not to possess the means of compelling the faulty state to repair it? They ought; and this is what is done here. For now, if complaint is made in consequence of such injustice, Congress can answer, ‘Why did not your subject apply to the General Court...?’” 2 Debates on the Federal Constitution 493 (J. Elliot ed. 1876) (hereinafter Elliot’s Debates).
Wilson emphasized that in order to “extend our manufactures and our commerce” there would need to be a “proper security . . . provided for the regular discharge of contracts. This security cannot be obtained, unless we give the power of deciding upon those contracts to the general government.” Id., at 492. His concerns were echoed by James Madison: “We well know, sir, that foreigners cannot get justice done them in these courts, and this has prevented many wealthy gentlemen from trading or residing among us.” 3 id., at 583. Madison also remarked that alienage jurisdiction was necessary to “avoid controversies with foreign powers” so that a single State’s courts would not “drag the whole community into war.” Id., at 534; see also The Federalist No. 80, p. 536 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton) (“[A]n unjust sentence against a foreigner [may] be an aggression upon his sovereign” rendering alienage jurisdiction “essential to . . . the security of the public tranquility”).
Thus, the First Congress granted federal courts the alien-age jurisdiction authorized in the Constitution, even while general federal-question jurisdiction was withheld. See Judiciary Act of 1789, ch. 20, § 11,1 Stat. 78 (providing for jurisdiction where “an alien is a party” and more than $500 in controversy). The language of the statute was amended in 1875 to track Article III by replacing the word “aliens” with “citizens, or subjects,” Act of Mar. 3, 1875,18 Stat. 470, the phrase that remains today. Although there is no need here to decide whether the current drafting provides jurisdiction up to the constitutional hilt, cf. Tennessee v. Union & Planters’ Bank, 152 U. S. 454 (1894) (despite similar language, federal-question jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1331 does not extend as far as Article III), there is no doubt that the similarity of § 1332(a)(2) to Article III bespeaks a shared purpose.
The relationship between the BVI’s powers over corporations and the sources of those powers in Crown and Parliament places the United Kingdom well within the range of concern addressed by Article III and § 1332(a)(2). ■ The United Kingdom exercises ultimate authority over the BVI’s statutory law, including its corporate law and the law of corporate charter, and it exercises responsibility for the BVI’s external relations. These exercises of power and responsibility point to just the kind of relationship that the Framers believed would bind sovereigns “by inclination, as well as duty, to redress the wrong[s]” against their nationals, 2 Elliot’s Debates 493 (J. Wilson). See J. Jones, British Nationality Law and Practice 288 (1947) (“It is the practice of His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom to protect, as against foreign Powers,... [Corporations owing their existence to the law in force in the United Kingdom and colonies”). Any doubters may consult the United Kingdom’s own filings in this matter and others comparable, which express apprehension that expulsion of corporations like Traffic Stream from federal courts would cloud investment opportunity and raise the sort of threat to “the security of the public tranquility” that the Framers hoped to avoid. See, e.g., Brief for Government of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as Amicus Curiae; Diplomatic Note No. 13/2000 from British Embassy in Washington, D. C., to U; S. State Dept., Feb. 2, 2000, Lodging 29, p. 1 (available in Clerk of Court’s case file); Diplomatic Note No. 90/2001 from the British Embassy in Washington, D. C., to the U. S. State Dept., Oct. 5, 2002, App. to Motion to File Brief as Amicus Curiae for Government of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland la.
B
Traffic Stream’s alternative argument is that BVI corporations are not “citizens or subjects” of the United Kingdom. Traffic Stream begins with the old fiction that a corporation is just an association of shareholders, presumed to reside in the place of incorporation, see, e. g., Tugman, 106 U. S., at 120-121, with the result that, for jurisdictional purposes, a suit against the corporation should be understood as a suit against the shareholders, see id., at 121. Traffic Stream proceeds to read the British Nationality Act, 1981, as a declaration by the United Kingdom that BVI residents are not its citizens or subjects, but mere “nationals,” without the rights and privileges of citizens or subjects, such as the right to travel freely within the United Kingdom. See I. Macdonald & N. Blake, Macdonald’s Immigration Law and Practice in the United Kingdom 130-131 (4th ed. 1995) (describing categories of United Kingdom citizenship). Traffic Stream insists that because it is legally nothing more than a collection of noncitizen individuals, the corporation itself cannot be treated as deserving of access to the courts of the United States under a statute that opens them to foreign citizens and subjects.
The less important flaw in the argument is its reliance on the outdated legal construct of corporations as collections of shareholders linked by contract, see M. Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law 1870-1960, pp. 69-93 (1992), a view long since replaced by the conception of corporations as independent legal entities, see id., at 93-107. Thus, Traffic Stream’s whole notion of corporate citizenship derived from natural persons is irrelevant to jurisdictional enquiry in the United States today.
But the argument’s more significant weakness is its failure to recognize that jurisdictional analysis under the law of the United States is not ultimately governed by the law of the United Kingdom, whatever that may be. While it is perfectly true that “every independent nation [has the inherent right] to determine for itself... what classes of persons shall be entitled to its citizenship,” United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 668 (1898), our jurisdictional concern here is with the meaning of “citizen” and “subject” as those terms are used in § 1882(a)(2). In fact, we have no need even to decide whether Traffic Stream’s reading of the British Nationality Act is wrong, as the United Kingdom says it is, but only whether the status Traffic Stream claims under the Nationality Act would so operate on the law of the United States as to disqualify it from being a citizen or subject under the domestic statute before us here. We think there is nothing disqualifying.
Although the word “citizen” may imply (and in 1789 and 1875 may have implied) the enjoyment of certain basic rights and privileges, see Black’s Law Dictionary 237 (7th ed. 1999) (defining “citizen” as “entitled to enjoy all its civil rights and protections” of a community), a “subject” is merely “[o]ne who owes allegiance to a sovereign and is governed by that sovereign’s laws,” id., at 1438. Thus, contrary to Traffic Stream’s view, the text of § 1332(a)(2) has no room for the suggestion that members of a polity, under the authority of a sovereign, fail to qualify as “subjects” merely because they enjoy fewer rights than other members do. For good or ill, many societies afford greater rights to some of its members than others without any suggestion that the less favored ones have ceased to be “citizens or subjects.” And although some persons, like resident aliens, may live within a foreign state without being treated under American law as members of that particular polity, cf. Wong Kim Ark, supra, at 660 (“‘children . . . born in a place . . . then occupied ... by conquest, are still aliens’”), Traffic Stream concedes that BVI citizens are at least “nationals” of the United Kingdom. See Brief for Respondent 25. Given the object of the alien-age statute, as explained earlier, there is no serious question that “nationals” were meant to be amenable to the jurisdiction of the federal courts, leaving it immaterial for our purposes that the law of the United Kingdom may provide different rights of abode for individuals in the territories.
III
Because our opinion accords with the positions taken by the Governments of the United Kingdom, the BVI, and the United States, the case presents no issue of deference that may be due to the various interested governments. It is enough to hold that the United Kingdom’s retention and exercise of authority over the BVI renders BVI citizens, both natural and juridic, “citizens or subjects” of the United Kingdom under 28 U. S. C. § 1332(a). We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
In 1998, the Government of the United Kingdom announced that its “ ‘Dependent Territories’ ” would, from that point on, be known as “ ‘Overseas Territories.’ ” Apparently the change of name implied nothing more. Lodging, Amended Brief for Government of United .Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as Amicus Curiae in No. 99-10385 (CA5), p. 7, n. 2 (available in Clerk of Court’s case file).
Ironically, in passing the British Nationality Act, 1981, c. 61, § 36, the United Kingdom identified one goal as “reducing statelessness.”
Indeed, Congress itself rejected the earlier rule in 1958 when it provided that “a corporation shall be deemed to be a citizen of any State by which it has been incorporated and of the State where it has its principal place of business.” 28 U. S. C. § 1332(c)(1). There has been raised some question as to whether § 1332(c) applies to foreign, as well as domestic, corporations, although those Circuits that have reached the issue are in agreement that § 1332(c) extends to alien corporations. See Danjaq, S. A. v. Pathe Communications Corp., 979 F. 2d 772, 773-774 (CA9 1992); Vareka Investment, N. V. v. American Investment Properties, Inc., 724 F. 2d 907, 909 (CA11 1984); Jerguson v. Blue Dot Investment, Inc., 659 F. 2d 31, 35 (CA5 1981). There is no need for us to weigh in on this point.
See Brief for Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as Amicus Curiae 12-13.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On the night of November 11, 1983, a twin-engine plane carrying petitioner’s husband and two of her children struck electric transmission lines during its approach to a San Diego, California, airfield. No one survived the resulting crash. Petitioner brought a tort action in state court, claiming that San Diego Gas and Electric Company had negligently positioned and inadequately illuminated the transmission lines, and that the city of San Diego’s negligent maintenance of the airport’s runway lights had rendered them inoperative the night of the crash. When she later discovered that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was in fact the party responsible for the runway lights, petitioner filed the present action against the United States in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. The complaint based jurisdiction upon the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U. S. C. § 1346(b), alleging negligence in the FAA’s operation and maintenance of the runway lights and performance of air traffic control functions. Almost a year later, she moved to amend the federal complaint to include claims against the original state-court defendants, as to which no independent basis for federal jurisdiction existed. The District Court granted petitioner’s motion and asserted “pendent” jurisdiction under Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715 (1966), finding it “clear” that “judicial economy and efficiency” favored trying the actions together, and concluding that they arose “from a common nucleus of operative facts.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A-8 to A-9. The District Court certified an interlocutory appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit under 28 U. S. C. § 1292(b). That court summarily reversed on the basis of its earlier opinion in Ayala v. United States, 550 F. 2d 1196 (1977), cert. dism’d, 435 U. S. 982 (1978), which had categorically rejected pendent-party jurisdiction under the FTCA. We granted certiorari, 488 U. S. 815 (1988), to resolve a split among the Circuits on whether the FTCA permits an assertion of pendent jurisdiction over additional parties. Compare, e. g., Ayala v. United States, supra, with Lykins v. Pointer, Inc., 725 F. 2d 645 (CA11 1984), and Stewart v. United States, 716 F. 2d 755 (CA10 1982), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 1018 (1984).
The FTCA provides that “the district courts . . . shall have exclusive jurisdiction of civil actions on claims against the United States” for certain torts of federal employees acting within the scope of their employment. 28 U. S. C. § 1346(b). Petitioner seeks to append her claims against the city and the utility to her FTCA action against the United States, even though this would require the District Court to extend its authority to additional parties for whom an independent jurisdictional base — such as diversity of citizenship, 28 U. S. C. § 1332(a)(1) — is lacking.
In 1807 Chief Justice Marshall wrote for the Court that “courts which are created by written law, and whose jurisdiction is defined by written law, cannot transcend that jurisdiction. It is unnecessary to state the reasoning on which this opinion is founded, because it has been repeatedly given by this court; and with the decisions heretofore rendered on this point, no member of the bench has, even for an instant, been dissatisfied.” Ex parte Bollman, 4 Cranch 75, 93 (1807). It remains rudimentary law that “[a]s regards all courts of the United States inferior to this tribunal, two things are necessary to create jurisdiction, whether original or appellate. The Constitution must have given to the court the capacity to take it, and an act of Congress must have supplied it. . . . To the extent that such action is not taken, the power lies dormant.” The Mayor v. Cooper, 6 Wall. 247, 252 (1868) (emphasis added); accord, Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Co., 486 U. S. 800, 818 (1988); Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Risjord, 449 U. S. 368, 379-380 (1981); Kline v. Burke Construction Co., 260 U. S. 226, 233-234 (1922); Case of the Sewing Machine Companies, 18 Wall. 553, 577-578, 586-587 (1874); Sheldon v. Sill, 8 How. 441, 449 (1850); Cary v. Curtis, 3 How. 236, 245 (1845); McIntire v. Wood, 7 Cranch 504, 506 (1813).
Despite this principle, in a line of cases by now no less well established we have held, without specific examination of jurisdictional statutes, that federal courts have “pendent” claim jurisdiction — that is, jurisdiction over nonfederal claims between parties litigating other matters properly before the court — to the full extent permitted by the Constitution. Mine Workers v. Gibbs, supra; Hurn v. Oursler, 289 U. S. 238 (1933); Siler v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 213 U. S. 175 (1909). Gibbs, which has come to stand for the principle in question, held that “[pjendent jurisdiction, in the sense of judicial power, exists whenever there is a claim ‘arising under [the] Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority . . . ,’ U. S. Const., Art. III, §2, and the relationship between that claim and the state claim permits the conclusion that the entire action before the court comprises but one constitutional ‘case.’” 383 U. S., at 725 (emphasis in original). The requisite relationship exists, Gibbs said, when the federal and nonfederal claims “derive from a common nucleus of operative fact” and are such that a plaintiff “would ordinarily be expected to try them in one judicial proceeding.” Ibid. Petitioner contends that the same criterion applies here, leading to the result that her state-law claims against San Diego Gas and Electric Company and the city of San Diego may be heard in conjunction with her FTCA action against the United States.
Analytically, petitioner’s case is fundamentally different from Gibbs in that it brings into question what has become known as pendent-party jurisdiction, that is, jurisdiction over parties not named in any claim that is independently cognizable by the federal court. We may assume, without deciding, that the constitutional criterion for pendent-party jurisdiction is analogous to the constitutional criterion for pendent-claim jurisdiction, and that petitioner’s state-law claims pass that test. Our cases show, however, that with respect to the addition of parties, as opposed to the addition of only claims, we will not assume that the full constitutional power has been congressionally authorized, and will not read jurisdictional statutes broadly. In Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291, 301 (1973), we refused to allow a plaintiff pursuing a diversity action worth less than the jurisdictional minimum of $10,000 to append his claim to the jurisdictionally adequate diversity claims of other members of a plaintiff class — even though all of the claims would together have amounted to a single “case” under Gibbs, see Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365, 372 (1978). We based this holding upon “the statutes defining the jurisdiction of the District Court,” 414 U. S., at 292, and did not so much as mention Gibbs.
Two years later, the nontransferability of Gibbs to pendent-party claims was made explicit. In Aldinger v. Howard, 427 U. S. 1 (1976), the plaintiff brought federal claims under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against individual defendants, and sought to append to them a related state claim against Spokane County, Washington. (A federal § 1983 claim was unavailable against the county because of this Court’s decision in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167 (1961).) We specifically disapproved application of the Gibbs mode of analysis, finding a “significant legal difference.” 427 U. S., at 15. “[T]he addition of a completely new party,” we said, “would run counter to the well-established principle that federal courts . . . are courts of limited jurisdiction marked out by Congress. ” Ibid. “Resolution of a claim of pendent-party jurisdiction . . . calls for careful attention to the relevant statutory language.” Id., at 17. We held in Aldinger that the jurisdictional statute under which suit was brought, 28 U. S. C. § 1343, which conferred district court jurisdiction over civil actions of certain types “authorized by law to be commenced,” did not mean to include as “authorized by law” a state-law claim against a party that had been statutorily insulated from similar federal suit. The county had been “excluded from liability in § 1983, and therefore by reference in the grant of jurisdiction under § 1343(3).” Ibid, (emphasis in original).
We reaffirmed and further refined our approach to pendent-party jurisdiction in Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, supra, at 372-375 — a case, like Zahn, involving the diversity statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1332(a)(1), but focusing on the requirement that the suit be “between . . . citizens of different states,” rather than the requirement that it “excee[d] the sum or value of $10,000.” We held that the jurisdiction which § 1332(a)(1) confers over a “matter in controversy” between a plaintiff and defendant of diverse citizenship cannot be read to confer pendent jurisdiction over a different, non-diverse defendant, even if the claim involving that other defendant meets the Gibbs test. “Gibbs,” we said, “does not end the inquiry into whether a federal court has power to hear the nonfederal claims along with the federal ones. Beyond this constitutional minimum, there must be an examination of the posture in which the nonfederal claim is asserted and of the specific statute that confers jurisdiction over the federal claim,” 437 U. S., at 373.
The most significant element of “posture” or of “context,” id., at 376, in the present case (as in Zahn, Aldinger, and Kroger) is precisely that the added claims involve added parties over whom no independent basis of jurisdiction exists. While in a narrow class of cases a federal court may assert authority over such a claim “ancillary” to jurisdiction otherwise properly vested — for example, when an additional party has a claim upon contested assets within the court’s exclusive control, see, e. g., Krippendorf v. Hyde, 110 U. S. 276 (1884); Freeman v. Howe, 24 How. 450, 460 (1861), or when necessary to give effect to the court’s judgment, see, e. g., Local Loan Co. v. Hunt, 292 U. S. 234, 239 (1934); Julian v. Central Trust Co., 193 U. S. 93, 112-114 (1904) — we have never reached such a result solely on the basis that the Gibbs test has been met. And little more basis than that can be relied upon by petitioner here. As in Kroger, the relationship between petitioner’s added claims and the original complaint is one of “mere factual similarity,” which is of no consequence since “neither the convenience of the litigants nor considerations of judicial economy can suffice to justify extension of the doctrine of ancillary jurisdiction,” 437 U. S., at 376-377. It is true that here,, unlike in Kroger, see id., at 376, the party seeking to bring the added claims had little choice but to be in federal rather than state court, since the FTCA permits the Federal Government to be sued only there. But that alone is not enough, since we have held that suits against the United States under the Tucker Act, 24 Stat. 505 (which can of course be brought only in federal court, see 28 U. S. C. §§ 1346(a)(2), 1491(a)(1)), cannot include private defendants. United States v. Sherwood, 312 U. S. 584 (1941).
The second factor invoked by Kroger, the text of the jurisdictional statute at issue, likewise fails to establish petitioner’s case. The FTCA, § 1346(b), confers jurisdiction over “civil actions on claims against the United States.” It does not say “civil actions on claims that include requested relief against the United States,” nor “civil actions in which there is a claim against the United States” — formulations one might expect if the presence of a claim against the United States constituted merely a minimum jurisdictional requirement, rather than a definition of the permissible scope of FTCA actions. Just as the statutory provision “between . . . citizens of different States” has been held to mean citizens of different States and no one else, see Kroger, supra, so also here we conclude that “against the United States” means against the United States and no one else. “Due regard for the rightful independence of state governments . . . requires that [federal courts] scrupulously confine their own jurisdiction to the precise limits which the statute has defined.” Healy v. Ratta, 292 U. S. 263, 270 (1934); accord, Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. Cleveland, 409 U. S. 249, 272-273 (1972); Shamrock Oil & Gas Corp. v. Sheets, 313 U. S. 100, 108-109 (1941). The statute here defines jurisdiction in a manner that does not reach defendants other than the United States.
Petitioner contends, however, that an affirmative grant of pendent-party jurisdiction is suggested by changes made to the jurisdictional grant of the FTC A as part of the comprehensive 1948 revision of the Judicial Code. See Pub. L. 773, 62 Stat. 869. In its earlier form, the FTCA had conferred upon district courts “exclusive jurisdiction to hear, determine, and render judgment on any claim against the United States” for specified torts. 28 U. S. C. §931 (1946 ed.) (emphasis added). In the 1948 revision, this provision was changed to “exclusive jurisdiction of civil actions on claims against the United States.” 28 U. S. C. § 1346(b) (1952 ed.) (emphasis added). Petitioner argues that this broadened the scope of the statute, permitting the assertion of jurisdiction over any “civil action,” so long as that action includes a claim against the United States. We disagree.
Under established canons of statutory construction, “it will not be inferred that Congress, in revising and consolidating the laws, intended to change their effect unless such intention is clearly expressed.” Anderson v. Pacific Coast S. S. Co., 225 U. S. 187, 199 (1912); see United States v. Ryder, 110 U. S. 729, 740 (1884). Concerning the 1948 recodification of the Judicial Code in particular, we have stated that “no changes in law or policy are to be presumed from changes of language in the revision unless an intent to make such changes is clearly expressed.” Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Products Corp., 353 U. S. 222, 227 (1957); see Tidewater Oil Co. v. United States, 409 U. S. 151, 162 (1972). We have found no suggestion, much less a clear expression, that the minor rewording at issue here imported a substantive change.
The change from “claim against the United States” to “civil actions on claims against the United States” would be a strange way to express the substantive revision asserted by petitioner — but a perfectly understandable way to achieve another objective. The 1948 recodification came relatively soon after the adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which provide that “[t]here shall be one form of action to be known as ‘civil action.’ ” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 2. Consistent with this new terminology, the 1948 revision inserted the expression “civil action” throughout the provisions governing district-court jurisdiction. See H. R. Rep. No. 308, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., App. A114-A125 (1947) (Reviser’s Notes).
Reliance upon the 1948 recodification also ignores the fact that the concept of pendent-party jurisdiction was not considered remotely viable until Gibbs liberalized the concept of pendent-claim jurisdiction — nearly 20 years later. See 13B C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure §3567.2, pp. 146-148 (2d ed. 1984); Miller, Ancillary and Pendent Jurisdiction, 26 S. Tex. L. J. 1, 11 (1985). Indeed, in 1948 even a relatively limited substantive expansion of pendent-c£aim. jurisdiction with respect to unfair competition actions provoked considerable discussion, see Wechsler, Federal Jurisdiction and the Revision of the Judicial Code, 13 Law & Contemp. Prob. 216, 232 (1948); Note, The Proposed Revision of the Federal Judicial Code, 60 Harv. L. Rev. 424, 430-431 (1947), and was described by the chief reviser as one of a dozen “major changes of law” effected by his handiwork, W. Barron, The Judicial Code 1948 Revision, 8 F. R. D. 439, 441-445 (1949). That change, in the already accepted realm of pendent-claim jurisdiction, was accomplished by wording that could not be mistaken, referring to “any civil action asserting a claim of unfair competition when joined with a substantial and related claim under the copyright, patent, or trademark laws.” § 1338(b), 62 Stat. 931. It is inconceivable that the much more radical change of adopting pendent-party jurisdiction would have been effected by the minor and obscure change of wording at issue here — especially when that revision is more naturally understood as stylistic.
Because the FTCA permits the Government to be sued only in federal court, our holding that parties to related claims cannot necessarily be sued there means that the efficiency and convenience of a consolidated action will sometimes have to be forgone in favor of separate actions in state and federal courts. We acknowledged this potential consideration in Aldinger, 427 U. S., at 18, but now conclude that the present statute permits no other result.
* * *
As we noted at the outset, our cases do not display an entirely consistent approach with respect to the necessity that jurisdiction be explicitly conferred. The Gibbs line of cases was a departure from prior practice, and a departure that we have no intent to limit or impair. But Aldinger indicated that the Gibbs approach would not be extended to the pendent-party field, and we decide today to retain that line. Whatever we say regarding the scope of jurisdiction conferred by a particular statute can of course be changed by Congress. What is of paramount importance is that Congress be able to legislate against a background of clear interpretive rules, so that it may know the effect of the language it adopts. All our cases — Zahn, Aldinger, and Kroger — have held that a grant of jurisdiction over claims involving particular parties does not itself confer jurisdiction over additional claims by or against different parties. Our decision today reaffirms that interpretive rule; the opposite would sow confusion.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Justice Stevens apparently does not acknowledge the divergence in these lines of authority. Nothing else can explain the belief expressed in his dissent that there is force in the argument that “[i]f the Court’s demonstration [of lack of statutory authority] were controlling, Gibbs, Hurn, and Moore, as well as a good many other cases, were incorrectly decided. ” Post, at 572. For that is entirely canceled by the equally valid argument that, if lack of statutory authority were not controlling, Christianson, Firestone, Sewing Machine Companies, and Mclntire, as well as a good many other cases, were incorrectly decided.
Justice Stevens is thus mistaken to rely upon, post, at 559-560, n. 6, this Court’s decision in Moore v. New York Cotton Exchange, 270 U. S. 593 (1926). That case involved jurisdiction over a counterclaim brought by and against parties who were already properly before the court on other, federal-question grounds. His dissent generally ignores this distinction — a central distinction, as we shall later discuss — between new parties and parties already before the court.
Monroe v. Pape was later overruled by Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978).
This Court’s decision in Dewey v. West Fairmont Gas Coal Co., 123 U. S. 329 (1887), which Justice Stevens cites in his dissent, see post, at 560, n. 6, explicitly rested upon “ancillary” jurisdiction, citing Krippendorf v. Hyde, 110 U. S. 276 (1884), in support of its holding that “[t]he suit in equity was an exercise of jurisdiction . . . ancillary to that which it had already acquired in the action at law.” 123 U. S., at 333. In Dewey, the new defendant added in the equitable counterclaim was asserted to have been the recipient of a fraudulent conveyance from the insolvent plaintiff, and the counterclaim was brought under a West Virginia statute authorizing suits to set aside such conveyances in assistance of an anticipated judgment or decree against the conveying debtor. Any decree on the counterclaim would presumably have been worthless if the fraudulent conveyance could not have been recaptured.
Justice Stevens would distinguish Kroger (and Zahn v. International Paper Co., 414 U. S. 291 (1973)) from the present case on the ground that, where Congress “has unequivocally indicated its intent that the federal right be litigated in a federal forum, there is reason to believe that Congress did not intend that the substance of the federal right be diminished by the increased costs in efficiency and convenience of litigation in two forums.” Post, at 577. It seems to us, however, that one could say precisely the same thing about the diversity jurisdiction involved in Kroger and Zahn: When Congress has unequivocally indicated its intent that a plaintiff have a right to bring a diversity action in federal court, there is reason to believe that Congress did not intend that the substance of that right be diminished, etc. We simply do not agree with the inference, in either context.
Justice Stevens says that “it is perfectly clear that the District Court has . . . statutory power to decide this case,” post, at 560 — which is true if one means this case against the United States. His dissent then continues, however, “[i]t is also undisputed that this power will not be defeated by the joinder of two private defendants,” ibid., supporting that statement by references to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 14(a) and 20(a), which permit the impleader and joinder of parties, post, at 560-561. Unfortunately, the proposition in that second sentence is disputed. Indeed, it is what this case is all about. More precisely, it is not that the “statutory power to decide this case” is defeated by the joinder of a private party for purposes of a claim over which the District Court has no independent jurisdiction, but that the statutory power to decide a case including such a claim simply does not exist, since the FTCA provides jurisdiction only for claims against the United States. Rules 14(a) and 20(a) in no way alter that reality, since the Federal Rules explicitly provide that they “shall not be construed to extend . . . the jurisdiction of the United States district courts,” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 82.
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.
An alien who is “sentenced more than once” to imprisonment for a term of one year or more because of conviction in this country of a crime involving moral turpitude committed after his entry shall, with exceptions not material here, be deported. Section 19 (a) of the Immigration Act of February 5, 1917, 39 Stat. 889, as amended 54 Stat. 671, 8 U. S. C. § 155 (a). It appears that petitioner, a native of China, was convicted of murder under each of two counts of an indictment, one count charging the murder of one Lai Quan, the other charging the murder on or about the same date of one Ong Kim. The jury fixed the punishment for each murder at life imprisonment. He was thereupon sentenced to prison for the period of his natural life by one judgment, construed by the Circuit Court of Appeals to impose that sentence on him for each of the convictions. Sometime thereafter a warrant for his deportation to China issued. Later he wras paroled, released from prison, and taken into the custody of the Immigration Service. He then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the legality of his detention. The District Court denied the petition on the authority of Nishimoto v. Nagle, 44 F. 2d 304. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. 162 F. 2d 663. The case is here on a petition for a writ of certiorari which we granted because of the contrariety of views among the circuits concerning the meaning of the statutory words, “sentenced more than once.”
“. . . except as hereinafter provided, any alien who is hereafter sentenced to imprisonment for a term of one year or more because of conviction in this country of a crime involving moral turpitude, committed within five years after the entry of the alien to the United States, or who is hereafter sentenced more than once to. such a term of imprisonment because of conviction in this country of any crime involving moral turpitude, committed at any time after entry . . . shall,' upon the warrant of the Attorney General, be taken into custody and deported. . . . The provision of this section respecting the deportation of aliens convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude shall not apply to one who has been pardoned, nor shall such deportation be made or directed if the court, or judge thereof, sentencing such alien for such crime shall, at the time of imposing judgment or passing sentence or within thirty days thereafter, due notice having first been given to representatives of the State, make a recommendation to the Attorney General that such alien shall not be deported in pursuance of this Act; nor shall any alien convicted as aforesaid be deported until after the termination of his imprisonment . . . .”
The Ninth Circuit view is that a conviction and sentence for more than one offense, whether at the same or different times and whether carrying concurrent or consecutive sentences, satisfy the statute. That was the position taken in Nishimoto v. Nagle, supra, and followed below. The Second Circuit holds that an alien who is given consecutive sentences is sentenced more than once, while an alien who is given concurrent sentences is not, even though the crimes are distinct. Johnson v. United States, 28 F. 2d 810; United States ex rel. Mignozzi v. Day, 51 F. 2d 1019. The Fourth Circuit takes the position that the statute is satisfied whether or not the sentences imposed run concurrently or consecutively provided that the two crimes which are committed and for which separate sentences are imposed arise out of separate transactions. Tassari v. Schmucker, 53 F. 2d 570. The Fifth Circuit takes the view that an alien is “sentenced once when, after a conviction or plea of guilty, he is called before the bar and receives judgment, whether for one or several crimes, with one or several terms of imprisonment. He is sentenced more than once when that happens again.” Wallis v. Tecchio, 65 F. 2d 250, 252. That view is an adaptation of the position taken earlier by a District Court in the same circuit that Congress by this provision aimed to deport “repeaters,” viz. “persons who commit a crime and are sentenced, and then commit another and are sentenced again.” Opolich v. Fluckey, 47 F. 2d 950.
The latter is the reading we give the statute. There is a trace of that purpose found in its legislative history. Congressman Sabath who proposed the provision as an amendment said it was aimed at the alien “who is a criminal at heart, a man who is guilty of a second offense involving moral turpitude and for the second time is convicted.” 53 Cong. Rec. 5167. Congressman Burnett, who was in charge of the bill on the floor of the House, gave the same emphasis when he said that the amendment proposed “that those who committed a second crime involving moral turpitude showed then a criminal heart and a criminal tendency, and they should then be deported.” Id., p. 5168. The Committee Report in the Senate put the matter into sharper focus when it stated that the provision was “intended to reach the alien who after entry shows himself to be a criminal of the confirmed type.” S. Rep. No. 352, 64th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 15. Perhaps the plainest “confirmed type” of criminal is the repeater. We give expression to that view by reading this provision of the statute to authorize deportation only where an alien having committed a crime involving moral turpitude and having been convicted and sentenced, once again commits a crime of that nature and is convicted and sentenced for it.
We resolve the doubts in favor of that construction because deportation is a drastic measure and at times the equivalent of banishment or exile, Delgadillo v. Carmichael, 332 U. S. 388. It is the forfeiture for misconduct of a residence in this country. Such a forfeiture is a penalty. To construe this statutory provision less generously to the alien might find support in logic. But since the stakes are considerable for the individual, we will not assume that Congress meant to trench on his freedom beyond that which is required by the narrowest of several possible meanings of the words used.
Reversed.
Section 19 (a) so far as material here provides:
Whether the two murders resulted from one act or from two does not appear.
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 question before us arises in an admiralty proceeding by a seaman against his employer to recover wages earned on a merchant vessel of United States registry. The question is whether the employer may set off against the seaman’s wages its expenditures for the medical care and hospitalization of another member of the crew necessitated by injuries inflicted on him by the seaman, without justification, during the voyage on which the wages were earned. For the reasons hereafter stated we hold that it may not do so.
In 1948, respondent, Johnson, was employed by petitioner, Isbrandtsen Company, Inc., as a messman on a foreign voyage of a vessel of United States registry, chartered by petitioner. On April 21, while the vessel was on its course in the Pacific, Johnson, without justification, stabbed Brandon, another member of the crew. He injured Brandon so severely that petitioner found it necessary to divert its vessel from its course in order to hospitalize Brandon on the Island of Tonga. Johnson makes no claim for wages earned after April 21. However, when discharged in Philadelphia, May 31, 1948, Johnson claimed $439.27 as earned wages due him above all deductions, without making allowance for any expenditures made by petitioner for the care or hospitalization of Brandon. When petitioner refused to pay Johnson anything, he filed a libel and complaint in the United States District Court to recover the balance due on his earned wages, plus interest, transportation to Seattle (his port of signing on) and double wages for each day of unlawful delay in the payment of the sum due. Petitioner set up a counterclaim of $2,500, later reduced to $1,691.55, for expenses and losses caused it by Johnson’s attack on Brandon. It contended also that the nature of this defense demonstrated the existence of sufficient statutory cause for its delay in making payment.
The District Court disallowed petitioner’s counterclaim and entered judgment for respondent’s earned wages and transportation allowance, plus interest and costs. It disallowed respondent’s claim for double wages. 91 F. Supp. 872. Petitioner appealed but the Court of Appeals affirmed. 190 F. 2d 991. We granted certiorari because the decision below presents an important question of maritime law not heretofore determined by this Court. 342 U. S. 940.
Petitioner cites several early lower court decisions which allowed a set-off against a seaman’s suit for wages. These were largely rendered before the Shipping Commissioners Act of 1872 or rendered later without discussion of that or subsequent legislation. We are convinced, however, that the legislation passed by Congress for the protection of seamen, beginning in 1872, has now covered this field. Petitioner’s set-off is not prescribed, recognized or permitted by such legislation. So far as that legislation goes, such a set-off is not available as a defense against a seaman’s claim for earned wages. R. S. § 4547, 30 Stat. 756, 46 U. S. C. § 604. On the other hand, the absence of such authorization for the employer to set off such a counterclaim does not preclude it from seeking to collect the claim otherwise.
For the purposes of this case, we may assume that petitioner owed Brandon the legal duty to provide him with the medical care and hospitalization which it provided and also owed him the duty to divert its vessel from its course to secure his hospitalization at Tonga. Aguilar v. Standard Oil Co., 318 U. S. 724, 730, 732-736. See Cortes v. Baltimore Insular Line, 287 U. S. 367, 375; Alpha S. S. Corp. v. Cain, 281 U. S. 642; Jamison v. Encarnacion, 281 U. S. 635. Also, we may assume, without deciding, that respondent owed petitioner an obligation to reimburse petitioner for the expense which he thus thrust upon it by his unjustified attack upon a fellow seaman.
Whenever congressional legislation in aid of seamen has been considered here since 1872, this Court has emphasized that such legislation is largely remedial and calls for liberal interpretation in favor of the seamen. The history and scope of the legislation is reviewed in Aguilar v. Standard Oil Co., 318 U. S. 724, 727-735, and notes. “Our historic national policy, both legislative and judicial, points the other way [from burdening seamen]. Congress has generally sought to safeguard seamen’s rights.” Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co., 317 U. S. 239, 246. “[T]he maritime law by inveterate tradition has made the ordinary seaman a member of a favored class. He is a 'ward of the admiralty,’ often ignorant and helpless, and so in need of protection against himself as well as others. . . . Discrimination may thus be rational in respect of remedies for wages.” Warner v. Goltra, 293 U. S. 155, 162; Cortes v. Baltimore Insular Line, 287 U. S. 367, 375, 377; Wilder v. Inter-Island Navigation Co., 211 U. S. 239, 246-248; Patterson v. Bark Eudora, 190 U. S. 169; Brady v. Daly, 175 U. S. 148, 155-157. “The ancient characterization of seamen as ‘wards of admiralty’ is even more accurate now than it was formerly.” Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275, 287; Harden v. Gordon, 11 Fed. Cas. No. 6,047, 2 Mason (Cir. Ct. Rep.) 541, 556.
Statutes which invade the common law or the general maritime law are to be read with a presumption favoring the retention of long-established and familiar principles, except when a statutory purpose to the contrary is evident. No rule of construction precludes giving a natural meaning to legislation like this that obviously is of a remedial, beneficial and amendatory character. It should be interpreted so as to effect its purpose. Marine legislation, at least since the Shipping Commissioners Act of June 7, 1872, 17 Stat. 262, should be construed to make effective its design to change the general maritime law so as to improve the lot of seamen. “The rule that statutes in derogation of the common law are to be strictly construed does not require such an adherence to the letter as would defeat an obvious legislative purpose or lessen the scope plainly intended to be given to the measure.” Jamison v. Encarnacion, 281 U. S. 635, 640; Texas & P. R. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426, 437, 440. The direction of the current of maritime legislation long has been evident on its face.
“In this country these notions were reflected early, and have since been expanded, in legislation designed to secure the comfort and health of seamen aboard ship, hospitalization at home and care abroad. . . . The legislation . . . gives no ground for making inferences adverse to the seaman or restrictive of his rights. . . . Rather it furnishes the strongest basis for regarding them broadly, when an issue concerning their scope arises, and particularly when it relates to the general character of relief the legislation was intended to secure.” Aguilar v. Standard Oil Co., 318 U. S. 724, 728-729.
In the specific area of a seaman’s right to collect his earned wages promptly upon discharge, § 61 of the Shipping Commissioners Act provided that “no wages due or accruing to any seaman or apprentice shall be subject to attachment or arrestment from any court; . . . .” 17 Stat. 276, R. S. § 4536, 38 Stat. 1169, 46 U. S. C. § 601. The full force of this became evident when this Court, in 1908, interpreted “attachment” and “arrestment” to mean that the Act prohibits the seizure of a seaman’s earned wages even by levying execution against them to collect valid judgments. Wilder v. Inter-Island Navigation Co., 211 U. S. 239; see 1 Norris, The Law of Seamen (1951), 347-350.
Congressional legislation now touches nearly every phase of a seaman’s life. It concerns itself with his personal safety, comfort and health in many ways not necessary to review here. It deals specifically with his shipping articles and the payment to him of his wages. It insures generally a partial payment to him of his wages at each port where his vessel loads or delivers cargo. It insures the payment to him of the balance of those wages upon completion of his voyage or shortly after his discharge. It deals explicitly with the final payment of wages. It describes “forfeitures” which lawfully may be deducted from a seaman’s wages “for the benefit of the master or owner by whom the wages are payable.” These provisions for the return of wages to the employer are remedial, rather than penal, in their nature. See Crawford, The Construction of Statutes (1940), 106.
In keeping with the spirit of such legislation and the need for clear rules governing the computation of the balance due each seaman upon his discharge, it is reasonable to hold that only such deductions and set-offs for derelictions in the performance of his duties shall be allowed against his wages as are recognized in the statutes. Other claims against him may be valid but their collection must be sought through other means. The appropriateness of this solution is emphasized in the case of un-liquidated counterclaims. Petitioner’s unliquidated claim was first estimated at $2,500. It now has been fixed at $1,691.55. The factors making up such a claim are largely within the control and knowledge of the employer alone and it easily could wipe out every cent of a seaman’s earned wages.
There is little substance to the suggestion that the expenses at issue can be brought within the statutorily recognized “forfeitures.” Assuming that Johnson’s attack amounted to a breach of general discipline, it hardly amounted to “willful disobedience to any lawful command at sea . . . .” R. S. § 4596, Fourth. Assuming that it caused expense to petitioner, it hardly amounted to “willfully damaging the vessel . . . or . . . any of the stores or cargo . . . .” R. S. § 4596, Seventh.
From this, we conclude that Congress has preempted the area relating to deductions and set-offs based upon derelictions of duty as against a seaman’s claim to his wages. Congress has gone so far in expressly listing such deductions and set-offs that it is a fair inference that those not listed may not be made. It thus remains for the courts to determine only what are the deductions or set-offs for derelictions of duty that are listed by Congress, rather than to determine which of the deductions or set-offs once known to the general maritime law Congress has failed to exclude. Congress, in effect, has excluded all of them except those which it has listed affirmatively.
Accordingly, the judgment is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Jackson dissents.
Under R. S. § 4529, as amended, 30 Stat. 756, 38 Stat. 1164, 46 U. S. C. § 596. See note 7, infra.
The latter sum is the stipulated amount of petitioner’s expenditures for hospitalization, medical care, repatriation and subsistence of Brandon, plus petitioner’s expenses for the diversion of its vessel to Tonga, including pilotage, manifests, harbor dues, fuel consumed and food for the crew.
See Collie v. Fergusson, 281 U. S. 52.
For the Shipping Commissioners Act, see 17 Stat. 262 et seq., Tit. LIII, R. S. §§ 4501-4612, 46 U. S. C., c. 18, §§ 541-713. The Act of July 20, 1790, 1 Stat. 131, in effect prior to 1872, was a limited forerunner of the expansive remedial legislation that followed. It did not attempt to cover the field to an extent comparable to that done by the later legislation. Accordingly, decisions rendered before 1872, recognizing an employer’s right of recoupment against seamen’s wages under general maritime law, are not authoritative guides today. The early cases are reviewed in 1 Norris, The Law of Seamen (1951), 378-391.
That appraisal was reaffirmed in Cortes v. Baltimore Insular Line, 287 U. S. 367, 377. Current testimony is added by the following statement:
“In my dealings with seamen, a class with whom I come in frequent contact, I find that they are perhaps better educated and better dressed than their fellows of a century ago, but, in general, as improvident and prone to the extremes of trust and suspicion as their forebears who ranged the seas, but withal a likeable lot.” 1 Norris, The Law of Seamen (1951), Preface.
In harbors of the United States this applies even to seamen on foreign vessels. R. S. § 4530, 30 Stat. 756, 38 Stat. 1165, 41 Stat. 1006, 46 U. S. C. § 597. Except as expressly provided by statute, no seaman may be paid in advance or may give up to others his personal right to his wages or his remedies for their recovery. 23 Stat. 55-56, 30 Stat. 763-764, 33 Stat. 308, 38 Stat. 1168-1169, 41 Stat. 1006, 53 Stat. 794, 64 Stat. 1081, 1239, 46 U. S. C. § 599, and 46 U. S. C. (Supp. IV) § 599 (b) (g); R. S. § 4535, 46 U. S. C. § 600. His wages are not subject to attachment or arrestment except for limited provisions for the support of a wife or minor children; allotments to relatives are restricted. R. S. § 4536, 17 Stat. 276, 38 Stat. 1169, 46 U. S. C. § 601. Payments in foreign ports are safeguarded through United States Consuls. R. S. §§ 4580, 4581, 4583, 23 Stat. 54-55, 30 Stat. 759, 38 Stat. 1185, 46 U. S. C. §§ 682, 683, 685.
“Sec. 4529. The master or owner of any vessel making coasting voyages shall pay to every seaman his wages within two days after the termination of the agreement under which he was shipped, or at the time such seaman is discharged, whichever first happens; and in case of vessels making foreign voyages, or from a port on the Atlantic to a port on the Pacific, or vice versa, within twenty-four hours after the cargo has been discharged, or within four days after the seaman has been discharged, whichever first happens; and in all cases the seaman shall be entitled to be paid at the time of his discharge on account of wages a sum equal to one-third part of the balance due him. Every master or owner who refuses or neglects to make payment in the manner hereinbefore mentioned without sufficient cause shall pay to the seaman a sum equal to two days’ pay for each and every day during which payment is delayed beyond the respective periods, which sum shall be recoverable as wages in any claim made before the court; but this section shall not apply to masters or owners of any vessel the seamen of which are entitled to share in the profits of the cruise or voyage.” R. S. § 4529, as amended, 38 Stat. 1164-1165, 46 U. S. C. § 596.
“Sec. 4596. Whenever any seaman who has been lawfully engaged or any apprentice to the sea service commits any of the following offenses, he shall be punished as follows:
“First. For desertion, by forfeiture of all or any part of the clothes or effects he leaves on board and of all or any part of the wages or emoluments which he has then earned.
“Second. For neglecting or refusing without reasonable cause to join his vessel or to proceed to sea in his vessel, or for absence without leave at any time within twenty-four hours of the vessel’s sailing from any port, either at the commencement or during the progress of the voyage, or for absence at any time without leave and without sufficient reason from his vessel and from his duty, not amounting to desertion, by forfeiture from his wages of not more than two days’ pay or sufficient to defray any expenses which shall have been properly incurred in hiring a substitute.
“Third. For quitting the vessel without leave, after her arrival at the port of her delivery and before she is placed in security, by forfeiture from his wages of not more than one month’s pay.
“Fourth. For willful disobedience to any lawful command at sea, by being, at the option of the master, placed in irons until such disobedience shall cease, and upon arrival in port by forfeiture from his wages of not more than four days’ pay, or, at the discretion of the court, by imprisonment for not more than one month.
“Fifth. For continued willful disobedience to lawful command or continued willful neglect of duty at sea, by being, at the option of the master, placed in irons, on bread and water, with full rations every fifth day, until such disobedience shall cease, and upon arrival in port by forfeiture, for every twenty-four hours’ continuance of such disobedience or neglect, of a sum of not more than twelve days’ pay, or by imprisonment for not more than three months, at the discretion of the court.
“Sixth. For assaulting any master, mate, pilot, engineer, or staff officer, by imprisonment for not more than two years.
“Seventh. For willfully damaging the vessel, or embezzling or willfully damaging any of the stores or cargo, by forfeiture out of his wages of a sum equal in amount to the loss thereby sustained, and also, at the discretion of the court, by imprisonment for not more than twelve months.
“Eighth. For any act of smuggling for which he is convicted and whereby loss or damage is occasioned to the master or owner, he shall be liable to pay such master or owner such a sum as is sufficient to reimburse the master or owner for such loss or damage, and the whole or any part of his wages may be retained in satisfaction or on account of such liability, and he shall be liable to imprisonment for a period of not more than twelve months.” R. S. § 4596, as amended, 38 Stat. 1166, 53 Stat. 1147, 46 U. S. C. § 701.
Special provision is made for forfeitures incident to desertion. They are to be applied “in the first instance, in payment of the expenses occasioned by such desertion, to the master or owner of the vessel from which the desertion has taken place The balance is to be paid by the master or owner to a government official to be disposed of in the same manner as in the case of a deceased seaman. “In all other cases of forfeiture of wages, the forfeiture shall be for the benefit of the master or owner by whom the wages are payable.” R. S. § 4604, 46 U. S. C. § 706.
Certain expenses unjustifiably forced upon his employer by a seaman are expressly made chargeable against his earned wages: Unjustified inspections of seaworthiness of the vessel, R. S. § 4562, 46 U. S. C. § 659; unjustified surveys of provisions and water, R. S. § 4566, as amended, 30 Stat. 758, 46 U. S. C. § 663; part of cost of securing conviction of seaman for offenses committed on the voyage, R. S. § 4605, 46 U. S. C. § 707.
“The above sections [46 U. S. C. §§ 596, 597, 600, 601, 682, 683 and 685] look towards payment to the seaman by his employer, at the termination of the employment, of all of his earned wages, without any deductions except those' which are expressly authorized by statute.
"While it is the general rule that a seaman discharged in a foreign port is entitled to receive his wages ‘without any deduction whatever’ of claims against him whether of his employer or of third parties, there are exceptions recognized by the maritime law and now embodied in statutes.” Shilman v. United States, 164 F. 2d 649, 650-651; and see Chambers v. Moore McCormack Lines, 182 F. 2d 747; Eldridge v. Isbrandtsen Co., 89 F. Supp. 718. Cf. Oldfield v. The Arthur P. Fairfield, 176 F. 2d 429.
See note 8, supra.
See note 8, supra. Johnson’s attack also was not an assault on “any master, mate, pilot, engineer, or staff officer” of the vessel. R. S. § 4596, Sixth, note 8, supra. Such an assault may lead to imprisonment of the offender but it entails no “forfeiture.” If no “forfeiture” may be set off against a seaman’s wages for expenses resulting to his employer from his assault upon a superior officer, there is little basis to imply congressional approval of a set-off against his wages to cover expenses resulting from his assault upon a fellow member of the crew not his superior.
For comparable reasons, petitioner’s counterclaim may not be set off against the allowance made to respondent for transportation to his port of signing on. That allowance is proportionately as important to him and to his welfare as is the balance due him for earned wages.
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.
Petitioner was convicted in the state trial court of violating a Wisconsin statute prohibiting the dissemination of “lewd, obscene or indecent written matter, picture, sound recording, or film.” Wis. Stat. § 944.21 (1) (a) (1969). He was sentenced to consecutive one-year terms in the Green Bay Reformatory and fined $1,000 on each of two counts. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin upheld his conviction against the contention that he had been deprived of freedom of the press in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. 51 Wis. 2d 668, 188 N. W. 2d 467.
Petitioner was the publisher of an underground newspaper called Kaleidoscope. In an issue published in May 1968, that newspaper carried a story entitled “The One Hundred Thousand Dollar Photos” on an interior page. The story itself was an account of the arrest of one of Kaleidoscope’s photographers on a charge of possession of obscene material. Two relatively small pictures, showing a nude man and nude woman embracing in a sitting position, accompanied the article and were described in the article as “similar” to those seized from the photographer. The article said that the photographer, while waiting in the district attorney’s office, had heard that bail might be set at $100,000. The article went on to say that bail had in fact been set originally at $100, then raised to $250, and that later the photographer had been released on his own recognizance. The article purported to detail police tactics that were described as an effort to “harass” Kaleidoscope and its staff.
Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476 (1957), held that obscenity was not protected under the First or Fourteenth Amendments. Material may be considered obscene when “to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest.” 354 U. S., at 489. In enunciating this test, the Court in Roth quoted from Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 101-102:
“The freedom of speech and of the press guaranteed by the Constitution embraces at the least the liberty to discuss publicly and truthfully all matters of public concern without previous restraint or fear of subsequent punishment. The exigencies of the colonial period and the efforts to secure freedom from oppressive administration developed a broadened conception of these liberties as adequate to supply the public need for information and education with respect to the significant issues of the times. . . (Emphasis supplied.)
We do not think it can fairly be said, either considering the article as it appears or the record before the state court, that the article was a mere vehicle for the publication of the pictures. A quotation from Voltaire in the flyleaf of a book will not constitutionally redeem an otherwise obscene publication, but if these pictures were indeed similar to the one seized — and we do not understand the State to contend differently — they are relevant to the theme of the article. We find it unnecessary to consider whether the State could constitutionally prohibit the dissemination of the pictures by themselves, because in the context in which they appeared in the newspaper they were rationally related to an article that itself was clearly entitled to the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. Thornhill v. Alabama, supra. The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for writ of certiorari are granted. The conviction on count one must therefore be reversed.
In its August 1968 issue, Kaleidoscope published a two-page spread consisting of 11 poems, one of which was entitled “Sex Poem.” The second count of petitioner’s conviction was for the dissemination of the newspaper containing this poem. The poem is an undisguisedly frank, play-by-play account of the author’s recollection of sexual intercourse. But, as the Both Court emphasized, “sex and obscenity are not synonymous. . . . The portrayal of sex, e. g., in art, literature and scientific works, is not itself sufficient reason to deny material the constitutional protection of freedom of speech and press.” 354 U. S., at 487. A reviewing court must, of necessity, look at the context of the material, as well as its content.
In this case, considering the poem’s content and its placement amid a selection of poems in the interior of a newspaper, we believe that it bears some of the earmarks of an attempt at serious art. While such earmarks are not inevitably a guarantee against a finding of obscenity, and while in this case many would conclude that the author's reach exceeded his grasp, this element must be considered in assessing whether or not the “dominant” theme of the material appeals to prurient interest. While “contemporary community standards,” Roth v. United States, 354 U. S., at 489, must leave room for some latitude of judgment, and while there is an undeniably subjective element in the test as a whole, the “dominance” of the theme is a question of constitutional fact. Giving due weight and respect to the conclusions of the trial court and to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, we do not believe that it can be said that the dominant theme of this poem appeals to prurient interest. The judgment on the second count, therefore, must also be reversed.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Stewart concurs in the judgment.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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.
The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The facts leading to this controversy are fully set forth in United States v. Alcea Band of Tillamooks, 329 U. S. 40 (1946), where this Court affirmed a judgment of the Court of Claims that certain named Indian tribes “are entitled to recover” compensation for the taking of original Indian title by the United States in 1855. The amount of recovery was reserved expressly for the further proceedings which are before the Court in this case. After the affirmance, the Court of Claims heard evidence on the amount of recovery and entered a judgment for the value of the lands as of 1855 plus interest from that date. 115 Ct. Cl. 463, 87 F. Supp. 938. We granted cer-tiorari limited to the question presented by the award of interest. 340 U. S. 873 (1950).
It is the “traditional rule” that interest on claims against the United States cannot be recovered in the absence of an express provision to the contrary in the relevant statute or contract. 28 U. S. C. (Supp. III) § 2516 (a). United States v. Thayer-West Point Hotel Co., 329 U. S. 585, 588 (1947), and cases cited therein. This rule precludes an award of interest even though a statute should direct an award of “just compensation” for a particular taking. United States v. Goltra, 312 U. S. 203 (1941). The only exception arises when the taking entitles the claimant to just compensation under the Fifth Amendment. Only in such cases does the award of compensation include interest. Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. United States, 261 U. S. 299 (1923); United States v. Thayer-West Point Hotel Co., supra.
Looking to the former opinions in this case, we find that none of them expressed the view that recovery was grounded on a taking under the Fifth Amendment. And, since the applicable jurisdictional Act, 49 Stat. 801 (1935), contains no provision authorizing an award of interest, such award must be
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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.
Judgment of the Court, and opinion of
Mr. Justice Stewart, Mr. Justice Powell, and Mr. Justice Stevens, announced by Mr. Justice Stevens.
The issue in this case is whether the imposition of the sentence of death for the crime of murder under the law of Texas violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.
I
The petitioner in this case, Jerry Lane Jurek, was charged by indictment with the killing of Wendy Adams “by choking and strangling her with his hands, and by drowning her in water by throwing her into a river . . . in the course of committing and attempting to commit kidnapping of and forcible rape upon the said Wendy Adams.”
The evidence at his trial consisted of incriminating statements made by the petitioner, the testimony of several people who saw the petitioner and the deceased during the day she was killed, and certain technical evidence. This evidence established that the petitioner, 22 years old at the time, had been drinking beer in the afternoon. He and two young friends later went driving together in his old pickup truck. The petitioner expressed a desire for sexual relations with some young girls they saw, but one of his companions said the girls were too young. The petitioner then dropped his two friends off at a pool hall. He was next seen talking to Wendy, who was 10 years old, at a public swimming pool where her grandmother had left her to swim. Other witnesses testified that they later observed a man resembling the petitioner driving an old pickup truck through town at a high rate of speed, with a young blond girl standing screaming in the bed of the truck. The last witness who saw them heard the girl crying “help me, help me.” The witness tried to follow them, but lost them in traffic. According to the petitioner’s statement, he took the girl to the river, choked her, and threw her unconscious body in the river. Her drowned body was found downriver two days later.
At the conclusion of the trial the jury returned a verdict of guilty.
Texas law requires that if a defendant has been convicted of a capital offense, the trial court must conduct a separate sentencing proceeding before the same jury that tried the issue of guilt. Any relevant evidence may be introduced at this proceeding, and both prosecution and defense may present argument for or against the sentence of death. The jury is then presented with two (sometimes three) questions, the answers to which determine whether a death sentence will be imposed.
During the punishment phase of the petitioner’s trial, several witnesses for the State testified to the petitioner’s bad reputation in the community. The petitioner’s father countered with testimony that the petitioner had always been steadily employed since he had left school and that he contributed to his family’s support.
The jury then considered the two statutory questions relevant to this case: (1) whether the evidence established beyond a reasonable doubt that the murder of the deceased was committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased or another would result, and (2) whether the evidence established beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society. The jury unanimously answered “yes” to both questions, and the judge, therefore, in accordance with the statute, sentenced the petitioner to death. The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas affirmed the judgment. . 522 S. W. 2d 934 (1975).
We granted certiorari, 423 U. S. 1082, to consider whether the imposition of the death penalty in this case violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.
II
The petitioner argues that the imposition of the death penalty under any circumstances is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. We reject this argument for the reasons stated today in Gregg v. Georgia, ante, at 168-187.
III
A
After this Court held Texas’ system for imposing capital punishment unconstitutional in Branch v. Texas, decided with Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238 (1972), the Texas Legislature narrowed the scope of its laws relating to capital punishment. The new Texas Penal Code limits capital homicides to intentional and knowing murders committed in five situations: murder of a peace officer or fireman; murder committed in the course of kidnaping, burglary, robbery, forcible rape, or arson; murder committed for remuneration; murder committed while escaping or attempting to escape from a penal institution; and murder committed by a prison inmate when the victim is a prison employee. See Tex. Penal Code § 19.03 (1974).
In addition, Texas adopted a new capital-sentencing procedure. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc., Art. 37.071 (Supp. 1975-1976). That procedure requires the jury to answer three questions in a proceeding that takes place subsequent to the return of a verdict finding a person guilty of one of the above categories of murder. The questions the jury must answer are these:
“(1) whether the conduct of the defendant that caused the death of the deceased was committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased or another would result;
“(2) whether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society; and
“(3) if raised by the evidence, whether the conduct of the defendant in killing the deceased was unreasonable in response to the provocation, if any, by the deceased.” Art. 37.071 (b) (Supp. 1975-1976).
If the jury finds that the State has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the answer to each of the three questions is yes, then the death sentence is imposed. If the jury finds that the answer to any question is no, then a sentence of life imprisonment results. Arts. 37.071 (c), (e) (Supp. 1975-1976). The law also provides for an expedited review by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. See Art. 37.071 (f) (Supp. 1975-1976).
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has thus far affirmed only two judgments imposing death sentences under its post-Forman law — in this case and in Smith v. State, No. 49,809 (Feb. 18, 1976) (rehearing pending; initially reported in advance sheet for 534 S. W. 2d but subsequently withdrawn from bound volume). In the present case the state appellate court noted that its law "limits the circumstances under which the State may seek the death penalty to a small group of narrowly defined and particularly brutal offenses. This insures that the death penalty will only be imposed for the most serious crimes [and] . . . that [it] will only be imposed for the same type of offenses which occur under the same types of circumstances.” 522 S. W. 2d, at 939.
While Texas has not adopted a list of statutory aggravating circumstances the existence of which can justify the imposition of the death penalty as have Georgia and Florida, its action in narrowing the categories of murders for which a death sentence may ever be imposed serves much the same purpose. See McGautha v. California, 402 U. S. 183, 206 n. 16 (1971); Model Penal Code § 201.6, Comment 3, pp. 71-72 (Tent. Draft No. 9, 1959). In fact, each of the five classes of murders made capital by the Texas statute is encompassed in Georgia and Florida by one or more of their statutory aggravating circumstances. For example, the Texas statute requires the jury at the guilt-determining stage to consider whether the crime was committed in the course of a particular felony, whether it was committed for hire, or whether the defendant was an inmate of a penal institution at the time of its commission. Cf. Gregg v. Georgia, ante, at 165-166, n. 9; Proffitt v. Florida, ante, at 248-249, n. 6. Thus, in essence, the Texas statute requires that the jury find the existence of a statutory aggravating circumstance before the death penalty may be imposed. So far as consideration of aggravating circumstances is concerned, therefore, the principal difference between Texas and the other two States is that the death penalty is an available sentencing option — even potentially — for a smaller class of murders in Texas. Otherwise the statutes are similar. Each requires the sentencing authority to focus on the particularized nature of the crime.
But a sentencing system that allowed the jury to consider only aggravating circumstances would almost certainly fall short of providing the individualized sentencing determination that we today have held in Woodson v. North Carolina, post, at 303-305, to be required by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. For such a system would approach the mandatory laws that we today hold unconstitutional in Woodson and Roberts v. Louisiana, post, p. 325. A jury must be allowed to consider on the basis of all relevant evidence not only why a death sentence should be imposed, but also why it should not be imposed.
Thus, in order to meet the requirement of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, a capital-sentencing system must allow the sentencing authority to consider mitigating circumstances. In Gregg v. Georgia, we today hold constitutionally valid a capital-sentencing system that directs the jury to consider any mitigating factors, and in Proffitt v. Florida we likewise hold constitutional a system that directs the judge and advisory jury to consider certain enumerated mitigating circumstances. The Texas statute does not explicitly speak of mitigating circumstances; it directs only that the jury answer three questions. Thus, the constitutionality of the Texas procedures turns on whether the enumerated questions allow consideration of particularized mitigating factors.
The second Texas statutory question asks the jury to determine “whether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society” if he were not sentenced to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has yet to define precisely the meanings of such terms as “criminal acts of violence” or “continuing threat to society.” In the present case, however, it indicated that it will interpret this second question so as to allow a defendant to bring to the jury's attention whatever mitigating circumstances he may be able to show:
“In determining the likelihood that the defendant would be a continuing threat to society, the jury could consider whether the defendant had a significant criminal record. It could consider the range and severity of his prior criminal conduct. It could further look to the age of the defendant and whether or not at the time of the commission of the offense he was acting under duress or under the domination of another. It could also consider whether the defendant was under an extreme form of mental or emotional pressure, something less, perhaps, than insanity, but more than the emotions of the average man, however inflamed, could withstand.” 522 S. W. 2d, at 939-940.
In the only other case in which the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld a death sentence, it focused on the question of whether any mitigating factors were present in the case. See Smith v. State, No. 49,809 (Feb. 18, 1976). In that case the state appellate court examined the sufficiency of the evidence to see if a “yes” answer to question 2 should be sustained. In doing so it examined the defendant’s prior conviction on narcotics charges, his subsequent failure to attempt to rehabilitate himself or obtain employment, the fact that he had not acted under duress or as a result of mental or emotional pressure, his apparent willingness to kill, his lack of remorse after the killing, and the conclusion of a psychiatrist that he had a sociopathic personality and that his patterns of conduct would be the same in the future as they had been in the past.
Thus, Texas law essentially requires that one of five aggravating circumstances be found before a defendant can be found guilty of capital murder, and 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. It thus appears that, as in Georgia and Florida, the Texas capital-sentencing procedure guides and focuses the jury’s objective consideration of the particularized circumstances of the individual offense and the individual offender before it can impose a sentence of death.
B
As in the Georgia and Florida cases, however, the petitioner contends that the substantial legislative changes that Texas made in response to this Court’s Furman decision are no more than cosmetic in nature and have in fact not eliminated the arbitrariness and caprice of the system -held in Furman to violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
The petitioner first asserts that arbitrariness still pervades the entire criminal justice system of Texas — from the prosecutor's decision whether to charge a capital offense in the first place and then whether to engage in plea bargaining, through the jury's consideration of lesser included offenses, to the Governor’s ultimate power to commute death sentences. This contention fundamentally misinterprets the Furman decision, and we reject it for the reasons set out in our opinion today in Gregg v. Georgia, ante, at 199.
(2)
Focusing on the second statutory question that Texas requires a jury to answer in considering whether to impose a death sentence, the petitioner argues that it is impossible to predict future behavior and that the question is so vague as to be meaningless. It is, of course, not easy to predict future behavior. The fact that such a determination is difficult, however, does not mean that it cannot be made. Indeed, prediction of future criminal conduct is an essential element in many of the decisions rendered throughout our criminal justice system. The decision whether to admit a defendant to bail, for instance, must often turn on a judge’s prediction of the defendant’s future conduct. And any sentencing authority must predict a convicted person’s probable future conduct when it engages in the process of determining what punishment to impose. For those sentenced to prison, these same predictions must be made by parole authorities. The task that a Texas jury must perform in answering the statutory question in issue is thus basically no different from the task performed countless times each day throughout the American system of criminal justice. What is essential is that the jury have before it all possible relevant information about the individual defendant whose fate it must determine. Texas law clearly assures that all such evidence will be adduced.
IV
We conclude that Texas’ capital-sentencing procedures, like those of Georgia and Florida, do not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. By narrowing its definition of capital murder, Texas has essentially said that there must be at least one statutory aggravating circumstance in a first-degree murder case before a death sentence may even be considered. By authorizing the defense to bring before the jury at the separate sentencing hearing whatever mitigating circumstances relating to the individual defendant can be adduced, Texas has ensured that the sentencing jury will have adequate guidance to enable it to perform its sentencing function. By providing prompt judicial review of the jury’s decision in a court with statewide jurisdiction, Texas has provided a means to promote the evenhanded, rational, and consistent imposition of death sentences under law. Because this system serves to assure that sentences of death will not be “wantonly” or “freakishly” imposed, it does not violate the Constitution. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S., at 310 (Stewaut, J., concurring). Accordingly, the judgment of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
[For dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Brennan, see ante, p. 227.]
[For dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Marshall, see ante, p. 231,]
At the time of the charged offense, Texas law provided:
“Whoever shall -voluntarily kill an3r person within this State shall be guilty of murder. Murder shall be distinguished from every other species of homicide by the absence of circumstances which reduce the offense to negligent homicide or which excuse or justify the killing.” Tex. Penal Code, Art. 1256 (1973).
Under the new Texas Penal Code (effective Jan. 1, 1974), murder is now defined by § 19.02 (a):
“A person commits an offense if he:
“(1) intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual; “(2) intends to cause serious bodily injury and commits an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual; or
“(3) commits or attempts to commit a felony, other than voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, and in the course of and in furtherance of the commission or attempt, or in immediate- flight from the commission or attempt, he commits or attempts to commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual.”
Texas law prescribed the punishment for murder as follows:
“(a) Except as provided in subsection (b) of this Article, the punishment for murder shall be confinement in the penitentiary for life or for any term of years not less than two.
“(b) The punishment for murder with malice aforethought shall be death or imprisonment for life if:
“(1) the person murdered a peace officer or fireman who was acting in the lawful discharge of an official duty and who the defendant knew was a peace officer or fireman;
“(2) the person intentionally committed the murder in the course of committing or attempting to commit kidnapping, burglary, robbery, forcible rape, or arson;
“(3) the person committed the murder for remuneration or the promise of remuneration or employed another to commit the murder for remuneration or the promise of remuneration;
“ (4) the person committed the murder while escaping or attempting to escape from a penal institution;
"(5) the person, while incarcerated in a penal institution, murdered another who was employed in the operation of the penal institution.
“(c) If the jury does not find beyond a reasonable doubt that the murder was committed under one of the circumstances or conditions enumerated in Subsection (b) of this Article, the defendant may be convicted of murder, with or without malice, under Subsection (a) of this Article or of any other lesser included offense.” Tex. Penal Code, Art. 1257 (1973).
Article 1257 has been superseded by § 19.03 of the new Texas Penal Code, which is substantially similar to Art. 1257.
The court held a separate hearing to determine whether these statements were given voluntarily, and concluded that they were. The question of the voluntariness of the confessions was also submitted to the jury. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the admissibility of the statements. 522 S. W. 2d 934, 943 (1975).
The petitioner originally stated that he started choking Wendy when she angered him by criticizing him and his brother for their drinking. In a later statement he said that he choked her after she refused to have sexual relations with him and started screaming.
See infra, at 269.
The jury can answer “yes” only if all members agree; it can answer “no” if 10 o-f 12 members agree. Art. 37.071 (d) (Supp. 1975-1976). Texas law is unclear as to the procedure .to be followed in the event that the jury is unable to answer the questions. See Vernon’s Texas Codes Ann. — Penal § 19.03, Practice Commentary, p. 107 (1974).
When the drafters of the Model Penal Code considered a proposal that would have simply listed aggravating factors as sufficient reasons for imposition of the death penalty, they found the proposal unsatisfactory:
“Such an approach has the disadvantage, however, of according disproportionate significance to the enumeration of aggravating circumstances when what is rationally necessary is . . . the balancing of any aggravations against any mitigations that appear. The object sought is better attained, in our view, by requiring a finding that an aggravating circumstance has been established and a finding that there are no substantial mitigating circumstances.” Model Penal Code §201.6, Comment 3, p. 72 (Tent. Draft No. 9, 1959) (emphasis in original).
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has not yet construed the first and third questions (which are set out in the text, supra, at 269); thus it is as yet undetermined whether or not the jury's consideration of those questions would properly include consideration of mitigating circumstances. In at least some situations the questions could, however, comprehend such an inquiry. For example, the third question asks whether the conduct of the defendant was unreasonable in response to any provocation by the deceased. This might be construed to allow the jury to consider circumstances which, though not sufficient as a defense to the crime itself, might nevertheless have enough mitigating force to avoid the death penalty — a claim, for example, that a woman who hired an assassin to kill her husband was driven to it by his continued cruelty to her. We cannot, however, construe the statute; that power is reserved to the Texas courts.
See Branch v. Texas, decided with Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238 (1972).
See, e. g., American Bar Association Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Pretrial Release § 5.1 (a) (Approved Draft 1968): “It should be presumed that the defendant is entitled to be released on order to appear or on his own recognizance. The presumption may be overcome by a finding that there is substantial risk of nonappearance .... In capital cases, the defendant may be detained pending trial if the facts support a finding that the defendant is likely to commit a serious crime, intimidate witnesses or otherwise interfere with the administration of justice or will flee if released.”
See, e. g., id., Sentencing Alternatives and Procedures § 2.5 (c): “A sentence not involving total confinement is to be preferred in the absence of affirmative reasons to the contrary. Examples of legitimate reasons for the selection of total confinement in a given case are:
“(i) Confinement is necessary in order to protect the public from further criminal activity by the defendant . . . .”
A similar conclusion was reached by the drafters of the Model Penal Code:
“The Court shall deal with a person who has been convicted of a crime without imposing sentence of imprisonment unless, having regard to the nature and circumstances of the crime and the history, character and condition of the defendant, it is of the opinion that his imprisonment is necessary for protection of the public because:
“(a) there is undue risk that during the period of a suspended sentence or probation the defendant will commit another crime.” Model Penal Code §7.01 (1) (Proposed Official Draft 1962).
See, e. g., id., § 305.9 (1):
“Whenever the Board of Parole considers the first release of a prisoner who is eligible for release on parole, it shall be the policy of the Board to order his release, unless the Board is of the opinion that his release should be deferred because:
“(a) there is substantial risk that he will not conform to the conditions of parole . . . .”
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 Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the respective authority of federal trial and appellate courts to decide whether, as a matter of law, judgment should be entered in favor of a verdict loser. The pattern we confront is this. Plaintiff in a product liability action gains a jury verdict. Defendant urges, unsuccessfully before the federal district court but successfully on appeal, that expert testimony plaintiff introduced was unreliable, and therefore inadmissible, under the analysis required by Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U. S. 579 (1993). Shorn of the erroneously admitted expert testimony, the record evidence is insufficient to justify a plaintiff’s verdict. May the court of appeals then instruct the entry of judgment as a matter of law for defendant, or must that tribunal remand the ease, leaving to the district court’s discretion the choice between final judgment for defendant or a new trial of plaintiff’s case?
Our decision is guided by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50, which governs the entry of judgment as a matter of law, and by the Court’s pathmarking opinion in Neely v. Martin K. Eby Constr. Co., 386 U. S. 317 (1967). As Neely teaches, courts of appeals should “be constantly alert” to “the trial judge’s first-hand knowledge of witnesses, testimony, and issues”; in other words, appellate courts should give due consideration to the first-instance decisionmaker’s “ Teel’ for the overall case.” Id., at 325. But the court of appeals has authority to render the final decision. If, in the particular ease, the appellate tribunal determines that the district court is better positioned to decide whether a new trial, rather than judgment for defendant, should be ordered, the court of appeals should return the case to the trial court for such an assessment. But if, as in the instant ease, the court of appeals concludes that further proceedings are unwarranted because the loser on appeal has had a full and fair opportunity to present the case, including arguments for a new trial, the appellate court may appropriately instruct the district court to enter judgment against the jury-verdict winner. Appellate authority to make this determination is no less when the evidence is rendered insufficient by the removal of erroneously admitted testimony than it is when the evidence, without any deletion, is insufficient.
I
Firefighters arrived at the home of Bonnie Weisgram on December 30, 1993, to discover flames around the front entrance. Upon entering the home, they found Weisgram in an upstairs bathroom, dead of carbon monoxide poisoning. Her son, petitioner Chad Weisgram, individually and on behalf of Bonnie Weisgram’s heirs, brought a diversity action in the United States District Court for the District of North Dakota seeking wrongful death damages. He alleged that a defect in an electric baseboard heater, manufactured by defendant (now respondent) Marley Company and located inside the door to Bonnie Weisgram’s home, caused both the fire and his mother’s death.
At trial, Weisgram introduced the testimony of three witnesses, proffered as experts, in an endeavor to prove the alleged defect in the heater and its causal connection to the fire. The District Court overruled defendant Marley’s objections, lodged both before and during the trial, that this testimony was unreliable and therefore inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 as elucidated by Daubert. At the close of Weisgram’s evidence, and again at the close of all the evidence, Marley unsuccessfully moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(a) for judgment as a matter of law on the ground that plaintiffs had failed to meet their burden of proof on the issues of defect and causation. The jury returned a verdict for Weisgram. Marley again requested judgment as a matter of law, and additionally requested, in the alternative, a new trial, pursuant to Rules 50 and 59; among arguments in support of its post-trial motions, Marley reasserted that the expert testimony essential to prove Weisgram’s case was unreliable and therefore inadmissible. App. 123-125. The District Court denied the motions and entered judgment for Weisgram. App. to Pet. for Cert. A28-A40. Marley appealed.
The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that Marley’s motion for judgment as a matter of law should have been granted. 169 F. 3d 514, 517 (1999). Writing for the panel majority, Chief Judge Bowman first examined the testimony of Weisgram’s expert witnesses, the sole evidence supporting plaintiffs’ produet defect charge. Id., at 518-522. Concluding that the testimony was speculative and not shown to be scientifically sound, the majority held the expert evidence incompetent to prove Weisgram’s ease. Ibid. The court then considered the remaining evidence in the light most favorable to Weisgram, found it insufficient to support the jury verdict, and directed judgment as a matter of law for Marley. Id., at 516-517, 521-522. In a footnote, the majority “reject[ed] any contention that [it was] required to remand for a new trial.” Id., at 517, n. 2. It recognized its discretion to do so under Rule 50(d), but stated: “[W]e can discern no reason to give the plaintiffs a second chance to make out a case of strict liability .... This is not a close case. The plaintiffs had a fair opportunity to prove their claim and they failed to do so.” Ibid, (citations omitted). The dissenting judge disagreed on both points, concluding that the expert evidence was properly admitted and that the appropriate remedy for improper admission of expert testimony is the award of a new trial, not judgment as a matter of law. Id., at 522, 525 (citing Midcontinent Broadcasting Co. v. North Central Airlines, Inc., 471 F. 2d 357 (CA8 1973)).
Courts of Appeals have divided on the question whether Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50 permits an appellate court to direct the entry of judgment as a matter of law when it determines that evidence was erroneously admitted at trial and that the remaining, properly admitted evidence is insufficient to constitute a submissible ease. We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 527 U. S. 1069 (1999), and we now affirm the Eighth Circuit’s judgment.
h-4
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50, reproduced below, governs motions for judgment as a matter of law in jury trials. It allows the trial court to remove cases or issues from the jury’s consideration "when the facts are sufficiently clear that the law requires a particular result.” 9A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2521, p. 240 (2d ed. 1995) (hereinafter Wright & Miller). Subdivision (d) controls when, as here, the verdict loser appeals from the trial court’s denial of a motion for judgment as a matter of law:
“[T]he party who prevailed on that motion may, as ap-pellee, assert grounds entitling the party to a new trial in the event the appellate court concludes that the trial court erred in denying the motion for judgment. If the appellate court reverses the judgment, nothing in this rule precludes it from determining that the appellee is entitled to a new trial, or from directing the trial court to determine whether a new trial shall be granted.”
Under this Rule, Weisgram urges, when a court of appeals determines that a jury verdict cannot be sustained due to an error in the admission of evidence, the appellate court may not order the entry of judgment for the verdict loser, but must instead remand the case to the trial court for a new trial determination. Brief for Petitioner 20, 22; Reply Brief 1, 17. Nothing in Rule 50 expressly addresses this question.
In a series of pre-1967 decisions, this Court refrained from deciding the question, while emphasizing the importance of giving the party deprived of a verdict the opportunity to invoke the discretion of the trial judge to grant a new trial. See Cone v. West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., 330 U. S. 212, 216-218 (1947); Globe Liquor Co. v. San Roman, 332 U. S. 571, 573-574 (1948); Johnson v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 344 U. S. 48, 54, n. 3 (1952); see also 9A Wright & Miller § 2540, at 370. Then, in Neely, the Court reviewed its prior jurisprudence and ruled definitively that if a motion for judgment as a matter of law is erroneously denied by the district court, the appellate court does have the power to order the entry of judgment for the moving party. 386 U. S., at 326; see also Louis, Post-Verdict Rulings on the Sufficiency of the Evidence: Neely v. Martin K. Eby Construction Co. Revisited, 1975 Wis. L. Rev. 503 (surveying chronologically Court’s decisions bearing on appellate direction of judgment as a matter of law).
Neely first addressed the compatibility of appellate direction of judgment as a matter of law (then styled “judgment n.o.v.”) with the Seventh Amendment’s jury trial guarantee. It was settled, the Court pointed out, that a trial court, pursuant to Rule 50(b), could enter judgment for the verdict loser without offense to the Seventh Amendment. 386 U. S., at 321 (citing Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Duncan, 311 U. S. 243 (1940)). “As far as the Seventh Amendment’s right to jury trial is concerned,” the Court reasoned, “there is no greater restriction on the province of the jury when an appellate court enters judgment n.o.v. than when a trial court does”; accordingly, the Court concluded, “there is no constitutional bar to an appellate court granting judgment n.o.v.” 386 U. S., at 322 (citing Baltimore & Carolina Line, Inc. v. Redman, 295 U. S. 654 (1935)). The Court next turned to “the statutory grant of appellate jurisdiction to the courts of appeals [in 28 U. S. C. §2106],” which it found “certainly broad enough to include the power to direct entry of judgment n.o.v. on appeal” 386 U. S., at 322. The remainder of the Neely opinion effectively complements Rules 50(c) and 50(d), providing guidance on the appropriate exercise of the appellate court’s discretion when it reverses the trial court’s denial of a defendant’s Rule 50(b) motion for judgment as a matter of law. Id., at 322-330; cf. supra, at 449, n. 5 (1963 observation of Advisory Committee that, as of that year, “problems [concerning motions for judgment coupled with new trial motions] ha[d] not been fully canvassed”).
Neely represents no volte-face in the Court’s understanding of the respective competences of trial and appellate forums. Immediately after declaring that appellate courts have the power to order the entry of judgment for a verdict loser, the Court cautioned:
“Part of the Court’s concern has been to protect the rights of the party whose jury verdict has been set aside on appeal and who may have valid grounds for a new trial, some or all of which should be passed upon by the district court, rather than the court of appeals, because of the trial judge’s first-hand knowledge of witnesses, testimony, and issues — because of his ‘feel’ for the overall case. These are very valid concerns to which the court of appeals should be constantly alert.” 386 U. S., at 325.
Nevertheless, the Court in Neely continued, due consideration of the rights of the verdict winner and the closeness of the trial court to the case “do[es] not justify an ironclad rule that the court of appeals should never order dismissal or judgment for the defendant when the plaintiff’s verdict has been set aside on appeal.” Id., at 326. “Such a rule,” the Court concluded, “would not serve the purpose of Rule 50 to speed litigation and to avoid unnecessary retrials.” Ibid. Neely ultimately clarified that if a court of appeals determines that the district court erroneously denied a motion for judgment as a matter of law, the appellate court may (1) order a new trial at the verdict winner’s request or on its own motion, (2) remand the ease for the trial court to decide whether a new trial or entry of judgment for the defendant is warranted, or (3) direct the entry of judgment as a matter of law for the defendant. Id., at 327-330; see also 9A Wright & Miller § 2540, at 371-372.
III
The parties before us — and Court of Appeals opinions— diverge regarding Neely’s scope. Weisgram, in line with some appellate decisions, posits a distinction between cases in which judgment as a matter of law is requested based on plaintiffs failure to produce enough evidence to warrant a jury verdict, as in Neely, and eases in which the proof introduced becomes insufficient because the court of appeals determines that certain evidence should not have been admitted, as in the instant ease. Insufficiency caused by deletion of evidence, Weisgram contends, requires an “automatic remand” to the district court for consideration whether a new trial is warranted. Brief for Petitioner 20, 22; Reply Brief 1, 3-6; Tr. of Oral Arg. 6, 18, 23.
Weisgram relies on cases holding that, in fairness to a verdict winner who may have relied on erroneously admitted evidence, courts confronting questions of judgment as a matter of law should rule on the record as it went to the jury, without excising evidence inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702. See, e. g., Kinser v. Gehl Co., 184 F. 3d 1259, 1267, 1269 (CA10 1999); Schudel v. General Electric Co., 120 F. 3d 991, 995-996 (CA9 1997); Jackson v. Pleasant Grove Health Care Center, 980 F. 2d 692, 695-696 (CA11 1993); Midcontinent Broadcasting, 471 F. 2d, at 358. But see Lightning Lube, Inc. v. Witco Corp., 4 F. 3d 1153, 1198-1200 (CA3 1993). These decisions are of questionable consistency with Rule 50(a)(1), which states that in ruling on a motion for judgment as a matter of law, the court is to inquire whether there is any “legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for [the opponent of the motion].” Inadmissible evidence contributes nothing to a “legally sufficient evidentiary basis.” See Brooke Group Ltd. v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 509 U. S. 209, 242 (1993) (“When an expert opinion is not supported by sufficient facts to validate it in the eyes of the law, or when indisputable record facts contradict or otherwise render the opinion unreasonable, it cannot support a jury’s verdict.”).
As Neely recognized, appellate rulings on post-trial pleas for judgment as a matter of law call for the exercise of “informed discretion,” 386 U. S., at 329, and fairness to the parties is surely key to the exercise of that discretion. But fairness concerns should loom as large when the verdict winner, in the appellate court’s judgment, failed to present sufficient evidence as when the appellate court declares inadmissible record evidence essential to the verdict winner’s case. In both situations, the party whose verdict is set aside on appeal will have had notice, before the close of evidence, of the alleged evidentiary deficiency. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 50(a)(2) (motion for judgment as a matter of law “shall specify .. . the law and facts on which the moving party is entitled to the judgment”). On appeal, both will have the opportunity to argue in support of the jury’s verdict or, alternatively, for a new trial. And if judgment is instructed for the verdict loser, both will have a further chance to urge a new trial in a rehearing petition.
Since Daubert, moreover, parties relying on expert evidence have had notice of the exacting standards of reliability such evidence must meet. 509 U. S. 579; see also Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U. S. 137 (1999) (rendered shortly after the Eighth Circuit’s decision in Weisgram’s case); General Electric Co. v. Joiner, 522 U. S. 136 (1997). It is implausible to suggest, post-Daubert, that parties will initially present less than their best expert evidence in the expectation of a second chance should their first try fail. We therefore find unconvincing Weisgram’s fears that allowing courts of appeals to direct the entry of judgment for defendants will punish plaintiffs who could have shored up their cases by other means had they known their expert testimony would be found inadmissible. See Brief for Petitioner 18, 25. In this case, for example, although Weisgram was on notice every step of the way that Marley was challenging his experts, he made no attempt to add or substitute other evidence. See Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, 497 U. S. 871, 897 (1990) (“[A] litigant’s failure to buttress its position because of confidence in the strength of that position is always indulged in at the litigant's own risk.”).
After holding Weisgram’s expert testimony inadmissible, the Court of Appeals evaluated the evidence presented at trial, viewing it in the light most favorable to Weisgram, and found the properly admitted evidence insufficient to support the verdict. 169 F. 3d, at 516-517. Weisgram offered no specific grounds for a new trial to the Eighth Circuit. Even in the petition for rehearing, Weisgram argued only that the appellate court had misapplied state law, did not have the authority to direct judgment, and had failed to give adequate deference to the trial court’s evidentiary rulings. App. 131-151. The Eighth Circuit concluded that this was “not a close case.” 169 F. 3d, at 517, n. 2. In these circumstances, the Eighth Circuit did not abuse its discretion by directing entry of judgment for Marley, instead of returning the case to the District Court for further proceedings.
* * *
Neely recognized that there are myriad situations in which the determination whether a new trial is in order is best made by the trial judge. 386 U. S., at 325-326. Neely held, however, that there are also cases in which a court of appeals may appropriately instruct the district court to enter judgment as a matter of law against the jury-verdict winner. Id., at 326. We adhere to Neely’s holding and rationale, and today hold that the authority of courts of appeals to direct the entry of judgment as a matter of law extends to cases in which, on excision of testimony erroneously admitted, there remains insufficient evidence to support the jury’s verdict.
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is
Affirmed.
At trial and on appeal, the suit of the Weisgram heirs was consolidated with an action brought against Marley Company by State Farm Fire and Casually Company, insurer of the Weisgram home, to recover benefits State Farm paid for the damage to the Weisgram townhouse and an adjoining townhouse. State Farm was dismissed from the appeal after certio-rari was granted. For purposes of this opinion, we generally refer to the plaintiffs below, and to the petitioners before us, simply as “Weisgram.”
The Tenth Circuit has held it inappropriate for an appellate court to direct the entry of judgment as a matter of law based on the trial court’s erroneous admission of evidence, because to do so would be unfair to a party who relied on the trial court’s evidentiary rulings. See Kinser v. Gehl Co., 184 F. 3d 1259, 1267, 1269 (1999). The Fourth, Sixth, and Eighth Circuits recently have issued decisions, in accord with the position earlier advanced by the Third Circuit, directing the entry of judgment as a matter of law based on proof rendered insufficient by the deletion of improperly admitted evidence. See Redman v. John D. Brush & Co., 111 F. 3d 1174, 1178-1179 (CA4 1997); Smelser v. Norfolk Southern R. Co., 105 F. 3d 299, 301, 306 (CA6 1997); Wright v. Willamette Industries, Inc., 91 F. 3d 1105, 1108 (CA8 1996); accord, Aloe Coal Co. v. Clark Equipment Co., 816 F. 2d 110, 115-116 (CA3 1987).
We agreed to decide only the issue of the authority of a court of appeals to direct the entry of judgment as a matter of law, and accordingly accept as final the decision of the Eighth Circuit holding the testimony of Weis-gram’s experts unreliable, and therefore inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, as explicated in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U. S. 579 (1993). We also accept as final the Eighth Circuit’s determination that the remaining, properly admitted, evidence was insufficient to make a submissible case under state law.
“Rule 50. Judgment as a Matter of Law in Jury Trials; Alternative Motion for New Trial; Conditional Rulings.
“(a) Judgment as a Matter of Law.
“(1) If during a trial by jury a party has been fully heard on an issue and there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for that party on that issue, the court may determine the issue against that party and may grant a motion for judgment as a matter of law against that party with respect to a claim or defense that cannot under the controlling law be maintained or defeated without a favorable finding on that issue.
“(2) Motions for judgment as a matter of law may be made at any time before submission of the case to the jury. Such a motion shall specify the judgment sought and the law and the facts on which the moving party is entitled to the judgment.
“(b) Renewing Motion for Judgment after Trial; Alternative Motion for New Trial. If, for any reason, the court does not grant a motion for judgment as a matter of law made at the close of all the evidence, the court is considered to have submitted the action to the jury subject to the court’s later deciding the legal questions raised by the motion. The movant may renew its request for judgment as a matter of law by filing a motion no later than 10 days after entry of judgment — and may alternatively request a new trial or join a motion for a new trial under Rule 59. In ruling on a renewed motion, the court may:
“(1) if a verdict was returned:
“(A) allow the judgment to stand,
“(B) order a new trial, or
“(C) direct entry of judgment as a matter of law; or
“(2) if no verdict was returned:
“(A) order a new trial, or
“(B) direct entry of judgment as a matter of law.
“(c) Granting Renewed Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law; Conditional Rulings; New Trial Motion.
“(1) If the renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law is granted, the court shall also rule on the motion for a new trial, if any, by determining whether it should be granted if the judgment is thereafter vacated or reversed, and shall specify the grounds for granting or denying the motion for the new trial. If the motion for a new trial is thus conditionally granted, the order thereon does not affect the finality of the judgment. In case the motion for a new trial has been conditionally granted and the judgment is reversed on appeal, the new trial shall proceed unless the appellate court has otherwise ordered. In case the motion for a new trial has been conditionally denied, the appellee on appeal may assert error in that denial; and if the judgment is reversed on appeal, subsequent proceedings shall be in accordance with the order of the appellate court.
"(2) Any motion for a new trial under Rule 59 by a party against whom judgment as a matter of law is rendered shall be filed no later than 10 days after entry of the judgment.
“(d) Same: Denial of Motion for Judgment as a MatteR op Law. If the motion for judgment as a matter of law is denied, the party who prevailed on that motion may, as appellee, assert grounds entitling the party to a new trial in the event the appellate court concludes that the trial court erred in denying the motion for judgment. If the appellate court reverses the judgment, nothing in this rule precludes it from determining that the appellee is entitled to a new trial, or from directing the trial court to determine whether a new trial shall be granted.”
According to the Advisory Committee Notes to the 1963 Rule 50 amendments, this "omission” was not inadvertent:
“Subdivision (d) does not attempt a regulation of all aspects of the procedure where the motion for judgment n.o.v. and any accompanying motion for a new trial are denied, since the problems have not been fully canvassed in the decisions and the procedure is in some respects still in a formative stage. It is, however, designed to give guidance on certain important features of the practice.” Advisory Committee’s Notes on Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 50(d), 28 U. S. C. App., p. 769.
Section 2106 reads:
“The Supreme Court or any other court of appellate jurisdiction may affirm, modify, vacate, set aside or reverse any judgment, decree, or order of a court lawfully brought before it for review, and may remand the cause and direct the entry of such appropriate judgment, decree, or order, or require such further proceedings to be had as may be just under the circumstances.”
Iacurci v. Lummus Co., 387 U.S. 86 (1967) (per curiam), decided shortly after Neely, is illustrative. There, the Court reversed the appellate court’s direction of the entry of judgment as a matter of law for the defendant and instructed the appeals court to remand the case to the trial court for a new trial determination; the Court pointed to the jury’s failure to respond to four out of five special interrogatories, which left issues of negligence unresolved, and concluded that in the particular circumstances, the trial judge “was in the best position to pass upon the question of a new trial in light of the evidence, his charge to the jury, and the jury’s verdict and interrogatory answers.” 387 U. S., at 88.
See Tr. of Oral Arg. 6, 8, 17-18, 23, 26-28, 31; Reply Brief 3-6; Brief for Respondents 24-29. Compare, e. g., Redman, 111 F. 3d, at 1178-1179 (treating judgment as a matter of law based on insufficiency caused by admission error identically to initial insufficiency); Smelser, 105 F. 3d, at 301, 306 (same); Wright, 91 F. 3d, at 1108 (same); Lightning Lube, Inc. v. Witco Corp., 4 F. 3d 1153, 1198-1200 (CA3 1993) (rejecting distinction), with Kinser, 184 F. 3d, at 1267, 1269 (insufficiency caused by admission error inappropriate basis for judgment as a matter of law); Jackson v. Pleasant Grove Health Care Center, 980 F. 2d 692, 695-696 (CA11 1993) (same); Douglass v. Eaton Corp., 956 F. 2d 1339, 1343-1344 (GA6 1992) (same); Midcontinent Broadcasting Co. v. North Central Airlines, Inc., 471 F. 2d 357, 358-359 (CA8 1973) (same).
Weisgram misreads the Court’s decision in Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Duncan, 311 U. S. 243 (1940), to support his position. Reply Brief 3-4; Tr. of Oral Arg. 19. The Court in Montgomery Ward directed that a trial judge who grants the verdict loser’s motion for judgment n.o.v. should also rule conditionally on that party’s alternative motion for a new trial. 311 U. S., at 253-254. The conditional ruling would be reviewed by the court of appeals only if it reversed the entry of judgment n.o.v. Proceeding in this manner would avoid protracting the proceedings by obviating the need for multiple appeals. See id. at 253. Rule 50 was amended in 1963 to codify Montgomery Ward’s instruction. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 50(c)(1).
In the course of its elaboration, the Montgomery Ward Court observed that a “motion for judgment cannot be granted unless, as a matter of law, the opponent of the movant Mled to make a case.” 311 U. S., at 251. In contrast, the Court stated, a new trial motion may invoke the court’s discretion, bottomed on such standard new trial grounds as “the verdict is against the weight of the evidence,” or “the damages are excessive,” or substantial errors were made “in admission or rejection of evidence.” Ibid; see also id, at 249.
Many rulings on evidence, of course, do not bear dispositively on the adequacy of the proof to support a verdict. For example, the evidence erroneously admitted or excluded may strengthen or weaken one side’s case without being conclusive as to the litigation’s outcome. Or, the evidence may abundantly support a jury’s verdict, but one or another item may have been unduly prejudicial to the verdict loser and excludable on that account. See Fed. Rule Evid. 403 (relevant evidence “may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice”). Such run-of-the-mine, ordinarily nondispositive, evidentiary rulings, we take it, were the sort contemplated in Montgomery Ward. Cf. 311 U. S., at 245-246 (indicating that sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenges are properly raised by motion for judgment, while other rulings on evidence may be assigned as grounds for a new trial).
Weisgram additionally urges that the Seventh Amendment prohibits a court of appeals from directing judgment as a matter of law on a record different from the one considered by the jury. Brief for Petitioner 20-22; Reply Brief 6-8. Neely made dear that a court of appeals may order entry of judgment as a matter of law on suffidency-of-the-evidence grounds without violating the Seventh Amendment. 386 U. S., at 321-322. Entering judgment for the verdict loser when all of the evidence was properly before the jury is scarcely less destructive of the jury’s verdict than is entry of such a judgment based on a record made insufficient by the removal of evidence the jury should not have had before it.
We recognize that it is awkward for an appellee, who is wholeheartedly urging the correctness of the verdict, to point out, in the alternative, grounds for a new trial. See Kaplan, Amendments of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 1961-1963 (II), 77 Harv. L. Rev. 801, 819 (1964) (“A verdict winner may suffer forensic embarrassment in arguing for a new trial on his own behalf, faute de mieux, while seeking to defend his verdict against all attacks by his opponent.”). A petition for rehearing in the court of appeals, however, involves no conflicting tugs. We are not persuaded by Weisgram’s objection that the 14 days allowed for the filing of a petition for rehearing is insufficient time to formulate compelling grounds for a new trial. Reply Brief 15-16. This time period is longer than the ten days allowed a verdict winner to move for a new trial after a trial court grants judgment as a matter of law. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 50(c)(2). Nor do we foreclose the possibility that a court of appeals might properly deny a petition for rehearing because it pressed an argument that plainly could have been formulated in a party’s brief See Louis, Post-Verdict Rulings on the Sufficiency of the Evidence: Neely v. Martin K. Eby Construction Co. Revisited, 1975 Wis. L. Rev. 503, 519-520, n. 90 (“[IJt is often difficult to argue that a gap in one’s proof can be filled before a court has held that the gap exists ....” On the other hand, “the brief or oral argument will suffice ... when the area of the alleged evidentiary insufficiency has previously been clearly identified.” (citation omitted)).
We note that the decision in Kwmho is consistent with Eighth Circuit precedent existing at the time of trial in Weisgram’s case. See, e.g., Peitzmeier v. Hennessy Industries, Inc., 97 F. 3d 293, 297 (CA8 1996).
Cf. Neely v. Martin K. Eby Constr. Co., 386 U. S. 317, 327 (1967) (observing that it would not be dear that litigation should be terminated for evidentiary insuffidency when, for example, the trial court exduded evidence that would have strengthened the verdict winner’s case or “itself caused the insuffidency ... by erroneously [imposing] too high a burden of proof”).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
H
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents two questions under the federal labor laws: first, whether the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) has exclusive jurisdiction over a union member’s claims that his union both breached its duty of fair representation and violated the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA), 73 Stat. 519, 29 U. S. C. §401 et seq. (1982 ed.), by discriminating against him in job referrals made by the union hiring hall; and second, whether the union’s alleged refusal to refer him to employment through the hiring hall as a result of his political opposition to the union’s leadership gives rise to a claim under §§ 101(a)(5) and 609 of the LMRDA, 29 U. S. C. §§ 411(a)(5), 529 (1982 ed.). The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that petitioner’s suit fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Board and that petitioner had failed to state a claim under the LMRDA. 849 F. 2d 997 (1988) (per curiam). We reverse the Court of Appeals’ decision as to jurisdiction, but we affirm its holding that petitioner did not state a claim under LMRDA §§ 101(a)(5) and 609.
HH
Petitioner Lynn L. Breininger was at all relevant times a member of respondent, Local Union No. 6 of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association. Pursuant to a multi-employer collective-bargaining agreement, respondent operates a hiring hall through which it refers both members and nonmembers of the union for construction work. Respondent maintains an outTof-work list of individuals who wish to be referred to jobs. When an employer contacts respondent for workers, he may request certain persons by name. If he does not, the union begins at the top of the list and attempts to telephone in order each worker listed until it has satisfied the employer’s request. The hiring hall is not the exclusive source of employment for sheet metal workers; they are free to seek employment through other mechanisms, and employers are not restricted to hiring only those persons recommended by the union. Respondent also maintains a job referral list under the Specialty Agreement, a separate collective-bargaining agreement negotiated to cover work on siding, decking, and metal buildings.
Petitioner alleges that respondent refused to honor specific employer requests for his services and passed him over in making job referrals. He also contends that respondent refused to process his internal union grievances regarding these matters. Petitioner’s first amended complaint contained two counts. First, he asserted a violation of the duty of fair representation, contending that respondent, “in its representation of [petitioner], has acted arbitrarily, discriminator ily, and/or in bad faith and/or without reason or cause.” First Amended Complaint ¶ 13. Second, petitioner alleged that his union, “in making job referrals,... has favored a faction of members... who have been known to support... the present business manager,” as “part of widespread, improper discipline for political opposition in violation of 29 U. S. C. [§411(a)(5)] and 29 U. S. C. §529.” Id., ¶17. Respondent, in other words, “acting by and through its present business manager... and its present business agent [has] ‘otherwise disciplined’” petitioner within the meaning of LMRDA §§ 101(a)(5) and 609. Id., ¶ 16.
The District Court held that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain petitioner’s suit because “discrimination in hiring hall referrals constitutes an unfair labor practice,” and “[t]he NLRB has exclusive jurisdiction over discrimination in hiring hall referrals.” No. C 83-1126 (ND Ohio, Feb. 20, 1987), p. 6, reprinted in App. to Pet. for Cert. A9. The District Court determined that adjudieatingpetitioner’s claims “would involve interfe[r]ing with the NLRB’s exclusive jurisdiction.” Id., at 7, App. to Pet. for Cert. A10.
The Court of Appeals affirmed in a brief per curiam opinion. With respect to the fair representation claim, the court noted that “[c]ircuit courts have consistently held that... fair representation claims must be brought before the Board” and that “if the employee fails to affirmatively allege that his employer breached the collective bargaining agreement, which [petitioner] failed to do in the case at bar, he cannot prevail.” 849 F. 2d, at 999 (emphasis in original). In regard to the LMRDA count, the Court of Appeals found that “[discrimination in the referral system, because it does not breach the employee’s union membership rights, does not constitute ‘discipline’ within the meaning of LMRDA” and that “[hjiring hall referrals are not a function of union membership since referrals are available to nonmembers as well as members.” Ibid. We granted certiorari. 489 U. S. 1009 (1989).
II
A
We have long recognized that a labor organization has a statutory duty of fair representation under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)/ 49 Stat. 449, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. (1982 ed.), “to serve the interests of all members without hostility or discrimination toward any, to exercise its discretion with complete good faith and honesty, and to avoid arbitrary conduct.” Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 177 (1967); see also Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S. 192, 203 (1944). In Miranda Fuel Co., 140 N. L. R. B. 181 (1962), enf. denied, 326 F. 2d 172 (CA2 1963), the NLRB determined that violations of the duty of fair representation might also be unfair labor practices under §8(b) of the NLRA, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 158(b) (1982 ed.). The Board held that the right of employees under § 7 of the NLRA, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 157, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, or to refrain from such activities, “is a statutory limitation on statutory bargaining representatives, and... that Section 8(b)(1)(A) of the Act accordingly prohibits labor organizations, when acting in a statutory representative capacity, from taking action against any employee upon considerations or classifications which are irrelevant, invidious, or unfair.” 140 N. L. R. B., at 185. In addition, the Board reasoned that “a statutory bargaining representative and an employer also respectively violate Section 8(b)(2) and 8(a)(3) when, for arbitrary or irrelevant reasons or upon the basis of an unfair classification, the union attempts to cause or does cause an employer to derogate the employment status of an employee.” Id., at 186. While petitioner alleged a breach of the duty of fair representation, his claim might relate to conduct that under Miranda Fuel also constitutes an unfair labor practice. And, as a general matter, neither state nor federal courts possess jurisdiction over claims based on activity that is “arguably” subject to §§7 or 8 of the NLRA. See San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 245 (1959).
Nevertheless, the District Court was not deprived of jurisdiction. In Vaca v. Sipes, supra, we held that Garmon's, pre-emption rule does not extend to suits alleging a breach of the duty of fair representation. Our decision in Vaca was premised on several factors. First, we noted that courts developed and elaborated the duty of fair representation before the Board even acquired statutory jurisdiction over union activities. Indeed, fair representation claims often involve matters “not normally within the Board’s unfair labor practice jurisdiction,” 386 U. S., at 181, which is typically aimed at “effectuating the policies of the federal labor laws, not [redressing] the wrong done the individual employee,” id., at 182, n. 8. We therefore doubted whether “the Board brings substantially greater expertise to bear on these problems than do the courts.” Id., at 181. Another consideration in Vaca for finding the fair representation claim judicially cognizable was the NLRB General Counsel’s unreviewable discretion to refuse to institute unfair labor practice proceedings. “[T]he General Counsel will refuse to bring complaints on behalf of injured employees when the injury complained of is ‘insubstantial.’” Id., at 183, n. 8. The right of the individual employee to be made whole is “[o]f paramount importance,” Bowen v. United States Postal Service, 459 U. S. 212, 222 (1983), and “[t]he existence of even a small group of cases in which the Board would be unwilling or unable to remedy a union’s breach of duty would frustrate the basic purposes underlying the duty of fair representation doctrine,” Vaca, supra, at 182-183. Consequently, we were unwilling to assume that Congress intended to deny employees their traditional fair representation remedies when it enacted § 8(b) as part of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (LMRA). As Justice White described Vaca v. Sipes last Term in Karahalios v. Federal Employees, 489 U. S. 527, 535 (1989):
“As we understood our inquiry, it was whether Congress, in enacting § 8(b) in 1947, had intended to oust the courts of their role enforcing the duty of fair representation implied under the NLRA. We held that the ‘tardy assumption’ of jurisdiction by the NLRB was insufficient reason to abandon our prior cases, such as Syres [v. Oil Workers, 350 U. S. 892 (1955)].”
That a breach of the duty of fair representation might also be an unfair labor practice is thus not enough to deprive a federal court of jurisdiction over the fair representation claim. See Communications Workers v. Beck, 487 U. S. 735, 743 (1988).
We decline to create an exception to the Vaca rule for fair representation complaints arising out of the operation of union hiring halls. Although the Board has had numerous opportunities to apply the NLRA to hiring hall policies, we reject the notion that the NLRB ought to possess exclusive jurisdiction over fair representation complaints in the hiring hall context because it has had experience with hiring halls in the past. As an initial matter, we have never suggested that the Vaca rule contains exceptions based on the subject matter of the fair representation claim presented, the relative expertise of the NLRB in the particular area of labor law involved, or any other factor. We are unwilling to begin the process of carving out exceptions now, especially since we see no limiting principle to such an approach. Most fair representation cases require great sensitivity to the tradeoffs between the interests of the bargaining unit as a whole and the rights of individuals. Furthermore, we have never indicated that NLRB “experience” or “expertise” deprives a court of jurisdiction over a fair representation claim. The Board has developed an unfair labor practice jurisprudence in many areas traditionally encompassed by the duty of fair representation. The Board, for example, repeatedly has applied the Miranda Fuel doctrine in cases involving racial discrimination. See International Brotherhood of Painters, Local 1066 (W. J. Siebenoller, Jr., Paint Co.), 205 N. L. R. B. 651, 652 (1973); Houston Maritime Assn., Inc. (Longshoremen Local 1351), 168 N. L. R. B. 615, 616-617 (1967), enf. denied, 426 F. 2d 584 (CA5 1970); Cargo Handlers, Inc. (Longshoremen Local 1191), 159 N. L. R. B. 321, 322-327 (1966); United Rubber Workers, Local No. 12 (Business League of Gadsden), 150 N. L. R. B. 312, 314-315 (1964), enf’d, 368 F. 2d 12 (CA5 1966), cert. denied, 389 U. S. 837 (1967); Automobile Workers, Local J)53 (Maremont Corp.), 149 N. L. R. B. 482, 483-484 (1964); Longshoremen, Local 1367 (Galveston Maritime Assn., Inc.), 148 N. L. R. B. 897, 897-900 (1964), enf’d, 368 F. 2d 1010 (CA5 1966), cert. denied, 389 U. S. 837 (1967); Independent Metal Workers, Local No. 1 (Hughes Tool Co.), 147 N. L. R. B. 1573, 1574 (1964); see also Handy Andy, Inc., 228 N. L. R. B. 447, 455-456 (1977). In addition, the Board has found gender discrimination by unions to be an unfair labor practice. See Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, 287 N. L. R. B. 1040 (1988), 127 LRRM 1129, 1130 (1988); Olympic S. S. Co., 233 N. L. R. B. 1178, 1189 (1977); Glass Bottle Blowers Assn., Local 106 (Owens-Illinois, Inc.), 210 N. L. R. B. 943, 943-944 (1974), enf’d, 520 F. 2d 693 (CA6 1975); Pacific Maritime Assn. (Longshoremen and Warehousemen, Local 52), 209 N. L. R. B. 519, 519-520 (1974) (Member Jenkins, concurring). In short, “[a] cursory review of Board volumes following Miranda Fuel discloses numerous cases in which the Board has found the duty of fair representation breached where the union’s conduct was motivated by an employee’s lack of union membership, strifes resulting from intraunion politics, and racial or gender considerations.” United States Postal Service, 272 N. L. R. B. 93, 104 (1984). Adopting a rule that NLRB expertise bars federal jurisdiction would remove an unacceptably large number of fair representation claims from federal courts.
Respondent calls to our attention language in some of our decisions recognizing that “[t]he problems inherent in the operation of union hiring halls are difficult and complex, and point up the importance of limiting initial competence to adjudicate such matters to a single expert federal agency.” Journeymen and Apprentices v. Borden, 373 U. S. 690, 695 (1963) (citation omitted). For this reason, respondent contends that “[wjhether a hiring hall practice is discriminatory and therefore violative of federal law is a determination Congress has entrusted to the Board.” Farmer v. Carpenters, 430 U. S. 290, 303, n. 12 (1977). The cases cited by respondent, however, focus not on whether unions have administered properly out-of-work lists as required by their duty of fair representation, but rather on whether exclusive hiring halls have encouraged union membership im-permissibly as forbidden by § 8(b). Such exclusive arrangements are not illegal per se under federal labor law, but rather are illegal only if they in fact result in discrimination prohibited by the NLRA. See Teamsters v. NLRB, 365 U. S. 667, 673-677 (1961); see also Woelke & Romero Framing, Inc. v. NLRB, 456 U. S. 645, 664-665 (1982). We have found state law pre-empted on the ground that “Board approval of various hiring hall practices would be meaningless if state courts could declare those procedures violative of the contractual rights implicit between a member and his union.” Farmer, supra, at 300, n. 9. These state-law claims frequently involve tort, contract, and other substantive areas of law that have developed quite independently of federal labor law. Cf. Lingle v. Norge Division of Magic Chef, Inc., 486 U. S. 399, 403-406 (1988); Electrical Workers v. Hechler, 481 U. S. 851, 855-859 (1987); Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck, 471 U. S. 202, 211 (1985); Teamsters v. Lacas Flour Co., 369 U. S. 95, 103-104 (1962).
The duty of fair representation is different. It has “judicially evolved,” Motor Coach Employees v. Lockridge, 403 U. S. 274, 301 (1971), as part of federal labor law — predating the prohibition against unfair labor practices by unions in the 1947 LMRA. It is an essential means of enforcing fully the important principle that “no individual union member may suffer invidious, hostile treatment at the hands of the majority of his coworkers.” Ibid.; see also United Parcel Service, Inc. v. Mitchell, 451 U. S. 56, 63 (1981) (“[T]he unfair representation claim made by an employee against his union... is more a creature of ‘labor law’ as it has developed... than it is of general contract law”). The duty of fair representation, unlike state tort and contract law, is part of federal labor policy. Our “refusal to limit judicial competence to rectify a breach of the duty of fair representation rests upon our judgment that such actions cannot, in the vast majority of situations where they occur, give rise to actual conflict with the operative realities of federal labor policy.” Lockridge, supra, at 301; see also Vaca, 386 U. S., at 180-181 (“A primary justification for the pre-emption doctrine — the need to avoid conflicting rules of substantive law in the labor relations area and the desirability of leaving the development of such rules to the administrative agency created by Congress for that purpose — is not applicable to cases involving alleged breaches of the union’s duty of fair representation”). We therefore decline to interpret the state-law pre-emption cases as establishing a principle that hiring halls are somehow so different from other union activities that fair representation claims are not cognizable outside of the NLRB.
The Court of Appeals below also held that if an employee fails to allege that his employer breached the collective-bargaining agreement, then he cannot prevail in a fair representation suit against his union. See 849 F. 2d, at 999. This is a misstatement of existing law. In Vaca, we identified an “intensely practical consideration],” 386 U. S., at 183, of having the same entity adjudicate a joint claim against both the employer and the union when a wrongfully discharged employee who has not obtained relief through any exclusive grievance and arbitration procedures provided in the collective-bargaining agreement brings a breach-of-contract action against the employer pursuant to § 301(a) of the LMRA, 61 Stat. 156, 29 U. S. C. § 185(a) (1982 ed.). We noted that where the union has control of the grievance and arbitration system, the employee-plaintiff’s failure to exhaust his contractual remedies may be excused if the union has wrongfully refused to process his claim and thus breached its duty of fair representation. See Vaca, 386 U. S., at 185-186. “[T]he wrongfully discharged employee may bring an action against his employer in the face of a defense based upon the failure to exhaust contractual remedies, provided the employee can prove that the union as a bargaining agent breached its duty of fair representation in its handling of the employee’s grievance.” Id., at 186.
Our reasoning in Vaca in no way implies, however, that a fair representation action requires a concomitant claim against an employer for breach of contract. Indeed, the earliest fair representation suits involved claims against unions for breach of the duty in negotiating a collective-bargaining agreement, a context in which no breach-of-contract action against an employer is possible. See Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U. S. 330 (1953); Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S. 192 (1944). Even after a collective-bargaining agreement has been signed, we have never required a fair representation plaintiff to allege that his employer breached the agreement in order to prevail. See, e. g., Communications Workers v. Beck, 487 U. S., at 743; Czosek v. O’Mara, 397 U. S. 25, 29 (1970). “[A]n action seeking damages for injury inflicted by a breach of a union’s duty of fair representation [is] judicially cognizable in any event, that is, even if the conduct complained of [is] arguably protected or prohibited by the National Labor Relations Act and whether or not the lawsuit [is] bottomed on a collective agreement.” Motor Coach Employees v. Lockridge, supra, at 299 (emphasis added).
Respondent argues that the concern in Vaca that suits against the employer and union be heard together in the same forum is applicable to the hiring hall situation, because any action by petitioner against an employer would be premised not on § 301 but rather on the contention that the employer had knowledge of the union conduct violating § 8(b)(1)(A) and acted on that knowledge in making an employment decision. The employer would thereby violate NLRA § 8(a)(3), 29 U. S. C. § 158(a)(3), see Wallace Corp. v. NLRB, 323 U. S. 248, 255-256 (1944), and be held jointly and severally liable with the union, but only in a suit before the Board. In the hiring hall environment, permitting courts to hear fair representation claims against the union would create the danger of bifurcated proceedings-before a court and the NLRB. The absence of a §301 claim, according to respondent, requires that we hold that the NLRB possesses exclusive jurisdiction over petitioner’s fair representation suit.
This argument misinterprets our reasoning in Vaca. Because a plaintiff must as a matter of logic prevail on his unfair representation allegation against the union in order to excuse his failure to exhaust contractual remedies before he can litigate the merits of his § 301 claim against his employer, we found it “obvious that the courts will be compelled to pass upon whether there has been a breach of the duty of fair representation in the context of many §301 breach-of-contract actions.” 386 U. S., at 187. Moreover, because the union’s breach may have enhanced or contributed to the employee’s injury, permitting fair representation suits to be heard in court facilitates the fashioning of a remedy. Ibid. We concluded that it made little sense to prevent courts from adjudicating fair representation claims.
The situation in the instant case is entirely different. In the hiring hall context, the Board may bring a claim alleging a violation of § 8(b)(1)(A) against the union, and a parallel suit against the employer under § 8(a)(3), without implicating the duty of fair representation at all. Or, as in the instant case, an employee may bring a claim solely against the union based on its wrongful refusal to refer him for work. While in Vaca an allegation that the union had breached its duty of fair representation was a necessary component of the § 301 claim against the employer, the converse is not true here: a suit against the union need not be accompanied by an allegation that an employer breached the contract, since whatever the employer’s liability, the employee would still retain a legal claim against the union. The fact that an employee may bring his fair representation claim in federal court in order to join it with a §301 claim does not mean that he must bring the fair representation claim before the Board in order to “join” it with a hypothetical unfair labor practice case against the employer that was never actually filed.
Federal courts have jurisdiction to hear fair representation suits whether or not they are accompanied by claims against employers. We have always assumed th%f independent federal jurisdiction exists over fair representation claims because the duty is implied from the grant of exclusive representation status, and the claims therefore “arise under” the NLRA. See, e. g., Tunstall v. Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen, 323 U. S. 210, 213 (1944). Lower courts that have addressed the issue have uniformly found that 28 U. S. C. § 1337(a), which provides federal jurisdiction for, inter alia, “any civil action or proceeding arising under any Act of Congress regulating commerce,” creates federal jurisdiction over fair representation claims, because we held in Capital Service, Inc. v. NLRB, 347 U. S. 501, 504 (1954), that the NLRA is an “Act of Congress regulating commerce.” See Chavez v. United Food & Commercial Workers Int’l Union, 779 F. 2d 1353, 1355, 1356 (CA8 1985); Anderson v. United Paperworkers Int’l Union, 641 F. 2d 574, 576 (CA8 1981); Buchholtz v. Swift & Co., 609 F. 2d 317, 332 (CA8 1979), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 1018 (1980); Mumford v. Glover, 503 F. 2d 878, 882-883 (CA5 1974); Retana v. Apartment, Motel, Hotel & Elevator Operators Local 14, 453 F. 2d 1018, 1021-1022 (CA9 1972); De Arroyo v. Sindicato de Trabajadores Packinghouse, 425 F. 2d 281, 283, n. 1 (CA1), cert. denied, 400 U. S. 877 (1970); Nedd v. United Mine Workers of America, 400 F. 2d 103, 106 (CA3 1968); see also Bautista v. Pan American World Airlines, Inc., 828 F. 2d 546, 549 (CA9 1987). We agree with this reasoning. Because federal-court jurisdiction exists over a fair representation claim regardless of whether it is accompanied by a breach-of-contract claim against an employer under §301, and because a fair representation claim is a separate cause of action from any possible suit against the employer, we decline to adopt a rule that exclusive jurisdiction lies in the NLRB over any fair representation suit whose hypothetical accompanying claim against the employer might be raised before the Board.
The concerns that animated our decision in Vaca are equally present in the instant case. The Court of Appeals erred in holding that the District Court was without jurisdiction to hear petitioner’s fair representation claim.
B
Respondent contends that even if jurisdiction in federal court is proper, petitioner has failed to allege a fair representation claim for two reasons.
1
First, respondent notes that we have interpreted NLRA § 8(a)(3) to forbid employer discrimination in hiring only when it is intended to discriminate on a union-related basis. See, e. g., NLRB v. Brown, 380 U. S. 278, 286 (1965). Respondent maintains that symmetry requires us to interpret § 8(b) (2) as forbidding only discrimination based on union-related criteria and not any other form of maladministration of a union job referral system. Respondent contends that under this standard it committed no unfair labor practice in this case. The LMRA, according to respondent, reflects a purposeful congressional decision to limit the scope of § 8(b)(2) to instances where a union discriminates solely on the basis of union membership or lack thereof. This decision would be negated if the duty of fair representation were construed as extending further than the unfair labor practice provisions of the NLRA.
We need not decide the appropriate scope of §§ 8(b)(1)(A) and 8(b)(2) because we reject the proposition that the duty of fair representation should be defined in terms of what is an unfair labor practice. Respondent’s argument rests on a false syllogism: (a) because Miranda Fuel Co., 140 N. L. R. B. 181 (1962), enf. denied, 326 F. 2d 172 (CA2 1963), establishes that a breach of the duty of fair representation is also an unfair labor practice, and (b) the conduct in this case was not an unfair labor practice, therefore (c) it must not have been a breach of the duty of fair representation either. The flaw in the syllogism is that there is no reason to equate breaches of the duty of fair representation with unfair labor practices, especially in an effort to narrow the former category. The NLRB’s rationale in Miranda Fuel was precisely the opposite; the Board determined that breaches of the duty of fair representation were also unfair labor practices in an effort to broaden, not restrict, the remedies available to union members. See 140 N. L. R. B. at 184-186. Pegging the duty of fair representation to the Board’s definition of unfair labor practices would make the two redundant, despite their different purposes, and would eliminate some of the prime virtues of the duty of fair representation — flexibility and adaptability. See Vaca, 386 U. S., at 182-183.
The duty of fair representation is not intended to mirror the contours of § 8(b); rather, it arises independently from the grant under §9(a) of the NLRA, 29 U. S. C. § 159(a) (1982 ed.), of the union’s exclusive power to represent all employees in a particular bargaining unit. It serves as a “bulwark to prevent arbitrary union conduct against individuals stripped of traditional forms of redress by the provisions of federal labor law.” Vaca, supra, at 182; see also NLRB v. Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co., 388 U. S. 175, 181 (1967) (“It was because the national labor policy vested unions with power to order the relations of employees with their employer that this Court found it necessary to fashion the duty of fair representation”). Respondent’s argument assumes that enactment of the LMRA in 1947 somehow limited a union’s duty of fair representation according to the unfair labor practices specified in § 8(b). We have never adopted such a view, and we decline to do so today.
2
Second, respondent insists that petitioner has failed to state a claim because in the hiring hall setting a union is acting essentially as an employer in matching up job requests with available personnel. Because a union does not “represent” the employees as a bargaining agent in such a situation, respondent argues that it should be relieved entirely of its duty of fair representation.
We cannot accept this proposed analogy. Only because of its status as a Board-certified bargaining representative and by virtue of the power granted to it by the collective-bargaining agreement does a union gain the ability to refer workers for employment through a hiring hall. Together with this authority comes the responsibility to exercise it in a nonarbitrary and nondiscriminatory fashion, because the members of the bargaining unit have entrusted the union with the task of representing them. That the particular function of job referral resembles a task that an employer might perform is of no consequence. The key is that the union is administering a provision of the contract, something that we have always held is subject to the duty of fair representation. “The undoubted broad authority of the union as exclusive bargaining agent in the negotiation and administration of a collective bargaining contract is accompanied by a responsibility of equal scope, the responsibility and duty of fair representation.” Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U. S. 335, 342 (1964) (emphasis added). See Communications Workers v. Beck, 487 U. S., at 739; Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U. S. 554, 564 (1976); see also Electrical Workers v. Heckler, 481 U. S., at 861-862; id., at 865 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
In Vaca v. Sipes, supra, for example, we held that a union has a duty of fair representation in grievance arbitration, despite the fact that NLRA § 9(a) expressly reserves the right of “any individual employee or group of employees... to present grievances to their employer and to have such grievances adjusted, without the intervention of the bargaining representative, as long as the adjustment is not inconsistent with the terms of a collective-bargaining contract or agreement then in effect.” The union in Vaca exercised power over grievances because the contract so provided, not because the NLRA required such an arrangement. Hence, the observation that a contract might provide for the operation of a hiring hall directly by a consortium of interested employers rather than a union is irrelevant; the same might have been said about the system for processing grievances in Vaca. In short, a union does not shed its duty of fair representation merely because it is allocating job openings among competing applicants, something that might be seen as similar to what an employer does.
The union’s assumption in the hiring hall of what respondent believes is an “employer’s” role in no way renders the duty of fair representation inapplicable. When management administers job rights outside the hiring hall setting, arbitrary or discriminatory acts are apt to provoke a strong reaction through the grievance mechanism. In the union hiring hall, however, there is no balance of power. If respondent is correct that in a hiring hall the union has assumed the mantle of employer, then the individual employee stands alone against a single entity: the joint union/employer. An improperly functioning hiring hall thus resembles a closed shop, “ ‘with all of the abuses possible under such an arrangement, including discrimination against employees, prospective employees, members of union minority groups, and operation of a closed union.’” Teamsters v. NLRB, 365 U. S., at 674 (quoting S. Rep. No. 1827, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 14 (1947)); see also Note, Unilateral Union Control of Hiring Halls: The Wrong and the Remedy, 70 Yale L. J. 661, 674 (1961). In sum, if a union does wield additional power in a hiring hall by assuming the employer’s role, its responsibility to exercise that power fairly increases rather than decreases. That has been the logic of our duty of fair representation cases since Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S., at 200.
We reject respondent’s contention that petitioner’s complaint fails to state a fair representation claim.
I — I 1 — 1 1 — 1
The Court of Appeals rejected petitioner s LMRDA claim on the ground that petitioner had failed to show that he was “otherwise disciplined” within the meaning of LMRDA §§ 101(a)(5) and 609, 29 U. S. C. §§ 411(a)(5) and 529 (1982 ed.). These provisions make it unlawful for a union to “fin[e], suspen[d], expe[l], or otherwise disciplin[e]” any of its members for exercising rights secured under the LMRDA. The Court of Appeals reasoned that because “[hjiring hall referrals... are available to nonmembers as well as to members,” 849 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:
|
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 Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether the statutory prohibition against the marketing of a “new drug” without the prior approval of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires respondent Generix Drug Corp. to have approved new drug applications (NDA’s) before it may market its generic drug products. In statutory terms, we are required to determine whether the term “drug” as used in the relevant sections of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (Act), as amended, 21 U. S. C. §301 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp V), refers only to the active ingredient in a drug product or to the entire product. We hold that Congress intended the word to have the broader meaning.
I — i
The active ingredients in most prescription drugs constitute less than 10% of the product; inactive “excipients” (such as coatings, binders, and capsules) constitute the rest. The term “generic drug” is used to describe a product that contains the same active ingredients but not necessarily the same excipients as a so-called “pioneer drug” that is marketed under a brand name. Respondent Generix is a distributor of generic drugs manufactured by other firms.
The Government initiated this action to enjoin Generix from distributing in interstate commerce a number of generic drug products that contain eight specified active ingredients. It alleged that the FDA had never approved new drug applications with respect to any of those products.
The District Court held that a generic drug product containing the same active ingredients as a previously approved pioneer drug is a “new drug,” requiring an NDA, only if there is a reasonable possibility that the differences in excipi-ents between the generic product and the pioneer will make the generic product less safe and effective. 498 F. Supp. 288, 292. The court found clear evidence in support of the general proposition that differences in excipients may affect the safety and effectiveness of drug products. Excipients may affect the rate at which the active ingredient is delivered to a diseased organ. If delivery is too fast, the patient may be harmed just as if he received an overdose; if delivery is too slow, the treatment of the disease may be ineffective. Id., at 291.
In this case, the District Court found that the Government had established a reasonable possibility that the safety and effectiveness of six of respondent’s generic drug products might be affected by differences between their excipients and those found in approved products. Accordingly, it enjoined the defendants from further distribution of products containing the designated active ingredients.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, now the Eleventh Circuit, vacated the District Court’s injunction and remanded with instructions to dismiss the complaint. 654 F. 2d 1114. It held that the statutory prohibition against the sale of a “new drug” without prior approval does not apply to a drug product having the same active ingredients as a previously approved drug product, regardless of any differences in excipients. It based that conclusion on its view that the statutory requirement of evaluating the safety and effectiveness of new drugs must normally relate to active ingredients, because the precise technique of formulating the finished drug is not part of the information generally known to the medical or scientific community. Moreover, it believed that the legislative history suggested that Congress had not intended to create a product-by-product licensing system. Since the active ingredients at issue had all received the necessary approval, the Court of Appeals concluded that the Government was entitled to no relief at all.
Because the question is obviously important and because it has been decided differently in other Circuits, we granted certiorari. 455 U. S. 988.
In resolving the narrow issue presented, the Court of Appeals misread the statutory text.
Section 201(p) of the Act defines a “new drug” to be “any drug . . . [which] is not generally recognized ... as safe and effective . . . or . . . which has not, otherwise than in [safety and effectiveness] investigations, been used to a material extent or for a material time . . . .” The Court of Appeals did not rest its decision on a finding that Generix’s products are generally recognized as safe and effective; rather, its conclusion rested on the proposition that the statutory phrase “any drug” does not include a complete drug product, but only an active ingredient. That proposition is simply untenable.
The original Federal Food and Drugs Act of June 30, 1906, 34 Stat. 768, prohibited the sale of adulterated or misbranded foods or drugs. The definition of the term “drug” in that statute was plainly broad enough to describe a completed drug product. It provided:
“That the term ‘drug/ as used in this Act, shall include all medicines and preparations recognized in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary for internal or external use, and any substance or mixture of substances intended to be used for the cure, mitigation, or prevention of disease of either man or other animals.” 34 Stat. 769.
In 1938, Congress passed the new statute, which requires that an application be submitted to the FDA before any “new drug” may be introduced into interstate commerce. Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 1040, 21 U. S. C. § 301 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. V). The new Act’s definition of the term “drug” is even broader than the old one:
“[201](g)(l) The term ‘drug’ means (A) articles recognized in the official United States Pharmacopoeia, official Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States, or official National Formulary, or any supplement to any of them; and (B) articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or other animals; and (C) articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals; and (D) articles intended for use as a component of any article specified in clauses (A), (B), or (C) of this paragraph; but does not include devices or their components, parts, or accessories.” 52 Stat. 1041, as amended, and as set forth in 21 U. S. C. § 321(g)(1).
In examining this statutory definition, the Court of Appeals was persuaded that only active ingredients come within the terms of subsection (A). 654 F. 2d, at 1116. Unfortunately, the court did not analyze the entire definition. If it had done so, it would have noted both that the terms of subsections (A), (B), and (C) are plainly broad enough to include more than just active ingredients, and that they must do so unless subsection (D) is to be superfluous. Because the definition is disjunctive, generic drug products are quite plainly drugs within the meaning of the Act.
The natural reading of this definition is corroborated by other sections of the Act. Section 501(a) provides that a “drug” is deemed adulterated “if [it is a drug which] bears or contains, for purposes of coloring only, a color additive which is unsafe.” 52 Stat. 1049, as amended, 21 U. S. C. § 351(a)(4). Section 502(e) provides that a “drug . . . fabricated from two or more ingredients” shall be deemed to be misbranded unless its label includes, “whether active or not, the established name and quantity or proportion of any bromides, ether, chloroform, [etc.].” 52 Stat. 1050-1051, as amended, 21 U. S. C. § 352(e)(1). And § 505(b) requires that an application for new drug approval contain “a full list of the articles used as components of such drug [and] a full statement of the composition of such drug.” 52 Stat. 1052, 21 U. S. C. § 355(b). The term “drug” is plainly intended throughout the Act to include entire drug products, complete with active and inactive ingredients.
Neither the Court of Appeals nor respondents have pointed to anything in the text of the Act that is inconsistent with our reading of its plain language. The respondents make a number of arguments based upon legislative history and administrative practice regarding the marketing of generic prescription and over-the-counter drugs that lend support to the proposition that two products need not have precisely the same molecular structure in order to be the same “drug.” None of those arguments, however, warrants the conclusion that the term “drug” means only the active ingredient in a product.
In this case we are not required to determine what types of differences between drugs would be significant or insignificant under the statute. Respondent Generix argues only that its products are not new drugs under the theory that “drug” means “active ingredient”; it does not argue that its complete products — active ingredients and excipients together — are the same as previously approved products. The latter argument would, of course, have been unavailing on the facts before us; for the respondent has not questioned the District Court’s finding of a reasonable possibility that its products are not bioequivalent to any previously approved products. We thus do not reach the issue of whether two demonstrably bioequivalent products, containing the same active ingredients but different excipients, might under some circumstances be the same “drug.”
In summary, a generic drug product is a “drug” within the meaning of § 201(g)(1) of the Act. Such a product is therefore a “new drug,” subject to the requirements of § 505, until the product (and not merely its active ingredient) no longer falls within the terms of § 201(p). The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Reversed.
Generic drugs, also called “copycat” or “me-too” drugs, are usually marketed at relatively low prices because their manufacturers do not incur the research, development, and promotional costs normally associated with the creation and marketing of an original product.
The eight ingredients were: allopurinol, spironolactone with hydrochlo-rothiazide, furosemide, diethylpropion hydrochloride, chlorothiazide with reserpine, amitriptyline with perphenazine, prochlorperazine maléate, and chlorthalidone. The District Court explained the use of each of these ingredients, noting that furosemide is one of the most widely used drugs in the United States, it being used to treat hypertension and edema. 498 F. Supp. 288, 289-290.
Section 505(a) of the Act, 52 Stat. 1052, as amended, 76 Stat. 784, 21 U. S. C. § 355(a), provides:
“(a) Necessity of effective approval of application
“No person shall introduce or deliver for introduction into interstate commerce any new drug, unless an approval of an application filed pursuant to subsection (b) of this section is effective with respect to such drug.”
Since no evidence concerning the safety and effectiveness of formulations containing prochlorperazine maleate or chlorthalidone was presented at the hearing, no relief was granted with respect to products containing those ingredients. 498 F. Supp., at 294.
Premo Pharmaceutical Laboratories, Inc. v. United States, 629 F. 2d 795 (CA2 1980).
Respondent Generix has argued that the ease is moot because almost its entire store of products containing the disputed active ingredients is no longer salable, and in the future it intends only to sell generic drugs that have FDA approval. The possibility that respondent may change its mind in the future is sufficient to preclude a finding of mootness. See City of Mesquite v. Aladdin’s Castle, Inc., 455 U. S. 283, 288-289 (1982); United States v. W. T. Grant Co., 345 U. S. 629, 632 (1953).
The full text of §201(p), 52 Stat. 1041-1042, as amended, 76 Stat. 781, 21 U. S. C. § 321(p), reads as follows:
“The term ‘new drug’ means—
“(1) Any drug (except a new animal drug or an animal feed bearing or containing a new animal drug) the composition of which is such that such drug is not generally recognized, among experts qualified by scientific training and experience to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of drugs, as safe and effective for use under the conditions prescribed, recommended, or suggested in the labeling thereof, except that such a drug not so recognized shall not be deemed to be a ‘new drug’ if at any time prior to June 25, 1938, it was subject to the Food and Drugs Act of June 30, 1906, as amended, and if at such time its labeling contained the same representations concerning the conditions of its use; or
“(2) Any drug (except a new animal drug or an animal feed bearing or containing a new animal drug) the composition of which is such that such drug, as a result of investigations to determine its safety and effectiveness for use under such conditions, has become so recognized, but which has not, otherwise than in such investigations, been used to a material extent or for a material time under such conditions.”
But cf. The United States Pharmacopeia 2 (20th rev. ed. 1980) (“article” is an item for which a monograph exists; monographs may exist for the “finished, or partially finished . . . preparation or product of one or more official substances [active ingredients or excipients] formulated for use on or for the patient”).
At oral argument, respondents suggested that it would be nonsensical to understand the word “drug” in § 502(i) of the Act, 52 Stat. 1051, 21 U. S. C. § 352(i), to mean “drug product,” because any generic drug is “an imitation of another drug.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 41-42. But § 502(i) is intended to prohibit a company from passing an imitation off as the original; if “imitation” is understood with that in mind, it becomes apparent that the word “drug” can and should mean “drug product” in § 502(i), as well.
Both the respondents and the Court of Appeals have suggested that if the term “new drug” referred to complete drug products, as opposed to active ingredients, then § 201(p)(2) of the Act would be superfluous. See 654 F. 2d, at 1116-1117. That section (set forth in n. 7, supra) establishes that before a drug may drop out of regulation, it must — in addition to being generally recognized among experts as safe and effective for the prescribed use — have been used to a material extent or for a material time other than in scientific investigations. The argument appears to rest on the premise that the only regulatory burden associated with being a new drug is the need to file a new drug application. Since an application must be filed before a drug can receive general public use, the argument is that nothing would be gained by deregulation because the only regulatory burden would have been sustained before one could be exempted from that burden. But the premise is flawed. Significant recordkeeping and reporting burdens are lifted when the “new drug” status terminates. See § 505(j) of the Act, 76 Stat. 782-783, 21 U. S. C. §355(j). See also 21 CFR §§ 310.300-310.303 (1982).
They argue (1) that legislative history suggests that the 1938 Congress rejected a product-by-product licensing system, (2) that in 1938 many pharmacists compounded their own pills with excipients of their choice and were not expected to file NDA’s for each pill or every time they used a new excipient, (3) that between 1938 and 1968 the FDA advised drug manufacturers that certain generic products were not “new drugs” and therefore did not require NDA’s to be marketed, (4) that the 1962 amendments reveal a congressional interest in promoting the availability of generic drugs in order to reduce the price of prescription drugs for consumers, (5) that in applying the 1962 amendments, the FDA took the position that, for some purposes, generic drug products were covered by NDA’s of the pioneer drugs that they copied, and (6) that since 1972 the FDA has used a “monograph” system to permit the marketing of over-the-counter drugs that meet prescribed standards and contain “suitable” excipients.
Because the Government did not cross-appeal from the District Court’s refusal to grant relief as to products containing prochlorperazine maleate and chlorthalidone, see n. 4, swpra, we have no occasion to pass on the District Court’s conclusion that the FDA has the burden of showing a “reasonable possibility” that a drug product is not bioequivalent to an approved product in order to enjoin distribution.
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.
We are concerned here with certain features of what appears to be the final stage of the long-continuing and sometimes strained controversy between the United States and the State of Louisiana over the proceeds of mineral leases on lands off Louisiana’s Gulf Coast. Specifically at issue are the asserted obligation of the United States for interest on, or for the value of the use of, impounded funds that have been awarded and paid to Louisiana, and the asserted obligation of Louisiana to account to the United States for certain unimpounded lease revenues received by the State.
I
Litigation between the United States and the State of Louisiana over rights in lands submerged in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast began over 30 years ago, in 1948, when the United States moved this Court, under its original jurisdiction, for leave to file a complaint. The Government prayed for a decree (a) declaring rights of the United States as against Louisiana over lands “underlying the Gulf of Mexico, lying seaward of the ordinary low-water mark on the coast of Louisiana and outside of the inland waters, extending seaward twenty-seven marine miles and bounded on the east and west, respectively, by the eastern and western boundaries of the State of Louisiana,” and (b) requiring that Louisiana account to the United States for money received by the State after June 23, 1947, from the area so designated. Over opposition, the requested leave was granted. United States v. Louisiana, 337 U. S. 902 (1949). Louisiana was directed to answer. 337 U. S. 928 (1949). The State, however, filed a demurrer and motions to dismiss and for other relief. These were overruled and denied. 338 U. S. 806 (1949).
Louisiana then did answer, placing in issue the claims of the United States and asserting affirmative defenses. The plaintiff’s responsive motion for judgment was set down for argument. The Court ruled that United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19 (1947), then recently decided, controlled the Louisiana litigation. In that case, the Court had held that California was not the owner of the marginal belt along its coast beyond the low-water mark, and that the Federal Government had primary rights in and power over that belt. The rationale, it was said, was that “ [n] ational rights must therefore be paramount in that area.” 339 U. S. 699, 704 (1950). A decree was entered enunciating the United States’ possession of “paramount rights” and Louisiana’s lack of “title thereto or property interest therein”; enjoining Louisiana from carrying on activities in the area for the purpose of taking petroleum, gas, or other mineral products without authority first obtained from the United States; and stating that the United States was entitled to an accounting from Louisiana of sums derived by the State from the area since June 5, 1950 (the date of the Court’s opinion). 340 U. S. 899 (1950). A like decree was entered in a companion case against Texas. United States v. Texas, 340 U. S. 900 (1950).
The Submerged Lands Act, 67 Stat. 29, 43 U. S. C. § 1301 et seg., passed May 22, 1953, came in response to these rulings. By that statute, the United States released to the coastal States its rights in the submerged lands within stated limits and confirmed its own rights therein seaward of those limits. The Act was sustained as a constitutional exercise of Congress’ power to dispose of federal property. Alabama v. Texas, 347 U. S. 272 (1954).
The passage of the Act, however, did not end the controversy. Opposing claims continued to be asserted, and Louisiana continued to conduct leasing activities with respect to submerged lands in the disputed area. Accordingly, in 1956, the United States sought and was granted leave to file a complaint in a new suit (the present litigation) against Louisiana. 350 U. S. 990. The Court forthwith enjoined Louisiana and the United States “from leasing or beginning the drilling of new wells in the disputed tidelands area... unless by agreement of the parties filed here.” 351 U. S. 978 (1956). In response to this ruling, on October 12, 1956, the parties entered into an Interim Agreement designed to permit further development of the submerged lands in dispute. Interpretation of this agreement is the central task of this opinion. The lawsuit continued, and in 1957 the other Gulf States in effect were requested to intervene. 354 U. S. 515.
In due course this Court held, among other things, that the Submerged Lands Act granted Louisiana ownership “to a distance no greater than three geographical miles from its coastlines, wherever those lines may ultimately be shown to be.” 363 U. S. 1, 79 (1960). A “Final Decree” was entered accordingly. 364 U. S. 502 (1960). That decree, like the one of 1950 in the earlier litigation, confirmed in the United States as against Louisiana all the land, minerals, and other natural resources underlying the Gulf of Mexico more than three geographic miles seaward from the coastline; recited that Louisiana-had no interest therein and was enjoined from interfering with the rights of the United States; stated that as against the United States Louisiana was entitled to all the lands, minerals, and other natural resources underlying the Gulf extending seaward from its coastline three geographic miles, and that the United States was not entitled to any interest therein (with a stated exception inapplicable here) ; and provided that whenever the location of the coastline of Louisiana should be agreed upon or determined, the State was to render the United States an appropriate accounting of all sums derived by it since June 5, 1950, “either by sale, leasing, licensing, exploitation or otherwise from or on account of any of the lands or resources [decreed to the United States]... provided, however, that as to the State of Louisiana the allocation, withdrawal and payment of any funds now impounded under the Interim Agreement between the United States and the State of Louisiana, dated October 12, 1956, shall, subject to the terms hereof, be made in accordance with the appropriate provisions of said Agreement.” Id., at 503.
On December 13, 1965, a supplemental decree was entered. 382 U. S. 288. It generally reconfirmed the respective rights of the United States and Louisiana as theretofore determined ; released to the United States all sums held impounded by it under the Interim Agreement and attributable to the lands confirmed in the United States; released to Louisiana all sums held impounded by it under that agreement and attributable to the lands confirmed in the State; directed, within 75 days, the payments required of the respective parties, and an accounting from each of sums attributable to lands confirmed in the other, id., at 293; and retained jurisdiction particularly with respect “to the remainder of the disputed area/' id., at 295.
The determination of the exact location of the Louisiana coastline remained for resolution. In United States v. California, 381 U. S. 139 (1965), this Court held that Congress had left to the courts the task of defining “inland waters,” and the Court adopted for purposes of the Submerged Lands Act the definitions contained in the international Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, ratified by the United States in 1961. [1964] 15 U. S. T. (pt. 2) 1607, T. I. A. S. No. 5639. In the present litigation, in March 1969, the Court held that that part of Louisiana's coastline which, under the Submerged Lands Act, consists of “the line marking the seaward limit of inland waters,” see 43 U. S. C. § 1301 (c), is also to be drawn in accordance with the definitions of the Convention. It decided to refer to a Special Master particularized disputes over the precise boundary between the submerged lands belonging to the United States and those belonging to Louisiana. 394 U. S. 11. A Master was appointed. 395 U. S. 901 (1969).
A second supplemental decree was entered December 20, 1971. 404 U. S. 388. That decree, among other things, determined that the United States had exclusive rights to an area of the Continental Shelf lying more than one foot seaward of a line therein described; recited that sums held impounded by the United States under the Interim Agreement and derived from those lands were released to the United States, id., at 389; and provided that leases of lands lying partly within that area and partly landward thereof were not affected by the decree, so that revenues derived therefrom were to remain subject to impoundment, id., at 402.
Still a third supplemental decree was entered October 16, 1972. 409 U. S. 17. By this decree, the Court ruled that, with a stated exception, Louisiana was entitled to all lands, minerals, and other natural resources lying more than one foot landward of a line therein described and seaward of the ordinary low-water mark on the Louisiana shore, id., at 17-18; that leases of land partly within that area and partly seaward thereof were not affected by the decree, so that revenues derived therefrom were to remain subject to impoundment; and that all sums held impounded by Louisiana or the United States under the Interim Agreement derived from leases of lands wholly within areas allotted to Louisiana were released to that State, id., at 31.
The Special Master thereafter filed his report dated July 31, 1974. Exceptions to that report made by the United States and by Louisiana, respectively, were overruled, the Special Master’s recommendations were accepted, and the parties were directed to prepare and file a proposed decree establishing “a baseline along the entire coast of the State of Louisiana.” 420 U. S. 529, 530 (1975). The parties were able to agree, and a fourth supplemental decree was entered June 16, 1975. 422 U. S. 13. Exclusive rights were affirmed in the respective parties in areas lying landward or seaward of a line three geographical miles seaward of the baseline, and impounded sums were released accordingly. Id., at 13-14. Cross-payments within 90 days and cross-accountings within 60 days were ordered. Id., at 15. The decree recited: “It is understood that the parties may be unable to agree on... whether interest may be due on funds impounded pursuant to the Interim Agreement of October 12, 1956.” Id., at 17. The required accountings were filed and referred to the Special Master. 423 U. S. 909 (1975).
The Master held hearings on the accountings and on the objections that were interposed. He now has filed his supplemental report dated August 27, 1979. Louisiana and the United States have each filed exceptions to that report.
II
As was observed at the beginning of this opinion, the parties and this Court should be near the end of this long-enduring litigation. The territorial dispute has been resolved. The boundary between federal and state submerged lands, except for the formal entry of yet another supplemental decree describing that boundary, has been fixed. And each party has been directed to account for revenues derived from areas adjudicated to the other sovereign.
The Special Master’s supplemental report recites the fifing of the several accountings by Louisiana and by the United States; the respective objections made to those accountings; the agreements reached by the parties; and the fact that three issues remain unresolved. As phrased by the Master, these issues are:
First issue — Is the United States obligated to account for and pay to the State of Louisiana either the value of the use of Louisiana’s share of the impounded funds or interest upon that portion of those funds?
Second issue — Does Louisiana have the obligation to account for revenues received by it from mineral leases on areas lying within Zone 1?
Third issue — Does Louisiana have the obligation to account for as unimpounded funds and to pay to the United States money collected by it as severance taxes on minerals removed from areas subsequently determined to belong to the United States?
The Master’s ruling on each issue was in the negative. He has recommended that all exceptions to the accountings be overruled, and that the accountings be approved as filed.
Before this Court, Louisiana has filed exceptions only to the Special Master’s recommendations as to the first stated issue. The United States has filed exceptions only as to the second stated issue. The Master’s recommendations as to the third stated issue, concerning money collected by Louisiana as severance taxes, thus are not the subject of any exceptions here. In the absence of present controversy we accept the Special Master’s recommendations on that issue. We consider the exceptions to the other issues in turn.
Ill
The First Stated Issue
The Interim Agreement of October 12, 1956, between the United States and Louisiana, referred to in this Court’s “Final Decree” of December 12, 1960, see 364 U. S., at 503, came into being after the Court, on June 11, 1956, had provided:
“IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the State of Louisiana and the United States of America are enjoined from leasing or beginning the drilling of new wells in the disputed tidelands area pending further order of this Court unless by agreement of the parties filed here.” 351 U. S. 978.
The Interim Agreement recites that the parties “desire to provide for the impoundment of... sums... payable under mineral leases in the disputed area, pending the final settlement or adjudication of the said controversy.” App. to Reply Brief for Louisiana 9a. It divided the submerged lands off the Louisiana coast into four zones therein described. The zone contiguous to the coastline was designated as Zone 1, the next most seaward as Zone 2, the next as Zone 3, and the most seaward as Zone 4. Id., at 10a-lla. It described the area comprising Zones 2 and 3 as the “disputed area,” id., at 11a, and it conferred upon the United States (with certain exceptions) the responsibility for collecting receipts from the disputed zones, id., at 26a-27a. By If 7 (a), the United States agreed (with exclusions not material here) “to impound in a separate fund in the Treasury of the United States a sum equal to all... payments heretofore or hereafter paid to it for and on account of each lease, or part thereof, in Zones 2 and 3.” Id., at 14a. Certain other payments were to be impounded by Louisiana. Paragraph 9 of the agreement then provides:
“[T]he impounded funds provided for herein shall be held intact, in a separate account for each lease or portion thereof affected, by each party until title to the area affected is determined. Whereupon, except as otherwise herein provided:
“(b) Any funds derived from an area finally determined to be owned by the State of Louisiana [with an exception not here material] shall be taken from the separate and impounded fund in the Treasury of the United States provided for herein,”
and paid to the appropriate officer of Louisiana. Id., at 18a-19a.
Pursuant to these provisions of the Interim Agreement, the United States collected and retained payments on mineral leases for operations within the designated disputed area. As a consequence of the first supplemental decree, entered December 13, 1965, see 382 U. S., at 293, the United States paid Louisiana some $34 million of impounded funds. Indeed, with an additional payment of some $136 million in 1975, pursuant to the supplemental decree of June 16, 1975, see 422 U. S., at 14-15, all payments due Louisiana from the funds impounded by the United States have been made. But the United States has not paid Louisiana any interest on the funds so impounded, and has not made any payment for the use of those funds while they were held in the United States Treasury. Louisiana asserts a claim for such interest, apparently approximating $88 million, or for the value of the use of the money during the period of impoundment, and the United States resists these claims.
Louisiana’s position is at least fourfold: (1) The impoundment provisions of the Interim Agreement implied a trust that imposed on the United States the fiduciary duty of a trustee in its handling of the impounded funds. It is said that an escrow arrangement in fact was established. The presence of a trust is evident from the conduct and relationship of the parties, from documentary evidence, and from admissions by federal officials. (2) The United States used Louisiana’s money for its own purposes and without authority under the Interim Agreement. The funds were deposited in the general account of the Treasurer of the United States where they were available, and used, to meet cash needs of the Federal Government. (3) The United States had the duty to invest the impounded funds for the benefit of both parties. This duty is implied from the provisions of the agreement; is imposed upon the United States as a trustee as a matter of law; was breached by the refusal of the United States to honor a request by Louisiana to invest the funds; is supported by the provisions of 31 U. S. C. § 547a to the effect that “[a] 11 funds held in trust by the United States... shall be invested” in interest-bearing securities; and is not limited by the supplemental decree of June 16, 1975. (4) Equitable remedies to prevent the unjust enrichment of the United States at the expense of Louisiana are appropriate.
We find no merit in any of Louisiana’s contentions. The Interim Agreement provided only that the payments made to the United States on each lease within the disputed area were to be impounded “in a separate fund in the Treasury of the United States” and, upon determination of the ownership of the land, were to be taken from that separate and impounded fund and paid to the party entitled to them. The agreement contains no express provision for the payment of interest or for the use of the funds or for investment. Neither do we find anything in the agreement’s use of the word “impound” or, indeed, in Louisiana’s characterization of the arrangement as an escrow (a word that does not appear in the agreement), that implies an obligation on the part of the United States to pay interest or to pay for the use of the money. The word “impound,” in its application to funds, means to take or retain in “the custody of the law.” Black’s Law Dictionary 681 (5th ed., 1979); Bouvier’s Law Dictionary 1515 (8th ed., 1914). That obligation, as is an escrow, is to hold and deliver property intact.
What actually happened here, of course, was that, as the funds were paid to the United States, the lessees’ checks were cashed and the resulting cash was commingled with general funds of the Treasury and used in governmental operations. A separate account, No. 14X6709, nonetheless, was established on the books of the Treasury for these payments, and a credit entry covered every receipt from the disputed area. The United States did not stockpile that inflowing cash in a far corner of the Government vaults. But the special account was maintained and it accurately recorded the increasing potential liability of the United States to Louisiana. This was much more than a recordkeeping device. The receipts were never treated as governmental revenues. The recognition of a contingent liability, corresponding to the cash deposited, enabled the United States to make prompt payment to Louisiana without special congressional authorization or appropriation. There was no proof or even suggestion that at any time there were insufficient funds in the United States Treasury to pay any amount that might be determined to be due Louisiana from the impoundment.
Apart from constitutional requirements, in the absence of specific provision by contract or statute, or “express consent... by Congress,” interest does not run on a claim against the United States. Smyth v. United States, 302 U. S. 329, 353 (1937); Albrecht v. United States, 329 U. S. 599, 605 (1947); United States v. N. Y. Rayon Importing Co., 329 U. S. 654, 658-659 (1947). See also 28 U. S. C. §2516. It follows that the same is true as to any claim of duty to invest.
We are persuaded, also, that the omission, in the Interim Agreement, of any provision for interest was a conscious one. When the agreement was signed in 1956, almost $60 million in disputed revenues already had accumulated. The importance of any interest obligation was obvious. And pertinent here is the fact that two of Louisiana’s negotiators candidly conceded that they did not insist on an interest clause because they knew the United States would not agree to one. Tr. 70, 95, 98, 99, 102, 103, 163. Nor does Louisiana’s intimation that it was willing to pass the matter in silence because the agreement was expected to be short lived carry weight. The agreement itself specified no term, and, in its ¶ 13, it provided for operations after a year had elapsed.
We note, too, that Louisiana is not in a position to assert that it was unaware that the funds were not invested or that it did not know that the United States held itself not responsible for interest. The State received regular monthly reports of the amounts credited to the impounded account, as the agreement’s ¶ 8 required. Those reports reflected no interest. Louisiana accepted the $34 million distribution, made pursuant to the 1965 decree, without complaint about the absence of interest. And communications flowed from officers of the State and its representatives in Congress, suggesting the deposit of some of the funds in Louisiana banks, presumably so that they might enjoy the free use of those funds. The Louisiana Legislature, it is true, on June 6, 1967, by House Concurrent Resolution No. 251, did call upon the United States “to take such steps as are necessary to effect a prudent and effective investment of the funds now and hereafter so impounded.” See 1967 Louisiana Legislative Calendar 161-162. The quoted language, however, was only preca-tory and suggestive; it was not demanding. At most, it amounted to a request for a change of status. A Treasury official, pleading absence of authority, promptly returned a negative answer. In fact, Louisiana apparently never took the position that it was entitled to interest upon, or payment for the use of, its share of the impounded funds until 1975 when it filed its objections to the accounting. And Louisiana made no request for modification of the Interim Agreement. The State thus acquiesced for two decades.
We conclude that the United States fulfilled the obligations imposed upon it by the agreement; that the impoundment served its intended purpose; that there is no liability on the part of the United States for interest or for the use of the funds; and that the United States has no further obligation for payment beyond those it has performed.
IV
The Second Stated Issue
This issue concerns money paid to Louisiana by oil and gas lessees since 1950 in respect to Zone 1 areas now adjudicated to the United States. Louisiana asserts a right permanently to retain that money. The amount involved is some $19 million.
During the past three decades these federal lands have been administered by Louisiana. Before the Interim Agreement of 1956, Louisiana acted unilaterally in leasing those areas; after that date, it acted with the acquiescence of the United States given by the agreement.
The Special Master concluded that, by permitting Louisiana to administer Zone 1, the United States waived its rights to demand an accounting of, and payment with respect to, the revenues derived from its lands in the Zone. The Master did acknowledge that the very opposite result “would certainly be the case in the absence of any adjudication or agreement between the parties to the contrary.” Supplemental Report 15. He found a waiver on the part of the United States, however, that centered in a provision of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U. S. C. § 1336, which he read as foreclosing the federal claim to the money. He noted that the Interim Agreement contained no specific language regarding payments derived from leases on areas lying within Zone 1 or Zone 4, although it did with respect to revenues derived from leases on areas lying within Zones 2 and 3. He stressed ¶ 6 of the agreement, which provided that notwithstanding any adverse claim, Louisiana, as to any area in Zone 1 (and the United States, as to any area in Zone 4), “shall have exclusive supervision and administration, and may issue new leases and authorize the drilling of new wells and other operations without notice to or obtaining the consent of the other party.” App. to Reply Brief for Louisiana 14a. Louisiana, in fact, collected rentals on mineral leases on areas in Zone 1. The United States did not question Louisiana’s right to do so. The Master observed that Louisiana anticipated the possibility that some portions of Zone 1, upon which it granted leases, might ultimately be adjudged to belong to the United States, for it inserted in almost all the leases a provision to the effect that it was granting the right to extract minerals only from those parts of the leasehold areas owned by Louisiana. The conclusion the Master drew was that Louisiana was entitled to keep all rentals derived prior to the entry of the supplemental decree of June 16, 1975, from leases upon areas lying within Zone 1, and that the United States had no right to recover them.
We are constrained to disagree with the Special Master on this issue. We accept the submission of the United States that the “ground rules” of the controversy were laid down in 1950. The Court’s very first decree, issued December 11, 1950, specified, 340 U. S., at 900, that the United States was entitled to an accounting from Louisiana of all sums derived by the State from lands adjudicated to the United States. This was a principle laid down independently of the not-yet-enacted Submerged Lands Act and Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. The principle had its roots in the Court’s decision in United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19 (1947).
The Submerged Lands Act of 1953 did not change the ground rules. It released and “confirmed” a coastal belt to the coastal States, and the United States thereby “release[d] and relinquished] all claims of the United States... for money... arising out of [past] operations” within the belt. 43 U. S. C. § 1311 (b)(1). For areas seaward of that belt, however, the States’ obligation to account and pay remained unchanged. This Court’s decision of May 31, 1960, in the second suit, was unambiguous on this matter, and the Court made plain the continued vitality of the original ground rules. 363 U. S., at 7, 83, and n. 140. The cited footnote stated flatly:
“On June 5, 1950, the date of this Court’s decision in the Louisiana and Texas cases, all coastal States were put on notice that the United States was possessed of paramount rights in submerged lands lying seaward of their respective coasts.... [T]he United States remains entitled to an accounting for all sums derived since June 5, 1950, from lands not so relinquished [by the Submerged Lands Act].”
The preceding Interim Agreement of October 1956 was forced into being by continuing conflict, by an injunction obtained by Louisiana in its courts, and by the injunction issued by this Court on June 11, 1956. See 351 U. S. 978. As we have noted, the agreement divided the submerged lands into the four zones hereinabove described. The first, nearest the shore, was to be administered by Louisiana. The others were to be administered by the United States, except for certain leases already granted by Louisiana in Zone 2 and the requirement of state concurrence for any new leasing in that zone. Receipts from Zones 2 and 3 were to be “impounded.” No such impoundment obligation, however, was imposed on the United States with respect to Zone 4 or upon Louisiana with respect to Zone 1.
It turned out that the seaward boundary of Louisiana’s submerged lands, as finally determined, does not coincide with the line that divided Zones 1 and 2. The final boundary meanders back and forth across the agreement’s line between those two Zones producing bulges on each side. Louisiana has been successful in some of its claims to lands within Zone 2, and the United States has accounted for and paid over funds received from those areas. Yet Louisiana denies any corresponding obligation to account for and pay over revenues it received from those portions of Zone 1 that the United States has successfully claimed.
Louisiana asserts that the United States, by the Interim Agreement, waived and abandoned its right to revenues from Zone 1 during the life of the agreement. The agreement itself contains no express words of waiver. On the other hand, neither does it provide specifically for eventual repayment of any revenues from portions of Zone 1 ultimately adjudicated to the United States. But the agreement does recite: “nor shall any provision hereof be the basis for... waiving in any manner any right, interest, claim, or demand whatsoever of either party now pending in the proceedings above referred to, or otherwise.” App. to Reply Brief for Louisiana 9a. And it further recites that the baseline from which the several zones were measured had not been surveyed or finally fixed, and that no inference was to be drawn from the use of that baseline. Id., at 10a. These provisions of the agreement persuade us that each party specifically was reserving any monetary claims it might have outside Zones 2 and 3.
It was to be expected, of course, that most of Zone 1 would ultimately be adjudicated to Louisiana. This fact accounts for the decision to permit the State to enjoy, for the interim, the revenues from that area.
The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act was the complement of the Submerged Lands Act, for it provided in detail for the administration of federal submerged lands lying beyond those granted to the coastal States. It authorized an agreement with a State “respecting operations under existing mineral leases” and the issuance of new leases “pending the settlement or adjudication” of a controversy as to ultimate ownership. 43 U. S. C. § 1336. This provision is referred to in the Interim Agreement, and it is the one on which the Special Master focused his attention. The Master placed particular stress on the following sentence in the statute:
“Payments made pursuant to such agreement, or pursuant to any stipulation between the United States and a State, shall be considered as compliance with section 1335 (a) (4) of this title.”
The Master viewed the payments made by Louisiana’s lessees in Zone 1 as governed by this language and concluded that any federal claim with respect to those payments was foreclosed.,
We do not so read that sentence. The provision, we feel, means no more than that a lessee is not in default so long as the agreement remains in effect and he makes the payments required by it. The Act protects the lessee. Whatever the lessee’s ultimate obligation, if any, to the United States might turn out to be, there is no basis for reading into § 1336 a waiver by the United States of Louisiana’s independent duty to account, or a waiver of any claim for money due the United States. The State’s obligation does not derive from the Shelf Lands Act; it was imposed by this Court’s 1950 decree, was not waived by the Interim Agreement, and is not excused by the quoted provision of the Shelf Lands Act.
This conclusion is buttressed by the fact that until 1975 the actions of the parties and the rulings of this Court consistently indicate that this was the common understanding. The 1960 decree was prepared by the parties at the invitation of the Court. 363 U. S., at 85. The decree itself recognized that once the coastline was determined, Louisiana was to account and to pay. 364 U. S., at 503. The decree of December 13, 1965, although distinguishing between impounded and nonimpounded- funds, contained no waiver of any obligation relating to receipts that were not impounded. 382 U. S., at 294. This Court’s decision of March 17, 1975, 420 U. S. 529, and the implementing decree of June 16, 1975, 422 U. S. 13, recognized that in some places the true limit of Louisiana’s submerged lands was shoreward of the Zone 1 line. That decree, also, was proposed by the parties at the invitation of the Court. 420 U. S., at 530. It declared rights divided by a specified boundary line which, in many places, did not correspond with the seaward edge of Zone 1. It required each party to account for and to pay over impounded revenues attributable to lands adjudicated to the other. 422 U. S., at 15-16. We see no reason to conclude that those accounting provisions were included only for informational purposes, rather than to spell out the parties’ pecuniary-obligations.
y
In summary: We accept, upon acquiescence of the parties, the Special Master’s recommendations that Louisiana has no obligation to account for and to pay to the United States money collected by it as severance taxes on minerals removed from areas adjudicated to the United States. We agree with and accept the Special Master’s recommendations that the United States is not obligated to account for and pay Louisiana either the value of the use of Louisiana’s share of the impounded funds or interest upon that portion of those funds. We therefore overrule Louisiana’s exceptions to the supplemental report of the Special Master. We disagree with and do not accept the Special Master’s recommendations with respect to Louisiana’s obligation to account for revenues derived by it from mineral leases on areas within Zone 1 adjudicated to the United States. Instead, we sustain the exception of the United States and rule that Louisiana does have the obligation to account for such revenues received by it. Subject to this ruling, the respective accountings are approved as filed.
We leave to the Special Master and the parties the determination of the final amount due and owing, and of the method of payment. The ease is remanded to the Special Master for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The United States asserts:
“For a variety of reasons — including a reluctance to burden the Court with an esoteric and complex question of no recurring importance — we are not excepting to the Master’s conclusion with respect to the State’s obligation to pay over to the United States the severance taxes attributable to the extraction of minerals beyond State jurisdiction.” Memorandum of United States in Support of Exception, p. 3.
Louisiana’s total receipts attributable to the federal lands in Zone 1 since 1950 amount to some $23 million. This figure, however, includes the severance taxes (the third stated issue) to which the United States no longer makes claim. The United States calculates that Louisiana will be indebted to it for some $19 million if its exception to the second stated issue is sustained. It concedes, however, that Louisiana would be entitled to an offset for unimpounded moneys, received by the United States from Louisiana’s submerged lands, in excess of $5 million. Memorandum of United States in Support of Exception, pp. 40-41
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.
Per Curiam.
This is a suit by appellee for a declaratory judgment that he is a citizen of the United States. The District Court sustained the contention of the United States that appellee had lost his citizenship by reason of § 401 (j) of the Nationality Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 1137, as amended, 58 Stat. 746, 8 U. S. C. § 1481 (a) (10), and the Court of Appeals affirmed. 238 F. 2d 239. Meanwhile we had decided Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86; and when certiorari was sought here we granted the petition and remanded the cause to the District Court for reconsideration in light of that decision. 356 U. S. 258. On remand the District Court held that § 401 (j) was unconstitutional. The case is here on direct appeal (28 U. S. C. § 1252) from the judgment of the District Court holding that appellee is therefore a citizen of the United States. We noted probable jurisdiction. 359 U. S. 933.
After the case was argued the Court, sua sponte, put to the parties the following questions based on appellee’s conviction for draft evasion:
“(1) Was the judgment of conviction of appellee for draft evasion premised in any respect upon his citizenship status after the date of enactment of Section 401 (j)?
“(2) If so, does the judgment of conviction for any reason foreclose litigation of the appellee’s citizenship in the present case?
“(3) Are the foregoing questions appropriate for the Court’s consideration?”
The parties have filed supplemental briefs and from them it appears that the offense charged, and to which appellee pleaded guilty, was departing from the United States November 15, 1942, to evade service in the Armed Forces and remaining away until November 1, 1946. The statute under which he was convicted placed the duty of service on “every male citizen of the United States, and of every other male person residing in the United States.” 54 Stat. 885, as amended, 55 Stat. 844, 50 U. S. C. App. 303 (a) (1940 ed. Supp. I).
Appellee contends that while that Act requires service of aliens residing here, it is inapplicable to nonresident aliens; and that therefore the charge in the indictment that appellee remained away could be applicable only if appellee were a citizen. Indeed the facts stipulated in the present case state that he was a citizen by birth. It follows, appellee argues, that the judgment of conviction for draft violation necessarily included an adjudication of citizenship, and that that judgment brings into play the doctrine of collateral estoppel (Washington Packet Co. v. Sickles, 5 Wall. 580; Emich Motors Corp. v. General Motors Corp., 340 U. S. 558) since the conviction of draft evasion was subsequent to September 27, 1944, the date of the enactment of §401 (j). The Solicitor General argues, inter alia, that the issue of citizenship was not necessarily involved in the conviction for draft evasion since a charge of evasion by an alien would be made out even though he had left the country provided the duty to serve had attached when he resided here. The Solicitor General suggests, however, that the avoidance of a constitutional issue when not clearly necessary and the importance of citizenship to the appellee are important factors to be considered in disposing of the ease. He is of the view that “there is so little ground for saying that appellee’s citizenship status has already been definitively decided, we believe that this issue should not and need not be canvassed by the Court.” Yet with his customary candor the Solicitor General says, “But if the Court should be convinced on this record that appellee’s citizenship was authoritatively determined in his favor in the 1947 criminal proceeding, we would not oppose a resolution of the case on that basis.”
The issue of collateral estoppel is a question that clouds the underlying issue of constitutionality. Since the issue of collateral estoppel may be dispositive of the case, we remand the cause to the District Court with permission to the parties to amend the pleadings, if they so desire, to put in issue the question of collateral estoppel and to obtain an adjudication upon it.
It is so ordered.
Separate memorandum of
Mr. Justice Frankfurter.
The Solicitor General’s acquiescence in having this case disposed of by avoiding decision of the important constitutional question concerning the validity of §401 (j) of the Nationality Act of 1940, which is the only one presented by the record, probably reflects an understandable desire on the part of the Government to have this Court adjudicate that issue unembarrassed by an extraneous problem that did not come to the surface until this appeal had been submitted. I do not think that this new matter — a claim of collateral estoppel — should be considered here as though this were a court of first instance. No matter how sympathetic one may be towards liberalization of pleading and informality in judicial proceedings, the intrinsic demands of orderliness in the judicial process require that the issues on which this Court is to render judgment should be appropriately defined through pleadings and proceedings in the lower courts and not be initially shaped for adjudication in this Court. Apart from all else, since taking testimony before this Court has long since ceased to be feasible, we would necessarily have to act on the merits of a claim, based on the rather opaque law of collateral estoppel, resting on documentary submissions not subject to the test of testimonial examination.
I am prepared, therefore, to accede to the Solicitor General’s suggestion, but to do so by wiping the slate clean. This calls for an appropriate order vacating the proceedings in this Court and in the District Court for the Southern District of California as well as the deportation proceedings which derived from a finding that the appellee has lost his citizenship by reason of § 401 (j) of the Nationality Act, a conclusion which is the very issue in controversy. I would do so without summarizing the positions of the parties on the claim of collateral estoppel which is not relevantly before us on this record, and, above all, without any intimation regarding the seriousness of such a claim.
Section 401 (j) reads as follows:
“A person who is a national of the United States, whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by:
“(j) Departing from or remaining outside of the jurisdiction of the United States in time of war or during a period declared by the President to be a period of national emergency for the purpose of evading or avoiding training and service in the land or naval forces of the United States.”
The facts stipulated in the present case and relevant to that conviction are:
“III. Plaintiff was born in the United States on March 3, 1922, and thus was a citizen of the United States at birth.
“IV. Under the laws of Mexico plaintiff is now, and ever since his birth has been, a citizen and national of the Republic of Mexico.
“V. During 1942 plaintiff departed from the United States and went to Mexico for the sole purpose of evading and avoiding training and service in the Armed Forces of the United States.
“VI. Plaintiff remained in Mexico continuously from sometime during 1942 until on or about November 1, 1946 for the sole purpose of evading and avoiding training and service in the Armed Forces of the United States.
“VII. On June 23, 1947, plaintiff upon his plea of guilty was convicted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California for violation of Section 11 of the Selective Service and Training Act of 1940. He was sentenced to imprisonment for a period of one year and one day.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
At issue here is the power of the Court of Appeals under the All Writs Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1651 (a) (1964 ed.), to temporarily enjoin the consummation of a merger that is under attack before the Federal Trade Commission as violative of § 7 of the Clayton Act, as amended, 64 Stat. 1125, 15 U. S. C. § 18 (1964 ed.). This case arose on the application of the Commission for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction against respondents Dean Foods Company and Bowman Dairy Company to maintain the status quo until the Commission determined the legality of their merger. The Commission alléged that it had issued a complaint against respondents under § 7 of the Clayton Act and § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 38 Stat. 719, as amended, 52 Stat. 111, 15 U. S. C. § 45 (1964 ed.), and that from the facts underlying the complaint “it is probable that the Federal Trade Commission will enter an order finding a violation of these laws.” The petition stated that there was a “compelling” need for preliminary relief since the “acquisition itself will split Bowman in two — Dean will acquire fixed assets, receivables and good will; Bowman will retain all cash, government and other marketable securities, and some real estate investments” for distribution to its stockholders. In addition, it was alleged that Dean planned to dispose of most of Bowman’s retail milk routes, certain of its plants and equipment, and to consolidate the remaining assets. The Coihmission thus argued that if the merger were allowed to be completed, “Bowman as an entity will no longer exist,” and that it “will be ‘extremely difficult and very probably impossible’ ” to restore Bowman as “a viable independent” company if the merger were subsequently ruled illegal. In other words, consummation of the agreement would “prevent the Commission from devising, or render it extremely difficult for the Commission to devise, any effective remedy after its decision on the merits.” As grounds for issuance of an extraordinary writ, the Commission asserted that the Court of Appeals “will, in effect, be deprived of its appellate jurisdiction [over final Commission orders] and of the opportunity to enter a meaningful final order of its own in respect to this acquisition, since the res in custodia legis — Bowman—will have vanished.”
The Court of Appeals entered a temporary restraining order against respondents, as prayed. On the hearing for a preliminary injunction, however, it dissolved the temporary restraining order and dismissed the petition for the reasons that “no cease and desist order has been entered by the Commission relative to the subject matter in the case at bar and ... we now hold that the Commission did not have authority to institute this proceeding in this court . . . .” In its final judgment the Court of Appeals supported its refusal to grant relief at the request of the Commission by reference to the fact that:
“in the 84th Congress and in the 89th Congress bills sponsored by the said Commission were introduced, which bills if enacted into law would have conferred upon the Commission such authority as it is attempting to exercise in the case now before this court, but that said measures were not enacted into law and Congress has not provided otherwise for bestowing this authority upon said Commission.” 356 F. 2d 481, 482.
A few hours after the Court of Appeals entered its order on January 19, 1966, the contract was closed and Dean acquired legal title to Bowman’s operating assets. Upon application by the Solicitor General on behalf of the Commission, Mr. Justice Clark, after consulting the other members of this Court, entered a preliminary injunction on January 24, 1966, restraining respondents from making any material changes with respect to Bowman’s corporate structure or the assets purchased. This order provided that Dean might sell Bowman’s retail home delivery routes upon terms and conditions acceptable to the Commission, but that any milk supplied by Dean to the purchasers of the routes must continue to be delivered under the Bowman label and from former Bowman plants. We granted certiorari on February 18, 1966, 383 U. S. 901, and expedited consideration of this case. We conclude that the Court of Appeals erred and reverse its judgment.
I.
Since the case comes to us from a dismissal on jurisdictional grounds we must take the allegations of the Commission’s application for a preliminary injunction as true. We need not detail the facts further than to say that Dean and Bowman were substantial competitors in the sale of packaged milk in the Chicago area, one of the largest markets in the United States for packaged milk. On November 2, 1965, attorneys for Dean and Bowman met with, representatives of the Commission to discuss a proposal by Dean to purchase all of Bowman’s plants and equipment, the Bowman name, all customer and supplier lists together with the benefit of their relationships, and various other assets, all of which were situated in the Chicago area. Bowman would consequently cease doing a dairy business there. It was emphasized that the inquiry was merely to ascertain the views of the staff of the Commission and not to secure a formal advisory opinion. After investigation, on December 3, 1965, the Commission’s staff advised Dean’s counsel that it believed the acquisition would raise serious questions under the antitrust laws, and that on the basis of existing information the staff would recommend that the Commission issue a complaint against the acquisition if consummated. After further meetings, Dean’s counsel informed the Commission’s staff on December 14, 1965, that the agreement had been signed. A week later the Commission issued a formal complaint charging that the agreement violated § 7 of the Clayton Act and § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.
It appears that at the time of the merger Dean was the third or fourth largest distributor of packaged milk in the Chicago area; Bowman was at least the second largest in that market; and together they enjoyed approximately 23% of the sales of packaged milk in the same area, while the four largest dairy companies had a 43% share thereof. Affidavits attached to the Commission’s application alleged that between 1954 and 1965 the number of packaged milk sellers in the Chicago market had declined from 107 to 57, and that in the four months prior to the filing of the complaint four more firms had been eliminated by acquisitions. From these statistics it was concluded that the effect of Dean’s acquisition of Bowman would be to substantially lessen competition. We place in the margin the Commission’s summation of its complaint.
II.
The All Writs Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1651 (a), empowers the federal courts to “issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.” The exercise of this power “is in the nature of appellate jurisdiction” where directed to an inferior court, Ex parte Crane, 5 Pet. 190, 193 (1832) (Marshall, C. J.), and extends to the potential jurisdiction of the appellate court where an appeal is not then pending but may be later perfected. Cf. Ex parte Bradstreet, 7 Pet. 634 (1833) (Marshall, C. J.). These holdings by Chief Justice Marshall are elaborated in a long line of cases, including McClellan v. Carland, 217 U. S. 268 (1910), where Mr. Justice Day held: “ [w]e think it the true rule that where a case is within the appellate jurisdiction of the higher court a writ . . .may issue in aid of the appellate jurisdiction which might otherwise be defeated . . . .” At 280. And in Roche v. Evaporated Milk Assn., 319 U. S. 21 (1943), Chief Justice Stone stated that the authority of the appellate court “is not confined to the issuance of writs in aid of a jurisdiction already acquired by appeal but extends to those cases which are within its appellate jurisdiction although no appeal has been perfected.” At 25. Likewise, decisions of this Court “have recognized a limited judicial power to preserve the court’s jurisdiction or maintain the status quo by injunction pending review of an agency’s action through the prescribed statutory channels. . . . Such power has been deemed merely incidental to the courts’ jurisdiction to review final agency action . . . .” Arrow Transp. Co. v. Southern R. Co., 372 U. S. 658, 671, n. 22 (1963). There the Court cited such authority as Scripps-Howard Radio, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm’n, 316 U. S. 4 (1942); West India Fruit & S. S. Co. v. Seatrain Lines, Inc., 170 F. 2d 775 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1948); and Board of Governors v. Transamerica Corp., 184 F. 2d 311 (C. A. 9th Cir.), cert. denied, 340 U. S. 883 (1950).
Section 11 (c) of the Clayton Act, as amended, 73 Stat. 243, 15 U. S. C. § 21 (c), gives exclusive jurisdiction to review final orders by the Commission against illegal mergers, on application of “[a]ny person required by such order ... to cease and desist from any such violation,” to the courts of appeals “for any circuit within which such violation occurred or within which such person resides or carries on business.” This grant includes the traditional power to issue injunctions to preserve the status quo while administrative proceedings are in progress and prevent impairment of the effective exercise of appellate jurisdiction. Cf. Continental Ill. Nat. Bank v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co., 294 U. S. 648, 675 (1935). A recent case involving a similar statutory proceeding is dispositive of this issue. Whitney Nat. Bank v. New Orleans Bank, 379 U. S. 411 (1965), raised the question whether holding companies were “lawfully entitled” to operate subsidiary banks within Louisiana, a question we held should be determined in the first instance by the Federal Reserve Board. We further concluded that the Board should reconsider its initial approval of such a plan in light of an intervening Louisiana statute, and so gave the parties, who had sought review of the Board’s order before the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, an opportunity to move that the case be remanded to the Board. It was noted that the Court of Appeals had authority “to issue such orders as will protect its jurisdiction pending final determination of the matter,” at 415, and that § 1651 (a) empowered it to stay “the order of approval of the Federal Reserve Board pending final disposition of the review proceeding.” At 425. In response to the argument that the stay would not be sufficient because the Comptroller of Currency nonetheless intended to issue a certificate to the bank, we stated that if “the Court of Appeals should find it necessary to take direct action to maintain the status quo and prevent the opening of the bank, it has ample power to do so” by an injunction against the applicants before the Federal Reserve Board themselves. At 426. Such action would be analogous to the relief requested here by the Commission.
These decisions furnish ample precedent to support jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals to issue a preliminary injunction preventing the consummation of this agreement upon a showing that an effective remedial order, once the merger was implemented, would otherwise be virtually impossible, thus rendering the enforcement of any final decree of divestiture futile.
III.
Dean and Bowman insist, however, that as a creature of statute the Commission may exercise only those functions delegated to it by Congress, and that Congress has failed to give the Commission express statutory authority to request preliminary relief under the All Writs Act. But the Commission is a governmental agency to which Congress has entrusted, inter alia, the enforcement of the Clayton Act, granting it the power to order divestiture in appropriate cases. At the same time, Congress has given the courts of appeals jurisdiction to review final Commission action. It would stultify congressional purpose to say that the Commission did not have the incidental power to ask the courts of appeals to exercise their authority derived from the All Writs Act. Indeed, the opinions in Arrow Transp. Co. and Whitney Nat. Bank necessarily recognized the standing of administrative agencies to seek such preliminary relief to ensure effective judicial review. Both decisions referred to Board of Governors v. Transamerica Corp., supra, where the Court.of Appeals stayed a merger on application by the Federal Reserve Board. See also Public Utilities Comm’n v. Capital Transit Co., 94 U. S. App. D. C. 140, 214 F. 2d 242 (1954), and West India Fruit & S. S. Co. v. Seatrain Lines, Inc., 170 F. 2d 775, 779 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1948). There is no explicit statutory authority for the Commission to appear in judicial review proceedings, but no one has contended it cannot appear in the courts of appeals to defend its orders. Nor has it ever been asserted that the Commission could not bring contempt actions in the appropriate court of appeals when the court’s enforcement orders were violated, though it has no statutory authority in this respect. Such ancillary powers have always been treated as essential to the effective discharge of the Commission’s responsibilities.
It must be remembered that the courts of appeals derive their power to grant preliminary relief here not from the Clayton Act, but from the All Writs Act and its predecessors dating back to the first Judiciary Act of 1789. Congress has never restricted the power which the courts of appeals may exercise under that Act. Nor has it withdrawn from the Commission its inherent standing as a suitor to seek preliminary relief in courts of appropriate jurisdiction. In the absence of explicit direction from Congress we have no basis to say that an agency charged with protecting the public interest cannot request that a court of appeals, having jurisdiction to review administrative orders, exercise its express authority under the All Writs Act to issue such temporary injunctions as may be necessary to protect its own jurisdiction.
Respondents point — as did the Court of Appeals— to the fact that the Commission sought authority from the Eighty-fourth through the Eighty-ninth Congresses to grant preliminary injunctions itself or to proceed in the district court as the Department of Justice can under the Clayton Act. Both former Chairman Gwynne and Chairman Dixon appeared in support of the measures, and referred to Federal Trade Comm’n v. International Paper Co., 241 F. 2d 372 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1956), which held the Commission had no standing to seek preliminary-injunctions from the courts of appeals. In addition, several Congressmen made statements regarding the need for statutory amendment. However, no proposal was put before the Congress relating to the authority of the Commission to secure preliminary relief before the courts of appeals in accordance with § 1651 (a). The proposals concerned only the power of the Commission itself to issue preliminary relief or to proceed in the district courts for that purpose.
Congress neither enacted nor rejected these proposals; it simply did not act on them. Even if it had, the legislation as proposed would have had no effect whatever on the power that Congress granted the courts by the All Writs Act. We cannot infer from the fact that Congress took no action at all on the request of the Corn-mission to grant it or a district court power to enjoin a merger that Congress thereby expressed an intent to circumscribe traditional judicial remedies, Cf. Scripps-Howard Radio, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm’n, 316 U. S. 4, 11 (1942). The decision in Wong Yang Sung v. McGrath, 339 U. S. 33 (1950), is apposite. Following an adverse decision in Eisler v. Clark, 77 F. Supp. 610 (D. D. C. 1948), the Department of Justice asked Congress for legislation exempting the Immigration Service from the Administrative Procedure Act. 60 Stat. 237, 5 U. S. C. § 1001 (1964 ed.). As was the case here, the appropriate committees of both Houses reported the proposal favorably but Congress adjourned without taking any action. The Department nonetheless insisted in Wong Yang Sung that hearings in deportation cases did not have to conform to the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act. In his discussion of legislative history, Mr. Justice Jackson wrote for a unanimous Court that “we will not draw the inference, urged by petitioner, that an agency admits that it is acting upon a wrong construction by seeking ratification from Congress. Public policy requires that agencies feel free to ask legislation which will terminate or avoid adverse contentions and litigations.” At p. 47. This Court has consistently refused to construe such requests by government agencies and the resulting nonaction of the Congress as affirmative evidence of no authority. Thus, in United States v. du Pont & Co., 353 U. S. 586 (1957), Mr. Justice Brennan held:
“During the 35 years before this action was' brought [in 1949], the Government did not invoke § 7 against vertical acquisitions. The Federal Trade Commission has said that the section did not apply to vertical acquisitions. See F. T. C., Report on Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions, 168 (1955), H. R. Doc. No. 169, 84th Cong., 1st Sess. Also, the House Committee considering the 1950 revision of § 7 stated that '. . . it has been thought by some that this legislation [the 1914 Act] applies only to the so-called horizontal mergers. . . .’ H. R. Rep. No. 1191, 81st Cong., 1st Sess. 11. The House Report adds, however, that the 1950 amendment was purposed ‘. . . to make it clear that the bill applies to all types of mergers and acquisitions, vertical and conglomerate as well as horizontal . . . .’ (Emphasis added.)
“This Court has the duty to reconcile administrative interpretations with the broad antitrust policies laid down by Congress. . . . The failure of the Commission to act is not a binding administrative interpretation that Congress did not intend vertical acquisitions to come within the purview of the [1914] Act.” At p. 590.
Despite the representations of the Commission that the 1914 Act did not apply to vertical mergers, its sponsorship of legislation to so enlarge its coverage, and the passage of the 1950 Act by the Congress for this purpose, this Court nonetheless held that the 1914 Act included vertical mergers from its very inception, and thus required du Pont to divest its interest in General Motors stock, which had been acquired in 1915.
It is therefore clear that the “proceedings” in the Congress with reference to the authority of the Commission itself to issue or apply to the district courts for the issuance of preliminary injunctions in merger cases have no relevance whatever to the question before us. In short, Congress gave no attention to the exercise of judicial power by the courts of appeals under the All Writs Act, leaving that power intact and the standing of the Commission to invoke it • undiminished. We thus hold that the Commission has standing to seek preliminary relief from the Court of Appeals under the circumstances alleged. As stated earlier, we must take the allegations of the Commission as true, and so do not pass upon whether a preliminary injunction should be issued. That is for the Court of Appeals to decide on remand, as it would decide any application to it for relief under the All Writs Act.
Reversed and remanded.
Since consummation of the merger all assets of Bowman, with the exception of cash and marketable securities which were exempted from the purchase agreement, have been transferred to Dean. Bowman has ceased dairy operations and now acts as an investment fund, having received and invested the proceeds of the sale.
The Federal Trade Commission alleged:
“(a) Actual or potential competition in the sale and distribution of packaged milk in the Chicago Area will be eliminated or prevented;
“(b) Dean, a major competitive factor in the sale and distribution of packaged milk in the Chicago Area, will eliminate Bowman, another major competitive factor in the sale and distribution of packaged milk in the Chicago Area;
“(c) Concentration in the sale and distribution of packaged milk in the Chicago Area will be increased and deconcentration will be prevented;
“(d) The restraining influence on non-competitive behavior in the sale and distribution of packaged milk in the Chicago Area, which existed by reason of the independent operation of Bowman, will be eliminated;
“(e) The acquisition will contribute to the over-all trend toward concentration in the sale and distribution of packaged milk in the United States . . . thereby tending to bring about the adverse competitive effects described [elsewhere in the complaint];
“(f) The emergence or growth of smaller packaged milk companies in the Chicago Area will be retarded, discouraged or prevented;
“(g) The members of the consuming public, in the Chicago Area and throughout the United States, will be denied the benefits of free and open competition in the sale and distribution of packaged milk.”
Of course, the courts of appeals have traditionally framed § 1651 (a) writs in the form of compulsory injunctions aimed at private parties. E. g., Application of President & Directors of Georgetown College, 118 U. S. App. D. C. 80, 331 F. 2d 1000, cert. denied, 377 U. S. 978 (1964). See Recent Cases, 77 Harv. L. Rev. 1539, 1542(1964).
For the proposition that the Commission must have express statutory authority to seek injunctions in the courts of appeals two cases are cited. The first, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U. S. 602 (1935), has no relevance to our problem. And the other, Federal Trade Comm’n v. Eastman Kodak Co., 274 U. S. 619, 623-625 (1927), even though apposite, has been repudiated. It held that in fashioning a final decree the Commission “exercises only the administrative functions delegated to it by the Act,” and, therefore, could not order divestiture of laboratories acquired through a stock purchase. This view was rejected in Pan American World Airways, Inc. v. United States, 371 U. S. 296, 312-313, nn. 17-18 (1963), the Court holding that “the power to order divestiture need not be explicitly included in the powers of an administrative agency to be part of its arsenal of authority,” citing Gilbertville Trucking Co. v. United States, 371 U. S. 115 (1962).
Such a holding would especially interfere with the functions Congress has given the Commission in the merger field. As The Chief Justice stated in Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U. S. 294 (1962), the Congress “sought to assure the Federal Trade Commission and the courts the power to brake this force [business concentration] at its outset and before it gathered momentum.” At 317-318. But without standing to secure injunctive relief, and thereby safeguard its ability to order an effective divestiture of acquired properties, the Commission’s efforts would bq frustrated. As Mr. Justice Douglas said in United States v. Crescent Amusement Co., 323 U. S. 173, 186 (1944):
“The acquisition of a competing theatre terminates at once its competition. . . . And where businesses have been merged or purchased and closed out it is commonly impossible to turn back the - clock.”
Here the plan of merger itself contemplates the sale of the acquired home delivery milk routes and certain milk plants. In addition, Bowman has retained its cash and securities, with the intention ultimately to distribute them to its stockholders. If consummation of the merger is not restrained, the restoration of Bowman as an effective and viable competitor will obviously be impossible by the time a final order is entered. This is not unusual. Administrative experience shows that the Commission’s inability to unscramble merged assets frequently prevents entry of an effective order of divestiture. E. g., Ekco Products Co., Trade Reg. Rep. ¶16,879 (1964) (1963-1965 Transfer Binder), aff’d, 347 F. 2d 745 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1965); Foremost Dairies, Inc., 60 F. T. C. 944, order modified per stipulation (C. A. 5th Cir. 1965) (Docket No. 18,815).
Cf. Public Utilities Comm’n v. Capital Transit Co., 94 U. S. App. D. C. 140, 214 F. 2d 242, 245 (1954), where the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit gave as one of its reasons for granting an injunction the fact that “the moving party in the litigation was the Public Utilities Commission of the District of Columbia, a governmental agency clothed by Congress with special responsibility in the matters involved.”
E. g., H. R. 9424 and S. 3341 and 3424, 84th Cong., 2d Seas. (1956); H. R. 49 and 1574, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965).
Hearings before the Antitrust Subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 84th Cong., 2d Sess., ser. No. 15, p. 35 (1956); Hearings before the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on S. 198, S. 721, S. 722 and S. 3479, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., 42-45 (1958) (testimony of Chairman Gwynne). Hearings before the Antitrust Subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., ser. No. 5, pp. 85-86 (1961) (testimony of Chairman Dixon).
They also directed attention to the denial of injunctive relief in Federal Trade Comm’n v. Farm Journal, Inc. (C. A. 3d Cir. 1955) (unreported). Both men failed to mention the contrary decision in Board of Governors v. Transamerica Corp., 184 F. 2d 311 (C. A. 9th Cir.), cert. denied, 340 U. S. 883 (1950). In Ekco Products Co., Trade Reg. Rep. ¶16,879 (1964) (1963-1965 Transfer Binder), aff’d, 347 F. 2d 745 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1965), Commissioner Elman stated that the question of the Commission’s ability to obtain a preliminary injunction under the All Writs Act “has not been authoritatively answered.” At 21,905, n. 10.
Hearings before the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on S. 198, S. 721, S. 722 and S. 3479, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., 156-157 (1958) (testimony of Congressman Celler). Hearings before the Antitrust Subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., ser. No. 5, pp. 42-45 (1961) (statement of Congressman Patman).
Cf. Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U. S. 106, 120 (1940), where it was said that to give weight to the nonaction of Congress was to “venture into speculative unrealities.”
Cf. United States v. Philadelphia Nat. Bank, 374 U. S. 321, 348-349 (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:
|
H
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether a private individual may bring suit in federal court on behalf of the United States against a State (or state agency) under the False Claims Act, 31 U. S. C. §§3729-3733.
I
Originally enacted in 1863, the False Claims Act (FCA) is the most frequently used of a handful of extant laws creating a form of civil action known as qui tarn. As amended, the FCA imposes civil liability upon “[a]ny person” who, inter alia, “knowingly presents, or causes to be presented, to an officer or employee of the United States Government... a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval.” 81 U. S. C. § 3729(a). The defendant is liable for up to treble damages and a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per claim. Ibid. An FCA action may be commenced in one of two ways. First, the Government itself may bring a civil action against the alleged false claimant. § 3730(a). Second, as is relevant here, a private person (the relator) may bring a qui tarn civil action “for the person and for the United States Government” against the alleged false claimant, “in the name of the Government.” § 3730(b)(1).
If a relator initiates the FCA action, he must deliver a copy of the complaint, and any supporting evidence, to the Government, § 3730(b)(2), which then has 60 days to intervene in the action, §§ 3730(b)(2), (4). If it does so, it assumes primary responsibility for prosecuting the action, § 3730(c)(1), though the relator may continue to participate in the litigation and is entitled to a hearing before voluntary dismissal and to a court determination of reasonableness before settlement, § 3730(c)(2). If the Government declines to intervene within the 60-day period, the relator has the exclusive right to conduct the action, § 3730(b)(4), and the Government may subsequently intervene only on a showing of “good cause,” § 3730(c)(3). The relator receives a share of any proceeds from the action — generally ranging from 15 to 25 percent if the Government intervenes (depending upon the relator’s contribution to the prosecution), and from 25 to 30 percent if it does not (depending upon the court’s assessment of what is reasonable) — plus attorney’s fees and costs. §§ 3780(d)(l)-(2).
Respondent Jonathan Stevens brought this qui tarn action in the United States District Court for the District of Vermont against petitioner Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, his former employer, alleging that it had submitted false claims to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in connection with various federal grant programs administered by the EPA. Specifically, he claimed that petitioner had overstated the amount of time spent by its employees on the federally funded projects, thereby inducing the Government to disburse more grant money than petitioner was entitled to receive. The United States declined to intervene in the action. Petitioner then moved to dismiss, arguing that a State (or state agency) is not a “person” subject to liability under the FCA and that a qui tarn action in federal court against a State is barred by the Eleventh Amendment. The District Court denied the motion in an unpublished order. App. to Pet. for Cert. 86-87. Petitioner then filed an interlocutory appeal, and the District Court stayed proceedings pending its outcome. Respondent United States intervened in the appeal in support of respondent Stevens. A divided panel of the Second Circuit affirmed, 162 F. 3d 195 (1998), and we granted certiorari, 527 U. S. 1034 (1999).
I — I h — Í
We first address the jurisdictional question whether respondent Stevens has standing under Article III of the Constitution to maintain this suit. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 93-102 (1998).
As we have frequently explained, a plaintiff must meet three requirements in order to establish Article III standing. See, e. g., Friends of Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U. S. 167, 180-181 (2000). First, he must demonstrate “injury in fact” — a harm that is both “concrete” and “actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U. S. 149, 155 (1990) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Second, he must establish causation — a “fairly... trace[able]” connection between the alleged injury in fact and the alleged conduct of the defendant. Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U. S. 26, 41 (1976). And third, he must demonstrate redressability — a “substantial likelihood” that the requested relief will remedy the alleged injury in fact. Id., at 45. These requirements together constitute the “irreducible constitutional minimum” of standing, Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560 (1992), which is an “essential and unchanging part” of Article Ill’s case-or-controversy requirement, ibid., and a key factor in dividing the power of government between the courts and the two political branches, see id., at 559-560.
Respondent Stevens contends that he is suing to remedy an injury in fact suffered by the United States. It is beyond doubt that the complaint asserts an injury to the United States — both the injury to its sovereignty arising from violation of its laws (which suffices to support a criminal lawsuit by the Government) and the proprietary injury resulting from the alleged fraud. But “[t]he Art. Ill judicial power exists only to redress or otherwise to protect against injury to the complaining party.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 499 (1975) (emphasis added); see also Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 734-735 (1972). It would perhaps suffice to say that the relator here is simply the statutorily designated agent of the United States, in whose name (as the statute provides, see 31 U. S. C. § 3730(b)) the suit is brought — and that the relator’s bounty is simply the fee he receives out of the United States’ recovery for filing and/or prosecuting a successful action on behalf of the Government. This analysis is precluded, however, by the fact that the statute gives the relator himself an interest in the lawsuit, and not merely the right to retain a fee out of the recovery. Thus, it provides that “[a] person may bring a civil action for a violation of section 3729 for the person and for the United States Government,'” §3730(b) (emphasis added); gives the relator “the right to continue as a party to the action” even when the Government itself has assumed “primary responsibility” for prosecuting it, § 3730(c)(1); entitles the relator to a hearing before the Government’s voluntary dismissal of the suit, § 3730(c)(2)(A); and prohibits the Government from settling the suit over the relator’s objection without a judicial determination of “fair[ness], adequacy] and reasonableness],” § 3730(c)(2)(B). For the portion of the recovery retained by the relator, therefore, some explanation of standing other than agency for the Government must be identified.
There is no doubt, of course, that as to this portion of the recovery — the bounty he will receive if the suit is successful — a qui tarn relator has a “concrete private interest in the outcome of [the] suit.” Lujan, supra, at 573. But the same might be said of someone who has placed a wager upon the outcome. An interest unrelated to injury in fact is insufficient to give a plaintiff standing. See Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 486 (1982); Sierra Club, supra, at 734-735. The interest must consist of obtaining compensation for, or preventing, the violation of a legally protected right. See Lujan, supra, at 560-561. A qui tarn relator has suffered no such invasion — indeed, the “right” he seeks to vindicate does not even fully materialize until the litigation is completed and the relator prevails. This is not to suggest that Congress cannot define new legal rights, which in turn will confer standing to vindicate an injury caused to the claimant. See Warth, supra, at 500. As we have held in another context, however, an interest that is merely a “byproduct” of the suit itself cannot give rise to a cognizable injury in fact for Article III standing purposes. See Steel Co., supra, at 107 (“[A] plaintiff cannot achieve standing to litigate a substantive issue by bringing suit for the cost of bringing suit”); see also Diamond v. Charles, 476 U. S. 54, 69-71 (1986) (holding that assessment of attorney’s fees against a party does not confer standing to pursue the action on appeal).
We believe, however, that adequate basis for the relator’s suit for his bounty is to be found in the doctrine that the assignee of a claim has standing to assert the injury in fact suffered by the assignor. The FCA can reasonably be regarded as effecting a partial assignment of the Government’s damages claim. Although we have never expressly recognized “representational standing” on the part of assignees, we have routinely entertained their suits, see, e. g., Poller v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 368 U. S. 464, 465 (1962); Automatic Radio Mfg. Co. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 339 U. S. 827, 829 (1950); Hubbard v. Tod, 171 U. S. 474, 475 (1898)—and also suits by subrogees, who have been described as “equitable assignees],” L. Simpson, Law of Suretyship 205 (1950); see, e. g., Vimar Seguros y Reaseguros, S. A v. M/V Sky Reefer, 515 U. S. 528, 531 (1995); Musick, Peeler & Garrett v. Employers Ins. of Wausau, 508 U. S. 286, 288 (1993). We conclude, therefore, that the United States' injury in fact suffices to confer standing on respondent Stevens.
We are confirmed in this conclusion by the long tradition of qui tarn actions in England and the American Colonies. That history is particularly relevant to the constitutional standing inquiry since, as we have said elsewhere, Article Ill’s restriction of the judicial power to “Cases” and “Controversies” is properly understood to mean “cases and controversies of the sort traditionally amenable to, and resolved by, the judicial process.” Steel Co., 523 U. S., at 102; see also Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433, 460 (1939) (opinion of Frankfurter, J.) (the Constitution established that “[¿Judicial power could come into play only in matters that were the traditional concern of the courts at Westminster and only if they arose in ways that to the expert feel of lawyers constituted ‘Cases’ or ‘Controversies’ ”).
Qui tarn actions appear to have originated around the end of the 13th century, when private individuals who had suffered injury began bringing actions in the royal courts on both their own and the Crown’s behalf. See, e. g., Prior of Lewes v. De Holt (1300), reprinted in 48 Selden Society 198 (1931). Suit in this’ dual capacity was a device for getting their private claims into the respected royal courts, which generally entertained only matters involving the Crown’s interests. See Milsom, Trespass from Henry III to Edward III, Part III: More Special Writs and Conclusions, 74 L. Q. Rev. 561, 585 (1958). Starting in the 14th century, as the royal courts began to extend jurisdiction to suits involving wholly private wrongs, the common-law qui tam action gradually fell into disuse, although it seems to have remained technically available for several centuries. See 2 W. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown 369 (8th ed. 1824).
At about the same time, however, Parliament began enacting statutes that explicitly provided for qui tam suits. These were of two types: those that allowed injured parties to sue in vindication of their own interests (as well as the Crown’s), see, e.g., Statute Providing a Remedy for Him Who Is Wrongfully Pursued in the Court of Admiralty, 2 Hen. IV, ch. 11 (1400), and — more relevant here — those that allowed informers to obtain a portion of the penalty as a bounty for their information, even if they had not suffered an injury themselves, see, e. g., Statute Prohibiting the Sale of Wares After the Close of Fair, 5 Edw. Ill, ch. 5 (1331); see generally Common Informers Act, 14 & 15 Geo. VI, ch. 39, sched. (1951) (listing informer statutes). Most, though not all, of the informer statutes expressly gave the informer a cause of action, typically by bill, plaint, information, or action of debt. See, e. g., Bill for Leases of Hospitals, Colleges, and Other Corporations, 33 Hen. VIII, ch. 27 (1541); Act to Avoid Horse-Stealing, 31 Eliz. I, ch. 12, §2 (1589); Act to Prevent the Over-Charge of the People by Stewards of Court-Leets and Court-Barons, 2 Jac. I, ch. 5 (1604).
For obvious reasons, the informer statutes were highly subject to abuse, see M. Davies, The Enforcement of English Apprenticeship 58-61 (1956) — particularly those relating to obsolete offenses, see generally 3 E. Coke, Institutes of the Laws of England 191 (4th ed. 1797) (informer prosecutions under obsolete statutes had been used to “vex and entangle the subject”). Thus, many of the old enactments were repealed, see Act for Continuing and Reviving of Divers Statutes and Repeal of Divers Others, 21 Jae. I, eh. 28, §11 (1628), and statutes were passed deterring and penalizing vexatious informers, limiting the locations in which informer suits could be brought, and subjecting such suits to relatively short statutes of limitation, see Act to Redress Disorders in Common Informers, 18 Eliz. I, ch. 5 (1576); Act Concerning Informers, 31 Eliz. I, ch. 5 (1589); see generally Davies, swpra, at 63-76. Nevertheless, laws allowing qui tam suits by informers continued to exist in England until 1951, when all of the remaining ones were repealed. See Note, The History and Development of Qui Tam, 1972 Wash. U. L. Q. 81, 88, and n. 44 (citing Common Informers Act, 14 & 15 Geo. VI, ch. 39 (1951)).
Qui tam actions appear to have been as prevalent in America as in England, at least in the period immediately before and after the framing of the Constitution. Although there is no evidence that the Colonies allowed common-law qui tam actions (which, as we have noted, were dying out in England by that time), they did pass several informer statutes expressly authorizing qui tam suits. See, e. g., Act for the Restraining and Punishing of Privateers and Pirates, 1st Assembly, 4th Sess. (N. Y. 1692), reprinted in 1 Colonial Laws of New York 279, 281 (1894) (allowing informers to sue for, and receive share of, fine imposed upon officers who neglect their duty to pursue privateers and pirates). Moreover, immediately after the framing, the First Congress enacted a considerable number of informer statutes. Like their English counterparts, some of them provided both a bounty and an express cause of action; others provided a bounty only.
We think this history well nigh conclusive with respect to the question before us here: whether qui tam actions were “cases and controversies of the sort traditionally amenable to, and resolved by, the judicial process.” Steel Co., 523 U. S., at 102. When combined with the theoretical justification for relator standing discussed earlier, it leaves no room for doubt that a qui tam relator under the FCA has Article III standing. We turn, then, to the merits.
III
Petitioner makes two contentions: (1) that a State (or state agency) is not a “person” subject to qui tarn liability under the FCA.; and (2) that if it is, the Eleventh Amendment bars such a suit. The Courts of Appeals have disagreed as to the order in which these statutory and Eleventh Amendment immunity questions should be addressed. Compare United States ex rel. Long v. SCS Business & Technical Institute, Inc., 173 F. 3d 890, 893-898 (CADC 1999) (statutory question first), with United States ex rel. Foulds v. Texas Tech Univ., 171 F. 3d 279, 285-288 (CA5 1999) (Eleventh Amendment immunity question first).
Questions of jurisdiction, of course, should be given priority — since if there is no jurisdiction there is no authority to sit in judgment of anything else. See Steel Co., supra, at 93-102. “Jurisdiction is power to declare the law, and when it ceases to exist, the only function remaining to the court is that of announcing the fact and dismissing the cause.” Ex parte McCardle, 7 Wall. 506, 514 (1869). Even jurisdiction over the person (as opposed to subject-matter jurisdiction) “is ‘an essential element of the jurisdiction of a district... court,’ without which the court is ‘powerless to proceed to an adjudication.’ ” Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526 U. S. 574, 584 (1999) (quoting Employers Reinsurance Corp. v. Bryant, 299 U. S. 374, 382 (1937)).
We nonetheless have routinely addressed before the question whether the Eleventh Amendment forbids a particular statutory cause of action to be asserted against States, the question whether the statute itself permits the cause of action it creates to be asserted against States (which it can do only by clearly expressing such an intent). See, e. g., Kimel v. Florida Bd. of Regents, 528 U. S. 62, 73-78 (2000); Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 55-57 (1996); cf. Hafer v. Melo, 502 U. S. 21, 25-31 (1991); Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274, 277-281 (1977). When these two questions are at issue, not only is the statutory question “logically antecedent to the existence of” the Eleventh Amendment question, Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U. S. 591, 612 (1997), but also there is no realistic possibility that addressing the statutory question will expand the Court’s power beyond the limits that the jurisdictional restriction has imposed. The question whether the statute provides for suits against the States (as opposed, for example, to the broader question whether the statute creates any private cause of action whatever, or the question whether the facts alleged make out a “false claim” under the statute) does not, as a practical matter, permit the court to pronounce upon any issue, or upon the rights of any person, beyond the issues and persons that would be reached under the Eleventh Amendment inquiry anyway. The ultimate issue in the statutory inquiry is whether States can be sued under this statute; and the ultimate issue in the Eleventh Amendment inquiry is whether unconsenting States can be sued under this statute. This combination of logical priority and virtual coincidence of scope makes it possible, and indeed appropriate, to decide the statutory issue first. We therefore begin (and will end) with the statutory question.
The relevant provision of the FCA, 31 U. S. C. § 3729(a), subjects to liability “[a]ny person” who, inter alia, "knowingly presents, or causes to be presented, to an officer or employee of the United States Government... a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval.” We must apply to this text our longstanding interpretive presumption that “person” does not include the sovereign. See United States v. Cooper Corp., 312 U. S. 600, 604 (1941); United States v. Mine Workers, 330 U.S. 258, 275 (1947). The presumption is “particularly applicable where it is claimed that Congress has subjected the States to liability to which they had not been subject before.” Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58, 64 (1989); Wilson v. Omaha Tribe, 442 U. S. 653, 667 (1979). The presumption is, of course, not a “hard and fast rule of exclusion,” Cooper Corp., supra, at 604-605, but it may be disregarded only upon some affirmative showing of statutory intent to the contrary. See International Primate Protection League v. Administrators of Tulane Ed. Fund, 500 U. S. 72, 83 (1991).
As the historical context makes clear, and as we have often observed, the FCA was enacted in 1863 with the principal goal of “stopping the massive frauds perpetrated by large [private] contractors during the Civil War.” United States v. Bornstein, 423 U. S. 303, 309 (1976); see also United States ex rel. Marcus v. Hess, 317 U. S. 537, 547 (1943). Its liability provision — the precursor to today’s § 3729(a) — bore no indication that States were subject to its penalties. Indeed, far from indicating that States were covered, it did not even make clear that 'private corporations were, since it applied only to “any person not in the military or naval forces of the United States, nor in the militia called into or actually employed in the service of the United States,” and imposed criminal penalties that included imprisonment. Act of Mar. 2, 1863, ch. 67, §3, 12 Stat. 698. We do not suggest that these features directed only at natural persons cast doubt upon the courts’ assumption that § 3729(a) extends to corporations, see, e. g., United States ex rel. Woodard v. Country View Care Center, Inc., 797 F. 2d 888, 890 (CA10 1986) — but that is because the presumption with regard to corporations is just the opposite of the one governing here: they are presumptively covered by the term “person,” see 1 U. S. C. § 1. But the text of the original statute does less than nothing to overcome the presumption that States are not covered.
Although the liability provision of the original FCA has undergone various changes, none of them suggests a broadening of the term “person” to include States. In 1982, Congress made a housekeeping change, replacing the phrase “any person not in the military or naval forces of the United States, nor in the militia called into or actually employed in the service of the United States” with the phrase “[a] person not a member of an armed force of thé United States,” thereby incorporating the term of art “member of an armed force” used throughout Title 10 of the United States Code. 31 U. S. C. §3729 (1982 ed.). And in 1986, Congress eliminated the blanket exemption for members of the Armed Forces, replacing the phrase “[a] person not a member of an armed force of the United States” with the current “[a]ny person.” 31 U. S. C. § 3729(a).
Several features of the current statutory scheme further support the conclusion that States are not subject to qui tarn liability. First, another section of the FCA, 31 U. S. C. § 3733, which enables the Attorney General to issue civil investigative demands to “any person... possessing] information relevant to a false claims law investigation,” § 3733(a)(1), contains a provision expressly defining “person,” “[f]or purposes of this section,” to include States, § 3733(7)(4). The presence of such a definitional provision in § 3733, together with the absence of such a provision from the definitional provisions contained in §3729, see §§ 3729(b) — (c), suggests that States are not “persons” for purposes of qui tam liability under §3729.
Second, the current version of the FCA imposes damages that are essentially punitive in nature, which would be inconsistent with state qui tarn liability in light of the presumption against imposition of punitive damages on governmental entities. See, e. g., Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U. S. 247, 262-263 (1981). Although this Court suggested that damages under an earlier version of the FCA were remedial rather than punitive, see Bornstein, 423 U. S., at 315; but see Smith v. Wade, 461 U. S. 30, 85 (1983) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting), that version of the statute imposed only double damages and a civil penalty of $2,000 per claim, see 31 U. S. C. § 231 (1976 ed.); the current version, by contrast, generally imposes treble damages and a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per claim, see 31 U. S. C. § 3729(a). Cf. Marcus, 317 U. S., at 550 (noting that double damages in original FCA were not punitive, but suggesting that treble damages, such as those in the antitrust laws, would have been). “The very idea of treble damages reveals an intent to punish past, and to deter future, unlawful conduct, not to ameliorate the liability of wrongdoers.” Texas Industries, Inc. v. Radcliff Materials, Inc., 451 U. S. 630, 639 (1981).
Third, the Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act of 1986 (PFCRA), a sister scheme creating administrative remedies for false claims — and enacted just before the FCA was amended in 1986 — contains (unlike the FCA) a definition of “persons” subject to liability, and that definition does not include States. See 31 U. S. C. § 3801(a)(6) (defining “person” as “any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or private organization”). It would be most peculiar to subject States to treble damages and civil penalties in qui tarn actions under the FCA, but exempt them from the relatively smaller damages provided under the PFCRA. See § 3802(a)(1).
In sum, we believe that various features of the FCA, both as originally enacted and as amended, far from providing the requisite affirmative indications that the term “person” included States for purposes of qui tam liability, indicate quite the contrary. Our conclusion is buttressed by two other considerations that we think it unnecessary to discuss at any length: first, “the ordinary rule of statutory construction” that “if Congress intends to alter the usual constitutional balance between States and the Federal Government, it must make its intention to do so unmistakably clear in the language of the statute,” Will, 491 U. S., at 65 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see also Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 460-461 (1991); United States v. Bass, 404 U. S. 336, 349 (1971), and second, the doctrine that statutes should be construed so as to avoid difficult constitutional questions. We of course express no view on the question whether an action in federal court by a qui tam relator against a State would nm afoul of the Eleventh Amendment, but we note that there is “a serious doubt” on that score. Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 348 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
* % *
We hold that a private individual has standing to bring suit in federal court on behalf of the United States under the False Claims Act, 31 U. S. C. §§3729-3733, but that the False Claims Act does not subject a State (or state agency) to liability in such actions. The judgment of the Second Circuit is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Qui tarn is short for the Latin phrase qui tarn pro domino rege quam pro se ipso in hoc parte sequitur, which means “who pursues this action on our Lord the King’s behalf as well as his own. ” The phrase dates from at least the time of Blaekstone. See 3 W. Blaekstone, Commentaries *160.
Three other qui tarn statutes, all also enacted over 100 years ago, remain on the books. See 25 U. S. C. § 81 (providing cause of action and share of recovery against a person contracting with Indians in an unlawful manner); § 201 (providing cause of action and share of recovery against a person violating Indian protection laws); 35 U. S. C. § 292(b) (providing cause of action and share of recovery against a person falsely marking patented articles); cf. 18 U. S. C. §962 (providing for forfeiture to informer of share of vessels privately armed against friendly nations, but not expressly authorizing suit by informer); 46 U. S. C. § 723 (providing for forfeiture to informer of share of vessels removing undersea treasure from the Florida coast to foreign nations, but not expressly authorizing suit by informer).
The denial of a motion to dismiss based on a claim of Eleventh Amendment immunity is immediately appealable. See Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U. S. 139 (1993). The Second Circuit exercised pendent appellate jurisdiction over the statutory question. See Swint v. Chambers County Comm’n, 514 U. S. 35, 50-51 (1995).
Blackstone noted, with regard to English qui tarn actions, that “no particular person, A or B, has any right, claim or demand, in or upon [the bounty], till after action brought,” and that the bounty constituted an “inchoate imperfect degree of property... [which] is not consummated till judgment.” 2 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *4374
In addressing the Eleventh Amendment issue that we leave open today, the dissent suggests that we are asserting that a qui tarn relator “is, in effect, suing as an assignee of the United States.” Post, at 802 (opinion of Stevens, J.); see also post, at 796 (same). More precisely, we are asserting that a qui tarn relator is, in effect, suing as a partial assignee of the United States.
In addition, the First Congress passed one statute allowing injured parties to sue for damages on both their own and the United States’ behalf. See Act of May 31, 1790, ch. 15, §2, 1 Stat. 124-125 (allowing author or proprietor to sue for and receive half of penalty for violation of copyright); cf. Act of Mar. 1, 1790, eh. 2, § 6, 1 Stat. 103 (allowing census taker to sue for and receive half of penalty for failure to cooperate in census); Act of July 5, 1790, ch. 25, § 1, 1 Stat. 129 (extending same to Rhode Island).
See Act of Mar. 1,1790, eh. 2, §3,1 Stat. 102 (allowing informer to sue for, and receive half of fine for, failure to file census return); Act of July 5, 1790, ch. 25, § 1,1 Stat. 129 (extending same to Rhode Island); Act of July 20, 1790, ch. 29, §§ 1, 4, 1 Stat. 131, 133 (allowing private individual to sue for, and receive half of fine for, carriage of seamen without contract or illegal harboring of runaway seamen); Act of July 22, 1790, ch. 33, §3, 1 Stat. 137-138 (allowing private individual to sue for, and receive half of goods forfeited for, unlicensed trading with Indian tribes); Act of Mar. 3, 1791, ch. 15, § 44, 1 Stat. 209 (allowing person who discovers violation of spirits duties, or officer who seizes contraband spirits, to sue for and receive half of penalty and forfeiture, along with costs, in action of debt); cf. Act of Apr. 30, 1790, eh. 9, §§ 16, 17, 1 Stat. 116 (allowing informer to conduct prosecution, and receive half of fine, for criminal larceny or receipt of stolen goods).
See Act of July 31, 1789, ch. 5, §29, 1 Stat. 44-45 (giving informer full penalty paid by customs official for failing to post fee schedule); Act of Aug. 4, 1790, ch. 35, §55,1 Stat. 173 (same); Act of July 31,1789, ch. 5, §38,1 Stat. 48 (giving informer quarter of penalties, fines, and forfeitures authorized under a customs law); Act of Sept. 1,1789, ch. 11, §21,1 Stat. 60 (same under a maritime law); Act of Aug. 4, 1790, ch. 35, § 69, 1 Stat. 177 (same under another customs law); Act of Sept. 2, 1789, ch. 12, §8, 1 Stat. 67 (providing informer half of penalty upon conviction for violation of conflict-of-interest and bribery provisions in Act establishing Treasury Department); Act of Mar. 3,1791, ch. 8, § 1,1 Stat. 215 (extending same to additional Treasury employees); Act of Feb. 25,1791, ch. 10, §§ 8, 9,1 Stat. 195-196 (providing informer half or fifth of fines resulting from
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 denaturalization proceeding was brought in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York under § 338 (a) of the Nationality Act of 1940! 8 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 738. The “good cause” affidavit was not filed with the complaint. The District Court dismissed the complaint following our decision in United States v. Zucca, 351 U. S. 91, “without prejudice to the government's right to institute a proceeding to denaturalize the defendant upon the filing of the required affidavit.” 149 F. Supp. 952. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed, holding that the dismissal motion should have been denied. 247 F. 2d 123. We reversed and ordered the case “remanded to the District Court with directions to dismiss” the complaint. 356 U. S. 256. The District Court on the remand declined to order a dismissal “without prejudice” and instead entered an order which did not specify whether the dismissal was with or without prejudice. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed the Government's appeal in an unreported opinion which stated that “there was no basis for [the district judge] to take action other than he did, namely, to comply with the clear command of the Supreme Court, without attempted embellishment. We have no occasion now to pass on the effect of that command upon possible later litigation.”
The Government filed its petition for certiorari only to assure its right to proceed against the respondent in a new proceeding in the event that we should rule in Costello v. United States, ante, p. 265, that the order entered by the District Court for the Southern District of New York in that case precluded the institution of the second denat-uralization action against Costello. Our decision today in Costello establishes that such a form of dismissal does not bar a subsequent proceeding against the respondent. The writ is therefore
Dismissed.
Mr. Justice Harlan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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.
A Minnesota statute, the Private Pension Benefits Protection Act, Minn. Stat. § 181B.01 et seq. (1976) (Pension Act), passed in April 1974, established minimum standards for the funding and vesting of employee pensions. The question in this case is whether this statute, which since January 1, 1975, has been pre-empted by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), was pre-empted prior to that time by federal labor policy insofar as it purported to override or control the terms of collective-bargaining agreements negotiated under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). A Federal District Court held that it was not, 412 F. Supp. 372 (Minn. 1976), but the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit disagreed and held the Pension Act invalid. 545 F. 2d 599 (1976). Because the case fell within our mandatory appellate jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1254 (2), we noted probable jurisdiction. 434 U. S. 813. We reverse.
I
In 1963, White Motor Corp. and its subsidiary, White Farm Equipment Co. (hereafter collectively referred to as appellee), purchased from another company two farm equipment manufacturing plants, located in Hopkins, Minn., and Minneapolis, Minn, (on Lake Street). The employees at these plants, represented by the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), were covered by a pension plan established through collective bargaining.
Under the 1971 collective-bargaining contract, the Pension Plan provided that an employee who attained the age of 40 and completed 10 or more years of credited service with the company was entitled to a pension. The amount of the pension would depend upon the age at which the employee retired. In language unchanged since 1950, the 1971 Plan provided that “ [p] ensions shall be payable only from the Fund, and rights to pensions shall be enforceable only against the Fund.” App. 155. The Plan, however, was to be funded in part on a deferred basis. The unpaid past service liability— the excess of accrued liability over the present value of the assets of the Fund — was to be met through contributions by the employer from its continuing operations.
Section 10.02 of the Plan provided that “[t]he Company shall have the sole right at any time to terminate the entire plan.” During the 1968 and 1971 negotiations, however, the UAW obtained from appellee guarantees that, upon termination, pensions for those entitled to them would remain at certain designated levels, though lower than those specified in the Plan. By virtue of these guarantees, appellee assumed a direct liability for pension payments amounting to $7 million above the assets in the Fund.
Appellee exercised its contractual right to terminate the Pension Plan on May 1, 1974. A few weeks before, however, the Pension Act had been enacted. This statute imposed “a pension funding charge” directly against any employer who ceased to operate a place of employment or a pension plan. This charge would be sufficient to insure that all employees with 10 or more years of service would receive whatever pension benefits had accrued to them, regardless of whether their rights to those benefits had “vested” within the terms of the Plan. The funds obtained through the pension funding charge would then be used to purchase an annuity payable to the employee when he reached normal retirement age. Although the Pension Act did not compel an employer to adopt or continue a pension plan, it did guarantee to employees with 10 or more years’ service full payment of their accrued pension benefits.
Pursuant to the Pension Act, the appellant, Commissioner of Labor and Industry of the State of Minnesota, undertook an investigation of the pension plan termination here involved and later certified that the sum necessary to achieve compliance with the Pension Act was $19,150,053. Under the Pension Act, a pension funding charge in this amount became a lien on the assets of appellee. Appellee promptly filed this suit in Federal District Court.
Appellee’s complaint, as amended, asserted violations of the Supremacy Clause, the Contract Clause, and the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The Supremacy. Clause claim was based on the argument that the Pension Act was in conflict with several provisions of the NLRA, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq., because it “interferes with the right of Plaintiffs to free collective bargaining under federal law and . . . vitiates collective bargaining agreements entered into under the authority of federal law, by imposing upon Plaintiffs obligations which, by the express terms of such collective bargaining agreements, Plaintiffs were not required to assume.” App. A-9 — A-10. Appellee moved for partial summary judgment or, alternatively, for a preliminary injunction based on the pre-emption claim.
Distinguishing Teamsters v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283 (1959), and relying on evidence of congressional intent contained in the federal Welfare and Pension Plans Disclosure Act (Disclosure Act), 72 Stat. 997, as amended, 76 Stat. 35, 29 U. S. C. § 301 et seq., the District Court held that the Pension Act was not pre-empted by federal law. 412 P. Supp. 372 (Minn. 1976). On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that the Pension Act was pre-empted by federal labor law, and reversed the District Court. 545 P. 2d 599 (1976). The reason was that the Pension Act purported to override the terms of the existing pension plan, arrived at through collective bargaining, in at least three ways: It granted employees vested rights not available under the pension plan; to the extent of any deficiency in the pension fund, it required payment from the general assets of the employer, while the pension plan provided that benefits shall be paid only out of the pension fund; and the Pension Act imposed liability for post-termination payments to the pension fund beyond those specifically guaranteed.- This, the court ruled, the State could not do; for if, under Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm’n, 427 U. S. 132 (1976), “states cannot control the economic weapons of the parties at the bargaining table, a fortiori, they may not directly control the substantive terms of the contract which results from that bargaining.” 545 F. 2d, at 606. Further, as the court understood the opinion in Oliver, supra, “a state cannot modify or change an otherwise valid and effective provision of a collective bargaining agreement.” 545 F. 2d, at 608. Finally, the Court of Appeals found that the pre-emption disclaimer in the Disclosure Act relied on by the District Court related only
“to state statutes governing those obligations of trust undertaken by persons managing, administrating or operating employee benefit funds, the violation of which gives rise to civil and criminal penalties. Accordingly, no warrant exists for construing this legislation to leave to a state the power to change substantive terms of pension plan agreements.” Id., at 609.
II
It is uncontested that whether the Minnesota statute is invalid under the Supremacy Clause depends on the intent of Congress. “The purpose of Congress is the ultimate touchstone.” Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 375 U. S. 96, 103 (1963). Often Congress does not clearly state in its legislation whether it intends to pre-empt state laws; and in such instances, the courts normally sustain local regulation of the same subject matter unless it conflicts with federal law or would frustrate the federal scheme, or unless the courts discern from the totality of the circumstances that Congress sought to occupy the field to the exclusion of the States. Ray v. Atlantic Richfield Co., ante, at 157-158; Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U. S. 519, 525, 540-541 (1977); Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947). “We cannot declare pre-empted all local regulation that touches or concerns in any way the complex interrelationships between employees, employers and unions; obviously, much of this is left to the States.” Motor Coach Employees v. Lockridge, 403 U. S. 274, 289 (1971). The Pension Act “leaves much to the states, though Congress has refrained from telling us how much. We must spell out from conflicting indications of congressional will the area in which state action is still permissible.” Garner v. Teamsters, 346 U. S. 485, 488 (1953). Here, the Court of Appeals concluded that the Minnesota statute was invalid because it trenched on what the court considered to be subjects that Congress had committed for determination to the collective-bargaining process.
There is little doubt that under the federal statutes governing labor-management relations, an employer must bargain about wages, hours, and working conditions and that pension benefits are proper subjects of compulsory bargaining. But there is nothing in the NLRA, including those sections on which appellee relies, which expressly forecloses all state regulatory power with respect to those issues, such as pension plans, that may be the subject of collective bargaining. If the Pension Act is pre-empted here, the congressional intent to do so must be implied from the relevant provisions of the labor statutes. We have concluded, however, that such implication should not be made here and that a far more reliable indicium of congressional intent with respect to state authority to regulate pension plaps is to be found in § 10 of the Disclosure Act. Section 10.(b) provided:
“The provisions of this Act, except subsection (a) of this section and section 13 and any action taken thereunder, shall not be held to exempt or relieve any person from any liability, duty, penalty, or punishment provided by any present or future law of the United States or of any State affecting the operation or administration of employee welfare or pension benefit plans, or in any manner to authorize the operation or administration of any such plan contrary to any such law.”
Also, § 10 (a), after shielding an employer from duplicating state and federal filing requirements, makes clear that other state laws remained unaffected:
“Nothing contained in this subsection shall be construed to prevent any State from obtaining such additional information relating to any such plan as it may desire, or from otherwise regulating such plan.”
Contrary to the Court of Appeals, we believe that the foregoing provisions, together with the legislative history of the 1958 Disclosure Act, clearly indicate that Congress at that time recognized and preserved state authority to regulate pension plans, including those plans which were the product of collective bargaining. Because the 1958 Disclosure Act was in effect at the time of the crucial events in this case, the expression of congressional intent included therein should control the decision here.
Congressional consideration of the problems in the pension field began in 1954, after the President sent a message to Congress recommending that
“Congress initiate a thorough study of welfare and pension funds covered by collective bargaining agreements, with a view of enacting such legislation as will protect and conserve these funds for the millions of working men and women who are the beneficiaries.”
In the next four years, through hearings, studies, and investigations, a Senate Subcommittee canvassed the problems of the nearly unregulated pension field and possible solutions to them. Although Congress turned up extensive evidence of kickbacks, embezzlement, and mismanagement, it concluded:
“The most serious single weakness in this private social insurance .complex is not in the abuses and failings enumerated above. Overshadowing these is the too frequent practice of withholding from those most directly affected, the employee-beneficiaries, information which will permit them to determine (1) whether the program is being administered efficiently and equitably, and (2) more importantly, whether or not the assets and prospective income of the programs are sufficient to guarantee the benefits which have been promised to them.” S. Rep. No. 1440, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., 12 (1958) (hereinafter S. Rep.).
As a first step toward protection of the workers’ interests in their pensions, Congress enacted the 1958 Disclosure Act. The statute required plan administrators to file with the Labor Department and make available upon request both a description of the plan and an annual report containing financial information. In the case of a plan funded through a trust, the annual report was to include, inter alia,
“the type and basis of funding, actuarial assumptions used, the amount of current and past service liabilities, and the number of employees both retired and nonretired covered by the plan . . .
as well as a valuation of the assets of the fund.
The statute did not, however, prescribe any substantive rules to achieve either of the two purposes described above. The Senate Report explained:
“[T]he legislation proposed is not a regulatory statute. It is a disclosure statute and by design endeavors to leave regulatory responsibility to the States.” S. Rep. 18.
This objective was reflected in §§ 10 (a) and 10 (b), quoted above. As the Senate Report explained, the statute was designed “to leave to the States the detailed regulations relating to insurance, trusts and other phases of their operations.” S. Rep. 19. There was “no desire to get the Federal Government involved in the regulation of these plans but a disclosure statute which is administered in close cooperation with the States could also be of great assistance to the States in carrying out their regulatory functions.” Id., at 18.
There is also no doubt that the Congress which adopted the Disclosure Act recognized that it was legislating with respect to pension funds many of which had been established by collective bargaining. The message from the President which had prompted the original inquiry had focused on the need to protect workers “covered by collective bargaining agreements.” The problems that Congress had identified were characteristic of bargained-for plans as well as of others. The Reports of both the Senate and House Committees explained that pension funds were frequently established through the collective-bargaining process. S. Rep. 8; H. R. Rep. No. 2283, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., 9 (1958) (hereinafter H. R. Rep.). The Senate Report emphasized the need for protection even where the plan was incorporated in a collective-bargaining agreement. S. Rep. 4, 8, 14. Congressmen explaining the bill on the floor also made clear that the bill would apply to pension plans “whether or not they have been brought into existence through collective bargaining.” 104 Cong. Rec. 16420 (1958) (remarks of Cong. Lane); id., at 16425 (remarks of Cong. Wolverton); see id., at 7049-7052 (remarks of Sen. Kennedy). Indeed, the bill met opposition in both the Senate and the House on the ground that its approach would “require employers to surrender to labor unions economic and bargaining power which should be negotiated through the normal channels of collective bargaining.” S. Rep. 34 (minority view of Sen. Allott); accord, H. R. Rep. 25 (minority views). Yet neither the bill as enacted nor its legislative history drew a distinction between collectively bargained and all other plans, either with regard to the disclosure role of the federal legislation or the regulatory functions that would remain with the States.
Appellee argues that the Disclosure Act’s allocation of regulatory responsibility to the States is irrelevant here because the Disclosure Act was “enacted to deal with corruption and mismanagement of funds.” Brief for Appellees 36. We think that the appellee advances an excessively narrow view of the legislative history. Congress was concerned not only with corruption, but also with the possibility that honestly managed pension plans would be terminated by the employer, leaving the employees without funded pensions at retirement age.
The Senate Report specifically stated: “Entirely aside from abuses or violations, there are compelling reasons why there should be disclosure of the financial operation of all types of plans.” S. Rep. 16. The Report then reproduced a chart showing the number of pension plans registered with the Internal Revenue Service that had been terminated during a 2-month period. Ibid. The Senate Committee also observed: “Trusteed pension plans commonly limit benefits, even though fixed, to what can be paid out of the funds in the pension trust.” Id., at 15. As an illustration, the Report quoted language from a collectively bargained pension plan disclaiming any liability of the company in the event of termination. Ibid. The Senate Report also showed an awareness of the problems posed by vesting requirements and expressed concern that “employees whose rights do not mature within such contract period must rely upon the expectation that their union will be able to renew the contract or negotiate a similar one upon its termination.” Id., at 8. Thus, Congress was concerned with many of the same issues as are involved in this case — unexpected termination, inadequate funding, unfair vesting requirements. In preserving generally state laws “affecting the operation or administration of employee welfare or pension benefit plans,” 72 Stat. 1003, Congress indicated that the States had and were to have authority to deal with these problems.
Moreover, it should be emphasized that § 10 of the Disclosure Act referred specifically to the “future,” as well as “present” laws of the States. Congress was aware that the States had thus far attempted little regulation of pension plans. The federal Disclosure Act was envisioned as laying a foundation for future state regulation. The Congress sought “to provide adequate information in disclosure legislation for possible later State . . . regulatory laws.” H. R. Rep. 2. Senator Kennedy, a manager of the bill, explained to his colleagues:
“The objective of the bill is to provide more adequate protection for the employee-beneficiaries of these plans through a uniform Federal disclosure act which will . . . make the facts available not only to. the participants and the Federal Government but to the States, in order that any desired State regulation can be more effectively accomplished.” 104 Cong. Rec. 7050 (1958).
See also S. Rep. 18.. Senator Kennedy had “no doubt that this [was] an area in which the States [were] going to begin to move.” 104 Cong. Rec. 7053 (1958).
The aim of the Disclosure Act was perhaps best summarised by Senator Smith, the ranking Republican on the Senate Committee and a supporter of the bill. He stated:
“It seems to be the policy of the pending legislation to extend beyond the problem of corruption. As stated in the language of the bill, one of its aims is to make available to the employee-beneficiaries information which will permit them to determine, first, whether the program is being administered efficiently and equitably; and, second, more importantly, whether or not the assets and prospective income of the programs are sufficient to guarantee the benefits which have been promised to them.
“This present bill provides for far more than anti-corruption legislation directed against the machinations of dishonest men who betray their trust. Rather, it inaugurates a new social policy of accountability. . . .
“This policy could very well lead to the establishment of mandatory standards by which these plans must be governed.” Id., at 7517.
It is also clear that Congress contemplated that the primary responsibility for developing such “mandatory standards” would lie with the States.
Although Congress came to a quite different conclusion in 1974 when ERISA was adopted, the 1958 Disclosure Act clearly anticipated a broad regulatory role for the States. In light of this history, we cannot hold that the Pension Act is nevertheless implicitly pre-empted by the collective-bargaining provisions of the NLRA. Congress could not have intended that bargained-for plans, which were among those that had given rise to the very problems that had so concerned Congress, were to be free from either state or federal regulation insofar as their substantive provisions were concerned. The Pension Act seeks to protect the accrued benefits of workers in the event of plan termination and to insure that' the assets and prospective income of the plan are sufficient to guarantee the benefits promised — exactly the kind of problems which the 85th Congress hoped that the States would solve.
This conclusion is consistent with the Court’s decision in Teamsters v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283 (1959), which concerned a claimed conflict between a state antitrust law and the terms of a collective-bargaining agreement specially adapted to the trucking business. The agreement prescribed a wage scale for truckdrivers and, in order to prevent evasion, provided that drivers who own and drive their own vehicles should be paid, in addition to the prescribed wage, a stated minimum rental for the use of their vehicles. An Ohio court had invalidated this portion of the collective-bargaining agreement under Ohio antitrust law. This Court reversed, noting that “[t]he application [of the Ohio law] would frustrate the parties’ solution of a problem which Congress has required them to negotiate in good faith toward solving, and in the solution of which it imposed no limitations relevant here.” Id., at 296.
The Oliver opinion contains broad language affirming the independence of the collective-bargaining process from state interference:
“Federal law here created the duty upon the parties to bargain collectively; Congress has provided for a system of federal law applicable to the agreement the parties made in response to that duty . . . and federal law sets some outside limits (not contended to be exceeded here) on what their agreement may provide .... We believe that there is no room in this scheme for the application here of this state policy limiting the solutions that the parties’ agreement can provide to the problems of wages and working conditions.” Ibid, (citations omitted).
The opinion nevertheless recognizes exceptions to this general rule. One of them, necessarily anticipated, was the situation where it is evident that Congress intends a different result:
“The solution worked out by the parties was not one of a sort which Congress has indicated may be left to prohibition by the several States. Cf. Algoma Plywood & Veneer Co. v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 336 U. S. 301, 307-312.” Ibid.
As we understand the 1958 Disclosure Act and its legislative history, the collective-bargaining provisions at issue here dealt with precisely the sort of subject matter “which Congress . . . indicated may be left to [regulation] by the several states.” Congress clearly envisioned the exercise of state regulation power over pension funds, and we do not depart from Oliver in sustaining the Minnesota statute.
Ill
Insofar as the Supremacy Clause issue is concerned, no different conclusion is called for because the Minnesota statute was enacted after the UAW-White Motor Corp. agreement had been in effect for several years. Appellee points out that the parties to the 1971 collective-bargaining agreement therefore had no opportunity to consider the impact of any such legislation. Although we understand the equitable considerations which underlie appellee’s argument, they are not material to the resolution of the pre-emption issue since they do not render the Minnesota Pension Act any more or less consistent with congressional policy at the time it was adopted.
Our decision in this case is, of course, limited to appellee’s claim that the Minnesota statute is inconsistent with the federal labor statutes. Appellee’s other constitutional claims are not before us. It remains for the District Court to consider on remand the contentions that the Minnesota Pension Act impairs contractual obligations and fails to provide due process in violation of the United States Constitution. Without intimating any views on the merits of those questions, we note that appellee’s claim of unfair retroactive impact can be considered in that context. All that we decide here is that the decision of the Court of Appeals finding federal preemption of the Minnesota Pension Act should be and hereby is
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Blackmun took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
ERISA, 88 Stat. 832, 29 U. S. C. § 1001 et seq. (1970 ed., Supp. Y), provides for comprehensive federal regulation of employee pension plans, and contains a provision expressly pre-empting all state laws regulating covered plans. § 1144 (a) (1970 ed., Supp. Y). Because ERISA did not become effective until January 1, 1975, and expressly disclaims any effect with regard to events before that date, it does not apply to the facts of this case.
Section 6.17 of the Plan also stated:
“No benefits other than those specifically provided for are to be provided under this Plan. No employee shall have any vested right under the Plan prior to his retirement and then only to the extent specifically provided herein.” App. to Jurisdictional Statement A-29.
Section 9.04, “Rights of Employees in Fund,” is also relevant:
“No employee, participant or pensioner shall have any right to, or interest in any part of any Trust Fund created hereunder, upon termination of employment or otherwise, except as provided under this Plan and only to the extent therein provided. All payments of benefits as provided for in this Plan shall be made only out of the Fund or Funds of the Plan, and neither the Company nor any Trustee nor any Pension Committee or Member thereof shall be liable therefore in any manner or to any extent.” App. to Jurisdictional Statement A-7.
The 1971 version of the Plan contained a provision which required the employer to fund the net deficiency over a period of 35 years, beginning in 1971. The 1968 version contained a similar provision which contemplated that the deficiency would be amortized over a 30-year period.
The effect of the guarantees was to assure that the employees would receive pension benefits at a level about 60% of that specified in the Plan.
In January 1972, after several years of losses, appellee informed the UAW that it intended to close both of the plants at issue. As a result of negotiations, the Hopkins plant continued to operate, but the Lake Street plant was closed. At the time the Lake Street plant was closed, there was a net deficiency in the Pension Fund of $14 million. As of January 1, 1975, there were 981 retirees under the Plan and 233 persons eligible for deferred pensions. In addition, there were 44 terminated employees who at the time of the termination had 10 years of service but had not attained the age of 40. Two hundred and sixty employees continued to work at the Hopkins plant.
Appellee also attempted to terminate the Pension Plan on June 30, 1972, but the UAW challenged this action on the ground that the Plan could not be terminated until expiration of the collective-bargaining agreement on May 1, 1974. An arbitrator upheld the union’s position. See International Union, UAW v. White Motor Corp., 505 F. 2d 1193 (CA8 1974).
The complaint claimed a conflict with the provisions and policies of §§ 1, 7, 8 (a) (5), 8 (b) (3), and 8 (d) of the NLRA, 29 U. S. C. §§ 151, 157,158 (a) (5), 158 (b) (3), and 158 (d).
The Disclosure Act, codified at 29 U. S. C. § 301 et seq., was specifically repealed by ERISA. 29 U. S. C. §1031 (a) (1970 ed., Supp. V). However, ERISA was enacted on September 2, 1974 — after the operative events in this case — and the repeal did not take effect until January 1, 1975. § 1031 (b)(1) (1970 ed., Supp. V). See generally n. 1, supra.
Public Papers of The Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954, ¶ 5, p. 43 (1960).
Opponents of the bill argued that the legislation would “seriously interfere with . . . bargaining relationships” by giving labor unions access to information about the costs of certain employer-administered benefit plans. 104 Cong. Rec. 7209 (1958) (remarks of Sen. Allott). In these level-of-benefit plans, the employer guaranteed to his employees specified benefits and then undertook the full cost and management of the plan. The unions were often not told the annual cost of providing benefits under the plan. Senator Allott, the principal opponent of the bill, argued on the floor:
“Where the employer, either on his own initiative or as a result of collective bargaining, agrees to provide a level-of-benefits plan, the question of whether employees or their representatives should have further information is one to be bargained between them. How the employer intends to meet this financial obligation, or how the financial operation of the fund is set up to pay the benefits, is a matter to be settled by the parties concerned — not granted by operation of law.” Id., at 7208.
Congressman Bosch, the leading opponent of the bill in the House, argued bluntly:
“.Those level-of-benefits plans which now operate under collective bargaining contracts were agreed to with the full knowledge by the unions involved, that the cost, operation and management were the exclusive right of the persons responsible under the plans and, if the unions desired it otherwise, they could have bargained on some other basis than level-of-benefits. If the labor unions wish to change this situation, they should do it through the normal channels of collective bargaining and not by legislation.” Id., at 16424.
Amendments proposed by Senator Allott and Congressman Bosch seeking to exempt level-of-benefits plans from the statute were defeated. Id., at 7333, 16442.
The Report quoted “representative language” from a General Motors-UAW contract which provided:
“The pension benefits of the plan shall be only such as can be provided by the assets of the pension fund or by any insured fund, and there shall be no liability or obligation on the part of the corporation to make any further contributions to the trustee or the insurance company in event of termination of the plan. No liability for the payment of pension benefits under the plan shall be imposed upon the corporation, the officers, directors, or stockholders of the corporation.” S. Rep. 15.
Among the “basic facts” noted by the Committee were:
“9. The employees covered by these group plans have no specific rights until they meet the conditions of the particular plans. For example, in the case of a pension plan this might involve 30 years’ service and the attainment of age 65 ....
“10. Although these plans envisaged a continuing operation to provide benefits for all employees covered — in plans which are not collectively bargained, which constitute the majority of all plans and which are predominantly administered by employers, there is actually no assurance that the benefits will be forthcoming in view of a universally employed clause in such plans to the effect that the employer can terminate the plan at his discretion. Even in collectively bargained plans the employer’s agreement to provide for part or all the costs of the benefits is a short-term contract of 1 to 5 years,” Id., at 4.
Senator Ives, who had served as chairman of the Senate Investigating Committee during the 83d Congress, explained:
"Six States already have enacted legislation on the general subject of pension and welfare plans. Other States are considering such legislation.” 104 Cong. Rec. 7186-7187 (1958).
The coverage of extent state legislation was more fully discussed in S. Rep. 18.
The Court also pointed out:
“We have not here a case of a collective bargaining agreement in conflict with a local health or safety regulation; the conflict here is between the federally sanctioned agreement and state policy which seeks specifically to adjust relationships in the world of commerce.” 358 TJ. S., at 297.
The State claims that the statute is a health or safety regulation that would be valid under Oliver, wholly aside from the Disclosure Act. We need not pass on this contention.
We note that the United States as amicus curiae, argues that the Minnesota statute is not pre-empted. Its view is that application of the Minnesota Pension Act to pre-1974 labor agreements is not disruptive of the federal labor scheme.
In Fleck v. Spannaus, 449 F. Supp. 644 (Minn. 1977), a three-judge District Court upheld the Minnesota Pension Act against a federal institutional challenge based on the Contract Clause, as well as other constitutional provisions. We have noted probable jurisdiction in that case sub nom. Allied Structured Steel Co. v. Spannaus, 434 U. S. 1045, but have not yet heard oral argument.
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
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion,
in which The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Brennan join.
Like No. 48, United Mine Workers v. Pennington, decided today, ante, p. 657, this case presents questions regarding the application of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1, 2 (1958 ed.), to activities of labor unions. In particular, it concerns the lawfulness of the following restriction on the operating hours of food store meat departments contained in a collective bargaining agreement executed after joint multi-employer, multi-union negotiations:
“Market operating hours shall be 9:00 a. m. to 6:00 p. m. Monday through Saturday, inclusive. No customer shall be served who comes into the market before or after the hours set forth above.”
This litigation arose out of the 1957 contract negotiations between the representatives of 9,000 Chicago retailers of fresh meat and the seven union petitioners, who are local affiliates of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, AFL-CIO, representing virtually all butchers in the Chicago area. During the 1957 bargaining sessions the employer group presented several requests for union consent to a relaxation of the existing contract restriction on marketing hours for fresh meat, which forbade the sale of meat before 9 a. m. and after 6 p. m. in both service and self-service markets. The unions rejected all such suggestions, and their own proposal retaining the marketing-hours restriction was ultimately accepted at the final bargaining session by all but two of the employers, National Tea Co. and Jewel Tea Co. (hereinafter “Jewel”). Associated Food Retailers of Greater Chicago, a trade association having about 1,000 individual and independent merchants as members and representing some 300 meat dealers in the negotiations, was among those who accepted. Jewel, however, asked the union negotiators to present to their membership, on behalf of it and National Tea, a counteroffer that included provision for Friday night operations. At the same time Jewel voiced its belief, as it had midway through the negotiations, that any marketing-hours restriction was illegal. On the recommendation of the union negotiators, the Jewel offer was rejected by the union membership, and a strike was authorized. Under the duress of the strike vote, Jewel decided to sign the contract previously approved by the rest of the industry.
In July 1958 Jewel brought suit against the unions, certain of their officers, Associated, and Charles H. Bro-mann, Secretary-Treasurer of Associated, seeking invalidation under §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act of the contract provision that prohibited night meat market operations. The gist of the complaint was that the defendants and others had conspired together to prevent the retail sale of fresh meat before 9 a. m. and after 6 p. m. As evidence of the conspiracy Jewel relied in part on the events during the 1957 contract negotiations — the acceptance by Associated of the market-hours restriction and the unions’ imposition of the restriction on Jewel through a strike threat. Jewel also alleged that it was a part of the conspiracy that the unions would neither permit their members to work at times other than the hours specified nor allow any grocery firm to sell meat, with or without employment of their members, outside those hours; that the members of Associated, which had joined only one of the 1957 employer proposals for extended marketing hours, had agreed among themselves to insist on the inclusion of the marketing-hours limitation in all collective bargaining agreements between the unions and any food store operator; that Associated, its members and officers had agreed with the other defendants that no firm was to be permitted to operate self-service meat markets between 6 p. m. and 9 p. m.; and that the unions, their officers and members had acted as the enforcing agent of the conspiracy.
The complaint stated that in recent years the prepackaged, self-service system of marketing meat had come into vogue, that 174 of Jewel’s 196 stores were equipped to vend meat in this manner, and that a butcher need not be on duty in a self-service market at the time meat purchases were actually made. The prohibition of night meat marketing, it was alleged, unlawfully impeded Jewel in the use of its property and adversely affected the general public in that many persons find it inconvenient to shop during the day. An injunction, treble damages and attorneys’ fees were demanded.
The trial judge held the allegations of the complaint sufficient to withstand a motion to dismiss made on the grounds, inter alia, that (a) the alleged restraint was within the exclusive regulatory scope of the National Labor Relations Act and was therefore outside the jurisdiction of the Court and (b) the controversy was within the labor exemption to the antitrust laws. That ruling was sustained on appeal. Jewel Tea Co. v. Local Unions Nos. 189, etc., Amalgamated Meat Cutters, AFL-CIO, 274 F. 2d 217 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1960), cert. denied, 362 U. S. 936. After trial, however, the District Judge ruled the “record was devoid of any evidence to support a finding of conspiracy” between Associated and the unions to force the restrictive provision on Jewel. 215 F. Supp. 839, 845. Testing the unions’ action standing alone, the. trial court found that even in self-service markets removal of the limitation on marketing hours either would inaugurate longer hours and night work for the butchers or would result in butchers’ work being done by others unskilled in the trade. Thus, the court concluded, the unions had imposed the marketing-hours limitation to serve their own interests respecting conditions of employment, and such action was clearly within the labor exemption of the Sherman Act established by Hunt v. Crumboch, 325 U. S. 821 ; United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U. S. 219; United States v. American Federation of Musicians, 318 U. S. 741. Alternatively, the District Court ruled that even if this was not the case, the arrangement did not amount to an unreasonable restraint of trade in violation of the Sherman Act.
The Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of the complaint as to both the unions and Associated. Without disturbing the District Court’s finding that, apart from the contractual provision itself, there was no evidence of conspiracy, the Court of Appeals concluded that a conspiracy in restraint of trade had been shown. The court noted that “[t]he rest of the Industry agreed with the Defendant Local Unions to continue the ban on night operations,” while plaintiff resisted, and concluded that Associated and the unions “entered into a combination or agreement, which constituted a conspiracy, as charged in the complaint. . . [wjhether it be called an agreement, a contract or a conspiracy, is immaterial.” 331 F. 2d 547, 551.
Similarly, the Court of Appeals did not find it necessary to review the lower court’s finding that night marketing would affect either the butchers’ working hours or their jurisdiction, for the court held that an employer-union contract respecting working hours would be unlawful. “One of the proprietary functions is the determination of what days a week and what hours of the day the business will be open to supply its customers. ... As long as all rights of employees are recognized and duly observed by the employer, including the number of hours per day that any one shall be required to work, any agreement by a labor union, acting in concert with business competitors of the employer, designed to interfere with his operation of a retail business ... is a violation of the Sherman Act .... [T]he furnishing of a place and advantageous hours of employment for the butchers to supply meat to customers are the prerogatives of the employer.” 331 F. 2d 547, 549.
We granted certiorari on the unions’ petition, 379 U. S. 813, and now reverse the Court of Appeals.
I.
We must first consider the unions’ attack on the appropriateness of the District Court’s exercise of jurisdiction, which is encompassed in their contention that this controversy is within the exclusive primary jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board. On this point, which is distinct from the unions’ argument that the operating-hours restriction is subject to regulation only by the Board and is thus wholly exempt from the antitrust laws, the unions’ thesis is that the pivotal issue is whether the operating-hours restriction is a “term or condition of employment” and that the District Court should have held the case on its docket pending a Board proceeding to resolve that issue, which is said to be peculiarly within the competence of the Board.
“The doctrine of primary jurisdiction ... 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.” United States v. Western Pac. R. Co., 352 U. S. 59, 63-64. The doctrine is based on the principle “that in cases raising issues of fact not within the conventional experience of judges or cases requiring the exercise of administrative discretion, agencies created by Congress for regulating the subject matter should not be passed over,” Far East Conference v. United States, 342 U. S. 570, 574, and “requires judicial abstention in cases where protection of the integrity of a regulatory scheme dictates preliminary resort to the agency which administers the scheme,” United States v. Philadelphia Nat. Bank, 374 U. S. 321, 353.
Whether a proposed bargaining subject is a term or Condition of employment is an issue that the Board frequently determines in considering charges that an employer or union has violated the duty to bargain in good faith concerning “wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment,” the mandatory subjects of bargaining described in § 8 (d) of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 452, as amended. Such an issue may be raised by an unfair labor practice charge of violation of § 8 (a)(5) or § 8 (b)(3) through, for example, a refusal to bargain on a mandatory subject of bargaining, see Labor Board v. Katz, 369 U. S. 736, or insistence on a nonmandatory subject, see Labor Board v. Borg-Warner Corp., 356 U. S. 342. Thus, the unions contend, Jewel could have filed an unfair labor practice charge with the Board on the ground that the unions had insisted on a nonmandatory subject — the marketing-hours restriction. Obviously, classification of bargaining subjects as “terms or conditions of employment” is a matter concerning which the Board has special expertise. Nevertheless, for the reasons stated below we cannot conclude that this is a proper case for application of the doctrine of primary jurisdiction.
To begin with, courts are themselves not without experience in classifying bargaining subjects as terms or conditions of employment. Just such a determination must be frequently made when a court’s jurisdiction to issue an injunction affecting a labor dispute is challenged under the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which defines “labor dispute” as including “any controversy concerning terms or conditions of employment,” Norris-LaGuardia Act, § 13 (c), 47 Stat. 73, 29 U. S. C. § 113 (c) (1958 ed.). See Order of Railroad Telegraphers v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co., 362 U. S. 330; Bakery Drivers Union v. Wagshal, 333 U. S. 437; cf. Teamsters Union v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283.
Secondly, the doctrine of primary jurisdiction is not a doctrine of futility; it does not require resort to “an expensive and merely delaying administrative proceeding when the case must eventually be decided on a controlling legal issue wholly unrelated to determinations for the ascertainment of which the proceeding was sent to the agency.” Maritime Board v. Isbrandtsen Co., 356 U. S. 481, 521 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). It was only after commencement of trial that it became evident that a major issue in this case would be whether the marketing-hours restriction was a term or condition of employment. Jewel’s complaint alleged the existence of a conspiracy between Associated and the unions to impose the marketing-hours provision on Jewel — that is, it was alleged that the unions had agreed with a part of the bargaining unit to impose certain terms on the rest of the unit. We hold today in United Mine Workers v. Pennington with respect to allegations of a similar employer-union agreement to impose a particular scale of wages — indisputably at the core of “wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment” — that such an understanding is not exempt from the Sherman Act. At the stage when the decision whether to refer the parties to the Board was made, therefore, the issues were so framed that a Board determination would have been of subsidiary importance at best.
Finally, we must reject the unions’ primary-jurisdiction contention because of the absence of an available procedure for obtaining a Board determination. The Board does not classify bargaining subjects in the abstract but only in connection with unfair labor practice charges of refusal to bargain. The typical antitrust suit, however, is brought by a stranger to the bargaining relationship, and the complaint is not that the parties have refused to bargain but, quite the contrary, that they have agreed. Jewel’s conspiracy allegation in the present case was just such a complaint. Agreement is of course not a refusal to bargain, and in such cases the Board affords no mechanism for obtaining a classification of the subject matter of the agreement. Moreover, even in the few instances when the antitrust action could be framed as a refusal to bargain charge, there is no guarantee of Board action. It is the function of the Board’s General Counsel rather than the Board or a private litigant to determine whether an unfair labor practice complaint will ultimately issue. National Labor Relations Act, § 3 (d), 29 U. S. C. § 153 (d) (1958 ed.). And the six-month limitation period of § 10 (b) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 160 (b) (1958 ed.), would preclude many litigants from even filing a charge with the General Counsel. Indeed, Jewel’s complaint in this very case was filed more than six months after it signed the 1957 collective bargaining agreement. “[W]e know of no case where the court has ordered reference of an issue which the administrative body would not itself have jurisdiction to determine in a proceeding for that purpose.” Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. v. Northwestern Public Serv. Co., 341 U. S. 246, 254.
II.
Here, as in United Mine Workers v. Pennington, ante, p. 657, the claim is made that the agreement under attack is exempt from the antitrust laws. We agree, but not on the broad grounds urged by the union.
It is well at the outset to emphasize that this case comes to us stripped of any claim of a union-employer conspiracy against Jewel. The trial court found no evidence to sustain Jewel’s conspiracy claim and this finding was not disturbed by the Court of Appeals. We therefore have a situation where the unions, having obtained a marketing-hours agreement from one group of employers, have successfully sought the same terms from a single employer, Jewel, not as a result of a bargain between the unions and some employers directed against other employers, but pursuant to what the unions deemed to be in their own labor union interests.
Jewel does not allege that it has been injured by the elimination of competition among the other employers within the unit with respect to marketing hours; Jewel complains only of the unions’ action in forcing it to accept the same restriction, the unions acting not at the behest of any employer group but in pursuit of their own policies. It might be argued that absent any union-employer conspiracy against Jewel and absent any agreement between Jewel and any other employer, the union-Jewel contract cannot be a violation of the Sherman Act. But the issue before us is not the broad substantive one of a violation of the antitrust laws — was there a conspiracy or combination which unreasonably restrained trade or an attempt to monopolize and was Jewel damaged in its business? — but whether the agreement is immune from attack by reason of the labor exemption from the antitrust laws. See note 3, supra. The fact that the parties to the agreement are but a single employer and the unions representing its employees does not compel immunity for the agreement. We must consider the subject matter of the agreement in the light of the national labor policy. Cf. Bakery Drivers Union v. Wagshal, 333 U. S. 437.
We pointed out in Pennington that exemption for union-employer agreements is very much a matter of accommodating the coverage of the Sherman Act to the policy of the labor laws. Employers and unions are required to bargain about wages, hours and working conditions, and this fact weighs heavily in favor of antitrust exemption for agreements on these subjects. But neither party need bargain about other matters and either party commits an unfair labor practice if it conditions its bargaining upon discussions of a nonmandatory subject. Labor Board v. Borg-Warner Corp., 356 U. S. 342. Jewel, for example, need not have bargained about or agreed to a schedule of prices at which its meat would be sold and the unions could not legally have insisted that it do so. But if the unions had made such a demand, Jewel had agreed and the United States or an injured party had challenged the agreement under the antitrust laws, we seriously doubt that either the unions or Jewel could claim immunity by reason of the labor exemption, whatever substantive questions of violation there might be.
Thus the issue in this case is whether the marketing-hours restriction, like wages, and unlike prices, is so intimately related to wages, hours and working conditions that the unions’ successful attempt to obtain that provision through bona fide, arm’s-length bargaining in pursuit of their own labor union policies, and not at the behest of or in combination with nonlabor groups, falls within the protection of the national labor policy and is therefore exempt from the Sherman Act. We think that it is.
The Court of Appeals would classify the marketing-hours restriction with the product-pricing provision and place both within the reach of the Sherman Act. In its view, labor has a legitimate interest in the number of hours it must work but no interest in whether the hours fall in the daytime, in the nighttime or on Sundays. “[T]he furnishing of a place and advantageous hours of employment for the butchers to supply meat to customers are the prerogatives of the employer.” 331 F. 2d 547, 549. That reasoning would invalidate with respect to both service and self-service markets the 1957 provision that “eight hours shall constitute the basic work day, Monday through Saturday; work to begin at 9:00 a. m. and stop at 6:00 p. to. . . .” as well as the marketing-hours restriction.
Contrary to the Court of Appeals, we think that the particular hours of the day and the particular days of the week during which employees shall be required to work are subjects well within the realm of “wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment” about which employers and unions must bargain. National Labor Relations Act, § 8 (d); see Timken Roller Bearing Go., 70 N. L. R. B. 500, 504, 515-516, 521 (1946), rev’d on other grounds, 161 F. 2d 949 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1947) (employer’s unilateral imposition of Sunday work was refusal to bargain); Massey Grin & Machine Works, Inc., 78 N. L. R. B. 189, 195, 199 (1948) (change in starting and quitting time); Camp & McInnes, Inc., 100 N. L. R. B. 524, 532 (1952) (reduction of lunch hour and advancement of quitting time). And, although the effect on competition is apparent and real, perhaps more so than in the case of the wage agreement, the concern of union members is immediate and direct. Weighing the respective interests involved, we think the national labor policy expressed in the National Labor Relations Act places beyond the reach of the Sherman Act union-employer agreements on when, as well as how long, employees must work. An agreement on these subjects between the union and the employers in a bargaining unit is not illegal under the Sherman Act, nor is the union’s unilateral demand for the same contract of other employers in the industry.
Disposing of the case, as it did, on the broad grounds we have indicated, the Court of Appeals did not deal separately with the marketing-hours provision, as distinguished from hours of work, in connection with either service or self-service markets. The dispute here pertains principally to self-service markets.
The unions argue that since night operations would be impossible without night employment of butchers, or an impairment of the butchers’ jurisdiction, or a substantial effect on the butchers’ workload, the marketing-hours restriction is either little different in effect from the valid working-hours provision that work shall stop at 6 p. m. or is necessary to protect other concerns of the union members. If the unions’ factual premises are true, we think the unions could impose a restriction on night operations without violation of the Sherman Act; for then operating hours, like working hours, would constitute a subject of immediate and legitimate concern to union members.
Jewel alleges on the other hand that the night operation of self-service markets requires no butcher to be in attendance and does not infringe any other legitimate union concern. Customers serve themselves; and if owners want to forgo furnishing the services of a butcher to give advice or to make special cuts, this is not the unions’ concern since their desire to avoid night work is fully satisfied and no other legitimate interest is being infringed. In short, the connection between working hours and operating hours in the case of the self-service market is said to be so attenuated as to bring the provision within the prohibition of the Sherman Act.
If it were true that self-service markets could actually operate without butchers, at least for a few hours after 6 p. m., that no encroachment on butchers’ work would result and that the workload of butchers during normal working hours would not be substantially increased, Jewel’s position would have considerable merit. For then the obvious restraint on the product market — the exclusion of self-service stores from the evening market for meat — would stand alone, unmitigated and unjustified by the vital interests of the union butchers which are relied upon in this case. In such event the limitation imposed by the unions might well be reduced to nothing but an effort by the unions to protect one group of employers from competition by another, which is conduct that is not exempt from the Sherman Act. Whether there would be a violation of §§ 1 and 2 would then depend on whether the elements of a conspiracy in restraint of trade or an attempt to monopolize had been proved.
Thus the dispute between Jewel and the unions essentially concerns a narrow factual question: Are night operations without butchers, and without infringement of butchers’ interests, feasible? The District Court resolved this factual dispute in favor of the unions. It found that “in stores where meat is sold at night it is impractical to operate without either butchers or other employees. Someone must arrange, replenish and clean the counters and supply customer services.” Operating without butchers would mean that “their work would be done by others unskilled in the trade,” and “would involve an increase in workload in preparing for the night work and cleaning the next morning.” 215 F. Supp., at 846. Those findings were not disturbed by the Court of Appeals, which, as previously noted, proceeded on a broader ground. Our function is limited to reviewing the record to satisfy ourselves that the trial judge’s findings are not clearly erroneous. Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 52 (a).
The trial court had before it evidence concerning the history of the unions’ opposition to night work, the development of the provisions respecting night work and night operations, the course of collective bargaining negotiations in 1957, 1959, and 1961 with regard to those provisions, and the characteristics of meat marketing insofar as they bore on the feasibility of night operations without butchers.
The unions’ opposition to night work has a long history. Prior to 1919 the operating hours of meat markets in Chicago were 7 a. m. to 7 p. m., Monday through Friday; 7 a. m. to 10 p. m. on Saturday, and 7 a. m. to 1 p. m. on Sunday. Butchers worked the full 81-hour, seven-day week. The Chicago butchers’ strike of 1919 was much concerned with shortening working hours, and the resulting contract, signed in 1920, set the working day at 8 a. m. to 6 p. m., Monday through Friday, and 8 a. m. to 9 p. m. on Saturday. Various alterations in the hours were made in 1937, 1941, 1945, 1946, and again in 1947, when the present working hours (9 a. m. to 6 p. m., Monday through Saturday) were established. In a mail ballot conducted by the unions in October 1962, Jewel’s meat cutters voted 759 to 28 against night work.
Concomitant with the unions’ concern with the working hours of butchers was their interest in the hours during which customers might be served. The 1920 agreement provided that “no customers will be served who come into the market after 6 P. M. and 9 P. M. on Saturdays and on days preceding holidays . . . .” That provision was continued until 1947, when it was superseded by the formulation presently in effect and here claimed to be unlawful:
“Market operating hours shall be 9:00 a. m. to 6:00 p. m. Monday through Saturday, inclusive. No customer shall be served who comes into the market before or after the hours set forth above.”
In 1947, Jewel had just started investigating the self-service method of meat vending. It introduced that method in the Chicago area in 1948 and in the territory of these unions in 1953.
During the 1957 negotiations numerous proposals for relaxation of the operating-hours restriction were presented by the employer group. Each of these proposals, including that submitted separately by Jewel for consideration at the unions’ ratification meetings, combined a provision for night operations with a provision for a more flexible workday that would permit night employment of butchers. Such juxtaposition of the two provisions could, of course, only serve to reinforce the unions’ fears that night operations meant night work. Jewel did allege in its complaint, filed in July 1958, that night operations were possible without butchers, but even in the 1959 bargaining sessions Jewel failed to put forth any plan for night operations that did not also include night work. Finally, toward the end of the 1961 negotiations, Jewel did make such a suggestion, but, as the trial judge remarked, the “unions questioned the seriousness of that proposal under the circumstances.” 215 F. Supp., at 843.
The unions’ evidence with regard to the practicability of night operations without butchers was accurately summarized by the trial judge as follows:
“[I]n most of plaintiff’s stores outside Chicago, where night operations exist, meat cutters are on duty whenever a meat department is open after 6 P. M. . . . Even in self-service departments, ostensibly operated without employees on duty after 6 P. M., there was evidence that requisite customer services in connection with meat sales were performed by grocery clerks. In the same vein, defendants adduced evidence that in the sale of delicatessen items, which could be made after 6 P. M. from self-service cases under the contract, ‘practically’ always during the time the market was open the manager, or other employees, would be rearranging and restocking the cases. There was also evidence that even if it were practical to operate a self-service meat market after 6 P. M. without employees, the night operations would add to the workload in getting the meats prepared for night sales and in putting the counters in order the next day.” 215 F. Supp., at 844.
Jewel challenges the unions’ evidence on each of these points — arguing, for example, that its preference to have butchers on duty at night, where possible under the union contract, is not probative of the feasibility of not having butchers on duty and that the evidence that grocery clerks performed customer services within the butchers’ jurisdiction was based on a single instance resulting from “entrapment” by union agents. But Jewel’s argument— when considered against the historical background of union concern with working hours and operating hours and the virtually uniform recognition by employers of the intimate relationship between the two subjects, as manifested by bargaining proposals in 1957, 1959, and 1961— falls far short of a showing that the trial judge’s ultimate findings were clearly erroneous.
Reversed.
The practice in the Chicago area is for the employers and the butchers to execute separate, but similar, collective bargaining agreements for self-service and service markets. A self-service market is “one in which fresh beef, veal, lamb, mutton or pork are available for sale on a prepackage self-service basis.” Semi-self-service markets, those in which fresh meat is made available on a prepackaged basis but there is also a service counter offering custom cutting for those who prefer it, are governed by the self-service contract. Service markets are those in which no fresh meat is made available on a self-service basis.
Action upon the separate petition of Associated and Bromann, No. 321 Oct. Term, 1964, has been withheld, pending disposition of this ease.
The grant of certiorari was limited to the following questions:
“1. Based on the District Court’s undisturbed finding that the limitation 'was imposed after arm’s length bargaining, . . . and was fashioned exclusively by the unions to serve their own interests— how long and what hours members shall work, what work they shall do, and what pay they shall receive,’ whether the limitation upon market operating hours and the controversy concerning it are within the labor exemption of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
“2. Whether a claimed violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act which falls within the regulatory scope of the National Labor Relations Act is within the exclusive primary jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board.”
To be distinguished are the pre-emption cases in which the possibility that the Board may not exercise jurisdiction renders state courts no less powerless to act, see San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 245-246. See generally, Teamsters Local 20 v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252.
The crucial determinant is not the form of the agreement — e. g., prices or wages — but its relative impact on the product market and the interests of union members. Thus in Teamsters Union v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283, we held that federal labor policy precluded application of state antitrust laws to an employer-union agreement that when leased trucks were driven by their owners, such owner-drivers should receive, in addition to the union wage, not less than a prescribed minimum rental. Though in form a scheme fixing prices for the supply of leased vehicles, the agreement was designed “to protect the negotiated wage scale against the possible undermining through diminution of the owner’s wages for driving which might result from a rental which did not cover his operating costs.” Id., at 293-294. As the agreement did not embody a “ 'remote and indirect approach to the subject of wages’ . . . but a direct frontal attack upon a problem thought to threaten the maintenance of the basic wage structure established by the collective bargaining contract,” id., at 294, the paramount federal policy of encouraging collective bargaining proscribed application of the state law. See also Meat Drivers v. United States, 371 U. S. 94, 98; Milk Wagon Drivers’ Union, Local No. 753 v. Lake Valley Farm Products, Inc., 311 U. S. 91.
One issue, for example, would be whether the restraint was unreasonable. Judicial pronouncements regarding the reasonableness of restraints on hours of business are relatively few. Some cases appear to have viewed such restraints as tantamount to limits on hours of work and thus reasonable, even though contained in agreements among competitors. Thus in Chicago Board of Trade v. United States, 246 U. S. 231, the Court upheld a rule of a grain exchange that had the form of a restriction on prices of transactions outside regular trading hours but was characterized by the Court as a rule designed to shift transactions to the regular trading period, i. e., to limit hours of operation. The Court, per Mr. Justice Brandéis, stated:
“Every board of trade and nearly every trade organization imposes some restraint upon the conduct of business by its members. Those relating to the hours in which business may be done are common; and they make a special appeal where, as here, they tend to shorten the working day or, at least, limit the period of most exacting activity.” 246 U. S., at 241. (Emphasis added.) See also La Duc v. Teamsters & Chauffeurs Union, Local No. 43, 1946-1947 Trade Cas., ¶ 57,631 (Wis. Cir. Ct. 1947); Cielesz v. Local 189, Amalgamated Meat Cutters, 25 Ill. App. 2d 491, 167 N. E. 2d 302 (1960).
Other cases have upheld operating-hours restraints in factual circumstances that make it seem likely that the agreement affected hours of operation and hours of work in equal measure but without stressing that fact. See Dunkel Oil Corp. v. Anich, 1944-1945 Trade Cas., ¶ 57,306 (D. C. E. D. Ill. 1944); Baker v. Retail Clerks Assn., 313 Ill. App. 432, 40 N. E. 2d 571 (1942); Stovall v. McCutchen, 107 Ky. 577, 54 S. W. 969 (1900).
Kold Kist, Inc. v. Amalgamated Meat Cutters, Local No. 421, 99 Cal. App. 2d 191, 221 P. 2d 724 (1950), held unreasonable a union-employer agreement limiting night sales of frozen poultry, which had previously been obtained from the plaintiff-distributor. The plaintiff alleged, however, that it had been severely affected, since many stores had stopped carrying its products entirely due to the lack of storage facilities in which to keep the poultry during hours in which sale was prohibited, and such effects may be atypical.
The decided cases thus do not appear to offer any easy answer to the question whether in a particular case an operating-hours restraint is unreasonable.
In 1959, and again in 1961, new collective bargaining agreements containing the challenged provision were executed. In each instance, Jewel reserved its position with respect to this litigation.
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 White
delivered an opinion, Parts of which are the opinion of the Court.
This case requires us to determine whether a state statute that authorizes prejudgment attachment of real estate without prior notice or hearing, without a showing of extraordinary circumstances, and without a requirement that the person seeking the attachment post a bond, satisfies the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We hold that, as applied to this case, it does not.
t — I
On March 15, 1988, petitioner John F. DiGiovanni submitted an application to the Connecticut Superior Court for an attachment in the amount of $75,000 on respondent Brian K. Doehr’s home in Meriden, Connecticut. DiGiovanni took this step in conjunction with a civil action for assault and battery that he was seeking to institute against Doehr in the same court. The suit did not involve Doehr’s real estate, nor did DiGiovanni have any pre-existing interest either in Doehr’s home or any of his other property.
Connecticut law authorizes prejudgment attachment of real estate without affording prior notice or the opportunity for a prior hearing to the individual whose property is subject to the attachment. The State’s prejudgment remedy statute provides, in relevant part:
“The court or a judge of the court may allow the prejudgment remedy to be issued by an attorney without hearing as provided in sections 52-278c and 52-278d upon verification by oath of the plaintiff or of some competent affiant, that there is probable cause to sustain the validity of the plaintiff’s claims and (1) that the prejudgment remedy requested is for an attachment of real property....” Conn. Gen. Stat. §52-278e (1991).
The statute does not require the plaintiff to post a bond to insure the payment of damages that the defendant may suffer should the attachment prove wrongfully issued or the claim prove unsuccessful.
As required, DiGiovanni an of his application. In five one-sentence paragraphs, DiGio-vanni stated that the facts set forth in his previously submitted complaint were true; that “I was willfully, wantonly and maliciously assaulted by the defendant, Brian K. Doehr”; that “[s]aid assault and battery broke my left wrist and further caused an ecchymosis to my right eye, as well as other injuries”; and that “I have further expended sums of money for medical care and treatment.” App. 24A. The affidavit concluded with the statement, “In my opinion, the foregoing facts are sufficient to show that there is probable cause that judgment will be rendered for the plaintiff.” Ibid.
On the strength of these submissions the Superior Court Judge, by an order dated March 17, found “probable cause to sustain the validity of the plaintiff’s claim” and ordered the attachment on Doehr’s home “to the value of $75,000.” The sheriff attached the property four days later, on March 21. Only after this did Doehr receive notice of the attachment. He also had yet to be served with the complaint, which is ordinarily necessary for an action to commence in Connecticut. Young v. Margiotta, 136 Conn. 429, 433, 71 A. 2d 924, 926 (1950). As the statute further required, the attachment notice informed Doehr that he had the right to a hearing: (1) to claim that no probable cause existed to sustain the claim; (2) to request that the attachment be vacated, modified, or dismissed or that a bond be substituted; or (3) to claim that some portion of the property was exempt from execution. Conn. Gen. Stat. §52-278e(b) (1991).
Rather than pursue these options, Doehr filed suit against DiGiovanni in Federal District Court, claiming that § 52-278e (a)(1) was unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court upheld the statute and granted summary judgment in favor of DiGio-vanni. Pinsky v. Duncan, 716 F. Supp. 58 (Conn. 1989). On appeal, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed. Pinsky v. Duncan, 898 F. 2d 852 (1990). Judge Pratt, who wrote the opinion for the court, concluded that the Connecticut statute violated due process in permitting ex parte attachment absent a showing of extraordinary circumstances. “The rule to be derived from Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp. of Bay View, 395 U. S. 337 (1969), and its progeny, therefore, is not that post-attachment hearings are generally acceptable provided that plaintiff files a factual affidavit and that a judicial officer supervises the process, but that a prior hearing may be postponed where exceptional circumstances justify such a delay, and where sufficient additional safeguards are present.” Id., at 855. This conclusion was deemed to be consistent with our decision in Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600 (1974), because the absence of a preattachment hearing was approved in that case based on the presence of extraordinary circumstances.
A further reason to invalidate the statute, the court ruled, was the highly factual nature of the issues in this case. In Mitchell, there were “uncomplicated matters that len[t] themselves to documentary proof” and “[t]he nature of the issues at stake minimized] the risk that the writ [would] be wrongfully issued by a judge.” Id., at 609-610. Similarly, in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 343-344 (1976), where an evidentiary hearing was not required prior to the termination of disability benefits, the determination of disability was “sharply focused and easily documented.” Judge Pratt observed that in contrast the present case involved the fact-specific event of a fist fight and the issue of assault. He doubted that the judge could reliably determine probable cause when presented with only the plaintiff’s version of the altercation. “Because the risk of a wrongful attachment is considerable under these circumstances, we conclude that dispensing with notice and opportunity for a hearing until after the attachment, without a showing of extraordinary circumstances, violates the requirements of due process.” 898 F. 2d, at 856. Judge Pratt went on to conclude that in his view, the statute was also constitutionally infirm for its failure to require the plaintiff to post a bond for the protection of the defendant in the event the attachment was ultimately found to have been improvident.
Judge Mahoney was also of the opinion that the statutory provision for attaching real property in civil actions, without a prior hearing and in the absence of extraordinary circumstances, was unconstitutional. He disagreed with Judge Pratt’s opinion that a bond was constitutionally required. Judge Newman dissented from the holding that a hearing prior to attachment was constitutionally required and, like Judge Mahoney, disagreed with Judge Pratt on the necessity for a bond.
The dissent’s conclusion accorded with the views of the Connecticut Supreme Court, which had previously upheld §52-278e(b) in Fermont Division, Dynamics Corp. of America v. Smith, 178 Conn. 393, 423 A. 2d 80 (1979). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict of authority. 498 U. S. 809 (1990).
II
With this case we return to the question of what process must be afforded by a state statute enabling an individual to enlist the aid of the State to deprive another of his or her property by means of the prejudgment attachment or similar procedure. Our cases reflect the numerous variations this type of remedy can entail. In Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp. of Bay View, 395 U. S. 337 (1969), the Court struck down a Wisconsin statute that permitted a creditor to effect prejudgment garnishment of wages without notice and prior hearing to the wage earner. In Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67 (1972), the Court likewise found a due process violation in state replevin provisions that permitted vendors to have goods seized through an ex parte application to a court clerk and the posting of a bond. Conversely, the Court upheld a Louisiana ex parte procedure allowing a lienholder to have disputed goods sequestered in Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., supra. Mitchell, however, carefully noted that Fuentes was decided against “a factual and legal background sufficiently different... that it does not require the invalidation of the Louisiana sequestration statute.” Id., at 615. Those differences included Louisiana’s provision of an immediate post-deprivation hearing along with the option of damages; the requirement that a judge rather than a clerk determine that there is a clear showing of entitlement to the writ; the necessity for a detailed affidavit; and an emphasis on the lien-holder’s interest in preventing waste or alienation of the encumbered property. Id., at 615-618. In North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U. S. 601 (1975), the Court again invalidated an ex parte garnishment statute that not only failed to provide for notice and prior hearing but also failed to require a bond, a detailed affidavit setting out the claim, the determination of a neutral magistrate, or a prompt postdeprivation hearing. Id., at 606-608.
These cases “underscore unlike some legal rules, is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place and circumstances.’” Mathews v. Eldridge, supra, at 334 (quoting Cafeteria & Restaurant Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886, 895 (1961)). In Mathews, we drew upon our prejudgment remedy decisions to determine what process is due when the government itself seeks to effect a deprivation on its own initiative. 424 U. S., at 334. That analysis resulted in the now familiar threefold inquiry requiring consideration of “the private interest that will be affected by the official action”; “the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute safeguards”; and lastly “the Government’s interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail.” Id., at 335.
Here the inquiry is similar, but judgment remedy statutes ordinarily apply to disputes between private parties rather than between an individual and the government. Such enactments are designed to enable one of the parties to “make use of state procedures with the overt, significant assistance of state officials,” and they undoubtedly involve state action “substantial enough to implicate the Due Process Clause.” Tulsa Professional Collection Services, Inc. v. Pope, 485 U. S. 478, 486 (1988). Nonetheless, any burden that increasing procedural safeguards entails primarily affects not the government, but the party seeking control of the other’s property. See Fuentes v. Shevin, supra, at 99-101 (White, J., dissenting). For this type of case, therefore, the relevant inquiry requires, as in Mathews, first, consideration of the private interest that will be affected by the prejudgment measure; second, an examination of the risk of erroneous deprivation through the procedures under attack and the probable value of additional or alternative safeguards; and third, in contrast to Mathews, principal attention to the interest of the party seeking the prejudgment remedy, with, nonetheless, due regard for any ancillary interest the government may have in providing the procedure or forgoing the added burden of providing greater protections.
We now consider the Mathews factors in determining the adequacy of the procedures before us, first with regard to the safeguards of notice and a prior hearing, and then in relation to the protection of a bond.
I — 1 f — I 1 — 1
We agree with the Court of Appeals that the property interests that attachment affects are significant. For a property owner like Doehr, attachment ordinarily clouds title; impairs the ability to sell or otherwise alienate the property; taints any credit rating; reduces the chance of obtaining a home equity loan or additional mortgage; and can even place an existing mortgage in technical default where there is an insecurity clause. Nor does Connecticut deny that any of these consequences occurs.
Instead, the State correctly points out that these effects do not amount to a complete, physical, or permanent deprivation of real property; their impact is less than the perhaps temporary total deprivation of household goods or wages. See Sniadach, supra, at 340; Mitchell, 416 U. S., at 613. But the Court has never held that only such extreme deprivations trigger due process concern. See Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60, 74 (1917). To the contrary, our cases show that even the temporary or partial impairments to property rights that attachments, liens, and similar encumbrances entail are sufficient to merit due process protection. Without doubt, state procedures for creating and enforcing attachments, as with liens, “are subject to the strictures of due process.” Peralta v. Heights Medical Center, Inc., 485 U. S. 80, 85 (1988) (citing Mitchell, supra, at 604; Hodge v. Muscatine County, 196 U. S. 276, 281 (1905)).
We also agree with the Court Appeals of erroneous deprivation that the State permits here is substantial. By definition, attachment statutes premise a deprivation of property on one ultimate factual contingency — the award of damages to the plaintiff which the defendant may not be able to satisfy. See Ownbey v. Morgan, 256 U. S. 94, 104-105 (1921); R. Thompson & J. Sebert, Remedies: Damages, Equity and Restitution § 5.01 (1983). For attachments before judgment, Connecticut mandates that this determination be made by means of a procedural inquiry that asks whether “there is probable cause to sustain the validity of the plaintiff’s claim.” Conn. Gen. Stat. §52-278e(a) (1991). The statute elsewhere defines the validity of the claim in terms of the likelihood “that judgment will be rendered in the matter in favor of the plaintiff.” Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-278c(a)(2) (1991); Ledgebrook Condominium Assn. v. Lusk Corp., 172 Conn. 577, 584, 376 A. 2d 60, 63-64 (1977). What probable cause means in this context, however, remains obscure. The State initially took the position, as did the dissent below, that the statute requires a plaintiff to show the objective likelihood of the suit’s success. Brief for Petitioners 12; Pinsky, 898 F. 2d, at 861-862 (Newman, J., dissenting). Doehr, citing ambiguous state cases, reads the provision as requiring no more than that a plaintiff demonstrate a subjective good-faith belief that the suit will succeed. Brief for Respondent 25-26. Ledgebrook Condominium Assn., supra, at 584, 376 A. 2d, at 63-64; Anderson v. Nedovich, 19 Conn. App. 85, 88, 561 A. 2d 948, 949 (1989). At oral argument, the State shifted its position to argue that the statute requires something akin to the plaintiff stating a claim with sufficient facts to survive a motion to dismiss.
We need not resolve this confusion since the statute presents too great a risk of erroneous deprivation under any of these interpretations. If the statute demands inquiry into the sufficiency of the complaint, or, still less, the plaintiff’s good-faith belief that the complaint is sufficient, requirement of a complaint and a factual affidavit would permit a court to make these minimal determinations. But neither inquiry adequately reduces the risk of erroneous deprivation. Permitting a court to authorize attachment merely because the plaintiff believes the defendant is liable, or because the plaintiff can make out a facially valid complaint, would permit the deprivation of the defendant’s property when the claim would fail to convince a jury, when it rested on factual allegations that were sufficient to state a cause of action but which the defendant would dispute, or in the case of a mere good-faith standard, even when the complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The potential for unwarranted attachment in these situations is self-evident and too great to satisfy the requirements of due process absent any countervailing consideration.
Even if the provision requires the plaintiff to demonstrate, and the judge to find, probable cause to believe that judgment will be rendered in favor of the plaintiff, the risk of error was substantial in this case. As the record shows, and as the State concedes, only a skeletal affidavit need be, and was, filed. The State urges that the reviewing judge normally reviews the complaint as well, but concedes that the complaint may also be conclusory. It is self-evident that the judge could make no realistic assessment concerning the likelihood of an action’s success based upon these one-sided, self-serving, and conclusory submissions. And as the Court of Appeals said, in a case like this involving an alleged assault, even a detailed affidavit would give only the plaintiff’s version of the confrontation. Unlike determining the existence of a debt or delinquent payments, the issue does not concern “ordinarily uncomplicated matters that lend themselves to documentary proof.” Mitchell, 416 U. S., at 609. The likelihood of error that results illustrates that “fairness can rarely be obtained by secret, one-sided determination of facts decisive of rights.... [And n]o better instrument has been devised for arriving at truth than to give a person in jeopardy of serious loss notice of the case against him and opportunity to meet it.” Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 170-172 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
What safeguards the State does afford do not adequately reduce this risk. Connecticut points out that the statute also provides an “expeditiou[s]” postattachment adversary hearing, § 52-278e(c); notice for such a hearing, § 52-278e(b); judicial review of an adverse decision, § 52-2781(a); and a double damages action if the original suit is commenced without probable cause, § 52-568(a)(l). Similar considerations were present in Mitchell, where we upheld Louisiana’s sequestration statute despite the lack of predeprivation notice and hearing.. But in Mitchell, the plaintiff had a vendor’s lien to protect, the risk of error was minimal because the likelihood of recovery involved uncomplicated matters that lent themselves to documentary proof, 416 U. S., at 609-610, and the plaintiff was required to put up a bond. None of these factors diminishing the need for a predeprivation hearing is present in this case. It is true that a later hearing might negate the presence of probable cause, but this would not cure the temporary deprivation that an earlier hearing might have prevented. “The Fourteenth Amendment draws no bright lines around three-day, 10-day or 50-day deprivations of property. Any significant taking of property by the State is within the purview of the Due Process Clause.” Fuentes, 407 U. S., at 86.
' Finally, we conclude that the interests in favor of an ex parte attachment, particularly the interests of the plaintiff, are too minimal to supply such a consideration here. The plaintiff had no existing interest in Doehr’s real estate when he sought the attachment. His only interest in attaching the property was to ensure the availability of assets to satisfy his judgment if he prevailed on the merits of his action. Yet there was no allegation that Doehr was about to transfer or encumber his real estate or take any other action during the pendency of the action that would render his real estate unavailable to satisfy a judgment. Our cases have recognized such a properly supported claim would be an exigent circumstance permitting postponing any notice or hearing until after the attachment is effected. See Mitchell, supra, at 609; Fuentes, supra, at 90-92; Sniadach, 395 U. S., at 339. Absent such allegations, however, the plaintiff’s interest in attaching the property does not justify the burdening of Doehr’s ownership rights without a hearing to determine the likelihood of recovery.
No interest the government may The State’s substantive interest in protecting any rights of the plaintiff cannot be any more weighty than those rights themselves. Here the plaintiff’s interest is de minimis. Moreover, the State cannot seriously plead additional financial or administrative burdens involving predeprivation hearings when it already claims to provide an immediate post-deprivation hearing. Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 52-278e(b) and (c) (1991); Fermont, 178 Conn., at 397-398, 423 A. 2d, at 83.
Historical and contemporary practices support our analysis. Prejudgment attachment is a remedy unknown at common law. Instead, “it traces its origin to the Custom of London, under which a creditor might attach money or goods of the defendant either in the plaintiff’s own hands or in the custody of a third person, by proceedings in the mayor’s court or in the sheriff’s court.” Ownbey, 256 U. S., at 104. Generally speaking, attachment measures in both England and this country had several limitations that reduced the risk of erroneous deprivation which Connecticut permits. Although attachments ordinarily did not require prior notice or a hearing, they were usually authorized only where the defendant had taken or threatened to take some action that would place the satisfaction of the plaintiff’s potential award in jeopardy. See C. Drake, Law of Suits by Attachment, §§ 40-82 (1866) (hereinafter Drake); 1 R. Shinn, Attachment and Garnishment § 86 (1896) (hereinafter Shinn). Attachments, moreover, were generally confined to claims by creditors. Drake §§ 9-10; Shinn § 12. As we and the Court of Appeals have noted, disputes between debtors and creditors more readily lend themselves to accurate ex parte assessments of the merits. Tort actions, like the assault and battery claim at issue here, do not. See Mitchell, supra, at 609-610. Finally, as we will discuss below, attachment statutes historically required that the plaintiff post a bond. Drake §§ 114-183; Shinn § 153.
Connecticut’s statute appears even more suspect in light of current practice. A survey of state attachment pro visions reveals that nearly every State requires either a preattachment hearing, a showing of some exigent circumstance, or both, before permitting an attachment to take place. See Appendix to this opinion. Twenty-seven States, as well as the District of Columbia, permit attachments only when some extraordinary circumstance is present. In such cases, preattachment hearings are not required but postattachment hearings are provided. Ten States permit attachment without the presence of such factors but require prewrit hearings unless one of those factors is shown. Six States limit attachments to extraordinary circumstance cases, but the writ will not issue prior to a hearing unless there is a showing of some even more compelling condition. Three States always require a preattachment hearing. Only Washington, Connecticut, and Rhode Island authorize attachments without a prior hearing in situations that do not involve any purportedly heightened threat to the plaintiff’s interests. Even those States permit ex parte deprivations only in certain types of cases: Rhode Island does so only when the claim is equitable; Connecticut and Washington do so only when real estate is to be attached, and even Washington requires a bond. Conversely, the States for the most part no longer confine attachments to creditor claims. This development, however, only increases the importance of the other limitations.
We do not mean to imply that any given exigency requirement protects an attachment from constitutional attack. Nor do we suggest that the statutory measures we have surveyed are necessarily free of due process problems or other constitutional infirmities in general. We do believe, however, that the procedures of almost all the States confirm our view that the Connecticut provision before us, by failing to provide a preattachment hearing without at least requiring a showing of some exigent circumstance, clearly falls short of the demands of due process.
IV
A
Although a majority of the Court does not reach the issue, Justices Marshall, Stevens, O’Connor, and I deem it appropriate to consider whether due process also requires the plaintiff to post a bond or other security in addition to requiring a hearing or showing of some exigency.
As noted, the impairments to property rights that attachments effect merit due process protection. Several consequences can be severe, such as the default of a homeowner’s mortgage. In the present context, it need only be added that we have repeatedly recognized the utility of a bond in protecting property rights affected by the mistaken award of prejudgment remedies. Di-Chem, 419 U. S., at 610, 611 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 619 (Blackmun, J., dissenting); Mitchell, 416 U. S., at 606, n. 8.
Without a bond, at the time of attachment, the danger that these property rights may be wrongfully deprived remains unacceptably high even with such safeguards as a hearing or exigency requirement. The need for a bond is especially apparent where extraordinary circumstances justify an attachment with no more than the plaintiff’s ex parte assertion of a claim. We have already discussed how due process tolerates, and the States generally permit, the otherwise impermissible chance of erroneously depriving the defendant in such situations in light of the heightened interest of the plaintiff. Until a postattachment hearing, however, a defendant has no protection against damages sustained where no extraordinary circumstance in fact existed or the plaintiff’s likelihood of recovery was nil. Such protection is what a bond can supply. Both the Court and its individual Members have repeatedly found the requirement of a bond to play an essential role in reducing what would have been too great a degree of risk in precisely this type of circumstance. Mitchell, supra, at 610, 619; Di-Chem, 419 U. S., at 613 (Powell, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 619 (Blackmun, J., dissenting); Fuentes, 407 U. S., at 101 (White, J., dissenting).
But the need for a bond does not end here. A defendant’s property rights remain at undue risk even when there has been an adversarial hearing to determine the plaintiff’s likelihood of recovery. At best, a court’s initial assessment of each party’s case cannot produce more than an educated prediction as to who will win. This is especially true when, as here, the nature of the claim makes any accurate prediction elusive. See Mitchell, supra, at 609-610. In consequence, even a full hearing under a proper probable-cause standard would not prevent many defendants from having title to their homes impaired during the pendency of suits that never result in the contingency that ultimately justifies such impairment, namely, an award to the plaintiff. Attachment measures currently on the books reflect this concern. All but a handful of States require a plaintiff’s bond despite also affording a hearing either before, or (for the vast majority, only under extraordinary circumstances) soon after, an attachment takes place. See Appendix to this opinion. Bonds have been a similarly common feature of other prejudgment remedy procedures that we have considered, whether or not these procedures also included a hearing. See Ownbey, 256 U. S., at 101-102, n. 1; Fuentes, supra, at 73, n. 6, 75-76, n. 7, 81-82; Mitchell, supra, at 606, and n. 6; Di-Chem, supra, at 602-603, n. 1, 608.
The State stresses its double damages remedy for suits that are commenced without probable cause. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-568(a)(1). This remedy, however, fails to make up for the lack of a bond. As an initial matter, the meaning of “probable cause” in this provision is no more clear here than it was in the attachment provision itself. Should the term mean the plaintiff’s good faith or the facial adequacy of the complaint, the remedy is clearly insufficient. A defendant who was deprived where there was little or no likelihood that the plaintiff would obtain a judgment could nonetheless recover only by proving some type of fraud or malice or by showing that the plaintiff had failed to state a claim. Problems persist even if the plaintiff’s ultimate failure permits recovery. At best a defendant must await a decision on the merits of the plaintiff’s complaint, even assuming that a § 52-568(a)(1) action may be brought as a counterclaim. Hydro Air of Connecticut, Inc. v. Versa Technologies, Inc., 99 F. R. D. 111, 113 (Conn. 1983). Settlement, under Connecticut law, precludes seeking the damages remedy, a fact that encourages the use of attachments as a tactical device to pressure an opponent to capitulate. Blake v. Levy, 191 Conn. 257, 464 A. 2d 52 (1983). An attorney’s advice that there is probable cause to commence an action constitutes a complete defense, even if the advice was unsound or erroneous. Vandersluis v. Weil, 176 Conn. 353, 361, 407 A. 2d 982, 987 (1978). Finally, there is no guarantee that the original plaintiff will have adequate assets to satisfy an award that the defendant may win.
Nor is there any appreciable interest against a bond requirement. Section 52-278e(a)(1) does not require a plaintiff to show exigent circumstances nor any pre-existing interest in the property facing attachment. A party must show more than the mere existence of a claim before subjecting an opponent to prejudgment proceedings that carry a significant risk of erroneous deprivation. See Mitchell, supra, at 604-609; Fuentes, supra, at 90-92; Sniadach, 395 U. S., at 339.
B
Our foregoing discussion compels the four of us to consider whether a bond excuses the need for a hearing or other safeguards altogether. If a bond is needed to augment the protections afforded by preattachment and postattachment hearings, it arguably follows that a bond renders these safeguards unnecessary. That conclusion is unconvincing, however, for it ignores certain harms that bonds could not undo but that hearings would prevent. The law concerning attachments has rarely, if ever, required defendants to suffer an encumbered title until the case is concluded without any prior opportunity to show that the attachment was unwarranted. Our cases have repeatedly emphasized the importance of providing a prompt postdeprivation hearing at the very least. Mitchell, 416 U. S., at 606; Di-Chem, 419 U. S., at 606-607. Every State but one, moreover, expressly requires a pre-attachment or postattachment hearing to determine the propriety of an attachment.
The necessity for at least a prompt postattachment hearing is self-evident because the right to be compensated at the end of the case, if the plaintiff loses, for all provable injuries caused by the attachment is inadequate to redress the harm inflicted, harm that could have been avoided had an early hearing been held. An individual with an immediate need or opportunity to sell a property can neither do so, nor otherwise satisfy that need or recreate the opportunity. The same applies to a parent in need of a home equity loan for a child’s education, an entrepreneur seeking to start a business on the strength of an otherwise strong credit rating, or simply a homeowner who might face the disruption of having a mortgage placed in technical default. The extent of these harms, moreover, grows with the length of the suit. Here, oral argument indicated that civil suits in Connecticut commonly take up to four to seven years for completion. Tr. of Oral Arg. 44. Many state attachment statutes require that the amount of a bond be anywhere from the equivalent to twice the amount the plaintiff seeks. See, e. g., Utah Rule of Civ. Proc. 64C(b). These amounts bear no relation to the harm the defendant might suffer even assuming that money damages can make up for the foregoing disruptions. It should be clear, however, that such an assumption is fundamentally flawed. Reliance on a bond does not sufficiently account for the harms that flow from an erroneous attachment to excuse a State from reducing that risk by means of a timely hearing.
If a bond cannot serve to dispense with a hearing immediately after attachment, neither is it sufficient basis for not providing a preattachment hearing in the absence of exigent circumstances even if in any event a hearing would be provided a few days later. The reasons are the same: a wrongful attachment can inflict injury that will not fully be redressed by recovery on the bond after a prompt postattachment hearing determines that the attachment was invalid.
Once more, history and contemporary practices support our conclusion. Historically, attachments would not issue without a showing of extraordinary circumstances even though a plaintiff bond was almost invariably required in addition. Drake §§ 4, 114; Shinn §§ 86, 153. Likewise, all but eight States currently require the posting of a bond. Out of this 42-State majority, all but one requires a preattachment hearing, a showing of some exigency, or both, and all but one expressly require a postattachment hearing when an attachment has been issued ex parte. See Appendix to this opinion. This testimony underscores the point that neither a hearing nor an extraordinary circumstance limitation eliminates the need for a bond, no more than a bond allows waiver of these other protections. To reconcile the interests of the defendant and the plaintiff accurately, due process generally requires all of the above.
V
Because Connecticut’s prejudgment remedy provision, Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-278e(a)(1), violates the requirements of due process by authorizing prejudgment attachment without prior notice or a hearing, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT
Prejudgment Attachment Statutes
Attachment Preattach. Only in Exi- Preattach. Hrg. Required gent Circs.; Hrg. Even in Unless Exi- No Preattach. Most Exi- Bond Postattach. gent Circs. Hrg. Required gent Circs. Required Hrg. Required
Alabama x x
Alaska Preattachment hrg. always required. X
Arizona x x
Arkansas x x
California x x
Colorado x x
Connecticut X (or unless attachment of real estate)
Delaware x x
DC xx
Florida x x
Georgia x x
Hawaii Preattachment hrg. always required. X
Idaho x x
Illinois x x
Indiana x x
Iowa x x
Kansas x x
Kentucky x x
Louisiana x x ¡X
Maine x
Maryland x X
Massachusetts x x/o
Michigan
Minnesota X
Mississippi x X
Missouri x X
Montana X X
Nebraska X X
Nevada x X
New Hampshire x
New Jersey x x/o
New Mexico X X
New York X X
North Carolina X X
North Dakota X X
Ohio X X
Oklahoma x X
Oregon Preattachment hrg. always required. X
Pennsylvania Rescinded in light of 530 P. 2d 1123 (CA3 1976).
Rhode Island X (but not if equitable claim) x/o
South Carolina X X X
South Dakota X X X
Tennessee X X X
Texas X X X
Utah X X X
Vermont x X
Attachment Preattach. Only in Exi- Preattach. Hrg. Required gent Circs.; Hrg. Even in Unless Exi- No Preattach. Most Exi- Bond Postattach. gent Circs. Hrg. Required gent Circs. Required Hrg. Required
Virginia X XX
Washington X
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the doctrine of forum non conveniens, under which a federal district court may dismiss an action on the ground that a court abroad is the more appropriate and convenient forum for adjudicating the controversy. We granted review to decide a question that has divided the Courts of Appeals: “[wjhether a district court must first conclusively establish [its own] jurisdiction before dismissing a suit on the ground of forum non conveniens?” Pet. for Cert. i. We hold that a district court has discretion to respond at once to a defendant’s forum non conveniens plea, and need not take up first any other threshold objection. In particular, a court need not resolve whether it has authority to adjudicate the cause (subject-matter jurisdiction) or personal jurisdiction over the defendant if it determines that, in any event, a foreign tribunal is plainly the more suitable arbiter of the merits of the case.
I
The underlying controversy concerns alleged misrepresentations by a Chinese corporation to a Chinese admiralty court resulting in the arrest of a Malaysian vessel in China. In 2003, petitioner Sinochem International Company Ltd. (Sinochem), a Chinese state-owned importer, contracted with Triorient Trading, Inc. (Triorient), a domestic corporation that is not a party to this suit, to purchase steel coils. Pursuant to the agreement, Triorient would receive payment under a letter of credit by producing a valid bill of lading certifying that the coils had been loaded for shipment to China on or before April 30, 2003. Memorandum and Order of Feb. 27, 2004, No. Civ. A. 03-3771 (ED Pa.), App. to Pet. for Cert. 48a-49a (hereinafter Feb. 27 Memo & Order).
Triorient subchartered a vessel owned by respondent Malaysia International Shipping Corporation (Malaysia International), a Malaysian company, to transport the coils to China. Triorient then hired a stevedoring company to load the steel coils at the Port of Philadelphia. A bill of lading, dated April 30, 2003, triggered payment under the letter of credit. Id., at 49a.
On June 8, 2003, Sinochem petitioned the Guangzhou Admiralty Court in China for interim relief, i. e., preservation of a maritime claim against Malaysia International and arrest of the vessel that carried the steel coils to China. In support of its petition, Sinochem alleged that the Malaysian company had falsely backdated the bill of lading. The Chinese tribunal ordered the ship arrested the same day. Id., at 50a; App. in No. 04-1816 (CA3), pp. 56a-57a (Civil Ruling of the Guangzhou Admiralty Court).
Thereafter, on July 2, 2003, Sinochem timely filed a complaint against Malaysia International and others in the Guangzhou Admiralty Court. Sinochem's complaint repeated the allegation that the bill of lading had been falsified resulting in unwarranted payment. Malaysia International contested the jurisdiction of the Chinese tribunal. Feb. 27 Memo & Order, at 50a; App. in No. 04-1816 (CA3), pp. 52a-53a (Civil Complaint in Guangzhou Admiralty Court). The admiralty court rejected Malaysia International’s jurisdictional objection, and that ruling was affirmed on appeal by the Guangdong Higher People’s Court. App. 16-23.
On June 23, 2003, shortly after the Chinese court ordered the vessel’s arrest, Malaysia International filed the instant action against Sinoehem in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Malaysia International asserted in its federal court pleading that Sinochem’s preservation petition to the Guangzhou court negligently misrepresented the “vessel’s fitness and suitability to load its cargo.” Feb. 27 Memo & Order, at 50a (internal quotation marks omitted). As relief, Malaysia International sought compensation for the loss it sustained due to the delay caused by the ship’s arrest. Sinoehem moved to dismiss the suit on several grounds, including lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, lack of personal jurisdiction, forum non conveniens, and international comity. App. in No. 04-1816 (CA3), pp. 14a-20a, 39a-40a.
The District Court first determined that it had subject-matter jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1333(1) (admiralty or maritime jurisdiction). Feb. 27 Memo & Order, at 51a-54a. The court next concluded that it lacked personal jurisdiction over Sinoehem under Pennsylvania’s long-arm statute, 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. §5301 et seq. (2002). Nevertheless, the court conjectured, limited discovery might reveal that Sinochem’s national contacts sufficed to establish personal jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2). Feb. 27 Memo & Order, at 55a-63a. The court did not permit such discovery, however, because it determined that the case could be adjudicated adequately and more conveniently in the Chinese courts. Id., at 63a-69a; Memorandum and Order of Apr. 13, 2004, No. Civ. A. 03-3771 (ED Pa.), App. to Pet. for Cert. 40a-47a (hereinafter Apr. 13 Memo & Order) (denial of Rule 59(e) motion). No significant interests of the United States were involved, the court observed, Feb. 27 Memo & Order, at 65a-67a; Apr. 13 Memo & Order, at 44a-47a, and while the cargo had been loaded in Philadelphia, the nub of the controversy was entirely foreign: The dispute centered on the arrest of a foreign ship in foreign waters pursuant to the order of a foreign court. Feb. 27 Memo & Order, at 67a. Given the proceedings ongoing in China, and the absence of cause “to second-guess the authority of Chinese law or the competence of [Chinese] courts,” the District Court granted the motion to dismiss under the doctrine of forum non conveniens. Id., at 68a.
A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit agreed there was subject-matter jurisdiction under § 1333(1), and that the question of personal jurisdiction could not be resolved sans discovery. Although the court determined that forum non conveniens is a nonmerits ground for dismissal, the majority nevertheless held that the District Court could not dismiss the case under the forum non conveniens doctrine unless and until it determined definitively that it had both subject-matter jurisdiction over the cause and personal jurisdiction over the defendant. 436 F. 3d 349 (2006).
Judge Stapleton dissented. Requiring a district court to conduct discovery on a jurisdictional question when it “rightly regards [the forum] as inappropriate,” he maintained, “subverts a primary purpose of” the forum non conveniens doctrine: “protecting] a defendant from ... substantial and unnecessary effort and expense.” Id., at 368. The “court makes no assumption of law declaring power,” Judge Stapleton observed, “when it decides not to exercise whatever jurisdiction it may have.” Id., at 370 (quoting Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526 U. S. 574, 584 (1999), in turn quoting In re Papandreou, 139 F. 3d 247, 255 (CADC 1998)).
We granted certiorari, 548 U. S. 942 (2006), to resolve a conflict among the Circuits on whether forum non conve niens can be decided prior to matters of jurisdiction. Compare 436 F. 3d, at 361-364 (case below); Dominguez-Cota v. Cooper Tire & Rubber Co., 396 F. 3d 650, 652-654 (CA5 2005) (per curiam) (jurisdictional issues must be resolved in advance of a forum non conveniens ruling), with Intec USA, LLC v. Engle, 467 F. 3d 1038, 1041 (CA7 2006); In re Arbitration Between Monegasque de Reassurances S. A. M. (Monde Re) v. NAK Naftogaz of Ukraine, 311 F. 3d 488, 497-498 (CA2 2002); In re Papandreou, 139 F. 3d, at 255-256 (forum non conveniens may be resolved ahead of jurisdictional issues). Satisfied that forum non conveniens may justify dismissal of an action though jurisdictional issues remain unresolved, we reverse the Third Circuit’s judgment.
II
A federal court has discretion to dismiss a case on the ground of forum non conveniens “when an alternative forum has jurisdiction to hear [the] case, and ... trial in the chosen forum would establish . . . oppressiveness and vexation to a defendant... out of all proportion to plaintiff’s convenience, or ... the chosen forum [is] inappropriate because of considerations affecting the court’s own administrative and legal problems.” American Dredging Co. v. Miller, 510 U. S. 443, 447-448 (1994) (quoting Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454 U. S. 235, 241 (1981), in turn quoting Koster v. (American) Lumbermens Mut. Casualty Co., 330 U. S. 518, 524 (1947)). Dismissal for forum non conveniens reflects a court’s assessment of a “range of considerations, most notably the convenience to the parties and the practical difficulties that can attend the adjudication of a dispute in a certain locality.” Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U. S. 706, 723 (1996) (citations omitted). We have characterized forum non conveniens as, essentially, “a supervening venue provision, permitting displacement of the ordinary rules of venue when, in light of certain conditions, the trial court thinks that jurisdiction ought to be declined.” American Dredging, 510 U. S., at 453; cf. In re Papandreou, 139 F. 3d, at 255 (forum non conveniens “involves a deliberate abstention from the exercise of jurisdiction”).
The common-law doctrine of forum non conveniens “has continuing application [in federal courts] only in cases where the alternative forum is abroad,” American Dredging, 510 U. S., at 449, n. 2, and perhaps in rare instances where a state or territorial court serves litigational convenience best. See 14D C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure §3828, pp. 620-623, and nn. 9-10 (3d ed. 2007). For the federal court system, Congress has codified the doctrine and has provided for transfer, rather than dismissal, when a sister federal court is the more convenient place for trial of the action. See 28 U. S. C. § 1404(a) (“For the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice, a district court may transfer any civil action to any other district or division where it might have been brought.”); cf. § 1406(a) (“The district court of a district in which is filed a case laying venue in the wrong division or district shall dismiss, or if it be in the interest of justice, transfer such case to any district or division in which it could have been brought.”); Goldlawr, Inc. v. Heiman, 369 U. S. 463, 466 (1962) (Section 1406(a) “authorize^] the transfer of [a] eas[e]... whether the court in which it was filed had personal jurisdiction over the defendants or not.”).
A defendant invoking forum non conveniens ordinarily bears a heavy burden in opposing the plaintiff’s chosen forum. When the plaintiff’s choice is not its home forum, however, the presumption in the plaintiff’s favor “applies with less force,” for the assumption that the chosen forum is appropriate is in such cases “less reasonable.” Piper Aircraft Co., 454 U. S., at 255-256.
III
Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83 (1998), clarified that a federal court generally may not rule on the merits of a case without first determining that it has jurisdiction over the category of claim in suit (subject-matter jurisdiction) and the parties (personal jurisdiction). See id., at 93-102. “Without jurisdiction the court cannot proceed at all in any cause”; it may not assume jurisdiction for the purpose of deciding the merits of the case. Id., at 94 (quoting Ex parte McCardle, 7 Wall. 506, 514 (1869)).
While Steel Co. confirmed that jurisdictional questions ordinarily must precede merits determinations in dispositional order, Ruhrgas held that there is no mandatory “sequencing of jurisdictional issues.” 526 U. S., at 584. In appropriate circumstances, Ruhrgas decided, a court may dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction without first establishing subject-matter jurisdiction. See id., at 578.
Both Steel Co. and Ruhrgas recognized that a federal court has leeway “to choose among threshold grounds for denying audience to a case on the merits.” Ruhrgas, 526 U. S., at 585; Steel Co., 523 U. S., at 100-101, n. 3. Dismissal short of reaching the merits means that the court will not “proceed at all” to an adjudication of the cause. Thus, a district court declining to adjudicate state-law claims on discretionary grounds need not first determine whether those claims fall within its pendent jurisdiction. See Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U. S. 693, 715-716 (1973). Nor must a federal court decide whether the parties present an Article III case or controversy before abstaining under Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971). See Ellis v. Dyson, 421 U. S. 426, 433-434 (1975). A dismissal under Totten v. United States, 92 U. S. 105 (1876) (prohibiting suits against the Government based on covert espionage agreements), we recently observed, also “represents the sort of ‘threshold question’ [that] . . . may be resolved before addressing jurisdiction.” Tenet v. Doe, 544 U. S. 1, 7, n. 4 (2005). The principle underlying these decisions was well stated by the Seventh Circuit: “[J]urisdietion is vital only if the court proposes to issue a judgment on the merits.” Intec USA, 467 F. 3d, at 1041.
IV
A forum non conveniens dismissal “den[ies] audience to a case on the merits,” Ruhrgas, 526 U. S., at 585; it is a determination that the merits should be adjudicated elsewhere. See American Dredging, 510 U. S., at 454; Chick Kam Choo v. Exxon Corp., 486 U. S. 140, 148 (1988). The Third Circuit recognized that forum non conveniens “is a non-merits ground for dismissal.” 436 F. 3d, at 359. Accord In re Papandreou, 139 F. 3d, at 255; Monde Re, 311 F. 3d, at 497-498. A district court therefore may dispose of an action by a forum non conveniens dismissal, bypassing questions of subject-matter and personal jurisdiction, when considerations of convenience, fairness, and judicial economy so warrant.
As the Third Circuit observed, Van Cauwenberghe v. Biard, 486 U. S. 517, 527-530 (1988), does not call for a different conclusion. See 436 F. 3d, at 359-360. Biard presented the question whether a district court’s denial of a motion to dismiss on the ground oí forum non conveniens qualifies for immediate appeal under the collateral order doctrine of Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541 (1949). Biard, 486 U. S., at 527. The Court held that a refusal to dismiss for forum non conveniens, an interlocutory order, does not fall within the circumscribed collateral order exception to the firm final judgment rule generally governing federal court proceedings. In that context, the Court observed that some factors relevant to forum non conveniens, notably what evidence will bear on the plaintiff’s claim or on defenses to the claim, “will substantially overlap factual and legal issues of the underlying dispute.” Id., at 529.
That observation makes eminent sense when the question is whether an issue is so discrete from the merits as to justify departure from the rule that a party may not appeal until the district court has rendered a final judgment disassociating itself from the case. See Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U. S. 463, 468 (1978) (“To come within the ‘small class’ of decisions excepted from the final-judgment rule by Cohen, the order must conclusively determine the disputed question, resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action, and be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.”). Biard’s point, however, does not carry over to the question here at issue.
Of course a court may need to identify the claims presented and the evidence relevant to adjudicating those issues to intelligently rule on a forum non conveniens motion. But other threshold issues may similarly involve a brush with “factual and legal issues of the underlying dispute.” Biard, 486 U. S., at 529. For example, in ruling on the non-merits threshold question of personal jurisdiction, a court may be called upon to determine whether a defendant’s contacts with the forum relate to the claim advanced by the plaintiff. See, e. g., Ruhrgas, 526 U. S., at 581, n. 4 (noting that the District Court’s holding that it lacked personal jurisdiction rested on its conclusion “that Marathon had not shown that Ruhrgas pursued the alleged pattern of fraud and misrepresentation during the Houston meetings”). The critical point here, rendering a forum non conveniens determination a threshold, nonmerits issue in the relevant context, is simply this: Resolving a forum non conveniens motion does not entail any assumption by the court of substantive “law-declaring power.” See id., at 584-585 (quoting In re Papandreou, 139 F. 3d, at 255).
Statements in this Court’s opinion in Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U. S. 501 (1947), account in large part for the Third Circuit’s conclusion that forum non conveniens can come into play only after a domestic court determines that it has jurisdiction over the cause and the parties and is a proper venue for the action. See 436 F. 3d, at 361-362. The Court said in Gulf Oil that “the doctrine oí forum non conveniens can never apply if there is absence of jurisdiction,” 330 U. S., at 504, and that “[i]n all cases in which . . . forum non conveniens comes into play, it presupposes at least two forums in which the defendant is amenable to process,” id., at 506-507.
Those statements from Gulf Oil, perhaps less than “felicitously” crafted, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 14, draw their meaning from the context in which they were embedded. The question presented in Gulf Oil was whether a court fully competent to adjudicate the case, i. e., one that plainly had jurisdiction over the cause and the parties and was a proper venue, could nevertheless dismiss the action under the forum non conveniens doctrine. The Court answered that question “yes.”
As to the first statement — that “forum non conveniens can never apply if there is absence of jurisdiction” — it is of course true that once a court determines that jurisdiction is lacking, it can proceed no further and must dismiss the case on that account. In that scenario “forum non conveniens can never apply.”
The second statement — that forum non conveniens “presupposes at least two forums” with authority to adjudicate the case — was made in response to the Gulf Oil plaintiff’s argument to this effect: Because the federal forum chosen by the plaintiff possessed jurisdiction and venue was proper, the court was obliged to adjudicate the case. See 330 U. S., at 504 (explaining that a court’s statutory empowerment to entertain a suit “does not settle the question whether it must do so”). Notably, in speaking of what the forum non conveniens doctrine “presupposes,” the Court said nothing that would negate a court’s authority to presume, rather than dis-positively decide, the propriety of the forum in which the plaintiff filed suit.
In sum, Gulf Oil did not present the question we here address: whether a federal court can dismiss under the forum non conveniens doctrine before definitively ascertaining its own jurisdiction. Confining the statements we have quoted to the setting in which they were made, we find in Gulf Oil no hindrance to the decision we reach today.
ITie Third Circuit expressed the further concern that a court failing first to establish its jurisdiction could not condition a forum non conveniens dismissal on the defendant’s waiver of any statute of limitations defense or objection to the foreign forum’s jurisdiction. Unable so to condition a dismissal, the Court of Appeals feared, a court could not shield the plaintiff against a foreign tribunal’s refusal to entertain the suit. 436 F. 3d, at 363, and n. 21. Accord In re Papandreou, 139 F. 3d, at 256, n. 6. Here, however, Malaysia International faces no genuine risk that the more convenient forum will not take up the case. Proceedings to resolve the parties’ dispute áre underway in China, with Sinochem as the plaintiff. Jurisdiction of the Guangzhou Admiralty Court has been raised, determined, and affirmed on appeal. We therefore need not decide whether a court conditioning a forum non conveniens dismissal on the waiver of jurisdictional or limitations defenses in the foreign forum must first determine its own authority to adjudicate the case.
V
This is a textbook case for immediate forum non conveniens dismissal. The District Court’s subject-matter jurisdiction presented an issue of first impression in the Third Circuit, see 436 F. 3d, at 355, and was considered at some length by the courts below. Discovery concerning personal jurisdiction would have burdened Sinochem with expense and delay. And all to scant purpose: The District Court inevitably would dismiss the case without reaching the merits, given its well-considered forum non conveniens appraisal. Judicial economy is disserved by continuing litigation in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania given the proceedings long launched in China. And the gravamen of Malaysia International’s complaint — misrepresentations to the Guangzhou Admiralty Court in the course of securing arrest of the vessel in China — is an issue best left for determination by the Chinese courts.
If, however, a court can readily determine that it lacks jurisdiction over the cause or the defendant, the proper course would be to dismiss on that ground. In the mine run of cases, jurisdiction “will involve no arduous inquiry” and both judicial economy and the consideration ordinarily accorded the plaintiff’s choice of forum “should impel the federal court to dispose of [those] issue[s] first.” Ruhrgas, 526 U. S., at 587-588. But where subject-matter or personal jurisdiction is difficult to determine, and forum non conveniens considerations weigh heavily in favor of dismissal, the court properly takes the less burdensome course.
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a habeas corpus case involving § 243 (h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which authorizes the Attorney General “to withhold deportation of any alien within the United States to any country in which in his opinion the alien would be subject to physical persecution. . . Claiming to be an alien "within the United States” by reason of her parole in this country while her admissibility was being determined, petitioner contends that she is eligible to receive the benefactions of § 243 (h). The Attorney General contends that the section is applicable only to aliens who, in contemplation of law, have entered the United States. He argues that petitioner has never enjoyed that status because she eventually was found ineligible for entry and ordered excluded. The District Court denied a writ of habeas corpus, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. 241 F. 2d 85. We granted certiorari. 353 U. S. 981 (1957). We conclude that petitioner’s parole did not alter her status as an excluded alien or otherwise bring her “within the United States” in the meaning of § 243 (h).
Petitioner is a native of China who arrived in this country in May 1951 claiming United States citizenship on the ground that her father was a United States citizen. Pending determination of her claim, she at first was held in custody, but later, in August 1952, was released on parole. Some three months thereafter, having failed to establish her claim of citizenship, she was ordered excluded, and the Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed. She surrendered for deportation in January 1954, and thereafter applied for a stay of deportation under § 243 (h) in which she alleged that her pending deportation to China would subject her to physical persecution and probable death at the hands of the existing government. Her petition for writ of habeas corpus followed administrative notification of her ineligibility for relief under that section. Petitioner does not challenge the validity of her exclusion order or the proceedings culminating therein. She merely contends that by virtue of her physical presence as a parolee she is “within the United States,” and hence covered by § 243 (h). The question, therefore, is wholly one of statutory construction.
It is important to note at the outset that our immigration laws have long made a distinction between those aliens who have come to our shores seeking admission, such as petitioner, and those who are within the United States after an entry, irrespective of its legality. In the latter instance the Court has recognized additional rights and privileges not extended to those in the former category who are merely “on the threshold of initial entry.” Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U. S. 206, 212 (1953). See Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding, 344 U. S. 590, 596 (1953). The distinction was carefully preserved in Title II of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Chapter 4 subjects those seeking admission to “exclusion proceedings” to determine whether they “shall be allowed to enter or shall be excluded and deported.” 66 Stat. 200, 8 U. S. C. § 1226 (a). On the other hand, Chapter 5 concerns itself with aliens who have already entered the United States and are subject to “expulsion,” as distinguished from “exclusion,” if they fall within certain “general classes of deportable aliens.” 66 Stat. 204, 8 U. S. C. § 1251. Proceedings for expulsion under Chapter 5 are commonly referred to as “deportation proceedings.” Parenthetically, the word “deportation” appears also in Chapter 4 to refer to the return of excluded aliens from the country, but its use there reflects none of the technical gloss accompanying its use as a word of art in Chapter 5.
For over a half century this Court has held that the detention of an alien in custody pending determination of his admissibility does not legally constitute an entry though the alien is physically within the United States. Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U. S. 206, 215 (1953); United States v. Ju Toy, 198 U. S. 253, 263 (1905); Ekiu v. United States, 142 U. S. 651, 661 (1892). It seems quite clear that an alien so confined would not be “within the United States” for purposes of §243 (h). This, in fact, was conceded by respondents in the companion case, Rogers v. Quan, post, p. 193. Our question is whether the granting of temporary parole somehow effects a change in the alien’s legal status. In §212 (d)(5) of the Act, generally a codification of the administrative practice pursuant to which petitioner was paroled, the Congress specifically provided that parole “shall not be regarded as an admission of the alien,” and that after the return to custody the alien’s case “shall continue to be dealt with in the same manner as that of any other applicant for admission to the United States.” (Emphasis added.) Petitioner’s concept of the effect of parole certainly finds no support in this statutory language.
This Court previously has had occasion to define the legal status of excluded aliens on parole. In Kaplan v. Tod, 267 U. S. 228 (1925), an excluded alien was paroled to a private Immigrant Aid Society pending deportation. The questions posed were whether the alien was “dwelling in the United States” within the meaning of a naturalization statute, and whether she had “entered or [was] found in the United States” for purpose of limitations. Mr. Justice Holmes disposed of the problem by explicitly equating parole with detention:
“The appellant could not lawfully have landed in the United States . . . , and until she legally landed ‘could not have dwelt within the United States.’ Zartarian v. Billings, 204 U. S. 170, 175. Moreover while she was at Ellis Island she was to be regarded as stopped at the boundary line and kept there unless and until her right to enter should be declared. United States v. Ju Toy, 198 U. S. 253, 263. When her prison bounds were enlarged by committing her to the custody of the Hebrew Society, the nature of her stay within the territory was not changed. She was still in theory of law at the boundary line and had gained no foothold in the United States.” 267 U. S., at 230.
We find no evidence that the Congress, in enacting § 243 (h) in 1952, intended to depart from this interpretation.
The context in which § 243 (h) appears in the Act persuasively indicates the scope of its provisions. As we have observed, Title II of the Act preserves the distinction between exclusion proceedings and deportation (expulsion) proceedings, Chapter 4 dealing with the former and Chapter 5 with the latter. Within the two chapters are enumerated separate administrative procedures for exclusion and expulsion, separate provisions for removal and transportation, and — most significantly — separate provisions for stays of deportation. Section 243 (h), under which petitioner claims relief, was inserted by the Congress not among Chapter 4’s “Provisions Relating to Entry and Exclusion,” but squarely within Chapter 5 — a strikingly inappropriate place if, as petitioner claims, it was intended to apply to excluded aliens.
The parole of aliens seeking admission is simply a device through which needless confinement is avoided while administrative proceedings are conducted. It was never intended to affect an alien’s status, and to hold that petitioner’s parole placed her legally “within the United States” is inconsistent with the congressional mandate, the administrative concept of parole, and the decisions of this Court. Physical detention of aliens is now the exception, not the rule, and is generally employed only as to security risks or those likely to abscond. See Annual Reports, Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1955, pp. 5-6; 1956, pp. 5-6. Certainly this policy reflects the humane qualities of an enlightened civilization. The acceptance of petitioner’s position in this case, however, with its inherent suggestion of an altered parole status, would be quite likely to prompt some curtailment of current parole policy — an intention we are reluctant to impute to the Congress.
Affirmed
Section 243 (h): “The Attorney General is authorized to withhold deportation of any alien within the United States to any country in which in his opinion the alien would be subject to physical persecution and for such period of time as he deems to be necessary for such reason.” 66 Stat. 214, 8 U. S. C. § 1253 (h).
66 Stat. 195-204, 8 U. S. C. §§ 1221-1230.
66 Stat. 204-219, 8 U. S. C. §§ 1251-1260.
See Analysis of S. 716, 82d Cong., General Counsel, Immigration and Naturalization Service, pp. 39-42.
Section 212 (d) (5): “The Attorney General may in his discretion parole into the United States temporarily under such conditions as he may prescribe for emergent reasons or for reasons deemed strictly in the public interest any alien applying for admission to the United States, but such parole of such alien shall not be regarded as an admission of the alien and when the purposes of such parole shall, in the opinion of the Attorney General, have been served the alien shall forthwith return or be returned to the custody from which he was paroled and thereafter his case shall continue to be dealt with in the same manner as that of any other applicant for admission to the United States.” 66 Stat. 188, 8 U. S. C. § 1182 (d)(5).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II-A, and an opinion with respect to Part II-B, in which Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, and Justice Ginsburg join.
A person whose claim for Social Security benefits is denied by an administrative law judge (ALJ) must in most cases, before seeking judicial review of that denial, request that the Social Security Appeals Council review his claim. The question is whether a claimant pursuing judicial review has waived any issues that he did not include in that request. We hold that he has not.
I
In 1994, petitioner Juatassa Sims filed applications for disability benefits under Title II of the Social Security Act, 49 Stat. 622, 42 U. S. C. §401 et seq., and for supplemental security income benefits under Title XVI of that Act, 86 Stat. 1465, 42 U. S. C. § 1881 et seq. She alleged disability from a variety of ailments, including degenerative joint diseases and carpal tunnel syndrome. After a state agency denied her claims, she obtained a hearing before a Social Security ALJ. See generally Heckler v. Day, 467 U. S. 104, 106-107 (1984) (describing stages of review of elaims for Social Security benefits). The ALJ, in 1996, also denied her elaims, concluding that, although she did have some medical impairments, she had not been and was not under a “disability,” as defined in the Act. See 42 U. S. C. §§ 423(d) (1994 ed. and Supp. III) and 1382e(a)(3) (1994 ed., Supp. Ill); Sullivan v. Zebley, 493 U. S. 521, 524-526 (1990).
Petitioner then requested that the Social Security Appeals Council review her elaims. A claimant may request such review by completing a one-page form provided by the Social Security Administration (SSA) — Form HA-520 — or “by any other writing specifically requesting review.” 20 CFR § 422.205(a) (1999). Petitioner, through counsel, chose the latter option, submitting to the Council a letter arguing that the ALJ had erred in several ways in analyzing the evidence. The Council denied review.
Next, petitioner filed suit in the District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. She contended that (1) the ALJ had made selective use of the record; (2) the questions the ALJ had posed to a vocational expert to determine petitioner’s ability to work were defective because they omitted several of petitioner’s ailments; and (3) in light of certain peculiarities in the medical evidence, the ALJ should have ordered a consultative examination. The District Court rejected all of these contentions. App. 74-84.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. 200 F. 3d 229 (1998). That court affirmed on the merits with regard to petitioner’s first contention. With regard to the second and third contentions, it concluded that, under its decision in Paul v. Shalala, 29 F. 3d 208, 210 (1994), it lacked jurisdiction because petitioner had not raised those contentions in her request for review by the Appeals Council. We granted certiorari, 528 U. S. 1018 (1999), to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals over whether a Social Security claimant waives judicial review of an issue if he fails to exhaust that issue by presenting it to the Appeals Council in his request for review. Compare Paul, supra, at 210; James v. Chafer, 96 F. 3d 1341, 1343-1344 (CA10 1996), with Harwood v. Apfel, 186 F. 3d 1039, 1042-1043 (CA81999); Johnson v. Apfel, 189 F. 3d 561, 563-564 (CA7 1999).
II
A
The Social Security Act provides that “[a]ny individual, after any final decision of the Commissioner of Social Security made after a hearing to which he was a party,... may obtain a review of such decision by a civil action” in federal district court. 42 U. S. C. § 405(g). But the Act does not define “final decision,” instead leaving.it to the SSA to give meaning to that term through regulations. See § 405(a); Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749, 766 (1975). SSA regulations provide that, if the Appeals Council grants review of a claim, then the decision that the Council issues is the Commissioner’s final decision. But if, as here, the Council denies the request for review, the ALJ’s opinion becomes the final decision. See 20 CFR §§404.900(a)(4)-(5), 404.955, 404.981, 422.210(a) (1999). If a claimant fails to request review from the Council, there is no final decision and, as a result, no judicial review in most cases. See § 404.900(b); Bowen v. City of New York, 476 U. S. 467, 482-483 (1986). In administrative-law parlance, such a claimant may not obtain judicial review because he has failed to exhaust administrative remedies. See Salfi, supra, at 765-766.
The Commissioner rightly concedes that petitioner exhausted administrative remedies by requesting review by the Council. Petitioner thus obtained a final decision, and nothing in § 405(g) or the regulations implementing it bars judicial review of her claims.
Nevertheless, the Commissioner contends that we should require issue exhaustion in addition to exhaustion of remedies. That is, he contends that a Social Security claimant, to obtain judicial review of an issue, not only must obtain a final decision on his claim for benefits, but also must specify that issue in his request for review by the Council. (Whether a claimant must exhaust issues before the ALJ is not before us.) The Commissioner argues, in particular, that an issue-exhaustion requirement is “an important corollary” of any requirement of exhaustion of remedies. Brief for Respondent 18. We think that this is not necessarily so and that the corollary is particularly unwarranted in this case.
Initially, we note that requirements of administrative issue exhaustion are largely creatures of statute. Marine Mammal Conservancy, Inc. v. Department of Agriculture, 184 F. 3d 409, 412 (CADC 1998). Our eases addressing issue exhaustion reflect this fact. For example, in Woelke & Romero Framing, Inc. v. NLRB, 456 U. S. 645 (1982), we held that the Court of Appeals lacked jurisdiction to review objections not raised before the National Labor Relations Board. We so held because a statute provided that “ ‘[n]o objection that has not been urged before the Board... shall be considered by the court.” Id., at 665 (quoting 29 U. S. C. § 160(e) (1982 ed.)). Our decision in FPC v. Colorado Interstate Gas Co., 348 U. S. 492, 497-498 (1955), followed similar reasoning. See also United States v. L. A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U. S. 33, 36, n. 6 (1952) (collecting statutes); Washington Assn, for Television and Children v. FCC, 712 F. 2d 677, 681-682, and n. 6 (CADC 1983) (interpreting issue-exhaustion requirement in 47 U. S. C. § 405 (1982 ed.) and collecting statutes). Here, the Commissioner does not contend that any statute requires issue exhaustion in the request for review.
Similarly, it is common for an agency's regulations to require issue exhaustion in administrative appeals. See, e. g., 20 CFR § 802.211(a) (1999) (petition for review to Benefits Review Board must “lis[t] the specific issues to be considered on appeal”). And when regulations do so, courts reviewing agency action regularly ensure against the bypassing of that requirement by refusing to consider unexhausted issues. See, e.g., South Carolina v. United States Dept. of Labor, 795 F. 2d 375, 378 (CA4 1986); Sears, Roebuck and Co. v. FTC, 676 F. 2d 385, 398, n. 26 (CA9 1982). Yet, SSA regulations do not require issue exhaustion. (Although the question is not before us, we think it likely that the Commissioner could adopt a regulation that did require issue exhaustion.)
It is true that we have imposed an issue-exhaustion requirement even in the absence of a statute or regulation. But the reason we have done so does not apply here. The basis for a judicially imposed issue-exhaustion requirement is an analogy to the rule that appellate courts will not consider arguments not raised before trial courts. As the Court explained in Hormel v. Helvering, 312 U. S. 552 (1941):
“Ordinarily an appellate court does not give consideration to issues not raised below. For our procedural scheme contemplates that parties shall come to issue in the trial forum vested with authority to determine questions of fact. This is essential in order that parties may have the opportunity to offer all the evidence they believe relevant to the issues which the trial tribunal is alone competent to decide; it is equally essential in order that litigants may not be surprised on appeal by final decision there of issues upon which they have had no opportunity to introduce evidence. And the basic reasons which support this general principle applicable to trial courts make it equally desirable that parties should have an opportunity to offer evidence on the general issues involved in the less formal proceedings before administrative agencies entrusted with the responsibility of fact finding.” Id., at 556.
As we further explained in L. A. Tucker Truck Lines, courts require administrative issue exhaustion “as a general rule” because it is usually “appropriate under [an agency’s] practice” for “contestants in an adversary proceeding” before it to develop fully all issues there. 344 U. S., at 36-37. (We also spoke favorably of issue exhaustion in Unemployment Compensation Comm’n of Alaska v. Aragon, 329 U. S. 143, 154-155 (1946), without relying on any statute or regulation, but in that case the waived issue had not been raised before the District Court, see id., at 149, 155.)
But, as Hormel and L. A. Tucker Truck Lines suggest, the desirability of a court imposing a requirement of issue exhaustion depends on the degree to which the analogy to normal adversarial litigation applies in a particular administrative proceeding. Cf. McKart v. United States, 395 U. S. 185, 193 (1969) (application of doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies “requires an understanding of its purposes and of the particular administrative scheme involved”); Salfi, 422 U. S., at 765 (same). Where the parties are expected to develop the issues in an adversarial administrative proceeding, it seems to us that the rationale for requiring issue exhaustion is at its greatest. Hormel, L. A. Tucker Truck Linee, and Aragon each involved an adversarial proceeding. See Hormel, supra, at 554, 556; L. A. Tucker Truck Lines, supra, at 36; Aragon v. Unemployment Compensation Comm’n of Alaska, 149 F. 2d 447, 449-452 (CA9 1945), aff’d in part and reVd in part, 329 U. S. 143 (1946). (In Hormel, we allowed an exception to the issue-exhaustion requirement. 312 U. S., at 560.) Where, by contrast, an administrative proceeding is not adversarial, we think the reasons for a court to require issue exhaustion are much weaker. More generally, we have observed that “it is well settled that there are wide differences between administrative agencies and courts,” Shepard v. NLRB, 459 U. S. 344, 351 (1983), and we have thus warned against reflexively “assimilating] the relation of . . . administrative bodies and the courts to the relationship between lower and upper courts,” FCC v. Pottsville Broadcasting Co., 309 U. S. 134, 144 (1940).
B
The differences between courts and agencies are nowhere more pronounced than in Social Security proceedings. Although “[m]any agency systems of adjudication are based to a significant extent on the judicial model of decisionmaking,” 2 K. Davis & R. Pierce, Administrative Law Treatise §9.10, p. 103 (3d ed. 1994), the SSA is “[pjerhaps the best example of an agency” that is not, B. Schwartz, Administrative Law 469-470 (4th ed. 1994). See id., at 470 (“The most important of [the SSA’s modifications of the judicial model] is the replacement of normal adversary procedure by... the ‘investigatory model’ ” (quoting Friendly, Some Kind of Hearing, 123 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1267,1290 (1975))). Social Security proceedings are inquisitorial rather than adversarial. It is the ALJ’s duty to investigate the facts and develop the arguments both for and against granting benefits, see Richardson v. Perales, 402 U. S. 389, 400-401 (1971), and the Council’s review is similarly broad. The Commissioner has no representative before the ALJ to oppose the claim for benefits, and we have found no indication that he opposes claimants before the Council. See generally Dubin, Torquemada Meets Kafka: The Misapplication of the Issue Exhaustion Doctrine to Inquisitorial Administrative Proceedings, 97 Colum. L. Rev. 1289,1301-1305,1325-1329 (1997).
The regulations make this nature of SSA proceedings quite clear. They expressly provide that the SSA “eon-duct[s] the administrative review process in an informal, nonadversary manner.” 20 CFR § 404.900(b) (1999). They permit — bu.t do not require — the filing of a brief with the Council (even when the Council grants review), §404.975, and the Council’s review is plenary unless it states otherwise, § 404.976(a). See also § 404.900(b) (“[W]e will consider at each step of the review process any information you present as well as all the information in our records”). The Commissioner’s involvement in the Appeals Council’s decision whether to grant review appears to be not as a litigant opposing the claimant, but rather just as an adviser to the Council regarding which cases are good candidates for the Council to review pursuant to its authority to review a case sua sponte. See §§404.969(b)-(e); Perales, supra, at 403. The regulations further make clear that the Council will “evaluate the entire record,” including “new and material evidence,” in determining whether to grant review. § 404.970(b). Similarly, the notice of decision that ALJ’s provide unsuccessful claimants informs them that if they request review, the Council will “consider all of [the ALJ’s] decision, even the parts with which you may agree,” and that the Council might review the decision “even if you do not ask it to do so.” App. 25-27. Finally, Form HA-520, which the Commissioner considers adequate for the Council’s purposes in determining whether to review a case, see § 422.205(a), provides only three lines for the request for review, and a notice accompanying the form estimates that it will take only 10 minutes to “read the instructions, gather the necessary facts and fill out the form.” The form therefore strongly suggests that the Council does not depend much, if at all, on claimants to identify issues for review. Given that a large portion of Social Security claimants either have no representation at all or are represented by non-attorneys, see Dubin, supra, at 1294, n. 29, the lack of such dependence is entirely understandable.
Thus, the Hormel analogy to judicial proceedings is at its weakest in this area. The adversarial development of issues by the parties — the “eom[ing] to issue,” 812 U. S., at 556— on which that analogy depends simply does not exist. The Council, not the claimant, has primary responsibility for identifying and developing the issues. We therefore agree with the Eighth Circuit that “the general rule [of issue exhaustion] makes little sense in this particular context.” Harwood, 186 P. 3d, at 1042.
Accordingly, we hold that a judicially created issue-exhaustion requirement is inappropriate. Claimants who exhaust administrative remedies need not also exhaust issues in a request for review by the Appeals Council in order to preserve judicial review of those issues. The judgment of the Fifth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
We agree with the parties that, even were a court-imposed issue-exhaustion requirement proper, the Fifth Circuit erred in treating it as jurisdictional. Cf Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 819, 328 (1976).
Part 404 of 20 CFR (1999) applies to Title II of the Act. The regulations governing Title XVI, which can be found at 20 CFR pt. 416 (1999), are, as relevant here, not materially different. We will therefore omit references to the latter regulations.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 523(a) of the Bankruptcy Code provides that a discharge in bankruptcy shall not discharge an individual debtor from certain kinds of obligations, including those for money obtained by “actual fraud.” The question in this case is whether the statute requires a defrauded creditor to prove his claim by clear and convincing evidence in order to preserve it from discharge.
Petitioners brought an action against respondent alleging that he had defrauded them in connection with the sale of certain corporate securities. App. 16-25. Following the trial court’s instructions that authorized a recovery based on the preponderance of the evidence, a jury returned a verdict in favor of petitioners and awarded them actual and punitive damages. Id., at 28-29. Respondent appealed from the judgment on the verdict, and, while his appeal was pending, he filed a petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, listing the fraud judgment as a dischargeable debt.
The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reduced the damages award but affirmed the fraud judgment as modified. Grogan v. Garner, 806 F. 2d 829 (1986). Petitioners then filed a complaint in the bankruptcy proceeding requesting a determination that their claim based on the fraud judgment should be exempted from discharge pursuant to § 523. App. 3-4. In support of their complaint, they introduced portions of the record in the fraud case. The Bankruptcy Court found that all of the elements required to establish actual fraud under §523 had been proved and that the doctrine of collateral estoppel required a holding that the debt was therefore not dischargeable. In re Garner, 73 B. R. 26 (WD Mo. 1987).
Respondent does not challenge the conclusion that the elements of the fraud claim proved in the first trial are sufficient to establish “fraud” within the meaning of §523. Instead, he has consistently argued that collateral estoppel does not apply because the jury instructions in the first trial merely required that fraud be proved by a preponderance of the evidence, whereas § 523 requires proof by clear and convincing evidence. Both the Bankruptcy Court and the District Court rejected this argument.
The Court of Appeals, however, reversed. In re Garner, 881 F. 2d 579 (1989). It recognized that the “Bankruptcy Code is silent as to the burden of proof necessary to establish an exception to discharge under section 523(a), including the exception for fraud,” id., at 581, but concluded that two factors supported the imposition of a “clear and convincing” standard, at least in fraud cases. First, the court stated that the higher standard had generally been applied in both common-law fraud litigation and in resolving dischargeability issues before § 523(a) was enacted, and reasoned that it was unlikely that Congress had intended silently to change settled law. Second, the court opined that the general “fresh start” policy that undergirds the Bankruptcy Code militated in favor of a broad construction favorable to the debtor.
The Eighth Circuit holding is consistent with rulings in most other Circuits, but conflicts with recent decisions by the Third and Fourth Circuits. The conflict, together with the importance of the issue, prompted us to grant certiorari, 495 U. S. 918 (1990). We now reverse.
I
At the outset, we distinguish between the standard of proof that a creditor must satisfy in order to establish a valid claim against a bankrupt estate and the standard that a creditor who has established a valid claim must still satisfy in order to avoid dischargeability. The validity of a creditor’s claim is determined by rules of state law. See Vanston Bondholders Protective Comm. v. Green, 329 U. S. 156, 161 (1946). Since 1970, however, the issue of nondischarge-ability has been a matter of federal law governed by the terms of the Bankruptcy Code. See Brown v. Felsen, 442 U. S. 127, 129-130, 136 (1979).
This distinction is the wellspring from which cases of this kind'flow. In this case, a creditor who reduced his fraud claim to a valid and final judgment in a jurisdiction that requires proof of fraud by a preponderance of the evidence seeks to minimize additional litigation by invoking collateral estoppel. If the preponderance standard also governs the question of nondischargeability, a bankruptcy court could properly give collateral estoppel effect to those elements of the claim that are identical to the elements required for discharge and that were actually litigated and determined in the prior action. See Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 27 (1982). If, however, the clear-and-convincing standard applies to nondischargeability, the prior judgment could not be given collateral estoppel effect. §28(4). A creditor who successfully obtained a fraud judgment in a jurisdiction that requires proof of fraud by clear and convincing evidence would, however, be indifferent to the burden of proof regarding nondischargeability, because he could invoke collateral estoppel in any event.
In sum, if nondischargeability must be proved only by a preponderance of the evidence, all creditors who have secured fraud judgments, the elements of which are the same as those of the fraud discharge exception, will be exempt from discharge under collateral estoppel principles. If, however, nondischargeability must be proved by clear and convincing evidence, creditors who secured fraud judgments based only on the preponderance standard would not be assured of qualifying for the fraud discharge exception.
H HH
With these considerations in mind, we begin our inquiry into the appropriate burden of proof under § 523 by examining the language of the statute and its legislative history. The language of §523 does not prescribe the standard of proof for the discharge exceptions. The legislative history of §523 and its predecessor, 11 U. S. C. §35 (1976 ed.), is also silent. This silence is inconsistent with the view that Congress intended to require a special, heightened standard of proof.
Because the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard results in a roughly equal allocation of the risk of error between litigants, we presume that this standard is applicable in civil actions between private litigants unless “particularly important individual interests or rights are at stake.” Herman & MacLean v. Huddleston, 459 U. S. 375, 389-390 (1983); see also Addington v. Texas, 441 U. S. 418, 423 (1979). We have previously held that a debtor has no constitutional or “fundamental” right to a discharge in bankruptcy. See United States v. Kras, 409 U. S. 434, 445-446 (1973). We also do not believe that, in the context of provisions designed to exempt certain claims from discharge, a debtor has an interest in discharge sufficient to require a heightened standard of proof.
We are unpersuaded by the argument that the clear-and-convincing standard is required to effectuate the “fresh start” policy of the Bankruptcy Code. This Court has certainly acknowledged that a central purpose of the Code is to provide a procedure by which certain insolvent debtors can reorder their affairs, make peace with their creditors, and enjoy “a new opportunity in life and a clear field for future effort, unhampered by the pressure and discouragement of preexisting debt.” Local Loan Co. v. Hunt, 292 U. S. 234, 244 (1934). But in the same breath that we have invoked this “fresh start” policy, we have been careful to explain that the Act limits the opportunity for a completely unencumbered new beginning to the “honest but unfortunate debtor.” Ibid.
The statutory provisions governing nondischargeability reflect a congressional decision to exclude from the general'policy of discharge certain categories of debts — such as child support, alimony, and certain unpaid educational loans and taxes, as well as liabilities for fraud. Congress evidently concluded that the creditors’ interest in recovering full payment of debts in these categories outweighed the debtors’ interest in a complete fresh start. We think it unlikely that Congress, in fashioning the standard of proof that governs the applicability of these provisions, would have favored the interest in giving perpetrators of fraud a fresh start over the interest in protecting victims of fraud. Requiring the creditor to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that his claim is not dischargeable reflects a fair balance between these conflicting interests.
I — I HH
Our conviction that Congress intended the preponderance standard to apply to the discharge exceptions is reinforced by the structure of § 523(a), which groups together in the same subsection a variety of exceptions without any indication that any particular exception is subject to a special standard of proof. The omission of any suggestion that different exemptions have different burdens of proof implies that the legislators intended the same standard to govern the nondischarge-ability under § 523(a)(2) of fraud claims and, for example, the nondischargeability under § 523(a)(5) of claims for child support and alimony. Because it seems clear that a preponder-anee of the evidence is sufficient to establish the nondis-chargeability of some of the types of claims covered by § 523(a), it is fair to infer that Congress intended the ordinary preponderance standard to govern the applicability of all the discharge exceptions.
We are therefore not inclined to accept respondent’s contention that application of the ordinary preponderance standard to the fraud exception is inappropriate because, at the time Congress enacted the current Bankruptcy Code, the majority of States required proof of fraud by clear and convincing evidence. Even if we believed that Congress had contemplated the application of different burdens of proof for different exceptions, the fact that most States required fraud claims to be proved by clear and convincing evidence would not support the conclusion that Congress intended to adopt the clear-and-convincing standard for the fraud discharge exception.
Unlike a large number, and perhaps the majority, of the States, Congress has chosen the preponderance standard when it has created substantive causes of action for fraud. See, e. g., 31 U. S. C. § 3731(c) (False Claims Act); 12 U. S. C. §1833a(e) (1988 ed., Supp. I) (civil penalties for fraud involving financial institutions); 42 CFR § 1003.114(a) (1989) (Medicare and Medicaid fraud under 42 U. S. C. §1320a-7a); Herman & MacLean v. Huddleston, 459 U. S., at 388-390 (civil enforcement of the antifraud provisions of the securities laws); Steadman v. SEC, 450 U. S. 91, 96 (1981) (administrative proceedings concerning violation of antifraud provisions of the securities laws); SEC v. C. M. Joiner Leasing Corp., 320 U. S. 344, 355 (1943) (§ 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933); First National Monetary Corp. v. Weinberger, 819 F. 2d 1334, 1341-1342 (CA6 1987) (civil fraud provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act). Cf. Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479, 491 (1985) (suggesting that the preponderance standard applies to civil actions under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). Most notably, Congress chose the preponderance standard to govern determinations under 11 U. S. C. § 727(a) (4), which denies a debtor the right to discharge altogether if the debtor has committed a fraud on the bankruptcy court. See H. R. Rep. No. 95-595, p. 384 (1977) (“The fourth ground for denial of discharge is the commission of a bankruptcy crime, though the standard of proof is preponderance of the evidence”); S. Rep. No. 95-989, p. 98 (1978) (same).
Moreover, as we explained in Part I, supra, Congress amended the Bankruptcy Act in 1970 to make nondischarge-ability a question of federal law independent of the issue of the validity of the underlying claim. Even before 1970, many courts imposed the preponderance burden on creditors invoking the fraud discharge exception. See, e. g., Sweet v. Ritter Finance Co., 263 F. Supp. 540, 543 (WD Va. 1967); Nickel Plate Cloverleaf Federal Credit Union v. White, 120 Ill. App. 2d 91, 93-94, 256 N. E. 2d 119, 120-121 (1970); Gonzales v. Aetna Finance Co., 86 Nev. 271, 275, 468 P. 2d 15, 18 (1970); Beneficial Finance Co. of Manchester v. Machie, 6 Conn. Cir. 37, 41, 263 A. 2d 707, 710 (1969); Budget Finance Plan v. Haner, 92 Idaho 56, 59, 436 P. 2d 722, 725 (1968); Atlas Credit Corp. v. Miller, 216 So. 2d 100, 101 (La. Ct. App. 1968); Household Finance Corp. v. Altenberg, 5 Ohio St. 2d 190, 193, 214 N. E. 2d 667, 669 (1966); MAC Finance Plan of Nashua, Inc. v. Stone, 106 N. H. 517, 521-522, 214 A. 2d 878, 882 (1965). And, following the 1970 amendments, but prior to the enactment of § 523 in 1978, the courts continued to be nearly evenly split over the the appropriate standard of proof. Compare, e. g., Fierman v. Lazarus, 361 F. Supp. 477, 480 (ED Pa. 1973); In re Scott, 1 BCD 581, 583 (Bkrtcy. Ct. WD Mich. 1975), with Brown v. Buchanan, 419 F. Supp. 199, 203 (ED Va. 1975); In re Arden, 75 B. R. 707, 710 (Bkrtcy. Ct. R. I. 1975). Thus, it would not be reasonable to conclude that in enacting § 523 Congress silently endorsed a background rule that clear and convincing evidence is required to establish exemption from discharge.
>
A final consideration supporting our conclusion that the preponderance standard is the proper one is that, as we explained in Part I, supra, application of that standard will permit exception from discharge of all fraud claims creditors have successfully reduced to judgment. This result accords with the historical development of the discharge exceptions. As we explained in Brown v. Felsen, the 1898 Bankruptcy Act provided that “judgments” sounding in fraud were exempt from discharge. 30 Stat. 550. In the 1903 revisions, Congress substituted the term “liabilities” for “judgments.” 32 Stat. 798. This alteration was intended to broaden the coverage of the fraud exceptions. See Brown v. Felsen, 442 U. S., at 138. Absent a clear indication from Congress of a change in policy, it would be inconsistent with this earlier expression of congressional intent to construe the exceptions to allow some debtors facing fraud judgments to have those judgments discharged.
For these reasons, we hold that the standard of proof for the dischargeability exceptions in 11 U. S. C. § 523(a) is the ordinary preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Title 11 U. S. C. §523(a) provides, in pertinent part:
“Exceptions to discharge.
“(a) A discharge under section 727, 1141, 1228(a), 1228(b), or 1328(b) of this title does not discharge an individual debtor from any debt —
“(2) for money, property, services, or an extension, renewal, or refinancing of credit, to the extent obtained by—
“(A) false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud, other than a statement respecting the debtor’s or an insider’s financial condition . . .
We therefore do not consider the question whether § 523(a)(2)(A) excepts from discharge that part of a judgment in excess of the actual value of money or property received by a debtor by virtue of fraud. See In re Rubin, 875 F. 2d 755, 758, n. 1 (CA9 1989). Arguably, fraud judgments in cases in which the defendant did not obtain money, property, or services from the plaintiffs and those judgments that include punitive damages awards are more appropriately governed by § 523(a)(6). See 11 U. S. C. § 523(a)(6) (excepting from discharge debts “for willful and malicious injury by the debtor to another entity or to the property of another entity”); In re Rubin, 875 F. 2d, at 758, n. 1.
The Bankruptcy Court concluded that “there is no real distinction between 'preponderance of the evidence’ and ‘clear and convincing’ as regards Section 523 litigation.” In re Garner, 73 B. R. 26, 29 (WD Mo. 1987).
The District Court explained:
“A re-litigation of this case in Bankruptcy Court on the identical fact issues would be to permit the party who loses at a jury trial to have a second day in court on the same issue he and his opponent were fully heard previously. If permitted, all like cases would result in duplicitous litigation resulting in an unreasonable burden on the bankruptcy court.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 28a.
“While the legislative history is scant on this issue, we feel that it is fair to presume that Congress was aware that the prevailing view at the time of adoption was that fraud, for both section 523 and state common law purposes, had to be proved by clear and convincing evidence.” In re Garner, 881 F. 2d, at 582.
"This Circuit concluded that the stricter standard was appropriate since the general policy of bankruptcy is to provide the debtor with the opportunity for a fresh start and the courts should, thereby, construe provisions of the Bankruptcy Code favoring the debtor broadly. Matter of Van Home, 823 F. 2d [1285, 1287 (CA8 1987)].” Ibid.
See In re Phillips, 804 F. 2d 930, 932 (CA6 1986); In re Kimzey, 761 F. 2d 421, 423-424 (CA7 1985); In re Black, 787 F. 2d 503, 505 (CA10 1986); Chrysler Credit Corp. v. Rebhan, 842 F. 2d 1257, 1262 (CA11 1988); In re Hunter, 780 F. 2d 1577, 1579 (CA11 1986); In re Dougherty, 84 B. R. 653 (CA9 BAP 1988).
In re Braen, 900 F. 2d 621 (CA3 1990); Combs v. Richardson, 838 F. 2d 112 (CA4 1988).
We use the term “state law” expansively herein to refer to all non-bankruptcy law that creates substantive claims. We thus mean to include in this term claims that have their source in substantive federal law, such as federal securities law or other federal antifraud laws. As the amici point out, many federal antifraud laws that may give rise to nondischargeable claims require plaintiffs to prove their right to recover only by a preponderance of the evidence. See Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae 1-3, and n. 2.
Before 1970, the bankruptcy courts had concurrent jurisdiction with the state courts to decide whether debts were excepted from discharge. In practice, however, bankruptcy courts generally refrained from deciding whether particular debts were excepted and instead allowed those questions to be litigated in the state courts. See Brown v. Felsen, 442 U. S., at 129; 1A Collier on Bankruptcy ¶ 17.28, pp. 1726-1727 (14th ed. 1978). The state courts therefore determined the applicable burden of proof, often applying the same standard of proof that governed the underlying claim. The 1970 amendments took jurisdiction over certain dischargeability exceptions, including the exceptions for fraud, away from the state courts and vested jurisdiction exclusively in the bankruptcy courts. See Brown v. Felsen, 442 U. S., at 135-136; S. Rep. No. 91-1173, pp. 2-3 (1970); H. R. Rep. No. 91-1502, p. 1 (1970).
Our prior cases have suggested, but have not formally held, that the principles of collateral estoppel apply in bankruptcy proceedings under the current Bankruptcy Act. See, e. g., Kelly v. Robinson, 479 U. S. 36, 48, n. 8 (1986); Brown v. Felsen, 442 U. S., at 139, n. 10. Cf. Reiser v. Woodruff, 327 U. S. 726, 736 (1946) (applying collateral estoppel under an earlier version of the bankruptcy laws). Virtually every Court of Appeals has concluded that collateral estoppel is applicable in discharge exception proceedings. See In re Braen, 900 F. 2d, at 630; Combs v. Richardson, 838 F. 2d, at 115; Klingman v. Levinson, 831 F. 2d 1292, 1295 (CA7 1987); In re Shuler, 722 F. 2d 1253, 1256 (CA5), cert. denied sub nom. Harold V. Simpson & Co. v. Shuler, 469 U. S. 817 (1984); Goss v. Goss, 722 F. 2d 599, 604 (CA10 1983); Lovell v. Mixon, 719 F. 2d 1373, 1376 (CA8 1983); Spilman v. Harley, 656 F. 2d 224, 228 (CA6 1981). Cf. In re Rahm, 641 F. 2d 755, 757 (CA9) (prior judgment establishes only a prima facie ease of nondischargeability), cert, denied sub nom. Gregg v. Rahm, 454 U. S. 860 (1981). We now clarify that collateral estoppel principles do indeed apply in discharge exception proceedings pursuant to § 523(a).
This indifference would not be shared, however, by a creditor who either did not try, or tried unsuccessfully, to prove fraud in a jurisdiction requiring clear and convincing evidence but who nonetheless established a valid claim by proving, for example, a breach of contract involving the same transaction. See, e. g., In re Black, 787 F. 2d 503 (CA10 1986); In re Rubin, 875 F. 2d, at 758, n. 1.
See Crandon v. United States, 494 U. S. 152, 158 (1990) (“In determining the meaning of the statute, we look not only to the particular statutory language, but to the design of the statute as a whole and to its object and policy”); K mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc., 486 U. S. 281, 291 (1988) (“In ascertaining the plain meaning of the statute, the court must look to the particular statutory language at issue, as well as the language and design of the statute as a whole”).
For example, § 523(a) provides for the nondischargeability of debts not only for child support and alimony, but also for certain fines and penalties, educational loans, and tax obligations. See 11 U. S. C. §§ 523(a)(1), (5), (7), (8).
Respondent claims that the vast majority of States applied the heightened standard. See Brief for Respondent 8-14. Petitioners and the amici acknowledge that the clear-and-convincing standard applied in many jurisdictions but contend that respondent overstates the number of States that required the heightened standard. See Brief for Petitioners 17-20, and n. 1; Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae 21-25. Resolution of this dispute is not necessary for our decision.
Prior to the enactment of the 1978 Bankruptcy Code, the Courts of Appeals had held that the preponderance standard applied in this situation. See, e. g., In re Robinson, 506 F. 2d 1184, 1187 (CA2 1974); Union Bank v. Blum, 460 F. 2d 197, 200-201 (CA9 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.
Per Curiam.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted and the judgment is reversed. Accardi v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 383 U. S. 225.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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.
This case presents questions relating to the scope of the Internal Revenue Code’s Anti-Injunction Act, 26 U. S. C. § 7421 (a), in the context of a summary seizure of a taxpayer’s assets pursuant to a jeopardy assessment. §§ 6861, 6331, 6213.
I
Normally, the Internal Revenue Service may not “assess” a tax or collect it, by levying on or otherwise seizing a taxpayer’s assets, until the taxpayer has had an opportunity to exhaust his administrative remedies, which include an opportunity to litigate his tax liability fully in the Tax Court, 26 U. S. C. §§ 6212, 6213; and if the Internal Revenue Service does attempt to collect the tax by levy or otherwise, before such exhaustion of remedies in violation of § 6213, the collection is not protected by the Anti-Injunction Act and may be restrained by a United States district court at the instance of the taxpayer. §§ 6213 (a), 7421 (a). The rule is otherwise when the Commissioner proceeds under § 6861 and finds that collection of a tax due and owing from a taxpayer will be “jeopardized by delay” in collection. In such a case, the Commissioner may immediately assess the tax and, upon “notice and demand... for payment thereof” followed by the taxpayer’s “failure or refusal to pay such tax,” may immediately levy on the taxpayer’s assets. §§ 6861, 6331. When the Commissioner follows this procedure, the Anti-Injunction Act applies in full force and “no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court by any person.” § 7421 (a).
In this case, the Commissioner found, on December 6, 1973, that the imminent departure of respondent Samuel Shapiro (hereinafter Shapiro or respondent) for Israel and the probable departure with him of the assets in his New York bank accounts and safe-deposit boxes jeopardized the collection of income taxes claimed to be due and owing by him for the tax years 1970 and 1971. Accordingly, he assessed income taxes against respondent in the amount of $92,726.41 for the tax years 1970 and 1971. On the same day, he filed liens against respondent and served notices of levy upon various banks in New York State in which respondent maintained accounts or had safe-deposit boxes. These notices of levy effectively froze the money in the accounts — totaling about $35,-000 — and the contents of the safe-deposit boxes.
At that time respondent Shapiro was under a final order of extradition to Israel, for trial on criminal fra”d charges, issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and was scheduled to leave for Israel on December 9, 1973 — three days later. That date had been set as a result of an agreement between Shapiro and the State of Israel pursuant to which he had withdrawn a petition for writ of certiorari seeking review by this Court of the affirmance of the extradition order by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Shapiro v. Ferrandina, 478 F. 2d 894 (1973), and the State of Israel had agreed to grant him a speedy trial when he arrived in Israel and to release him on $60,000 bail pending such trial.
Upon learning of the notices of levy, respondent obtained the consent of the State of Israel to postpone his extradition date until December 16, 1973; and then on December 13, 1973, he initiated the instant lawsuit. Claiming that he owed no taxes; that he could not litigate the issue with the Internal Revenue Service while in jail in Israel; that he would be in jail in Israel, unless he could use the frozen $35,000 as bail money; and that the Internal Revenue Service had deliberately and in bad faith waited until December 6, 1973, before filing its notices of levy precisely in order to place him in this predicament, respondent requested in his complaint an order enjoining his extradition until he had an opportunity to litigate the question whether he owed the Internal Revenue Service any taxes or, in the alternative, an order directing the Internal Revenue Service to lift the notices of levy.
Over the Government’s claim that the court lacked jurisdiction over the case by reason of the Anti-Injunction Act and because the timing of an extradition is a matter within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Executive Branch, the District Court granted a temporary restraining order against extradition on December 13, 1973, and set argument on the motion for a preliminary injunction for December 19, 1973, later postponed until December 21, 1973. Interrogatories were then served on the Government inquiring, inter alia, into the basis for the assessments. In partial, expedited, response to the interrogatories, the Government stated on December 19, 1973, that respondent was not yet entitled to know the basis for the assessments. Then on December 21, 1973, the Commissioner served counsel for respondent with supplements to the responses to the interrogatories to which were appended notices of deficiency, see 26 U. S. C. § 6212. The notices of deficiency disclosed that the 1970 assessment was based on unexplained cash bank deposits of $18,000 and that the 1971 assessment was based on income in the amount of $137,280 derived from respondent’s alleged activities as a dealer in narcotics. On that date, the District Court dissolved the temporary restraining order and granted the Commissioner’s motion to dismiss the complaint. The court concluded that the Anti-Injunction Act withdrew its jurisdiction to order the levies to be lifted, and that the timing of the extradition, validly ordered by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York under a treaty with Israel, was a matter within the exclusive jurisdiction of the State Department.
On December 26, 1973, after respondent had filed a notice of appeal, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stayed the extradition pending resolution of that appeal. The stay was lifted by the Court of Appeals on February 12, 1974. On May 15, 1974, the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's holding that it had no jurisdiction over the extradition order and respondent was extradited several days thereafter. The Court of Appeals, however, disagreed with the District Court that it had no jurisdiction to consider the claim for relief from the levies and remanded for further proceedings. Shapiro v. Secretary of State, 162 U. S. App. D. C. 391, 499 F. 2d 527 (1974).
The Court of Appeals held that an unresolved fact issue existed on the question whether this case falls within the narrow exception to the Anti-Injunction Act formulated in this Court’s decision in Enochs v. Williams Packing Co., 370 U. S. 1 (1962). As the court understood the Williams Packing decision, the Anti-Injunction Act does not deprive the District Court of jurisdiction to restrain collection of a tax, if (1) the taxpayer shows “extraordinary circumstances causing irreparable harm” for which he has no “adequate remedy at law,” and (2) it is apparent that, under the most liberal view of the law and the facts, the United States “ ‘cannot establish its claim.’ ” 162 U. S. App. D. C., at 396, 499 F. 2d, at 632. The court found that Shapiro had satisfied the first test: the money frozen in his New York banks was to be used as bail money in Israel, and without it Shapiro would be incarcerated. Accordingly, his remedy at law — i. e., his ability later to contest the validity of the assessment in the Tax Court or in a suit for a refund — was inadequate. As for the second test, the court concluded that the District Court should not have dismissed the complaint without further inquiry into the factual foundation for the jeopardy assessment and that further proceedings were necessary before finally determining whether upon viewing the law and the facts most favorably to the Government there was “no factual foundation” for the Government’s claim that Shapiro was a tax-delinquent narcotics dealer during 1971 and thus no basis for the assessment. Accordingly, the court remanded in order to “allow the District Court... to develop a record” and to determine in light of it whether the asserted deficiency was “so arbitrary and excessive” as to be an exaction in the guise of a tax. Id., at 399, 499 F. 2d, at 535.
II
The Government argues that the order of the Court of Appeals was erroneous because it placed a burden on the Government to prove a factual basis for its assessment instead of requiring the taxpayer to prove that “under no circumstances could the Government ultimately prevail.” Enochs v. Williams Packing Co., 370 U. S., at 7. The Government argues further that since the taxpayer had and still has wholly failed to prove or even plead specific facts establishing that the Government can under no circumstances prevail, the Court of Appeals should have affirmed the District Court’s initial dismissal and its decision to the contrary should be reversed.
Respondent argues on the other hand that unless the Government has some obligation to disclose the factual basis for its assessments, either in response to a discovery request or on direct order of the court, the exception to the Anti-In junction Act provided in Enochs v. Williams Packing Co., su-pra, is meaningless. The taxpayer can never know, unless the Government tells him, what the basis for the assessment is and thus can never show that the Government will certainly be unable to prevail. We agree with Shapiro.
In Enochs v. Williams Packing Co., supra, the Court held that an injunction may be obtained against the collection of any tax if (1) it is “clear that under no circumstances could the Government ultimately prevail” and (2) “equity jurisdiction” otherwise exists, i. e., the taxpayer shows that he would otherwise suffer irreparable injury. 370 U. S., at 7. The Court also said that “the question of whether the Government has a chance of ultimately prevailing is to be determined on the basis of the information available to it at the time of the suit,” ibid. The Government’s claim that the Court of Appeals placed on it the burden of justifying its assessment and thereby erroneously applied the Williams Packing rule is wrong. Williams Packing did not hold that the taxpayer’s burden of persuading the District Court that the Government will under no circumstances prevail must be accomplished without any disclosure of information by the Government. It says instead that the question will be resolved on the basis of the information available to the Government at the time of the suit. Since it is absolutely impossible to determine what information is available to the Government at the time of the suit, unless the Government discloses such information in the District Court pursuant to appropriate procedures, it is obvious that the Court in Williams Packing intended some disclosure by the Government. Although the Government casts its argument in terms of “burden of proof,” the Court of Appeals did not place any technical burden of producing evidence on the Government and it would appear to matter little whether the Government discloses such information because it is said to have the burden of producing evidence on the question or whether it discloses such evidence by responding to a discovery motion made or interrogatories served by the taxpayer— in which case the burden of producing evidence may be said to have rested with the taxpayer. Thus the Court of Appeals cannot be said to have erred in declining to specify the precise manner in which the relevant facts would be revealed on remand. In either event, under Williams Packing the relevant facts are those in the Government’s possession and they must somehow be obtainable from the Government.
The Government argues, however, that unless the taxpayer is required to plead specific facts which, if true, would establish that the Government cannot ultimately prevail, then the Anti-Injunction Act is eviscerated. Any taxpayer can allege in conclusory fashion that he owes no tax and, therefore, under the Court of Appeals’ decision, any taxpayer may in effect force the Government to justify its assessment in a United States District Court — thereby interfering with a “collateral objective” of the Act, Enochs v. Williams Packing Co., supra, at 7-8, i. e., to protect the collector from tax litigation outside of the statutory scheme provided by Congress. As the Government’s argument itself implicitly concedes, the primary purpose of the Act is not interfered with, since the collection of taxes will not be restrained unless the District Court is persuaded from the evidence eventually adduced that the Government will under no circumstances prevail. We do not understand the Court of Appeals to have departed from this standard enunciated in Williams Packing, or to have removed from the taxpayer the ultimate burden, which that decision appears to place on him, of persuading the District Court that it has been met. Moreover, the “collateral objective” of the Act is undercut no more than was contemplated by Williams Packing. The taxpayer himself must still plead and prove facts establishing that his remedy in the Tax Court or in a refund suit is inadequate to repair any injury that might be caused by an erroneous assessment or collection of an asserted tax liability. Even then, the Government is not required to litigate fully the taxpayer’s liability outside the statutory scheme provided by Congress. It is required simply to litigate the question whether its assessment has a basis in fact.
Our conclusion that the Court of Appeals correctly reversed the judgment of the District Court and remanded for further proceedings is fortified by the fact that construing the Act to permit the Government to seize and hold property on the mere good-faith allegation of an unpaid tax would raise serious constitutional problems in cases, such as this one, where it is asserted that seizure of assets pursuant to a jeopardy assessment is causing irreparable injury. This Court has recently and repeatedly held that, at least where irreparable injury may result from a deprivation of property pending final adjudication of the rights of the parties, the Due Process Clause requires that the party whose property is taken be given an opportunity for some kind of predeprivation or prompt post-deprivation hearing at which some showing of the probable validity of the deprivation must be made. Here the Government seized respondent’s property and contends that it has absolutely no obligation to prove that the seizure has any basis in fact no matter how severe or irreparable the injury to the taxpayer and no matter how inadequate his eventual remedy in the Tax Court.
It is true that in Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U. S. 589 (1931), this Court sustained against constitutional challenge the statutory scheme created by Congress for the litigation of tax disputes and in so doing referred both to the jeopardy assessment provisions and the Anti-Injunction Act, id., at 596 n. 6. However, the Phillips case itself did not involve a jeopardy assessment and the taxpayer’s assets could not have been taken or frozen in that case until he had either had, or waived his right to, a full and final adjudication of his tax liability before the Tax Court (then the Board of Tax Appeals). The taxpayer’s claim in that case was simply that a statutory scheme which would permit the tax to be assessed and collected prior to any judicial determination of his liability — by way of a refund suit or review of the Board of Tax Appeals’ decision — was unconstitutional. Thus, insofar as Phillips may be said to have sustained the constitutionality of the Anti-Injunction Act, as applied to a jeopardy assessment and consequent levy on a taxpayer’s assets without prompt opportunity for final resolution of the question of his liability by the Tax Court, it did so only by way of dicta. The dicta were carefully expressed. The Court said:
“Where, as here, adequate opportunity is afforded for a later judicial determination of the legal rights, summary proceedings to secure prompt performance of pecuniary obligations to the government have been consistently sustained.
“Where only property rights are involved, mere postponement of the judicial enquiry is not a denial of due process, if the opportunity given for the ultimate judicial determination of the liability is adequate... Id., at 595, 596-597. (Emphasis supplied.)
Accordingly, neither the holding nor the dicta in Phillips support the proposition that the tax collector may con-' stitutionally seize a taxpayer’s assets without showing some basis for the seizure under circumstances in which the seizure will injure the taxpayer in a way that cannot be adequately remedied by a Tax Court judgment in his favor. Instead it would appear to be entirely consistent with our more recent holdings.
In any event we are satisfied that under the exception to the Anti-Injunction Act described in the Williams Packing case this case may be resolved by reference to that Act alone. At the time the District Court dismissed the complaint, the Government had done little more than assert that respondent owed taxes in an amount greater than the value of the property levied — it had alleged that respondent had made an unexplained bank deposit of $18,000 in 1970 and, in a wholly conclusory fashion, that he had received $137,-280 in income from selling hashish. Before the taxpayer had an opportunity to inquire into the factual basis for this conclusory allegation, it was not possible to tell whether the Government had any chance of ultimately prevailing. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals properly concluded that the Anti-Injunction Act did not require dismissal of the taxpayer’s complaint.
Moreover, we are satisfied that the standard required by the Anti-Injunction Act is at least as favorable to the taxpayer as that required by the Constitution; and that the standard to be applied by the District Court will therefore not be affected by the resolution of the constitutional issue. The Government may defeat a claim by the taxpayer that its assessment has no basis in fact — and therefore render applicable the Anti-Injunction Act — without resort to oral testimony and cross-examination. Affidavits are sufficient so long as they disclose basic facts from which it appears that the Government may prevail. The Constitution does not invariably require more, Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103 (1975); Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319 (1976), and we would not hold that it does where collection of the revenues is involved.
Finally, it seems apparent that if the facts do not even disclose “probable cause,” North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U. S. 601, 607 (1975); Gerstein v. Pugh, supra, to support the assessment, the Government would certainly be unable to prevail at trial. Thus the Williams Packing standard is consistent with the applicable constitutional standard.
We point out also that a preliminary issue would appear to require resolution on remand. Irreparable injury was, of course, quite properly found by the Court of Appeals. At the time of that court’s decision, it appeared that respondent Shapiro had been deprived by the levies of the money needed to post bail in Israel and thereby avoid incarceration. However, it would appear that the basis for the Court of Appeals’ finding of irreparable injury has since disappeared. Thus, the District Court’s preliminary task on remand will be to determine whether this is so and, if so, whether respondent can establish some other sort of irreparable injury flowing from the levies.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Me. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Title 26 U. S. C. § 7421 (a) provides in full:
“(a) Tax.
“Except as provided in sections 6212 (a) and (c), 6213 (a), and 7426 (a) and (b) (1), no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court by any person, whether or not such person is the person against whom such tax was assessed.”
Title 26 U. S. C. § 6212 provides in relevant part:
“(a) In general.
“If the Secretary or his delegate determines that there is a deficiency in respect of any tax imposed by subtitles A or B or chapter 42, he is authorized to send notice of such deficiency to the taxpayer by certified mail or registered mail.”
Title 26 U. S. C. § 6213 provides in relevant part:
“(a) Time for filing petition and restriction on assessment.
“Within 90 days, or 150 days if the notice is addressed to a person outside the States of the Union and the District of Columbia, after the notice of deficiency authorized in section 6212 is mailed (not counting Saturday, Sunday, or a legal holiday in the District of Columbia as the last day), the taxpayer may file a petition with the Tax Court for a redetermination of the deficiency. Except as otherwise provided in section 6861 no assessment of a deficiency in respect of any tax imposed by subtitle A or B or chapter 42 and no levy or proceeding in court for its collection shall be made, begun, or prosecuted until such notice has been mailed to the taxpayer, nor until the expiration of such 90-day or 150-day period, as the case may be, nor, if a petition has been filed with the Tax Court, until the decision of the Tax Court has become final. Notwithstanding the provisions of section 7421 (a), the making of such assessment or the beginning of such proceeding or levy during the time such prohibition is in force may be enjoined by a proceeding in the proper court.”
Title 26 U. S. C. § 6331 provides in relevant part:
“(a) Authority of Secretary or delegate.
“If any person liable to pay any tax neglects or refuses to pay the same within 10 days after notice and demand, it shall be lawful for the Secretary or his delegate to collect such tax (and such further sum as shall be sufficient to cover the expenses of the levy) by levy upon all property and rights to property (except such property as is exempt under section 6334) belonging to such person or on which there is a lien provided in this chapter for the payment of such tax. Levy may be made upon the accrued salary or wages of any officer, employee, or elected official, of the United States, the District of Columbia, or any agency or instrumentality of the United States or the District of Columbia, by serving a notice of levy on the employer (as defined in section 3401 (d)) of such officer, employee, or elected official. If the Secretary or his delegate makes a finding that the collection of such tax is in jeopardy, notice and demand for immediate payment of such tax may be made by the Secretary or his delegate and, upon failure or refusal to pay such tax, collection thereof by levy shall be lawful without regard to the 10-day period provided in this section.
“(b) Seizure and sale of property.
“The term 'levy’ as used in this title includes the power of dis-traint and seizure by any means. A levy shall extend only to property possessed and obligations existing at the time thereof. In any case in which the Secretary or his delegate may levy upon property or rights to property, he may seize and sell such property or rights to property (whether real or personal, tangible or intangible).”
Title 26 U. S. C. § 6861 provides in relevant part:
“(a) Authority for Making.
“If the Secretary or his delegate believes that the assessment or collection of a deficiency, as defined in section 6211, will be jeopardized by delay, he shall, notwithstanding the provisions of section 6213 (a), immediately assess such deficiency (together with all interest, additional amounts, and additions to the tax provided for by law), and notice and demand shall be made by the Secretary or his delegate for the payment thereof.
“(b) Deficiency Letters.
“If the jeopardy assessment is made before any notice in respect of the tax to which the jeopardy assessment relates has been mailed under section 6212 (a), then the Secretary or his delegate shall mail a notice under such subsection within 60 days after the making of the assessment.”
The relevant part of the deficiency notice for the year 1970 provided:
“It is determined that you realized unreported taxable income from unexplained bank deposits at the 1st National City Bank in the amount of $18,000.00.” App. 135.
The relevant part of the deficiency notice for the year 1971 provided, id., at 136:
“It is determined that you realized unreported taxable income in the amount of $137,280.00 for the taxable year ended December 31, 1971 from your activities as a dealer in narcotics, computed as follows:
“Gross income from hashish sales. $381,680.00
“Less: costs. 244,400.00
“Net Income. $137,280.00”
On January 3, 1974, respondent, armed with his deficiency notice, filed in the Tax Court for a redetermination of the deficiency. 26 U. S. C. §6213 (a).
The extradition issue is therefore no longer in this case.
The Court of Appeals rejected, on the record before it, and on the authority of Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U. S. 589 (1931), respondent’s claim that the assessment absent a hearing violated the Due Process Clause. It noted, however, that if respondent could establish on remand that his extradition would prevent him from litigating effectively before the Tax Court, then one of the predicates for the Phillips decision would be lacking. The court also noted, but did not resolve, a factual dispute as to whether the levy was in conformity with the statute. Shapiro had alleged, for the first time on appeal, that no notice had been given to him or demand made of him to pay the taxes at the time the levies were served. Such notice and demand are required by 26 U. S. C. § 6861, compliance with which is necessary under §6213 (a), if the Anti-Injunction Act is to apply. The Commissioner claimed that he had mailed a deficiency notice to Shapiro on December 6, 1973.
It is clear that a demand has now been made for payment of the tax assessed and that the levies are now in compliance with § 6213. A notice of deficiency was served on Shapiro’s attorney in the District Court on December 21, 1973. The Internal Revenue Service, conceding that it could not be sure whether the original notice of deficiency was mailed before or after the notices of levy were served, served new notices of levy on October 11 and 15, 1974. This moots both the question whether the IRS mailed a notice of deficiency to Shapiro on December 6, 1973, and whether the notice preceded the levies. There can be no question at this point, therefore, that in these respects the levies are in technical compliance with the provisions of § 6861.
This standard, considered by the Court of Appeals to be consistent with Enochs v. Williams Packing was based on cases decided by other Courts of Appeals, primarily Pizzarello v. United States, 408 F. 2d 579 (CA2 1969), and Lucia v. United States, 474 F. 2d 565 (CA5 1973) (en banc).
Subsequent to the time of the Court of Appeals’ order and prior to argument of this case before this Court, several things have concededly occurred of arguable relevance to this lawsuit. First, respondent Shapiro has been extradited, the State of Israel has reduced the amount of his bail and he has been able to meet it. Accordingly, he is not — as the Court of Appeals assumed he would be — incarcerated as a result of the fact that the levies have put the money in the New York banks beyond his reach. Second, the District Court interpreted the Court of Appeals’ order in this case to require the Government to come forward with proof sufficient to establish a factual foundation for the tax assessment and to negative a finding that the assessment is "entirely excessive, arbitrary, capricious, and without factual foundation.” The Government then made an effort at compliance with the District Court’s order, consisting of the filing of an affidavit by the revenue agent who investigated respondent’s income tax liabilities. The affidavit states that the basis for the assessments is as follows:
“a. There was no record that Samuel Shapiro had filed an income tax return for 1970.
“b. That Samuel Shapiro had filed an income tax return for 1971 reporting no tax liability based upon $1,600 in adjusted gross income, consisting of $2,600 miscellaneous income from private tutoring and net short-term losses from commodity transactions of $1,450 (limited to $1,000 in computing adjusted gross income).
“c. That deposits were credited to two accounts in the name of Samuel Shapiro at the First National City Bank, New York, Nos.: 04993564 and 05008773, in the amounts of $18,000 in 1970 and $36,-735 in 1971.
“d. That... Samuel Shapiro paid in excess of $3,000 in currency for the purchase of an automobile.
“e. That information available to the Internal Revenue Service indicated that early in 1973 Samuel Shapiro paid over $40,000 for a home purchased for over $60,000.
“f. That information supplied to the Internal Revenue Service indicated that Samuel Shapiro had been smuggling into the United States substantial amounts of an illegal substance, hashish, every six days from Israel, presumably for resale within the United States, and also supported a conclusion that Samuel Shapiro was dealing in hashish, during 1971.
“g. That included in the 1971 bank deposits referred to in subpara-graph (c) above, were money transfers from an individual since convicted of selling hashish, who stated that the transfers were for hashish supplied to him by Samuel Shapiro as follows:
“April 19,1971. $2,000
“April 23,1971. 2,300
“May 6, 1971. 2,000
“May 11, 1971. 1,500
“June 8, 1971. 1,500
“August 18, 1971. 5,600
“h. That information available to the Internal Revenue Service indicated that the known practice in hashish trafficking was to deal in full kilos (kilograms), equal to 2.2 pounds; that during 1971 the retail price of hashish was $1,360 to $1,980 per pound, or $2,992 to $4,356 per kilo; and that the wholesale cost to a dealer would approximate $2,350 per kilo; and that the common practice in hashish dealing was to receive payment in two parts — the first for cost and the second for profit.
"i. That on the basis of the information set forth in subparagraphs g. and h. above, [the revenue agent] concluded that during 1971 Samuel Shapiro was dealing in at least 2 kilos of hashish per week, and that his taxable profit therefrom was $137,280, computed as follows:
“Selling price. $7,340
“Cost. 4,700
“Weekly profit. 2,640
“1971 profit (52 weeks).$137,280
“j. That unexplained deposits of $18,000 during 1970 should be deemed to be taxable income.”
At a hearing held by the District Court on November 12, 1974, respondent submitted two affidavits (which had been filed in the Tax Court) denying that he was or ever had been a dealer in narcotics. Respondent’s affidavits further stated that his 1971 income tax return was correct. Respondent also submitted an affidavit of Rachel Laub, a resident of Switzerland, which stated that at respondent’s request in 1970, she held for him in safekeeping $50,000 in cash and approximately 18 to 20 kilos of gold bars. That affidavit further stated that at respondent’s request, she transmitted the cash to him in 1971, and the proceeds of the sale of the gold bars ($32,000 and $35,000) in 1971 and 1972, respectively. Finally, the District Judge has tentatively ruled that the Government must, if the court is to deny injunctive relief, submit its informant for in camera examination by the court. Following the Court’s granting of the Government’s petition for a writ of certiorari, 420 U. S. 923 (1975), no further proceedings have taken place below.
The proceedings before the District Court on remand and the other events just described are, of course, not before us at this time. These proceedings occurred after the decision of the Court of Appeals which we review. However, the parties appear to agree that these events have occurred as described, and we mention them because they are relevant to the question of what proceedings must eventually be conducted by the District Court following our decision in this case.
We believe that it is consistent with Williams Packing to place the burden of producing evidence with the taxpayer, and to require, if the Government insists, that facts in its sole possession be obtained through discovery. However, nothing we say here should prevent the Government from voluntarily and immediately disclosing the basis for its assessment, which, if sufficient, would terminate discovery proceedings and justify judgment for the Government.
Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254, 264 (1970) (temporary deprivation of welfare payments may deprive recipient of “the very means by which to live while he waits”); Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U. S. 337, 341-342 (1969) (temporary deprivation of wages may “drive a wage-earning family to the wall”); North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U. S. 601, 608 (1975) (“probability of irreparable injury” sufficient to warrant preseizure probable-validity hearing); see also Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103 (1975) (incarceration must be preceded by probable-cause finding or promptly followed by probable-cause hearing); cf. Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases, 419 U. S. 102, 156 (1974) (no probable-cause hearing required where complainant eventually will be “made whole” for any inadequacy in compensation for confiscated property).
We have often noted that, in resolving a claimed violation of procedural due process, a careful weighing of the respective interests is required, Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565, 579 (1975); and we have noted that the Government’s interest in collecting the revenues is an important one, Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67, 92 (1972). This interest is clearly sufficient to justify seizure of a taxpayer’s assets without a preseizure hearing, Fuentes v. Shevin, supra, and to remove any need to subject the Commissioner to the burden of an inquiry into the basis for his assessment absent factual allegations of irreparable injury by the taxpayer. Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U. S. 589, 595-597 (1931). However, it is very doubtful that the need to collect the revenues is a sufficient reason to justify seizure causing irreparable injury without a prompt post-seizure inquiry of any kind into the Commissioner’s basis for his claim.
The taxpayer has no right to start a proceeding before the Tax Court for 60 days following a jeopardy seizure: the IRS may under the statute wait 60 days before it issues the deficiency notice which gives the taxpayer his “ticket to the Tax Court.” 26 U. S. C. § 6861. The record does not indicate how quickly a hearing on the merits can be obtained there. Preliminary relief is not there available. Nothing we hold today, of course, would prevent the Government from providing an administrative or other forum outside the Art. Ill judicial system for whatever preliminary inquiry is to be made as to the basis for a jeopardy assessment and levy.
The taxpayer also challenged unsuccessfully the provision requiring a court of appeals to give deference to a fact determination by the Board of Tax Appeals on review of the Board’s decision.
We do not decide whether the allegation of an $18,000 unexplained bank deposit is insufficient to establish income in that amount — for the
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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.
Per Curiam.
In view of the Court’s decision in Uphaus v. Wyman, 360 U. S. 72, rehearing denied, 361 U. S. 856, the motion to dismiss is granted and the appeal herein is dismissed for want of jurisdiction, in that the judgment sought to be reviewed is based on a non-federal ground.
Mr. Justice Brennan.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court has held in this proceeding that the New Hampshire Legislature still wanted Dr. Uphaus’ answers on December 14, 1959, notwithstanding the omission from Laws 1957, c. 178, of the provision of Laws 1955, cc. 340 and 197, authorizing the Attorney General “to determine whether subversive persons . . . are presently located within this state,” Wyman v. Uphaus, 102 N. H. 461, 159 A. 2d 160; on denial of motion for bail, 102 N. H. 517, 162 A. 2d 611. We are bound by the highest state court’s construction of the pertinent New Hampshire statutes. We must therefore consider the substantiality of the federal constitutional questions presented on this appeal on the basis of that construction and not upon the premise urged by Dr. Uphaus that the 1957 statute shows that the legislature-on December 14, 1959, no longer wanted him to produce the list of names. In consequence, while I remain of the view that the Court in Uphaus v. Wyman, 360 U. S. 72, incorrectly sustained the previous order of civil contempt made against Dr. Uphaus, see dissent at page 82, that holding, while it stands, also sustains the order challenged on this appeal. Solely under compulsion of that decision, I think that the appeal must be dismissed as not presenting a substantial federal question.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
C
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
It is well settled that “a State cannot condition public employment on a basis that infringes the employee’s constitutionally protected interest in freedom of expression.” Connick v. Myers, 461 U. S. 138, 142 (1983). The question presented by the instant case is whether the First Amendment protects a government employee from discipline based on speech made pursuant to the employee’s official duties.
I
Respondent Richard Ceballos has been employed since 1989 as a deputy district attorney for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. During the period relevant to this case, Ceballos was a calendar deputy in the office’s Pomona branch, and in this capacity he exercised certain supervisory responsibilities over other lawyers. In February 2000, a defense attorney contacted Ceballos about a pending criminal case. The defense attorney said there were inaccuracies in an affidavit used to obtain a critical search warrant. The attorney informed Ceballos that he had filed a motion to traverse, or challenge, the warrant, but he also wanted Ceballos to review the case. According to Ceballos, it was not unusual for defense attorneys to ask calendar deputies to investigate aspects of pending cases.
After examining the affidavit and visiting the location it described, Ceballos determined the affidavit contained serious misrepresentations. The affidavit called a long driveway what Ceballos thought should have been referred to as a separate roadway. Ceballos also questioned the affidavit’s statement that tire tracks led from a stripped-down truck to the premises covered by the warrant. His doubts arose from his conclusion that the roadway’s composition in some places made it difficult or impossible to leave visible tire tracks.
Ceballos spoke on the telephone to the warrant affiant, a deputy sheriff from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, but he did not receive a satisfactory explanation for the perceived inaccuracies. He relayed his findings to his supervisors, petitioners Carol Najera and Frank Sundstedt, and followed up by preparing a disposition-memorandum. The memo explained Ceballos’ concerns and recommended dismissal of the case. On March 2,2000, Ceballos submitted the memo to Sundstedt for his review. A few days later, Ceballos presented Sundstedt with another memo, this one describing a second telephone conversation between Ceballos and the warrant affiant.
Based on Ceballos’ statements, a meeting was held to discuss the affidavit. Attendees included Ceballos, Sundstedt, and Najera, as well as the warrant affiant and other employees from the sheriff’s department. The meeting allegedly became heated, with one lieutenant sharply criticizing Ceballos for his handling of the case.
Despite Ceballos’ concerns, Sundstedt decided to proceed with the prosecution, pending disposition of the defense motion to traverse. The trial court held a hearing on the motion. Ceballos was called by the defense and recounted his observations about the affidavit, but the trial court rejected the challenge to the warrant.
Ceballos claims that in the aftermath of these events he was subjected to a series of retaliatory employment actions. The actions included reassignment from his calendar deputy position to a trial deputy position, transfer to another courthouse, and denial of a promotion. Ceballos initiated an employment grievance, but the grievance was denied based on a finding that he had not suffered any retaliation. Unsatisfied, Ceballos sued in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, asserting, as relevant here, a claim under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983. He alleged petitioners violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments by retaliating against him based on his memo of March 2.
Petitioners responded that no retaliatory actions were taken against Ceballos and that all the actions of which he complained were explained by legitimate reasons such as staffing needs. They further contended that, in any event, Ceballos’ memo was not protected speech under the First Amendment. Petitioners moved for summary judgment, and the District Court granted their motion. Noting that Ceballos wrote his memo pursuant to his employment duties, the court concluded he was not entitled to First Amendment protection for the memo’s contents. It held in the alternative that even if Ceballos’ speech was constitutionally protected, petitioners had qualified immunity because the rights Ceballos asserted were not clearly established.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that “Ceballos’s allegations of wrongdoing in the memorandum constitute protected speech under the First Amendment.” 361 F. 3d 1168, 1173 (2004). In reaching its conclusion the court looked to the First Amendment analysis set forth in Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township High School Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U. S. 563 (1968), and Connick, supra. Connick instructs courts to begin by considering whether the expressions in question were made by the speaker “as a citizen upon matters of public concern.” See id., at 146-147. The Court of Appeals determined that Ceballos’ memo, which recited what he thought to be governmental misconduct, was “inherently a matter of public concern.” 361 F. 3d, at 1174. The court did not, however, consider whether the speech was made in Ceballos’ capacity as a citizen. Rather, it relied on Circuit precedent rejecting the idea that “a public employee’s speech is deprived of First Amendment protection whenever those views are expressed, to government workers or others, pursuant to an employment responsibility.” Id., at 1174-1175 (citing cases including Roth v. Veteran’s Admin. of Govt. of United States, 856 F. 2d 1401 (CA9 1988)).
Having concluded that Ceballos’ memo satisfied the public-concern requirement, the Court of Appeals proceeded to balance Ceballos’ interest in his speech against his supervisors’ interest in responding to it. See Pickering, supra, at 568. The court struck the balance in Ceballos’ favor, noting that petitioners “failed even to suggest disruption or inefficiency in the workings of the District Attorney’s Office” as a result of the memo. See 361 F. 3d, at 1180. The court further concluded that Ceballos’ First Amendment rights were clearly established and that petitioners’ actions were not objectively reasonable. See id., at 1181-1182.
Judge O’Scannlain specially concurred. Agreeing that the panel’s decision was compelled by Circuit precedent, he nevertheless concluded Circuit law should be revisited and overruled. See id., at 1185. Judge O’Scannlain emphasized the distinction “between speech offered by a public employee acting as an employee carrying out his or her ordinary job duties and that spoken by an employee acting as a citizen expressing his or her personal views on disputed matters of public import.” Id., at 1187. In his view, “when public employees speak in the course of carrying out their routine, required employment obligations, they have no personal interest in the content of that speech that gives rise to a First Amendment right.” Id., at 1189.
We granted certiorari, 543 U. S. 1186 (2005), and we now reverse.
II
As the Court’s decisions have noted, for many years “the unchallenged dogma was that a public employee had no right to object to conditions placed upon the terms of employment — including those which restricted the exercise of constitutional rights.” Connick, 461 U. S., at 143. That dogma has been qualified in important respects. See id., at 144-145. The Court has made clear that public employees do not surrender all their First Amendment rights by reason of their employment. Rather, the First Amendment protects a public employee’s right, in certain circumstances, to speak as a citizen addressing matters of public concern. See, e. g., Pickering, supra, at 568; Connick, supra, at 147; Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U. S. 378, 384 (1987); United States v. Treasury Employees, 513 U. S. 454, 466 (1995).
Pickering provides a useful starting point in explaining the Court’s doctrine. There the relevant speech was a teacher’s letter to a local newspaper addressing issues including the funding policies of his school board. 391 U. S., at 566. “The problem in any case,” the Court stated, “is to arrive at a balance between the interests of the teacher, 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.” Id., at 568. The Court found the teacher’s speech “neither [was] shown nor can be presumed to have in any way either impeded the teacher’s proper performance of his daily duties in the classroom or to have interfered with the regular operation of the schools generally.” Id., at 572-573 (footnote omitted). Thus, the Court concluded that “the interest of the school administration in limiting teachers’ opportunities to contribute to public debate is not significantly greater than its interest in limiting a similar contribution by any member of the general public.” Id., at 573.
Pickering and the cases decided in its wake identify two inquiries to guide interpretation of the constitutional protections accorded to public employee speech. The first requires determining whether the employee spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern. See id., at 568. If the answer is no, the employee has no First Amendment cause of action based on his or her employer’s reaction to the speech. See Connick, supra, at 147. If the answer is yes, then the possibility of a First Amendment claim arises. The question becomes whether the relevant government entity had an adequate justification for treating the employee differently from any other member of the general public. See Pickering, 391 U. S., at 568. This consideration reflects the importance of the relationship between the speaker’s expressions and employment. A government entity has broader discretion to restrict speech when it acts in its role as employer, but the restrictions it imposes must be directed at speech that has some potential to affect the entity’s operations.
To be sure, conducting these inquiries sometimes has proved difficult. This is the necessary product of “the enormous variety of fact situations in which critical statements by teachers and other public employees may be thought by their superiors ... to furnish grounds for dismissal.” Id., at 569. The Court’s overarching objectives, though, are evident.
When a citizen enters government service, the citizen by necessity must accept certain limitations on his or her freedom. See, e. g., Waters v. Churchill, 511 U. S. 661, 671 (1994) (plurality opinion) (“[T]he government as employer indeed has far broader powers than does the government as sovereign”). Government employers, like private employers, need a significant degree of control over their employees’ words and actions; without it, there would be little chance for the efficient provision of public services. Cf. Connick, supra, at 143 (“[Government offices could not function if every employment decision became a constitutional matter”). Public employees, moreover, often occupy trusted positions in society. When they speak out, they can express views that contravene governmental policies or impair the proper performance of governmental functions.
At the same time, the Court has recognized that a citizen who works for the government is nonetheless a citizen. The First Amendment limits the ability of a public employer to leverage the employment relationship to restrict, incidentally or intentionally, the liberties employees enjoy in their capacities as private citizens. See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593, 597 (1972). So long as employees are speaking as citizens about matters of public concern, they must face only those speech restrictions that are necessary for their employers to operate efficiently and effectively. See, e.g., Connick, supra, at 147 (“Our responsibility is to ensure that citizens are not deprived of fundamental rights by virtue of working for the government”).
The Court’s employee-speech jurisprudence protects, of course, the constitutional rights of public employees. Yet the First Amendment interests at stake extend beyond the individual speaker. The Court has acknowledged the importance of promoting the public’s interest in receiving the well-informed views of government employees engaging in civic discussion. Pickering again provides an instructive example. The Court characterized its holding as rejecting the attempt of school administrators to “limi[t] teachers’ opportunities to contribute to public debate.” 391 U. S., at 573. It also noted that teachers are “the members of a community most likely to have informed and definite opinions” about school expenditures. Id., at 572. The Court’s approach acknowledged the necessity for informed, vibrant dialogue in a democratic society. It suggested, in addition, that widespread costs may arise when dialogue is repressed. The Court’s more recent cases have expressed similar concerns. See, e. g., San Diego v. Roe, 543 U. S. 77, 82 (2004) (per curiam) (“Were [public employees] not able to speak on [the operation of their employers], the community would be deprived of informed opinions on important public issues. The interest at stake is as much the public’s interest in receiving informed opinion as it is the employee’s own right to disseminate it” (citation omitted)); cf. Treasury Employees, 513 U. S., at 470 (“The large-scale disincentive to Government employees’ expression also imposes a significant burden on the public’s right to read and hear what the employees would otherwise have written and said”).
The Court’s decisions, then, have sought both to promote the individual and societal interests that are served when employees speak as citizens on matters of public concern and to respect the needs of government employers attempting to perform their important public functions. See, e. g., Rankin, 483 U. S., at 384 (recognizing “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”). Underlying our cases has been the premise that while the First Amendment invests public employees with certain rights, it does not empower them to “constitutionalize the employee grievance.” Connick, 461 U. S., at 154.
Ill
With these principles in mind we turn to the instant case. Respondent Ceballos believed the affidavit used to obtain a search warrant contained serious misrepresentations. He conveyed his opinion and recommendation in a memo to his supervisor. That Ceballos expressed his views inside his office, rather than publicly, is not dispositive. Employees in some cases may receive First Amendment protection for expressions made at work. See, e. g., Givhan v. Western Line Consol. School Dist., 439 U. S. 410, 414 (1979). Many citizens do much of their talking inside their respective workplaces, and it would not serve the goal of treating public employees like “any member of the general public,” Pickering, 391 U. S., at 573, to hold that all speech within the office is automatically exposed to restriction.
The memo concerned the subject matter of Ceballos’ employment, but this, too, is nondispositive. The First Amendment protects some expressions related to the speaker’s job. See, e. g., ibid.; Givhan, supra, at 414. As the Court noted in Pickering: “Teachers are, as a class, the members of a community most likely to have informed and definite opinions as to how funds allotted to the operation of the schools should be spent. Accordingly, it is essential that they be able to speak out freely on such questions without fear of retaliatory dismissal.” 391 U. S., at 572. The same is true of many other categories of public employees.
The controlling factor in Ceballos’ case is that his expressions were made pursuant to his duties as a calendar deputy. See Brief for Respondent 4 (“Ceballos does not dispute that he prepared the memorandum ‘pursuant to his duties as a prosecutor’”). That consideration — the fact that Ceballos spoke as a prosecutor fulfilling a responsibility to advise his supervisor about how best to proceed with a pending case— distinguishes Ceballos’ case from those in which the First Amendment provides protection against discipline. We hold that when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline.
Ceballos wrote his disposition memo because that is part of what he, as a calendar deputy, was employed to do. It is immaterial whether he experienced some personal gratification from writing the memo; his First Amendment rights do not depend on his job satisfaction. The significánt point is that the memo was written pursuant to Ceballos’ official duties. Restricting speech that owes its existence to a public employee’s professional responsibilities does not infringe any liberties the employee might have enjoyed as a private citizen. It simply reflects the exercise of employer control over what the employer itself has commissioned or created. Cf. Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 833 (1995) (“[W]hen the government appropriates public funds to promote a particular policy of its own it is entitled to say what it wishes”)- Contrast, for example, the expressions made by the speaker in Pickering, whose letter to the newspaper had no official significance and bore similarities to letters submitted by numerous citizens every day.
Ceballos did not act as a citizen when he went about conducting his daily professional activities, such as supervising attorneys, investigating charges, and preparing filings. In the same way he did not speak as a citizen by writing a memo that addressed the proper disposition of a pending criminal case. When he went to work and performed the tasks he was paid to perform, Ceballos acted as a government employee. The fact that his duties sometimes required him to speak or write does not mean his supervisors were prohibited from evaluating his performance.
This result is consistent with our precedents’ attention to the potential societal value of employee speech. See supra, at 419-420. Refusing to recognize First Amendment claims based on government employees’ work product does not prevent them from participating in public debate. The employees retain the prospect of constitutional protection for their contributions to the civic discourse. This prospect of protection, however, does not invest them with a right to perform their jobs however they see fit.
Our holding likewise is supported by the emphasis of our precedents on affording government employers sufficient discretion to manage their operations. Employers have heightened interests in controlling speech made by an employee in his or her professional capacity. Official communications have official consequences, creating a need for substantive consistency and clarity. Supervisors must ensure that their employees’ official communications are accurate, demonstrate sound judgment, and promote the employer’s mission. Ceballos’ memo is illustrative. It demanded the attention of his supervisors and led to a heated meeting with employees from the sheriff’s department. If Ceballos’ superiors thought his memo was inflammatory or misguided, they had the authority to take proper corrective action.
Ceballos’ proposed contrary rule, adopted by the Court of Appeals, would commit state and federal courts to a new, permanent, and intrusive role, mandating judicial oversight of communications between and among government employees and their superiors in the course of official business. This displacement of managerial discretion by judicial supervision finds no support in our precedents. When an employee speaks as a citizen addressing a matter of public concern, the First Amendment requires a delicate balancing of the competing interests surrounding the speech and its consequences. When, however, the employee is simply performing his or her job duties, there is no warrant for a similar degree of scrutiny. To hold otherwise would be to demand permanent judicial intervention in the conduct of governmental operations to a degree inconsistent with sound principles of federalism and the separation of powers.
The Court of Appeals based its holding in part on what it perceived as a doctrinal anomaly. The court suggested it would be inconsistent to compel public employers to tolerate certain employee speech made publicly but not speech made pursuant to an employee’s assigned duties. See 361 F. 3d, at 1176. This objection misconceives the theoretical underpinnings of our decisions. Employees who make public statements outside the course of performing their official duties retain some possibility of First Amendment protection because that is the kind of activity engaged in by citizens who do not work for the government. The same goes for writing a letter to a local newspaper, see Pickering, supra, or discussing politics with a co-worker, see Rankin, 483 U. S. 378. When a public employee speaks pursuant to employment responsibilities, however, there is no relevant analogue to speech by citizens who are not government employees.
The Court of Appeals’ concern also is unfounded as a practical matter. The perceived anomaly, it should be noted, is limited in scope: It relates only to the expressions an employee makes pursuant to his or her official responsibilities, not to statements or complaints (such as those at issue in cases like Pickering and Connick) that are made outside the duties of employment. If, moreover, a government employer is troubled by the perceived anomaly, it has the means at hand to avoid it. A public employer that wishes to encourage its employees to voice concerns privately retains the option of instituting internal policies and procedures that are receptive to employee criticism. Giving employees an internal forum for their speech will discourage them from concluding that the safest avenue of expression is to state their views in public.
Proper application of our precedents thus leads to the conclusion that the First Amendment does not prohibit managerial discipline based on an employee’s expressions made pursuant to official responsibilities. Because Ceballos’ memo falls into this category, his allegation of unconstitutional retaliation must fail.
Two final points warrant mentioning. First, as indicated above, the parties in this case do not dispute that Ceballos wrote his disposition memo pursuant to his employment duties. We thus have no occasion to articulate a comprehensive framework for defining the scope of an employee’s duties in cases where there is room for serious debate. We reject, however, the suggestion that employers can restrict employees’ rights by creating excessively broad job descriptions. See post, at 431, n. 2 (Souter, J., dissenting). The proper inquiry is a practical one. Formal job descriptions often bear little resemblance to the duties an employee actually is expected to perforin, and the listing of a given task in an employee’s written job description is neither necessary nor sufficient to demonstrate that conducting the task is within the scope of the employee’s professional duties for First Amendment purposes.
Second, Justice Souter suggests today’s decision may have important ramifications for academic freedom, at least as a constitutional value. See post, at 438-439. There is some argument that expression related to academic scholarship or classroom instruction implicates additional constitutional interests that are not fully accounted for by this Court’s customary employee-speech jurisprudence. We need not, and for that reason do not, decide whether the analysis we conduct today would apply in the same manner to a case involving speech related to scholarship or teaching.
IV
Exposing governmental inefficiency and misconduct is a matter of considerable significance. As the Court noted in Connick, public employers should, “as a matter of good judgment,” be “receptive to constructive criticism offered by their employees.” 461 U. S., at 149. The dictates of sound judgment are reinforced by the powerful network of legislative enactments — such as whistle-blower protection laws and labor codes — available to those who seek to expose wrongdoing. See, e. g., 5 U. S. C. § 2302(b)(8); Cal. Govt. Code Ann. §8547.8 (West 2005); Cal. Lab. Code Ann. §1102.5 (West Supp. 2006). Cases involving government attorneys implicate additional safeguards in the form of, for example, rules of conduct and constitutional obligations apart from the First Amendment. See, e.g., Cal. Rule Prof. Conduct 5-110 (2005) (“A member in government service shall not institute or cause to be instituted criminal charges when the member knows or should know that the charges are not supported by probable cause”); Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963). These imperatives, as well as obligations arising from any other applicable constitutional provisions and mandates of the criminal and civil laws, protect employees and provide checks on supervisors who would order unlawful or otherwise inappropriate actions.
We reject, however, the notion that the First Amendment shields from discipline the expressions employees make pursuant to their professional duties. Our precedents do not support the existence of a constitutional cause of action behind every statement a public employee makes in the course of doing his or her job.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
C
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the Patent Act, a company can be liable for patent infringement if it ships components of a patented invention overseas to be assembled there. See 35 U.S.C. § 271(f)(2). A patent owner who proves infringement under this provision is entitled to recover damages. § 284. The question in this case is whether these statutes allow the patent owner to recover for lost foreign profits. We hold that they do.
I
The Patent Act gives patent owners a "civil action for infringement." § 281. Section 271 outlines several types of infringement. The general infringement provision, § 271(a), covers most infringements that occur "within the United States." The subsection at issue in this case, § 271(f), "expands the definition of infringement to include supplying from the United States a patented invention's components." Microsoft Corp. v. AT & T Corp., 550 U.S. 437, 444-445, 127 S.Ct. 1746, 167 L.Ed.2d 737 (2007). It contains two provisions that "work in tandem" by addressing "different scenarios." Life Technologies Corp. v. Promega Corp., 580 U.S. ----, ----, 137 S.Ct. 734, 742, 197 L.Ed.2d 33 (2017). Section 271(f)(1) addresses the act of exporting a substantial portion of an invention's components:
"Whoever without authority supplies or causes to be supplied in or from the United States all or a substantial portion of the components of a patented invention, where such components are uncombined in whole or in part, in such manner as to actively induce the combination of such components outside of the United States in a manner that would infringe the patent if such combination occurred within the United States, shall be liable as an infringer."
Section 271(f)(2), the provision at issue here, addresses the act of exporting components that are specially adapted for an invention:
"Whoever without authority supplies or causes to be supplied in or from the United States any component of a patented invention that is especially made or especially adapted for use in the invention and not a staple article or commodity of commerce suitable for substantial noninfringing use, where such component is uncombined in whole or in part, knowing that such component is so made or adapted and intending that such component will be combined outside of the United States in a manner that would infringe the patent if such combination occurred within the United States, shall be liable as an infringer."
Patent owners who prove infringement under § 271 are entitled to relief under § 284, which authorizes "damages adequate to compensate for the infringement, but in no event less than a reasonable royalty for the use made of the invention by the infringer."
II
Petitioner WesternGeco LLC owns four patents relating to a system that it developed for surveying the ocean floor. The system uses lateral-steering technology to produce higher quality data than previous survey systems. WesternGeco does not sell its technology or license it to competitors. Instead, it uses the technology itself, performing surveys for oil and gas companies. For several years, WesternGeco was the only surveyor that used such lateral-steering technology.
In late 2007, respondent ION Geophysical Corporation began selling a competing system. It manufactured the components for its competing system in the United States and then shipped them to companies abroad. Those companies combined the components to create a surveying system indistinguishable from WesternGeco's and used the system to compete with WesternGeco.
WesternGeco sued for patent infringement under §§ 271(f)(1) and (f)(2). At trial, WesternGeco proved that it had lost 10 specific survey contracts due to ION's infringement. The jury found ION liable and awarded WesternGeco damages of $12.5 million in royalties and $93.4 million in lost profits. ION filed a post-trial motion to set aside the verdict, arguing that WesternGeco could not recover damages for lost profits because § 271(f) does not apply extraterritorially. The District Court denied the motion. 953 F.Supp.2d 731, 755-756 (S.D.Tex.2013).
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the award of lost-profits damages. WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp., 791 F.3d 1340, 1343 (2015). The Federal Circuit had previously held that § 271(a), the general infringement provision, does not allow patent owners to recover for lost foreign sales. See id., at 1350-1351 (citing Power Integrations, Inc. v. Fairchild Semiconductor Int'l, Inc., 711 F.3d 1348 (C.A.Fed.2013) ). Section 271(f) should be interpreted the same way, the Federal Circuit reasoned, because it was "designed" to put patent infringers "in a similar position." WesternGeco, 791 F.3d, at 1351. Judge Wallach dissented. See id., at 1354-1364. WesternGeco petitioned for review in this Court. We granted the petition, vacated the Federal Circuit's judgment, and remanded for further consideration in light of our decision in Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc., 579 U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 1923, 195 L.Ed.2d 278 (2016). WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp., 579 U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 2486, 195 L.Ed.2d 820 (2016).
On remand, the panel majority reinstated the portion of its decision regarding the extraterritoriality of § 271(f). 837 F.3d 1358, 1361, 1364 (C.A.Fed.2016). Judge Wallach dissented again, id., at 1364-1369, and we granted certiorari again, 583 U.S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 734, 199 L.Ed.2d 601 (2018). We now reverse.
III
Courts presume that federal statutes "apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States." Foley Bros., Inc. v. Filardo, 336 U.S. 281, 285, 69 S.Ct. 575, 93 L.Ed. 680 (1949). This principle, commonly called the presumption against extraterritoriality, has deep roots. See A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts § 43, p. 268 (2012) (tracing it to the medieval maxim Statuta suo clauduntur territorio, nec ultra territorium disponunt ); e.g., United States v. Palmer, 3 Wheat. 610, 631, 4 L.Ed. 471 (1818) (Marshall, C.J.) ("[G]eneral words must... be limited to cases within the jurisdiction of the state"). The presumption rests on "the commonsense notion that Congress generally legislates with domestic concerns in mind." Smith v. United States, 507 U.S. 197, 204, n. 5, 113 S.Ct. 1178, 122 L.Ed.2d 548 (1993). And it prevents "unintended clashes between our laws and those of other nations which could result in international discord." EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U.S. 244, 248, 111 S.Ct. 1227, 113 L.Ed.2d 274 (1991).
This Court has established a two-step framework for deciding questions of extraterritoriality. The first step asks "whether the presumption against extraterritoriality has been rebutted." RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, 579 U.S. ----, ----, 136 S.Ct. 2090, 2101, 195 L.Ed.2d 476 (2016). It can be rebutted only if the text provides a "clear indication of an extraterritorial application." Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., 561 U.S. 247, 255, 130 S.Ct. 2869, 177 L.Ed.2d 535 (2010). If the presumption against extraterritoriality has not been rebutted, the second step of our framework asks "whether the case involves a domestic application of the statute." RJR Nabisco, 579 U.S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 2101. Courts make this determination by identifying "the statute's 'focus' " and asking whether the conduct relevant to that focus occurred in United States territory. Ibid. If it did, then the case involves a permissible domestic application of the statute. See ibid.
We resolve this case at step two. While "it will usually be preferable" to begin with step one, courts have the discretion to begin at step two "in appropriate cases." See id., at ----, n. 5, 136 S.Ct., at 2101, n. 5 (citing Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236-243, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009) ). One reason to exercise that discretion is if addressing step one would require resolving "difficult questions" that do not change "the outcome of the case," but could have far-reaching effects in future cases. See id., at 236-237, 129 S.Ct. 808. That is true here. WesternGeco argues that the presumption against extraterritoriality should never apply to statutes, such as § 284, that merely provide a general damages remedy for conduct that Congress has declared unlawful. Resolving that question could implicate many other statutes besides the Patent Act. We therefore exercise our discretion to forgo the first step of our extraterritoriality framework.
A
Under the second step of our framework, we must identify "the statute's 'focus.' " RJR Nabisco, supra, at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 2101. The focus of a statute is "the objec[t] of [its] solicitude," which can include the conduct it "seeks to'regulate,' " as well as the parties and interests it "seeks to 'protec[t]' " or vindicate. Morrison, supra, at 267, 130 S.Ct. 2869 (quoting Superintendent of Ins. of N.Y. v. Bankers Life & Casualty Co., 404 U.S. 6, 12, 10, 92 S.Ct. 165, 30 L.Ed.2d 128 (1971) ). "If the conduct relevant to the statute's focus occurred in the United States, then the case involves a permissible domestic application" of the statute, "even if other conduct occurred abroad." RJR Nabisco, 579 U.S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 2101. But if the relevant conduct occurred in another country, "then the case involves an impermissible extraterritorial application regardless of any other conduct that occurred in U.S. territory."Ibid.
When determining the focus of a statute, we do not analyze the provision at issue in a vacuum. See Morrison, supra, at 267-269, 130 S.Ct. 2869. If the statutory provision at issue works in tandem with other provisions, it must be assessed in concert with those other provisions. Otherwise, it would be impossible to accurately determine whether the application of the statute in the case is a "domestic application." RJR Nabisco, 579 U.S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 2101. And determining how the statute has actually been applied is the whole point of the focus test. See ibid.
Applying these principles here, we conclude that the conduct relevant to the statutory focus in this case is domestic. We begin with § 284. It provides a general damages remedy for the various types of patent infringement identified in the Patent Act. The portion of § 284 at issue here states that "the court shall award the claimant damages adequate to compensate for the infringement." We conclude that "the infringement" is the focus of this statute. As this Court has explained, the "overriding purpose" of § 284 is to "affor[d] patent owners complete compensation" for infringements. General Motors Corp. v. Devex Corp., 461 U.S. 648, 655, 103 S.Ct. 2058, 76 L.Ed.2d 211 (1983). "The question" posed by the statute is " 'how much ha[s] the Patent Holder... suffered by the infringement.' " Aro Mfg. Co. v. Convertible Top Replacement Co., 377 U.S. 476, 507, 84 S.Ct. 1526, 12 L.Ed.2d 457 (1964). Accordingly, the infringement is plainly the focus of § 284.
But that observation does not fully resolve this case, as the Patent Act identifies several ways that a patent can be infringed. See § 271. To determine the focus of § 284 in a given case, we must look to the type of infringement that occurred. We thus turn to § 271(f)(2), which was the basis for WesternGeco's infringement claim and the lost-profits damages that it received.
Section 271(f)(2) focuses on domestic conduct. It provides that a company "shall be liable as an infringer" if it "supplies" certain components of a patented invention "in or from the United States" with the intent that they "will be combined outside of the United States in a manner that would infringe the patent if such combination occurred within the United States." The conduct that § 271(f)(2) regulates-i.e., its focus-is the domestic act of "suppl[ying] in or from the United States." As this Court has acknowledged, § 271(f) vindicates domestic interests: It "was a direct response to a gap in our patent law," Microsoft Corp., 550 U.S., at 457, 127 S.Ct. 1746 and "reach[es] components that are manufactured in the United States but assembled overseas," Life Technologies, 580 U.S., at ----, 137 S.Ct., at 743. As the Federal Circuit explained, § 271(f)(2) protects against "domestic entities who export components... from the United States." 791 F.3d, at 1351.
In sum, the focus of § 284, in a case involving infringement under § 271(f)(2), is on the act of exporting components from the United States. In other words, the domestic infringement is "the objec[t] of the statute's solicitude" in this context. Morrison, 561 U.S., at 267, 130 S.Ct. 2869. The conduct in this case that is relevant to that focus clearly occurred in the United States, as it was ION's domestic act of supplying the components that infringed WesternGeco's patents. Thus, the lost-profits damages that were awarded to WesternGeco were a domestic application of § 284.
B
ION's arguments to the contrary are not persuasive. ION contends that the statutory focus here is "self-evidently on the award of damages." Brief for Respondent 22. While § 284 does authorize damages, what a statute authorizes is not necessarily its focus. Rather, the focus is "the objec[t] of the statute's solicitude"-which can turn on the "conduct," "parties," or interests that it regulates or protects. Morrison, supra, at 267, 130 S.Ct. 2869. Here, the damages themselves are merely the means by which the statute achieves its end of remedying infringements. Similarly, ION is mistaken to assert that this case involves an extraterritorial application of § 284 simply because "lost-profits damages occurred extraterritorially, and foreign conduct subsequent to [ION's] infringement was necessary to give rise to the injury." Brief for Respondent 22. Those overseas events were merely incidental to the infringement. In other words, they do not have "primacy" for purposes of the extraterritoriality analysis. Morrison, supra, at 267, 130 S.Ct. 2869.
ION also draws on the conclusion in RJR Nabisco that "RICO damages claims" based "entirely on injury suffered abroad" involve an extraterritorial application of 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c). 579 U.S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 2111. From this principle, ION extrapolates a general rule that damages awards for foreign injuries are always an extraterritorial application of a damages provision. This argument misreads RJR Nabisco. That portion of RJR Nabisco interpreted a substantive element of a cause of action, not a remedial damages provision. See id., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 2105. It explained that a plaintiff could not bring a damages claim under § 1964(c) unless he could prove that he was " 'injured in his business or property,' " which required proof of "a domestic injury." Ibid. Thus, RJR Nabisco was applying the presumption against extraterritoriality to interpret the scope of § 1964(c)' s injury requirement; it did not make any statements about damages-a separate legal concept.
Two of our colleagues contend that the Patent Act does not permit damages awards for lost foreign profits. Post, at 2139 (GORSUCH, J., joined by BREYER, J., dissenting). Their position wrongly conflates legal injury with the damages arising from that injury. See post, at 2139 - 2140. And it is not the better reading of "the plain text of the Patent Act."
Post, at 2143. Taken together, § 271(f)(2) and § 284 allow the patent owner to recover for lost foreign profits. Under § 284, damages are "adequate" to compensate for infringement when they "plac[e] [the patent owner] in as good a position as he would have been in" if the patent had not been infringed. General Motors Corp., supra, at 655, 103 S.Ct. 2058. Specifically, a patent owner is entitled to recover " 'the difference between [its] pecuniary condition after the infringement, and what [its] condition would have been if the infringement had not occurred.' " Aro Mfg. Co., supra, at 507, 84 S.Ct. 1526. This recovery can include lost profits. See Yale Lock Mfg. Co. v. Sargent, 117 U.S. 536, 552-553, 6 S.Ct. 934, 29 L.Ed. 954 (1886). And, as we hold today, it can include lost foreign profits when the patent owner proves infringement under § 271(f)(2).
We hold that WesternGeco's damages award for lost profits was a permissible domestic application of § 284. The judgment of the Federal Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice GORSUCH, with whom Justice BREYER joins, dissenting.
The Court holds that WesternGeco's lost profits claim does not offend the judicially created presumption against the extraterritorial application of statutes. With that much, I agree. But I cannot subscribe to the Court's further holding that the terms of the Patent Act permit awards of this kind. In my view the Act's terms prohibit the lost profits sought in this case, whatever the general presumption against extraterritoriality applicable to all statutes might allow. So while the Federal Circuit may have relied in part on a mistaken extraterritoriality analysis, I respectfully submit it reached the right result in concluding that the Patent Act forecloses WesternGeco's claim for lost profits.
The reason is straightforward. A U.S. patent provides a lawful monopoly over the manufacture, use, and sale of an invention within this country only. Meanwhile, WesternGeco seeks lost profits for uses of its invention beyond our borders. Specifically, the company complains that it lost lucrative foreign surveying contracts because ION's customers used its invention overseas to steal that business. In measuring its damages, WesternGeco assumes it could have charged monopoly rents abroad premised on a U.S. patent that has no legal force there. Permitting damages of this sort would effectively allow U.S. patent owners to use American courts to extend their monopolies to foreign markets. That, in turn, would invite other countries to use their own patent laws and courts to assert control over our economy. Nothing in the terms of the Patent Act supports that result and much militates against it.
Start with the key statutory language. Under the Patent Act, a patent owner enjoys "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States." 35 U.S.C. § 154(a)(1) (emphasis added). Emphasizing the point, the Act proceeds to explain that to "infring[e] the patent" someone must "without authority mak[e], us[e], offe[r] to sell, or sel[l] [the] patented invention, within the United States." § 271(a) (emphasis added). So making, using, or selling a patented invention inside the United States invites a claim for infringement. But those same acts outside the United States do not infringe a U.S. patent right.
These principles work their way into the statutory measure of damages too. A patent owner who proves infringement is entitled to receive "damages adequate to compensate for the infringement." § 284 (emphasis added). Because an infringement must occur within the United States, that means a plaintiff can recover damages for the making, using, or selling of its invention within the United States, but not for the making, using, or selling of its invention elsewhere.
What's the upshot for our case? The jury was free to award WesternGeco royalties for the infringing products ION produced in this country; indeed, ION has not challenged that award either here or before the Federal Circuit. If ION's infringement had cost WesternGeco sales in this country, it could have recovered for that harm too. At the same time, WesternGeco is not entitled to lost profits caused by the use of its invention outside the United States. That foreign conduct isn't "infringement" and so under § 284's plain terms isn't a proper basis for awarding "compensat[ion]." No doubt WesternGeco thinks it unfair that its invention was used to compete against it overseas. But that's simply not the kind of harm for which our patent laws provide compensation because a U.S. patent does not protect its owner from competition beyond our borders.
This Court's precedents confirm what the statutory text indicates. In Brown v. Duchesne, 19 How. 183, 15 L.Ed. 595 (1857), the Court considered whether the use of an American invention on the high seas could support a damages claim under the U.S. patent laws. It said no. The Court explained that "the use of [an invention] outside of the jurisdiction of the United States is not an infringement of [the patent owner's] rights," and so the patent owner "has no claim to any compensation for" that foreign use. Id., at 195-196. A defendant must "compensate the patentee," the Court continued, only to the extent that it has "com[e] in competition with the [patent owner] where the [patent owner] was entitled to the exclusive use" of his invention-namely, within the United States. Id., at 196. What held true there must hold true here. ION must compensate WesternGeco for its intrusion on WesternGeco's exclusive right to make, use, and sell its invention in the United States. But WesternGeco "has no claim to any compensation for" noninfringing uses of its invention "outside of the jurisdiction of the United States." Id., at 195-196.
Other precedents offer similar teachings. In Birdsall v. Coolidge, 93 U.S. 64, 23 L.Ed. 802 (1876), the Court explained that damages are supposed to compensate a patent owner for "the unlawful acts of the defendant." Ibid. To that end, the Court held, damages "shall be precisely commensurate with the injury suffered, neither more nor less." Ibid. (emphasis added). It's undisputed that the only injury WesternGeco suffered here came from ION's infringing activity within the United States. A damages award that sweeps much more broadly to cover third parties' noninfringing foreign uses can hardly be called "precisely commensurate" with that injury.
This Court's leading case on lost profit damages points the same way. In Yale Lock Mfg. Co. v. Sargent, 117 U.S. 536, 6 S.Ct. 934, 29 L.Ed. 954 (1886), the patent owner "availed himself of his exclusive right by keeping his patent a monopoly" and selling the invention himself. Id., at 552, 6 S.Ct. 934. As damages for a competitor's infringement of the patent, the patent owner could recover "the difference between his pecuniary condition after the infringement, and what his condition would have been if the infringement had not occurred." Ibid. And that difference, the Court held, "is to be measured" by the additional profits the patent owner "would have realized from such sales if the infringement had not interfered with such monopoly." Id., at 552-553, 6 S.Ct. 934. So, again, the Court tied the measure of damages to the degree of interference with the patent owner's exclusive right to make, use, and sell its invention. And, again, that much is missing here because foreign uses of WesternGeco's invention could not have interfered with its U.S. patent monopoly.
You might wonder whether § 271(f)(2) calls for a special exception to these general principles. WesternGeco certainly thinks it does. It's true, too, that § 271(f)(2) expressly refers to foreign conduct. The statute says that someone who exports a specialized component, "intending that [it] will be combined outside of the United States in a manner that would infringe the patent if such combination occurred within the United States, shall be liable as an infringer." From this language, you might wonder whether § 271(f)(2) seeks to protect patent owners from the foreign conduct that occurred in this case.
It does not. Section 271(f)(2) modifies the circumstances when the law will treat an invention as having been made within the United States. It permits an infringement claim-and the damages that come with it-not only when someone produces the complete invention in this country for export, but also when someone exports key components of the invention for assembly aboard. A person who ships components from the United States intending they be assembled across the border is "liable" to the patent owner for royalties and lost profits the same as if he made the entire invention here. § 271(f)(2). But none of this changes the bedrock rule that foreign uses of an invention (even an invention made in this country) do not infringe a U.S. patent. Nor could it. For after § 271(f)(2)'s adoption, as before, patent rights exclude others from making, using, and selling an invention only "throughout the United States." § 154(a)(1).
The history of the statute underscores the point. In Deepsouth Packing Co. v. Laitram Corp., 406 U.S. 518, 92 S.Ct. 1700, 32 L.Ed.2d 273 (1972), the Court held that a defendant did not "make" an invention within the United States when it produced the invention's components here but sold them to foreign buyers for final assembly abroad. Id., at 527-528, 92 S.Ct. 1700. The Court recognized that, if the defendant had assembled the parts in this country and then sold them to the foreign buyers, it would have unlawfully made and sold the invention within the United States. Id., at 527, 92 S.Ct. 1700. But because what it made and sold in this country "fell short" of the complete invention, the Court held, the patent laws did not prohibit its conduct. Ibid. The dissent, by contrast, argued that for all practical purposes the invention "was made in the United States" since "everything was accomplished in this country except putting the pieces together." Id., at 533, 92 S.Ct. 1700 (opinion of Blackmun, J.). Apparently Congress agreed, for it then added § 271(f)(2) and made clear that someone who almost makes an invention in this country may be held liable as if he made the complete invention in this country. As the Solicitor General has explained, the new statute "effectively treat[ed] the domestic supply of the components of a patented invention for assembly abroad as tantamount to the domestic manufacture of the completed invention for export." Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 22 (emphasis added). Section 271(f)(2) thus expands what qualifies as making an invention in this country but does nothing to suggest that U.S. patents protect against-much less guarantee compensation for-uses abroad.
Any suggestion that § 271(f)(2) provides protection against foreign uses would also invite anomalous results. It would allow greater recovery when a defendant exports a component of an invention in violation of § 271(f)(2) than when a defendant exports the entire invention in violation of § 271(a). And it would threaten to " 'conver[t] a single act of supply from the United States into a springboard for liability.' " Microsoft Corp. v. AT & T Corp., 550 U.S. 437, 456, 127 S.Ct. 1746, 167 L.Ed.2d 737 (2007). Here, for example, supplying a single infringing product from the United States would make ION responsible for any foreseeable harm its customers cause by using the product to compete against WesternGeco worldwide, even though WesternGeco's U.S. patent doesn't protect it from such competition. It's some springboard, too. The harm flowing from foreign uses in this case appears to outstrip wildly the harm inflicted by ION's domestic production: the jury awarded $93.4 million in lost profits from uses in 10 foreign surveys but only $12.5 million in royalties for 2,500 U.S.-made products.
Even more dramatic examples are not hard to imagine. Suppose a company develops a prototype microchip in a U.S. lab with the intention of manufacturing and selling the chip in a foreign country as part of a new smartphone. Suppose too that the chip infringes a U.S. patent and that the patent owner sells its own phone with its own chip overseas. Under the terms of the Patent Act, the developer commits an act of infringement by creating the prototype here, but the additional chips it makes and sells outside the United States do not qualify as infringement. Under WesternGeco's approach, however, the patent owner could recover any profits it lost to that foreign competition-or even three times as much, see § 284 -effectively giving the patent owner a monopoly over foreign markets through its U.S. patent.
That's a very odd role for U.S. patent law to play in foreign markets, as "foreign law alone, not United States law," is supposed to govern the manufacture, use, and sale "of patented inventions in foreign countries." Microsoft, supra, at 456, 127 S.Ct. 1746.
Worse yet, the tables easily could be turned. If our courts award compensation to U.S. patent owners for foreign uses where our patents don't run, what happens when foreign courts return the favor? Suppose our hypothetical microchip developer infringed a foreign patent in the course of developing its new chip abroad, but then mass produced and sold the chip in the United States. A foreign court might reasonably hold the U.S. company liable for infringing the foreign patent in the foreign country. But if it followed WesternGeco's theory, the court might then award monopoly rent damages reflecting a right to control the market for the chip in this country-even though the foreign patent lacks any legal force here. It is doubtful Congress would accept that kind of foreign "control over our markets." Deepsouth, supra, at 531, 92 S.Ct. 1700. And principles of comity counsel against an interpretation of our patent laws that would interfere so dramatically with the rights of other nations to regulate their own economies. While Congress may seek to extend U.S. patent rights beyond our borders if it chooses, cf. § 105 (addressing inventions made, used, and sold in outer space), nothing in the Patent Act fairly suggests that it has taken that step here.
Today's decision unfortunately forecloses further consideration of these points. Although its opinion focuses almost entirely on why the presumption against extraterritoriality applicable to all statutes does not forbid the damages sought here, the Court asserts in a few cursory sentences that the Patent Act by its terms allows recovery for foreign uses in cases like this. See ante, at 2138 - 2139. In doing so, the Court does not address the textual or doctrinal analysis offered here. It does not explain why "damages adequate to compensate for the infringement " should include damages for harm from noninfringing uses. § 284 (emphasis added). It does not try to reconcile its holding with the teachings of Duchesne, Birdsall, and Yale Lock. And it ignores Microsoft's admonition that § 271(f)(2) should not be read to create springboards for liability based on foreign conduct. Instead, the Court relies on two cases that do not come close to supporting its broad holding. In General Motors Corp. v. Devex Corp., 461 U.S. 648, 103 S.Ct. 2058, 76 L.Ed.2d 211 (1983), the Court held that prejudgment interest should normally be awarded so as to place the patent owner "in as good a position as [it] would have been in had the infringer" not infringed. Id., at 655, 103 S.Ct. 2058. Allowing recovery for foreign uses, however, puts the patent owner in a better position than it was before by allowing it to demand monopoly rents outside the United States as well as within. In Aro Mfg. Co. v. Convertible Top Replacement Co., 377 U.S. 476, 84 S.Ct. 1526, 12 L.Ed.2d 457 (1964), meanwhile, the Court simply applied Yale Lock's rule that a patent owner may recover " 'the difference between his pecuniary condition after the infringement, and what his condition would have been if the infringement had not occurred.' " Id., at 507, 84 S.Ct. 1526 (quoting Yale Lock, 117 U.S., at 552, 6 S.Ct. 934 ). As we've seen, that test seeks to measure the interference with the patent owner's lawful monopoly over U.S. markets alone.
By failing to heed the plain text of the Patent Act and the lessons of our precedents, the Court ends up assuming that patent damages run (literally) to the ends of the earth. It allows U.S. patent owners to extend their patent monopolies far beyond anything Congress has authorized and shields them from foreign competition U.S. patents were never meant to reach. Because I cannot agree that the Patent Act requires that result, I respectfully dissent
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
H
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Federal Power Act (FPA or Act), 41 Stat. 1063, as amended, 16 U. S. C. § 791a et seq., authorizes the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or Commission) to superintend the sale of electricity in interstate commerce and provides that all wholesale-electricity rates must be “just and reasonable,” §824d(a). Under this Court’s Mobile-Sierra doctrine, FERC must presume that a rate set by “a freely negotiated wholesale-energy contract” meets the statutory “just and reasonable” requirement. Morgan Stanley Capital Group Inc. v. Public Util. Dist. No. 1 of Snohomish Cty., 554 U S. 527, 530 (2008). “The presumption may be overcome only if FERC concludes that the contract seriously harms the public interest.” Ibid.
This ease stems from New England’s difficulties in maintaining the reliability of its energy grid. In 2006, after several attempts by the Commission and concerned parties to address the problems, FERC approved a comprehensive settlement agreement (hereinafter Settlement Agreement or Agreement). Most relevant here, the Agreement established rate-setting mechanisms for sales of energy capacity, and provided that the Mobile-Sierra public interest standard would govern rate challenges. Parties who opposed the settlement petitioned for review in the United States Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit. Among multiple objections to FERC’s order approving the Agreement, the settlement opponents urged that the rate challenges of nonsettling parties should not be controlled by the restrictive Mobile-Sierra public interest standard. The Court of Appeals agreed, holding that “when a rate challenge is brought by a non-contracting third party, the Mobile-Sierra doctrine simply does not apply.” Maine Pub. Util. Common v. FERC, 520 F. 3d 464, 478 (2008) (per curiam).
We reverse the D. C. Circuit’s judgment to the extent that it rejects the application of Mobile-Sierra to noncontracting parties. Our decision in Morgan Stanley, announced three months after the D. C. Circuit’s disposition, made clear that the Mobile-Sierra public interest standard is not an exception to the statutory just-and-reasonable standard; it is an application of that standard in the context of rates set by contract. The “venerable Mobile-Sierra doctrine” rests on “the stabilizing force of contracts.” Morgan Stanley, 554 U. S., at 548; see id., at 551 (describing contract rates as “a key source of stability”). To retain vitality, the doctrine must control FERC itself, and, we hold, challenges to contract rates brought by noncontracting as well as contracting parties.
I
In a capacity market, in contrast to a wholesale-energy market, an electricity provider purchases from a generator an option to buy a quantity of energy, rather than purchasing the energy itself. To maintain the reliability of the grid, electricity providers generally purchase more capacity, i. e., rights to acquire energy than necessary to meet their customers’ anticipated demand. For many years in New England, the supply of capacity was barely sufficient to meet the region’s demand. FERC and New England’s generators, electricity providers, and power customers made several attempts to address this problem. This case stems from the latest effort to design a solution.
In 2003, a group of generators sought to enter into “reliability must-run” agreements with the New England Independent System Operator (ISO), which operates the region’s transmission system. In its orders addressing those agreements, FERC directed the ISO to develop a new market mechanism that would set prices separately for various geographical subregions. Devon Power LLC, 103 FERC ¶ 61,082, pp. 61,266, 61,271 (2003).
In March 2004, the ISO proposed a market structure responsive to FERC’s directions. See Devon Power LLC, 107 FERC ¶ 61,240, p. 62,020 (2004). FERC set the matter for hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), who issued a 177-page order largely accepting the ISO’s proposal. Devon Power LLC, 111 FERC ¶ 63,063, p. 65,205 (2005). Several parties filed exceptions to the ALJ’s order; on September 20, 2005, the full Commission heard arguments on the proposed market structure, and thereafter established settlement procedures. Devon Power LLC, 113 FERC ¶ 61,075, p. 61,271 (2005).
After four months of negotiations, on March 6, 2006, a settlement was reached. Of the 115 negotiating parties, only 8 opposed the settlement.
The Settlement Agreement installed a “forward capacity market” under which annual auctions would set capacity prices; auctions would be conducted three years in advance of the time when the capacity would be needed. Devon Power LLC, 115 FERC ¶ 61,340, pp. 62,304, 62,306-62,308 (2006). Each energy provider would be required to purchase enough capacity to meet its share of the “installed capacity requirement,” i. e., the minimum level of capacity needed to maintain reliability on the grid, as determined by the ISO. Id., at 62,307. For the three-year gap between the first auction and the time when the capacity procured in that auction would be provided, the Agreement prescribed a series of fixed, transition-period payments to capacity-supplying generators. Id., at 62,308-62,309.
The issue before us centers on §4.C of the Agreement (hereinafter Mobile-Sierra provision). Under that provision, challenges to both transition-period payments and auction-clearing prices would be adjudicated under “the ‘public interest’ standard of review set forth in United Gas Pipe Line Co. v. Mobile Gas Service Corp., 350 U. S. 332 (1956)[,] and [FPC] v. Sierra Pacific Power Co., 350 U. S. 348 (1956) (the ‘Mobile-Sierra’ doctrine).” App. 95. Mobile-Sierra applies, § 4.C instructs, “whether the [price is challenged] by a Settling Party, a non-Settling Party, or [by] the FERC acting sua sponte.” Ibid.
FERC approved the Settlement Agreement, “finding that as a package, it presents a just and reasonable outcome for this proceeding consistent with the public interest.” 115 FERC, at 62,304. The Mobile-Sierra provision, FERC explicitly determined, “appropriately balances the need for rate stability and the interests of the diverse entities who will be subject to the [forward capacity market’s auction system].” Id., at 62,335.
Six of the eight objectors to the settlement sought review in the D. C. Circuit. For the most part, the Court of Appeals rejected the objectors’ efforts to overturn FERC’s order approving the settlement. 520 F. 3d, at 467. But the objectors prevailed on the Mobile-Sierra issue: The D. C. Circuit held that Mobile-Sierra applies only to contracting parties. Id., at 478. In this Court, the parties have switched places. Defenders of the settlement, including the Mobile-Sierra provision, are petitioners; objectors to the settlement, victorious in the Court of Appeals only on the Mobile-Sierra issue, are respondents.
Because of the importance of the issue, and in light of our recent decision in Morgan Stanley, we granted certiorari, 556 U. S. 1207 (2009), to resolve this question: “[Does] Mobile-Sierra!s public-interest standard appl[y] when a contract rate is challenged by an entity that was not a party to the contract[?]” Brief for Petitioners i. Satisfied that the answer to that question is yes, we reverse the D. C. Circuit’s judgment insofar as it rejected application of Mobile-Sierra to noncontracting parties.
II
The FPA gives FERC authority to regulate the “sale of electric energy at wholesale in interstate commerce.” See 16 U. S. C. § 824(b)(1). The Act allows regulated utilities to set rates unilaterally by tariff; alternatively, sellers and buyers may agree on rates by contract. See §824d(c), (d). Whether set by tariff or contract, however, all rates must be “just and reasonable.” §824d(a). Rates may be examined by the Commission, upon complaint or on its own initiative, when a new or altered tariff or contract is filed or after a rate goes into effect. §§ 824d(e), 824e(a). Following a hearing, the Commission may set aside any rate found “unjust, unreasonable, unduly discriminatory or preferential,” and replace it with a just and reasonable rate. § 824e(a).
The Mobile-Sierra doctrine originated in twin decisions announced on the same day in 1956: United Gas Pipe Line Co. v. Mobile Gas Service Corp., 350 U. S. 332, and FPC v. Sierra Pacific Power Co., 350 U. S. 348. Both concerned rates set by contract rather than by tariff. Mobile involved the Natural Gas Act, which, like the FPA, requires utilities to file all new rates with the regulatory commission. 15 U. S. C. § 717c(e). In Mobile, we rejected a gas utility’s argument that the file-all-new-rates requirement authorized the utility to abrogate a lawful contract with a purchaser simply by filing a new tariff. 350 U. S., at 336-337. Filing, we explained, was a precondition to changing a rate, not an authorization to do so in violation of a lawful contract. Id., at 339-344; see Morgan Stanley, 554 U. S., at 533.
The Sierra case involved a further issue. Not only had the Commission erroneously concluded that a newly filed tariff superseded a contract rate. In addition, the Commission had suggested that, in any event, the contract rate, which the utility sought to escape, was itself unjust and unreasonable. The Commission thought that was so “solely because [the contract rate] yieldfed] less than a fair return on the [utility’s] net invested capital.” 350 U. S., at 355.
The Commission’s suggestion prompted this Court to home in on “the question of how the Commission may evaluate whether a contract rate is just and reasonable.” Morgan Stanley, 554 U. S., at 533. The Sierra Court answered the question this way:
“[T]he Commission’s conclusion appears on its face to be based on an erroneous standard. . . . [W]hile it may be that the Commission may not normally impose upon a public utility a rate which would produce less than a fair return, it does not follow that the public utility may not itself agree by contract to a rate affording less than a fair return or that, if it does so, it is entitled to be relieved of its improvident bargain. ... In such circumstances the sole concern of the Commission would seem to be whether the rate is so low as to adversely affect the public interest — as where it might impair the financial ability of the public utility to continue its service, cast upon other consumers an excessive burden, or be unduly discriminatory.” 350 U. S., at 354-355 (some emphasis added).
In a later case, we similarly explained: “The regulatory system created by the [FPA] is premised on contractual agreements voluntarily devised by the regulated companies; it contemplates abrogation of these agreements only in circumstances of unequivocal public necessity.” Permian Basin Area Rate Cases, 390 U. S. 747, 822 (1968).
Two Terms ago, in Morgan Stanley, 554 U. S. 527, the Court reaffirmed and clarified the Mobile-Sierra doctrine. That case presented two questions: First, does the Mobile-Sierra presumption (that contract rates freely negotiated between sophisticated parties meet the just-and-reasonable standard imposed by 16 U. S. C. §824d(a)) “apply only when FERC has had an initial opportunity to review a contract rate without the presumption?” 554 U. S., at 531. “Second, does the presumption [generally] impose as high a bar to challenges by purchasers of wholesale electricity as it does to challenges by sellers?” Id., at 531; see id., at 548. Answering no to the first question and yes to the second, the Court emphasized the essential role of contracts as a key factor fostering stability in the electricity market, to the long-run benefit of consumers. Id., at 547-548, 551; see, e. g., Market-Based Rates ¶6, 72 Fed. Reg. 39906 (2007) (noting chilling effect on investments caused by “uncertainties regarding rate stability and contract sanctity”); Nevada Power Co. v. Duke Energy Trading & Marketing, L. L. C., 99 FERC ¶ 61,047, pp. 61,184, 61,190 (2002) (“Competitive power markets simply cannot attract the capital needed to build adequate generating infrastructure without regulatory certainty, including certainty that the Commission will not modify market-based contracts unless there are extraordinary circumstances.”).
Morgan Stanley did not reach the question presented here: Does Mobile-Sierra’s public interest standard apply to challenges to contract rates brought by noncontraeting parties? But Morgan Stanley’s reasoning strongly suggests that the D. C. Circuit’s negative answer misperceives the aim, and diminishes the force, of the Mobile-Sierra doctrine.
In unmistakably plain language, Morgan Stanley restated Mobile-Sierra’s instruction to the Commission: FERC “must presume that the rate set out in a freely negotiated wholesale-energy contract meets the ‘just and reasonable’ requirement imposed by law. The presumption may be overcome only if FERC concludes that the contract seriously harms the public interest.” 554 U. S., at 530. As our instruction to FERC in Morgan Stanley conveys, the public interest standard is not, as the D. C. Circuit presented it, a standard independent of, and sometimes at odds with, the “just and reasonable” standard, see 520 F. 3d, at 478; rather, the public interest standard defines “what it means for a rate to satisfy the just-and-reasonable standard in the contract context,” Morgan Stanley, 554 U. S., at 546. And if FERC itself must presume just and reasonable a contract rate re-suiting from fair, arm’s-length negotiations, how can it be maintained that noncontracting parties nevertheless may escape that presumption?
Moreover, the Mobile-Sierra doctrine does not overlook third-party interests; it is framed with a view to their protection. The doctrine directs the Commission to reject a contract rate that “seriously harms the consuming public.” Morgan Stanley, 554 U. S., at 545-546; see Verizon Communications Inc. v. FCC, 535 U. S. 467, 479 (2002) (When a buyer and a seller agree upon a rate, “the principal regulatory responsibility [i]s not to relieve a contracting party of an unreasonable rate, . . . but to protect against potential discrimination by favorable contract rates between allied businesses to the detriment of other wholesale customers.” (emphasis added)).
Finally, as earlier indicated, see supra, at 173-174, the D. C. Circuit’s confinement of Mobile-Sierra to rate challenges by contracting parties diminishes the animating purpose of the doctrine: promotion of “the stability of supply arrangements which all agree is essential to the health of the [energy] industry.” Mobile, 350 U. S., at 344. That dominant concern was expressed by FERC in the order on review: “Stability is particularly important in this case, which was initiated in part because of the unstable nature of [installed capacity] revenues and the effect that has on generating units, particularly those . . . critical to maintaining reliability.” 115 FERC, at 62,335. A presumption applicable to contracting parties only, and inoperative as to everyone else — consumers, advocacy groups, state utility commissions, elected officials acting parens patriae — could scarcely provide the stability Mobile-Sierra aimed to secure.
We therefore hold that the Mobile-Sierra presumption does not depend on the identity of the complainant who seeks FERC investigation. The presumption is not limited to challenges to contract rates brought by contracting parties. It applies, as well, to challenges initiated by third parties.
III
The objectors to the settlement appearing before us maintain that the rates at issue in this ease — the auction rates and the transition payments — are prescriptions of general applicability rather than “contractually negotiated rates,” hence Mobile-Sierra is inapplicable. See Brief for Respondents 15-17, and n. 1 (internal quotation marks omitted). FERC agrees that the rates covered by the settlement “are not themselves contract rates to which the Commission was required to apply Mobile-Sierra.” Brief for FERC 15. But, FERC urges, “the Commission had discretion to do so,” id., at 28; furthermore, “[t]he court of appeals’ error in creating a third-party exception to the Mobile-Sierra presumption is a sufficient basis for reversing its judgment,” id., at 22. Whether the ratés at issue qualify as “contract rates,” and, if not, whether FERC had discretion to treat them analogously are questions raised before, but not ruled upon by, the Court of Appeals. They remain open for that court’s consideration on remand. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 16.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit is reversed to the extent that it rejects the application of Mobile-Sierra to noncontracting parties, and the case is remanded for farther proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
An ISO is an independent company that has operational control, but not ownership, of the transmission facilities owned by member utilities. ISOs “provide open access to the regional transmission system to all electricity generators at rates established in a single, unbundled, grid-wide tariff____” Midwest ISO Transmission Owners v. FERC, 373 F. 3d 1361, 1364 (CADC 2004) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The transition period runs from December 1, 2006, to June 1, 2010.
Consistent with the lead role of contracts recognized in Mobile-Sierra, we held in United Gas Pipe Line Co. v. Memphis Light, Gas and Water Div., 358 U. S. 103, 110-113 (1958), that parties may contract out of the Mobile-Sierra presumption. They could do so, we ruled, by specifying in their contracts that a new rate filed with the Commission would supersede the contract rate. Courts of Appeals have approved an option midway between Mobile-Sierra and Memphis Light: A contract that does not allow the seller to supersede the contract rate by filing a new rate may nonetheless permit the Commission to set aside the contract rate if it results in an unfair rate of return, without a further showing that it adversely affects the public interest. See, e. g., Papago Tribal Util. Auth. v. FERC, 723 F. 2d 950, 953 (CADC 1983); Louisiana Power & Light Co. v. FERC, 587 F. 2d 671, 675-676 (CA5 1979).
The D. C. Circuit emphasized a point no doubt true, but hardly dispositive: Contracts bind parties, not nonparties. Maine Pub. Util. Comm’n v. FERC, 520 F. 3d 464, 478 (2008) (per curiam). Mobile-Sierra holds sway, however, because well-informed wholesale-market participants of approximately equal bargaining power generally can be expected to negotiate just-and-reasonable rates, see Morgan Stanley Capital Group Inc. v. Public Util. Dist. No. 1 of Snohomish Cty., 554 U. S. 527, 545 (2008), and because “contract stability ultimately benefits consumers,” id., at 551. These reasons for the presumption explain why FERC, surely not legally bound by a contract rate, must apply the presumption and, correspondingly, why third parties are similarly controlled by it.
The FPA authorizes "[a]ny person, electric utility, State, municipality, or State commission” to complain. 16 U. S. C. §825e (emphasis added). FERC regulations similarly permit “[a]ny person [to] file a complaint seeking Commission action.” 18 CFR §385.206(a) (2009) (emphasis added).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
H
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellee was indicted under § 242 (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 66 Stat. 163, 208, originally part of § 23 of the Internal Security Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 1010, on the charge that, as an alien against whom a final order of deportation had been outstanding for more than six months, he had wilfully failed to give information to the Immigration and Naturalization Service as required by that section. Appellee moved to dismiss the indictment on the grounds, inter alia, that it failed to state an offense within the statute and in the alternative, if it did so, that the statute was unconstitutional. The District Court held that the statute as construed by it was not unconstitutional. 140 F. Supp. 815. Thereupon the United States filed a motion for clarification of the court’s opinion, and appellee filed a supplemental motion to dismiss the indictment, claiming that the statute as construed by the district judge did not authorize the Government to elicit the demanded information. The District Court, in a second opinion, dismissed the indictment for failure to state an offense. 140 F. Supp., at 820. The case was brought here, 352 U. S. 817, under the Criminal Appeals Act of 1907, as amended, 18 U. S. C. § 3731.
The Section, as amended, 68 Stat. 1232, 8 U. S. C. (Supp. II) § 1252 (d), is as follows:
“(d) Any alien, against whom a final order of deportation as defined in subsection (c) heretofore or hereafter issued has been outstanding for more than six months, shall, pending eventual deportation, be subject to supervision under regulations prescribed by the Attorney General. Such regulations shall include provisions which will require any alien subject to supervision (1) to appear from time to time before an immigration officer for identification; (2) to submit, if necessary, to medical and psychiatric examination at the expense of the United States; (3) to give information under oath as to his nationality, circumstances, habits, associations, and activities, and such other information, whether or not related to the foregoing, as the Attorney General may deem fit and proper; and (4) to conform to such reasonable written restrictions on his conduct or activities as are prescribed by the Attorney General in his case. Any alien who shall willfully fail to comply with such regulations, or willfully fail to appear or to give information or submit to medical or psychiatric examination if required, or knowingly give false information in relation to the requirements of such regulations, or knowingly violate a reasonable restriction imposed upon his conduct or activity, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”
The District Court construed § 242 (d) as conferring upon the Attorney General “power to supervise the alien to make sure he is available for deportation, and no further power.” Accordingly, it held that clause (3) of this subsection is to be restricted to require only “such information as is necessary to enable the Attorney General to be certain that the alien is holding himself in readiness to answer the call to be deported when it comes.” 140 F. Supp., at 819-820. The court found that the questions listed in the indictment, which are set forth in the margin, were not relevant to appellee’s availability for deportation. The interpretation that the District Court thus placed on § 242 (d) was derived from a consideration of its relation to the entire statutory scheme of deportation of which it is a part. The court below was further guided by the principle that requires courts, when construing statutes, to avoid constitutional doubts. “To hold that the statute intended to give an official the unlimited right to subject a man to criminal penalties for failure to answer absolutely any question the official may decide to ask would raise very serious constitutional questions.” Id., at 821.
The Government does not support the questions put to the alien on the basis of the construction that the District Court placed upon § 242 (d). This construction authorizes all questions reasonably appropriate to keep the Attorney General advised regarding the continued availability for departure of a deportable alien. The Government contends that the District Court misconceived the scope of the statute. It points to what it characterizes as “the eloquent breadth” of clause (3), whereby the alien is to give “such other information, whether or not related to the foregoing, as the Attorney General may deem fit and proper.” This, says the Government, establishes a requirement “in the broadest possible statutory terms for the furnishing of information by the alien.” And this view, it maintains, fits into the statutory scheme. In the circumstances defined by § 242 (a), an alien may be detained pending determination of deportability; and § 242 (c) authorizes such detention for six months after the alien has been found deportable. So, the Government argues, § 242 (d), though it does not authorize detention after six months, is an attempt to accomplish in a modified form the ends that would justify detention in the earlier stages of the deportation process. Our decision in Carlson v. London, 342 U. S. 524, is heavily invoked. If, so the argument runs, detention of active alien Communists pending deportation hearings was sustainable under § 242 (a), the national interest in avoiding recurrence of past Communist activity for which appellee is being deported should at least require him to answer questions regarding any present Communist relationships. For this view of the purpose of supervision, support is found in two other statutory provisions: § 242 (e), making an alien’s wilful failure to leave the country a felony but providing for suspension of sentence and release of the alien upon judicial consideration, inter alia, of the effect of release upon the national security and the likelihood of resumption of conduct that serves as a basis for deportation; and the recital in § 2 (13) of the Internal Security Act of 1950, that “numerous aliens who have been found to be deportable, many of whom are in the subversive, criminal, or immoral classes . . . are free to roam the country at will without supervision or control.” 64 Stat. 987.
The language of § 242 (d)(3), if read in isolation and literally, appears to confer upon the Attorney General unbounded authority to require whatever information he deems desirable of aliens whose deportation has not been effected within six months after it has been commanded. The Government itself shrinks from standing on the breadth of these words. But once the tyranny of literalness is rejected, all relevant considerations for giving a rational content to the words become operative. A restrictive meaning for what appear to be plain words may be indicated by the Act as a whole, by the persuasive gloss of legislative history or by the rule of constitutional adjudication, relied on by the District Court, that such a restrictive meaning must be given if a broader meaning would generate constitutional doubts.
The preoccupation of the entire subsection of which clause (3) is a part is certainly with availability for deportation. Clause (1) requires the alien’s periodic appearance for the purpose of identification, and clause (2) dealing with medical and psychiatric examination, when necessary, clearly is directed to the same end; and the “reasonable written restrictions on [the alien’s] conduct or activities” authorized by clause (4) have an implied scope to be gathered from the subject matter, i. e., the object of the statute as a whole. Moreover, this limitation of “reasonableness” imposed by clause (4) upon the Attorney General’s power to restrict suggests that, if we are to harmonize the various provisions of the section, the same limitation must also be read into the Attorney General’s seemingly limitless power to question under clause (3). For, assuredly, Congress did not authorize that official to elicit information that could not serve as a basis for confining an alien’s activities. Nowhere in § 242 (d) is there any suggestion of a power of broad supervision like unto that over a probationer. When Congress did want to deal with the far-flung interest of national security or the general undesirable conduct of aliens, it gave clear indication of this purpose, as in § 242 (e). In providing for the release of aliens convicted of wilful failure to depart, that subsection specifically requires courts to inquire into both the effect of the alien’s release upon national security and the likelihood of his continued undesirable conduct.
The legislative history likewise counsels confinement of the mere words to the general purpose of the legislative scheme of which clause (d) is a part, namely, the actual deportation of certain undesirable classes of aliens. Section 242 (d), as it was reported by the House Judiciary Committee and passed by the House in 1949, was in its present state in all but one significant respect. It provided for indefinite detention of any alien who wilfully failed to comply with the regulations, to appear, to give information or to submit to medical examination, or who knowingly gave false information or violated a reasonable restriction upon his activity. H. R. Rep. No. 1192, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 2-3. The report of the House Committee, although in several places focusing only upon availability for deportation, does indicate concern over the threat to the national interest represented by undesirable but undeportable aliens. The Senate Judiciary Committee, while sharing the desire of the House to control the activities of such aliens, substituted for the House bill's detention provision the imposition of criminal penalties for failure to comply with the conditions of supervision. The report of the Senate Committee significantly states the reason for the change: “This provision in the bill as it passed the House of Representatives appears to present a constitutional question.” S. Rep. No. 2239, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., p. 8. This history, although suggesting a desire to exercise continuing control over the activities as well as the availability of aliens whose deportation had been ordered but not effected, shows a strong congressional unwillingness to enact legislation that may subject the Attorney General’s supervisory powers to constitutional challenge.
Acceptance of the interpretation of § 242 (d) urged by the Government would raise doubts as to the statute’s validity. By construing the Act to confer power on the Attorney General and his agents to inquire into matters that go beyond assuring an alien’s availability for deportation we would, at the very least, open up the question of the extent to which an administrative officer may inhibit deportable aliens from renewing activities that subjected them to deportation. See 70 Harv. L. Rev. 718. This is not Carlson v. Landon, supra, where the question was whether an alien could be detained during the customarily brief period pending determination of deportability. Contrariwise, and as the Senate and House Committees recognized in passing on § 242 (d), supervision of the undeportable alien may be a lifetime problem. In these circumstances, issues touching liberties that the Constitution safeguards, even for an alien “person,” would fairly be raised on the Government’s view of the statute.
The path of constitutional concern in this situation is clear.
“When the validity of an act of the Congress is drawn in question, and even if a serious doubt of constitutionality is raised, it is a cardinal principle that this Court will first ascertain whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question may be avoided.” Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62.
See also cases cited in the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Brandeis in Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U. S. 288, 348, note 8.
Section 242 (d) is part of a legislative scheme designed to govern and to expedite the deportation of undesirable aliens, and clause (3) must be placed in the context of that scheme. As the District Court held and as our own examination of the Act confirms, it is a permissible and therefore an appropriate construction to limit the statute to authorizing all questions reasonably calculated to keep the Attorney General advised regarding the continued availability for departure of aliens whose deportation is overdue. Accordingly, the judgment of the District °°urt is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Whittaker took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
“(a) Q. Do you subscribe to the Daily Worker?
“ (b) Q. Mr. Witkovich, can you read in any other language other than Slovene and English?
“(c) Q. Since the order of supervision was entered on March 4, 1954, have you at any time visited the office of the ‘Narodny Glasnik/ 1413 West 18th Street, Chicago, Illinois?
“(d) Q. Since the order of supervision was entered on March 4, 1954, Mr. Witkovich, have you ever visited the offices of the Bohemian publication ‘Nova Dova’ or the Slovakian publication 'Ludovy Noviny/ 1510 West 18th Street, Chicago, Illinois?
“(e) Q. Do you know the editor of the ‘Narodni Glasnik’?
“(f) Q. Do you know Leo Fisher?
“(g) Q. Do you know Anton Minerich?
“(h) Q. Do you know Nick Rajkovich?
“(i) Q. Do you know Arsenio Bartl?
“(j) Q. Do you know John Zuskar?
“(k) Q. Do you know Calvin Brook?
“(1) Q. Since the order of deportation was entered in your case on June 25, 1953 have you attended any meeting of the Communist Party of the U. S. A.?
“(m) Q. Since the order of supervision was entered on March 4, 1954 have you attended any meeting of any organization other than the singing club?
“(n) Q. Have you addressed any lodges of the Slovene National Benefit Society requesting their aid in your ease, since the order of deportation was entered June 25, 1953?
“(o) Q. Have you distributed petitions or leaflets published by the Slovene National Benefit Society seeking aid for you, in your behalf, in your deportation ease since the order of deportation was entered June 25, 1953?
“(p) Q. Since the order of supervision have you attended any meetings or lectures at the Peoples Auditorium, 2457 West Chicago Avenue, Chicago, Illinois?
“(q) Q- Since the order of supervision was entered against you have you attended any meetings or socials at the Chopin Cultural Center, 1547 North Leavitt Street, Chicago?
“(r) Q. Have you attended any movies since your order of supervision was entered at the Cinema Annex, 3210 West Madison Street, Chicago ?
“(s) Q. Are you acquainted with an individual named Irving Franklin ?
“(t) Q. Are you now a member of the Communist Party of U. S. A.?
“(u) Q. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Slovene American National Council?
“(v) Q. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the United Committee of South Slavic Americans?”
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.
In 1951 the Southern Ute Tribe or Band of Indians, a part of the Confederated Bands of Utes, brought this claim before the Indian Claims Commission. The claim asserted that the United States had violated its fiduciary-duty to respondent by (1) disposing of 220,000 acres of land as “free homesteads” although obligated by 21 Stat. 203-204 (1880) and 28 Stat. 678 (1895) to sell the acreage for the respondent’s benefit; and (2) by failing to account for the proceeds of 82,000 acres of land, which proceeds were, under the same Acts, to be held for the respondent’s benefit. The Government’s basic defense was res judicata by reason of Court of Claims consent judgments entered in 1950 between the United States and the Confederated Bands of Utes, including the respondent. Confederated Bands of Ute Indians v. United States, 117 Ct. Cl. 433 (1950). The Indian Claims Commission rejected the defense, 17 Ind. Cl. Comm. 28 (1966); but the Court of Claims, in an unpublished order, App. 57-58, remanded for the taking of additional evidence. On remand the Commission again rejected the defense, 21 Ind. Cl. Comm. 268 (1969), and the Court of Claims affirmed, two judges dissenting. 191 Ct. Cl. 1, 423 F. 2d 346 (1970). We granted certiorari. 400 U. S. 915 (1970). We reverse.
The consent judgment entered in the Court of Claims gave effect to a settlement agreement which recited a stipulation of the parties that:
“[A] judgment . . . shall be entered in this cause as full settlement and payment for the complete ex-tinguishment of plaintiffs’ right, title, interest, estate, claims and demands of whatsoever nature in and to the land and property in western Colorado ceded by plaintiffs to defendant by the Act of June 15, 1880 (21 Stat. 199), which (a) the United States sold for cash . . . (b) disposed of as free homesteads . . . and (c) set aside for public purposes [between 1910 and 1938]. . . . There is filed herewith and made a part of this stipulation Schedule 1, which contains the legal descriptions of [lands] . . . disposed of by defendant as free homesteads and the remaining . . . acres ... set aside by the defendant for public purposes. . . . However, the judgment to be entered in this case is res judicata, not only as to the land described in Schedule 1, but . . . also as to any land formerly owned or claimed by the plaintiffs in western Colorado, ceded to defendant by the Act of June 15, 1880 ....” 117 Ct. Cl., at 436-437 (emphasis added).
The lands involved in the present suit were not included in Schedule 1; rather, the Government relies upon the clause that the consent judgment was “res judicata . . . also as to any land . . . ceded to defendant by the Act of June 15, 1880
Both the Indian Claims Commission and the Court of Claims rejected the Government’s res judicata defense on the ground that the claim concerning the lands involved in this action was not compromised by the 1950 settlement because those lands were not among the lands “ceded to defendant by the Act of June 15, 1880.”
Decision of this case turns, then, upon the proper interpretation of the agreement, embodied in the Act of 1880, between the United States and the Ute Indians as it relates to the settlement agreement, reduced to judgment in 1950, between the same parties. The determination of that interpretation requires a somewhat lengthy factual recitation.
In the latter half of the 19th century, what is now the Confederated Bands of Utes, composed of the Uncom-pahgre Utes, the White River Utes, and the Southern Utes, exchanged their aboriginal lands in New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado for a reservation of approximately 15.7 million acres lying wholly within Colorado. 13 Stat. 673 (1864); 15 Stat. 619 (1868). Although the acreage was undivided, the White River Utes lived in the northern portion of the reservation, the Uncompahgre Utes inhabited the central part, and the Southern Utes occupied the southern region. The reservation, however, survived little longer than a decade in this form. In 1874 the Utes approved the Brunot Cession of 3.7 million acres of the east-central portion of the reservation after valuable mineral deposits had been discovered there. 18 Stat. 36 (1874). The result of the cession was almost to sever the reservation, leaving the Southern Utes wedged between the southern boundary line of the Brunot Cession and the New Mexico border, at the southernmost part of the reservation on a strip of land 15 miles wide and 110 miles long. This strip, which includes the lands at issue here, is referred to by the parties as Royce Area 617, and the remainder of the reservation after the Brunot Cession is referred to as Royce Area 616.
Within eight years, only the Southern Utes remained in Colorado: the White River Utes and the Uncompahgre Utes departed for Utah before 1882 as a consequence of the massacre in 1879 of Indian Agent Meeker and others at White River station. The public outcry over this incident led to negotiations with the Confederated Bands which produced the Act of 1880.
The central feature of the Act of 1880 was the termination of tribal ownership in the reservation lands, and the limitation of Indian ownership to such lands as might be allotted in severalty to individual Indians. The purposes of that provision were to destroy the tribal structure and to change the nomadic ways of the Utes by forcibly converting them from a pastoral to an agricultural people. See 10 Cong. Rec. 2059, 2066 (1880). The Act recited that it was enacted to accept “the agreement submitted by the confederated bands of Ute Indians in Colorado, for the sale of their reservation in said State . . . .” 21 Stat. 199 (1880). Thus, it was provided that the Confederated Bands “cede to the United States all the territory of the present Ute Reservation in Colorado, except as hereinafter provided for their settlement.” 21 Stat. 200 (1880). The settlement provisions stipulated that the White River Utes would leave Colorado “and settle upon agricultural lands on the Uintah Reservation in Utah,” ibid., and that “[t]he Un-compahgre Utes agree to remove to and settle upon agricultural lands on Grand River, near the mouth of the Gunnison River, in Colorado,” ibid., or if insufficient agricultural land was found there, go to Utah (which they soon did). The Southern Utes were to “remove to and settle upon the unoccupied agricultural lands on the La Plata River, in Colorado; and if there should not be a sufficiency of such lands on the La Plata River and in its vicinity in Colorado, then upon such other unoccupied agricultural lands as may be found on the La Plata River or in its vicinity in New Mexico.” Ibid. Finally, it was provided that “all the lands not so allotted, the title to which is, by the said agreement of the confederated bands of the Ute Indians, and this acceptance by the United States, released and conveyed to the United States, shall be held and deemed to be public lands of the United States and subject to disposal,” but only for the financial benefit of the Utes. 21 Stat. 203-204 (1880).
The plain wording of the Act cedes to the United States all of the nonallotted acreage of the reservation, including that in the 15-mile strip (Royce Area 617) occupied by the Southern Utes. The Court of Claims’ opinion acknowledges this, stating that:
“The most significant aspects to be gleaned from this [1880] Act . . . is that the Confederated Bands (Southern Utes included) seemed to cede their entire Colorado reservation — Royce Area 616 and 617 — and moreover promised to accept allotments in severalty in various sectors within and beyond reservation boundaries. As sole consideration for these promises, the Bands were to receive shares in the proceeds of unallotted land sales remaining after certain Government reimbursements. The Southern Utes were apportioned a one-third share and like their confederates understood that such monies would be held by defendant in trust for their benefit.” 191 Ct. Cl., at 10, 423 F. 2d, at 350 (1970) (emphasis in original).
Thus, if inquiry were to end with the wording of the 1880 Act, the consent judgment barred respondent’s claim.
The Commission and the Court of Claims did not, however, end their inquiry with the wording of the Act of 1880. Both of those tribunals considered the conduct of the United States in relation to respondent tribe in the years subsequent to passage of the Act of 1880. Even so, the basis of their rejection of the res judicata defense does not emerge from their opinions with complete clarity. The Court of Claims read the Commission’s first opinion, 17 Ind. Cl. Comm. 28 (1966), as holding that the Southern Utes expressly withheld the southern strip from the lands ceded by the 1880 Act: “The Commission found that the Act of 1880 ‘reserved’ Royce Area 617 for the Southern Utes.” 191 Ct. Cl., at 10, 423 F. 2d, at 350. Some language at that point of the opinion suggested that the Court of Claims was in agreement with that view — “the following sequence of events . . . support the conclusion that plaintiffs at any rate did not cede their reservation (Royce Area 617) under the agreement of 1880.” Ibid. However, the opinion later turns the decision on a different theory:
“The more tenable theory, in our estimation, is that Congress recognized that by its protracted acquiescence in the Southern Ute occupation, Government rights to the land had somehow lapsed, or the agreement not being executed for so long a time, was rescinded and dead. It may be that the obligation to deal justly and honorably with the Indian wards did not allow insistence on full implementation of the apparent terms of the 1880 agreement. On the other hand, the Southern Utes obviously did not see themselves as mere squatters. The Congress therefore decided that if the land was going to be acquired free and clear new consideration was necessary. Hence we find section 5 of the 1895 agreement to be an explicit waiver of the Government’s rights created in the 1880 agreement, whatever they were. It follows then that the Southern Ute lands in controversy were ceded in 1895 not 1880.” Id., at 19-20, 423 F. 2d, at 356.
This reasoning implies that the holding that the lands in suit were not ceded in 1880 rests upon application of the doctrines of estoppel, or waiver, or a compound of those doctrines. We disagree that the history relied on supports any of those bases for decision, even assuming (and we have serious doubts) that the plain words of the Act of 1880 can thus be varied to except the lands in suit from the phrase “any land . . . ceded” in the consent judgment. We turn, then, seriatim to the events relied upon below.
Even before 1880 the Southern Utes had experienced hardship in living on the southern strip. Essentially, they were a pastoral people and the strip was so narrow that it was difficult to keep their animals within it. In addition, the white population to the north and south of the strip was increasing and the resulting lines of commerce cut across the strip.
“The Indian Bureau, realizing that this strip, by reason of its narrowness and of its remoteness from the other portion of the reservation, was entirely unsuited to the use of the Indians, suggested that negotiations be entered into with them for the cession of that strip. In accordance with this, in 1878, Congress passed an act authorizing such negotiations (U. S. Stat. L., vol. 20, p. 48), and under this authority a commission . . . was appointed, and during the same year they negotiated an agreement with the Indians whereby they agreed to exchange this strip for another reservation.” S. Rep. No. 279, 53d Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1894).
But before the bill was acted upon by Congress, the Meeker Massacre occurred. The outcry following that incident caused Congress to adopt the solution in the Act of 1880 affecting all of the Ute tribes. Contrary to the apparent view of the Commission and Court of Claims, this segment of history does not show an intention to treat the Southern Utes differently from the other Utes; rather, it demonstrates a congressional decision to treat the Southern Utes as the White River and Uncom-pahgre Utes were being treated, save that the White River Utes were being completely banished from Colorado.
The Act of 1880 provided that “a commission shall be sent to superintend the removal and settlement of the Utes, and to see that they are well provided with agricultural and pastoral lands sufficient for their future support . . . ” 21 Stat. 201 (1880). The Commission visited the Southern Utes to carry out that mandate and in 1881 its chairman reported to Congress:
“During my stay on the reservation I took occasion ... to talk to the leading men ... on the subject of their location in severalty. In these conversations I called their attention to the fact that the work the surveyors were doing was the preliminary step to such location [in severalty] .... I did not find one who desired a house, or would agree to dwell in one if built for him on his own land. It will take time and careful management to induce these Indians to abandon their present [way of living] and adopt the new mode of life contemplated by the agreement.
“In the mean time, and while the change is going on, they must be protected from annoyance. . . . To prevent intrusion and guarantee proper order and protection, I can see no other way than to so modify the [1880] agreement ... as to maintain the exterior lines of the strip of land one hundred miles long and fifteen wide, and preserve all the land within these lines for an indefinite period as an Indian reservation .... Then the land selected, and upon which the Indians are to be located, can be kept free from intruders.” H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 1, pt. 5, Yol. 2, 47th Cong., 1st Sess., 393 (1882).
But Congress did not create the recommended reservation. Instead, Congress took action consistent with adherence to the plan of the Act of 1880. There had been great pressure to open Royce Areas 616 and 617 to homesteading after the Act of 1880 had resulted in the removal of the Uncompahgre and White River Utes. The Southern Utes were, however, still occupying the southern strip, Royce Area 617. The apparent result was the Act of July 28, 1882, 22 Stat. 178, which declared that all of the northern portions of the reservation formerly occupied by the Uncompahgre and White River Utes, Royce Area 616, were now public lands to be disposed of for the benefit of the Utes in accordance with the Act of 1880. Section 2 of that statute provided that the Secretary of the Interior “shall, at the earliest practicable day, ascertain and establish the line between” the two Royce Areas. 22 Stat. 178 (1882). We find nothing in the legislative history of that statute to support a finding that it evidenced a congressional conclusion that the southern strip had not been ceded by the Act of 1880. On the contrary, the thrust of the legislative history is that the line was drawn to assure that there would be no interference with the land in Royce Area 617 available for allotment to the Southern Utes under the Act of 1880. H. R. Rep. No. 799, 53d Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1894); S. Rep. No. 279, 53d Cong., 2d Sess., 2, 3-4 (1894).
The Court of Claims also found support for its conclusion in what was said to a congressional committee by a Ute spokesman for the Southern Utes at a meeting in the District of Columbia in 1886. The spokesman stated that the delegation had come “to see if we cannot exchange our reservation for another. . . . The present reservation is narrow and long, and we want to go west and see if we can’t sell it.” S. Rep. No. 836, 49th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1886). The Court of Claims viewed this as demonstrating that “the Southern Utes were still in possession of their part of their old reservation under claim of right.” 191 Ct. Cl., at 14, 423 F. 2d, at 353. We do not doubt that the Southern Utes regarded the lands they occupied as “our reservation,” but we fail to see how this nullifies the conveyance of the strip made by the Act of 1880. On the contrary, there is cogent evidence that the United States totally rejected the Indians’ claim that the strip was “our reservation.” After two bills to effectuate the removal of the Southern Utes failed to pass, Congress enacted 25 Stat. 133 (1888) empowering “[t]he Secretary of the Interior ... to appoint a commission . . . with authority to negotiate with the band of Ute Indians of southern Colorado for such modification of their treaty and other rights, and such exchange of their reservation, as may be deemed desirable by said Indians and the Secretary of the Interior Ibid. Despite the reference to “their reservation,” the premise of this statute was obviously that amelioration of the plight of the Southern Utes would require “modification of their treaty and other rights” as they had been fixed in the Act of 1880. Even the Court of Claims thought the Act of 1888 little support for the respondents’ contention:
“Although the language of this act tends to favor plaintiffs’ position it is by no means conclusive. It merely authorized the establishment of a commission to engage the Southern Utes in negotiations for the purpose of persuading them to do belatedly what the Uncompahgre and White River Utes had done some years earlier, namely, to vacate their reservation and move elsewhere. A reasonable explanation for the act’s exclusive terms is that the Southern Utes were the only band of the confederation as to whom the 1880 agreement was still executory.” 191 Ct. Cl., at 15, 423 F. 2d, at 353-354.
The Commission formed pursuant to the Act of 1888 did succeed in negotiating an agreement with the Southern Utes, under which the Southern Utes would have been moved to a reservation in San Juan County, Utah. The Court of Claims observed that in such case “ [presumably, their evacuated reservation lands would then be sold in accordance with the Act of 1880 and the proceeds would be held for the collective benefit of the Confederated Bands in the prescribed proportions, that is, the consideration visualized in the 1880 agreement as accruing to the Southern Utes would still accrue.” 191 Ct. Cl., at 16, 423 F. 2d, at 354. In other words, the treatment of the Southern Utes would be precisely that accorded the Uncompahgre and White River Utes when they left Colorado. But this event only serves to furnish still more proof that the Government remained firm in its position that the strip was ceded by the Act of 1880.
This is confirmed by the congressional reaction when the agreement was submitted for approval — nothing happened for six years and the agreement was again introduced in 1894. The opinion of the Court of Claims depicts the situation:
“Conceding the 'anomalous position [of the Southern Utes] of having ceded their reservation and yet remaining on it’, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs favored ratification (Sen. Rep. No. 279, 53d Cong., 2d Sess. 2-3 (1894)). Its House counterpart, although concurring in the view that the Southern Utes presented an anomalous situation, did not assent to ratification (H. R. Rep. No. 799, 53d Cong., 2d Sess. 2-3 (1894)). It believed that the proposed reservation was too large for the Southern Utes and hence would encourage their nomadic ways. Therefore, instead, the House Committee recommended enactment of a pending bill which was eventually passed as the Act of February 20,1895 (28 Stat. 677). The stated purpose of this Act was to annul the agreement of 1888 and enforce the treaty of 1880 which sought to settle the Indians in severalty.” 191 Ct. Cl., at 16, 423 F. 2d, at 354.
This recital refutes, rather than supports, the notion that the United States followed a pattern or course of conduct after 1880 that regarded the Southern Utes rather than the United States as the owners of Royce Area 617.
Finally, we cannot agree with the Court of Claims that § 5 of the Act of 1895 is “an explicit waiver of the Government’s rights created in the 1880 agreement, whatever they were.” 191 Ct. Cl., at 19-20, 423 F. 2d, at 356. The Act of 1895, in addition to annulling the 1888 agreement, expressly confirmed the Act of 1880 and directed the Secretary of the Interior to proceed with allotments in severalty to the Southern Utes “in accordance with the provisions of the Act of [1880].” 28 Stat. 677 (1895). It went on to settle the grievances of those Southern Utes who wanted their own reservation rather than allotments in severalty by providing that “there shall be ... set apart and reserved all that portion of their present reservation lying west of” a defined line in the strip. Id., at 678. We do not see how the United States could have “set apart and reserved” a portion of the strip for a reservation unless the strip belonged to it. The remainder of the strip to the east of the new reservation was to be available for allotments in severalty to individual Southern Utes and the land not allotted was to “be and become a part of the public domain” to be sold for the benefit of said Utes. Ibid. Section 5 allocated the proceeds from sales of the land opened to public settlement. We look in vain for anything in that section to support the conclusion of the Court of Claims that it contains an “explicit waiver” by the United States of its rights under the Act of 1880 and that “[i]t follows then that the Southern Ute lands in controversy were ceded in 1895 not 1880.” 191 Ct. Cl., at 20, 423 F. 2d, at 356. The Senate Report recommending passage of the Act of 1895 belies that conclusion. The report repeats, once again, the previously stated position of the Congress that “[o]n March 6, 1880, [the Utes] . . . ceded the whole of their reservation in Colorado to the United States, except such lands, if any, as might be allotted to them in sever-alty.” S. Rep. No. 279, supra, at 2. We discern nothing in § 5 save some revision of the formula for allocation of the proceeds of the sales of the unallotted lands in the portion of the strip east of the reservation. We find absolutely no language that the Southern Utes made any cession thereby, and, indeed, we are convinced that the wording is consistent only with the fact that they had no land to cede. The Act of 1895 simply resolved the impasse over the allotments in severalty which had existed for 15 years because of the Southern Utes’ reluctance to accept them. The United States created a new reservation for them, while still permitting allotments to those Southern Utes willing and qualified to engage in farming. This plan was clearly constructed in reliance upon, not in derogation of, the cession made under the Act of 1880.
We therefore hold that the claim in this case is res judicata under the 1950 consent judgment enforcing the settlement agreement “as to any land . . . ceded to defendant by the Act of June 15, 1880.”
Reversed.
The claim was filed pursuant to the Indian Claims Commission Act, 25 U. S. C. § 70a. See also 25 U. S. C. § 70k.
The 1950 cases were brought under the Jurisdictional Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 1209. The settlement reduced to consent judgment principally relied upon by the Government is that in Case No. 46640, 117 Ct. Cl. 433, 436 (1950). Related stipulations are reported at 117 Ct. Cl., at 434, 438, 440. The aggregate amount of the settlements exceeded $31 million. The United States also unsuccessfully asserted below defenses of failure to state a claim and failure to join all necessary parties. Those questions are not before us.
The United States admits that the stated consideration was not promptly paid. Brief for Petitioner 5. See also J. Dunn, Massacres of the Mountains 583-587 (1958).
These derive from a map of Indian land cessions, PI. CXVI, drawn by Charles Royce in connection with a published study, Indian Land Cessions, 18th Ann. Rep., Bur. of Amer. Ethnology, pt. 2 (1896-1897).
While apparently the “massacre” involved only the White River Utes, all Utes were blamed. See exchange of correspondence during the uprising among the Indian agents, Secretary of the Interior, Governor of Colorado, and others printed in S. Exec. Doc. No. 31, 46th Cong., 2d Sess. (1880). See also J. Dunn, Massacres of the Mountains (1958), and U. S. Army, Military Division of the Missouri (Gen. P. Sheridan, Commanding), Record of Engagements with Hostile Indians 88-91 (1882).
The Court of Claims found proof that “the Interior Department at least was already viewing the Southern Ute territory as a permanent reservation not ceded under the terms of the 1880 cession,” 191 Ct. Cl., at 13, 423 F. 2d, at 352, in a description of the line in an 1882 letter to the district land offices. We find nothing in the letter to that effect, and in any event, it could hardly be the basis for disregarding the congressionally expressed design.
Section 5 of the Act of 1895 provides in pertinent part:
“That out of the moneys first realized from the sale of said lands so opened up to public settlement there shall be paid to said Indians the sum of fifty thousand dollars, as follows: Five thousand dollars annually for ten years ... to be equally divided among all of said Indians per capita, irrespective of age or sex; also the sum of twenty thousand dollars of said proceeds shall be paid to the Secretary of the Interior, who shall invest the same in sheep and divide the said sheep among the said Indians per capita equally, irrespective of age or sex; [certain allotments also made to specific chiefs and headmen] . . . that the balance of the money realized from the sale of lands, after deducting expenses of sale and survey, shall be held in the Treasury of the United States in trust for the sole use and benefit of said Southern Ute Indians. That nothing herein provided shall in any manner be construed to change or interfere with the rights of said Indians under any other existing treaty regarding any annuities or trust funds or the interest thereon.” 28 Stat. 678 (1895).
The Court of Claims also seems to have placed some reliance upon the following words in an order of the Acting Secretary of the Interior in 1938 which restored to the Southern Utes that portion of Royce Area 617 yet undisposed of:
“[P]ursuant to the provisions of the Act of February 20, 1895 (28 Stat. L., 677), the Southern Ute Band of Indians in Colorado ceded to the United States a large area of their reservation in the State of Colorado established expressly for their benefit under the treaty of June 15, 1880 (21 Stat. L., 199),” S. Doc. No. 194, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., 659 (1941) (compiled by C. Kappler).
The Court of Claims suggested that these words demonstrated that “[petitioner’s] officials . . . not only concede that the lands were ceded in 1895, but they also enlighten us as to the status it retrospectively applied to the 1880 agreement.” 191 Ct. Cl., at 20, 423 F. 2d, at 356.
As we have said in this opinion, we find no creation of a reservation for the Southern Utes in the Act of 1880, nor can we find any words of cession in the Act of 1895. In addition, rather than attaching the significance suggested by the Court of Claims, the quoted words are more properly to be treated as careless draftsmanship: the time of cession, whether 1880 or 1895, was of absolutely no consequence to the act of restoration of undisposed lands in 1938. Finally, the quoted words do not support the application here of the principle that courts should give weight to a consistent reading of an ambiguous document by the agency charged with its enforcement. As our opinion shows, we do not find either the Act of 1880 or that of 1895 ambiguous. Moreover, what consistency the parties have shown in the enforcement of those acts, cuts against the contention of the respondent.
The Court of Claims’ unreported order remanded the case to the Commission “for the hearing of additional evidence and the making of findings of fact with respect to the intention of the parties to the stipulation upon which a final judgment was entered in Court of Claims Case No. 46640 (117 Ct. Cl. 436) on July 13, 1950.” App. 57. The Commission’s supplemental findings after the hearing on remand are reported in 21 Ind. Cl. Comm. 268. We question the propriety of the remand, see Delaware Indians v. Cherokee Nation, 193 U. S. 127, 140-141 (1904); United States v. William Cramp & Sons Ship & Engine Building Co., 206 U. S. 118, 128 (1907), but do not decide the question since it does not appear that the decision of the Court of Claims turned on any evidence of the intention of the parties to the stipulation.
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.
Supplemental Decree
It appearing to the Court that its opinion herein of March 3, 1969, 394 U. S. 11, rejected every ground asserted by the State of Louisiana in support of its claim to rights in the area of the continental shelf hereinafter described, and that no issue as to said area is now pending before the Special Master appointed herein by order of May 19, 1969, 395 U. S. 901; and
It further appearing that substantial revenues derived from lands lying wholly within said area are now being held impounded by the United States pursuant to the parties' Interim Agreement of October 12, 1956, as amended, on file herein, and that there is no reason why the Court should not at this time enter a supplemental decree declaring the rights of the United States in the described area and terminating the obligation of the United States to hold impounded the revenues heretofore or hereafter derived from leases of lands lying wholly within the described area:
It Is Ordered, Adjudged and Decreed:
1. As against the defendant State of Louisiana and all persons claiming under it, the United States has exclusive rights to explore the area of the continental shelf lying more than one foot seaward of the line described in paragraph 3 hereof, and to exploit the natural resources of said area. The State of Louisiana is not entitled to any interest in such lands, minerals, or resources, and said State, its privies, assigns, lessees and other persons claiming under it are hereby enjoined from interfering with the rights of the United States in such lands, minerals, and resources.
2. All sums now held impounded by the United States under the Interim Agreement of October 12, 1956, as amended, derived from leases of lands lying wholly within the area referred to in paragraph 1 hereof are hereby released to the United States absolutely, and the United States is hereby relieved of any obligation under said agreement to impound any sums hereafter received by it from leases of lands lying wholly within said area.
3. The line referred to in paragraph 1 hereof is described by coordinates in the Louisiana Plane Coordinate System, South Zone, as follows:
X Y
BEGINNING AT. 27693S6.556... 575649.806.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO. 2790257.937. 526389.980.
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2779032.000. 512013.000.
TO. 2791384.930. 525434.041.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO. 2793118.930. 523838.041.
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2780766.000. 510417.000.
TO. 2794593.837. 522312.804.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO. 2795886.837. 520809.804.
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2782059.000. 508914.000.
TO. 2796579.124. 519954.164.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO. 2799209.124. 516495.164.
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2784689.000. 505455.000
TO. 2800440.568. 514653.224
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2804269.568. 508096.224
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2788518.000. 498898.000
TO. 2804494.998. 507698.840
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2806027.998. 504915.840
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2790051.000. 496115.000
TO. 2807013.645. 502822.304
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2808652.645. 498677.304
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2791690.000. 491970.000
TO. 2809151.167. 497245.118
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2812250.167. 486987.118
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2794789.000. 481712.000
TO. 2812519.378. 485996.033
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2813932.378. 480148.033
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2796202.000. 475864.000
TO. 2814261.901. 478425.093
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2815268.901. 471324.093
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2797209.000. 468763.000
TO. 2815426.129. 469687.898
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2815673.129. 464822.898
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2797456.000. 463898.000
TO. 2815696.593.... 463894.844
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2815695.593. 458115.844
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2797455.000. 458119.000
TO. 2815656.660. 456927.864
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2815268.660. 450998.864
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2797067.000. 452190.000
TO. 2815170.804.... 449960.314
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2813956.804. 440103.314
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2795853.000. 442333.000
TO. 2813808.964. 439123.233
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO. 2812677.964. 432796.233
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2794722.000. 436006.000
TO. 2812418.508.... 431584.141
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2810956.508 425733.141
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2793260.000. 430155.000
TO. 2810698.968. 424806.950
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2807853.968. 415529.950
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2790415.000. 420878.000
TO. 2807571.652. 414683.766
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO. 2805321.652. 408451.766
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2788165.000. 414646.000
TO. 2805227.217. 408196.195
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2803786.217. 404384.195
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2786724.000. 410834.000
TO. 2803319.235. 403263.173
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2799845.235. 395648.173
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2783250.000. 403219.000
TO. 2798970.928. 393968.505
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2795393.928. 387889.505
BY ARO CENTERED AT 2779673.000. 397140.000
TO. 2795310.866. 387749.772
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2793559.866. 384833.772
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2777922.000. 394224.000
TO. 2792248.791. 382934.080
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2790813.791. 381113.080
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2776487.000. 392403.000
TO. 2789360.151. 379480.105
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2774670.000. 390293.000
TO. 2788262.435. 378128.916
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO. 2786553.159. 375044.826
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2770599.000. 383887.000
TO. 2785045.121. 372750.177
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO. 2783941.664. 371318.828
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2783791.761. 371061.536
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2768031.000. 380244.000
TO. 2780548.119. 366975.957
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2775735.205. 360552.955
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2761138.000. 371491.000
TO. 2775111.280. 359766.382
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2773031.020. 357287.149
BY ARC CENTERED AT. 2757465.000. 366796.000
TO. 2771721.145. 355417.004
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2770633.235. 354054.018
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2770504.786. 353847.463
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2755015.000. 363480.000
TO. 2767787.706. 350457.818
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2761993.706. 344774.818
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2749221.000. 357797.000
TO. 2760702.849. 343623.561
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2757790.849. 341264.561
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2746309.000. 355438.000
TO. 2756371.988. 340224.338
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2773418.101. 206994.932
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2755325.000. 204680.000
TO. 2773307.767. 201623.969
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2773160.767. 200758.969
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2755178.000. 203815.000
TO. 2773015.068. 199999.475
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2772420.179. 188058.433
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2754263.000. 186316.000
TO. 2772345.899. 183922.675
2771967.899. 181066.675 BY STRAIGHT LINE TO
2753885.000. 183460.000 BY ARC CENTERED AT
2766173.905. 169980.310 TO.
2764758.905. 168690.310 BY STRAIGHT LINE TO
2752470.000 182170.000 BY ARC CENTERED AT
167770.566 TO. 2763667.122..
137484.221 BY STRAIGHT LINE TO... 2740620.854..
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2726105.000. 148530.000
TO 2735648.943. 132985.471
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2719764.466. 115956.608
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2701773.000. 118961.000
TO 2717763.031. 110183.863
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2717662.031. 109999.863
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2701672.000. 118777.000
TO 2714989.110. 106312.097
BY 2701104.000. 118141.000 ARC CENTERED AT
TO 2714747.154. 106033.830
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2714613.154. 105882.830
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2700970.000. 117990.000
TO 2712654.457. 103983.120
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2699658.000. 116782.000
TO 2699042.141. 98551.807
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2614267.867. 73928.355
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2609180.000. 91445.000
TO 2597415.825. 77505.006
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2595525.825. 79100.006
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2607290.000. 93040.000
TO 2589264.969. 90244.022
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2573559.774. 191491.823
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO... 2572517.559. 191919.643
BY ARC CENTERED AT.... 2576174.000. 209790.000
TO 2567199.659. 193909.810
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2574890.000. 210450.000
TO 2566471.962. 194268.039
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2564468.949. 194806.822
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2565940.000. 212988.000
TO 2559750.152. 195829.765
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2559111.844. 196060.036
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2562149.000. 214046.000
TO 2557271.764. 196469.544
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2557018.765. 196539.748
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2552324.142. 197552.879
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2556172.000. 215383.000
TO 2551363.075. 197787.732
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2414966.738. 172672.945
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2410270.288. 168699.151
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2406006.195. 164748.910
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2393610.000. 178130.000
TO 2404971.660. 163860.034
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2397194.660 157668.034
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2385833.000. 171938.000
TO 2396858.180. 157406.495
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2392712.390 154261.048
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2389824.019. 151967.545
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2376485.000. 164409.000
TO 2387438.051. 149823.051
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2385828.051. 148614.051
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2374875.000. 163200.000
TO. 2382739.005. 146741.669
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2382462.756. 146609.674
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2379481.241. 144717.970
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2369709.000. 160120.000
TO. 2378912.544. 144371.540
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2376898.544. 143194.540
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2367695.000. 158943.000
TO. 2374966.704. 142214.534
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2373711.682. 141668.989
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2364392.000. 157349.000
TO. 2367742.517. 139418.767
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2365248.314. 138184.960
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2354070.000. 152599.000
TO. 2349744.041. 134878.805
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2348371.940. 134393.582
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2346096.020. 133533.975
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2339651.000. 150598.000
TO. 2344530.100. 133022.061
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2342882.004. 132564.548
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2341883.034. 132218.265
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2334774.627. 129342.086
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2327933.000. 146251.000
TO. 2333793.990. 128977.667
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2328326.990. 127122.667
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2322466.000. 144396.000
TO. 2326958.626. 126717.325
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2326905.790. 126703.898
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2319608.000. 143421.000
TO. 2324588.088. 125873.409
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2322643.088. 125321.409
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2317663.000. 142869.000
TO. 2322367.586. 125245.547
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2318606.586. 124241.547
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2313902.000. 141865.000
TO. 2314460.343. 123632.954
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2312762.343. 123580.954
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2312204.000. 141813.000
TO. 2311215.315. 123599.221
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2309557.315. 123689.221
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2310546.000. 141903.000
TO. 2308711.076. 123754.934
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2300326.000. 139954.000
TO. 2308388.131. 123591.809
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2306600.131. 122710.809
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2298538.000. 139073.000
TO. 2302488.899. 121265.428
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2299991.899. 120711.428
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2296041.000. 138519.000
TO. 2295410.988. 120289.290
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2294513.988. 120320.290
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2295144.000. 138550.000
TO. 2288531.687. 121550.101
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2287770.687. 121846.101
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2294383.000. 138846.000
TO. 2287412.160. 121989.944
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2284138.223. 122399.427
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2286402.000. 140499.000
TO. 2283007.179. 122577.102
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2277807.179. 123562.102
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2281202.000. 141484.000
TO. 2276614.048. 123829.824
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2270161.048. 125506.824
BY ARG CENTERED AT 2274749.000. 143161.000
TO. 2267618.118. 126372.023
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2263074.118. 128302.023
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2270205.000. 145091.000
TO.:. 2262735.940. 128449.715
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2256980.940. 131032.715
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2264450.000. 147674.000
TO. 2255335.199. 131874.012
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2251881.284. 133866.529
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2250291.214. 134590.217
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2229997.048. 129637.207
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2228299.063. 128761.074
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2219935.000. 144971.000
TO. 2227466.216. 128357.751
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2225677.216. 127546.751
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2218146.000. 144160.000
TO. 2222547.419. 126458.397
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2219572.429. 125718.680
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2212203.201. 123742.459
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2203721.663. 121100.023
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2198296.000. 138515.000
TO. 2202940.874. 120875.715
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2196974.874. 119304.715
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2192330.000. 136944.000
TO. 2195302.266. 118947.198
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2189988.208. 118069.554
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2188596.458. 117772.421
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2184788.000. 135611.000
TO. 2185155.886. 117374.117
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2182166.000. 135368.000
TO. 2181100.490. 117158.554
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2179579.490. 117247.554
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2180645.000. 135457.000
TO. 2177978.852. 117412.309
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2172699.849. 117308.349
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO' 2171638.111. 117082.068
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2167836.000. 134922.000
TO. 2168752.572. 116704.450
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2165393.572. 116535.450
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2164477.000. 134753.000
TO. 2161326.081. 116786.616
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2160026.671. 117014.505
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2156272.569. 117354.955
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2157920.000. 135521.000
TO. 2155033.394. 117510.260
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2149319.763. 118425.992
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2147751.000. 136599.000
TO. 2149162.352.... 118413.090
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2145000.352. 118090.090
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2143589.000. 136276.000
TO. 2143589.000. 118035.407
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2139529.000. 118035.407
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2139529.000. 136276.000
TO. 2137974.807. 118101.740
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2136687.713. 118211.811
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2132677.620 118549.888
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2134210.000. 136726.000
TO. 2130789.620. 118808.962
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2129668.620. 119022.962
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2133089.000. 136940.000
TO. 2126158.210. 120067.437
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2122636.540. 121514.043
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2122090.600. 121683.588
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2118739.612. 122394.088
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2122523.000. 140238.000
TO. 2114775.806. 123724.363
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2111081.806. 125457.363
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2118829.000. 141971.000
TO. 2108033.001. 127268.427
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2107269.001 127829.427
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2118065.000. 142532.000
TO. 2103682.105. 131313.642
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2103291.338. 131814.638
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2063551.901. 176572.248
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2075295.000. 190530.000
TO. 2059950.518. 180667.643
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2071131.000.... 195080.000
TO. 2058843.067. 181599.424
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2062055.000. 199555.000
TO. 2057133.878. 181990.781
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2053778.878. 182930.781
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2058700.000. 200495.000
TO. 2053474.211. 183019.006
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2052967.358. 183053.121
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2051871.023. 183006.136
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2051090.000. 201230.000
TO. 2050844.853. 182991.054
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2048984.853. 183016.054.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2049230.000. 201255.000.
TO. 2048033.279. 183053.706.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2044865.110. 183262.011.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2041482.009. 183446.456.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2042475.000. 201660.000.
TO. 2037472.505. 184118.784.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2033138.620. 185354.743.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2032933.709. 185387.056.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2035775.000.... 203405.000.
TO. 2029790.979. 186173.902.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2027400.979. 187003.902.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2033385.000. 204235.000.
TO. 2026833.971. 187211.391.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2023509.988 _ 188490.527.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2020958.847. 189326.687.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2026640.000.... 206660.000.
TO. 2019189.740. 190010.289.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 20.16613.211. 191163.211.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2015795.894. 191414.427.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2021155.000. 208850.000.
TO. 2013823.478. 192147.664.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2010121.478. 193772.664.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2017453.000.... 210475.000.
TO. 2007660.073. 195086.114.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 2006450.073. 195856.114.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2016243.000. 211245.000
TO. 2002812.039. 198902.856
BV STRAIGHT LINE TO 2001329.365. 200516.331.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1998627.524. 203118.747
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1996876.875.... 204647.104.
BY ARG CENTERED AT 2008873.000.. 218388.000.
TO. 1994484.382. 207176.983.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1993669.382. 208222.983.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2008058.000.... 219434.000.
TO. 1992024.459. 210736.599.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1991723.504.... 211291.404.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1991392.007.... 211653.006
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1987526.734. 215291.902
BY ARC CENTERED AT 2000030.000... 228573.000
TO. 1985880.690. 217061.430.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1984418.690. 218858.430.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1998568.000 230370.000.
TO. 1982725.876. 221328.633.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1981279.040. 223863.752.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1987818.000. 240892.000.
TO. 1978538.859. 225187.963.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1913512.136.... 252159.733.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1914373.000. 270380.000
TO. 1902085.015... 256899.471
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO. 1899965.772. 257778.490
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1896827.000. 275747.000.
TO. 1895099.636. 257588.381.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1882306.000. 270590.000.
TO. 1867537.422. 259884.472.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1872418.000. 277460.000.
TO. 1858533.650. 265630.205.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1843467.000. 275912.000.
TO. 1848728.806 258446.816.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1835344.000. 270839.000.
TO. 1842206.261. 253938.450.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1840881.261. 253400.450.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1834019.000. 270301.000.
TO. 1817313.904. 262975.771.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1816821.904. 264097.771.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1833527.000. 271423.000.
TO. 1815531.092. 274400.671.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1820994.000. 291804.000.
TO. 1808996.684. 278064.144.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1809845.000. 296285.000.
TO. 1792971.196. 289357.232.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1791584.000. 307545.000.
TO. 1773422.454.... 305848.689.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1783067.000. 321331.000.
TO. 1771283.720. 307407.152.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1782391.000. 321876.000.
TO. 1769316.873. 309156.470.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1778769.000 324757.000.
TO. 1763171.778. 315299.416.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1763190.000.. 333540.000.
TO. 1762008.035. 315337.742.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1761238.035. 315387.742.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1762420.000. 333590.000.
TO. 1761003.510. 315404.490.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1758630.000 333490.000.
TO. 1751584.928. 316664.834.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1749526.738.... 316597.235.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1745677.439 316238.492.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1741756.932. 315744.746.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1738097.906... 314155.450.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1730831.000. 330886.000.
TO. 1737269.265. 313819.425.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1733961.536. 312571.604.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1733064.913. 312109.811.
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1724713.000. 328326.000.
TO. 1729983.294. 310863.376
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1729556.701... 310734.628.
BY STRAIGHT LINE TO 1727510.374.... 309315.183
BY ARC CENTERED AT 1717114.000. 324303.000.
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 Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires the State to disclose to criminal defendants favorable evidence that is material either to guilt or to punishment. United States v. Agurs, 427 U. S. 97 (1976); Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963). This case raises the question whether the Fourteenth Amendment also demands that the State preserve potentially exculpatory evidence on behalf of defendants. In particular, the question presented is whether the Due Process Clause requires law enforcement agencies to preserve breath samples of suspected drunken drivers in order for the results of breath-analysis tests to be admissible in criminal prosecutions.
f — I
The Omicron Intoxilyzer (Intoxilyzer) is a device used in California to measure the concentration of alcohol in the blood of motorists suspected of driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. The Intoxilyzer analyzes the suspect’s breath. To operate the device, law enforcement officers follow these procedures:
“Prior to any test, the device is purged by pumping clean air through it until readings of 0.00 are obtained. The breath test requires a sample of‘alveolar’ (deep lung) air; to assure that such a sample is obtained, the subject is required to blow air into the intoxilyzer at a constant pressure for a period of several seconds. A breath sample is captured in the intoxilyzer’s chamber and infrared light is used to sense the alcohol level. Two samples are taken, and the result of each is indicated on a printout card. The two tests must register within 0.02 of each other in order to be admissible in court. After each test, the chamber is purged with clean air and then checked for a reading of zero alcohol. The machine is calibrated weekly, and the calibration results, as well as a portion of the calibration samples, are available to the defendant.” 142 Cal. App. 3d 138, 141-142, 190 Cal. Rptr. 319, 321 (1983) (citations omitted).
In unrelated incidents in 1980 and 1981, each of the respondents in this case was stopped on suspicion of drunken driving on California highways. Each respondent submitted to an Intoxilyzer test. Each respondent registered a blood-alcohol concentration substantially higher than 0.10 percent. Under California law at that time, drivers with higher than 0.10 percent blood-alcohol concentrations were presumed to be intoxicated. Cal. Veh. Code Ann. § 23126(a)(3) (West 1971) (amended 1981). Respondents were all charged with driving while intoxicated in violation of Cal. Veh. Code Ann. §23102 (West 1971) (amended 1981).
Prior to trial in Municipal Court, each respondent filed a motion to suppress the Intoxilyzer test results on the ground that the arresting officers had failed to preserve samples of respondents' breath. Although preservation of breath samples is technically feasible, California law enforcement officers do not ordinarily preserve breath samples, and made no effort to do so in these cases. Respondents each claimed that, had a breath sample been preserved, he would have been able to impeach the incriminating Intoxilyzer results. All of respondents’ motions to suppress were denied. Respondents Ward and Berry then submitted their cases on the police records and were convicted. Ward and Berry subsequently petitioned the California Court of Appeal for writs of habeas corpus. Respondents Trombetta and Cox did not submit to trial. They sought direct appeal from the Municipal Court orders, and their appeals were eventually transferred to the Court of Appeal to be consolidated with the Ward and Berry petitions.
The California Court of Appeal ruled in favor of respondents. After implicitly accepting that breath samples would be useful to respondents’ defenses, the court reviewed the available technologies and determined that the arresting officers had the capacity to preserve breath samples for respondents. 142 Cal. App. 3d, at 141-142, 190 Cal. Rptr., at 320-321. Relying heavily on the California Supreme Court’s decision in People v. Hitch, 12 Cal. 3d 641, 527 P. 2d 361 (1974), the Court of Appeal concluded: “Due process demands simply that where evidence is collected by the state, as it is with the intoxilyzer, or any other breath testing device, law enforcement agencies must establish and follow rigorous and systematic procedures to preserve the captured evidence or its equivalent for the use of the defendant.” 142 Cal. App. 3d, at 144, 190 Cal. Rptr., at 323. The court granted respondents Ward and Berry new trials, and ordered that the Intoxilyzer results not be admitted as evidence against the other two respondents. The State unsuccessfully petitioned for certiorari in the California Supreme Court, and then petitioned for review in this Court. We granted certiorari, 464 U. S. 1037 (1984), and now reverse.
II
Under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, criminal prosecutions must comport with prevailing notions of fundamental fairness. We have long interpreted this standard of fairness to require that criminal defendants be afforded a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense. To safeguard that right, the Court has developed “what might loosely be called the area of constitutionally guaranteed access to evidence.” United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, 458 U. S. 858, 867 (1982). Taken together, this group of constitutional privileges delivers exculpatory evidence into the hands of the accused, thereby protecting the innocent from erroneous conviction and ensuring the integrity of our criminal justice system.
The most rudimentary of the access-to-evidence cases impose upon the prosecution a constitutional obligation to report to the defendant and to the trial court whenever government witnesses lie under oath. Napue v. Illinois, 360 U. S. 264, 269-272 (1959); see also Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103 (1935). But criminal defendants are entitled to much more than protection against perjury. A defendant has a constitutionally protected privilege to request and obtain from the prosecution evidence that is either material to the guilt of the defendant or relevant to the punishment to be imposed. Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S., at 87. Even in the absence of a specific request, the prosecution has a constitutional duty to turn over exculpatory evidence that would raise a reasonable doubt about the defendant’s guilt. United States v. Agurs, 427 U. S., at 112. The prosecution must also reveal the contents of plea agreements with key government witnesses, see Giglio v. United States, 405 U. S. 150 (1972), and under some circumstances may be required to disclose the identity of undercover informants who possess evidence critical to the defense, Roviaro v. United States, 353 U. S. 53 (1957).
Less clear from our access-to-evidence cases is the extent to which the Due Process Clause imposes on the government the additional responsibility of guaranteeing criminal defendants access to exculpatory evidence beyond the government’s possession. On a few occasions, we have suggested that the Federal Government might transgress constitutional limitations if it exercised its sovereign powers so as to hamper a criminal defendant’s preparation for trial. For instance, in United States v. Marion, 404 U. S. 307, 324 (1971), and in United States v. Lovasco, 431 U. S. 783, 795, n. 17 (1977), we intimated that a due process violation might occur if the Government delayed an indictment for so long that the defendant’s ability to mount an effective defense was impaired. Similarly, in United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, supra, we acknowledged that the Government could offend the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment if, by deporting potential witnesses, it diminished a defendant’s opportunity to put on an effective defense. 458 U. S., at 873.
We have, however, never squarely addressed the government’s duty to take affirmative steps to preserve evidence on behalf of criminal defendants. The absence of doctrinal development in this area reflects, in part, the difficulty of developing rules to deal with evidence destroyed through prosecutorial neglect or oversight. Whenever potentially exculpatory evidence is permanently lost, courts face the treacherous task of divining the import of materials whose contents are unknown and, very often, disputed. Cf. United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, supra, at 870. Moreover, fashioning remedies for the illegal destruction of evidence can pose troubling choices. In nondisclosure cases, a court can grant the defendant a new trial at which the previously suppressed evidence may be introduced. But when evidence has been destroyed in violation of the Constitution, the court must choose between barring further prosecution or suppressing — as the California Court of Appeal did in this case— the State’s most probative evidence. '
One case in which we have discussed due process constraints on the Government’s failure to preserve potentially exculpatory evidence is Killian v. United States, 368 U. S. 231 (1961). In Killian, the petitioner had been convicted of giving false testimony in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1001. A key element of the Government’s case was an investigatory report prepared by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Solicitor General conceded that, prior to petitioner’s trial, the F. B. I. agents who prepared the investigatory report destroyed the preliminary, notes they had made while interviewing witnesses. The petitioner argued that these notes would have been helpful to his defense and that the agents had violated the Due Process Clause by destroying this exculpatory evidence. While not denying that the notes might have contributed to the petitioner’s defense, the Court ruled that their destruction did not rise to the level of constitutional violation:
“If the agents’ notes . . . were made only for the purpose of transferring the data thereon . . . , and if, having served that purpose, they were destroyed by the agents in good faith and in accord with their normal practices, it would be clear that their destruction did not constitute an impermissible destruction of evidence nor deprive petitioner of any right.” Id., at 242.
In many respects the instant case is reminiscent of Killian v. United States. To the extent that respondents’ breath samples came into the possession of California authorities, it was for the limited purpose of providing raw data to the Intoxilyzer. The evidence to be presented at trial was not the breath itself but rather the Intoxilyzer results obtained from the breath samples. As the petitioner in Killian wanted the agents’ notes hi order to impeach their final reports, respondents here seek the breath samples in order to challenge incriminating tests results produced with the Intoxilyzer.
Given our precedents in this area, we cannot agree with the California Court of Appeal that the State’s failure to retain breath samples for respondents constitutes a violation of the Federal Constitution. To begin with, California authorities in this case did not destroy respondents’ breath samples in a calculated effort to circumvent the disclosure requirements established by Brady v. Maryland and its progeny. In failing to preserve breath samples for respondents, the officers here were acting “in good faith and in accord with their normal practice.” Killian v. United States, supra, at 242. The record contains no allegation of official animus towards respondents or of a conscious effort to suppress exculpatory evidence.
More importantly, California’s policy of not preserving breath samples is without constitutional defect. Whatever duty the Constitution imposes on the States to preserve evidence, that duty must be limited to evidence that might be expected to play a significant role in the suspect’s defense. To meet this standard of constitutional materiality, see United States v. Agurs, 427 U. S., at 109-110, evidence must both possess an exculpatory value that was apparent before the evidence was destroyed, and be of such a nature that the defendant would be unable to obtain comparable evidence by other reasonably available means. Neither of these conditions is met on the facts of this case.
Although the preservation of breath samples might conceivably have contributed to respondents’ defenses, a dispassionate review of the Intoxilyzer and the California testing procedures can only lead one to conclude that the chances are extremely low that preserved samples would have been exculpatory. The accuracy of the Intoxilyzer has been reviewed and certified by the California Department of Health. To protect suspects against machine malfunctions, the Department has developed test procedures that include two independent measurements (which must be closely correlated for the results to be admissible) bracketed by blank runs designed to ensure that the machine is purged of alcohol traces from previous tests. See supra, at 481-482. In all but a tiny fraction of cases, preserved breath samples would simply confirm the Intoxilyzer’s determination that the defendant had a high level of blood-alcohol concentration at the time of the test. Once the Intoxilyzer indicated that respondents were legally drunk, breath samples were much more likely to provide inculpatory than exculpatory evidence.
Even if one were to assume that the Intoxilyzer results in this case were inaccurate and that breath samples might therefore have been exculpatory, it does not follow that respondents were without alternative means of demonstrating their innocence. Respondents and amici have identified only a limited number of ways in which an Intoxilyzer might malfunction: faulty calibration, extraneous interference with machine measurements, and operator error. See Brief for Respondents 32-34; Brief for California Public Defender’s Association et al. as Amici Curiae 25-40. Respondents were perfectly capable of raising these issues without resort to preserved breath samples. To protect against faulty calibration, California gives drunken driving defendants the opportunity to inspect the machine used to test their breath as well as that machine’s weekly calibration results and the breath samples used in the calibrations. See supra, at 481-482. Respondents could have utilized these data to impeach the machine’s reliability. As to improper measurements, the parties have identified only two sources capable of interfering with test results: radio waves and chemicals that appear in the blood of those who are dieting. For defendants whose test results might have been affected by either of these factors, it remains possible to introduce at trial evidence demonstrating that the defendant was dieting at the time of the test or that the test was conducted near a source of radio waves. Finally, as to operator error, the defendant retains the right to cross-examine the law enforcement officer who administered the Intoxilyzer test, and to attempt to raise doubts in the mind of the factfinder whether the test was properly administered.
H-1 I — H
We conclude, therefore, that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not require that law enforcement agencies preserve breath samples in order to introduce the results of breath-analysis tests at trial. Accordingly, the judgment of the California Court of Appeal is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Law enforcement agencies in California are obliged to use breath-analysis equipment that has been approved by the State’s Department of Health. See 17 Cal. Admin. Code § 1221 (1976). The Department has approved a number of blood-alcohol testing devices employing a variety of technologies, see List of Instruments and Related Accessories Approved for Breath Alcohol Analysis (Dec. 20, 1979), reprinted in App. 238-247, of which the Omicron Intoxilyzer is the most popular model, see Brief for Petitioner 6, n. 6.
Under California law, drunken driving suspects are given the choice of having their blood-alcohol concentraton determined by either a blood test, a urine test, or a breath test. Cal. Veh. Code Ann. § 13353 (West 1971 and Supp. 1984). Suspects who refuse to submit to any test are liable to have their driving licenses suspended. Ibid.
The California Department of Health has approved a device, known as an Intoximeter Field Crimper-Indium Tube Encapsulation Kit (Kit), which officers can use to preserve breath samples. App. 247. To use the Kit, a suspect must breathe directly into an indium tube, which preserves samples in three separate chambers. See 142 Cal. App. 3d 138, 142, 190 Cal. Rptr. 319, 321 (1983). The breath trapped in each chamber can later be used to determine the suspect’s blood-alcohol concentration through the use of a laboratory instrument known as a Gas Chromatograph Intoxi-meter, which has also been approved by the California Department of Health. App. 242-243. Because the suspect must breathe directly into the indium tube, the Kit cannot be used to preserve the same breath sample used in an Intoxilyzer test. See, supra, at 481-482. Other devices, similar in function to the Kit, can be attached to an Intoxilyzer and used to collect the air that the Intoxilyzer purges, see Brief for Respondents 18-19, but none of these devices has yet received approval from the California Department of Health, see Reply Brief for Petitioner 3-4.
The California Court of Appeal expressed some doubt whether respondents Trombetta and Cox were entitled to appeal their suppression orders and ultimately ordered that their appeals be dismissed. 142 Cal. App. 3d, at 140, 143, 190 Cal. Rptr., at 320, 323. The court, however, ruled on the merits of their claims and thereby exercised jurisdiction over their appeals. Id., at 144, 190 Cal. Rptr., at 323. As to Trombetta and Cox, the Court of Appeal decision was comparable to a judgment affirming a suppression order, which is reviewable in this Court under 28 U. S. C. § 1257(3). Cf., e. g., Michigan v. Clifford, 464 U. S. 287 (1984).
People v. Hitch involved another device used to measure blood-alcohol concentrations. With that device, a suspect’s breath bubbles through a glass ampoule containing special chemicals that change colors depending on the amount of alcohol in the suspect’s blood. 12 Cal. 3d, at 644, 527 P. 2d, at 363-364. In keeping with California procedures, law enforcement officials in Hitch discarded the ampoule after they had completed their testing, even though the ampoule might have been saved for retesting by the defendant. Relying on this Court’s decisions in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), and Giglio v. United States, 405 U. S. 150, 153-154 (1972), the California Supreme Court concluded that the Due Process Clause is implicated when a State intentionally destroys evidence that might have proved favorable to a criminal defendant. 12 Cal. 3d, at 645-650, 527 P. 2d, at 364-370. The Hitch decision was noteworthy in that it extrapolated from Brady’s disclosure requirement an additional constitutional duty on the part of prosecutors to preserve potentially exculpatory evidence. See Note, The Right to Independent Testing: A New Hitch in the Preservation of Evidence Doctrine, 75 Colum. L. Rev. 1355, 1364-1368 (1975); cf. United States v. Bryant, 142 U. S. App. D. C. 132, 141, 439 F. 2d 642, 651 (1971) (Wright, J.) (Government must make “ ‘earnest efforts’ to pre serve crucial materials and to find them once a discovery request is made”).
For a number of years, there was uncertainty whether the California courts would extend the Hitch decision to the Intoxilyzer. In People v. Miller, 52 Cal. App. 3d 666, 125 Cal. Rptr. 341 (1975), a Court of Appeal panel refused to extend Hitch because the Intoxilyzer does not reduce breath samples to a preservable form comparable to the ampoules created with the device involved in Hitch. The Court of Appeal in Trombetta declined to follow Miller, and reasoned that as long as there were other methods of preserving specimens (such as the Indium Tube Kit, see n. 3, supra), the State was obliged to preserve a breath sample equivalent to the one used in the Intoxilyzer. 142 Cal. App. 3d, at 143-144, 190 Cal. Rptr., at 322-323.
In related cases arising under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, we have recognized that criminal defendants are entitled to call witnesses on their own behalf and to cross-examine witnesses who have testified on the government’s behalf. See Davis v. Alaska, 415 U. S. 308 (1974); Washington v. Texas, 388 U. S. 14 (1967).
We accept the California Court of Appeal’s conclusion that the Intox-ilyzer procedure brought respondents’ breath samples into the possession of California officials. The capacity to preserve breath samples is equivalent to the actual possession of samples. See n. 5, supra.
In our prosecutorial disclosure cases, we have imposed a similar requirement of materiality, United States v. Agurs, 427 U. S. 97 (1976), and have rejected the notion that a “prosecutor has a constitutional duty routinely to deliver his entire file to defense counsel.” Id., at 111; see also Moore v. Illinois, 408 U. S. 786, 795 (1972) (“We know of no constitutional requirement that the prosecution make a complete and detailed accounting to the defense of all police investigatory work on a case”).
The Intoxilyzer has also passed accuracy requirements established by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the Department of Transportation. See 38 Fed. Reg. 30459 (1973); A. Flores, Results of the First Semi-Annual Qualification Testing of Devices to Measure Breath Alcohol 10 (Dept, of Transportation 1975).
The materiality of breath samples is directly related to the reliability of the Intoxilyzer itself. The degree to which preserved samples are material depends on how reliable the Intoxilyzer is. This correlation suggests that a more direct constitutional attack might be made on the sufficiency of the evidence underlying the State’s case. After all, if the Intoxilyzer were truly prone to erroneous readings, then Intoxilyzer results without more might be insufficient to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979).
Respondents could also have protected themselves from erroneous on-the-scene testing by electing to submit to urine or blood tests, see n. 2, supra, because the State automatically would have preserved urine and blood samples for retesting by respondents. Respondents, however, were not informed of the difference between the various testing procedures when they were asked to select among the three available methods of testing blood-alcohol concentrations. But see Cal. Veh. Code Ann. § 13353.5 (West 1971) (enacted in 1983) (requiring suspects to be informed that samples will be retained only in urine and blood tests). To the extent that this and other access-to-evidence cases turn on the underlying fairness of governmental procedures, it would be anomalous to permit the State to justify its actions by relying on procedural alternatives that were available, but unknown to the defendant. Similarly, it is irrelevant to our inquiry that California permits an accused drunken driver to have a second blood-alcohol test conducted by independent experts, since there is no evidence on this record that respondents were aware of this alternative.
State courts and legislatures, of course, remain free to adopt more rigorous safeguards governing the admissibility of scientific evidence than those imposed by the Federal Constitution. See, e. g., Lauderdale v. State, 548 P. 2d 376 (Alaska 1976); City of Lodi v. Hine, 107 Wis. 2d 118, 318 N. W. 2d 383 (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:
|
D
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court:
In 1977, the Minnesota Legislature enacted a statute banning the retail sale of milk in plastic nonreturnable, nonrefillable containers, but permitting such sale in other nonreturnable, nonrefillable containers, such as paperboard milk cartons. 1977 Minn. Laws, ch. 268, Minn. Stat. § 116F.21 (1978). Respondents contend that the statute violates the Equal Protection and Commerce Clauses of the Constitution.
I
The purpose of the Minnesota statute is set out as § 1:
“The legislature finds that the use of nonreturnable, nonrefillable containers for the packaging of milk and other milk products presents a solid waste management problem for the state, promotes energy waste, and depletes natural resources. The legislature therefore, in furtherance of the policies stated in Minnesota Statutes, Section 116F.01,[] determines that the use of nonreturnable, nonrefillable containers for packaging milk and other milk products should be discouraged and that the use of returnable and reusable packaging for these products is preferred and should be encouraged.” 1977 Minn. Laws, ch. 268, § 1, codified as Minn. Stat. § 116F.21 (1978).
Section 2 of the Act forbids the retail sale of milk and fluid milk products, other than sour cream, cottage cheese, and yogurt, in nonreturnable, nonrefillable rigid or semirigid containers composed at least 50% of plastic.
The Act was introduced with the support of the state Pollution Control Agency, Department of Natural Resources, Department of Agriculture, Consumer Services Division, and Energy Agency, and debated vigorously in both houses of the state legislature. Proponents of the legislation argued that it would promote resource conservation, ease solid waste disposal problems, and conserve energy. Relying on the results of studies and other information, they stressed the need to stop introduction of the plastic nonreturnable container before it became entrenched in the market. Opponents of the Act, also presenting empirical evidence, argued that the Act would not promote the goals asserted by the proponents, but would merely increase costs of retail milk products and prolong the use of ecologically undesirable paperboard milk cartons.
After the Act was passed, respondents filed suit in Minnesota District Court, seeking to enjoin its enforcement. The court conducted extensive evidentiary hearings into the Act’s probable consequences, and found the evidence “in sharp conflict.” App. A-25. Nevertheless, finding itself “as fact-finder . . . obliged to weigh and evaluate this evidence,” ibid., the court resolved the evidentiary conflicts in favor of respondents, and concluded that the Act “will not succeed in effecting the Legislature’s published policy goals . . . .” Id., at A-21. The court further found that, contrary to the statement of purpose in § 1, the “actual basis” for the Act “was to promote the economic interests of certain segments of the' local dairy and pulpwood industries at the expense of the economic interests of other segments of the dairy industry and the plastics industry.” Id., at A-19. The court therefore declared the Act “null, void, and unenforceable” and enjoined its enforcement, basing the judgment on substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Art. 1, § 7, of the Minnesota Constitution; equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment; and prohibition of unreasonable burdens on interstate commerce under Art. I, § 8, of the United States Constitution. App. A-23.
The State appealed to the Supreme Court of Minnesota, which affirmed the District Court on the federal equal protection and due process grounds, without reaching the Commerce Clause or state-law issues. 289 N. W. 2d 79 (1979). Unlike the District Court, the State Supreme Court found that the purpose of the Act was “to promote the state in terests of encouraging the reuse and. recycling of materials and reducing the amount and type of material entering the solid waste stream,” and acknowledged the legitimacy of this purpose. Id., at 82. Nevertheless, relying on the District Court’s findings of fact, the full record, and an independent review of documentary sources, the State Supreme Court held that “the evidence conclusively demonstrates that the discrimination against plastic nonrefillables is not rationally related to the Act’s objectives.” Ibid. We granted certiorari, 445 U. S. 949, and now reverse.
II
The parties agree that the standard of review applicable to this case under the Equal Protection Clause is the familiar “rational basis” test. See Vance v. Bradley, 440 U. S. 93, 97 (1979); New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U. S. 297, 303 (1976). Moreover, they agree that the purposes of the Act cited by the legislature — promoting resource conservation, easing solid waste disposal problems, and conserving energy— are legitimate state purposes. Thus, the controversy in this case centers on the narrow issue whether the legislative classification between plastic and nonplastic nonreturnable milk containers is rationally related to achievement of the statutory purposes.
A
Respondents apparently have not challenged the theoretical connection between a ban on plastic nonreturnables and the purposes articulated by the legislature; instead, they have argued that there is no empirical connection between the two. They produced impressive supporting evidence at trial to prove that the probable consequences of the ban on plastic nonreturnable milk containers will be to deplete natural resources, exacerbate solid waste disposal problems, and waste energy, because consumers unable to purchase milk in plastic containers will turn to paperboard milk cartons, allegedly a more environmentally harmful product.
But' States are not required to convince the courts of the correctness of their legislative judgments. Rather, “those challenging the legislative judgment must convince the court that the legislative facts on which the classification is apparently based could not reasonably be conceived to be true by the governmental decisionmaker.” Vance v. Bradley, 440 U. S., at 111. See also Day-Brite Lighting, Inc. v. Missouri, 342 U. S. 421, 425 (1952); Henderson Co. v. Thompson, 300 U. S. 258, 264-265 (1937).
Although parties challenging legislation under the Equal Protection Clause may introduce evidence supporting their claim that it is irrational, United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 153-154 (1938), they cannot prevail so long as “it is evident from all the considerations presented to [the legislature], and those of which we may take judicial notice, that the question is at least debatable.” Id., at 154. Where there was evidence before the legislature reasonably supporting the classification, litigants may not procure invalidation of the legislation merely by tendering evidence in court that the legislature was mistaken.
The District Court candidly admitted that the evidence was “in sharp conflict,” App. A-25, but resolved the conflict in favor of respondents and struck down the statute. The Supreme Court of Minnesota, however, did not reverse on the basis of this patent violation of the principles governing rationality analysis under the Equal Protection Clause. Rather, the court analyzed the statute afresh under the Equal Protection Clause, and reached the conclusion that the statute is constitutionally invalid. The State contends that in this analysis the court impermissibly substituted its judgment for that of the legislature. We turn now to that argument.
B
The State identifies four reasons why the classification between plastic and nonplastic nonreturnables is rationally related to the articulated statutory purposes. If any one of the four substantiates the State’s claim, we must reverse the Minnesota Supreme Court and sustain the Act.
First, the State argues that elimination of the popular plastic milk jug will encourage the use of environmentally superior containers. There is no serious doubt that the plastic containers consume energy resources and require solid waste disposal, nor that refillable bottles and plastic pouches are environmentally superior. Citing evidence that the plastic jug is the most popular, and the gallon paperboard carton the most cumbersome and least well regarded package in the industry, the State argues that the ban on plastic nonreturnables will buy time during which environmentally preferable alternatives may be further developed and promoted.
As Senator Spear argued during the Senate debate:
“[T]his bill is designed to prevent the beginning of another system of non-returnables that is going to be very, very difficult [to stop] once it begins. It is true that our alternative now is not a returnable system in terms of milk bottles. Hopefully we are eventually going to be able to move to that kind of a system, but we are never going to move to a returnable system so long as we allow another non-returnable system with all the investment and all of the vested interest that that is going to involve to begin.” Transcript of the Full Senate Floor Discussion of H. F. 45, p. 6 (May 20, 1977), reprinted as Plaintiffs’ Exhibit J.
Accord, id., at 1-2 (statement of Sen. Luther).
The Minnesota Supreme Court dismissed this asserted state interest as “speculative and illusory.” 289 N. W. 2d, at 86. The court expressed doubt that the Minnesota Legislature or Pollution Control Agency would take any further steps to promote environmentally sound milk packaging, and stated that there is no evidence that paperboard cartons will cease to be used in Minnesota. Ibid.
We find the State’s approach fully supportable under our precedents. This Court has made clear that a legislature need not “strike at all evils at the same time or in the same way,” Semler v. Oregon State Board of Dental Examiners, 294 U. S. 608, 610 (1935), and that a legislature “may implement [its] program step by step, . . . adopting regulations that only partially ameliorate a perceived evil and deferring complete elimination of the evil to future regulations.” New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U. S., at 303. See also Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S. 641, 657 (1966); Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 489 (1955); Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York, 336 U. S. 106, 110 (1949). The Equal Protection Clause does not deny the State of Minnesota the authority to ban one type of milk container conceded to cause environmental problems, merely because another type, already established in the market, is permitted to continue in use. Whether in fact the Act will promote more environmentally desirable milk packaging is not the question: the Equal Protection Clause is satisfied by our conclusion that the Minnesota Legislature could rationally have decided that its ban on plastic nonreturnable milk jugs might foster greater use of environmentally desirable alternatives.
Second, the State argues that its ban on plastic nonreturnable milk containers will reduce the economic dislocation foreseen from the movement toward greater use of environmentally superior containers. The State notes that plastic nonreturnables have only recently been introduced on a wide scale in Minnesota, and that, at the time the legislature was considering the Act, many Minnesota dairies were preparing to invest large amounts of capital in plastic container production. As Representative Munger, chief sponsor of the bill in the House of Representatives, explained:
“Minnesota’s dairy market is on the verge of making a major change over from essentially a paperboard container system to a system of primarily single use, throwaway plastic bottles. The major dairies in our state have ordered the blow-mold equipment to manufacture in plant the non-returnable plastic milk bottle. Members of the House, I feel now is an ideal time for this legislation when only one dairy in our state is firmly established in manufacturing and marketing the throwaway plastic milk bottle.” Transcript of the Debate of the Minnesota House of Representatives on H. F. 45, p. 2 (Mar. 10, 1977), reprinted as Plaintiffs’ Exhibit J.
See also Transcript of the Full Senate Floor Discussion on H. F. 45, p. 6 (May 20, 1977), reprinted as Plaintiffs’ Exhibit J (statement of Sen. Milton); id., at 9 (statement of Sen. Schaaf); id., at 10-11 (statement of Sen. Perpich).
Moreover, the State explains, to ban both the plastic and the paperboard nonreturnable milk container at once would cause an enormous disruption in the milk industry because few dairies are now able to package their products in refillable bottles or plastic pouches. Thus, by banning the plastic container while continuing to permit the paperboard container, the State was able to prevent the industry from becoming reliant on the new container, while avoiding severe economic dislocation.
The Minnesota Supreme Court did not directly address this justification, but we find it supported by our precedents as well. In New Orleans v. Dukes, supra, we upheld a city regulation banning pushcart food vendors, but exempting from the ban two vendors who had operated in the city for over eight years. Noting that the “city could reasonably decide that newer businesses were less likely to have built up substantial reliance interests in continued operation,” we held that the city “could rationally choose initially to eliminate vendors of more recent vintage.” Id., at 305. Accord, United States v. Maryland Savings-Share Ins. Cory., 400 U. S. 4, 6 (1970). This case is not significantly different. The state legislature concluded that nonreturnable, nonrefillable milk containers pose environmental hazards, and decided to ban the most recent entry into the field. The fact that the legislature in effect “grandfathered” paperboard containers, at least temporarily, does not make the Act’s ban on plastic nonreturnables arbitrary or irrational.
Third, the State argues that the Act will help to conserve energy. It points out that plastic milk jugs are made from plastic resin, an oil and natural gas derivative, whereas paperboard milk cartons are primarily composed of pulpwood, which is a renewable resource. This point was stressed by the Act’s proponents in the legislature. Senator Luther commented: “We have been through an energy crisis in Minnesota. We know what it is like to go without and what we are looking at here is a total blatant waste of petroleum and natural gas . . . .” Transcript of the Pull Senate Floor Discussion on H. F. 45, p. 12 (May 20, 1977), reprinted as Plaintiffs’ Exhibit J. Representative Munger said in a similar vein:
“A sweep to the plastic throwaway bottle in the gallon size container alone would use enough additional natural gas and petroleum to heat 3,100 homes each year in Minnesota when compared to a refillable system and 1,400 compared to the present paperboard system. Plastic containers are made from a non-renewable resource while the paperboard is made from Minnesota’s forest products.” Transcript of the Debate of the Minnesota House of Representatives on H. F. 45, p. 2 (Mar. 10, 1977), reprinted as Plaintiffs’ Exhibit J.
The Minnesota Supreme Court held, in effect, that the legislature misunderstood the facts. The court admitted that the results of a reliable study support the legislature’s conclusion that less energy is consumed in the production of paperboard containers than in the production of plastic nonreturnables, but, after crediting the contrary testimony of respondents’ expert witness and altering certain factual assumptions, the court concluded that “production of plastic nonrefillables requires less energy than production of paper containers.” 289 N. W. 2d, at 85.
The Minnesota Supreme Court may be correct that the Act is not a sensible means of conserving energy. But we reiterate that “it is up to legislatures, not courts, to decide on the wisdom and utility of legislation.” Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726, 729 (1963). Since in view of the evidence before the legislature, the question clearly is “at least debatable,” United States v. Carotene Products Co., 304 U. S., at 154, the Minnesota Supreme Court erred in substituting its judgment for that of the legislature.
Fourth, the State argues that the Act will ease the State’s solid waste disposal problem. Most solid consumer wastes in Minnesota are disposed of in landfills. A reputable study before the Minnesota Legislature indicated that plastic milk jugs occupy a greater volume in landfills than other nonreturnable milk containers. This was one of the legislature’s major concerns. For example, in introducing the bill to the House of Representatives, Representative Munger asked rhe-torieally: “Why do we need this legislation?” Part of his answer to the query was that “the plastic non-refillable containers will increase the problems of solid waste in our state.” Transcript of the Debate of the Minnesota House of Representatives on H. F. 45, p. 1 (Mar. 10, 1977), reprinted as Plaintiffs’ Exhibit J.
The Minnesota Supreme Court found that plastic milk jugs in fact take up less space in landfills and present fewer solid waste disposal problems than do paperboard containers. 289 N. W. 2d, at 82-85. But its ruling on this point must be rejected for the same reason we rejected its ruling concerning energy conservation: it is not the function of the courts to substitute their evaluation of legislative facts for that of the legislature.
We therefore conclude that the ban on plastic nonreturnable milk containers bears a rational relation to the State’s objectives, and must be sustained under the Equal Protection Clause.
Ill
The District Court also held that the Minnesota statute is unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause because it imposes an unreasonable burden on interstate commerce. We cannot agree.
When legislating in areas of legitimate local concern, such as environmental protection and resource conservation, States are nonetheless limited by the Commerce Clause. See Lewis v. BT Investment Managers, Inc., 447 U. S. 27, 36 (1980); Hunt v. Washington Apple Advertising Comm’n, 432 U. S. 333, 350 (1977); Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U. S. 761, 767 (1945). If a state law purporting to promote environmental purposes is in reality “simple economic protectionism,” we have applied a “virtually per se rule of invalidity.” Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S. 617, 624 (1978). Even if a statute regulates “evenhandedly,” and imposes only “incidental” burdens on interstate commerce, the courts must nevertheless strike it down if “the burden imposed on such commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.” Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137, 142 (1970). Moreover, “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.” Ibid.
Minnesota’s statute does not effect “simple protectionism,” but “regulates evenhandedly” by prohibiting all milk retailers from selling their products in plastic, nonreturnable milk containers, without regard to whether the milk, the containers, or the sellers are from outside the State. This statute is therefore unlike statutes discriminating against interstate commerce, which we have consistently struck down. E. g., Lewis v. BT Investment Managers, Inc., supra (Florida statutory scheme prohibiting investment advisory services by bank holding companies with principal offices out of the State); Hughes v. Oklahoma, 441 U. S. 322 (1979) (Oklahoma statute prohibiting the export of natural minnows from the State); Philadelphia v. New Jersey, supra (New Jersey statute prohibiting importation of solid and liquid wastes into the State); Hunt v. Washington Apple Advertising Gomm’n, supra (North Carolina statute imposing additional costs on Washington, but not on North Carolina, apple shippers).
Since the statute does not discriminate between interstate and intrastate commerce, the controlling question is whether the incidental burden imposed on interstate commerce by the Minnesota Act is “clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.” Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., supra, at 142. We conclude that it is not.
The burden imposed on interstate commerce by the statute is relatively minor. Milk products may continue to move freely across the Minnesota border, and since most dairies package their products in more than one type of containers, the inconvenience of having to conform to different packaging requirements in Minnesota and the surrounding States should be slight. See Pacific States Box & Basket Co. v. White, 296 U. S. 176, 184 (1935). Within Minnesota, business will presumably shift from manufacturers of plastic nonreturnable containers to producers of paperboard cartons, refillable bot-ties, and plastic pouches, but there is no reason to suspect that the gainers will be Minnesota firms, or the losers out-of-state firms. Indeed, two of the three dairies, the sole milk retailer, and the sole milk container producer challenging the statute in this litigation are Minnesota firms.
Pulpwood producers are the only Minnesota industry likely to benefit significantly from the Act at the expense of out-of-state firms. Respondents point out that plastic resin, the raw material used for making plastic nonreturnable milk jugs, is produced entirely by non-Minnesota firms, while pulpwood, used for making paperboard, is a major Minnesota product. Nevertheless, it is clear that respondents exaggerate the degree of burden on out-of-state interests, both because plastics will continue to be used in the production of plastic pouches, plastic returnable bottles, and paperboard itself, and because out-of-state pulpwood producers will presumably absorb some of the business generated by the Act.
Even granting that the out-of-state plastics industry is burdened relatively more heavily than the Minnesota pulpwood industry, we find that this burden is not “clearly excessive” in light of the substantial state interest in promoting conservation of energy and other natural resources and easing solid waste disposal problems, which we have already reviewed in the context of equal protection analysis. See supra, at 465-470. We find these local benefits ample to support Minnesota’s decision under the Commerce Clause. Moreover, we find that no approach with “a lesser impact on interstate activities,” Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., supra, at 142, is available. Respondents have suggested several alternative statutory schemes, but these alternatives are either more burdensome on commerce than the Act (as, for example, banning all nonreturnables) or less likely to be effective (as, for example, providing incentives for recycling). See Brief for Respondents 32-33.
In Exxon Corp. v. Governor of Maryland, 437 U. S. 117 (1978), we upheld a Maryland statute barring producers and refiners of petroleum products — all of which were out-of-state businesses — from retailing gasoline in the State. We stressed that the Commerce Clause “protects the interstate market, not particular interstate firms, from prohibitive or burdensome regulations.” Id., at 127-128. A nondiscriminatory regulation serving substantial state purposes is not invalid simply because it causes some business to shift from a predominantly out-of-state industry to a predominantly in-state industry. Only if the burden on interstate commerce clearly outweighs the State’s legitimate purposes does such a regulation violate the Commerce Clause.
The judgment of the Minnesota Supreme Court is
Reversed.
Justice Rehnquist took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Respondents, plaintiffs below, are a Minnesota dairy that owns equipment for producing plastic nonreturnable milk jugs, a Minnesota dairy' that leases such equipment, a non-Minnesota company that manufactures such equipment, a Minnesota company that produces plastic nonreturnable milk jugs, a non-Minnesota dairy that sells milk products in Minnesota in plastic nonreturnable milk jugs, a Minnesota milk retailer, a non-Minnesota manufacturer of polyethylene resin that sells such resin in many States, including Minnesota, and a plastics industry trade association.
Minnesota Stat. § 116F.01 (1978) provides in relevant part:
“Statement of policy. The legislature seeks to encourage both the reduction of the amount and type of material entering the solid waste stream and the reuse and recycling of materials. Solid waste represents discarded materials and energy resources, and it also represents an economic burden to the people of the state. The recycling of solid waste materials is one alternative for the conservation of material and energy resources, but it is also in the public interest to reduce the amount of materials requiring recycling or disposal.”
Minnesota is apparently the first State so to regulate milk containers. 289 N. W. 2d 79, 81, n. 6 (1979).
Transcript of the Debate of the Minnesota House of Representatives on H. F. 45, p. 1 (Mar. 10, 1977), reprinted as Plaintiffs’ Exhibit J.
The principal empirical study cited in legislative debate, see, e. g., Transcript of the Full Senate Floor Discussion on H. F. 45, p. 12 (May 20, 1977), reprinted as Plaintiffs’ Exhibit J (statement of Sen. Luther), is Midwest Research Institute, Resource and Environmental Profile Analysis of Five Milk Container Systems, admitted into evidence as Plaintiffs’ Exhibit I.
Justice Stevens’ dissenting opinion argues that the Minnesota Supreme Court when reviewing a challenge to a Minnesota statute on equal protection grounds is not bound by the limits applicable to federal courts, but may independently reach conclusions contrary to those of the legislature concerning legislative facts bearing on the wisdom or utility of the legislation. This argument, though novel, is without merit. A state court may, of course, apply a more stringent standard of review as a matter of state law under the State’s equivalent to the Equal Protection or Due Process Clauses. E. g., Baker v. City of Fairbanks, 471 P. 2d 386, 401-402 (Alaska 1970); Serrano v. Priest, 18 Cal. 3d 728, 76A-765, 557 P. 2d 929, 950-951 (1976), cert. denied, 432 U. S. 907 (1977); State v. Kaluna, 55 Haw. 361, 368-369, 520 P. 2d 51, 58-59 (1974); see Brennan, State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights, 90 Harv. L. Rev. 489 (1977). And as the dissent correctly notes, post, at 479-481, the States are free to allocate the lawmaking function to whatever branch of state government they may choose. Uphaus v. Wyman, 360 U. S. 72, 77 (1959); Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U. S. 234, 256-257 (1957) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in result); Dreyer v. Illinois, 187 U. S. 71, 83-84 (1902). But when a state court reviews state legislation challenged as violative of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is not free to impose greater restrictions as a matter of federal constitutional law than this Court has imposed. Oregon v. Hass, 420 U S. 714, 719 (1975).
The standard of review under equal protection rationality analysis— without regard to which branch of the state government has made the legislative judgment — is governed by federal constitutional law, and a state court’s application of that standard is fully reviewable in this Court on writ of certiorari. 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (3). Justice SteveNS concedes the flaw in his argument when he admits that “a state court’s decision invalidating state legislation on federal constitutional grounds may be reversed by this Court if the state court misinterpreted the relevant federal constitutional standard.” Post, at 489. And contrary to his argument that today’s judgment finds “no precedent in this Court’s decisions,” post, at 482, we have frequently reversed State Supreme Court decisions invalidating state statutes or local ordinances on the basis of equal protection analysis more stringent than that sanctioned by this Court. E. g., Idaho Dept. of Employment v. Smith, 434 U. S. 100 (1977); Arlington County Board v. Richards, 434 U. S. 5 (1977); Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U. S. 24 (1974); Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts Co., 410 U. S. 356 (1973). See also North Dakota Pharmacy Board v. Snyder’s Drug Stores, Inc., 414 U. S. 156 (1973); Dean v. Gadsen Times Publishing Corp., 412 U. S. 543 (1973); McDaniel v. Barresi, 402 U. S. 39 (1971). Never have we suggested that our review of the judgments in such cases differs in any relevant respect because they were reached by state courts rather than federal courts.
Indeed, Justice SteveNS has changed his own view. Previously he has stated that state-court decisions under the Fourteenth Amendment granting litigants “more protection than the Federal Constitution requires,” are in error. Idaho Dept. of Employment v. Smith, supra, at 104 (Stevens, J., dissenting in part). This is in agreement with the conclusion of one commentator:
“In reviewing state court resolutions of federal constitutional issues, the Supreme Court has not differentiated between those decisions which sustain and those which reject claims of federal constitutional right. In both instances, once having granted review, the Court has simply determined whether the state court’s federal constitutional decision is 'correct/ meaning, in this context, whether it is the decision that the Supreme Court would independently reach.” Sager, Fair Measure: The Legal Status of Underenforced Constitutional Norms, 91 Harv. L. Bev. 1212, 1243 (1978) (footnote omitted).
Thus, Justice SteveNs’ argument in the dissenting opinion that today’s treatment of the instant case is extraordinary and unprecedented, see post, at 482, and n. 7, is simply wrong.
Respondents, citing the District Court’s Finding of Fact No. 12, App. A-19, also assert that the actual purpose for the Act was illegitimate: to “isolate from interstate competition the interests of certain segments of the local dairy and pulpwood industries.” Brief for Respondents 23. We accept the contrary holding of the Minnesota Supreme Court that the articulated purpose of the Act is its actual purpose. See 289 N. W. 2d, at 82. In equal protection analysis, this Court will assume that the objectives articulated by the legislature are actual purposes of the statute, unless an examination of the circumstances forces us to conclude that they “could not have been a goal of the legislation.” See Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S. 636, 648, n. 16 (1975); Here, a review of the legislative history supports the Minnesota Supreme Court’s conclusion that the principal purposes of the Act were to promote conservation and ease solid waste disposal problems. The contrary evidence cited by respondents, see Brief for Respondents 29-31, is easily understood, in context, as economic defense of an Act genuinely proposed for environmental reasons. We will not invalidate a state statute under the Equal Protection Clause merely because some legislators sought to obtain votes for the measure on the basis of its beneficial side effects on state industry.
We express no view whether the District Court could have dismissed this case on the pleadings or granted summary judgment for the State on the basis of the legislative history, without hearing respondents’ evidence. See Vance v. Bradley, 440 U. S. 93, 109-112 (1979); Baydde Fish Flour Co. v. Gentry, 297 U. S. 422 (1936).
See n. 5, supra.
The court adopted the higher of two possible measurements of energy consumption from paperboard production, apparently because the lower figure contemplated the use of waste products, such as sawdust, for energy production. In addition, the court substituted a lower measurement of the energy consumption from plastic nonretumable production for that used in the study. 289 N. W. 2d, at 84-85.
This was the conclusion of the Midwest Research Institute study, see n. 5, supra. Brief for Petitioner 21.
The District Court also held that the Act violated substantive due process, and was apparently affirmed by the State Supreme Court on this ground. Conclusion of Law No. 1, App. A-23; 289 N. W. 2d, at 87, n. 20. From our conclusion under equal protection, however, it follows a fortiori that the Act does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. See Exxon Corp. v. Governor of Maryland, 437 U. S. 117, 124-125 (1978); Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726 (1963).
“The Congress shall have Power ... To regulate Commerce . . . among the several States . . . .” U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3.
The Minnesota Supreme Court did not reach the Commerce Clause issue. 289 N. W. 2d, at 87, n. 20. The parties and amici have fully briefed and argued the question, and because of the obvious factual connection between the rationality analysis under the Equal Protection Clause and the balancing of interests under the Commerce Clause, we will reach and decide the question. See New York City Transit Authority v. Beazer, 440 U. S. 568, 583, n. 24 (1979).
A court may find that a state law constitutes “economic protectionism” on proof either of discriminatory effect, see Philadelphia v. New Jersey, or of discriminatory purpose, see Hunt v. Washington Apple Advertising Comm’n, 432 U. S., at 352-353. Respondents advance a “discriminatory purpose” argument, relying on a finding by the District Court that the Act’s “actual basis was to promote the economic interests of certain segments of the local dairy and pulpwood industries at the expense of the economic interests of other segments of the dairy industry and the plasties industry.” App. A-19. We have already considered and rejected this argument in the equal protection context, see n. 7, supra, and do so in this context as well.
Respondent Wells Dairy, an Iowa firm, sells 60% of its milk in plastic nonreturnable containers, and the remainder in other types of packages, including paperboard cartons. Tr. 419, 426, 439. The Chairman of the Board of respondent Marigold Foods, Inc., a Minnesota dairy, admitted at trial that his firm would continue to sell milk in plastic nonreturnable containers in other States, despite the passage of the Act. Id., at 474.
See n. 1, supra. The existence of major in-state interests adversely affected by the Act is a powerful safeguard against legislative abuse. South Carolina State Highway Dept. v. Barnwell Bros., Inc., 303 U. S. 177, 187 (1938).
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 concerns regulations relating to the customs classification of certain imported goods. The regulations were issued by the United States Customs Service with approval of the Secretary of the Treasury. The question is whether these regulations, deemed controlling by the Treasury, are entitled to judicial deference in a refund suit brought in the Court of International Trade. Contrary to the position of that court and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, we hold the regulation in question is subject to the analysis required by Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), and that if it is a reasonable interpretation and implementation of an ambiguous statutory provision, it must be given judicial deference.
I
Respondent Haggar Apparel Co. designs, manufactures, and markets apparel for men. This matter arises from a refund proceeding for duties imposed on men’s trousers shipped by respondent to this country from an assembly plant it controlled in Mexico. The fabric had been cut in the United States and then shipped to Mexico, along with the thread, buttons, and zippers necessary to complete the garments. App. 37-38. There the trousers were sewn and reshipped to the United States. If that had been the full extent of it, there would be no dispute, for if there were mere assembly without other steps, all agree the imported garments would have been eligible for the duty exemption which respondent claims.
Respondent, one other step at the Mexican plant: permapressing. Per-mapressing is designed to maintain a garment’s crease in the desired place and to avoid other creases or wrinkles that detract from its proper appearance. There are various methods and sequences by which permapressing can be accomplished, and one of respondent’s contentions is that the Treasury’s categorical approach fails to take these differences into account.
For the permapressed ent purchased fabric in the United States that had been treated with a chemical resin. Id., at 37. After the treated fabric had been cut in the United States, shipped to Mexico, and sewn and given a regular pressing there, respondent baked the garments in an oven at the Mexican facility before tagging and shipping them to the United States. The baking operation took some 12 to 15 minutes. Id., at 38. With the right heat, the preapplied chemical was activated and the permapress quality was imparted to the garment. If it had delayed baking until the articles returned to the United States, respondent would have had to take extra, otherwise unnecessary steps in the United States before shipping the garments to retailers. Id., at 127-128; App. to Pet. for Cert. 20a~21a. In addition, respondent maintained below, there would have been a risk that during shipping unwanted creases and wrinkles might have developed in the otherwise finished garments. Ibid.
The Customs process in addition to assembly, and denied a duty exemption; respondent claimed the baking was simply part of the assembly process, or, in the words of the controlling statute, an “operatio[n] incidental to the assembly process.” Subheading 9802.00.80, Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS), 19 U. S. C. § 1202; Item 807.00, Tariff Schedule of the United States (TSUS), 19 U. S. C. § 1202 (1982 ed.). Respondent's case was made more difficult by a regulation, to be discussed further, that deems all perma-pressing operations to be an additional step in manufacture, not part of or incidental to the assembly process. See 19 CFR § 10.16(c) (1998). The issue before us is the force and effect of the regulation in subsequent judicial proceedings.
sought for the perma-pressed articles, respondent brought suit for refund in the Court of International Trade. The court declined to treat the regulation as controlling. 938 F. Supp. 868, 874-875 (1996). In making its determination, the court relied on a detailed analysis stemming from United States v. Mast Industries, Inc., 668 F. 2d 501 (CCPA 1981), a leading precedent on this duty exemption from the predecessor to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Mast Industries, in fact, involved garment fabrication and assembly, though the Court of International Trade drew also on cases involving other assembly operations. E. g., 938 F. Supp., at 872 (citing General Motors Corp. v. United States, 976 F. 2d 716 (CA Fed. 1992) (painting of sheet metal component parts used in motor vehicles)). The court ruled in favor of respondent. 938 F. Supp., at 875. On review, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit declined to analyze the regulation under Chevron, and affirmed. 127 F. 3d 1460, 1462 (1997). We granted certiorari, 524 U. S. 981 (1998), and we now vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings.
>*H HH
The statute on which respondent relies provides importers a partial exemption from duties otherwise imposed. The exemption extends to:
"Articles . . . assembled abroad in whole or in part of fabricated components, the product of the United States, which . . . (c) have not been advanced in value or improved in condition abroad except by being assembled and except by operations incidental to the assembly process such as cleaning, lubricating and painting.” Subheading 9802.00.80, HTSUS, 19 U. S. C. §1202.
(The HTSUS became law on January 1, 1989, replacing the provisions of the former TSUS. See 19 U. S. C. §3004. Item 807.00 of the TSUS, the previous statute which governs some of the shipments at issue in this case, is identical to HTSUS Subheading 9802.00.80.)
spect to permapressed articles provides as follows:
“Any significant process, or other than assembly whose primary purpose is the fabrication, completion, physical or chemical improvement of a component, or which is not related to the assembly process, whether or not it effects a substantial transformation of the article, shall not be regarded as incidental to the assembly and shall preclude the application of the exemption to such article. The following are examples of operations not considered incidental to the assembly ...:
“(4) Chemical treatment of components or assembled articles to impart new characteristics, such as shower-proofing, permapressing, sanforizing, dying or bleaching of textiles.” 19 CFR § 10.16(c) (1998).
The regulation was adopted in 1975 by the Commissioner of Customs upon approval by the Treasury Department, after notice-and-comment rulemaking. See 39 Fed. Reg. 24651 (1974) (proposed regulation); 40 Fed. Reg. 43021 (1975) (final regulation).
In contending that the purview of the Chevron framework, respondent advances two sets of arguments. First, citing the terms of the regulation and its enabling statutes, respondent contends the regulation is limited in application to customs officers themselves and is not intended to govern the adjudication of importers’ refund suits in the Court of International Trade. Second, in reliance on the authority and jurisdiction of the Court of International Trade, respondent argues that even if the Treasury Department did intend the regulation to bear on the determination of refund suits, the Court of International Trade is empowered to interpret the tariff statute without giving the usual deference to regulations issued by the administering agency.
to the first set of arguments, respondent says the regulation binds Customs Service employees when they classify imported merchandise under the tariff schedules but does not bind the importers themselves. The statutory scheme does not support this limited view of the force and effect of the regulation. The Customs Service (which is within the Treasury Department) is charged with the classification of imported goods under the proper provision of the tariff schedules in the first instance. There is specific statutory direction to this effect: “The Customs Service shall, under rules and regulations prescribed by the Secretary [of the Treasury,] ... fix the final classification and rate of duty applicable to” imported goods. 19 U. S. C. § 1500(b). In addition, the Secretary is directed by statute to “establish and promulgate such rules and regulations not inconsistent with the law ... as may be necessary to secure a just, impartial and uniform appraisement of imported merchandise and the classification and assessment of duties thereon at the various ports of entry.” § 1502(a). See also General Headnote 11, TSUS, 19 U. S. C. § 1202 (1982 ed.) (authorizing the Secretary “to issue rules and regulations governing the admission of articles under the provisions” of the tariff schedules); General Note 20, HTSUS, 19 U. S. C. § 1202 (same). The Secretary, in turn, has delegated to the Commissioner of Customs the authority to issue generally applicable regulations, sub-jeet to the Secretary’s approval. Treasury Dept. Order No. 165, T. D. 53160 (Dec. 15,1952).
tary to make rules of classification for “the various ports of entry” to argue that the statute authorizes promulgation of regulations that do nothing more than ensure that customs officers in field offices around the country classify goods according to a similar and consistent scheme. The regulations issued under the statute have no bearing, says respondent, on the rights of the importer. We disagree. The phrase in question is explained by the simple fact that classification decisions must be made at the port where goods enter. We shall not assume Congress was concerned only to ensure that customs officials at the various ports of entry make uniform decisions but that it had no concern for uniformity once the goods entered the country and judicial proceedings commenced. The tariffs do not mean one thing for customs officers and another for importers. It is of course possible, even common, for agencies to give instructions or legal opinions to their officers and employees in one form or another, without intending to bind the public. Cf. Crandon v. United States, 494 U. S. 152, 177 (1990) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment). The statutory authorization for the regulations in this case, we conclude, was not limited in this way. Like other regulations which help to define the legal relations between the Government and regulated entities, customs regulations were authorized by Congress at least in part to clarify the rights and obligations of importers.
Our conclusion is not United States Trade Representative (USTR), by delegation from the President, and the International Trade Commission (ITC) have certain responsibilities for recommending and proclaiming changes in the HTSUS. See 19 U. S. C. §§ 3004(c), 3005,3006; 3 CFR 443 (1992). These powers pertain to changing or amending the tariff schedules themselves; the Treasury Department and the Customs Service are charged with administering the adopted schedules applicable on the date of importation. This also is the position of the Government, for it acknowledged at oral argument that it is for the Treasury Department and the Customs Service, not for the USTR or ITC, to issue regulations entitled to judicial deference in the interpretation of the tariff schedules. Tr. of Oral Arg. 14.
Respondent further cites a portion of the regulation and argues that the Customs Service itself views its regulatory authority as limited to controlling its own agents’ classification decisions, without affecting the course of later proceedings. It cites subsection (a) of 19 CFR § 10.11 (1998), which introduces §10.16 and the other classification regulations adopted at the same time. Section 10.11(a) provides that “[t]he definitions and regulations that follow are promulgated to inform the public of the constructions and interpretations that the United States Customs Service shall give to relevant statutory terms and to assure the impartial and uniform assessment of duties upon merchandise claimed to be partially exempt from duty ... at the various ports of entry.” It further provides that “[n]othing in these regulations purports or is intended to restrict the legal right of importers or others to a judicial review of the matters contained therein.” Ibid.
This language, in our view, does not suffice to displace the usual rule of Chevron deference. Subsections (a) and (b) of § 10.11 together serve to introduce the two kinds of regulations which follow. Section 10.11(b) advises that a refund claimant must comply with both the substantive terms of the statute and with certain “documentary requirements” set forth in §10.24. If the importer fails to comply with the documentary requirements, it is foreclosed from judicial review of the classification decision. § 10.11(b). In contrast, subsection (a) recites that nothing in the substantive classification regulations “purports or is intended to restrict the legal right... to a judicial review of the matters contained therein.” Assuming an importer complies with the documentary requirements of § 10.24, the disclaimer in § 10.11(a) is applicable, and the importer is entitled to bring a refund suit challenging Customs’ decision in federal court.
Apart from tive rules and documentary requirements, the quoted language from § 10.11(a) may be thought surplusage in that it merely confirms the existence of judicial review. Even if the language is thought to be unnecessary, however, we do not view it as a tacit instruction for courts to disregard the substantive regulations. Particularly in light of the fact that the agency utilized the notice-and-comment rulemaking process before issuing the regulations, the argument that they were not intended to be . entitled to judicial deference implies a sufficient departure from conventional contemporary administrative practice that we ought not to adopt it absent a different statutory structure and more express language to this effect in the regulations themselves.
Ill
For the reasons we have given, the statutes authorizing customs classification regulations are consistent with the usual rule that regulations of an administering agency warrant judicial deference; and nothing in the regulation itself persuades us that the agency intended the regulation to have some lesser force and effect. We turn to respondent’s second major contention, that the statutes governing the reviewing authority of the Court of International Trade in classification cases displace this customary framework.
In support of the argument cable, both respondent and the Court of Appeals rely on 28 U. S. C. §2643. It provides:
“If the Court of International Trade mine the correct decision on the basis of the evidence presented in any civil action, the court may order a retrial or rehearing for all purposes, or may order such further administrative or adjudicative procedures as the court considers necessary to reach the correct decision.”
The authority of the Court of International Trade to order additional proceedings to reach the correct decision, as well as its duty to “make its determinations upon the basis of the record made before the court,” §2640(a), and its authority to consider new grounds not advanced to the agency, §2638, are said to be inconsistent with deference to an agency’s regulation.
A central theme in respondent’s argument is that the trial court proceedings may be, as they were in this case, de novo, and hence the court owes no deference to the regulation under Chevron principles. Brief for Respondent 16-28. The conclusion does not follow from the premise. Valid regulations establish legal norms. Courts can give them proper effect even while applying the law to newfound facts, just as any court conducting a trial in the first instance must conform its rulings to controlling statutes, rules, and judicial precedents. Though Congress might have chosen to direct the court not to pay deference to the agency’s views, we do not find that directive in these statutes. Cf. Scalia, Judicial Deference to Administrative Interpretations of Law, 1989 Duke L. J. 511, 515-516 (suggesting that “[i]f. . . Congress had specified that in all suits involving interpretation or application of [a statute] the courts were to give no deference to the agency’s views, but were to determine the issue de novo,” Chevron deference would be inappropriate). De novo proceedings presume a foundation of law. The question here is whether the regulations are part of that controlling law. Deference can be given to the regulations without impairing the authority of the court to make factual determinations, and to apply those determinations to the law, de novo.
The Court of Appeals held in this case, and in previous cases presenting the issue, that these regulations were not entitled to deference because the Court of International Trade is charged to “ ‘reach the correct decision’ ” in determining the proper classification of goods. 127 F. 3d, at 1462; see also Rollerblade, Inc. v. United States, 112 F. 3d 481, 483 (CA Fed. 1997); Universal Elecs. Inc. v. United States, 112 F. 3d 488, 491-493 (CA Fed. 1997). The whole point of regulations such as these, however, is to ensure that the statute is applied in a consistent and proper manner. Deference to an agency’s expertise in construing a statutory command is not inconsistent with reaching a correct decision.
The analysis of a regulation’s any ease, of course, may disclose an imprecise or imperfect implementation of the statute. “One can doubtless imagine questionable applications of the regulation that test the limits of the agency’s authority.” Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter, Communities for Great Ore., 515 U. S. 687, 714 (1995) (O’Connor, J., concurring). In the process of considering a regulation in relation to specific factual situations, a court may conclude the regulation is inconsistent with the statutory language or is an unreasonable implementation of it. In those instances, the regulation will not control. Under Chevron, if a court determines that “Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue,” then “that is the end of the matter; for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.” 467 U. S., at 842-843. If, however, the agency’s statutory interpretation “fills a gap or defines a term in a way that is reasonable in light of the legislature’s revealed design, we give [that] judgment ‘controlling weight.’” NationsBank of N. C., N. A. v. Variable Annuity Life Ins. Co., 513 U. S. 251, 257 (1995) (quoting Chevron, supra, at 844).
A statute may be ambiguous, analysis, without being inartful or deficient. The present ease exemplifies the familiar proposition that Congress need not, and likely cannot, anticipate all circumstances in which a general policy must be given specific effeet. Here Congress has authorized the agency to issue rules so that the tariff statutes may be applied to unforeseen situations and changing circumstances in a manner consistent with Congress’ general intent. The statute under which respondent claims an exemption gives direction not only by stating a general policy (to grant the partial exemption where only assembly and incidental operations were abroad) but also by determining some specifies of the policy (finding that painting, for example, is incidental to assembly). For purposes of the Chevron analysis, the statute is ambiguous nonetheless, ambiguous in that the agency must use its discretion to determine how best to implement the policy in those cases not covered by the statute’s specific terms. Those specifics are instructive to the agency as to the general congressional purpose, and the agency’s rules as to instances not covered by the statute should be parallel, to the extent possible, with the specific cases Congress did address.
respondent and a supporting amicus contend Chevron deference is inconsistent with the historical practice in customs cases. Brief for Respondent 1-6; Brief for Customs and International Trade Bar Association as Amicus Curiae 6-11. This history, suffice it to say, is not so uniform and clear as to convince us that judicial deference would thwart congressional intent. As early as 1809, Chief Justice Marshall noted in a customs case that “[i]f the question had been doubtful, the court would have respected the uniform construction which it is understood has been given by the treasury department of the United States upon similar questions.” United States v. Vowell, 5 Cranch 368, 372. See also P. Reed, The Role of Federal Courts in U. S. Customs & International Trade Law 289 (1997) ('‘Consistent with the Chevron methodology, and as has long been the rule in customs cases, customs regulations are sustained if they represent reasonable interpretations of the statute”); cf. Zenith Radio Corp. v. United States, 437 U. S. 443, 450 (1978) (deferring to the Treasury Department’s “longstanding and consistent administrative interpretation” of the countervailing duty provision of the Tariff Act).
IV
A
The customs regulations may not be disregarded. Application of the Chevron framework is the beginning of the legal analysis. Like other courts, the Court of International Trade must, when appropriate, give regulations Chevron deference. Cf. Atlantic Mut. Ins. Co. v. Commissioner, 523 U. S. 382, 389 (1998) (when a term in the Internal Revenue Code is ambiguous, “the task that confronts us is to decide, not whether the Treasury regulation represents the best interpretation of the statute, but whether it represents a reasonable one”). The expertise of the Court of International Trade, somewhat like the expertise of the Tax Court, guides it in making complex determinations in a specialized area of the lav;; it is well positioned to evaluate customs regulations and their operation in light of the statutory mandate to determine if the preconditions for Chevron deference are present.
B
In addition to the applicability of the Chevron framework in general, we also granted certiorari on a second question, asking whether 19 CFR § 10.16(c) (1998) met the preconditions for Chevron deference as a reasonable interpretation of the statutory phrase “operations incidental to the assembly process,” Subheading 9802.00.80, HTSUS, 19 U. S. C. § 1202, and Item 807.00, TSUS, 19 U.S.C. §1202 (1982 ed.). Because the Court of Appeals determined the Chevron framework was not applicable, it did not go on to consider whether the regulation ultimately warrants deference under that framework.
Respondent has made various arguments turning on the details mid facts of its manufacturing process, including substantial arguments challenging the regulation’s interpretation of the statutory language as well as the application of the regulation to the particular process and goods at issue here. For instance, the Customs Service granted the exemption for trousers made from a pure synthetic fabric, which were apparently pressed in the Mexico facility. App. 33,37; Brief for Respondent 47. Yet it denied the exemption when ovenbaking was used for 12 to 15 minutes after some pressing, notwithstanding the fact that the permapress characteristics could have been achieved on the trousers involved here by pressing them for an additional period of time in lieu of ovenbaking. TV. 79-87. Moreover, though the regulation refers to the “[c]hemical treatment of components, . . . such as ... permapressing,” 19 CFR § 10.16(e)(4) (1998), it is undisputed that the chemical resin was applied to the trousers in the United States. App. 37.
It will be open to respondent on remand to argue that the baking of the garments in quantity is, from the standpoint of the statute or the regulation itself, no less incidental to the assembly process which the statute permits, or no more within the regulation’s reference to permapressing, than is a pressing-only operation. We conclude that these and similar arguments, which raise the difficult question of how the regulation at issue fares under the Chevron framework, are best addressed in the first instance to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit or to the Court of International Trade. Declining to reach the second question on which certiorari was granted, we remand the case to the Court of Appeals.
case remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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 Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
After an election respondent United Steelworkers Union was, on October 5, 1961, certified by the National Labor Relations Board as the bargaining agent for certain employees at the Danville, Virginia, plant of the petitioner, H. K. Porter Co. Thereafter negotiations commenced for a collective-bargaining agreement. Since that time the controversy has seesawed between the Board, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and this Court. This delay of over eight years is not because the case is exceedingly complex, but appears to have occurred chiefly because of the skill of the company’s negotiators in taking advantage of every opportunity for delay in an act more noticeable for its generality than fqy its precise prescriptions. The entire lengthy dispute mainly revolves around the union’s desire to have the company agree to “check off” the dues owed to the union by its members, that is, to deduct those dues periodically from the company’s wage payments to the employees. The record shows, as the Board found, that the company’s objection to a checkoff was not due to any general principle or policy against making deductions from employees’ wages. The company does deduct charges for things like insurance, taxes, and contributions to charities, and at some other plants it has a checkoff arrangement for union dues. The evidence shows, and the court below found, that the company’s objection was not because of inconvenience, but solely on the ground that the company was “not going to aid and comfort the union.” Efforts by the union to obtain some kind of compromise on the checkoff request were all met with the same staccato response to the effect that the collection of union dues was the “union’s business” and the company was not going to provide any assistance. Based on this and other evidence the Board found, and the Court of Appeals approved the finding, that the refusal of the company to bargain about the checkoff was not made in good faith, but was done solely to frustrate the making of any collective-bargaining agreement. In May 1966, the Court of Appeals upheld the Board’s order requiring the company to cease and desist from refusing to bargain in good faith and directing it to engage in further collective bargaining, if requested by the union to do so, over the checkoff. United Steelworkers v. NLRB, 124 U. S. App. D. C. 143, 363 F. 2d 272, cert. denied, 385 U. S. 851.
In the course of that opinion, the Court of Appeals intimated that the Board conceivably might have required petitioner to agree to a checkoff provision as a remedy for the prior bad-faith bargaining, although the order enforced at that time did not contain any such provision. 124 U. S. App. D. C., at 146-147, and n. 16, 363 F. 2d, at 275-276, and n. 16. In the ensuing negotiations the company offered to discuss alternative arrangements for collecting the union’s dues, but the union insisted that the company was required to agree to the checkoff proposal without modification. Because of this disagreement over the proper interpretation of the court’s opinion, the union, in February 1967, filed a motion for clarification of the 1966 opinion. The motion was denied by the court on March 22, 1967, in an order suggesting that contempt proceedings by the Board would be the proper avenue for testing the employer’s compliance with the original order. A request for the institution of such proceedings was made by the union, and, in June 1967, the Regional Director of the Board declined to prosecute a contempt charge, finding that the employer had “satisfactorily complied with the affirmative requirements of the Order.” App. 111. The union then filed in the Court of Appeals a motion for reconsideration of the earlier motion to clarify the 1966 opinion. The court granted that motion and issued a new opinion in which it held that in certain circumstances a “checkoff may be imposed as a remedy for bad faith bargaining.” United Steelworkers v. NLRB, 128 U. S. App. D. C. 344, 347, 389 F. 2d 295, 298 (1967). The case was then remanded to the Board and on July 3, 1968, the Board issued a supplemental order requiring the petitioner to “[g]rant to the Union a contract clause providing for the checkoff of union dues.” 172 N. L. R. B. No. 72, 68 L. R. R. M. 1337. The Court of Appeals affirmed this order, H. K. Porter Co. v. NLRB, 134 U. S. App. D. C. 227, 414 F. 2d 1123 (1969). We granted certiorari to consider whether the Board in these circumstances has the power to remedy the unfair labor practice by requiring the company to agree to check off the dues of the workers. 396 U. S. 817. For reasons to be stated we hold that while the Board does have power under the National Labor Relations Act, 61 Stat. 136, as amended, to require employers and employees to negotiate, it is without power to compel a company or a union to agree to any substantive contractual provision of a collective-bargaining agreement.
Since 1935 the story of labor relations in this country has largely been a history of governmental regulation of the process of collective bargaining. In that year Congress decided that disturbances in the area of labor relations led to undesirable burdens on and obstructions of interstate commerce, and passed the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449. That Act, building on the National Industrial Recovery Act, 48 Stat. 195 (1933), provided that employees had a federally protected right to join labor organizations and bargain collectively through their chosen representatives on issues affecting their employment. Congress also created the National Labor Relations Board to supervise the collective-bargaining process. The Board was empowered to investigate disputes as to which union, if any, represented the employees, and to certify the appropriate representative as the designated collective-bargaining agent. The employer was then required to bargain together with this representative and the Board was authorized to make sure that such bargaining did in fact occur. Without spelling out the details, the Act provided that it was an unfair labor practice for an employer to refuse to bargain. Thus a general process was established that would ensure that employees as a group could express their opinions and exert their combined influence over the terms and conditions of their employment. The Board would act to see that the process worked.
The object of this Act was not to allow governmental regulation of the terms and conditions of employment, but rather to ensure that employers and their employees could work together to establish mutually satisfactory conditions. The basic theme of the Act was that through collective bargaining the passions, arguments, and struggles of prior years would be channeled into constructive, open discussions leading, it was hoped, to mutual agreement. But it was recognized from the beginning that agreement might in some cases be impossible, and it was never intended that the Government would in such cases step in, become a party to the negotiations and impose its own views of a desirable settlement. This fundamental limitation was made abundantly clear in the legislative reports accompanying the 1935 Act. The Senate Committee on Education and Labor stated:
“The committee wishes to dispel any possible false impression that this bill is designed to compel the making of agreements or to permit governmental supervision of their terms. It must be stressed that the duty to bargain collectively does not carry with it the duty to reach an agreement, because the essence of collective bargaining is that either party shall be free to decide whether proposals made to it are satisfactory."
The discussions on the floor of Congress consistently reflected this same understanding.
The Act was passed at a time in our Nation’s history when there was considerable legal debate over the constitutionality of any law that required employers to conform their business behavior to any governmentally imposed standards. It was seriously contended that Congress could not constitutionally compel an employer to recognize a union and allow his employees to participate in setting the terms and conditions of employment. In NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1 (1937), this Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, held that Congress was within the limits of its constitutional powers in passing the Act. In the course of that decision the Court said:
“The Act does not compel agreements between employers and employees. It does not compel any agreement whatever. . . . The theory of the Act is that free opportunity for negotiation with accredited representatives of employees is likely to promote industrial peace and may bring about the adjustments and agreements which the Act in itself does not attempt to compel.” Id., at 45.
In 1947 Congress reviewed the experience under the Act and concluded that certain amendments were in order. In the House committee report accompanying what eventually became the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, the committee referred to the above-quoted language in Jones & Laughlin and said:
“Notwithstanding this language of the Court, the present Board has gone very far, in the guise of determining whether or not employers had bargained in good faith, in setting itself up as the judge of what concessions an employer must make and of the proposals and counterproposals that he may or may not make. . . .
“[Ujnless Congress writes into the law guides for the Board to follow, the Board may attempt to carry this process still further and seek to control more and more the terms of collective-bargaining agreements.”
Accordingly Congress amended the provisions defining unfair labor practices and said in § 8 (d) that:
“For the purposes of this section, to bargain collectively is the performance of the mutual obligation of the employer and the representative of the employees to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment, or the negotiation of an agreement, or any question arising thereunder, and the execution of a written contract incorporating any agreement reached if requested by either party, but such obligation does not compel either party to agree to a proposal or require the making of a concession.”
In discussing the effect of that amendment, this Court said it is “clear that the Board may not, either directly or indirectly, compel concessions or otherwise sit in judgment upon the substantive terms of collective bargaining agreements.” NLRB v. American Ins. Co., 343 U. S. 395, 404 (1952). Later this Court affirmed that view stating that “it remains clear that § 8 (d) was an attempt by Congress to prevent the Board from controlling the settling of the terms of collective bargaining agreements.” NLRB v. Insurance Agents, 361 U. S. 477, 487 (1960). The parties to the instant case are agreed that this is the first time in the 35-year history of the Act that the Board has ordered either an employer or a union to agree to a substantive term of a collective-bargaining agreement.
Recognizing the fundamental principle “that the National Labor Relations Act is grounded on the premise of freedom of contract,” 128 U. S. App. D. C., at 349, 389 F. 2d, at 300, the Court of Appeals in this case concluded that nevertheless in the circumstances presented here the Board could properly compel the employer to agree to a proposed checkoff clause. The Board had found that the refusal was based on a desire to frustrate agreement and not on any legitimate business reason. On the basis of that finding the Court of Appeals approved the further finding that the employer had not bargained in good faith, and the validity of that finding is not now before us. Where the record thus revealed repeated refusals by the employer to bargain in good faith on this issue, the Court of Appeals concluded that ordering agreement to the checkoff clause “may be the only means of assuring the Board, and the court, that [the employer] no longer harbors an illegal intent.” 128 U. S. App. D. C., at 348, 389 F. 2d, at 299.
In reaching this conclusion the Court of Appeals held that § 8 (d) did not forbid the Board from compelling agreement. That court felt that “[s]eetion 8 (d) defines collective bargaining and relates to a determination of whether a . . . violation has occurred and not to the scope of the remedy which may be necessary to cure violations which have already occurred.” 128 U. S. App. D. C., at 348, 389 F. 2d, at 299. We may agree with the Court of Appeals that as a matter of strict, literal interpretation that section refers only to deciding when a violation has occurred, but we do not agree that that observation justifies the conclusion that the remedial powers of the Board are not also limited by the same considerations that led Congress to enact § 8 (d). It is implicit in the entire structure of the Act that the Board acts to oversee and referee the process of collective bargaining, leaving the results of the contest to the bargaining strengths of the parties. It would be anomalous indeed to hold that while § 8 (d) prohibits the Board from relying on a refusal to agree as the sole evidence of bad-faith bargaining, the Act permits the Board to compel agreement in that same dispute. The Board’s remedial powers under § 10 of the Act are broad, but they are limited to carrying out the policies of the Act itself. One of these fundamental policies is freedom of contract. While the parties’ freedom of contract is not absolute under the Act, allowing the Board to compel agreement when the parties themselves are unable to agree would violate the fundamental premise on which the Act is based — private bargaining under governmental supervision of the procedure alone, without any official compulsion over the actual terms of the contract.
In reaching its decision the Court of Appeals relied extensively on the equally important policy of the Act that workers’ rights to collective bargaining are to be secured. In this case the court apparently felt that the employer was trying effectively to destroy the union by refusing to agree to what the union may have considered its most important demand. Perhaps the court, fearing that the parties might resort to economic combat, was also trying to maintain the industrial peace that the Act is designed to further. But the Act as presently drawn does not contemplate that unions will always be secure and able to achieve agreement even when their economic position is weak, or that strikes and lockouts will never result from a bargaining impasse. It cannot be said that the Act forbids an employer or a union to rely ultimately on its economic strength to try to secure what it cannot obtain through bargaining. It may well be true, as the Court of Appeals felt, that the present remedial powers of the Board are insufficiently broad to cope with important labor problems. But it is the job of Congress, not the Board or the courts, to decide when and if it is necessary to allow governmental review of proposals for collective-bargaining agreements and compulsory submission to one side’s demands. The present Act does not envision such a process.
The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further action consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice White took no part in the decision of this case.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
S. Rep. No. 573, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 12 (1935).
“Let me say that the bill requires no employer to sign any contract, to make any agreement, to reach any understanding with any employee or group of employees. . . .
“Nothing in this bill allows the Federal Government or any agency to fix wages, to regulate rates of pay, to limit hours of work, or to effect or govern any working condition in any establishment or place of employment.
“A crude illustration is this: The bill indicates the method and manner in which employees may organize, the method and manner of selecting their representatives or spokesmen, and leads them to the office door of their employer with the legal authority to negotiate for their fellow employees. The bill does not go beyond the office door. It leaves the discussion between the employer and the employee, and the agreements which they may or may not make, voluntary and with that sacredness and solemnity to a voluntary agreement with which both parties to an agreement should be enshrouded.” Remarks of Senator Walsh, 79 Cong. Rec. 7659; see also 79 Cong. Rec. 9682, 9711.
H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 19-20 (1947).
29 U. S. C. § 158 (d) (emphasis added).
“If . . . the Board shall be of the opinion that any person . . . has engaged in or is engaging in any . . . unfair labor practice, then the Board shall state its findings of fact and shall issue and cause to be served on such person an. order requiring such person to cease and desist from such unfair labor practice, and to take such affirmative action ... as will effectuate the policies of [the Act].” 29 U. S. C. § 160 (c).
For example, the employer is not free to choose any employee representative he wants, and the representative designated by the majority of the employees represents the minority as well. The Act itself prohibits certain contractual terms relating to refusals to deal in the goods of others, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (e). Various practices in enforcing the Act may to some extent limit freedom to contract as the parties desire. See generally Wellington, Freedom of Contract and the Collective Bargaining Agreement, 112 U. Pa. L. Rev. 467 (1964).
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.
After a grand jury indicted petitioner John J. Fellers, police officers arrested him at his home. During the course of the arrest, petitioner made several inculpatory statements. He argued that the officers deliberately elicited these statements from him outside the presence of counsel, and that the admission at trial of the fruits of those statements therefore violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Petitioner contends that in rejecting this argument, the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit improperly held that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel was “not applicable” because “the officers did not interrogate [petitioner] at his home.” 285 F. 3d 721, 724 (2002). We granted the petition for a writ of certiorari, 538 U. S. 905 (2003), and now reverse.
I
On February 24, 2000, after a grand jury indicted petitioner for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, Lincoln Police Sergeant Michael Garnett and Lancaster County Deputy Sheriff Jeff Bliemeister went to petitioner’s home in Lincoln, Nebraska, to arrest him. App. 111. The officers knocked on petitioner’s door and, when petitioner answered, identified themselves and asked if they could come in. Ibid. Petitioner invited the officers into his living room. Ibid.
The officers advised petitioner they had come to discuss his involvement in methamphetamine distribution. Id., at 112. They informed petitioner that they had a federal warrant for his arrest and that a grand jury had indicted him for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. Ibid. The officers told petitioner that the indictment referred to his involvement with certain individuals, four of whom they named. Ibid. Petitioner then told the officers that he knew the four people and had used methamphetamine during his association with them. Ibid.
After spending about 15 minutes in petitioner’s home, the officers transported petitioner to the Lancaster County jail. Ibid. There, the officers advised petitioner for the first time of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), and Patterson v. Illinois, 487 U. S. 285 (1988). App. 112. Petitioner and the two officers signed a Miranda waiver form, and petitioner then reiterated the inculpatory statements he had made earlier, admitted to having associated with other individuals implicated in the charged conspiracy, App. 29-39, and admitted to having loaned money to one of them even though he suspected that she was involved in drug transactions, id., at 34..
Before trial, petitioner moved to suppress the inculpatory statements he made at his home and at the county jail. A Magistrate Judge conducted a hearing and recommended that the statements petitioner made at his home be suppressed because the officers had not informed petitioner of his Miranda rights. App. 110-111. The Magistrate Judge found that petitioner made the statements in response to the officers’ “implicit] questions,” noting that the officers had told petitioner that the purpose of their visit was to discuss his use and distribution of methamphetamine. Id., at 110. The Magistrate Judge further recommended that portions of petitioner’s jailhouse statement be suppressed as fruits of the prior failure to provide Miranda warnings. App. 110-111.
The District Court suppressed the “unwarned” statements petitioner made at his house but admitted petitioner’s jailhouse statements pursuant to Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298 (1985), concluding petitioner had knowingly and voluntarily waived his Miranda rights before making the statements. App. 112-115.
Following a jury trial at which petitioner’s jailhouse statements were admitted into evidence, petitioner was convicted of conspiring to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Petitioner appealed, arguing that his jailhouse statements should have been suppressed as fruits of the statements obtained at his home in violation of the Sixth Amendment. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 285 F. 3d 721 (CA8 2002). With respect to petitioner’s argument that the officers’ failure to administer Miranda warnings at his home violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel under Patterson, supra, the Court of Appeals stated: “Patterson is not applicable here ... for the officers did not interrogate [petitioner] at his home.” 285 P. 3d, at 724. The Court of Appeals also concluded that the statements from the jail were properly admitted under the rule of Elstad, supra. 285 F. 3d, at 724 (“‘Though Miranda requires that the unwarned admission must be suppressed, the admissibility of any subsequent statement should turn in these circumstances solely on whether it is knowingly and voluntarily made’ ” (quoting Elstad, supra, at 309)).
Judge Riley filed a concurring opinion. He concluded that during their conversation at petitioner’s home, officers “deliberately elicited incriminating information” from petitioner. 285 F. 3d, at 726-727. That “post-indictment conduct outside the presence of counsel,” Judge Riley reasoned, violated petitioner’s Sixth Amendment rights. Id., at 727. Judge Riley nevertheless concurred in the judgment, concluding that the jailhouse statements were admissible under the rationale of Elstad in light of petitioner’s knowing and voluntary waiver of his right to counsel. 285 F. 3d, at 727.
II
The Sixth Amendment right to counsel is triggered at or after the time that judicial proceedings have been initiated . . . ‘whether by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information, or arraignment.”’ Brewer v. Williams, 430 U. S. 387, 398 (1977) (quoting Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U. S. 682, 689 (1972)). We have held that an accused is denied “the basic protections” of the Sixth Amendment “when there [is] used against him at his trial evidence of his own incriminating words, which federal agents . . . deliberately elicited from him after he had been indicted and in the absence of his counsel.” Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201, 206 (1964); cf. Patterson, supra (holding that the Sixth Amendment does not bar postindictment questioning in the absence of counsel if a defendant waives the right to counsel).
We have consistently applied the deliberate-elicitation standard in subsequent Sixth Amendment cases, see United States v. Henry, 447 U. S. 264, 270 (1980) (“The question here is whether under the facts of this case a Government agent ‘deliberately elicited’ incriminating statements ... within the meaning of Massiah”); Brewer, supra, at 399 (finding a Sixth Amendment violation where a detective “deliberately and designedly set out to elicit information from [the suspect]”), and we have expressly distinguished this standard from the Fifth Amendment custodial-interrogation standard, see Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U. S. 625, 632, n. 5 (1986) (“[T]he Sixth Amendment provides a right to counsel... even when there is no interrogation and no Fifth Amendment applicability”); Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U. S. 291, 300, n. 4 (1980) (“The definitions of ‘interrogation’ under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, if indeed the term ‘interrogation’ is even apt in the Sixth Amendment context, are not necessarily interchangeable”); cf. United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218 (1967) (holding that the Sixth Amendment provides the right to counsel at a postindictment lineup even though the Fifth Amendment is not implicated).
The Court of Appeals erred in holding that the absence of an “interrogation” foreclosed petitioner’s claim that the jailhouse statements should have been suppressed as fruits of the statements taken from petitioner at his home. First, there is no question that the officers in this case “deliberately elicited” information from petitioner. Indeed, the officers, upon arriving at petitioner’s house, informed him that their purpose in coming was to discuss his involvement in the distribution of methamphetamine and his association with certain charged co-conspirators. 285 F. 3d, at 723; App. 112. Because the ensuing discussion took place after petitioner had been indicted, outside the presence of counsel, and in the absence of any waiver of petitioner’s Sixth Amendment rights, the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the officers’ actions did not violate the Sixth Amendment standards established in Massiah, supra, and its progeny. ■
Second, because of its erroneous determination that petitioner was not questioned in violation of Sixth Amendment standards, the Court of Appeals improperly conducted its “fruits” analysis under the Fifth Amendment. Specifically, it applied Elstad to hold that the admissibility of the jailhouse statements turns solely on whether the statements were “ ‘knowingly and voluntarily made.’ ” 285 F. 3d, at 724 (quoting Elstad, 470 U. S., at 309). The Court of Appeals did not reach the question whether the Sixth Amendment requires suppression of petitioner’s jailhouse statements on the ground that they were the fruits of previous questioning conducted in violation of the Sixth Amendment deliberate-elicitation standard. We have not had occasion to decide whether the rationale of Elstad applies when a suspect makes incriminating statements after a knowing and voluntary waiver of his right to counsel notwithstanding earlier police questioning in violation of Sixth Amendment standards. We therefore remand to the Court of Appeals to address this issue in the first instance.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether the warrantless search of an automobile junkyard, conducted pursuant to a statute authorizing such a search, falls within the exception to the warrant requirement for administrative inspections of pervasively regulated industries. The case also presents the question whether an otherwise proper administrative inspection is unconstitutional because the ultimate purpose of the regulatory statute pursuant to which the search is done — the deterrence of criminal behavior — is the same as that of penal laws, with the result that the inspection may disclose violations not only of the regulatory statute but also of the penal statutes.
I
Respondent Joseph Burger is the owner of a junkyard in Brooklyn, N. Y. His business consists, in part, of the dismantling of automobiles and the selling of their parts. His junkyard is an open lot with no buildings. A high metal fence surrounds it, wherein are located, among other things, vehicles and parts of vehicles. At approximately noon on November 17, 1982, Officer Joseph Vega and four other plainclothes officers, all members of the Auto Crimes Division of the New York City Police Department, entered respondent’s junkyard to conduct an inspection pursuant to N. Y. Veh. & Traf. Law §415-a5 (McKinney 1986). Tr. 6. On any given day, the Division conducts from 6 to 10 inspections of vehicle dismantlers, automobile junkyards, and related businesses. Id., at 26.
Upon entering the junkyard, the officers asked to see Burger’s license and his “police book” — the record of the automobiles and vehicle parts in his possession. Burger replied that he had neither a license nor a police book. The officers then announced their intention to conduct a § 415-a5 inspection. Burger did not object. Tr. 6, 47. In accordance with their practice, the officers copied down the Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) of several vehicles and parts of vehicles that were in the junkyard. Id., at 7, 20, 44, 46. After checking these numbers against a police computer, the officers determined that respondent was in possession of stolen vehicles and parts. Accordingly, Burger was arrested and charged with five counts of possession of stolen property and one count of unregistered operation as a vehicle dismantle^ in violation of § 415-al.
In the Kings County Supreme Court, Burger moved to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the inspection, primarily on the ground that § 415-a5 was unconstitutional. After a hearing, the court denied the motion. It reasoned that the junkyard business was a “pervasively regulated” industry in which warrantless administrative inspections were appropriate, that the statute was properly limited in “time, place and scope,” and that, once the officers had reasonable cause to believe that certain vehicles and parts were stolen, they could arrest Burger and seize the property without a warrant. App. to Pet. for Cert. 18a-19a. When respondent moved for reconsideration in light of a recent decision of the Appellate Division, People v. Pace, 101 App. Div. 2d 336, 475 N. Y. S. 2d 443 (1984), aff’d, 65 N. Y. 2d 684, 481 N. E. 2d 250 (1985), the court granted reargument. Upon reconsideration, the court distinguished the situation in Pace from that in the instant case. It observed that the Appellate Division in Pace did not apply § 415-a5 to the search in question, 125 Misc. 2d 709, 711, 479 N. Y. S. 2d 936, 938 (1984), and that, in any event, the police officers in that case were not conducting an administrative inspection, but were acting on the basis of recently discovered evidence that criminal activity was taking place at the automobile salvage yard. Id., at 712-714, 479 N. Y. S. 2d, at 939-940. The court therefore reaffirmed its earlier determination in the instant case that § 415-a5 was constitutional. For the same reasons, the Appellate Division affirmed. 112 App. Div. 2d 1046, 493 N. Y. S. 2d 34 (1985).
The New York Court of Appeals, however, reversed. 67 N. Y. 2d 338, 493 N. E. 2d 926 (1986). In its view, § 415-a5 violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures. According to the Court of Appeals, “[t]he fundamental defect [of § 415-a5]... is that [it] authorize [s] searches undertaken solely to uncover evidence of criminality and not to enforce a comprehensive regulatory scheme. The asserted ‘administrative schem[e]’ here [is], in reality, designed simply to give the police an expedient means of enforcing penal sanctions for possession of stolen property.” Id., at 344, 493 N. E. 2d, at 929. In contrast to the statutes authorizing warrantless inspections whose constitutionality this Court has upheld, §415-a5, it was said, “do[es] little more than authorize general searches, including those conducted by the police, of certain commercial premises.” Ibid. To be sure, with its license and recordkeeping requirements, and with its authorization for inspections of records, § 415-a appears to be administrative in character. “It fails to satisfy the constitutional requirements for a valid, comprehensive regulatory scheme, however, inasmuch as it permits searches, such as conducted here, of vehicles and vehicle parts notwithstanding the absence of any records against which the findings of such a search could be compared.” Id., at 344-345, 493 N. E. 2d, at 929-930. Accordingly, the only purpose of such searches is to determine whether a junkyard owner is storing stolen property on business premises.
Because of the important state interest in administrative schemes designed to regulate the vehicle-dismantling or automobile-junkyard industry, we granted certiorari. 479 U. S. 812 (1986).
l — l I
A
The Court long has recognized that the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures is applicable to commercial premises, as'well as to private homes. See v. City of Seattle, 387 U. S. 541, 543, 546 (1967). An owner or operator of a business thus has an expectation of privacy in commercial property, which society is prepared to consider to be reasonable, see Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 361 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). This expectation exists not only with respect to traditional police searches conducted for the gathering of criminal evidence but also with respect to administrative inspections designed to enforce regulatory statutes. See Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U. S. 307, 312-313 (1978). An expectation of privacy in commercial premises, however, is different from, and indeed less than, a similar expectation in an individual’s home. See Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U. S. 594, 598-599 (1981). This expectation is particularly attenuated in commercial property employed in “closely regulated” industries. The Court observed in Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc.: “Certain industries have such a history of government oversight that no reasonable expectation of privacy, see Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 351-352 (1967), could exist for a proprietor over the stock of such an enterprise.” 436 U. S., at 313.
The Court first examined the “unique” problem of inspections of “closely regulated” businesses in two enterprises that had “a long tradition of close government supervision.” Ibid. In Colonnade Corp. v. United States, 397 U. S. 72 (1970), it considered a warrantless search of a catering business pursuant to several federal revenue statutes authorizing the inspection of the premises of liquor dealers. Although the Court disapproved the search because the statute provided that a sanction be imposed when entry was refused, and because it did not authorize entry without a warrant as an alternative in this situation, it recognized that “the liquor industry [was] long subject to close supervision and inspection.” Id., at 77. We returned to this issue in United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S. 311 (1972), which involved a warrantless inspection of the premises of a pawnshop operator, who was federally licensed to sell sporting, weapons pursuant to the Gun Control Act of 1968, 18 U. S. C. § 921 et seq. While noting that “[fjederal regulation of the interstate' traffic in firearms is not as deeply rooted in history as is governmental control of the liquor industry,” 406 U. S., at 315, we nonetheless concluded that the warrantless inspections authorized by the Gun Control Act would “pose only limited threats to the dealer’s justifiable expectations of privacy.” Id., at 316. We observed: “When a dealer chooses to engage in this pervasively regulated business and to accept a federal license, he does so with the knowledge that his business records, firearms, and ammunition will be subject to effective inspection.” Ibid.
The “Colonnade-Biswell” doctrine, stating the reduced expectation of privacy by an owner of commercial premises in a “closely regulated” industry, has received renewed emphasis in more recent decisions. In Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., we noted its continued vitality but declined to find that war-rantless inspections, made pursuant to the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, 84 Stat. 1598, 29 U. S. C. § 657(a), of all businesses engaged in interstate commerce fell within the narrow focus of this doctrine. 436 U. S., at 313-314. However, we found warrantless inspections made pursuant to the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, 91 Stat. 1290, 30 U. S. C. §801 et seq., proper because they were of a “closely regulated” industry. Donovan v. Dewey, supra.
Indeed, in Donovan v. Dewey, we declined to limit our consideration to the length of time during which the business in question — stone quarries — had been subject to federal regulation. 452 U. S., at 605-606. We pointed out that the doctrine is essentially defined by “the pervasiveness and regularity of the federal regulation” and the effect of such regulation upon an owner’s expectation of privacy. See id., at 600, 606. We observed, however, that “the duration of a particular regulatory scheme” would remain an “important factor” in deciding whether a warrantless inspection pursuant to the scheme is permissible. Id., at 606.
B
Because the owner or operator of commercial premises in a “closely regulated” industry has a reduced expectation of privacy, the warrant and probable-cause requirements, which fulfill the traditional Fourth Amendment standard of reasonableness for a government search, see O’Connor v. Ortega, 480 U. S. 709, 741 (1987) (dissenting opinion), have lessened application in this context. Rather, we conclude that, as in other situations of “special need,” see New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 353 (1985) (opinion concurring in judgment), where the privacy interests of the owner are weakened and the government interests in regulating particular businesses are concomitantly heightened, a warrant-less inspection of commercial premises may well be reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
This warrantless inspection, however, even in the context of a pervasively regulated business, will be deemed to be reasonable only so long as three criteria are met. First, there must be a “substantial” government interest that informs the regulatory scheme pursuant to which the inspection is made. See Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U. S., at 602 (“substantial federal interest in improving the health and safety conditions in the Nation’s underground and surface mines”); United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S., at 315 (regulation of firearms is “of central importance to federal efforts to prevent violent crime and to assist the States in regulating the firearms traffic within their borders”); Colonnade Corp. v. United States, 397 U. S., at 75 (federal interest “in protecting the revenue against various types of fraud”).
Second, the warrantless inspections must be “necessary to further [the] regulatory scheme.” Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U. S., at 600. For example, in Dewey we recognized that forcing mine inspectors to obtain a warrant before every inspection might alert mine owners or operators to the impending inspection, thereby frustrating the purposes of the Mine Safety and Health Act — to detect and thus to deter safety and health violations. Id., at 603.
Finally, “the statute’s inspection program, in terms of the certainty and regularity of its application, [must] provid[e] a constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant.” Ibid. In other words, the regulatory statute must perform the two basic functions of a warrant: it must advise the owner of the commercial premises that the search is being made pursuant to the law and has a properly defined scope, and it must limit the discretion of the inspecting officers. See Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U. S., at 323; see also id., at 332 (Stevens, J., dissenting). To perform this first function, the statute must be “sufficiently comprehensive and defined that the owner of commercial property cannot help but be aware that his property will be subject to periodic inspections undertaken for specific purposes.” Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U. S., at 600. In addition, in defining how a statute limits the discretion of the inspectors, we have observed that it must be “carefully limited in time, place, and scope.” United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S., at 315.
hH I — I hH
A
Searches made pursuant to § 415-a5, in our view, clearly fall within this established exception to the warrant requirement for administrative inspections in “closely regulated” businesses. First, the nature of the regulatory statute reveals that the operation of a junkyard, part of which is devoted to vehicle dismantling, is a “closely regulated” business in the State of New York. The provisions regulating the activity of vehicle dismantling are extensive. An operator cannot engage in this industry without first obtaining a license, which means that he must meet the registration requirements and must pay a fee. Under § 415-a5(a), the operator must maintain a police book recording the acquisition and disposition of motor vehicles and vehicle parts, and make such records and inventory available for inspection by the police or any agent of the Department of Motor Vehicles. The operator also must display his registration number prominently at his place of business, on business documentation, and on vehicles and parts that pass through his business. § 415-a5(b). Moreover, the person engaged in this activity is subject to criminal penalties, as well as to loss of license or civil fines, for failure to comply with these provisions. See §§ 415-al, 5, and 6. That other States besides New York have imposed similarly extensive regulations on automobile junkyards further supports the “closely regulated” status of this industry. See n. 11, supra.
In determining whether vehicle dismantlers constitute a “closely regulated” industry, the “duration of [this] particular regulatory scheme,” Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U. S., at 606, has some relevancy. Section 415-a could be said to be of fairly recent vintage, see 1973 N. Y. Laws, ch. 225, § 1 (McKinney), and the inspection provision of § 415-a5 was added only in 1979, see 1979 N. Y. Laws, ch. 691, §2 (McKinney). But because the automobile is a relatively new phenomenon in our society and because its widespread use is even newer, automobile junkyards and vehicle dismantlers have not been in existence very long and thus do not have an ancient history of government oversight. Indeed, the industry did not attract government attention until the 1950’s, when all used automobiles were no longer easily reabsorbed into the steel industry and attention then focused on the environmental and aesthetic problems associated with abandoned vehicles. See Landscape 1970: National Conference on the Abandoned Automobile 11; see also Report to the President from the Panel on Automobile Junkyards, White House Conference on Natural Beauty 1 (1965) (statement of Charles M. Haar, Chairman: “There are junkyards and abandoned cars in the streets and along the countryside that are making America ugly, not beautiful”).
The automobile-junkyard business, however, is simply a new branch of an industry that has existed, and has been closely regulated, for many years. The automobile junkyard is closely akin to the secondhand shop or the general junkyard. Both share the purpose of recycling salvageable articles and components of items no longer usable in their original form. As such, vehicle dismantlers represent a modern, specialized version of a traditional activity. In New York, general junkyards and secondhand shops long have been subject to regulation. One New York court has explained:
“Vehicle dismantlers are part of the junk industry as well as part of the auto industry.... Prior to the enactment of section 415-a of the Vehicle and Traffic Law, auto dismantlers were subject to regulatory provisions governing the licensing and operation of junkyards. These regulations included provisions mandating the keeping of detailed records of purchases and sales, and the making of such records available at reasonable times to designated officials including police officers, by junk dealers... and by dealers in secondhand articles....
“These regulatory, record keeping and warrantless inspection provisions for junk shops have been a part of the law of the City of New York and of Brooklyn for at least 140 years.” People v. Tinneny, 99 Misc. 2d 962, 969, 417 N. Y. S. 2d 840, 845 (Sup. 1979).
See also N. Y. C. Charter and Admin. Code § B32-113.01 (1977) (“ ‘Junk dealer’. Any person engaged in the business of purchasing or selling junk”); §B32-126.0a (‘“dealer in second-hand articles’ shall mean any person who, in any way or as a principal broker or agent: 1. [d]eals in the purchase or sale of second-hand articles of whatever nature”). The history of government regulation of junk-related activities argues strongly in favor of the “closely regulated” status of the automobile junkyard.
Accordingly, in light of the regulatory framework governing his business and the history of regulation of related industries, an operator of a junkyard engaging in vehicle dismantling has a reduced expectation of privacy in this “closely regulated” business.
B
The New York regulatory scheme satisfies the three criteria necessary to make reasonable warrantless inspections pursuant to § 415-a5. First, the State has a substantial interest in regulating the vehicle-dismantling and automobile-junkyard industry because motor vehicle theft has increased in the State and because the problem of theft is associated with this industry. In this day, automobile theft has become a significant social problem, placing enormous economic and personal burdens upon the citizens of different States. For example, when approving the 1979 amendment to § 415-a5, which added the provision for inspections of records and inventory of junkyards, the Governor of the State explained:
“Motor vehicle theft in New York State has been rapidly increasing. It has become a multimillion dollar industry which has resulted in an intolerable economic burden on the citizens of New York. In 1976, over 130,000 automobiles were reported stolen in New York, resulting in losses in excess of $225 million. Because of the high rate of motor vehicle theft, the premiums for comprehensive motor vehicle insurance in New York are significantly above the national average. In addition, stolen automobiles are often used in the commission of other crimes and there is a high incidence of accidents resulting in property damage and bodily injury involving stolen automobiles.” Governor’s Message approving L. 1979, chs. 691 and 692,1979 N. Y. Laws 1826,1826-1827 (McKinney).
See also 25 Legislative Newsletter, New York State Automobile Assn., p. 1 (May 10, 1978), reprinted in Governor’s Bill Jacket, L. 1979, ch. 691 (1979 Bill Jacket) (“Auto theft in New York State has become a low-risk, high-profit, multimillion dollar growth industry that is imposing intolerable economic burdens on motorists”). Because contemporary automobiles are made from standardized parts, the nationwide extent of vehicle theft and concern about it are understandable.
Second, regulation of the vehicle-dismantling industry reasonably serves the State’s substantial interest in eradicating automobile theft. It is well established that the theft problem can be addressed effectively by controlling the receiver of, or market in, stolen property. 2 W. LaFave & A. Scott, Substantive Criminal Law §8.10(a), p. 422 (1986) (“Without [professional receivers of stolen property], theft ceases to be profitable”); 2 Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice 789 (Kadish ed. 1983) (“[The criminal receiver]... inspires 95 per cent or more of the theft in America”). Automobile junkyards and vehicle dismantlers provide the major market for stolen vehicles and vehicle parts. See Memorandum from Paul Goldman, Counsel, State Consumer Protection Board, to Richard A. Brown, Counsel to the Governor (June 29, 1979), 1979 Bill Jacket (“It is believed that a major source of stolen vehicles, parts and registration documentation may involve vehicles which pass through the hands of [junk vehicle] dealers”). Thus, the State rationally may believe that it will reduce car theft by regulations that prevent automobile junkyards from becoming markets for stolen vehicles and that help trace the origin and destination of vehicle parts.
Moreover, the warrantless administrative inspections pursuant to § 415-a5 “are necessary to further [the] regulatory scheme.” Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U. S., at 600. In this respect, we see no difference between these inspections and those approved by the Court in United States v. Biswell and Donovan v. Dewey. We explained in Biswell:
“[I]f inspection is to be effective and serve as a credible deterrent, unannounced, even frequent, inspections are essential. In this context, the prerequisite of a warrant could easily frustrate inspection; and if the necessary flexibility as to time, scope, and frequency is to be preserved, the protections afforded by a warrant would be negligible.” 406 U. S., at 316.
See also Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U. S., at 603. Similarly, in the present case, a warrant requirement would interfere with the statute’s purpose of deterring automobile theft accomplished by identifying vehicles and parts as stolen and shutting down the market in such items. Because stolen cars and parts often pass quickly through an automobile junkyard, “frequent” and “unannounced” inspections are necessary in order to detect them. In sum, surprise is crucial if the regulatory scheme aimed at remedying this major social problem is to function at all.
Third, § 415-a5 provides a “constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant.” Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U. S., at 603. The statute informs the operator of a vehicle dismantling business that inspections will be made on a regular basis. Id., at 605. Thus, the vehicle dismantler knows that the inspections to which he is subject do not constitute discretionary acts by a government official but are conducted pursuant to statute. See Marshall v. Barlow's, Inc., 436 U. S., at 332 (dissenting opinion). Section 415-a5 also sets forth the scope of the inspection and, accordingly, places the operator on notice as to how to comply with the statute. In addition, it notifies the operator as to who is authorized to conduct an inspection.
Finally, the “time, place, and scope” of the inspection is limited, United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S., at 315, to place appropriate restraints upon the discretion of the inspecting officers. See Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U. S., at 605. The officers are allowed to conduct an inspection only “during [the] regular and usual business hours.” §415-a5. The inspections can be made only of vehicle-dismantling and related industries. And the permissible scope of these searches is narrowly defined: the inspectors may examine the records, as well as “any vehicles or parts of vehicles which are subject to the record keeping requirements of this section and which are on the premises.” Ibid.
IV
A search conducted pursuant to § 415-a5, therefore, clearly falls within the well-established exception to the warrant requirement for administrative inspections of “closely regulated” businesses. The Court of Appeals, nevertheless, struck down the statute as violative of the Fourth Amendment because, in its view, the statute had no truly administrative purpose but was “designed simply to give the police an expedient means of enforcing penal sanctions for possession of stolen property.” 67 N. Y. 2d, at 344, 493 N. E. 2d, at 929. The court rested its conclusion that the administrative goal of the statute was pretextual and that § 415-a5 really “authorized searches undertaken solely to uncover evidence of criminality” particularly on the fact that, even if an operator failed to produce his police book, the inspecting officers could continue their inspection for stolen vehicles and parts. Id., at 344, 345, 493 N. E. 2d, at 929, 930. The court also suggested that the identity of the inspectors — police officers — was significant in revealing the true nature of the statutory scheme. Id., at 344, 493 N. E. 2d, at 929.
In arriving at this conclusion, the Court of Appeals failed to recognize that a State can address a major social problem both by way of an administrative scheme and through penal sanctions. Administrative statutes and penal laws may have the same ultimate purpose of remedying the social problem, but they have different subsidiary purposes and prescribe different methods of addressing the problem. An administrative statute establishes how a particular business in a “closely regulated” industry should be operated, setting forth rules to guide an operator’s conduct of the business and allowing government officials to ensure that those rules are followed. Such a regulatory approach contrasts with that of the penal laws, a major emphasis of which is the punishment of individuals for specific acts of behavior.
In United States v. Biswell, we recognized this fact that both administrative and penal schemes can serve the same purposes by observing that the ultimate purposes of the Gun Control Act were “to prevent violent crime and to assist the States in regulating the firearms traffic within their borders.” 406 U. S., at 315. It is beyond dispute that certain state penal laws had these same purposes. Yet the regulatory goals of the Gun Control Act were narrower: the Act ensured that “weapons [were] distributed through regular channels and in a traceable manner and [made] possible the prevention of sales to undesirable customers and the detection of the origin of particular firearms.” Id., at 315-316. The provisions of the Act, including those authorizing the warrantless inspections, served these immediate goals and also contributed to achieving the same ultimate purposes that the penal laws were intended to achieve.
This case, too, reveals that an administrative scheme may have the same ultimate purpose as penal laws, even if its regulatory goals are narrower. As we have explained above, New York, like many States, faces a serious social problem in automobile theft and has a substantial interest in regulating the vehicle-dismantling industry because of this problem. The New York penal laws address automobile theft by punishing it or the possession of stolen property, including possession by individuals in the business of buying and selling property. See n. 6, supra. In accordance with its interest in regulating the automobile-junkyard industry, the State also has devised a regulatory manner of dealing with this problem. Section 415-a, as a whole, serves the regulatory goals of seeking to ensure that vehicle dismantlers are legitimate businesspersons and that stolen vehicles and vehicle parts passing through automobile junkyards can be identified. In particular, §415-a5 was designed to contribute to these goals, as explained at the time of its passage:
“This bill attempts to provide enforcement not only through means of law enforcement but by making it unprofitable for persons to operate in the stolen car field.
“The various businesses which are engaged in this operation have been studied and the control and requirements on the businesses have been written in a manner which would permit the persons engaged in the business to legally operate in a manner conducive to good business practices while making it extremely difficult for a person to profitably transfer a stolen vehicle or stolen part. The general scheme is to identify every person who may legitimately be involved in the operation and to provide a record keeping system which will enable junk vehicles and parts to be traced back to the last legitimately registered or titled owner. Legitimate businessmen engaged in this field have complained with good cause that the lack of comprehensive coverage of the field has put them at a disadvantage with persons who currently are able to operate outside of statute and regulations. They have also legitimately complained that delays inherent in the present statutory regulation and onerous record keeping requirements have made profitable operation difficult.
“The provisions of this bill have been drafted after consultation with respected members of the various industries and provides [sic] a more feasible system of controlling traffic in stolen vehicles and parts.” Letter of Stanley M. Gruss, Deputy Commissioner and Counsel, to Richard A. Brown, Counsel to the Governor (June 20, 1979), 1979 Bill Jacket.
Accordingly, to state that §415-a5 is “really” designed to gather evidence to enable convictions under the penal laws is to ignore the plain administrative purposes of § 415-a, in general, and § 415-a5, in particular.
If the administrative goals of § 415-a5 are recognized, the difficulty the Court of Appeals perceives in allowing inspecting officers to examine vehicles and vehicle parts even in the absence of records evaporates. The regulatory purposes of § 415-a5 certainly are served by having the inspecting officers compare the records of a particular vehicle dismantler with vehicles and vehicle parts in the junkyard. The purposes of maintaining junkyards in the hands of legitimate businesspersons and of tracing vehicles that pass through these businesses, however, also are served by having the officers examine the operator’s inventory even when the operator, for whatever reason, fails to produce the police book. Forbidding inspecting officers to examine the inventory in this situation would permit an illegitimate vehicle dismantler to thwart the purposes of the administrative scheme and would have the absurd result of subjecting his counterpart who maintained records to a more extensive search.
Nor do we think that this administrative scheme is unconstitutional simply because, in the course of enforcing it, an inspecting officer may discover evidence of crimes, besides violations of the scheme itself. In United States v. Biswell, the pawnshop operator was charged not only with a violation of the recordkeeping provision, pursuant to which the inspection was made, but also with other violations detected during the inspection, see 406 U. S., at 313, n. 2, and convicted of a failure to pay an occupational tax for dealing in specific firearms, id., at 312-313. The discovery of evidence of crimes in the course of an otherwise proper administrative inspection does not render that search illegal or the administrative scheme suspect. Cf. United States v. Villamonte-Marquez, 462 U. S. 579, 583-584, and n. 3 (1983).
Finally, we fail to see any constitutional significance in the fact that police officers, rather than “administrative” agents, are permitted to conduct the § 415-a5 inspection. The significance respondent alleges lies in the role of police officers as enforcers of the penal laws and in the officers’ power to arrest for offenses other than violations of the administrative scheme. It is, however, important to note that state police officers, like those in New York, have numerous duties in addition to those associated with traditional police work. See People v. De Bour, 40 N. Y. 2d 210, 218, 352 N. E. 2d 562, 568 (1976) (“To consider the actions of the police solely in terms of arrest and criminal process is an unnecessary distortion”); see also ABA Standards for Criminal Justice 1-1.1(b) and commentary (2d ed. 1980, Supp. 1982). As a practical matter, many States do not have the resources to assign the enforcement of a particular administrative scheme to a specialized agency. So long as a regulatory scheme is properly administrative, it is not rendered illegal by the fact that the inspecting officer has the power to arrest individuals for violations other than those created by the scheme itself. In sum, we decline to impose upon the States the burden of requiring the enforcement of their regulatory statutes to be carried out by specialized agents.
V
Accordingly, the judgment of the New York Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
This statute reads in pertinent part:
“Records and identification, (a) Any records required by this section shall apply only to vehicles or parts of vehicles for which a certificate of title has been issued by the commissioner [of the Department of Motor Vehicles] or which would be eligible to have such a certificate of title issued. Every person required to be registered pursuant to this section shall maintain a record of all motor vehicles, trailers, and major component parts thereof, coming into his possession together with a record of the disposition of any such motor vehicle, trailer or part thereof and shall maintain proof of ownership for any motor vehicle, trailer or major component part thereof while in his possession. Such records shall be maintained in a manner and form prescribed by the commissioner. The commissioner may, by regulation, exempt vehicles or major component parts of vehicles from all or a portion of the record keeping requirements based upon the age of the vehicle if he deems that such record keeping requirements would serve no substantial value. Upon request of an agent of the commissioner or of any police officer and during his regular and usual business hours, a vehicle dismantler shall produce such records and permit said agent or police officer to examine them and any vehicles or parts of vehicles which are subject to the record keeping requirements of this section and which are on the premises.... The failure to produce such records or to permit such inspection on the part of any person required to be registered pursuant to this section as required by this paragraph shall be a class A misdemeanor.”
It was unclear from the record why, on that particular day, Burger’s junkyard was selected for inspection. Tr. 23-24. The junkyards designated for inspection apparently were selected from a list of such businesses compiled by New York City police detectives. Id., at 24.
An individual operating a vehicle-dismantling business in New York is required to have a license:
“Definition and registration of vehicle dismantlers. A vehicle dis-mantler is any person who is engaged in the business of acquiring motor vehicles or trailers for the purpose of dismantling the same for parts or reselling such vehicles as scrap. No person shall engage in the business of or operate as a vehicle dismantler unless there shall have been issued to him a registration in accordance with the provisions of this section. A violation of this subdivision shall be a class E felony.” N. Y. Veh. & Traf. Law § 415-al (
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 Alito
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), “a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim” tolls the 1-year limitation period for filing a federal habeas petition. 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(2). The question in this case is whether a motion to reduce sentence under Rhode Island law tolls the limitation period, thereby rendering respondent Khalil Kholi’s federal habeas petition timely. We hold that the phrase “collateral review” in § 2244(d)(2) means judicial review of a judgment in a proceeding that is not part of direct review. Because the parties agree that a motion to reduce sentence under Rhode Island law is not part of the direct review process, we hold that respondent’s motion tolled the AEDPA limitation period and that his federal habeas petition was therefore timely.
I
A
In 1993, respondent was convicted in Rhode Island Superior Court on 10 counts of first-degree sexual assault, and he was sentenced to consecutive terms of life imprisonment. Respondent raised various challenges to his conviction on direct appeal, but the Supreme Court of Rhode Island affirmed his conviction. State v. Kholi, 672 A. 2d 429, 431 (1996). The parties agree that respondent’s conviction became final on direct review when his time expired for filing a petition for a writ of certiorari in this Court. Brief for Petitioner 7, n. 4; Brief for Respondent 3, n. 1; 582 F. 3d 147, 150 (CA1 2009); see generally Jimenez v. Quarterman, 555 U. S. 113, 119 (2009). That date was May 29, 1996. See this Court’s Rules 13.1, 13.3, 30.1.
In addition to taking a direct appeal, respondent filed two state motions that are relevant to our decision. The first, filed on May 16,1996, was a motion to reduce sentence under Rule 35 of the Rhode Island Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure. App. 8. In that motion, respondent asked the trial court to “reconsider its prior determination” and “order that his life sentences run concurrently.” State v. Kholi, 706 A. 2d 1326 (R. I. 1998) (order). Concluding that “the sentence imposed was appropriate,” the hearing justice denied the Rule 35 motion. ' Ibid. ' On January 16,1998, the State Supreme Court affirmed and observed that the facts clearly justified the sentence. Id., at 1326-1327.
On May 23, 1997, while the Rule 35 motion was pending, respondent also filed an application for state postconviction relief, see R. I. Gen. Laws § 10-9.1-1 et seq. (Lexis 1997) (titled “Post Conviction Remedy”), which challenged his conviction. The trial court denied this motion as well, and the State Supreme Court affirmed that decision on December 14, 2006. Kholi v. Wall, 911 A. 2d 262, 263-264 (R. I. 2006).
B
Respondent filed a federal habeas petition in the District of Rhode Island on September 5, 2007. App. 3. By that time, his conviction had been final for over 11 years. AEDPA generally requires a federal habeas petition to be filed within one year of the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review. 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(1)(A). But the 1-year limitation period is tolled during the pendency of “a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim.” § 2244(d)(2).
There is no dispute that respondent’s application for post-conviction relief tolled the limitation period for over nine years — from May 23,1997, through December 14, 2006. 582 F. 3d, at 151. Even after subtracting that stretch of time from the 11-year period, however, the period between the conclusion of direct review and the filing of the federal ha-beas petition still exceeds one year. Thus, in order for respondent’s petition to be timely, the Rule 35 motion to reduce sentence must also trigger the tolling provision.
Respondent’s federal habeas petition was referred to a Magistrate Judge for a report and recommendation, and the Magistrate Judge concluded that the Rule 35 motion was not a “ ‘properly filed application for post-conviction or other collateral review’ ” under § 2244(d)(2) because it was “a ‘plea of leniency,’ and not a motion challenging the legal sufficiency of his sentence.” No. CA 07-346S, 2008 WL 60194, *4 (DRI, Jan. 3, 2008). The District Court adopted the Magistrate Judge’s report and recommendation and therefore dismissed the federal habeas petition as untimely. See id., at *1. On appeal, the First Circuit reversed. 582 F. 3d 147.
The Courts of Appeals are divided over the question whether a motion to reduce sentence tolls the period of limitation under § 2244(d)(2). We granted certiorari to answer this question with respect to a motion to reduce sentence under Rhode Island law. 560 U. S. 903 (2010).
II
A
AEDPA establishes a 1-year period of limitation for a state prisoner to file a federal application for a writ of habeas corpus. § 2244(d)(1). This period runs “from the latest of” four specified dates, including “the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review.” § 2244(d)(1)(A); see also Jimenez, supra, at 119 (explaining when “the conclusion of direct review occurs”). The limitation period is tolled, however, during the pendency of “a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim.” § 2244(d)(2). The question in this case is whether a motion for reduction of sentence under Rhode Island’s Rule 35 is an “application for State post-conviction or other collateral review.”
The parties agree that the answer to this question turns on the meaning of the phrase “collateral review,” see Brief for Petitioner 19; Brief for Respondent 12-13, but they disagree about the definition of that term. Rhode Island argues that “collateral review” includes only “legal” challenges to a conviction or sentence and thus excludes motions seeking a discretionary sentence reduction. . Respondent, on the other hand, maintains that “collateral review” is “review other than review of a judgment in the direct appeal process” and thus includes motions to reduce sentence. Brief for Respondent 17. We agree with respondent’s understanding of “collateral review.”
B
“Collateral review” is not defined in AEDPA, and we have never provided a comprehensive definition of that term. See Duncan v. Walker, 533 U. S. 167, 175-178 (2001). We therefore begin by considering the ordinary understanding of the phrase “collateral review.” See Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 420, 431 (2000) (“We give the words of a statute their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning, absent an indication Congress intended them to bear some different import” (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Carey v. Saffold, 536 U. S. 214, 219 (2002) (considering the ordinary meaning of the word “pending” in § 2244(d)(2)).
The term “collateral,” in its “customary and preferred sense,” Williams, supra, at 431, means “[l]ying aside from the main subject, line of action, issue, purpose, etc.;... subordinate, indirect,” 3 Oxford English Dictionary 473 (2d ed. 1989) (hereinafter OED); see also Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 444 (1993) (hereinafter Webster’s) (“accompanying as ... secondary,” “indirect,” or “ancillary”). By definition, something that is “collateral” is “indirect,” not direct. 3 OED 473. This suggests that “collateral” review is review that is “[l]ying aside from the main” review, i. e., that is not part of direct review. Ibid.
The definition of the related phrase “collateral attack” points in the same direction. A “collateral attack” is “[a]n attack on a judgment in a proceeding other than a direct appeal.” Black’s Law Dictionary 298 (9th ed. 2009) (emphasis added); cf. Wash. Rev. Code § 10.73.090(2) (2008) (defining “collateral attack” as “any form of postconviction relief other than a direct appeal”). This usage buttresses the conclusion that “collateral review” means a form of review that is not part of the direct appeal process.
C
Our prior usage of the term “collateral” also supports this understanding. We have previously described a variety of proceedings as “collateral,” and all of these proceedings share the characteristic that we have identified, i. e., they stand apart from the process of direct review.
For example, our cases make it clear that habeas corpus is a form of collateral review. We have used the terms habeas corpus and “collateral review” interchangeably, see, e.g., Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478, 482-483 (1986), and it is well accepted that state petitions for habeas corpus toll the limitation period, e. g., Rhines v. Weber, 544 U. S. 269, 272 (2005) (“[T]he 1-year statute of limitations . . . was tolled while Rhines’ state habeas corpus petition was pending”).
We have also described coram nobis as a means of “collateral attack,” see, e. g., United States v. Morgan, 346 U. S. 502, 510-511 (1954) (internal quotation marks omitted), and we have used the term “collateral” to describe proceedings under 28 U. S. C. § 2255 and a prior version of Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. In United States v. Robinson, 361 U. S. 220 (1960), we distinguished between the process of direct appeal and “a number of collateral remedies,” including Federal Rule 35 motions, § 2255 motions, and coram nobis. Id., at 230, n. 14. Similarly, in Bartone v. United States, 375 U. S. 52 (1968) (per curiam), we drew a distinction between a “[djirect attack” on a criminal judgment and “collateral proceedings,” such as Rule 35, habeas corpus, and §2255 proceedings. Id., at 53-54.
All of the proceedings identified in these prior opinions as “collateral” are separate from the direct review process, and thus our prior usage of the term “collateral” buttresses the conclusion that “collateral review” means a form of review that is not direct.
D
Of course, to trigger the tolling provision, a “collateral” proceeding must also involve a form of “review,” but the meaning of that term seems clear. “Review” is best understood as an “act of inspecting or examining” or a “judicial reexamination.” Webster’s 1944; see also Black’s, supra, at 1434 (“[consideration, inspection, or reexamination of a subject or thing”); 13 OED 831 (“[t]o submit (a decree, act, etc.) to examination or revision”). We thus agree with the First Circuit that “ 'review’ commonly denotes ‘a looking over or examination with a view to amendment or improvement.’ ” 582 F. 3d, at 153 (quoting Webster’s 1944 (2002)). Viewed as a whole, then, “collateral review” of a judgment or claim means a judicial reexamination of a judgment or claim in a proceeding outside of the direct review process.
Ill
We now apply this definition of “collateral review” to a Rule 35 motion to reduce sentence under Rhode Island law.
A
Rule 35 of the Rhode Island Rules of Criminal Procedure is much like the version of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35 that was in force prior to the enactment of the federal Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 and the promulgation of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. See State v. Byrnes, 456 A. 2d 742, 744 (R. I. 1983) (per curiam); Reporter’s Notes following R. I. Super. Ct. Rule Crim. Proc. 35, R. I. Court Rules Ann., p. 620 (Lexis 2010). Under the Rhode Island Rules, a Rule 35 motion permits a court to provide relief from a sentence in three ways: A court “may” “correct an illegal sentence,” “correct a sentence imposed in an illegal manner,” and “reduce any sentence.” R. I. Super. Ct. Rule Crim. Proc. 35(a); see n. 1, supra. In this case, respondent filed a motion to reduce his sentence, which permits a trial justice to decide “ ‘ “on reflection or on the basis of changed circumstances that the sentence originally imposed was, for any reason, unduly severe.” ’ ” State v. Ruffner, 5 A. 3d 864, 867 (R. I. 2010) (quoting State v. Mendoza, 958 A. 2d 1159, 1161 (R. I. 2008)); see also Reporter’s Notes following R. I. Super. Ct. Rule Crim. Proc. 35, R. I. Court Rules Ann., at 620-621. Rhode Island courts have, at times, referred to such a motion as a “ ‘plea for leniency.’ ” Ruffner, supra, at 867 (quoting Mendoza, supra, at 1161).
A Rule 35 motion is made in the Superior Court, and it is generally heard by the same trial justice who sentenced the defendant. Byrnes, supra, at 745. The Rhode Island Supreme Court has explained that a motion to reduce sentence is “ ‘addressed to the sound discretion of the trial justice’ ” and that appellate review of the trial justice’s decision is limited. Ruffner, supra, at 867 (quoting Mendoza, supra, at 1161). An appellate court may nevertheless disturb the trial justice’s decision “when the trial justice has imposed a sentence that is without justification and is grossly disparate from other sentences generally imposed for similar offenses.” Ruffner, supra, at 867 (quoting State v. Coleman, 984 A. 2d 650, 654 (R. I. 2009); internal quotation marks omitted); see also Ruffner, supra, at 867 (asking whether trial justice “abuse[d] his discretion”).
B
With these principles in mind, we consider whether Rhode Island’s Rule 35 motion to reduce sentence is an application for “collateral review.”
The first — and the critical — question is whether a Rhode Island Rule 35 sentence reduction proceeding is “collateral.” Respondent and Rhode Island agree that such a motion is not part, of the direct review process. Moreover, we have previously referred to a motion to reduce sentence under old Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure as invoking a “collateral” remedy, see Robinson, 361 U. S., at 230, n. 14, and Rhode Island’s Rule 35 motion to reduce sentence is “substantially similar” to former Federal Rule 35, Byrnes, supra, at 744. Lower courts have also referred to Federal Rule 35 sentence reduction motions as “collateral.” See, e. g., Fernandez v. United States, 941 F. 2d 1488, 1492 (CA11 1991) (“Fernandez initiated a collateral attack on his sentence with a Rule 35(b) motion to reduce his sentence” under the old Federal Rule). We thus have little difficulty concluding that a Rhode Island sentence reduction proceeding is “collateral.”
Not only is a motion to reduce sentence under Rhode Island law “collateral,” but it also undoubtedly calls for “review” of the sentence. The decision to reduce a sentence, while largely within the discretion of the trial justice, involves judicial reexamination of the sentence to determine whether a more lenient sentence is proper. When ruling on such a motion, a trial justice is guided by several factors, including “(1) the severity of the crime, (2) the defendant’s personal, educational, and employment background, (3) the potential for rehabilitation, (4) the element of societal deterrence, and (5) the appropriateness of the punishment.” State v. Mollicone, 746 A. 2d 135, 138 (R. I. 2000) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Ruffner, supra, at 867; Coleman, supra, at 655. On appeal from a trial justice’s decision on a motion to reduce sentence, the Supreme Court of Rhode Island evaluates the trial justice’s justifications in light of the relevant sentencing factors to determine whether a sentence is “without justification” and “grossly disparate from other sentences.” Ruffner, supra, at 867 (internal quotation marks omitted). This process surely qualifies as “review” of a sentence within the meaning of § 2244(d)(2).
We thus hold that a motion to reduce sentence under Rhode Island law is an application for “collateral review” that triggers AEDPA's tolling provision.
IV
In resisting this interpretation, Rhode Island advances several arguments that we find unpersuasive.
The first of these arguments begins by observing that, whenever our opinions have used the precise phrase “collateral review,” the proceeding in question was one challenging the “lawfulness” of a prior judgment, Brief for Petitioner 21-22, such as a § 2254 or § 2255 action, see id., at 25. Rhode Island argues that Congress, in enacting AEDPA, must be presumed to have been aware of this usage and must have intended the phrase to carry this narrow meaning.
This argument reads far too much into these prior references to “collateral review.” While our opinions have used the phrase “collateral review” to refer to proceedings that challenge the lawfulness of a prior judgment, we have never suggested that the phrase may properly be used to describe only proceedings of this type. In addition, Rhode Island overlooks opinions describing a motion to reduce sentence as “collateral.” E. g., Robinson, supra, at 230, n. 14; Fernandez, supra, at 1492; see also 1 D. Wilkes, State Postconviction Remedies and Relief Handbook §§ 1:2, 1:7, pp. 2, 15 (2010) (hereinafter Postconviction Remedies) (characterizing a motion to reduce sentence as a “collateral” or “postconviction” remedy).
In a related argument, Rhode Island notes that several other AEDPA provisions use the term “collateral review” to refer to proceedings that involve a challenge to the lawfulness of a state-court judgment, see 28 U. S. C. §§ 2244(b)(2)(A), (d)(1)(C), 2254(e)(2)(A)(i), and Rhode Island reasons that the phrase “collateral review” in § 2244(d)(2) should be limited to proceedings of this nature. This argument has the same flaw as the argument just discussed. Just because the phrase “collateral review” encompasses proceedings that challenge the lawfulness of a prior judgment, it does not follow that other proceedings may not also be described as involving “collateral review.”
Finally, Rhode Island contends that the purpose of the tolling provision is to allow a state prisoner to exhaust state remedies and that this purpose is not served when a prisoner’s state application merely seeks sentencing leniency, a matter that cannot be raised in a federal habeas petition. This argument is based on an excessively narrow understanding of § 2244(d)(2)’s role.
It is certainly true that a purpose — and perhaps the chief purpose — of tolling under § 2244(d)(2) is to permit the exhaustion of state remedies, see Duncan, 533 U. S., at 178-179, but that is not § 2244(d)(2)’s only role. The tolling provision “provides a powerful incentive for litigants to exhaust all available state remedies before proceeding in the lower federal courts.” Id., at 180 (emphasis added). Tolling the limitation period for all “collateral review” motions provides both litigants and States with an opportunity to resolve objections at the state level, potentially obviating the need for a litigant to resort to federal court. If, for example, a litigant obtains relief on state-law grounds, there may be no need for federal habeas. The same dynamic may be present to a degree with respect to motions that do not challenge the lawfulness of a judgment. If a defendant receives relief in state court, the need for federal habeas review may be narrowed or even obviated, and this furthers principles of “comity, finality, and federalism.” Williams, 529 U. S., at 436.
Rhode Island’s interpretation of § 2244(d)(2) would also greatly complicate the work of federal habeas courts. Rhode Island would require those courts to separate motions for a reduced sentence into two categories: those that challenge a sentence on legal grounds and those that merely ask for leniency. But this taxonomy is problematic. Even if a jurisdiction allows sentencing judges to exercise a high degree of discretion in selecting a sentence from within a prescribed range, it does not necessarily follow that the judge’s choice is insulated from challenge on legal grounds. “[Discretionary choices are not left to a court’s ‘inclination, but to its judgment; and its judgment is to be guided by sound legal principles.’” Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 416 (1975) (quoting United States v. Burr, 25 F. Cas. 30, 35 (No. 14,692d) (CC Va. 1807) (Marshall, C. J.)). If the law of a jurisdiction provides criteria to guide a trial judge’s exercise of sentencing discretion, a motion to reduce sentence may argue that a sentence is inconsistent with those criteria. In that sense, the motion argues that the sentence is contrary to sentencing law. See, e. g., Ruffner, 5 A. 3d, at 867 (“A trial justice considers a number of factors when determining a fair sentence[,] including the defendant’s potential for rehabilitation. The defendant asserts that the trial justice did not consider defendant’s participation in rehabilitative programs” (citations omitted)). We do not think that § 2244(d)(2) was meant to require federal habeas courts to draw the sort of difficult distinction that Rhode Island’s interpretation would demand.
We also reject the argument that the meaning of the phrase “collateral review” should turn on whether the motion or application that triggers that review is captioned as a part of the criminal case or as a separate proceeding. See Walkowiak v. Haines, 272 F. 3d 234, 237 (CA4 2001). This interpretation of § 2244(d)(2) would produce confusion and inconsistency.
For one thing, some “collateral” proceedings are often regarded as part of the criminal case. We have said, for example, that a writ of coram nobis “is a step in the criminal case and not ... a separate case and record, the beginning of a separate civil proceeding.” Morgan, 346 U. S., at 505, n. 4; see also United States v. Denedo, 556 U. S. 904, 913 (2009) (“[A]n application for the writ is properly viewed as a belated extension of the original proceeding during which the error allegedly transpired”). But we have nonetheless suggested that coram nobis is a means of “collateral attack.” Morgan, supra, at 510-511 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Robinson, 361 U. S., at 280, n. 14. Similarly, a motion under 28 U. S. C. § 2255 (2006 ed., Supp. Ill) is entered on the docket of the original criminal case and is typically referred to the judge who originally presided over the challenged proceedings, see §2255 Rules 3(b), 4(a), but there is no dispute that §2255 proceedings are “collateral,” see, e. g., Massaro v. United States, 538 U. S. 500, 504 (2003) (describing §2255 proceedings as “collateral”); Daniels v. United States, 532 U. S. 374, 379 (2001) (same).
Moreover, the methods of filing for postconviction or collateral review vary among the States. In the District of Columbia and 14 States, the principal postconviction remedy is part of the original case; in other States, it is not. Post-conviction Remedies § 1:3, at 6-7. Given the States’ “different forms of collateral review,” Duncan, 533 U. S., at 177, the application of AEDPA’s tolling provision should not turn on such formalities. See ibid. (“Congress may have refrained from exclusive reliance on the term 'post-conviction’ so as to leave no doubt that the tolling provision applies to all types of state collateral review available after a conviction”).
We thus define “collateral review” according to its ordinary meaning: It refers to judicial review that occurs in a proceeding outside of the direct review process.
* * *
For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
This Rule provides in relevant part:
“The court may correct an illegal sentence at any time. The court may correct a sentence imposed in an illegal manner and it may reduce any sentence when a motion is filed within one hundred and twenty (120) days after the sentence is imposed, or within one hundred and twenty (120) days after receipt by the court of a mandate of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island issued upon affirmance of the judgment or dismissal of the appeal, or within one hundred and twenty (120) days after receipt by the court of a mandate or order of the Supreme Corut of the United States issued upon affirmance of the judgment, dismissal of the appeal, or denial of a writ of certiorari. The court shall act on the motion within a reasonable time, provided that any delay by the court in ruling on the motion shall not prejudice the movant. The court may reduce a sentence, the execution of which has been suspended, upon revocation of probation.” R. I. Super. Ct. Rule Crim. Proc. 35(a) (2010) (emphasis added).
Compare Alexander v. Secretary, Dept. of Corrections, 523 F. 3d 1291, 1297 (CA11 2008) (motion to reduce sentence does not toll limitation period); Hartmann v. Carroll, 492 F. 3d 478, 484 (CA3 2007) (same); Walkowiak v. Haines, 272 F. 3d 234, 239 (CA4 2001) (same), with 582 F. 3d, at 156 (case below) (motion to reduce sentence tolls); Robinson v. Golder, 443 F. 3d 718, 720-721 (CA10 2006) (per curiam) (same).
We can imagine an argument that a Rhode Island Rule 35 proceeding is in fact part of direct review under § 2244(d)(1) because, according to the parties, defendants in Rhode Island cannot raise any challenge to their sentences on direct appeal; instead, they must bring a Rule 35 motion. See, e. g., State v. Day, 925 A. 2d 962, 985 (R. I. 2007) (“It is well settled in this jurisdiction that a challenge to a criminal sentence must begin with the filing of a [Rule 35] motion .... [W]e will not consider the validity or legality of a sentence on direct appeal unless extraordinary circumstances exist” (internal quotation marks omitted)); State v. McManus, 990 A. 2d 1229, 1238 (R. I. 2010) (refusing to consider Eighth Amendment challenge on direct review because “[t]o challenge a criminal sentence, the defendant must first file a motion to reduce in accordance with Rule 35”); see also Jimenez v. Quarterman, 555 U. S. 113, 120 (2009). That issue has not been briefed or argued by the parties, however, and we express no opinion as to the merit of such an argument. Even if we were to assume that a Rhode Island Rule 35 motion is part of direct review, our disposition of this case would not change: Respondent’s habeas petition still would be timely, because the limitation period would not have begun to run until after the Rule 35 proceedings concluded.
A motion to reduce sentence is unlike a motion for postconviction discovery or a motion for appointment of counsel, which generally are not direct requests for judicial review of a judgment and do not provide a state court with authority to order relief from a judgment.
E. g., State v. Coleman, 984 A. 2d 650, 657 (R. I. 2009) (“Given these factors, and the trial justice’s exhaustive explanation of her reasoning in sentencing Mr. Coleman, we hold it was not an abuse of her discretion to order Mr. Coleman to serve consecutive sentences”); State v. Ferrara, 818 A. 2d 642, 645 (R. I. 2003) (per curiam) (“[M]itigating circumstances clearly are not present in this case”); State v. Rossi, 771 A. 2d 906, 908 (R. I. 2001) (order) (“Based upon [the court’s] review of the record,” the sentence “was not excessive and was justified under the circumstances,” namely, “the abhorrent conduct of [the] defendant” and “the permissible penalty range” under the statute); State v. Mollicone, 746 A. 2d 135, 138 (R. I. 2000) (per curiam) (“[T]he trial justice was aware of these factors and applied them correctly”).
All of these provisions refer to a new rule of constitutional law made retroactively applicable by this Court to “cases on collateral review.”
In other contexts not relevant here, there has been some confusion over whether § 2255 proceedings are civil or criminal in nature. See, e. g., Postconviction Remedies § 3:5, at 251 (“[T]here is a dispute over whether the [§2255] motion initiates an independent civil action or, instead, is merely a further step in the criminal prosecution”); 3 C. Wright & S. Welling, Federal Practice and Procedure § 622 (4th ed. 2011). We express no opinion on this question.
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
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.