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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Brennan delivered the opinion of the Court. On May 16, 1967, petitioner, on advice of counsel, pleaded guilty in the Superior Court of Hartford County, Connecticut, to charges of narcotics violation and larceny of goods. On June 16, 1967, before being sentenced, he informed the court that he had retained new counsel and desired to withdraw his plea and stand trial. The court refused to permit him to withdraw his plea and sentenced him to a term of five to 10 years on the narcotics charge and to a term of two years on the larceny charge. The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed this conviction on his direct appeal challenging the voluntariness of his plea, State v. Dukes, 157 Conn. 498, 255 A. 2d 614 (1969), and the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut denied his application for federal habeas corpus relief sought in Civil Action No. 13029. He then brought this state habeas corpus action in the Superior Court for Hartford County, and attacked the voluntariness of his plea under the Federal Constitution on a ground not raised either on his direct appeal or in his action for federal habeas corpus relief. He alleged that a conflict of interest arising from his lawyer’s representation of two girls with whom petitioner had been charged in an unrelated false pretenses case was known to the judge who sentenced him and rendered his plea involuntary and unintelligent. After a full hearing, the Superior Court denied relief. The Supreme Court of Connecticut affirmed, 161 Conn. 337, 288 A. 2d 58 (1971). The Supreme Court stated that, although the petition for state habeas relief alleged that the guilty plea was not voluntary and intelligent on several grounds, “[o]n appeal, however, [petitioner] has asserted in essence only that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel, which rendered his plea involuntary . . . .” 161 Conn., at 339, 288 A. 2d, at 60. We granted certiorari. 404 U. S. 937 (1971). The two girls were represented by Mr. Zaccagnino of the firm of Zaccagnino, Linardos, & Delaney in the false pretenses case, and petitioner by another lawyer, when petitioner retained the firm to defend him in the narcotics and larceny case. There were also charges pending against petitioner in New Haven and Fairfield counties. He also faced the possibility of prosecution as a second offender, having been convicted in state court in 1961 of breaking and entry and assault. Petitioner, accompanied by Mr. Zaccagnino, appeared on May 9, 1967, to plead to the narcotics and larceny charges. The lawyer advised him to plead guilty if a plea bargain could be negotiated whereby the State’s Attorney would consolidate all outstanding charges in and out of Hartford County and agree not to prosecute petitioner as a second offender, but to recommend a sentence of five to 10 years on the narcotics charge, two years on the larceny charge, and concurrent sentences on all the other charges. Under Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. § 54-17a (1958) the New Haven County and Fairfield County charges would be transferred to Hartford County for disposition only if the State’s Attorney of the counties consented and petitioner pleaded guilty to the charges. When petitioner refused to accept this advice, Mr. Zaccagnino asked the court to be relieved as petitioner’s counsel. The court denied the request but accepted petitioner’s plea of not guilty and continued the trial to the next day so that petitioner might try to retain another lawyer. As petitioner went to the corridor outside the courtroom, however, Hartford police officers arrested him on still another charge. Petitioner attempted suicide at the police station to which he was taken and was hospitalized for several days. Accordingly the trial date was postponed to May 16. Petitioner did not engage new counsel but appeared for trial on May 16 represented by Mr. Delaney, partner of Mr. Zaccagnino who was engaged in another court. Petitioner now showed interest in a plea bargain, and Mr. Delaney and the State’s Attorney engaged in negotiations, which were interrupted from time to time while Mr. Delaney consulted with petitioner. A plea bargain on the terms Mr. Zaccagnino had urged petitioner on May 9 to accept was finally struck, and petitioner withdrew his not-guilty plea and entered the guilty plea he now attacks. The State’s Attorney had misgivings because of petitioner’s expressed dissatisfaction with Mr. Zaccagnino the week before, and the following occurred: “[State’s Attorney]: . . . The record also ought to appear that Mr. Delaney is here with him today and he is in the office of Mr. Zaccagnino. I think the Court might inquire with respect to the representation since there had been some indication that counsel had asked to withdraw the other day. “The Court: Well now, Mr. Dukes, I want to be sure that everything is in order here. . . . Now I want, now Mr. Delaney is here, are you fully satisfied with the services he is rendering you, Mr. Dukes? “The Accused: Yes, sir. “The Court: You are. And now you know of course, Mr. Dukes, that — you know of course that the State of Connecticut has the burden of proving you guilty on the charge and you are free to go to trial but you still wish to change your plea, is that correct? “The Accused: Yes, sir. “The Court: And do you do this of your own free will, Mr. Dukes? “The Accused: Yes, sir. “The Court: And you know the probable consequences of it? “The Accused: Yes, sir. “The Court: Very well, and no one has induced you to do this, influenced you one way or the other? You are doing this of your own free will? “The Accused: Yes. “The Court: Very well then. We will accept the change of plea.” The court set June 2, 1967, for sentencing petitioner. But the documents transferring the New Haven County and Fairfield County charges had not arrived, and the presentence report had not been completed, on that day, and the date was therefore continued to June 16, 1967. By coincidence, however, the judge’s calendar for June 2 also listed the case of the two girls who, on Mr. Zac-cagnino’s advice, had pleaded guilty to the false pretenses charges and were to be sentenced. That proceeding did not involve petitioner because the disposition of the charges as to him was part of the plea bargain. In urging leniency for the two girls, Mr. Zaccagnino made statements putting the blame on petitioner for the girls’ plight. These statements are the primary basis of petitioner’s claim of divided loyalty on the part of Mr. Zaccagnino that he alleges rendered his guilty plea of May 16 involuntary and unintelligent. Mr. Zac-cagnino said: “[B]oth of them came under the influence of Charles Dukes. Now how they could get in a position to come under the influence of somebody like him, if Your Honor pleases, creates the problem here that I think is the cause of the whole situation. “Both these girls left their homes, came under the influence of Dukes and got involved. I think, Your Honor, though, that the one thing . . . that should stand in their good stead, as a result of their willingness to cooperate with the State Police they capitulated Dukes into making a plea. I think, Your Honor, since I was on both sides of the case, having been on the other side on the other case I can tell Your Honor that it was these girls that because of their refusal ... to cooperate with Dukes and to testify against him that capitulated him into taking a plea on which he will shortly be removed from society . . . .” Mr. Zaccagnino appeared on June 16 to represent petitioner in the proceedings to complete the plea bargain. He was surprised to be told by petitioner that petitioner had obtained new counsel and intended to withdraw his guilty plea and stand trial. It appears from petitioner’s cross-examination at the state habeas hearing that he had learned on June 2 of Mr. Zaccagnino’s statements about him when the girls were sentenced. Yet he did not tell Mr. Zaccagnino that this was why he was changing lawyers, nor did he tell the court that this was why he wanted to withdraw his plea. When pressed by the court to give a reason, he answered, “At the time I pleaded, I just came out of the hospital, I think it was a day, and I was unconscious for three days, and I didn’t realize at the time actually what I was pleading to.” His explanation for wanting another lawyer was that he thought an out-of-town lawyer would give him better service: “I would rather have an attorney out of town for certain reasons of the case.” The court refused to permit petitioner to withdraw the plea and heard counsel on the question of the sentence to be imposed. The State’s attorney, despite the collapse of the plea bargain, recommended, and the court imposed, a first offender’s sentence of five to 10 years on the narcotics count and two years on the larceny count; that is the precise sentence the State’s Attorney had agreed to recommend as part of the plea bargain. Mr. Zaccagnino, however, was concerned that petitioner’s unwillingness to go through with the plea bargain left petitioner vulnerable to the prosecution on the outstanding charges in the various counties: “[I]t was a matter that Your Honor would normally , in a situation like this, enter concurrent sentences, if, in fact, it was so recommended by the State’s Attorney; but since [petitioner] doesn’t want to plea to these other matters, I would like to make that note for the record, because I feel at some later date he may have to come back to this court and see Your Honor or see another judge on these other matters now pending before it.” On this state of facts, the Connecticut Supreme Court concluded that petitioner had not sustained his claim that a conflict of interest on the part of Mr. Zaccagnino rendered his plea involuntary and unintelligent. The court said, 161 Conn., at 344-345, 288 A. 2d, at 62: “There is nothing in the record before us which would indicate that the alleged conflict resulted in ineffective assistance of counsel and did in fact render the plea in question involuntary and unintelligent. [Petitioner] does not claim, and it is nowhere indicated in the finding, nor could it be inferred from the finding, that either Attorney Zac-cagnino or Attorney Delaney induced [petitioner] to plead guilty in furtherance of a plan to obtain more favorable consideration from the court for other clients. . . . Neither does the finding in any way disclose, nor is it claimed, that [petitioner] received misleading advice from Attorney Zaccag-nino or Attorney Delaney which led him to plead guilty. . . . Moreover, the trial court specifically found that when [petitioner] engaged Zaccagnino as his counsel, he knew that Zaccagnino was representing two defendants in the unrelated case in which he was a codefendant, that he never complained to the court that he was not satisfied with Attorney Zac-cagnino because of this dual representation, that he was not represented at the entry of his plea by Attorney Zaccagnino, that he was represented by Attorney Delaney at the entry of his plea, that he had a lengthy conversation with Attorney Delaney prior to entering his plea which he recalled completely, and that on specific inquiry by the court before he pleaded guilty, he told the court that he was satisfied with the representation by Attorney Delaney. The court did not err in concluding that [petitioner’s] plea was not rendered involuntary and unintelligent by the alleged conflict of interest.” We fully agree with this reasoning and conclusion of the Connecticut Supreme Court. Since there is thus no merit in petitioner’s sole contention in this proceeding— that Mr. Zaccagnino’s alleged conflict of interest affected his plea — that conflict of interest is not “a reason for vacating his plea.” Santobello v. New York, 404 U. S. 257, 267 (1971) (Marshall, J., concurring and dissenting). Affirmed. “Q. ... On June 2nd, weren’t you in Court with Mr. Zaccagnino when your case had to be postponed . . . ? “A. I’m trying to think of the day that the girls got sentenced, because I was not in Court the day they got sentenced, because I know that I wasn’t in Court that specific day, because that’s when I was told what was said about me, and so forth and so on, in Court, so I’m quite sure I wasn’t in Court that day.” App. to Petitioner’s Brief 162-163 (emphasis supplied). The state habeas court took evidence on the question whether his plea was involuntary as the product of the after-effects of his suicide attempt and found against petitioner. Petitioner has not sought review on this question. The only issue before us is his claim that the alleged conflict of interest rendered the plea involuntary and unintelligent. As events proved, all other charges pending in the various counties were dismissed, although after the decision of the Connecticut Supreme Court affirming petitioner’s conviction on direct appeal. Petitioner thus received the benefits of the plea bargain without paying the cost of pleading guilty to the other offenses. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Per Curiam. Petitioner, a veteran with civil service status, was discharged from his civilian position with the United States Air Force for alleged misconduct. Subsequent to unsuccessful prosecution of appropriate administrative proceedings for review of his discharge, he brought suit in the District Court, which granted summary judgment to the respondent Air Force. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Ill U. S. App. D. C. 294, 296 F. 2d 416. Certiorari was granted, 369 U. S. 884, to consider whether, under the principles enunciated by this Court in Vitarelli v. Seaton, 359 U. S. 535, 544-545, petitioner’s discharge was vitiated by an improper denial of a right to cross-examine at his hearing before the Civil Service Commission on appeal pursuant to § 14 of the Veterans’ Preference Act of 1944 and the implementing regulations promulgated by the Commission. Review of the record and argument of counsel disclose, however, that the Vitarelli issue is not adequately presented by this case; accordingly, we conclude that the writ of certiorari should be dismissed as improvidently granted. Although amply notified in advance of the nature of the charges, the names of the witnesses whose affidavits had supplied the factual basis for his dismissal, and the date of the hearing, neither petitioner nor his counsel made any request, prior to the hearing, of the Air Force, of the Commission or its examiner, or of the witnesses themselves, for their appearance for cross-examination. The request for production of the witnesses, made only át the hearing by petitioner’s counsel, was neither timely nor in conformity with the applicable regulations, which contemplate that the party desiring the presence of witnesses, either for direct examination or cross-examination, shall assume the initial burden of producing them. Had petitioner discharged this burden by timely attempt to obtain the attendance of the desired witnesses and through no fault of his own failed, then, to give meaning to the language contained in the regulations affording the “opportunity ... for the cross-examination of witnesses,” the Air Force would have been required, upon proper and timely request, to produce them, since they were readily available and under the Air Force’s control. Vitarelli v. Seaton, 359 U. S. 535, 544-545, would so require. Here, however, though petitioner seeks to rely upon the regulations, he has failed to bring himself within them. Petitioner was accorded ample opportunity to present his own case and rebut the charges against him at several levels of the proceedings before the Air Force and the Civil Service Commission. The writ of certiorari is dismissed. Mr. Justice Harlan concurs in the result. Mr. Justice Douglas, with whom Mr. Justice Black concurs, dissenting. After 16 years of faithful government service, petitioner has been branded with a stigma and discharged on the strength of three affidavits. Though he asked that these affiants be produced at his hearing, none was called to confront him. The Court says that petitioner’s request came too late to cohform with the applicable Regulation. Due process dictates a different result. We have heretofore analogized these administrative proceedings that cast the citizen into the outer darkness to proceedings that “involve the imposition of criminal sanctions”; and we have looked to “deeply rooted” principles of criminal law for guidance in construing regulations of this character. Peters v. Hobby, 349 U. S. 331, 344-345; Greene v. McElroy, 360 U. S. 474, 496. By that analogy we should construe the present Regulation as being protective of the right of confrontation, not as providing a technical way in which the right is either saved or lost. Confrontation and cross-examination are, as I understand the law, vital when one’s employment rights are involved. See Greene v. McElroy, supra, 496; Beard v. Stahr, 370 U. S. 41, 43 (dissenting opinion). Petitioner is not merely being “denied . . . the opportunity to work at one isolated and specific military installation.” Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886, 896. The stigma now attached to him will follow him, whatever employment he seeks. The requirements of due process provided by the Fifth Amendment should protect him against this harsh result by giving him the same right to confront his accusers as he would have in a criminal trial. See Mattox v. United States, 156 U. S. 237; Kirby v. United States, 174 U. S. 47, 55; Curtis v. Rives, 123 F. 2d 936, 938. For this discharge will certainly haunt his later life as much as would a conviction for willful evasion of taxes. A trial for misconduct involving charges of immorality, like one for disloyalty, is likely to be “the most crucial event in the life of a public servant. If condemned, he is branded for life as a person unworthy of trust or confidence. To make that condemnation without meticulous regard for the decencies of a fair trial is abhorrent to fundamental justice.” Anti-Fascist Committee v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 180 (concurring opinion). Petitioner has been deprived of his job and permanently-stigmatized without being confronted by his accusers, even though he requested that they be called and even though they could easily have been produced. Petitioner does more than rely on the Regulation. He relies on the Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment. To be sure, his request at the hearing was not phrased in constitutional terms. But administrative procedures are not games in which rights are won or lost on the turn of a phrase. In the District Court he claimed that this procedure “was arbitrary and capricious and violative of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution.” That adequately raised the issue. See Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1, 6; cf. Williams v. Georgia, 349 U. S. 375. It should be remembered that while a veteran’s proceeding before the Civil Service Commission is called an “appeal,” it is usually the first opportunity the employee has for a “hearing” on the charges against him. In Vitarelli v. Seaton, 359 U. S. 535, 544-545, we construed a Regulation substantially similar to the present one as requiring the Interior Department to call as witnesses all “non-confidential” informants. The Government advances no persuasive reason why that case does not control this one. At the hearing, when petitioner requested that the witnesses be called, his request was rejected because “the Air Force Academy saw no need for their attendance.” But one who desires confrontation with the accuser has such a conflict of interest with his adversary that he, rather than his opponent, can better determine what would or might be useful to his defense. I would not say that this important constitutional right was lost on the technicality the Court now embraces. We should not saddle these administrative proceedings with strict formalities concerning the manner in which exceptions or objections are made. They have no place in criminal proceedings, as Rule 51 of the Federal Rules makes clear; and it is unhealthy to let them take root in administrative hearings where human rights are involved that are as precious to “liberty,” within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment, as a person’s right not to be fined or imprisoned unless prescribed procedures are followed. The judgment below should be reversed and the case remanded for a full hearing. 58 Stat. 390, as amended, 5 U. S. C. § 863. 5 CFR, Part 22. 5 CFR § 22.607, titled “Appearance of witnesses,” provides: “The Commission is not authorized to subpoena witnesses. The employee and his designated representative, and the employing agency, must make their own arrangements for the appearance of witnesses.” 5 CFR §22.603 provides: “Opportunity will be afforded for the introduction of evidence (including testimony and statements by the employee and his designated representative and witnesses and by representatives of the agency and its witnesses) and for the cross-examination of witnesses.” See 5 CFR, pt. 22, §§ 22.603, 22.607. “The primary object of the constitutional provision . . . [is] to prevent depositions or ex parte affidavits . . . being used ... in lieu of a personal examination and cross-examination of the witness in which the accused has an opportunity, not only of testing the recollection and sifting the conscience of the witness, but of compelling him to stand face to face with the jury in order that they may look at him, and judge by his demeanor upon the stand and the manner in which he gives his testimony whether he is worthy of belief.” 156 U. S., at 242-243. A related problem revealing the manner in which business firms are barred from participating directly or indirectly in government contracts without notice, opportunity to be heard, and confrontation is discussed in the Committee Report on Debarment and Suspension of Persons from Government Contracting and Federally Assisted Construction Work prepared for the Administrative Conference of the United States by the Committee on Adjudication of Claims, October 1, 1962. Rule 51 provides: “Exceptions to rulings or orders of the court are unnecessary and for all purposes for which an exception has heretofore been necessary it is sufficient that a party, 'at the time the ruling or order of the court is made or sought, makes known to the court the action which he desires the court to take or his objection to the action of the court and the grounds therefor; but if a party has no opportunity to object to a ruling or order, the absence of an objection does not thereafter prejudice him.” Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

D

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Chief Justice Burger delivered the opinion of the Court. The question presented by this appeal is whether a Massachusetts statute, which vests in the governing bodies of churches and schools the power effectively to veto applications for liquor licenses within a 500-foot radius of the church or school, violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment or the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. I A Appellee operates a restaurant located in the Harvard Square area of Cambridge, Mass. The Holy Cross Armenian Catholic Parish is located adjacent to the restaurant; the back walls of the two buildings are 10 feet apart. In 1977, appellee applied to the Cambridge License Commission for approval of an alcoholic beverages license for the restaurant. Section 16C of Chapter 138 of the Massachusetts General Laws provides: “Premises . . . located within a radius of five hundred feet of a church or school shall not be licensed for the sale of alcoholic beverages if the governing body of such church or school files written objection thereto.” Holy Cross Church objected to appellee’s application, expressing concern over “having so many licenses so near” (emphasis in original). The License Commission voted to deny the application, citing only the objection of Holy Cross Church and noting that the church “is within 10 feet of the proposed location.” On appeal, the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission upheld the License Commission’s action. The Beverages Control Commission found that “the church’s objection under Section 16C was the only basis on which the [license] was denied.” Appellee then sued the License Commission and the Beverages Control Commission in United States District Court. Relief was sought on the grounds that § 16C, on its face and as applied, violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and the Sherman Act. The suit was voluntarily continued pending the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in a similar challenge to §16C, Arno v. Alcoholic Beverages Control Comm’n, 377 Mass. 83, 384 N. E. 2d 1223 (1979). In Amo, the Massachusetts court characterized § 16C as delegating a “veto power” to the specified institutions, id., at 89, 384 N. E. 2d, at 1227, but upheld the statute against Due Process and Establishment Clause challenges. Thereafter, the District Court denied appellants’ motion to dismiss. On the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court declined to follow the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision in Arno, supra. The District Court held that §16C violated the Due Process Clause and the Establishment Clause and held § 16C void on its face, Grendel’s Den, Inc. v. Goodwin, 495 F. Supp. 761 (Mass. 1980). The District Court rejected appellee’s equal protection arguments, but held that the State’s actions were not immune from antitrust review under the doctrine of Parker v. Brown, 317 U. S. 341 (1943). It certified the judgment to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1292, and the Court of Appeals accepted certification. A panel of the First Circuit, in a divided opinion, reversed the District Court on the Due Process and Establishment Clause arguments, but affirmed its antitrust analysis, Grendel’s Den, Inc. v. Goodwin, 662 F. 2d 88 (1981). Appellee’s motion for rehearing en banc was granted and the en banc court, in a divided opinion, affirmed the District Court’s judgment on Establishment Clause grounds without reaching the due process or antitrust claims, Grendel's Den, Inc. v. Goodwin, 662 F. 2d 102 (1981). B The Court of Appeals noted that appellee does not contend that § 16C lacks a secular purpose, and turned to the question of “whether the law ‘has the direct and immediate effect of advancing religion’ as contrasted with ‘only a remote and incidental effect advantageous to religious institutions,”’ id., at 104 (emphasis in original), quoting Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756, 783, n. 39 (1973). The court concluded that § 16C confers a direct and substantial benefit upon religions by “the grant of a veto power over liquor sales in roughly one million square feet... of what may be a city’s most commercially valuable sites,” 662 F. 2d, at 105. The court acknowledged that § 16C “extends its benefits beyond churches to schools,” but concluded that the inclusion of schools “does not dilute [the statute’s] forbidden religious classification,” since § 16C does not “encompass all who are otherwise similarly situated to churches in all respects except dedication to ‘divine worship.’” Id., at 106-107 (footnote omitted). In the view of the Court of Appeals, this “explicit religious discrimination,” id., at 105, provided an additional basis for its holding that § 16C violates the Establishment Clause. The court found nothing in the Twenty-first Amendment to alter its conclusion, and affirmed the District Court’s holding that § 16C is facially unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. We noted probable jurisdiction, 454 U. S. 1140 (1982), and we affirm. II A Appellants contend that the State may, without impinging on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, enforce what it describes as a “zoning” law in order to shield schools and places of divine worship from the presence nearby of liquor-dispensing establishments. It is also contended that a zone of protection around churches and schools is essential to protect diverse centers of spiritual, educational, and cultural enrichment. It is to that end that the State has vested in the governing bodies of all schools, public or private, and all churches, the power to prevent the issu-anee of liquor licenses for any premises within 500 feet of their institutions. Plainly schools and churches have a valid interest in being insulated from certain kinds of commercial establishments, including those dispensing liquor. Zoning laws have long been employed to this end, and there can be little doubt about the power of a state to regulate the environment in the vicinity of schools, churches, hospitals, and the like by exercise of reasonable zoning laws. We have upheld reasonable zoning ordinances regulating the location of so-called “adult” theaters, see Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50, 62-63 (1976); and in Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104 (1972), we recognized the legitimate governmental interest in protecting the environment around certain institutions when we sustained an ordinance prohibiting willfully making, on grounds adjacent to a school, noises which are disturbing to the good order of the school sessions. The zoning function is traditionally a governmental task requiring the “balancing [of] numerous competing considerations,” and courts should properly “refrain from reviewing the merits of [such] decisions, absent a showing of arbitrariness or irrationality.” Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 265 (1977). See also, e. g., Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, 416 U. S. 1, 7-9 (1974). Given the broad powers of states under the Twenty-first Amendment, judicial deference to the legislative exercise of zoning powers by a city council or other legislative zoning body is especially appropriate in the area of liquor regulation. See, e. g., California v. LaRue, 409 U. S. 109 (1972); California Retail Liquor Dealers Assn. v. Midcal Aluminum, Inc., 445 U. S. 97, 106-110 (1980). However, § 16C is not simply a legislative exercise of zoning power. As the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court concluded, § 16C delegates to private, nongovernmental entities power to veto certain liquor license applications, Arno v. Alcoholic Beverages Control Comm’n, 377 Mass., at 89, 384 N. E. 2d, at 1227. This is a power ordinarily vested in agencies of government. See, e. g., California v. LaRue, supra, at 116, commenting that a “state agency ... is itself the repository of the State’s power under the Twenty-first Amendment.” We need not decide whether, or upon what conditions, such power may ever be delegated to nongovernmental entities; here, of two classes of institutions to which the legislature has delegated this important decisionmaking power, one is secular, but one is religious. Under these circumstances, the deference normally due a legislative zoning judgment is not merited. B The purposes of the First Amendment guarantees relating to religion were twofold: to foreclose state interference with the practice of religious faiths, and to foreclose the establishment of a state religion familiar in other 18th-century systems. Religion and government, each insulated from the other, could then coexist. Jefferson’s idea of a “wall,” see Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 164 (1879), quoting reply from Thomas Jefferson to an address by a committee of the Danbury Baptist Association (January 1,1802), reprinted in 8 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 113 (H. Washington ed. 1861), was a useful figurative illustration to emphasize the poncept of separateness. Some limited and incidental entanglement between church and state authority is inevitable in a complex modem society, see, e. g., Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 614 (1971); Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U. S. 664, 670 (1970), but the concept of a “wall” of separation is a useful signpost. Here that “wall” is substantially breached by vesting discretionary governmental powers in religious bodies. This Court has consistently held that a statute must satisfy three criteria to pass muster under the Establishment Clause: “First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion . . . ; finally, the statute must not foster ‘an excessive government entanglement with religion.’” Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, at 612-613, quoting Walz v. Tax Comm’n, supra, at 674. See also Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263, 271 (1981); Wolman v. Walter, 433 U. S. 229, 236 (1977). Independent of the first of those criteria, the statute, by delegating a governmental power to religious institutions, inescapably implicates the Establishment Clause. The purpose of § 16C, as described by the District Court, is to “protec[t] spiritual, cultural, and educational centers from the ‘hurly-burly’ associated with liquor outlets.” 495 F. Supp., at 766. There can be little doubt that this embraces valid secular legislative purposes. However, these valid secular objectives can be readily accomplished by other means — either through an absolute legislative ban on liquor outlets within reasonable prescribed distances from churches, schools, hospitals, and like institutions, or by ensuring a hearing for the views of affected institutions at licensing proceedings where, without question, such views would be entitled to substantial weight. Appellants argue that § 16C has only a remote and incidental effect on the advancement of religion. The highest court in Massachusetts, however, has construed the statute as conferring upon churches a veto power over governmental licensing authority. Section 16C gives churches the right to determine whether a particular applicant will be granted a liquor license, or even which one of several competing applicants will receive a license. The churches’ power under the statute is standardless, calling for no reasons, findings, or reasoned conclusions. That power may therefore be used by churches to promote goals beyond insulating the church from undesirable neighbors; it could be employed for explicitly religious goals, for example, favoring liquor licenses for members of that congregation or adherents of that faith. We can assume that churches would act in good faith in their exercise of the statutory power, see Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, at 618-619, yet § 16C does not by its terms require that churches’ power be used in a religiously neutral way. “[T]he potential for conflict inheres in the situation,” Levitt v. Committee for Public Education, 413 U. S. 472, 480 (1973); and appellants have not suggested any “effective means of guaranteeing” that the delegated power “will be used exclusively for secular, neutral, and nonideological purposes.” Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S., at 780. In addition, the mere appearance of a joint exercise of legislative authority by Church and State provides a significant symbolic benefit to religion in the minds of some by reason of the power conferred. It does not strain our prior holdings to say that the statute can be seen as having a “primary” and “principal” effect of advancing religion. Turning to the third phase of the inquiry called for by Lemon v. Kurtzman, we see that we have not previously had occasion to consider the entanglement implications of a statute vesting significant governmental authority in churches. This statute enmeshes churches in the exercise of substantial governmental powers contrary to our consistent interpretation of the Establishment Clause; “[t]he objective is to prevent, as far as possible, the intrusion of either [Church or State] into the precincts of the other.” Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S., at 614. We went on in that case to state: “Under our system the choice has been made that government is to be entirely excluded from the area of religious instruction and churches excluded from the affairs of government. The Constitution decrees that religion must be a private matter for the individual, the family, and the institutions of private choice, and that while some involvement and entanglement are inevitable, lines must be drawn.” Id., at 625 (emphasis added). Our contemporary views do no more than reflect views approved by the Court more than a century ago: “ ‘The structure of our government has, for the preservation of civil liberty, rescued the temporal institutions from religious interference. On the other hand, it has secured religious liberty from the invasion of the civil authority.’” Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679, 730 (1872), quoting Harmon v. Dreher, 1 Speers Eq. 87, 120 (S. C. App. 1843). As these and other cases make clear, the core rationale underlying the Establishment Clause is preventing “a fusion of governmental and religious functions,” Abington School Dis trict v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 222 (1963). See, e. g., Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U. S., at 674-675; Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 8-13 (1947). The Framers did not set up a system of government in which important, discretionary governmental powers would be delegated to or shared with religious institutions. Section 16C substitutes the unilateral and absolute power of a church for the reasoned decisionmaking of a public legislative body acting on evidence and guided by standards, on issues with significant economic and political implications. The challenged statute thus enmeshes churches in the processes of government and creates the danger of “[pjolitical fragmentation and divisiveness on religious lines,” Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, at 623. Ordinary human experience and a long line of cases teach that few entanglements could be more offensive to the spirit of the Constitution. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. So ordered. Section 16C defines “church” as “a church or synagogue building dedicated to divine worship and in regular use for that purpose, but not a chapel occupying a minor portion of a building primarily devoted to other uses.” “School” is defined as “an elementary or secondary school, public or private, giving not less than the minimum instruction and training required by [state law] to children of compulsory school age.” Mass. Gen. Laws. Ann., ch. 138, §16C (1974). Section 16C originally was enacted in 1954 as an absolute ban on liquor licenses within 500 feet of a church or school, 1954 Mass. Acts, ch. 569, § 1. A 1968 amendment modified the absolute prohibition, permitting licenses within the 500-foot radius “if the governing body of such church assents in writing,” 1968 Mass. Acts, ch. 435. In 1970, the statute was amended to its present form, 1970 Mass. Acts, ch. 192. In 1979, there were 26 liquor licensees in Harvard Square and within a 500-foot radius of Holy Cross Church; 25 of these were in existence at the time Holy Cross Church objected to appellee’s application. See App. 69-72. Section 16C defines “church” as: “a church or synagogue building dedicated to divine worship”^ (emphasis added). Appellee argues that the statute unconstitutionally differentiates between theistic and nontheistic religions. We need not reach that issue. For purposes of this appeal, we assume, as did the original panel of the Court of Appeals, that the Massachusetts courts would apply the protections of § 16C to “any building primarily used as a place of assembly by a bona fide religious group,” 662 F. 2d, at 97, and thereby avoid serious constitutional questions that would arise concerning a statute that distinguishes between religions on the basis of commitment to belief in a divinity. See Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488, 495 (1961); Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 15 (1947). This recent construction of the statute by the highest court in Massachusetts is controlling on the meaning of § 16C. See O’Brien v. Skinner, 414 U. S. 524, 531 (1974). For similar reasons, the Twenty-first Amendment does not justify § 16C. The Twenty-first Amendment reserves power to states, yet here the State has delegated to churches a power relating to liquor sales. The State may not exercise its power under the Twenty-first Amendment in a way which impinges upon the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In this facial attack, the Court assumes that § 16C actually effectuates the secular goal of protecting churches and schools from the disruption associated with liquor-serving establishments. The fact that Holy Cross Church is already surrounded by 26 liquor outlets casts some doubt on the effectiveness of the protection granted, however. See California v. LaRue, 409 U. S. 109, 120 (1972) (Stewart, J., concurring). Section 16C, as originally enacted, consisted of an absolute ban on liquor licenses within 500 feet of a church or school, see n. 1, supra; and 27 States continue to prohibit liquor outlets within a prescribed distance of various categories of protected institutions, with certain exceptions and variations: Ala. Code § 28-3-17 (1977); Alaska Stat. Ann. § 04.11.410 (1980); Ark. Stat. Ann. §48-345 (1977); Colo. Rev. Stat. §12-17-138 (1978); Ga. Code Ann. §3-3-21 (1982); Idaho Code §§23-303, 23-913 (1977); Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 43, ¶ 127 (Supp. 1980); Ind. Code §7.1-3-21-11 (1982); Kan. Stat. Ann. § 41-710 (1981); La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 26-280 (West 1975); Md. Ann. Code, Art. 2B, §§46B, 47, 52A, 52C (1981 and Supp. 1982); Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. §§ 436.17a, 436.17c (1978 and Supp. 1982); Minn. Stat. Ann. §340.14 (1972 and Supp. 1982); Miss. Code Ann. §67-1-51 (Supp. 1982); Mont. Code Ann. § 16-3-306 (1981); Neb. Rev. Stat. §53-177 (1978); N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 177:1 (1978); N. M. Stat. Ann. § 60-6B-10 (1981); N. C. Gen. Stat. § 18A-40 (1978) (schools); Okla. Stat., Tit. 37, § 534 (1981); R. I. Gen. Laws §3-7-19 (Supp. 1982); S. C. Code §61-3-440 (1976); S. D. Codified Laws §35-2-6.1 (Supp. 1982); Tex. Aleo. Bev. Code Ann., § 109.33 (1978); Utah Code Ann. § 16-6-13.5 (Supp. 1981); W. Va. Code § 11-16-12 (1974); Wis. Stat. Ann. § 125.68 (West Supp. 1982-1983). The Court does not express an opinion as to the constitutionality of any statute other than that of Massachusetts. Eleven States have statutes or regulations directing the licensing authority to consider the proximity of the proposed liquor outlet to schools or other institutions in deciding whether to grant a liquor license: Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code Ann. § 23789 (West 1964); Conn. Gen. Stat. § 30-46 (1981); Del. Code Ann., Tit. 4, §543 (1974 and Supp. 1980); Haw. Rev. Stat. §281-56 (1976); Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. §§ 436.17a, 436.17c (1978 and Supp. 1982-1983) (certain classes of licenses); N. C. Gen. Stat. § 18A-40 (1978) (churches); Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §4303.26 (Supp. 1981); Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 47, §§ 4-404, 4-432(d) (Purdon 1969 and Supp. 1982); Tenn. Code Ann. § 57-5-105 (Supp. 1982); Va. Code § 4-31 (Supp. 1982); Vt. Liquor Control Bd. Regs. ¶39 (1976). Appellants argue that the Beverages Control Commission may reject or ignore any objection made for discriminatory or illegal reasons. This contention appears flatly contradicted by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s own interpretation of the statute, see Amo v. Alcoholic Beverages Control Comm’n, 377 Mass. 83, 90, 92, and n. 23, 384 N. E. 2d 1223, 1228, 1229, and n. 23 (1979). In any event, an assumption that the Beverages Control Commission might review the decisionmaking of the churches would present serious entanglement problems. See Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 619 (1971); NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U. S. 490 (1979). At the time of the Revolution, Americans feared not only a denial of religious freedom, but also the danger of political oppression through a union of civil and ecclesiastical control. B. Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution 98-99, n. 3 (1967). See McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U. S. 618, 622-623 (1978). In 18th-century England, such a union of civil and ecclesiastical power was reflected in legal arrangements granting church officials substantial control over various occupations, including the liquor trade. See, e. g., 26 Geo. 2, ch. 31, § 2 (1753) (church officials given authority to grant certificate of character, a prerequisite for an alehouse license); S. Webb & B. Webb, The History of Liquor Licensing in England, Principally from 1700 to 1830, pp. 8, n. 1, 62-67, 102-103 (1903). Appellee also challenges the statute as a violation of due process. In light of our analysis we need not and do not reach that claim. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

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. DECREE It is ordered, adjudged and decreed that: 1. The United States of America, its departments and agencies are enjoined, subject to any regulations which the Congress may impose, such as in the interest of navigation or pollution control, from asserting against the State of Utah any claim of right, title, and interest: (a) to the bed of the Great Salt Lake lying below the water’s edge of Great Salt Lake on June 15, 1967, with the exception of any lands within the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and the Weber Basin federal reclamation project; (b) to the natural resources and living organisms in or beneath the bed of the Great Salt Lake as delineated in (a) above; and (c) to the natural resources and living organisms either within the waters of the Great Salt Lake, or extracted therefrom, as delineated in (a) above. 2. The State of Utah is not required to pay the United States, through the Secretary of the Interior, for the lands, including any minerals, delineated in paragraph 1 above of this decree. 3. The basic question yet to be determined in this case is whether prior to June 15, 1967, the claimed doctrine of reliction applies and, if so, whether the doctrine of reliction vests in the United States, and thus divests the State of Utah, of any right, title, or interest to any or all of the exposed shorelands situated between the water’s edge on June 15, 1967, and the meander line of the Great Salt Lake as duly surveyed prior to or in accordance with § 1 of the Act of June 3, 1966, 80 Stat. 192. A Special Master will be appointed by the Court to hold such hearings, take such evidence, and conduct such proceedings as he deems appropriate and, in due course, to report his recommendations to the Court. 4. There also remains the question whether the lands within the meander line of the Great Salt Lake (as duly surveyed prior to or in accordance with § 1 of the Act of June 3, 1966, 80 Stat. 192), and thus conveyed to the State of Utah, included any federally owned uplands above the bed of the Lake on the date of statehood (January 4, 1896) which the United States still owned prior to the conveyance to Utah. The Special Master appointed by the Court as provided in paragraph 3 above will also be directed to hold such hearings, take such evidence, and conduct such proceedings with respect to this question as he deems appropriate in light of his determinations with respect to the issues referred to him in paragraph 3 above and, in due course, to report his recommendations to the Court. 5. The prayer of the United States of America in its answer to the State of Utah’s Complaint that this Court “confirm, declare and establish that the United States is the owner of all right, title and interest in all of the lands described in Section 2 of the Act of June 3, 1966, 80 Stat. 192, as amended by the Act of August 23, 1966, 80 Stat. 349, and that the State of Utah is without any right, title or interest in such lands, save for the right to have these lands conveyed to it by the United States, and to pay for them, in accordance with the provisions of the Act of June 3, 1966, as amended,” is denied. The date of the deed from the United States to Utah. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 Douglas delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioner was convicted of murder in the Illinois courts in 1941 and sentenced to 199 years in prison. Though indigent, he had a lawyer at the trial/ On the date of the sentence the docket entry reads: “Defendant Willie Norvell’s motion for allowance of 90 days’ time in which to prepare and file his bill of exceptions allowed.” Presumably petitioner’s lawyer made that motion, though the record does not indicate one way or the other. Petitioner tried to get a transcript. But again whether he acted on his own or through his lawyer we do not know. We do know, however, that because he ■ was indigent he was unable to pay the costs of the transcript and therefore did not obtain it; and he did not, moreover, pursue an appeal. In 1956 we decided Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, holding on the facts of that case that it was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, to deprive a person because of his indigency of any rights of appeal afforded all other convicted defendants. And see Draper v. Washington, 372 U. S. 487; Eskridge v. Washington, 357 U. S. 214. Cf. Burns v. Ohio, 360 U. S. 252; Smith v. Bennett, 365 U. S. 708. Thereupon the Supreme Court of Illinois adopted Rule 65-1 (Smith-Hurd’s Ill. Ann. Stat., c. 110, § 101.65-1) by which the State provides a free trial transcript to every indigent person convicted of crime, whether he was convicted prior to the Griffin decision or thereafter. An important exception to that rule, applicable here, is the following: . "... In the event the court finds that it is impossible to furnish petitioner a stenographic transcript of the proceedings at his trial because of the unavailability of- the court reporter who reported the proceedings and the inability of any other court reporter to transcribe’ the notes of the court reporter who served at the trial, or for any other reason, the court shall deny the petition.” Rule 65-1 (2). On motion of petitioner in 1956 the trial court was requested to furnish a stenographic transcript of his trial. The trial judge, finding that petitioner had satisfied the conditions prescribed in the Rule, ordered the official shorthand reporter to transcribe his notes and furnish petitioner with a copy of the transcript. It subsequently appeared, however, that the official reporter in question had died some years earlier and that no one could read his shorthand notes. An effort was then made to reconstruct the transcript through the testimony of persons who attended the trial. Ten witnesses testified, including petitioner, but none could recall much of the evidence introduced at the 1941 trial. Thus in 1956 it was not possible for Illinois to supply petitioner with the adequate appellate review of his 1941 conviction which he failed to pursue at that time. Cf. Eskridge v. Washington, supra. The trial judge who heard this motion entered an order denying petitioner a new trial. The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed. 25 Ill. 2d 169, 182 N. E. 2d 719. The case is here on a petition for a writ of certiorari. 371 U. S. 860. The issue in the case is whether Illinois has made an “invidious discrimination”’ against petitioner. Griffin v. Illinois, supra, p. 18. More precisely, the question is whether when a' transcript cannot subsequently be obtained or reconstructed through no fault of the State, may it constitutionally draw the line against indigents who had lawyers' at their trial but after conviction did not pursue their remedy? Illinois on the face of its rules draws no such distinction. But Illinois in the application of its rules has denied relief in such a case. And so we, have the narrow question — whether a State may avoid the obligation of Griffin v. Illinois, where, without fault, no transcript can be made available, the indigent having had a lawyer at the trial and no remedy having been sought at the time. If it appeared that the lawyer who represented petitioner at the trial refused to represent him on the appeal and petitioner’s indigency prevented him from retaining another, we would have a different case. Cf. Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353. Petitioner, who testified at the hearing on the motion, made no such claim. Nor did the lawyer, who testified as follows: “I have no independent recollection whether there were motions for a new'trial made in the regular course after the trial. All of the constitutional guarantees which were afforded my client, Willie Norvell, were asserted at that time. I have no independent recollection of this case, but I give the defendant every constitutional guarantee that the law affords. “I have no recollection now on whether or not I was ever called upon for an appeal in this matter. I have no recollection one way .or the other whether I was called upon to obtain a transcript of the trial.” We do not say that petitioner, having had a lawyer, could be found to have waived his rights on appeal. We only hold that a State, in applying Griffin v. Illinois to situations where no transcript of the trial is available due to the death of the court reporter, may without violation of the Due Process or Equal Protection Clause deny relief to those who, at the time of the trial, had a lawyer and who presumably bad his continuing services for purposes of. appeal and yet failed to pursue an appeal. Exact equality is no prerequisite of equal protection of the laws within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Douglas v. California, supra. As we said in Tigner v. Texas, 310 U. S. 141, 147: . . The Fourteenth Amendment enjoins 'the equal protection of the laws/ • and' laws are not abstract propositions. They do not relate to abstract units A, B and C, but are expressions of policy arising out of specific difficulties, addressed to the attainment of specific ends by the use of specific remedies. The Constitution does not require things which are' different in fact or opinion to be treated' in law as thoügh they were the same.” When, through no fault of the State, transcripts of criminal trials are no longer available because of the death of the court reporter, some practical accommodation must be made. We repeat what was said in Metropolis Theatre Co. v. Chicago, 228 U. S. 61, 69-70: “The problems of government are practical ones ■ and may justify, if they do' not require, rough accommodations — illogical, it may be, and unscientific. . . . What is best is not always discernible; the wisdom of any choice may be disputed or condemned.” The “rough accommodations” made by government do not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment unless the lines drawn are “hostile or invidious.” Welch v. Henry, 305 U. S. 134, 144. We can make no such condemnation here. For, where transcripts are no longer available, Illinois may rest on the presumption that he who had a lawyer at the trial had one who could protect his rights on appeal. Affirmed. Mr. Justice Harlan concurs in the result. The case is analogous to those where this Court’s review of a state judgment sustaining a state law is directed to the statute “as applied and enforced in respect of the situation presented.” Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U. S. 380, 385. And see Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1, 4. The record in Griffin v. Illinois, supra, shows that such was not. the case there. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

B

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Stewart delivered the opinion of the Court. Section 172 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, as amended, provides that a “net operating loss” experienced by a corporate taxpayer in one year may be carried as a deduction to the preceding three years and the succeeding five years to offset taxable income of those years. The entire loss must be carried to the earliest possible year; any of the loss that is not “absorbed” by that first year may then be carried in turn to succeeding years. The respondent, Foster Lumber Co., sustained a net operating loss of some $42,000 in 1968, which it carried back to 1966. In 1966 the respondent had had ordinary income of about $7,000 and a capital gain of about $167,000. The question presented is whether a loss carryover is “absorbed” by capital gain as well as ordinary income or is instead limited to offsetting only ordinary income. The taxpayer filed a refund suit in Federal District Court challenging the Commissioner’s disallowance of its claim that the $35,000 of the 1968 loss not used to offset its 1966 ordinary income survived to reduce its 1967 tax liability. The trial court and the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit agreed with the taxpayer. We granted certiorari to resolve a Circuit conflict on a recurring question of statutory interpretation. I The dispute in this case centers on the meaning of “taxable income” as used in § 172 (b) (2) to govern the amount of carrybacks and carryovers that can be successively transferred from one taxable year to another. In relevant part, § 172 (b) (2) requires the net operating loss to be carried in full to the earliest taxable year possible, and provides: “The portion of such loss which shall be carried to each of the other taxable years shall be the excess, if any, of the amount of such loss over the sum of the taxable income for each of the prior taxable years to which such loss may be carried.” Thus when the loss has been carried back to the first year to which it is applicable, the loss “survives” for carryover to a succeeding taxable year only to the extent that it exceeds the taxable income of the earlier year. “Taxable income” is defined in § 63 (a) of the Code to mean “gross income, minus the deductions allowed by this chapter.” Gross income is in turn defined by § 61 (a) of the Code as “all income from whatever source derived,” and specifically includes “[g]ains derived from dealings in property.” On its face the concept of “taxable income” thus includes capital gains as well as ordinary income. In the absence of a specific provision excluding capital gains, it thus appears that both capital gain and ordinary income must be included in the taxable income that § 172 directs must be offset by the loss deduction before any loss excess can be found to be available for transfer forward to the succeeding taxable year. The respondent argues that the Code’s prescribed method for calculating the taxes due on its taxable income conflicts with this natural reading of § 172. The Code provides two methods for computing taxes due on corporate income, and a corporation is under a statutory duty to employ the method that results in the lower tax. 26 U. S. C. § 1201 (a). Under § 11, the “regular method,” ordinary income and capital gains income are added together to produce taxable income; during the period at issue a 22% tax rate was then imposed on the first $25,000 of taxable income and the remainder was taxed at a 48% rate. Section 1201 (a) of the Code prescribes the “alternative tax,” calculated in two steps and applied when resulting in a lower tax liability for the corporation. The first step computes a partial tax on the taxable income reduced by the net long-term capital gain at the regular corporate rates imposed by §11. This step effectively subjects only ordinary income to the partial tax. The second step imposes a 25% tax on the net long-term capital gain. The alternative tax is the sum of the partial tax and the tax on capital gain. In practical terms, the alternative tax does not redefine taxable income, but it does result in a much lower effective tax rate for corporations whose income is in whole or substantial part composed of capital gain. It thus extends to corporations the longstanding statutory policy of taxing income from capital gain at a lower rate than that applicable to ordinary income. The problem from the respondent’s point of view is that the mechanics of the alternative tax work in such a way that the potential benefit of the loss deduction may not be fully reflected in reduced tax liability for the taxable year to which the loss is carried. The problem arises when, as in 1966 for the respondent, the “alternative method” governs the calculation of tax liability, and the ordinary income effectively subject to the partial tax under the first step is less than the loss deduction subtracted from it. The Code does not permit the excess loss to be subtracted from the capital gain income before the second step- is carried out. Under the alternative method, therefore, the tax benefit of the loss deduction is effectively lost for the carryover year to the extent that it exceeds the ordinary income in that year. This can be seen simply by considering the taxpayer’s circumstances in this case. Subtracting the loss deduction of $42,203.12 from the 1966 ordinary income of $7,236.05 under Step 1 resulted in a negative balance of $34,967.07; no partial tax was imposed and the 25% rate on the $166,634.81 of capital gains under Step 2 produced a tax of $41,658.70. If the loss deduction had been merely $7,236.05, and thus exactly offset the $7,236.05 of ordinary income, however, the tax due would still have been $41,658.70. The taxpayer therefore asserts that only $7,236.05 of the loss deduction was actually “used” in 1966 and that $34,-967.07 remained to be carried forward to reduce its tax liability in 1967. There can be no doubt that if the “regular method” had been applicable to the respondent’s taxes in 1966, the loss deduction ($42,203.12) would have been fully “used” to offset capital gains ($166,634.81) as well as ordinary income ($7,236.05), leaving $131,667.74 to be taxed, and a tax bill of $58,200.52. It is clear that the alternative tax produced the lower tax liability despite the inability to fully “use” the loss deduction; the lower tax resulted directly from the favorable rate of taxation of capital gain income prescribed by the alternative method. The question is whether the two “tax benefit” provisions relied on by the respondent— low capital gain taxation under the alternative method and the loss carryback provision — must each be maximized independently of the other or whether Congress instead anticipated that the benefit provided by the loss deduction might on occasion be subsumed in the greater benefit provided by the alternative tax computation method. Section 172 does not explicitly address the question of fit between these two tax benefits, providing simply that “[t]he portion of such loss which shall be carried to each of the other taxable years shall be the excess, if any, of the amount of such loss over the sum of the taxable income for each of the prior taxable years to which such loss may be carried.” The respondent contends, and the Tax Court in Chartier Real Estate Co. v. Commissioner, 52 T. C. 346, aff’d per curiam, 428 F. 2d 474 (CA1), held, that the phrase “to which such loss may be carried” modifies “taxable income” as well as “each of the prior taxable years.” The Tax Court in the Chartier case further held that “ 'taxable income’ in this context (as modified by the above phrase) means that taxable income to which the loss is actually applied in computing actual tax liability.” 52 T. C., at 357-358. In other wnrds, it was held, taxable income refers only to that ordinary income offset by a loss deduction that produces an additional reduction in tax liability under the alternative tax computation method. It is, of course, not unusual in statutory construction to find that a defined term’s meaning is substantially modified by an attached clause. But reading “taxable income to which . . . such loss may be carried” as equivalent to “taxable income to which such loss may be carried and deducted, resulting in a reduction of tax liability” gives these phrases a synergistic effect that goes well beyond their natural import. Such a construction subtly redefines “taxable income” in terms of the tax impact of a particular method of tax calculation. It thus implicitly departs from the “term of art” definition of taxable income given in § 63 (a), while discovering a significance in the word “carry” that goes well beyond its usual connotation of a transfer of a loss from the year in which it occurred. Standing alone, this strained reading of the statute’s terms falls considerably short of the explicit statutory support the Court has previously required of taxpayers seeking a tax benefit from losses suffered in other years. See, e. g., Woolford Realty Co. v. Rose, 286 U. S. 319, 326. If Congress had intended to allow a loss deduction to offset only ordinary income when the alternative tax calculation method is used, it could easily have said so. II The respondent further asserts that the legislative history and the broad policy behind the loss deduction section of the Code support its interpretation of “taxable income” under § 172 (b). Although, for the reasons stated above, it can hardly be said that the benefit claimed by the respondent is fairly within the statutory language, it is not inappropriate to consider this contention — to consider, in short, whether “the construction sought is in harmony with the statute as an organic whole.” See Lewyt Corp. v. Commissioner, 349 U. S. 237, 240. The respondent relies on the Court’s opinion in Libson Shops, Inc. v. Koehler, 353 U. S. 382, 386, for a description of the legislative purpose in allowing loss carryovers. In that case the Court said that the net operating loss carryover and carryback provisions “were enacted to ameliorate the unduly drastic consequences of taxing income strictly on an annual basis. They were designed to permit a taxpayer to set off its lean years against its lush years, and to strike something like an average taxable income computed over a period longer than one year.” There were, in fact, several policy considerations behind the decision to allow averaging of income over a number of years. Ameliorating the timing consequences of the annual accounting period makes it possible for shareholders in companies with fluctuating as opposed to stable incomes to receive more nearly equal tax treatment. Without loss offsets, a firm experiencing losses in some periods would not be able to deduct all the expenses of earning income. The consequence would be a tax on capital, borne by shareholders who would pay higher taxes on net income than owners of businesses with stable income. Congress also sought through allowance of loss carryovers to stimulate enterprise and investment, particularly in new businesses or risky ventures where early losses can be carried forward to future more prosperous years. The respondent focuses on the equalizing purposes of § 172 to argue that the Commissioner’s insistence on the absorption of the loss deduction by capital gain income is inconsistent with § 172’s primary purpose of avoiding the subjection of similarly situated taxpayers to significantly different treatment solely on the basis of arbitrary timing. This argument is based on the observation that, unless it is accepted, the taxpayer’s ability to fully benefit from the loss carryover deduction will turn on whether ordinary income in the first year to which the loss may be carried exceeds or is less than the loss deduction. If the ordinary income exceeds the loss, the taxpayer will get the full benefit of the deduction; if the ordinary income is less than the loss, the shortfall will be absorbed by capital gain income without providing an incremental tax reduction. Congress may, of course, be lavish or miserly in remedying perceived inequities in the tax structure. While there is no doubt that Congress through the loss carryover provisions did intend to reduce the arbitrariness inherent in a taxing system based on annual accounting, the history of the loss offset provision does not support the respondent’s vision of a Congress seeking perfection in the realization of its objective. Over the years, Congress has shifted the definition of both the kinds of losses and the kinds of income that may be used in calculating the loss offset, indicating its ability in this area of the Internal Revenue Code as in others to make precise definitions and later to modify them in pursuing its broad policy goals. For example, Congress in 1924 specifically provided that a noncorporate taxpayer could use the excess of a loss deduction over ordinary income to reduce the amount of capital gain subject to tax, thus permitting full “use” of the loss deduction by the taxpayer. The inference can be drawn that Congress was aware of the potential “waste” of the deduction otherwise and acted to prevent it. That provision was in turn left out of the 1939 Code, leading to the contrary inference that Congress was aware of the “waste” of the deduction but decided not to remedy it. The 1939 revision of the Code, in fact, tolerated even further “waste” of the loss deduction, providing not only that the loss must be offset against net income (ordinary income and capital gains), but that tax-exempt interest income must also be included in income that the loss was required to offset. This provision had the same arbitrary policy consequences that the respondent decries under the alternative tax computation method applicable here. It required the loss deduction to be “used up” in offsetting tax-exempt income, thus “wasting” a portion of the loss deduction's capacity to reduce overall tax liability. And it made the utility of the loss deduction turn on the accidents of timing. The loss deduction would be “wasted” in offsetting tax-exempt income realized in an early year, while if the tax-exempt income were not realized until a later year the full tax benefit of the loss deduction could have been garnered. Such results cut against any assertion that the loss-deduction provisions have consistently been used completely to minimize arbitrary timing consequences, and indicate that Congress has not hesitated in this area to limit taxpayers to the enjoyment of one tax benefit even though it could have made them eligible for two. The 1954 Internal Revenue Code continued the 1939 Code’s definition of ordinary and capital gain income as subject to set-off by the § 172 loss deduction. Although several substantive changes in the loss-deduction section were made and commented on in the legislative reports accompanying the 1954 Code, there was no indication that the addition to § 172 (b) of the phrase “to which such loss may be carried” was meant to signal a willingness to condition the loss deduction’s life on its ability to produce full tax benefits for the taxpayer. In view of the predecessor statutes’ tolerance of a taxpayer’s inability to maximize the tax benefit of a loss deduction, and the complete failure of the Committee Reports in any way to indicate the shift in policy the respondent claims to discern in the 1954 Code revision, the legislative history simply does not support the respondent’s contention that the addition in 1954 of. the phrase “to which such loss may be carried” was intended to eliminate the requirement that the loss deduction be used to offset capital gain under the alternative tax computation method. We turn finally'to an examination of § 172 (b) in the context of the statute as it exists today. If the statute could be viewed as consistently minimizing the arbitrariness of timing consequences, a construction of § 172 (b) inconsistent with that approach might be suspect. Section 172 as a whole has not, however, been drafted with the singleminded devotion to reducing arbitrary timing consequences that the respondent urges should control the decision in this case. The most telling example of Congress’ failure to remedy all timing accidents that “rob” a taxpayer of the full benefit of the loss deduction can be found in § 172 (c). That provision defines a “net operating loss” as “the excess of the deductions allowed by this chapter over the gross income.” A taxpayer does not have a loss for a particular year unless its deductions exceed its ordinary income and its capital gains. When an ordinary income loss is experienced in a year of negligible capital gains it gives rise to a net operating loss that can be carried over to other years. If that same ordinary income loss comes in a year when the net capital gains exceed that loss, there is no net operating loss under the statute to carry to another year. Because the statute also forbids setting off that ordinary loss against the capital gains before the capital gain tax is computed under the alternative method, the loss’ potential tax benefit is arbitrarily “lost” to the taxpayer solely as a result of accidents of timing. Congress, of course, can and occasionally has in the past treated loss years differently from carryover years. But if Congress were intent on substantially eliminating accidents of timing from the calculation of income on an average basis, it would hardly have tolerated such a departure from that purpose at the very inception of the tax benefit provided by § 172. The respondent’s argument is further undercut by the holding in Chartier Real Estate Co., not challenged here, that the statute forbids using a loss deduction to offset capital gain income in a loss carryover year. If such an offset were permitted, the taxpayer would benefit by a further reduction in its capital gain tax liability already calculated at a preferential rate. The respondent in effect asks this Court to infer from that deliberate denial of the limited tax benefit that would accrue from using the loss to offset preferentially taxed capital gains, that Congress implicitly meant to confer the even greater tax benefit of using the loss to offset ordinary income taxed at the higher regular rates. In a statutory section that part by part manages explicitly to detail loss calculations on one hand and deductions on the other, such a leap in statutory construction must be much more firmly grounded in a consistently articulated and achieved congressional purpose than can be discerned here. The respondent’s broad argument, in short, boils down to a contention that “harmony with the statute as an organic whole” can be achieved in this area only by reading the Code provision so as to give the greatest possible benefits to all taxpayers. For the reasons we have discussed, that is a contention that cannot be accepted. The judgment is 'Reversed. Title 26 U. S. C. § 172 (1964 ed.): “Net operating loss deduction. “(a) Deduction allowed. “There shall be allowed as a deduction for the taxable year an amount equal to the aggregate of (1) the net operating loss carryovers to such year, plus (2) the net operating loss carrybacks to such year. For purposes of this subtitle, the term 'net operating loss deduction’ means the deduction allowed by this subsection. “(b) [as amended by §317 (b), Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Pub. L. 87-794, 76 Stat. 889, and §§ 210 (a) and 210 (b), Revenue Act of 1964, Pub. L. 88-272, 78 Stat. 47, 48] Net operating loss carrybacks and carryovers. “(1) Years to which loss may be carried. “(A)(i) Except as provided in clause (ii) and in subparagraph (D), a net operating loss for any taxable year ending after December 31, 1957, shall be a net operating loss carryback to each of the 3 taxable years preceding the taxable year of such loss. “(ii) In the case of a taxpayer with respect to a taxable year ending on or after December 31, 1962, for which a certification has been issued under section 317 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, a net operating loss for such taxable year shall be a net operating loss carryback to each of the 5 taxable years preceding the taxable year of such loss. “(B) Except as provided in subparagraphs (C) and (D), a net operating loss for any taxable year ending after December 31, 1955, shall be a net operating loss carryover to each of the 5 taxable years following the taxable year of such loss. “(2) Amount of carrybacks and carryovers. “Except as provided in subsections (i) and (j), the entire amount of the net operating loss for any taxable year (hereinafter in this section referred to as the ‘loss year’) shall be carried to the earliest of the taxable years to which (by reason of paragraph (1)) such loss may be carried. The portion of such loss which shall be carried to each of the other taxable years shall be the excess, if any, of the amount of such loss over the sum of the taxable income for > each of the prior taxable years to which such loss may be carried. For purposes of the preceding sentence, the taxable income for any such prior taxable year shall be computed— “(A) with the modifications specified in subsection (d) other than paragraphs (1), (4), and (6) thereof; and “(B) by determining the amount of the net operating loss deduction— “(i) without regard to the net operating loss for the loss year or for any taxable year thereafter, and “(ii) without regard to that portion, if any, of a net operating loss for a taxable year attributable to a foreign expropriation loss, if such portion may not, under paragraph (1)(D), be carried back to such prior taxable year, “and the taxable income so computed shall not be considered to be less than zero. For purposes of this paragraph, if a portion of the net operating loss for the loss year is attributable to a foreign expropriation loss to which paragraph (1) (D) applies, such portion shall be considered to be a separate net operating loss for such year to be applied after the other portion of such net operating loss. “(c) Net operating loss defined. “For purposes of this section, the term 'net operating loss’ means (for any taxable year ending after December 31, 1953) the excess of the deductions allowed by this chapter over the gross income. Such excess shall be computed with the modifications specified in subsection (d). “(d) Modifications. “The modifications referred to in this section are as follows: “(1) Net operating loss deduction. “No net operating loss deduction shall be allowed. “(2) Capital gains and losses oj taxpayers other than corporations. “In the case of a taxpayer other than a corporation— “(B) the deduction for long-term capital gains provided by section 1202 shall not be allowed.” 420 U. S. 1003. In the present case the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit followed the seminal Tax Court decision in Chartier Real Estate Co. v. Commissioner, 52 T. C. 346, aff’d per curiam, 428 F. 2d 474 (CA1). See 500 F. 2d 1230. The Ninth Circuit is in agreement with the First and the Eighth Circuits. See Olympic Foundry Co. v. United States, 493 F. 2d 1247, and Data Products Corp. v. United States, No. 74-3341 (Dec. 27, 1974), cert. pending, No. 74-996. The Fourth Circuit refused to follow the reasoning of those Circuits in Mutual Assurance Soc. v. Commissioner, 505 F. 2d 128. The Sixth Circuit appears to agree in principle with the Fourth Circuit’s reasoning. See Axelrod v. Commissioner, 507 F. 2d 884. Congress has specifically tailored definitions of taxable income in other sections of the Code when the § 63 (a) definition is inadequate for its purposes. See, e. g., 26 U. S. C. § 593 (b) (2) (E) (mutual savings banks); § 832 (a) (insurance companies); § 852 (b) (2) (regulated investment companies). Congress in fact did state certain modifications of the term “taxable income” in the third sentence of § 172 (b) (2), but none of these modifications suggests any instances in which taxable income does not include capital gains. For purposes of simplicity we use the term “net long-term capital gain” or simply “capital gain” rather than the statutory phrase “excess of net long-term capital gain over net short-term capital loss.” Similarly, we sometimes in this opinion use the term “loss deduction” rather than the statutory phrase “net operating loss deduction.” See 26 U. S. C. § 1201 (a) (2) and Chartier Real Estate Co., 52 T. C., at 350-356; Weil v. Commissioner, 23 T. C. 424, aff’d, 229 F. 2d 593 (CA6). The description in the text of the alternative tax computation method is truncated; the mechanics are here set out in full: “Alternative Method” (Section 1801 (a)) Taxable Income (excluding net operating loss deduction): Ordinary Income........................ $7,236.05 Capital Gain Income.................... 166,634.81 $173,870.86 LESS: Net Operating Loss Deduction Resulting From Carryback of 1968 Net Operating Loss............... (42,203.12) Taxable Income (Section 63(a))....................... $131,667.74 (Step 1 — Partial Tax) LESS: Excess of Net Long-Term Capital Gain Over Net ShorLTerm Capital Loss............................. $166,634.81 Balance .............................................. ($ 34,967.07) Partial Tax at Section 11 Rates on Balance (Section 1201(a)(1)) ........................................ -0- (Step 8 — Capital Gain Tax) PLUS: Capital Gain Tax at Flat 25 Percent Rate on Excess of Net Long-Term Capital Gain Over Net Short-Term Capital Loss (Section 1201 (a)(2)).............. $ 41,658.70 Alternative Tax (Sum of Partial Tax and Capital Gain Tax) (1966 rates)................................... $ 41,658.70 The steps taken by the Internal Revenue Service to reach that result are as follows: “Regular Method” (Section 11) Taxable Income (excluding net operating loss deduction) : Ordinary Income........................ $7,236.05 Capital Gain Income.................... 166,634.81 $173,870.86 LESS: Net Operating Loss Deduction Resulting From Carryback of 1968 Net Operating Loss................. (42,203.12) Taxable Income (Section 63 (a))........................ $131,667.74 Regular Tax (1966 rates).............................. $ 58,200.52 (The regular tax reflects a $1,500 tax on multiple surtax exemption not at issue in this case.) The construction urged by the respondent also finds no support in the Treasury Regulations on Income Tax that implement § 172. See 26 CFR §§ 1.172-4, 1.172-5 (1976). See generally United States Treasury Department and Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation, Business Loss Offsets (1947), excerpted in B. Bittker & L. Stone, Federal Income Estate and Gift Taxation 859-863 (1972). See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 855, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 9 (1939): “New enterprises and the capital-goods industries are especially subject to wide fluctuations in earnings. It is, therefore, believed that the allowance of a net operating business loss carry-over will greatly aid business and stimulate new enterprises.” See also H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 27 (1954): “The longer period for averaging will improve the equity of the tax system as between businesses with fluctuating income and those with comparatively stable incomes, and will be particularly helpful to the riskier types of enterprises which encounter marked variations in profitability.” Since 1918, the carryover period has gradually been lengthened to provide more potential years of positive income against which experienced losses can be offset; a perfect system from a taxpayer’s point of view, however, would eschew any time limitations altogether. Section 204 (b) of the Revenue Act of 1918 was the first provision to permit the excess of expensas over income in one tax year to be deducted in another tax year. A one-year carryover and carryback was allowed. See Act of Feb. 24, 1919, § 204, 40 Stat. 1060. In 1933, the National Industrial Recovery Act abolished all net operating loss carryovers and carrybacks. See Act of June 16, 1933, §218 (a), 48 Stat. 209. In 1939, a net operating loss carryover provision was reintroduced and provided for a two-year carryover. See Act of June 29, 1939, § 122, 53 Stat. 867. The three-year carryback and five-year carryover permitted since 1958, has recently been amended to allow seven years for carryover and to permit the taxpayer to elect to forgo carrybacks and to instead carry the net operating loss forward seven years. See Tax Reform Act of 1976, § 806 (a), 90 Stat. 1598. Act of June 2,1924, c. 234, § 208 (a) (5), 43 Stat. 262. Counsel for the respondent relied in oral argument on Merrill v. United States, 122 Ct. Cl. 566, 105 F. Supp. 379, which excluded capital gain from the term “net income” in interpreting the 1939 Code’s § 12 (g) limitation on tax liability, to demonstrate that “net income” under the 1939 Code could for policy reasons be construed to avoid the unnecessary “wasting” of a loss. Such a construction would be in direct conflict with the statute’s general definition of “net income”; under § 122 of the 1939 Code governing loss deductions, there was no phrase like “to which such loss may be carried” to give even a colorable statutory-construction basis to its argument that net income does not include capital gain. The Merrill case obviously does not control construction of the “net income” term as used in § 122 of the 1939 Code. And it would be anomalous in ■ any case to conclude that Congress meant to exclude capital gain income from offsetting a loss deduction with the purpose of avoiding “wasting” a loss deduction, when Congress simultaneously required “waste” of the loss deduction by providing that it must offset tax-exempt interest and depletion income as well as net income. See Internal Revenue Code of 1939 §§122 (d)(1), (2). See H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 27 (1954); S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 31-33 (1954); H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 2543, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 30 (1954). See Chartier Real Estate Co. v. Commissioner, 52 T. C. 346. The Chartier holding relied on Weil v. Commissioner, 23 T. C. 424, a case in which the Tax Court had concluded that the express language of the 1939 Code provided for a flat rate of tax on taxable capital gain, unreduced by a loss deduction, as an alternative to the tax imposed upon such gain when it is included in gross income and taxed in the regular manner. An amicus curiae brief filed in the present case urges that this holding be reconsidered on policy grounds should the respondent’s argument be rejected, but concedes that the language of § 1201 (a) (2) supports the result reached in Weil and applied in Chartier. Section 172 (d) (2) (B) provides a further indication that capital gains are properly included in the taxable income that a loss deduction must offset before being carried to a succeeding carryover year. For a non-corporate taxpayer who normally computes his tax liability by deducting 50% of net long-term capital gains under § 1202 of the Code, § 172 (d) (2) (B) requires that the full amount of ordinary income plus capital gains be offset against the net operating loss. That “taxable income” encompasses capital gain income for individual taxpayers under § 172 strongly suggests that the “taxable income” of corporate taxpayers should be given similar scope. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. Justice Clark delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an action by a shipper to recover from a motor carrier the difference in rate charges resulting from a practice of the latter of carrying unrouted intrastate shipments on its interstate routes at higher rates than those applicable to its available intrastate routes. The District Court for the Southern District of New York stayed the action awaiting a finding by the Interstate Commerce Com mission as to the reasonableness of the practice. The Commission found it unreasonable under the Motor Carrier Act, 49 U. S. C. §§ 301-327, and subsequently the District Court dismissed the complaint on the ground that the Act neither provided any reparation remedy nor preserved one at common law. 187 F. Supp. 722. The Court of Appeals, one judge dissenting, affirmed on the same grounds. 293 F. 2d 205. Each court bottomed its decision upon T. I. M. E. Inc. v. United States, 359 U. S. 464 (1959). Having some doubts as to the appositeness of that case and because of the importance of the question in the administration of the Act, we granted certiorari. 368 U. S. 951. We have concluded that T. I. M. E. Inc., supra, does not control the issue here and therefore reverse the judgments. The petitioner alleges that between January 1, 1953, and February 1, 1955, it delivered numerous shipments of foam rubber pads to respondent, a common carrier by motor vehicle, for transportation from Buffalo, N. Y., to New York City. It claims that while the shipments were tendered without specifying the routes of shipment the respondent, contrary to its duty as a common carrier, shipped the pads over its interstate route at the higher tariff that it had on file with the Interstate Commerce Commission rather than over its intrastate route at the lower tariff that it had on file with the Public Service Commission of New York. Excess charges in the sum of $10,000 have been collected by respondent for which petitioner prays judgment. The sole issue before us is whether the complaint states a cause of action upon which the District Court may grant relief. The gist of the action as alleged is that the shipper had the common-law right and the carrier owed it the duty to ship the pads over the cheapest available route, no adequate justification for not so doing being shown. Nevertheless, petitioner says, the carrier in derogation of this responsibility transported the pads at the higher rate and subjected the shipper to the $10,000 damage. No attack is made upon either of the carrier’s published tariffs — both are admittedly reasonable. The controversy hinges entirely upon whether the carrier violated its duty to the shipper in selecting the interstate route and the accompanying higher rate which subjected the shipper to the loss, i. e., the difference between the two lawful rates. We believe that the complaint stated a justiciable cause of action. The issue here is a far cry from that in T. I. M. E. Inc. v. United States, supra. There the question, as stated by the Court, was, “Can a shipper of goods by a certificated motor carrier challenge in post-shipment litigation the reasonableness of the carrier’s charges which were made in accordance with the tariff governing the shipment?” 359 U. S. 464, 465. The Court determined that such an attack was foreclosed by the “saving clause” of the Act, § 216 (j), 49 U. S. C. § 316 (j), as being inconsistent with the statutory scheme of regulation. We emphasized the built-in protections given shippers against unreasonable rates, at pp. 478-480, citing the 30-day-notice provision of the Act, § 217 (c), as well as the power granted the Commission under § 216 (g) to suspend rates for seven months. The Court concluded that those remedies amply protected the shipper and that the allowance of a judicial remedy would result in undercutting the stability of the rate structure which the statutory procedures sought to insure. Here the challenge is directed not at the “reasonableness” of the rates but at the carrier’s misrouting practice. The question, therefore, is not one of rates but of routes. The determination of rail carriers’ routing practices has long been within the primary jurisdiction of the Commission. Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Solum, 247 U. S. 477 (1918). This jurisdiction is the more important in the case of motor carrier routing where alternative routes are greater in both number and variety. Furthermore, selection of the route is usually made on an ad hoc basis, precluding preshipment determination of its reasonableness. Unlike rate making there is no statutory procedure by which routing practices may be challenged in advance of shipment. Nor is the shipper by truck accorded even the right given the shipper by rail, under 49 U. S. C. § 15 (8), to select and request a particular route of the carrier. In view of these weighty statutory differences between rate making and routing practices the survival of a damage claim for misrouting appears entirely consistent with the Act. It, therefore, meets the proviso of the “saving clause” as well as the teaching of T. I. M. E. Inc. This conclusion is buttressed by the fact that the allowance here of a damage action nowise hampers the efficient administration of the Act, unlike the allowance of such an action as to unreasonable rates. A misrouting claim does not jeopardize the stability of tariffs or of certificated routes, the sole issue being whether the carrier routed the shipment over the cheapest available route, or made a showing of adequate justification for not doing so. Moreover, the allowance of misrouting actions would have a healthy deterrent effect upon the utilization of misrouting practices in the motor carrier field, which, in turn, would minimize “cease and desist” proceedings before the Commission. Finally, and not to be overlooked, the absence of any judicial remedy places the shipper entirely at the mercy of the carrier, contrary to the overriding purpose of the Act. The allowance of such actions would, on the contrary, give neither an unfair advantage. Those who contend that no judicial remedy is available place much weight on the fact that, as we have said, the Interstate Commerce Commission has primary jurisdiction in routing practices. We put no significance in whether one tags the claim as “overcharges” as Commissioner Eastman apparently did in his testimony before the Senate, see T. I. M. E. Inc., supra, at 477-478, n. 18, or whether it is a proceeding involving the “reasonableness” of routing practices. In either case the problem is one originally within the jurisdiction of the Commission. To say, however, that such primary jurisdiction compels the conclusion that the courts are without power to award damages in every instance where the Commission may not award reparations by no means follows. Indeed, the doctrine of primary jurisdiction is designed to apply “where a claim is originally cognizable in the courts, and . . . enforcement of the claim requires the resolution of issues . . . placed within the special competence of an administrative body . . . United States v. Western Pacific R. Co., 352 U. S. 59, 64 (1956); see Davis, Administrative Law Treatise, § 19.01 (1958). The practice of the Commission in making such determination in the first instance, even though it has no power to award reparations in a given case, has long been exercised, Bell Potato Chip Co. v. Aberdeen Truck Line, 43 M. C. C. 337, 343 (1944), and is supported by a long line of cases. See Thompson v. Texas Mexican R. Co., 328 U. S. 134 (1946), and cases there cited. Be this as it may, the survival of a judicial remedy under the saving clause of §216 (j) cannot be determined on the presence or absence in the Commission of primary jurisdiction to decide the basic question on which relief depends. Survival depends on the effect of the exercise of the remedy upon the statutory scheme of regulation. According to § 216 (j), if the remedy is inconsistent with that scheme it does not survive. In T. I. M. E. Inc., we found inconsistencies and hence no judicial remedy survived. Here, as we have indicated, rather than running interference against the Act the exercise of the judicial remedy supports its overall purposes and is nowise inconsistent with the congressional scheme embodied within its four corners. The remedy, therefore, survives and the judgment is Reversed. 302 I. C. C. 173. Respondent brought an action against the United States and the Commission in the District Court for the District of New Jersey, seeking to set aside the report and the cease-and-desist order entered by the Commission. After the complaint was filed the Commission amended its disposition by striking out the cease-and-desist order, leaving only its declaratory findings as to past practices. The three-judge court, relying upon our decision in United States v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 337 U. S. 426 (1949), held that as a three-judge court it had no authority to adjudicate the controversy since no order was under attack. 170 F. Supp. 848. Decision in the action is now held in abeyance by a single judge pending disposition of this litigation. Thus the litigation has been bifurcated into two District Courts, whose further proceedings may yet be separately appealable. This might have been avoided had the District Court for the Southern District of New York followed this Court’s admonition that “the courts, while retaining the final authority to expound the statute, should avail themselves of the aid implicit in the agency’s superiority in gathering the relevant facts and in marshaling them into a meaningful pattern," Federal Maritime Board v. Isbrandtsen Co., 356 U. S. 481, 498 (1958), rather than relying upon the shipper to file an adversary proceeding with the 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:

H

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. MR. Justice Douglas delivered the opinion of the Court. These are appeals from judgments of three-judge district courts, 28 U. S. C. § 1253, which set aside orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission denying applications for permits as contract carriers. 185 F. Supp. 838; 188 F. Supp. 160. Appellee J-T Transport Company asked to extend its present operations as an irregular-route contract carrier of airplane parts to include carriage of aircraft landing gear bulkheads for Boeing Airplane Co. Boeing supported the application. Common carriers opposed the application, as did another carrier, U. S. A. C. Transport, Inc., appellant in No. 18. Boeing indicated it preferred the applicant over the other because of its unsatisfactory-experience with the latter in other operations. Boeing indicated that contract carriage was more practicable in its experience than common carriage, as a contract carrier’s operations could be better integrated with a manufacturer’s production. Though the examiner recommended a grant of the permit, the Commission denied it (74 M. C. C. 324, 79 M. C. C. 696) saying that no attempt had been made to ascertain if the existing services were capable of meeting the needs of the shipper. It ruled that “There is, in effect, a presumption that the services of existing carriers will be adversely affected by a loss of ‘potential’ traffic, even if they may not have handled it before.” 79 M. C. C. 695, 705. It held that the applicant had not established a need for this contract service and that the applicant had not shown “the existing service” of the other carrier to be “inadequate.” Id., 709. It indicated that a service “not needed” cannot be found consistent with the public interest or the National Transportation Policy, as those terms are used in § 209 (b) of the Interstate Commerce Act as amended, 71 Stat. 411, 49 U. S. C. § 309 (b). It said that the shippers did not require a distinct type of service that could not be provided by the protesting carrier, which was indeed in a position to provide any service needed and which would be adversely affected by a grant of this application, even though it never had had the business in question. Appellee Reddish made application to carry canned goods as a contract carrier from three points in Arkansas and one in Oklahoma to various points in thirty-three States and to carry other goods on return. His application was supported by his prospective shippers and opposed by motor common carriers, appellants in No. 54, and by rail common carriers, appellants in No. 49. Reddish showed that he delivered to customers who ordered goods in less-than-truckload amounts. These customers maintained low inventories and needed expedited deliveries in small quantities and on short notice. Some accepted deliveries only on certain days, a requirement calling for integration and coordination between shipper and customer. The shippers said that common carriage was an inadequate service for these shipments, as they were in such small lots that they often had to be carried in consolidated loads which caused delays in shipments. Moreover, it was shown that not all points would be served by one common carrier, making it necessary to unload the shipments and reload them on another carrier causing delays, misconsignment, and damage to goods. The shippers also testified that the cost of common carriage was prohibitive for less-than-truckload shipments and that if the Reddish application were denied they would use private carriage. The protesting motor common carriers testified they could render adequate service for these shipments and provide multiple pick-up and delivery services to most of the points by transferring the shipments to other carriers. The Examiner recommended that the application be granted. The Commission denied it, saying, inter alia, that the services needed by the shippers could be performed by existing common carriers, that they would be injured by the loss of potential trafile, and that the shippers’ desire to obtain lower rates for less-than-truckload shipments was the primary reason for their support of the application, but was not a sufficient basis to justify a grant of authority to this contract carrier. 81 M. C. C. 35. The cases turn on the meaning of language added to the Act in 1957. Our decision in United States v. Contract Steel Carriers, 350 U. S. 409, held that a contract carrier, rendering a specialized service in the sense that it hauled only a limited group of commodities over irregular routes, did not become a common carrier because it reached for new business within the limits of its license. That decision caused concern to the Commission which proposed amendments to the Act. It proposed that § 203 (a) (15) be amended so as to define a contract carrier as one who engages in transportation by motor vehicle “under continuing contracts with one person or a limited number of persons for the furnishing of transportation services of a special and individual nature required by the customer and not provided by common carriers.” It also proposed that § 209 (b) be amended by adding an additional requirement for issuance of a contract carrier permit, viz., “that existing common carriers are unwilling or unable to provide the type of service for which a need has been shown.” These amendments were vigorously opposed in some quarters. The addition to §203 (a) (15) was objected to on the ground that many contract carriers would be driven out of business because they could not meet the test of performing a service “not provided by common carriers.” The change in § 209 (b) was opposed because it would be impossible for a contract carrier to prove that competing common carriers were “unwilling” to render the service and very difficult for it to prove that common carriers were “unable” to render the service, as the applicant would have no intimate knowledge of the business of the opposing carriers. The Commission bowed to these objections; and the bill as it passed eliminated the proposed changes except the ones that changed the result of our decision in United States v. Contract Steel Carriers, supra. Section 203 (a) (15), however, was amended, so far as material here, by adding to the description of the term “contract carrier by motor vehicle” one who furnishes “transportation services designed to meet the distinct need of each individual customer.” And § 209 (b) was amended by adding a sentence which sets forth five factors the Commission shall consider in determining whether the permit should issue: “In determining whether issuance of a permit will be consistent with the public interest and the national transportation policy declared in this Act, the Commission shall consider (1) the number of shippers to be served by the applicant, (2) the nature of the service proposed, (3) the effect which granting the permit would have upon the services of the protesting carriers and (4) the effect which denying the permit would have upon the applicant and/or its shipper and (5) the changing character of that shipper’s requirements.” (Numerals added.) It seems clear from these provisions that the adequacy of existing services is a criterion to be considered by the Commission, as it is instructed to consider “the effect which granting the permit would have upon the services of the protesting carriers,” as well as the effect of a denial upon the shippers. Or to put the matter otherwise, the question of the need of the shipping public for the proposed service necessarily includes the question whether the extent, nature, character, and suitability of existing, available service makes the proposed service out of line with the requirements of the national transportation policy. But the adequacy of existing facilities or the willingness or ability of existing carriers to render the new service is not determinative. The “effect which denying the permit would have upon the applicant and/or its shipper and the changing character of that shipper’s requirements” have additional relevance. This is a phase of the problem reflected in the broadened definition of a “contract carrier by motor vehicle” — one who furnishes transportation services “designed to meet the distinct need of each individual customer.” §203 (a) (15). It means, we think, that the “distinct need” of shippers for the new contract carrier service must be weighed against the adequacy of existing services. The Commission indulged in “a presumption that the services of existing carriers will be adversely affected by a loss of ‘potential’ traffic, even if they may not have handled it before.” 79 M. C. C. 695, 705. The effect of the presumption is in substance to limit competing contract carriage to services “not provided” by existing carriers — a provision that the Commission sought unsuccessfully to have incorporated into the Act. We see no room for a presumption in favor of, or against, any of the five factors on which findings must be made under § 209 (b). The effect on protesting carriers of a grant of the application and the effect on shippers of a denial are factors to be weighed in determining on balance where the public interest lies. The aim of the 1957 amendments, as we read the legislative history, was not to protect the status quo of existing carriers but to establish a regime under which new contract carriage could be allowed if the “distinct need” of shippers indicated that it was desirable. We cannot assume that Congress, in amending the statute, intended to adopt the administrative construction which prevailed prior to the amendment. By adding the five criteria which it directed the Commission to consider, Congress expressed its will that the Commission should not manifest special solicitude for that criterion which directs attention to the situation of protesting carriers, at the expense of that which directs attention to the situation of supporting shippers, when those criteria have contrary implications. Such a situation doubtless exists in these cases, for granting the permits might well have produced some consequences adverse to the protesting carriers, while denying them may just as certainly prove burdensome to the supporting shippers. Had the Commission, having drawn out and crystallized these competing interests, attempted to judge them with as much delicacy as the prospective nature of the inquiry permits, we should have been cautious about disturbing its conclusion. But while such a determination is primarily a responsibility of the Commission, we are under no compulsion to accept its reading where, as here, we are convinced that it has loaded one of the scales. By indulging in a presumption “that the services of existing carriers will be adversely affected by a loss of ‘potential’ traffic, even if they may not have handled it before,” and by assigning to the applicants the burden of proving the inadequacy of existing services, the Commission favored the protestants’ interests at the expense of the shippers’ in a manner not countenanced by anything discoverable in Congress’ delegation to it of responsibility. It is argued that the Commission, in holding that U. S. A. C. is willing and able to render the service, did not rely on the presumption. We are, however, not convinced. The Commission seems to have placed the burden of proving inadequacy of existing services on the applicant, for it said that the applicant had not shown that the service of U. S. A. C. was “inadequate.” 79 M. C. C. 695, 709. Such a burden is improperly placed on the applicant, as the rejection of the proposed amendment to § 209 (b) suggests. The capabilities of protesting carriers are matters peculiarly within their knowledge. In the Reddish case the Commission made the same error, as is evident from its statement that the “shippers have failed to show that they have been unable to obtain reasonably adequate service upon request.” 81 M. C. C. 35, 42. The proper procedure, we conclude, is for the applicant first to demonstrate that the undertaking it proposes is specialized and tailored to a shipper’s distinct need. The protestants then may present evidence to show they have the ability as well as the willingness to meet that specialized need. If that is done, then the burden shifts to the applicant to demonstrate that it is better equipped to meet the distinct needs of the shipper than the protestants. Moreover, as we read the Act, as amended in 1957, the standard is not whether existing services are “reasonably adequate.” It is whether a shipper has a “distinct need” for a different or a more select or a more specialized service. The protesting carriers must show they can fill that “distinct need/’ not that they can provide a “reasonably adequate service.” In the Reddish case the Commission ruled that the desire for lower rates offered by the applicant was irrelevant to a shipper’s needs, that if the rates of existing carriers were too high, shippers should seek relief for their reduction. 81 M. C. C. 35, 42-43. We think the matter of rates is one factor to be weighed in determining the need for the new service. In a contest between carriers by motor vehicles and carriers by rail, we held in Schaffer Transportation Co. v. United States, 355 U. S. 83, that the ability of a particular mode of transportation to operate with a lower rate is one of the “inherent advantages” that one type may have over another within the meaning of the Act. 54 Stat. 899. By analogy, contract carriage may be more “economical” than common carriage by motor or rail within the framework of the national transportation policy, as it is defined in the Act — “the Commission’s guide” to the public interest. McLean Trucking Co. v. United States, 321 U. S. 67, 82. It would seem hardly contestable that if denial of the application meant, for example, that a shipper’s costs of transportation would be prohibitive, the shipper had established a “need” for the more “economical” service. See Herman R. Ewell Extension — Philadelphia, 72 M. C. C. 645. This does not mean that the lawfulness of rates would be injected into certificate proceedings. The issue of whether or not the proposed service offers a rate advantage and if so whether such advantage establishes a “need” for the service that overrides counterbalancing considerations presents issues that fall far short of a rate proceeding. We agree with the court in the J-T Transport Co. case that, while the 1957 amendments changed the result of our decision in United States v. Contract Steel Carriers, supra, by giving the Commission power to limit the number of contracts which a contract carrier can maintain, the amendments in other respects put the contract carrier on a firmer footing. That court said, “Under the statute a shipper is entitled to have his distinct needs met.” 185 F. Supp. 838, 849. We agree. We also agree that though common carrier service is reasonably adequate and though another carrier is willing and able to furnish the service, a permit to a contract carrier to furnish this particular service still might be wholly consistent with the national transportation policy defined in the Act. For it is “the distinct need of each individual customer” that the contract carrier is designed to fill. §203 (a) (15). And “the changing character” of the shipper’s “requirements” is a factor to be weighed before denying the application. § 209 (b). Hence the adequacy of existing services for normal needs and the willingness and ability of an existing carrier to render the service are not the end of the matter. The “distinct need” of the shipper may nonetheless not be served by existing services, if the new service is better tailored to fit the special requirements of a shipper’s business, the length of its purse, or the select nature of the delivery service that is desired. The fact that the protesting carriers do not presently perform the service being tendered and that the grant of the application would not divert business from them does not necessarily mean that the grant would have no effect "upon the services” of the protesting carriers within the meaning of § 209 (b). But where the protesting carriers do not presently have the business, it would seem that the grant of it to a newcomer would have an adverse effect on them only in the unusual case. We intimate no opinion on the merits, for it is the Commission, not the courts, that brings an expertise to bear on the problem, that makes the findings, and that grants or denies the applications. Yet that expertise is not sufficient by itself. Findings supported by substantial evidence are required. Public Service Comm’n v. United States, 356 U. S. 421, 427; United States v. United States Smelting Co., 339 U. S. 186, 193. Since the standards and criteria employed by the Commission were not the proper ones, the causes must be remanded for further consideration and for new findings. American Trucking Assns. v. United States, 364 U. S. 1, 15-17. Accordingly the judgments below are Affirmed. Hearings, S. 1384, Subcommittee of Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 6. The proposed amendments were objected to by the Department of Justice as being "unduly restrictive” (S. Hearings, Subcommittee of Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 11) and in part by the Department of Commerce. Id,., 200-203. They were also opposed by the Contract Carrier Conference that stated, inter alia, “Since the state of mind of the common carriers concerning their willingness is a matter peculiarly within their own knowledge, it would be absolutely impossible for a contract carrier to ever prove to the contrary. Furthermore, it would be very difficult for a contract carrier or its supporting shipper, having no intimate knowledge of the business of opposing common carriers, to prove that such carriers were unable to perform a given service.” Id., p. 303. The change in the Commission’s attitude is summarized as follows in S. Rep. No. 703, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 4: “. . . the Commission, upon reflection, on the objections of contract and private carriers to the bill, concluded that in some respects S. 1384 would provide too rigid a pattern. It decided that the proposed requirement in section 209 (b) that additional permits could be issued only upon a showing that existing common carriers are unwilling or unable to render the required types of service should be withdrawn.” That this change was made is clear. See S. Rep. No. 703, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 2-3, 6, 7; H. Rep. No. 970, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 3. Sec. 203 (a) (15) as amended reads as follows: "The term ‘contract carrier by motor vehicle’ means any person which engages in transportation by motor vehicle of passengers or property in interstate or foreign commerce, for compensation (other than transportation referred to in paragraph (14) and the exception therein), under continuing contracts with one person or a limited number of persons either (a) for the furnishing of transportation services through the assignment of motor vehicles for a continuing period of time to the exclusive use of each person served or (b) for the furnishing of transportation services designed to meet the distinct need of each individual customer.” Congress in 1940 described the national transportation policy: “It is hereby declared to be the national transportation policy of the Congress to provide for fair and impartial regulation of all modes of transportation subject to the provisions of this Act, so administered as to recognize and preserve the inherent advantages of each; to promote safe, adequate, economical, and efficient service and foster sound economic conditions in transportation and among the several carriers; to encourage the establishment and maintenance of reasonable charges for transportation services, without unjust discrimina-tions, undue preferences or advantages, or unfair or destructive competitive practices; to cooperate with the several States and the duly authorized officials thereof; and to encourage fair wages and equitable working conditions; — all to the end of developing, coordinating, and preserving a national transportation system by water, highway, and rail, as well as other means, adequate to meet the needs of the commerce of the United States, of the Postal Service, and of the national defense. All of the provisions of this Act shall be administered and enforced with a view to carrying out the above declaration of policy.” 54 Stat. 899. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. A perceived need to help the American farmer in his economic relations with large and powerful agricultural processors has moved Congress and various States to enact laws designed to bolster the farmer’s bargaining power when bringing his goods to market. This case involves two such laws: the federal Agricultural Fair Practices Act of 1967 and the State of Michigan’s Agricultural Marketing and Bargaining Act (Michigan Act). The question presented is whether certain provisions of the Michigan Act, which accord agricultural cooperative associations exclusive bargaining authority for the sale of agricultural products, are pre-empted by the federal Act. The Supreme Court of Michigan held that the Michigan Act is not pre-empted. 416 Mich. 706, 332 N. W. 2d 134 (1982). We noted probable jurisdiction, 464 U. S. 912 (1983), and now reverse. h — 1 <C The federal Agricultural Fair Practices Act (AFPA), 82 Stat. 93, 7 U. S. C. §2301 et seq., protects the right of farmers and other producers of agricultural commodities to join cooperative associations through which to market their products. Responding to “the growing concentration of power in the hands of fewer and larger buyers [of agricultural products],” S. Rep. No. 474, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 2-3 (1967), Congress enacted the AFPA to rectify a perceived imbalance in bargaining position between producers and processors of such products. Although the Act’s principal purpose is to protect individual producers from interference by processors when deciding whether to belong to a producers’ association, the Act also protects the producer from coercion by associations of producers. The AFPA thus provides that it is unlawful for either a processor or a producers’ association to engage in practices that interfere with a producer’s freedom to choose whether to bring his products to market himself or to sell them through a producers’ cooperative association. 7 U. S. C. §2303. Specifically, § 2303(a) forbids “handlers”— defined to include both processors and producers’ associations — to “coerce any producer in the exercise of his right to join and belong to or to refrain from joining or belonging to an association of producers.” Similarly, § 2303(c) forbids handlers to “coerce or intimidate any producer to enter into, maintain, breach, cancel, or terminate a membership agreement or marketing contract with an association of producers or a contract with a handler.” The Michigan Act, Mich. Comp. Laws §290.701 et seq. (1984), also designed to facilitate collective action among producers, includes the same prohibitions as the federal Act. It goes beyond the federal statute, however, by extensively regulating the activities of producers’ associations. Most importantly, the Michigan Act establishes a state-administered system by which producers’ associations are organized and certified as exclusive bargaining agents for all producers of a particular commodity. §§290.703, 290.707. Under Michigan’s system, if an association’s membership constitutes more than 50% of the producers of a particular commodity, and its members’ production accounts for more than 50% of the commodity’s total production, the association may apply to the state Agricultural Marketing and Bargaining Board for accreditation as the exclusive bargaining agent for all producers of that particular commodity. § 290.707(c). When the Board accredits an association as the agent for the producers of a particular commodity, all producers of that commodity, regardless of whether they have chosen to become members of the association, must pay a service fee to the association and must abide by the terms of the contracts the association negotiates with processors. §§290.710(1), 290.713(1). Thus, the Michigan Act creates an “agency shop” arrangement among agricultural producers whenever there is majority support for such an arrangement among the producers of a particular commodity. B The Michigan Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Association, Inc. (MACMA), a producers’ association accredited under the Michigan Act, is the sole sales and bargaining representative for asparagus producers in the State. In 1974, as permitted by the Michigan Act, MACMA negotiated contracts on behalf of Michigan asparagus growers to sell the 1974 asparagus crop. In response, appellants Dukesherer Farms and Ferris Pierson, asparagus growers that would be bound by the contract, along with the Michigan Canners & Freezers Association, Inc., an association of asparagus processors, sued MACMA in state court seeking a declaratory judgment that those provisions of the Michigan Act requiring service fees and mandatory adherence to an association-negotiated contract are pre-empted by the AFPA. The Supreme Court of Michigan rejected appellants’ claim, holding that the Michigan Act operated in an area that the federal Act did not regulate. 416 Mich. 706, 332 N. W. 2d 134 (1976). Specifically, the Michigan court held that the federal Act prohibited only processor misconduct, whereas the challenged portions of the Michigan Act regulated producers’ activities. We disagree. II Federal law may pre-empt state law in any of three ways. First, in enacting the federal law, Congress may explicitly define the extent to which it intends to pre-empt state law. E. g., Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85, 95-96 (1983). Second, even in the absence of express pre-emptive language, Congress may indicate an intent to occupy an entire field of regulation, in which case the States must leave all regulatory activity in that area to the Federal Government. E. g., Fidelity Federal Savings & Loan Assn. v. De la Cuesta, 458 U. S. 141, 153 (1982); Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947). Finally, if Congress has not displaced state regulation entirely, it may nonetheless pre-empt state law to the extent that the state law actually conflicts with federal law. Such a conflict arises when compliance with both state and federal law is impossible, Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U. S. 132, 142-143 (1963), or when the state law “stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.” Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52, 67 (1941). See also Fidelity Federal Savings & Loan Assn., supra, at 153. It is the last basis of pre-emption that applies in this case. The AFPA contains no pre-emptive language; nor does it reflect a congressional intent to occupy the entire field of agricultural-product marketing. Indeed, the Act states that it “shall not be construed to change or modify existing State law.” 7 U. S. C. §2305(d). And, as this Court has recognized, “the supervision of the readying of foodstuffs for market has always been deemed a matter of peculiarly local concern.” Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc., supra, at 144. Appellants contend that the service-fee and mandatory-representation provisions of the Michigan Act frustrate the purpose and objective of the AFPA by imposing on unwilling producers an exclusive bargaining arrangement with associations. In their view, although Congress’ chief interest in enacting the AFPA was to facilitate the growth of agricultural cooperative associations, an equally important congressional objective was to preserve the free choice of producers to join associations or to remain independent. The Michigan Act, appellants contend, deprives producers of that choice and allows associations, in effect, to coerce producers into association affiliation. A We turn first to the wording of the AFPA. The Act begins with a finding that “the marketing and bargaining position of individual farmers will be adversely affected unless they are free to join together voluntarily in cooperative organizations as authorized by law.” §2301 (emphasis added). More significantly, however, the theme of voluntariness is carried through to the provisions of the Act that define those practices that are prohibited. Thus, in addition to forbidding various practices that could discourage producers from joining associations, the Act explicitly makes unlawful the coercion of a producer “in the exercise of his right ... to refrain from joining or belonging to an association of producers,” and the coercion of a producer to “enter into [or] maintain ... a membership agreement or marketing contract with an association of producers. ” § § 2303(a) and (c) (emphasis added). Moreover, by defining the term “handler” to include producers’ associations as well as processors of agricultural products, see supra, at 464-465, the Act prohibits interference by the former to the same extent that it prohibits interference by the latter. In short, just as the Act forbids processors to interfere in a producer’s decision to become or remain affiliated with an association, it also forbids an association of producers to interfere in that decision by coercing producers to belong to, or participate in a marketing contract with, the association. B Congress’ intent to shield producers from coercion by both processors and producers’ associations is confirmed by the legislative history of the AFPA, which reveals that the question of the producer’s free choice was a central focus of congressional attention during the passage of the Act. Although the AFPA began as a bill aimed solely at the threat of processor coercion, its orientation shifted as it progressed through Congress to one of sheltering the producer from coercion in either direction. The bill originally introduced in the Senate, S. 109, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965), did not explicitly protect the producer’s right to remain independent from an association and for that reason provoked considerable criticism in the hearings that followed. Critics of the bill offered several reasons for prohibiting association coercion to the same extent as processor coercion. First, some producers stated that they preferred to remain independent because they believed they could earn more money if they marketed their products themselves. Second, processors testified that unless associations were also prohibited from pressuring producers, there would be a serious risk that the associations would attain a bargaining position of monopoly proportion, to the detriment of not only the processor, but the consumer as well. Third, witnesses testified that a prohibition on interference by producers’ associations would promote competition on the merits among associations seeking membership. Fourth, many handlers testified that they would be disadvantaged in the quality of the product they could buy as well as the price they would have to pay if producers’ associations were permitted substantially to diminish the ranks of the independent producer. Finally, witnesses testified that the producer’s right to remain independent of an association was simply “a basic American right” deserving of protection. In response to these concerns, the Senate passed an amended bill that prohibited coercion by both processors and associations, thereby protecting the producer’s right to remain independent. The new bill opened with a legislative finding that “the marketing and bargaining position of individual farmers will be adversely affected unless they are free to join together or not join together in cooperative organizations as authorized by law.” 113 Cong. Rec. 21410 (1967) (emphasis added). The bill went on to provide: “It shall be unlawful for any handler or association of producers knowingly to engage ... in the following practices: “(a) To coerce any producer in the exercise of his right to join and belong to or to refrain from joining or belonging to an association of producers . . . ; or “(c) To coerce or intimidate any producer or other person to enter into [or] maintain ... a membership agreement or marketing contract with an association of producers or a contract with a handler . . . Ibid, (emphasis added). The Senate Report explaining these provisions of the bill stated: “The objective of the bill is to protect the producer in the exercise of a free choice. Many witnesses suggested that the bill did not fully accomplish this purpose, because it protected the producer only from improper pressure not to join an association. To protect his free choice he should also be protected from improper pressure in the other direction, that is, improper pressure to join an association. The committee did not have before it any testimony to indicate that producers were being subjected to any improper pressure to join associations, but was convinced by the logic of the situation that if the objective is to protect the producer and afford him a free choice, the bill should protect him from pressure in either direction.” S. Rep. No. 474, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 5 (1967). Similarly, when Senator Aiken introduced the bill on the floor of the Senate, he stated that the bill “is designed to protect the agricultural producer’s right to decide, free from improper pressures, whether or not he wishes to belong to a marketing or bargaining association.” 113 Cong. Rec. 21411 (1967). The Senate bill was next referred to the House Committee on Agriculture, ibid., which heard testimony from producers’ associations opposed to their inclusion in the prohibited-practices section of the bill. The Committee rejected their plea, however, and declined to adopt a proposed amendment to the bill that would have limited its application to processors. H. R. Rep. No. 824, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 4-5 (1967). Ultimately, the House deleted the explicit reference to associations of producers from the prohibited-practices section of the bill, 114 Cong. Rec. 7449 (1968), and it amended the legislative findings and declaration of policy to read: “the marketing and bargaining position of individual farmers will be adversely affected unless they are free to join together voluntarily in cooperative organizations as authorized by law.” Id., at 7469 (emphasis added). In so doing, however, the House indicated that it did not intend to alter the substance of the bill. Representative Sisk explained: “Since the bill already makes clear that associations of producers are not excluded from the term ‘handler,’ the phrase [‘association of producers’ in the prohibited-practices section] is redundant and could be misconstrued as unfairly pointing the finger of accusation to associations of producers. This is not the intent; and while my amendments do not change the purpose or basic meaning of the bill, they make misinterpretation more difficult.” Id., at 7464. Similarly, in reference to the proposed amendment, Representative Latta stated that “I want the record to clearly show that our farmers under the present language of this bill. . . have the right not to join these associations if they so choose.” Id., at 7449. In response to Representative Latta, Representative Poage, Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, stated: “It was clearly the opinion of the entire committee that there was not any intention or desire to give anybody the right to discriminate against anybody else because of his failure to join any of these associations. “I cannot see that the amendments do anything more than to make the matter read a little differently and a little more satisfactorily, to certain groups, without changing in one iota, so far as I can see, the legal effect of the legislation. “I do not think taking out the words in numerous places — ‘associations of producers’ — will in anywise change the legal effect.” Id, at 7449-7450. Finally, highlighting its intent to prohibit coerced affiliation with associations, the House amended the definition of the term “handler” to include any association “contracting or negotiating contracts or other arrangements, written or oral, with or on behalf of producers or associations of producers.” Id., at 7465, 7469 (emphasis added). The Senate agreed to the House amendments without debate. Id., at 8419. Hence, in passing S. 109, both the House and the Senate unequivocally expressed an intent to prohibit producers’ associations from coercing a producer to agree to membership or any other agency relationship that would impinge on the producer’s independence. It would appear, therefore, that despite the fact that the Michigan Act and the AFPA share the goal of augmenting the producer’s bargaining power, the Michigan Act nonetheless conflicts with the AFPA by establishing “accredited” associations that wield the power to coerce producers to sell their products according to terms established by the association and to force producers to pay a service fee for the privilege. C The Michigan Supreme Court held that “[w]hile §2303 makes it unlawful for a handler to coerce a producer to ‘join or belong to’ an association, it does not forbid a state from requiring exclusive representation of individual producers where a producer majority sees fit.” 416 Mich., at 719, 332 N. W. 2d, at 139. The Michigan Act, however, empowers producers’ associations to do precisely what the federal Act forbids them to do. Once an association reaches a certain size and receives its accreditation, it is authorized to bind nonmembers, without their consent, to the marketing contracts into which it enters with processors. In effect, therefore, an accredited association operating under the Michigan Act may coerce a producer to “enter into [or] maintain... a marketing contract with an association of producers or a contract with a handler” — a clear violation of § 2303(c). In addition, although the Michigan Act does not compel a producer to join an association, it binds him to the association’s marketing contracts, forces him to pay fees to the association, and precludes him from marketing his goods himself. See n. 6, supra. In practical effect, therefore, the Michigan Act imposes on the producer the same incidents of association membership with which Congress was concerned in enacting § 2303(a). In conclusion, because the Michigan Act authorizes producers’ associations to engage in conduct that the federal Act forbids, it “stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.” Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S., at 67. To that extent, therefore, the Michigan Act is pre-empted by the AFPA, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Michigan is reversed. It is so ordered. Title 7 U. S. C. § 2302(b) defines the term “producer” to mean “a person engaged in the production of agricultural products as a farmer, planter, rancher, dairyman, fruit, vegetable, or nut grower.” Under § 1 of the Capper-Volstead Act, 7 U. S. C. § 291, and § 6 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 17, most activities of agricultural cooperatives were already exempt from the antitrust laws. Thus, producers already had a legal right to belong to such associations. The AFPA went further than the prior Acts by protecting the right against economic coercion. The term “association of producers,” also referred to herein as “producers’ associations,” is defined to mean “any association of producers of agricultural products engaged in marketing, bargaining, shipping, or processing as defined in section 1141(j) of title 12, or in section 291 of this title.” 7 U. S. C. § 2302(c). The term “handler” generally refers to buyers and processors of agricultural products. As the AFPA evolved through the legislative process, however, and Congress decided to apply most of its prohibitions to producers’ associations as well as to handlers, Congress expanded the definition of “handler” to include associations of producers. Thus 7 U. S. C. § 2302(a) provides: “The term ‘handler’ means any person engaged in the business or practice of (1) acquiring agricultural products from producers or associations of producers for processing or sale; or (2) grading, packaging, handling, storing, or processing agricultural products received from producers or associations of producers; or (3) contracting or negotiating contracts or other arrangements, written or oral, with or on behalf of producers or associations of producers with respect to the production or marketing of any agricultural product; or (4) acting as an agent or broker for a handler in the performance of any function or act specified in clause (1), (2), or (3) of this paragraph” (emphasis added). In addition, 7 U. S. C. § 2302(d) provides that “the term ‘person’ includes individuals, partnerships, corporations, and associations” (emphasis added). The term “processor” is used herein to refer to all “handlers” under the federal Act except producers’ associations acting in their capacity as marketing representatives of producers. Section 2303 provides in full: “It shall be unlawful for any handler knowingly to engage or permit any employee or agent to engage in the following practices: “(a) To coerce any producer in the exercise of his right to join and belong to or to refrain from joining or belonging to an association of producers, or to refuse to deal with any producer because of the exercise of his right to join and belong to such an association; or “(b) To discriminate against any producer with respect to price, quantity, quality, or other terms of purchase, acquisition, or other handling of agricultural products because of his membership in or contract with an association of producers; or “(c) To coerce or intimidate any producer to enter into, maintain, breach, cancel, or terminate a membership agreement or marketing contract with an association of producers or a contract with a handler; or “(d) To pay or loan money, give any thing of value, or offer any other inducement or reward to a producer for refusing to or ceasing to belong to an association of producers; or “(e) To make false reports about the finances, management, or activities of associations of producers or handlers; or “(f) To conspire, combine, agree, or arrange with any other person to do, or aid or abet the doing of, any act made unlawful by this chapter.” Section 290.707 provides in pertinent part: “An association shall be accredited upon determination by the board that the association meets all of the following: “(c) The association has marketing and bargaining contracts for the current or next marketing period with more than 50% of the producers of an agricultural commodity who are in the bargaining unit and these contracts cover more than 50% of the quantity of that commodity produced by producers in the bargaining unit. The board may determine the quantity produced by the bargaining unit using information on production in prior marketing periods, current market information, and projections on production during the current market periods. The board shall exclude from that quantity any quantity of the agricultural commodity contracted by pro-dueers with producer owned and controlled processing cooperatives and any quantity produced by handlers. An association whose main purpose is bargaining but which processes a surplus into a form which is not the subject of bargaining is not a processing cooperative. The contracts with members shall specify the agricultural commodity and that the members have appointed the association as their exclusive agent in negotiations with handlers for prices and other terms of trade with respect to the sale and marketing of the agricultural commodity and obligate them to dispose of their production or holdings of the agricultural commodity through or at the direction of the association.” The Michigan Act also provides a mechanism whereby producers of various commodities are divided into “bargaining units” so that, once an association is accredited, it represents essentially 100% of the production of the commodity produced by its members. Thus § 290.706 provides: “(1) The board shall determine whether a proposed bargaining unit is appropriate. This determination shall be made upon the petition of an association representing not less than 10% of the producers of the commodity eligible for membership in the proposed bargaining unit as defined by the association. An association with an overlapping definition of bargaining unit may, upon the presentation of a petition by not less than 10% of the producers eligible for membership in the overlapping bargaining unit, contest the proposed bargaining unit. . . . “(2) In making its determination, the board shall define as appropriate the largest bargaining unit in terms of the quantity of the agricultural commodity produced, the definition of the agricultural commodity, geographic area covered and number of producers included as is consistent with the following criteria: “(a) The community of interest of the producers included; “(b) The potential serious conflicts of interests among members of the proposed unit; “(c) The effect of exclusions on the capacity of the association to effectively bargain for the bargaining unit as defined; “(d) The kinds, types and subtypes of products to be classed together as agricultural commodity for which the bargaining unit is proposed; “(e) Whether the producers eligible for membership in the proposed bargaining unit meet the definition of “producer” for the agricultural commodity involved; “(f) The wishes of the producers; “(g) The pattern of past marketing of the commodity.” Although the Michigan Act does not explicitly prohibit a producer represented by an accredited association from negotiating directly with a processor, it does prohibit the processor from negotiating with such a producer. § 290.704(l)(h). The Michigan Act thus effectively eliminates direct dealing between a producer that is represented by an accredited association and a processor. The bargaining unit for which MACMA is accredited includes all Michigan farmers who produced a certain minimum quantity of asparagus during a defined marketing period. The Michigan Canners & Freezers Association, Inc., is an association of fruit and vegetable processors whose members process asparagus. Duke-sherer Farms, Inc. is a corporation engaged in asparagus farming. And Ferris Pierson is an individual engaged in asparagus farming. Appellee MACMA argues that this provision eliminates the preemptive effect the AFPA might otherwise have on the Michigan Act, despite the fact that the Michigan Act was enacted after the enactment of the AFPA. Brief for Appellee MACMA 8-14. MACMA contends that at the time of the passage of the AFPA, California’s Agricultural Prorate Act, upheld by this Court in Parker v. Brown, 317 U. S. 341 (1943), contained provisions “similar” to the provisions of the Michigan Act. Even if we were to accept MACMA’s interpretation of § 2305(d), however, this argument is unpersuasive. The California Prorate Act bears no relevant similarity to the Michigan Act. The California Act provides for the orderly marketing of certain commodities by imposing marketing plans that restrict the quantity of a commodity that farmers may produce, regulate the flow of commodities to market, and establish grade and quality requirements. The basic goal of the California Act, as identified in Parker v. Brown, is to minimize the adverse effects of a market surplus. 317 U. S., at 355. Appellants argue that the AFPA accords processors the right to deal with producers individually and that the Michigan Act deprives processors of that right. This conflict, they contend, provides an additional basis upon which to decide that the Michigan Act is pre-empted. In light of our disposition of appellants’ primary claim, however, we need not address that question. See, e. g., Agricultural Producers Marketing Act: Hearings on S. 109 before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 144 (statement of Earl W. Kintner, National Tax Equality Association), 173-183 (statement of Paul L. Phillips) (1967) (hereinafter cited as 1967 Senate Hearings). See, e. g., Discrimination Against Members of Farmer Cooperatives:Hearings on S. 109 before the Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 135 (1966) (statement of A. Starke Taylor Jr., Independent Cotton Industries Association) (hereinafter cited as 1966 Senate Hearings); 1967 Senate Hearings, at 110, 113-114 (statement of W. W. Holding III, American Cotton Shippers Association), 151 (statement of Earl W. Kintner, National Tax Equality Association), 196 (statement of Irving Isaacson, Maine Poultry Associates). See, e.g., 1966 Senate Hearings, at 187 (statement of Harry L. Graham, National Grange). See, e. g., 1967 Senate Hearings, at 69 (statement of Edward Brown Williams, National Association of Frozen Food Packers), 91-92 (statement of G. Ted Cameron, National Broiler Council). 1967 Senate Hearings, at 10-11 (statement of Sen. Williams). See, e. g., 1966 Senate Hearings, at 146 (statement of Donald G. Smith, Texas Independent Ginners Association), 196-197 (statement of Edward Dunkel-berger, National Canners Association). In addition, much of the testimony focused on the case of vertically integrated producers’ associations that process their members’ products. As several witnesses explained, because such associations compete in the processing market, the one-sided orientation of the bill provided these associations with an unfair competitive advantage over other processors. Indeed, many of these processors feared that the bill would, for that reason, drive them entirely out of business. See, e. g., id., at 135 (statement of A. Starke Taylor, Jr., Independent Cotton Industries Association), 138-140 (statement of Paul L. Courtney, National Association of Wholesalers); 1967 Senate Hearings, at 122-123 (statement of Herman Eubank, Texas Independent Ginners Association). The Michigan Act, however, effectively excludes vertically integrated associations from the accreditation process. In calculating the representational strength of an association seeking accreditation, the Michigan Act provides that “[t]he board shall exclude from [the total quantity of a commodity produced] any quantity of the agricultural commodity contracted by producers with producer owned and controlled processing cooperatives and any quantity produced by handlers.” § 290.707(c). See n. 5, supra. § 4. Section 4(d), which addresses the provision of “inducements and rewards” to producers, applies only to those seeking to have a producer refuse or cease to belong to an association, an approach that was ultimately adopted in the AFPA. See 7 U. S. C. § 2303(d). The Senate Report explained that “[t]he association of producers should not be prohibited from offering inducements to producers to belong to an association, since it is quite proper for an association to pursue vigorously the voluntary organization of farmers in its attempt to secure a better bargaining position for farmers.” S. Rep. No. 474, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1967). Agricultural Fair Trade Practices: Hearings on S. 109 before the House Committee on Agriculture, 90th Cong,. 1st Sess., 66-67 (statement of Harry L. Graham, National Grange), 79 (statement of Tony T. Dechant, National Farmers Union), 89-90 (statement of Robert N. Hampton, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives), 109-110 (statement of Ralph B. Bunje, California Canning Peach Association) (1967). The Senate bill had stated that “the marketing and bargaining position of individual farmers will be adversely affected unless they are free to join together or not join together in cooperative organizations as authorized by law.” 113 Cong. Rec. 21410 (1967) (emphasis added). Indeed, throughout the legislative debate on S. 109, an interest in protecting the producer from coercion by either processors or producers was frequently expressed. For example, Representative Poage, Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, stated: “In the House we felt it could be just as offensive to have discrimination against producers because of their lack of membership as to have discrimination against them because of their membership. It was basically that we wanted to make this bill apply in both directions — to make of it a two-way street — to make of it a protector of the right of the producer to determine for himself whether he cared to or did not care to become a member of a cooperative. . . We made of the original legislation a two-way proposal which would actually assure to any producer the right to belong or not to belong to a cooperative.” 114 Cong. Rec. 7451 (1968). Similarly, Representative May stated: “There was no one on the committee, either in testimony or in our discussion, that in any way wanted to confuse anyone about the farmer’s right not to join an organization when he did not wish to do so. Actually that is spelled out in the prohibited practices ... of the bill . . . when we say: To coerce any producer in the exercise of his right to join and belong to or to refrain from joining or belonging to an association of producers.” Id., at 7450. And Representative Latta stated that “the farmers of this Nation will still have the right... to say to an association, T do not want to join your association and you cannot force me into it.’ ” Ibid. Appellees attempt to draw an analogy between this case and cases covered by the “state-action exemption” to the federal antitrust laws. Brief for Appellee Agricultural Marketing and Bargaining Board 26-36; Brief for Appellee MACMA 22-31. The state-action exemption, however, is based on an interpretation of the antitrust laws and therefore has no direct application here. See, e. g., Parker v. Brown, 317 U. S. 341 (1943). Moreover, the Michigan Act does not provide for the type of active state involvement in the market that the state-action exemption would require even if it were applicable. Because the Michigan Act is cast in permissive rather than mandatory terms — an association may, but need not, act as exclusive bargaining representative — this is not a case in which it is impossible for an individual to comply with both state and federal law. See Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U. S. 132, 142-143 (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:

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 White announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in Parts I, III, IV, and V of which Justice Rehnquist joined. The threshold issue before the Court is whether the private plaintiffs in this case need to prove discriminatory intent to establish a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 252, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000d et seq., and administrative implementing regulations promulgated thereunder. I conclude, as do four other Justices, in separate opinions, that the Court of Appeals erred in requiring proof of discriminatory intent. However, I conclude that the judgment below should be affirmed on other grounds, because, in the absence of proof of discriminatory animus, compensatory relief should not be awarded to private Title VI plaintiffs; unless discriminatory intent is shown, declaratory and limited injunctive relief should be the only available private remedies for Title VI violations. There being four other Justices who would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals, that judgment is accordingly affirmed. This class action involves a challenge by black and Hispanic police officers, petitioners here, to several written examinations administered by New York City between 1968 and 1970 that were used to make entry-level appointments to the city’s Police Department (Department) through October 1974. The District Court found that the challenged examinations had a discriminatory impact on the scores and pass-rates of blacks and Hispanics and were not job-related. These findings were not disturbed in the Court of Appeals. Each member of the plaintiff class seeking relief from discrimination achieved a passing score on one of the challenged examinations and was hired as a police officer. Since appointments were made in order of test scores, however, the examinations caused the class members to be hired later than similarly situated whites, which lessened the petitioners’ seniority and related benefits. Accordingly, when the Department laid off police officers in June 1975 on a “last-hired, first-fired” basis, those officers who had achieved the lowest scores on the examinations were laid off first, and the plaintiff black and Hispanic officers were disproportionately affected by the layoffs. On April 30, 1976, petitioners filed the present suit against the Department and other New York City officials and entities, the respondents here. Petitioners’ amended complaint alleged that the June 1975 layoffs violated their rights under Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. § 2000d et seq., and § 2000e et seq., under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, and under various other state and federal laws. The primary allegation of the complaint was that but for the discriminatory impact of the challenged examinations upon minorities, petitioners would have been hired earlier and therefore would have accumulated sufficient seniority to withstand the layoffs. After a hearing, the District Court held that, although petitioners had failed to prove that the respondents had acted with discriminatory intent, the use of the examinations violated Title VII, because the tests had a disparate impact upon minorities and were not proved by respondents to be job-related. The court therefore granted petitioners’ motion for a preliminary injunction restraining the Department from firing or recalling any police officers until seniority lists were reordered to accord petitioners the seniority they would have had but for respondents’ discriminatory practices. 431 P. Supp. 526 (SDNY 1977). In light of its holding under Title VII, the District Court deemed it unnecessary to decide the merits of petitioners’ claims under Title VI. Id., at 530, n. 2. On respondents’ appeal, the Second Circuit vacated the District Court’s decision and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of our holding in Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324 (1977), in which we ruled that a bona fide seniority system that merely perpetuates the effects of pre-Title VII discrimination is protected by § 703(h) of that statute, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(h). 562 F. 2d 38 (1977). On remand, the District Court found that Teamsters had rendered its previous holding untenable to the extent that it granted relief with respect to discrimination occurring prior to March 24, 1972, the date on which Title VII became applicable to municipalities. See Pub. L. 92-261, § 2(1), 86 Stat. 103. This meant that, under Title VII, class members hired prior to the effective date were not entitled to any relief, and that the remaining members of the class were only entitled to back seniority awards that did not take into account time periods prior to that date. 466 F. Supp. 1273, 1280 (SDNY 1979). The court then turned to Title VI, which has been applicable to municipalities since its enactment in 1964, to see if it would provide relief for the time periods prior to March 24, 1972. After considering Cort v. Ash, 422 U. S. 66 (1975), and the various opinions in University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978), the District Court concluded that an implied private right of action exists under Title VI. 466 F. Supp., at 1281-1285. Then, citing Lau v. Nichols, 414 U. S. 563 (1974), and Title VI administrative interpretative regulations adopted by several federal agencies, the court reasoned that proof of discriminatory effect is enough to establish a violation of Title VI in a private action, thereby rejecting respondents’ contention that only proof of discriminatory intent could suffice. 466 F. Supp., at 1285-1287. Finally, turning to the question of relief, the court held that the same remedies available under Title VII should be available under Title VI, unless they would conflict with some purpose peculiar to Title VI. “In the instant case, back seniority, approved as a Title VII remedy in Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U. S. 747... (1976), is just as necessary to make discriminatees ‘whole’ under Title VI.” Id., at 1287. Accordingly, relief was granted to the entire class pursuant to Title VI. In a subsequent order, the court set forth a detailed plan for the determination of the constructive seniority to which each individual member of the class would be entitled, and the corresponding monetary and nonmonetary entitlements that would be derived therefrom. The court also ordered respondents to meet and consult with petitioners on the preparation and use of future examinations. App. A99-A107. Respondents appealed once again to the Second Circuit, which affirmed the relief under Title VII but reversed as to Title VI. 633 F. 2d 232 (1980). All three members of the panel agreed that the award of Title VI relief could not be sustained, but the panel divided on the rationale for this conclusion. Two judges held that the trial court erred by concluding that Title VI does not require proof of discriminatory intent. They believed that this Court’s decision in Lau v. Nichols, supra, which held that proof of discriminatory impact could suffice to establish a Title VI violation, had been implicitly overruled by the judgment and supporting opinions in Bakke, supra. 633 F. 2d, at 270 (Kelleher, J.); id., at 274-275 (Coffrin, J.). The third member of the panel, Judge Meskill, declined to reach the question whether Title VI requires proof of discriminatory intent. Instead, he concluded that the “compensatory remedies sought by and awarded to plaintiffs in the case at bar are not available to private litigants under Title VI.” Id., at 255. Nothing in the legislative history, Judge Meskill observed, indicated that Title VI was intended to compensate individuals excluded from the benefits of a program receiving federal assistance, and in his view a compensatory private remedy would work at cross-purposes with the administrative enforcement mechanism expressly provided by §602 of Title VI, 42 U. S. C. §2000d-l, and with the objectives of the federal assistance statutes. 633 F. 2d, at 255-262. After the Second Circuit denied petitions for rehearing from both sides, 633 F. 2d 232 (1980), we granted the plaintiffs’ petition for certiorari, 454 U. S. 1140, which claimed error solely on the basis that proof of discriminatory intent is not required to establish a Title VI violation. r-H HH The Court squarely held m Lau v. Nichols, supra, that Title VI forbids the use of federal funds not only in programs that intentionally discriminate on racial grounds but also in those endeavors that have a disparate impact on racial minorities. The Court of Appeals recognized this but was of the view, as are respondents, that University of California Regents v. Bakke, supra, had confined the reach of Title VI to those programs that are operated in an intentionally discriminatory manner. For two reasons, I disagree with this reading of Bakke. A First, I recognize that in Bakke five Justices, including myself, declared that Title VI on its own bottom reaches no further than the Constitution, which suggests that, in light of Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229 (1976), Title VI does not of its own force proscribe unintentional racial discrimination. The Court of Appeals thought these declarations were inconsistent with Lau’s holding that Title VI contains its own prohibition of disparate-impact racial discrimination. The issue in Bakke, however, was whether Title VI forbids intentional discrimination in the form of affirmative action intended to remedy past discrimination, even though such affirmative action is permitted by the Constitution. Holding that Title VI does not bar such affirmative action if the Constitution does not is plainly not determinative of whether Title VI proscribes unintentional discrimination in addition to the intentional discrimination that the Constitution forbids. It is sensible to construe Title VI, a statute intended to protect racial minorities, as not forbidding those intentional, but benign, racial classifications that are permitted by the Constitution, yet as proscribing burdensome, nonbenign discriminations of a kind not contrary to the Constitution. Although some of the language in the Bakke opinions has a broader sweep, the holdings in Bakke and Lau are entirely consistent. Absent some more telling indication in the Bakke opinions that Lau was being overruled, I would not so hold. B Even if I am wrong in concluding that Bakke did not overrule Lau, as so many of my colleagues believe, there is another reason for holding that disproportionate-impact discrimination is subject to the Title VI regime. In Lau, the Court was unanimous in affirming a holding that the school district there involved was forbidden by Title VI to practice unintentional as well as intentional discrimination against racial minorities. Five Justices were of the view that Title VI itself forbade impact discrimination. Lau, 414 U. S., at 566-569. Justice Stewart, joined by The Chief Justice and Justice Blackmun, concurred in the result. The concurrence stated that it was not at all clear that Title VI, standing alone, would prohibit unintentional discrimination, but that the Title VI implementing regulations, which explicitly forbade impact discrimination, were valid because not inconsistent with the purposes of Title VI. Id., at 569-571. Even if Bakke must be taken as overruling Lau’s holding that the statute itself does not reach disparate impact, none of the five Justices whose opinions arguably compel this result considered whether the statute would permit regulations that clearly reached such discrimination. And no Justice in Bakke took issue with the view of the three concurring Justices in Lau, who concluded that even if Title VI itself did not proscribe unintentional racial discrimination, it nevertheless permitted federal agencies to promulgate valid regulations with such effect. The upshot of Justice Stewart’s opinion was that those charged with enforcing Title VI had sufficient discretion to enforce the statute by forbidding unintentional as well as intentional discrimination. Nothing that was said in Bakke is to the contrary. Of course, this leaves the question whether The Chief Justice, Justice Stewart, and Justice Blackmun were correct in their reading of the statute. I am convinced that they were. The language of Title VI on its face is ambiguous; the word “discrimination” is inherently so. It is surely subject to the construction given the antidiscrimination proscription of Title VII in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424 (1971), at least to the extent of permitting, if not requiring, regulations that reach disparate-impact discrimination. As Justice Stewart pointed out, the federal agency given enforcement authority had consistently construed Title VI in that manner. Lau, supra, at 570 (opinion concurring in result). Moreover, soon after the passage of Title VI, the Department of Justice, which had helped draft the legislation, assisted seven agencies in the preparation of regulations incorporating the disparate-impact standard of discrimination. These regulations were early interpretations of the statute by the agencies charged with its enforcement, and we should not reject them absent clear inconsistency with the face or structure of the statute, or with the unmistakable mandate of the legislative history. Zenith Radio Corp. v. United States, 437 U. S. 443, 450 (1978). I discern nothing in the legislative history of Title VI, and nothing has been presented by respondents, that is at odds with the administrative construction of the statutory terms. The Title, furthermore, has been consistently administered in this manner for almost two decades without interference by Congress. Under these circumstances, it must be concluded that Title VI reaches unintentional, disparate-impact discrimination as well as deliberate racial discrimination. I — I I — I Although the Court of Appeals erred in construing Title VI, it does not necessarily follow that its judgment should be reversed. As an alternative ground for affirmance, respondents defend the judgment on the basis that there is no private right of action available under Title VI that will afford petitioners the relief that they seek. I agree that the relief denied petitioners under Title VII is unavailable to them under Title VI, at least where no intentional discrimination has been proved, as is the case here. A I deal first with the matter of a private cause of action under Title VI. In Lau v. Nichols, non-English-speaking Chinese students sought relief against the San Francisco School District, claiming that they should be taught the English language, that instruction should proceed in Chinese, or that some other way should be provided to afford them equal educational opportunity. This Court, reversing the Court of Appeals, gave relief under Title VI. The existence of a private cause of action under that Title, however, was not disputed in that case. Four years later, the Court decided University of California Regents v. Bakke, which also involved a private suit seeking relief under Title VI against state educational authorities. Four Justices assumed, but did not decide, that a private action was available under Title VI. A fifth Justice was of the view that no private cause of action could be implied under the Title. The four remaining Justices concluded that a private action was available. Still later, in Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677 (1979), the Court, applying the factors specified in Cort v. Ash, 422 U. S. 66 (1975), held that private parties could sue to enforce the prohibitions of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U. S. C. § 1681 et seq., against gender-based discrimination in any educational program supported by federal funds. A major part of the analysis was that Title IX had been derived from Title VI, that Congress understood that private remedies were available under Title VI, and that Congress intended similar remedies to be available under Title IX. 441 U. S., at 694-703. Furthermore, it was the unmistakable thrust of the Cannon Court’s opinion that the congressional view was correct as to the availability of private actions to enforce Title VI. Id., set 710-716. Two Justices, in dissent, were of the view that private remedies under Title VI itself were not available and that the same was true under Title IX. Those Justices, however, asserted that 42 U. S. C. § 1983 was available to enforce the proscriptions of Title VI and Title IX where the alleged discriminatory practices were being carried on under the color of state law. Id., at 717-730 (White, J., dissenting, joined by Blackmun, J.). Thus at least eight Justices in Cannon were of the view that Title VI and Title IX could be enforced in a private action against a state or local agency receiving federal funds, such as the respondent Department. See also Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1 (1980). B Petitioners, however, are not entitled to a “make whole” remedy for respondents’ Title VI violations. 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.” Davis v. Passman, 442 U. S. 228, 239 (1979). The usual rule is that where legal rights have been invaded and a cause of action is available, a federal court may use any available remedy to afford full relief. Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, 684 (1946). The general rule nevertheless yields where necessary to carry out the intent of Congress or to avoid frustrating the purposes of the statute involved. For example, in Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U. S. 11 (1979), the Court found that a private right of action for only limited relief could be implied under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, 15 U. S. C. §80b-l et seq., which prohibits certain practices in connection with investment advisory contracts. Section 215 of the Act declared that contracts whose formation or performance would violate the Act were void, and the Court concluded that Congress intended “that the customary legal incidents of voidness would follow, including the availability of a suit for rescission or for an injunction against continued operation of the contract.” 444 U. S., at 19. But the Court refused to allow recovery of monetary relief in a private suit alleging violations of the Act, stating that, in the absence of a contrary legislative intent, “where a statute expressly provides a particular remedy or remedies, a court must be chary of reading others into it.” Ibid. We have also indicated that “make whole” remedies are not ordinarily appropriate in private actions seeking relief for violations of statutes passed by Congress pursuant to its “power under the Spending Clause to place conditions on the grant of federal funds.” Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1, 15 (1981). This is because the receipt of federal funds under typical Spending Clause legislation is a consensual matter: the State or other grantee weighs the benefits and burdens before accepting the funds and agreeing to comply with the conditions attached to their receipt. Typically, before funds are advanced, the appropriate federal official will determine whether the grantee’s plan, proposal, or program will satisfy the conditions of the grant or other extension of federal funds, and the grantee will have in mind what its obligations will be. When in a later private suit brought by those for whose benefit the federal money was intended to be used it is determined, contrary to the State’s position, that the conditions attached to the fluids are not being complied with, it may be that the recipient would rather terminate its receipt of federal money than assume the unanticipated burdens. Thus, the Court has more than once announced that in fashioning remedies for violations of Spending Clause statutes by recipients of federal funds, the courts must recognize that the recipient has “alternative choices of assuming the additional costs” of complying with what a court has announced is necessary to conform to federal law or of “not using federal funds” and withdrawing from the federal program entirely. Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U. S. 397, 420-421 (1970). Although a court may identify the violation and enjoin its continuance or order recipients of federal funds prospectively to perform their duties incident to the receipt of federal money, the recipient has the option of withdrawing and hence terminating the prospective force of the injunction. Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, supra, reiterated the Rosado approach: Remedies to enforce spending power statutes must respect the privilege of the recipient of federal funds to withdraw and terminate its receipt of federal money rather than assume the further obligations and duties that a court has declared are necessary for compliance. 451 U. S., at 29-30, 30, n. 23; id., at 53-55 (White, J., dissenting in part). The Court noted that “in no [Spending Clause] case... have we required a State to provide money to plaintiffs, much less required” a State to assume more burdensome obligations. Id., at 29. > HH Since the private cause of action under Title VI is one implied by the judiciary rather than expressly created by Congress, we should respect the foregoing considerations applicable in Spending Clause cases and take care in defining the limits of this cause of action and the remedies available thereunder. Because it was found that there was no proof of intentional discrimination by respondents, I put aside for present purposes those situations involving a private plaintiff who is entitled to the benefits of a federal program but who has been intentionally discriminated against by the administrators of the program. In cases where intentional discrimination has been shown, there can be no question as to what the recipient’s obligation under the program was and no question that the recipient was aware of that obligation. In such situations, it may be that the victim of the intentional discrimination should be entitled to a compensatory award, as well as to prospective relief in the event the State continues with the program. However that may be, the Court of Appeals in this case did not disturb the District Court’s finding that there was no intentional discrimination on racial grounds. The discrimination was unintentional and resulted from the disproportionate impact of the entry-level tests on racial minorities. In this and similar situations, it is not immediately obvious what the grantee’s obligations under the federal program were and it is surely not obvious that the grantee was aware that it was administering the program in violation of the statute or regulations. In such cases, proof of discriminatory impact does not end the matter. If the grantee can bear the burden of proving some “business necessity” for practices that have discriminatory impact, it has a complete affirmative defense to claims of violation. Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S., at 431. In the typical case where deliberate discrimination on racial grounds is not shown, the recipient will have at least colorable defenses to charges of illegal disparate-impact discrimination, and it often will be the case that, prior to judgment, the grantee will not have known or have had compelling reason to know that it had been violating the federal standards. Hence, absent clear congressional intent or guidance to the contrary, the relief in private actions should be limited to declaratory and injunctive relief ordering future compliance with the declared statutory and regulatory obligations. Additional relief in the form of money or otherwise based on past unintentional violations should be withheld. The foregoing considerations control decision in this case. I note first that Title VI is spending-power legislation: “It is not a regulatory measure, but an exercise of the unquestioned power of the Federal Government to ‘fix the terms on which Federal funds shall be disbursed.’ Oklahoma v. Civil Service Commission, 330 U. S. 127, 143 (1947). No recipient is required to accept Federal aid. If he does so voluntarily, he must take it on the conditions on which it is offered.” 110 Cong. Rec. 6546 (1964) (Sen. Humphrey). Accord, id., at 1527 (memorandum by Rep. Celler) (validity of Title VI “rests on the power of Congress to fix the terms on which Federal funds will be made available”); id., at 6562 (Sen. Kuchel); id., at 7063 (Sen. Pastore). Title VI rests on the principle that “taxpayers’ money, which is collected without discrimination, shall be spent without discrimination.” Id., at 7064 (Sen. Ribicoff). Accord, id., at 7054-7055, 7062 (Sen. Pastore); id., at 7102 (Sen. Javits); id., at 6566 (memorandum by the Republican Members of the House Committee on the Judiciary). The mandate of Title VI is “[v]ery simple. Stop the discrimination, get the money; continue the discrimination, do not get the money.” Id., at 1542 (Rep. Lindsay). Title VI imposes no obligations but simply “ ‘extends an option’” that potential recipients are free to accept or reject. Id., at 1527 (memorandum by Rep. Celler) (quoting Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 480 (1923)). This legislative history clearly shows that Congress intended Title VI to be a typical “contractual” spending-power provision. Since Title VI is Spending Clause legislation, it is presumed that private litigants seeking to enforce compliance with its terms are entitled to no more than the limited remedy deemed available to the plaintiffs in Pennhurst. The inquiry is not at this point complete, however, because, like all rules of statutory construction, the Pennhurst presumption must “yield... to persuasive evidence of contrary legislative intent.” Transamerica, 444 U. S., at 20. As in Trans-america, however, the relevant legislative history of Title VI reveals that “what evidence of intent exists in this case, circumstantial though it may be, weighs against the implication of a private right of action for a monetary award in a case such as this,” ibid., at least absent proof of intentional discrimination. Title VI does not explicitly allow for any form of a private right of action. This fact did not go unnoticed by Senators Keating and Ribicoff, who unsuccessfully proposed an amendment adding to Title VI a provision expressly allowing the institution of “a civil action or other proper proceeding for preventive relief, including an application for a permanent or temporary injunction, restraining order, or other order,... by the person aggrieved.” 109 Cong. Rec. 15375 (1963). Senator Keating explained that, under this proposal, if someone violated Title VI, funds could be denied or “a suit for specific performance of the nondiscrimination requirement could be brought... by the victim of the discrimination.” Id., at 15376. The relevant language of the proposed amendment was identical to that of § 204(a) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. § 2000a-3(a), the provision creating a private right of action to enforce Title II of the Act, which deals with discrimination in public accommodations. Suits under § 204(a) are “private in form only. When a plaintiff brings an action under that Title, he cannot recover damages. If he obtains an injunction, he does so not for himself alone but also as a ‘private attorney general/ vindicating a policy that Congress considered of the highest priority.” Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, 390 U. S. 400, 401-402 (1968). Senator Keating thought that elementary fairness required that victims of Title VI-proscribed discrimination be accorded the same private right of action as allowed in the “proposed education and public accommodations titles of the [Civil Rights] bill.” The Keating-Ribicoff proposal was not included in Title VI, but the important point for present purposes is that even the most ardent advocates of private enforcement of Title VI contemplated that private plaintiffs would only be awarded “preventive relief.” Like the drafters of Title II, they did not intend to allow private plaintiffs to recover monetary awards. Although the expressed intent of Senators Keating and Ribicoff is alone not determinative of whether a compensatory remedy may be obtained in a private action to enforce Title VI, “it is one more piece of evidence that Congress did not intend to authorize a cause, of action for anything beyond limited equitable relief.” Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, supra, at 22. Surely, it did not intend to do so where intentional discrimination is not shown. The remaining indications of congressional intent are also circumstantial, but they all militate in favor of the conclusion that only prospective relief ordering compliance with the terms of the grant is appropriate as a private remedy for Title VI violations in cases such as this. The “greatest possible emphasis” was given to the fact that the “real objective” of Title VI was “the elimination of discrimination in the use and receipt of Federal funds.” 110 Cong. Rec. 6544 (1964) (Sen. Humphrey). See also id., at 7062 (Sen. Pastore). The remedy of termination of assistance was regarded as “a last resort, to be used only if all else fails,” because “cutoffs of Federal funds would defeat important objectives of Federal legislation, without commensurate gains in eliminating racial discrimination or segregation.” Id., at 6544, 6546 (Sen. Humphrey). To ensure that this intent would be respected, Congress included an explicit provision in § 602 of Title VI that requires that any administrative enforcement action be “consistent with achievement of the objectives of the statute authorizing the financial assistance in connection with which the action is taken.” 42 U. S. C. §2000d-l. Although an award of damages would not be as drastic a remedy as a cutoff of funds, the possibility of large monetary liability for unintended discrimination might well dissuade potential nondiscriminating recipients from participating in federal programs, thereby hindering the objectives of the funding statutes. See 633 F. 2d, at 261-262 (opinion of Meskill, J.). In summary, there is no legislative history that in any way rebuts the Pennhurst presumption that only limited injunc-tive relief should be granted as a remedy for unintended violations of statutes passed pursuant to the spending power. What little evidence there is evinces an intent not to allow any greater relief. I conclude that compensatory relief, or other relief based on past violations of the conditions attached to the use of federal funds, is not available as a private remedy for Title VI violations not involving intentional discrimination. V If the relief unavailable under Title VII and ordered under Title VI is the kind of relief that should be withheld in enforcing a Spending Clause statute, the Court should affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals without more. Only if all or some of this relief is the kind of declaratory or prospective relief that private enforcement of Title VI properly contemplates should the Court of Appeals be reversed in whole or in part. To resolve this matter, I now consider the items of relief ordered by the District Court to determine if any element is a permissible injunctive remedy. Although the Eleventh Amendment cases are not dispos-itive here, in holding that only prospective relief is available to remedy violations of federal law by state officials, the Court in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 667 (1974), observed that the difference between permissible and impermissible relief “will not in many instances be that between day and night.” It seems as patent here as in the Eleventh Amendment context that the relief cannot include a monetary award for past wrongs, even if the award is in the form of “equitable restitution” instead of damages. See id., at 665-667. However, prospective relief need not be “totally without effect on the [defendant’s] revenues”; injunctive relief is permissible even if it means that the defendants, in order to shape their conduct to the mandate of the court’s decree, will have to spend more money “than if they had been left free to pursue their previous course of conduct.” Id., at 667-668. The key question for present purposes is whether the decree requires the payment of funds or grants other relief, “not as a necessary consequence of compliance in the future with a substantive federal-question determination, but as a form of compensation” or other relief based on or flowing from violations at a prior time when the defendant “was under no court-imposed obligation to conform to a different standard.” Id., at 668. The District Court in the present case granted a number of relatively discrete items of relief. First, each class member was awarded constructive seniority, which included the right to: (1) “all monetary entitlements which [the class members] would have received had they been appointed on their constructive seniority date,” including backpay and back medical and insurance benefits; and (2) all other entitlements relative to the award of constructive seniority, including salary, benefits, and pension rights. Also, respondents were directed to give a sergeant’s examination to those class members whose constructive seniority would have entitled them to take the last such examination. Finally, in an effort to insure that future hiring practices would be nondiscriminatory, respondents were ordered to consult with petitioners on the preparation and use of future police officer examinations for the next two years, and to provide petitioners with race and ethnicity information regarding the scores of the next scheduled examination. App. A99-A107. On the one hand, it is obvious that the award of backpay and back benefits constitutes relief based upon past conduct no longer permissible; it therefore should not stand. On the other hand, it is without doubt that the portion of the order requiring consultation to insure that future examinations will not have discriminatory effects constitutes permissible injunc-tive relief aimed at conforming respondents’ future conduct to the declared law. This leaves the award of constructive seniority for purposes of future entitlements: the right to take the special sergeant’s examination ordered by the District Court and the right to an increase of salary and benefits to the level warranted by the constructive seniority. Because such an award affects only the future conduct of a defendant, it arguably could be categorized as permissible prospective relief. I conclude, however, that an award of constructive seniority, for any purpose whatsoever, must be deemed impermissible retroactive relief. In Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U. S. 747, 766-767 (1976), we identified two types of seniority — “benefit” and “competitive status.” The first of these, “which determines pension rights, length of vacations, size of insurance coverage and unemployment benefits, and the like, is analogous to backpay.... Benefit-type seniority, like backpay, serves to work complete equity by penalizing the wrongdoer economically at the same time that it tends to make whole the one who was wronged.” Id., at 786-787 (Powell, J.). A general bar to the award of retroactive seniority “reduces the restitution required of an employer at such time as he is called upon to account for his discriminatory actions perpetrated in violation of the law.” Id., at 767, n. 27 (opinion of the Court). Since constructive benefit-type seniority in this case is obviously restitutionary and remedial in nature, it is “a form of compensation” to those whose rights were violated at a time when the respondents were “under no court-imposed obligation to conform to a different standard. ” Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S., at 668. It is therefore not an appropriate remedy for the Title VI violations alleged here. An award of “competitive status” seniority, although prospective in form, nevertheless constitutes a form of compensation or relief based on past conduct now deemed violative of the Act. In no respect can such an award be said to be “a necessary consequence,” ibid., of future Title VI compliance by the employer. It therefore must also be considered an inappropriate Title VI remedy. I also note that competitive-type seniority “determines an employee’s preferential rights to various economic advantages at the expense of.other employees. These normally include the order of layoff and recall of employees, job and trip assignments, and consideration for promotion.” Franks, supra, at 787 (Pow Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 Black delivered the opinion of the Court. The petitioner brought this action in a South Carolina state court. Upon motion of respondent, it was removed to the Federal District Court because of diversity of citizenship of the parties. The complaint claimed $25,000 damages upon allegations that the respondent’s agents had trespassed upon and cut timber from lands owned by and in the possession of the petitioner. Respondent’s answer denied that the petitioner had title or possession of the lands and timber. Both title and possession became crucial issues in the trial. The burden of proving them rested on the petitioner. When all the evidence of both parties had been introduced, the respondent moved for a directed verdict in its favor on the ground that the petitioner had failed to prove that he either owned or was in possession of the land. This motion was denied. The jury returned a verdict for petitioner for $15,000, and the court entered judgment on the verdict. The respondent moved for a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence. This motion was denied. Respondent did not move for judgment notwithstanding the verdict as it might have done under Rule 50 (b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which is set out below. The Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the admission of certain evidence offered by the petitioner to prove legal title was prejudicial error. It held that without this improperly admitted evidence petitioner’s proof was not sufficient to submit the question of title to the jury. That court also held that petitioner’s evidence showing possession was insufficient to go to the jury. It therefore reversed the case. But instead of remanding it to the District Court for a new trial, the Circuit Court of Appeals directed that judgment be entered for respondent. 153 F. 2d 576. That court has thus construed Rule 50 (b) as authorizing an appellate court to direct a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, even though no motion for such a judgment had been made in the District Court within ten days after the jury’s discharge. The petition for certiorari challenged the power of an appellate court to direct entry of a judgment notwithstanding the verdict where timely motion for such a judgment had not been made in the District Court. On three previous occasions we have granted certiorari to consider this point but failed to reach it because, upon examination of the evidence, we found it sufficient to justify submission of all three cases to the jury. Conway v. O’Brien, 312 U. S. 492; Berry v. United States, 312 U. S. 450; Halliday v. United States, 315 U. S. 94. In this case we granted certiorari “limited to the questions of federal procedure raised by the petition for the writ.” 329 U. S. 701. The point we had in mind was whether a party’s failure to make a motion in the District Court for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, as permitted in Rule 50 (b), precludes an appellate court from directing entry of such a judgment. Other questions have been discussed here, but we do not consider them. Consequently, we accept, without approving or disapproving, the Circuit Court of Appeals’ holding that there was prejudicial error in the admission of evidence and in the submission of the case to the jury. Rule 50 (b) contains no language which absolutely requires a trial court to enter judgment notwithstanding the verdict even though that court is persuaded that it erred in failing to direct a verdict for the losing party. The rule provides that the trial court “may reopen the judgment and either order a new trial or direct the entry of judgment as if the requested verdict had been directed.” This “either-or” language means what it seems to mean, namely, that there are circumstances which might lead the trial court to believe that a new trial rather than a final termination of the trial stage of the controversy would better serve the ends of justice. In short, the rule does not compel a trial judge to enter a judgment notwithstanding the verdict instead of ordering a new trial; it permits him to exercise a discretion to choose between the two alternatives. See Berry v. United States, supra, 452-453. And he can exercise this discretion with a fresh personal knowledge of the issues involved, the kind of evidence given, and the impression made by witnesses. His appraisal of the bona fides of the claims asserted by the litigants is of great value in reaching a conclusion as to whether a new trial should be granted. Determination of whether a new trial should be granted or a judgment entered under Rule 50 (b) calls for the judgment in the first instance of the judge who saw and heard the witnesses and has the feel of the case which no appellate printed transcript can impart. See March v. Philadelphia & West Chester Traction Co., 285 Pa. 413, 418, 132 A. 355, 357; Bunn v. Furstein, 153 Pa. Super. 637, 638, 34 A. 2d 924. See also Yutterman v. Sternberg, 86 F. 2d 321, 324. Exercise of this discretion presents to the trial judge an opportunity, after all his rulings have been made and all the evidence has been evaluated, to view the proceedings in a perspective peculiarly available to him alone. He is thus afforded “a last chance to correct his own errors without the delay, expense or other hardships of an appeal.” See Greer v. Carpenter, 323 Mo. 878, 882, 19 S. W. 2d 1046, 1047. Cf. United States v. Johnson, 327 U. S. 106, 112. There are other practical reasons why a litigant should not have his right to a new trial foreclosed without having had the benefit of the trial court’s judgment on the question. Take the case where a trial court is about to direct a verdict because of failure of proof in a certain aspect of the case. At that time a litigant might know or have reason to believe that he could fill the crucial gap in the evidence. Traditionally, a plaintiff in such a dilemma has had an unqualified right, upon payments of costs, to take a nonsuit in order to file a new action after further preparation, unless the defendant would suffer some plain legal prejudice other than the mere prospect of a second lawsuit. Pleasants v. Fant, 22 Wall. 116, 122; Jones v. S. E. C., 298 U. S. 1, 19-20 and cases cited. Rule 41 (a) (1) preserves this unqualified right of the plaintiff to a dismissal without prejudice prior to the filing of defendant’s answer. And after the filing of an answer, Rule 41 (a) (2) still permits a trial court to grant a dismissal without prejudice “upon such terms and conditions as the court deems proper.” In this case had respondents made a timely motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, the petitioner could have either presented reasons to show why he should have a new trial, or at least asked the court for permission to dismiss. If satisfied from the knowledge acquired from the trial and because of the reasons urged that the ends of justice would best be served by allowing petitioner another chance, the judge could have so provided in his discretion. The respondent failed to submit a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict to the trial judge in order that he might exercise his discretionary power to determine whether there should be such a judgment, a dismissal or a new trial. In the absence of such a motion, we think the appellate court was without power to direct the District Court to enter judgment contrary to the one it had permitted to stand. It has been suggested that the petitioner could have presented affidavits to the Circuit Court of Appeals to support his claim for a new trial, and that that court could thereupon have remanded the question to the District Court to pass upon it. Such a circuitous method of determining the question cannot be approved. For Rule 50 (b) specifically prescribes a period of ten days for making a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Yet the method here suggested would enable litigants to extend indefinitely the prescribed ten-day period simply by adoption of the expedient of an appeal. Furthermore, it would present the question initially to the appellate court when the primary discretionary responsibility for its decision rests on the District Court. Reversed. Under governing South Carolina law an action such as this is not one to try title but “to recover damages for trespass to property of which the plaintiff was in possession.” Macedonia Baptist Church v. Columbia, 195 S. C. 59, 70, 10 S. E. 2d 350, 355. But possession may be presumed from proof of legal title. Beaufort Land & Investment Co. v. New River Lumber Co., 86 S. C. 358, 68 S. E. 637; Haithcock v. Haithcock, 123 S. C. 61, 115 S. E. 727; Code of Laws of South Carolina (1942) § 377. Petitioner here undertook to prove possession both by showing that he had legal title and by showing that he had openly and notoriously exercised acts of dominion, possession, and ownership over a long period of years. Respondent first moved to dismiss the case on the same grounds under Rule 41 (b) of the Rules of Civil Procedure. That rule provides for a dismissal, under the circumstances and conditions there set out, where “upon the facts and the law the plaintiff has shown no right to relief.” Since substantially the same disposition of the case on the same grounds was later requested by respondent in the motion for a directed verdict, we shall have no occasion further to discuss the motion to dismiss. 50 (b) “Reservation op Decision on Motion. Whenever a motion for a directed verdict made at the close of all the evidence is denied or for any reason is not granted, the court is deemed to have submitted the action to the jury subject to a later determination of the legal questions raised by the motion. Within 10 days after the reception of a verdict, a party who has moved for a directed verdict may move to have the verdict and any judgment entered thereon set aside and to have judgment entered in accordance with his motion for a directed verdict ... A motion for a new trial may be joined with this motion, or a new trial may be prayed for in the alternative. If a verdict was returned the court may allow the judgment to stand or may reopen the judgment and either order a new trial or direct the entry of judgment as if the requested verdict had been directed. If no verdict was returned the court may direct the entry of judgment as if the requested verdict had been directed or may order a new trial.” The Advisory Committee on Rules for Civil Procedure in commenting on Rule 50 (b) stated that “A trial court or an appellate court in setting aside a verdict always has discretion, if justice requires it, to order a new trial, instead of directing the entry of judgment. Rule 50 (b) states that the court on a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict 'may either order a new trial or direct the entry of judgment’ for the moving party.” Report of Proposed Amendments to Rules of Civil Procedure (1946) 66. See also New York Symposium on Federal Rules (1938) 283-284. Compare March v. Philadelphia & West Chester Traction Co., 285 Pa. 413, 132 A. 355; Nadeau v. Maryland Casualty Co., 170 Minn. 326, 331, 212 N. W. 595, 597; Anderson v. Newsome, 193 Minn. 157, 258 N. W. 157; Porsmer v. Davis, 152 Minn. 181, 188 N. W. 279; Jackson v. Hansard, 45 Wyo. 201, 218, 17 P. 2d 659, 664. Rule 41 (a) (2), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, has been interpreted as authorizing a plaintiff to dismiss his action “without prejudice where the court believes that although there is a technical failure of proof there is nevertheless a meritorious claim.” Report of Proposed Amendments to Rules of Civil Procedure (1946) 64; see United States v. Lyman, 125 F. 2d 67; 138 F. 2d 509; Home Owners’ Loan Corporation v. Huffman, 134 F. 2d 314, 317. This general suggestion was made by the Advisory Committee on Rules for Civil Procedure in its recent recommendation to us for modification of Rule 50 (b). The Committee said: “Even on appeal, if the appellate court sets aside his verdict, he may present to the appellate court affidavits to support his claim to a new trial, and the appellate court has power to receive the affidavits and remand the case to the trial court with instructions to consider the affidavits and determine whether a new trial should be allowed.” Report of Proposed Amendments, supra, 66. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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

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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Black delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioner was found guilty in the Police Court of Louisville, Kentucky, of two offenses — loitering and disorderly conduct. The ultimate question presented to us is whether the charges against petitioner were so totally devoid of evidentiary support as to render his conviction unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Decision of this question turns not on the sufficiency of the evidence, but on whether this conviction rests upon any evidence at all. The facts as shown by the record are short and simple. Petitioner, a long-time resident of the Louisville area, went into the Liberty End Cafe about 6:20 on Saturday evening, January 24, 1959. In addition to selling food the cafe was licensed to sell beer to the public and some 12 to 30 patrons were present during the time petitioner was there. When petitioner had been in the cafe about half an hour, two Louisville police officers came in on a “routine check.” Upon seeing petitioner “out there on the floor dancing by himself,” one of the officers, according to his testimony, went up to the manager who was sitting on a stool nearby and asked him how long petitioner had been in there and if he had bought anything. The officer testified that upon being told by the manager that petitioner had been there “a little over a half-hour and that he had not bought anything,” he accosted Thompson and “asked him what was his reason for being in there and he said he was waiting on a bus.” The officer then informed petitioner that he was under arrest and took him outside. This was the arrest for loitering. After going outside, the officer testified, petitioner “was very argumentative — he argued with us back and forth and so then we placed a disorderly conduct charge on him.” Admittedly the disorderly conduct conviction rests solely on this one sentence description of petitioner’s conduct after he left the cafe. The foregoing evidence includes all that the city offered against him, except a. record purportedly showing a total of 54 previous arrests of petitioner. Before putting on his defense, petitioner moved for a dismissal of the charges against him on the ground that a judgment of conviction on this record would deprive him of property and liberty without due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment in that (1) there was no evidence to support findings of guilt and (2) the two arrests and prosecutions were reprisals against him because petitioner had employed counsel and demanded a judicial hearing to defend himself against prior and allegedly baseless charges by the police. This motion was denied. Petitioner then put in evidence on his own behalf, none of which in any way strengthened the city’s case. He testified that he bought, and one of the cafe employees served him, a dish of macaroni and a glass of beer and that he remained in the cafe waiting for a bus to go home. Further evidence showed without dispute that at the time of his arrest petitioner gave the officers his home address; that he had money with him, and a bus schedule showing that a bus to his home would stop within half a block of the cafe at about 7:30; that he owned two unimproved lots of land; that in addition to work he had done for others, he had regularly worked one day or more a week for the same family for 30 years; that he paid no rent in the home where he lived and that his meager income was sufficient to meet his needs. The cafe manager testified that petitioner had frequently patronized the cafe, and that he had never told petitioner that he was unwelcome there. The manager further testified that on this very occasion he saw petitioner “standing there in the middle of the floor and patting his foot,” and that he did not at any time during petitioner’s stay there object to anything he was doing. There is no evidence that anyone else in the cafe objected to petitioner’s shuffling his feet in rhythm with the music of the jukebox or that his conduct was boisterous or offensive to anyone present. At the close of his evidence, petitioner repeated his motion for dismissal of the charges on the ground that a conviction on the foregoing evidence would deprive him of liberty and property without due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The court denied the motion, convicted him of both offenses, and fined him $10 on each charge. A motion for new trial, on the same grounds, also was denied, which exhausted petitioner’s remedies in the police court. Since police court fines of less than $20 on a single charge are not appealable or otherwise reviewable in any other Kentucky court, petitioner asked the police court to stay the judgments so that he might have an opportunity to apply for certiorari to this Court (before his case became moot) to review the due process contentions he raised. The police court suspended judgment for 24 hours during which time petitioner sought a longer stay from the Kentucky Circuit Court. That court, after examining the police court’s judgments and transcript, granted a stay concluding that “there appears to be merit” in the contention that “there is no evidence upon which conviction and sentence by the Police Court could be based” and that petitioner’s “Federal Constitutional claims are substantial and not frivolous.” On appeal by the city, the Kentucky Court of Appeals held that the Circuit Court lacked the power to grant the stay it did, but nevertheless went on to take the extraordinary step of granting its own stay, even though petitioner had made no original application to that court for such a stay. Explaining its reason, the Court of Appeals took occasion to agree with the Circuit Court that petitioner’s “federal constitutional claims are substantial and not frivolous.” The Court of Appeals then went on to say that petitioner “appears to have a real question as to whether he has been denied due process under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution, yet this substantive right cannot be tested unless we grant him a stay of execution because his fines are not appealable and will be satisfied by being served in jail before he can prepare and file his petition for cer-tiorari. Appellee’s substantive right of due process is of no avail to him unless this court grants him the ancillary right whereby he may test same in the Supreme Court.” Our examination of the record presented in the petition for certiorari convinced us that although the fines here are small, the due process questions presented are substantial and we therefore granted certiorari to review the police court’s judgments. 360 U. S. 916. Compare Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356 (San Francisco Police Judges Court judgment imposing a $10 fine, upheld by state appellate court, held invalid as in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment). The city correctly assumes here that if there is no support for these convictions in the record they are void as denials of due process. The pertinent portion of the city ordinance under which petitioner was convicted of loitering reads as follows: “It shall be unlawful for any person . . . , without visible means of support, or who cannot give a satisfactory account of himself, ... to sleep, lie, loaf, or trespass in or about any premises, building, or other structure in the City of Louisville, without first having obtained the consent of the owner or controller of said premises, structure, or building; . . .” §85-12, Ordinances of the City of Louisville. In addition to the fact that petitioner proved he had “visible means of support,” the prosecutor at trial said “This is a loitering charge here. There is no charge of no visible means of support.” Moreover, there is no suggestion that petitioner was sleeping, lying or trespassing in or about this cafe. Accordingly he could only have been convicted for being unable to give a satisfactory account of himself while loitering in the cafe, without the consent of the manager. Under the words of the ordinance itself, if the evidence fails to prove all three elements of this loitering charge, the conviction is not supported by evidence, in which event it does not comport with due process of law. The record is entirely lacking in evidence to support any of the charges. Here, petitioner spent about half an hour on a Saturday evening in January in a public cafe which sold food and beer to the public. When asked to account for his presence there, he said he was waiting for a bus. The city concedes that there is no law making it an offense for a person in such a cafe to “dance,” “shuffle” or “pat” his feet in time to music. The undisputed testimony of the manager, who did not know whether petitioner had bought macaroni and beer or not but who did see the patting, shuffling or dancing, was that petitioner was welcome there. The manager testified that he did not at any time during petitioner’s stay in the cafe object to anything petitioner was doing and that he never saw petitioner do anything that would cause any objection. Surely this is implied consent, which the city admitted in oral argument satisfies the ordinance. The arresting officer admitted that there was nothing in any way “vulgar” about what he called petitioner’s “ordinary dance,” whatever relevance, if any, vulgarity might have to a charge of loitering. There simply is no semblance of evidence from which any person could reasonably infer that petitioner could not give a satisfactory account of himself or that he was loitering or loafing there (in the ordinary sense of the words) without “the consent of the owner or controller” of the cafe. Petitioner’s conviction for disorderly conduct was under § 85-8 of the city ordinance which, without definition, provides that “[wjhoever shall be found guilty of disorderly conduct in the City of Louisville shall be fined . . . .” etc. The only evidence of “disorderly conduct” was the single statement of the policeman that after petitioner was arrested and taken out of the cafe he was very argumentative. There is no testimony that petitioner raised his voice, used offensive language, resisted the officers or engaged in any conduct of any kind likely in any way to adversely affect the good order and tranquillity of the City of Louisville. The only information the record contains on what the petitioner was “argumentative” about is his statement that he asked the officers “what they arrested me for.” We assume, for we are justified in assuming, that merely “arguing” with a policeman is not, because it could not be, “disorderly conduct” as a matter of the substantive law of Kentucky. See Lametta v. New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451. Moreover, Kentucky law itself seems to provide that if a man wrongfully arrested fails to object to the arresting officer, he waives any right to complain later that the arrest was unlawful. Nickell v. Commonwealth, 285 S. W. 2d 495, 496. Thus we find no evidence whatever in the record to support these convictions. Just as “Conviction upon a charge not made would be sheer denial of due process,” so is it a violation of due process to convict and punish a man without evidence of his guilt. The judgments are reversed and the cause is remanded to the Police Court of the City of Louisville for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. Reversed and remanded. Upon conviction and sentence under §§ 85-8, 85-12 and 85-13 of the ordinances of the City of Louisville, petitioner would be subject to imprisonment, fine or confinement in the workhouse upon default of payment of a fine. Petitioner added that the effect of convictions here would be to deny him redress for the prior alleged arbitrary and unlawful arrests. This was based on the fact that, under Kentucky law, conviction bars suits for malicious prosecution and even for false imprisonment. Thus, petitioner says, he is subject to arbitrary and continued arrests neither reviewable by regular appellate procedures nor subject to challenge in independent civil actions. The officer’s previous testimony that petitioner had bought no food or drink is seriously undermined, if not contradicted, by the manager’s testimony at trial. There the manager stated that the officer “asked me I had [sic] sold him any thing to eat and I said no and he said any beer and I said no . . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) And the manager acknowledged that petitioner might have bought something and been served by a waiter or waitress without the manager noticing it. Whether there was a purchase or not, however, is of no significance to the issue here. Ky. Rev. Stat. §26.080; and see §26.010. Both the Jefferson Circuit Court and the Kentucky Court of Appeals held that further review either by direct appeal or by collateral proceeding was foreclosed to petitioner. Thompson v. Taustine, No. 40175, Jefferson (Kentucky) Circuit Court, Common Pleas Branch, Fifth Division (per Grauman, J.) (1959), unreported; Taustine v. Thompson, 322 S. W. 2d 100 (Ky. 1959). Without a stay and bail pending application for review petitioner would have served out his fines in prison in 10 days at the rate of $2 a day. Taustine v. Thompson, 322 S. W. 2d 100 (Ky. 1959). Thompson v. Taustine, No. 40175, Jefferson (Kentucky) Circuit Court, Common Pleas Branch, Fifth Division (per Grauman, J.) (1959), unreported. Taustine v. Thompson, 322 S. W. 2d 100 (Ky. 1959). Id., at 101. Id., at 102. For illustration, the city’s brief in this Court states that the questions presented are “1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support the convictions, and therefore meets the requirements of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. . . .” Section 86-13 provides penalties for violation of § 85-12. De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353, 362. See also Cole v. Arkansas, 333 U. S. 196, 201. See Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U. S. 232; United States ex rel. Vajtauer v. Commissioner, 273 U. S. 103, 106; Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86; Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356. Cf. Akins v. Texas, 325 U. S. 398, 402; Tot v. United States, 319 U. S. 463, 473 (concurring opinion); Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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

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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Douglas delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioners, Bennie Will Meyes and William Douglas, were jointly tried and convicted in a California court on an information charging them with 13 felonies. A single public defender was appointed to represent them. At the commencement of the trial, the defender moved for a continuance, stating that the case was very complicated, that he was not as prepared as he felt he should be because he was handling a different defense every day, and that there was a conflict of interest between the petitioners requiring the appointment of separate counsel for each of them. This motion was denied. Thereafter, petitioners dismissed the defender, claiming he was unprepared, and again renewed motions for separate counsel and for a continuance. These motions also were denied, and petitioners were ultimately convicted by a jury of all 13 felonies, which included robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and assault with intent to commit murder. Both were given prison terms. Both appealed as of right to the California District Court of Appeal. That court affirmed their convictions. 187 Cal. App. 2d 802, 10 Cal. Rptr. 188. Both Meyes and Douglas then petitioned for further discretionary review in the California Supreme Court, but their petitions were denied without a hearing. 187 Cal. App. 2d, at. 813, 10 Cal. Rptr., at 195. We granted certiorari. 368 U. S. 815. Although several questions are presented in the petition for certiorari, we address ourselves to only one of them. The record shows that petitioners requested, and were denied, the assistance of counsel on appeal, even though it plainly appeared they were indigents. In denying petitioners’ requests, the California District Court of Appeal stated that it had “gone through” the record and had come to the conclusion that “no good whatever could be served by appointment of counsel.” 187 Cal. App. 2d 802, 812,10 Cal. Rptr. 188,195. The District Court of Appeal was acting in accordance with a California rule of criminal procedure which provides that state appellate courts, upon the request of an indigent for counsel, may make “an independent investigation of the record and determine whether it would be of advantage to the defendant or helpful to the appellate court to have counsel appointed. . . . After such investigation, appellate courts should appoint counsel if in their opinion it would be helpful to the defendant or the court, and should deny the appointment of counsel only if in their judgment such appointment would be of no value to either the defendant or the court.” People v. Hyde, 51 Cal. 2d 152, 154, 331 P. 2d 42, 43. We agree, however, with Justice Traynor of the California Supreme Court, who said that the “[d]enial of counsel on appeal [to an indigent] would seem to be a discrimination at least as invidious as that condemned in Griffin v. Illinois . . . .” People v. Brown, 55 Cal. 2d 64, 71, 357 P. 2d 1072, 1076 (concurring opinion). In Griffin v. Illinois., 351 U. S. 12, we held that a State, may not grant appellate review in such a way as to discriminate against some convicted defendants on account of their poverty. There, as in Draper v. Washington, post, p. 487, the right to a free transcript on appeal was in issue. Here the issue is whether or not an indigent shall be denied the assistance of counsel on appeal. In either case the evil is the same: discrimination against the indigent. For there can be no equal justice where the kind of an appeal a man enjoys “depends on the amount of money he has.” Griffin v. Illinois, supra, at p. 19. In spite of California’s forward treatment of indigents, under its present practice the type of an appeal a person is afforded in the District Court of Appeal hinges upon whether or not he can pay for the assistance of counsel. If he can the appellate court passes on the merits of his case only after having the full benefit of written briefs and oral argument by counsel. If he cannot the appellate court is forced to prejudge the merits before it can even determine whether counsel should be provided. At this stage in the proceedings only the barren record speaks for the indigent, and, unless the printed pages show that an injustice has been committed, he is forced to go without a champion on appeal. Any real chance he may have had of showing that his appeal has hidden merit is deprived him when the court decides on an ex parte examination of the record that the assistance of counsel is not required. We are not here concerned with problems that might arise from the denial of counsel for the preparation of a petition for discretionary or mandatory review beyond the stage in the appellate process at which the claims have once been presented by a lawyer and passed upon by an appellate court. We are dealing only with the first appeal, granted as a matter of right to rich and poor alike (Cal. Penal Code §§ 1235, 1237), from a criminal conviction. We need not now decide whether California would have to provide counsel for an indigent seeking a discretionary hearing from the California Supreme Court after the District Court of Appeal had sustained his conviction (see Cal. Const., Art. VI, § 4c; Cal. Rules on Appeal, Rules 28, 29), or whether counsel must be appointed for an indigent seeking review of an appellate affirmance of his conviction in this Court by appeal as of right or by petition for a writ of certiorari which lies within the Court’s discretion. But it is appropriate to observe that a State Can, consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment, provide for differences so long as the result does not amount to a denial of due process or an “invidious discrimination.” Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 489; Griffin y. Illinois, supra, p. 18. Absolute equality is not required; lines can be and are drawn and we often sustain them. See Tigner v. Texas, 310 U. S. 141; Goesaert v. Cleary, 335 U. S. 464. But where the merits of the one and only appeal an indigent has as of right are decided without benefit of counsel, we think an unconstitutional line has been drawn between rich and poor. When an indigent is forced to run this gantlet of a preliminary showing of merit, the right to appeal does not comport with fair procedure. In the federal courts, on the other hand, an indigent must be afforded counsel on appeal whenever he challenges a certification that the appeal is not taken in good faith. Johnson v. United States, 352 U. S. 565. The federal courts must honor his request for counsel regardless of what they think the merits of the case may be; and “representation in the role of an advocate is required.” Ellis v. United States, 356 U. S. 674, 675. In California, however, once the court has “gone through” the record and denied counsel, the indigent has no recourse but to prosecute his appeal on his own, as best he can, no matter how meritorious his case may turn out to be. The present case, where counsel was denied petitioners on appeal, shows that the discrimination is not between “possibly good and obviously bad cases,” but between cases where the rich man can require the court to listen to argument of counsel before deciding on the merits, but a poor man cannot. There is lacking that equality demanded by the Fourteenth Amendment where the rich man, who appeals as of right, enjoys the benefit of counsel’s examination into the record, research of the law, and marshalling of arguments on his behalf, while the indigent, already burdened by a preliminary determination that his case is without merit, is forced to shift for himself. The indigent, where the record is unclear or the errors are hidden, has only the right to a meaningless ritual, while the rich man has a meaningful appeal. We vacate the judgment of the District Court of Appeal and remand the case to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. While the notation of a denial of hearing by the California Supreme Court indicates that only Meyes petitioned that Court for a hearing, and is silent as to Douglas’ attempts at further review, the record shows that the petition for review was expressly filed on behalf of Douglas as well. Both Meyes and Douglas, therefore, have exhausted their state remedies and both cases are properly before us. 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (3). “When society acts to deprive one of its members of his life, liberty or property, it takes its most awesome steps. No general re-, spect for, nor adherence to, the law as a whole can well be expected without judicial recognition of the paramount need for prompt, eminently fair and sober criminal law procedures. The methods we employ in the enforcement of our criminal law have aptly been called the measures by which the quality of our civilization may be judged.” Coppedge v. United States, 369 U. S. 438, 449. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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

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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Chief Justice Rehnquist announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and III, and an opinion with respect to Part II in which Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas join. This ease requires us to resolve two inquiries as to constitutional limitations on state clemency proceedings. The first is whether an inmate has a protected life or liberty interest in clemency proceedings, under either Connecticut Bd. of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U. S. 458 (1981), or Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U. S. 387 (1985). The second is whether giving inmates the option of voluntarily participating in an interview as part of the clemency process violates an inmate’s Fifth Amendment rights. We reaffirm our holding in Dumschat, supra, that “pardon and commutation decisions have not traditionally been the business of courts; as such, they are rarely, if ever, appropriate subjects for judicial review.” Id., at 464 (footnote omitted). The Due Process Clause is not violated where, as here, the procedures in question do no more than confirm that the clemency and pardon powers are committed, as is our tradition, to the authority of the executive. We further hold that a voluntary inmate interview does not violate the Fifth Amendment. I The Ohio Constitution gives the Governor the power to grant clemency upon such conditions as he thinks proper. Ohio Const., Art. III, § 2. The Ohio General Assembly cannot curtail this discretionary decisionmaking power, but it may regulate the application and investigation process. State v. Sheward, 71 Ohio St. 3d 513, 524-525, 644 N. E. 2d 369, 378 (1994). The General Assembly has delegated in large part the conduct of clemency review to petitioner Ohio Adult Parole Authority (Authority). Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2967.07 (1993). In the case of an inmate under death sentence, the Authority must conduct a clemency hearing within 45 days of the scheduled date of execution. Prior to the hearing, the inmate may request an interview with one or more parole board members. Counsel is not allowed at that interview. The Authority must hold the hearing, complete its clemency review, and make a recommendation to the Governor, even if the inmate subsequently obtains a stay of execution. If additional information later becomes available, the Authority may in its discretion hold another hearing or alter its recommendation. Respondent Eugene Woodard was sentenced to death for aggravated murder committed in the course of a carjacking. His conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal, State v. Woodard, 68 Ohio St. 3d 70, 623 N. E. 2d 75 (1993), and this Court denied certiorari, 512 U. S. 1246 (1994). When respondent failed to obtain a stay of execution more than 45 days before his scheduled execution date, the Authority commenced its clemency investigation. It informed respondent that he could have a clemency interview on September 9, 1994, if he wished, and that his clemency hearing would be on September 16,1994. Respondent did not request an interview. Instead, he objected to the short notice of the interview and requested assurances that counsel could attend and participate in the interview and hearing. When the Authority failed to respond to these requests, respondent filed suit in United States District Court on September 14, alleging under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, that Ohio’s clemency process violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process and his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. The District Court granted the State’s motion for judgment on the pleadings. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. 107 F. 3d 1178 (1997). That court determined that under a "first strand” of due process analysis, arising out of the clemency proceeding itself, respondent had failed to establish a protected life or liberty interest. It noted that our decision in Dumschat, supra, at 464-465, "decisively rejected the argument that federal law can create a liberty interest in clemency.” 107 P. 3d, at 1188. The Court of Appeals further concluded that there was no state-created life or liberty interest in clemency. Id., at 1184-1185. Since the Governor retains complete discretion to make the final decision, and the Authority’s recommendation is purely advisory, the State has not created a protected interest. Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U. S. 238, 249 (1983). The court noted that it would reach the same conclusion under Sandin v. Conner, 515 U. S. 472 (1995), to the extent that decision modified the Olim analysis. The Court of Appeals went on to consider, however, a “second strand” of due process analysis centered on “the role of clemency in the entire punitive scheme.” 107 F. 3d, at 1186. The court relied on our statement in Evitts that “if a State has created appellate courts as ‘an integral part of the . . . system for finally adjudicating the guilt or innocence of a defendant,’... the procedures used in deciding appeals must comport with the demands of” due process. 469 U. S., at 393 (quoting Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, 18 (1956)). The court thought this reasoning logically applied to subsequent proceedings, including discretionary appeals, postconviction proceedings, and clemency. Due process thus protected respondent’s “original” life and liberty interests that he possessed before trial at each proceeding. But the amount of process due was in proportion tó the degree to which the stage was an “integral part” of the trial process. Clemency, while not required by the Due Process Clause, was a significant, traditionally available remedy for preventing miscarriages of justice when judicial process was exhausted. It therefore came within the Evitts framework as an “integral part” of the adjudicatory system. However, since clemency was far removed from trial, the process due could be minimal. The Court did not itself decide what that process should be, but remanded to the District Court for that purpose. Finally, the Court of Appeals also agreed with respondent that the voluntary interview procedure presented him with a “Hobson’s choice” between asserting his Fifth Amendment rights and participating in the clemency review process, raising the specter of an unconstitutional condition. 107 F. 3d, at 1189. There was no compelling state interest that would justify forcing such a choice on the inmate. On the other hand, the inmate had a measurable interest in avoiding incrimination in ongoing postconvietion proceedings, as well as with respect to possible charges for other crimes that could be revealed during the interview. While noting some uncertainties surrounding application of the unconstitutional conditions doctrine, the Court of Appeals concluded the doctrine could be applied in this ease. The dissenting judge would have affirmed the District Court’s judgment. Id., at 1194. He agreed with the majority’s determination that there was no protected interest under Dwmschat But he thought that the majority’s finding of a due process interest under Evitts, supra, was necessarily inconsistent with the holding and rationale of Dumschat. Evitts did not purport to overrule Dumschat. He also concluded that respondent’s Fifth Amendment claim was too speculative, given the voluntary nature of the clemency interview We granted certiorari, 521 U. S. 1117 (1997), and we now reverse. II Respondent argues first, in disagreement with the Court of Appeals, that there is a life interest in clemency broader in scope than the “original” life interest adjudicated at trial and sentencing. Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U. S. 399 (1986). This continuing life interest, it. is argued, requires due process protection until respondent is executed. Relying on Eighth Amendment decisions holding that additional procedural protections are required in capital cases, see, e. g., Beck v. Alabama, 447 U. S. 625, 637-638 (1980), respondent asserts that Dumschat does not control the outcome in this ease because it involved only a liberty interest. Justice Stevens’ dissent agrees on both counts. Post, at 291-292. In Dumschat, an inmate claimed Connecticut’s clemency procedure violated due process because the Connecticut Board of Pardons failed to provide an explanation for its denial of his commutation application. The Court held that “an inmate has ‘no constitutional or inherent right’ to commutation of his sentence.” 452 U. S., at 464. It noted that, unlike probation decisions, “pardon and commutation decisions have not traditionally been the business of courts; as such, they are rarely, if ever, appropriate subjects for judicial review.” Ibid. The Court relied on its prior decision in Greenholtz v. Inmates of Neb. Penal and Correctional Complex, 442 U. S. 1 (1979), where it rejected the claim “that a constitutional entitlement to release [on parole] exists independently of a right explicitly conferred by the State.” Dumschat, 452 U. S., at 463-464. The individual’s interest in release or commutation “‘is indistinguishable from the initial resistance to being confined,’ ” and that interest has already been extinguished by the conviction and sentence. Id., at 464 (quoting Greenholtz, supra, at 7). The Court therefore concluded that a petition for commutation, like an appeal for clemency, “is simply a unilateral hope.” 452 U. S., at 465. Respondent’s claim of a broader due process interest in Ohio’s clemency proceedings is barred by Dumschat. The process respondent seeks would be inconsistent with the heart of executive clemency, which is to grant clemency as a matter of grace, thus allowing the executive to consider a wide range of factors not comprehended by earlier judicial proceedings and sentencing determinations. The dissent agrees with respondent that because “a living person” has a constitutionally protected life interest, it is incorrect to assert that respondent’s life interest has been “extinguished.” Post, at 291. We agree that respondent maintains a residual life interest, e. g., in not being summarily executed by prison guards. However, as Greenholtz helps to make clear, respondent cannot use his interest in not being executed in accord with his sentence to challenge the clemency determination by requiring the procedural protections he seeks. 442 U. S., at 7. The reasoning of Dumschat did not depend on the fact that it was not a capital case. The distinctions accorded a life interest to which respondent and the dissent point, post, at 291-292, 293-295, are primarily relevant to trial. And this Court has generally rejected attempts to expand any distinctions further. See, e. g., Murray v. Giarratano, 492 U. S. 1, 8-9 (1989) (opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.) (there is no constitutional right to counsel in collateral proceedings for death row inmates; cases recognizing special constraints on capital proceedings have dealt with the trial stage); Satterwhite v. Texas, 486 U. S. 249, 256 (1988) (applying traditional standard of appellate review to a Sixth Amendment claim in a capital case); Smith v. Murray, 477 U. S. 527, 538 (1986) (applying same standard of review on federal habeas in capital and noncapital cases); Ford, supra, at 425 (Powell, J., concurring) (noting that the Court’s decisions imposing heightened requirements on capital trials and sentencing proceedings do not apply in the posteonviction context). The Court’s analysis in Dumschat, moreover, turned not on the fact that it was a noncapital case, but on the nature of the benefit sought: “In terms of the Due Process Clause, a Connecticut felon’s expectation that a lawfully imposed sentence will be commuted or that he will be pardoned is no more substantial than an inmate’s expectation, for example, that he will not be transferred to another prison; it is simply a unilateral hope.” 452 U. S., at 464 (footnote omitted). A death row inmate’s petition for clemency is also a “unilateral hope.” The defendant in effect accepts the finality of the death sentence for purposes of adjudication, and appeals for clemency as a matter of grace. Respondent also asserts that, as in Greenholtz, Ohio has created protected interests by establishing mandatory clemency application and review procedures. In Greenholtz, supra, at 11-12, the Court held that the expectancy of release on parole created by the mandatory language of the Nebraska statute was entitled to some measure of constitutional protection. Ohio’s clemency procedures do not violate due process. Despite the Authority’s mandatory procedures, the ultimate decisionmaker, the Governor, retains broad discretion. Under any analysis, the Governor’s executive discretion need not be fettered by the types of procedural protections sought by respondent. See Greenholtz, supra, at 12-16 (recognizing the Nebraska parole statute created a protected liberty interest, yet rejecting a claim that due process necessitated a formal parole hearing and a statement of evidence relied upon by the parole board). There is thus no substantive expectation of clemency. Moreover, under Conner, 515 U. S., at 484, the availability of clemency, or the manner in which the State conducts clemency proceedings, does not impose “atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life.” Ibid.; see 107 F. 3d, at 1185-1186. A denial of clemency merely means that the inmate must serve the sentence originally imposed. Respondent also relies on the “second strand” of due process analysis adopted by the Court of Appeals. He claims that under the rationale of Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U. S. 387 (1985), clemency is an integral part of Ohio’s system of adjudicating the guilt or innocence of the defendant and is therefore entitled to due process protection. Clemency, he says, is an integral part of the judicial system because it has historically been available as a significant remedy, its availability impacts earlier stages of the criminal justice system, and it enhances the reliability of convictions and sentences. Respondent further suggests, as did the Sixth Circuit, that Evitts established a due process continuum across all phases of the judicial process. In Evitts, the Court held that there is a constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel on a first appeal as of right. Id., at 396. This holding, however, was expressly based on the combination of two lines of prior decisions. One line of cases held that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a criminal defendant pursuing a first appeal as of right certain minimum safeguards necessary to make that appeal adequate and effective, including the right to counsel. See Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S., at 20; Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353 (1963). The second line of cases held that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel at trial comprehended the right to effective assistance of counsel. See Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, 344 (1963); Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U. S. 335, 344 (1980). These two lines of eases justified the Court’s conclusion that a criminal defendant has a right to effective assistance of counsel on a first appeal as of right. Evitts, supra, at 394-396. The Court did not thereby purport to create a new “strand” of due process analysis. And it did not rely on the notion of a continuum of due process rights. Instead, the Court evaluated the function and significance of a first appeal as of right, in light of prior cases. Related decisions similarly make clear that there is no continuum requiring varying levels of process at every conceivable phase of the criminal system. See, e. g., Giarratano, 492 U. S., at 9-10 (no due process right to counsel for capital inmates in state postconviction proceedings); Pennsylvania v. Finley, 481 U. S. 551, 555-557 (1987) (no right to counsel in state postconviction proceedings); Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U. S. 600, 610-611 (1974) (no right to counsel for discretionary appeals on direct review). An examination of the function and significance of the discretionary clemency decision at issue here readily shows it is far different from the first appeal of right at issue in Evitts. Clemency proceedings are not part of the trial — or even of the adjudicatory process. They do not determine the guilt or innocence of the defendant, and are not intended primarily to enhance the reliability of the trial process. They are conducted by the executive branch, independent of direct appeal and collateral relief proceedings. Greenholtz, 442 U. S., at 7-8. And they are usually discretionary, unlike the more structured and limited scope of judicial proceedings. While traditionally available to capital defendants as a final and alternative avenue of relief, clemency has not traditionally “been the business of courts.” Dumschat, 452 U. S., at 464. Cf. Herrera v. Collins, 506 U. S. 390, 411-415 (1993) (recognizing the traditional availability and significance of clemency as part of executive authority, without suggesting that clemency proceedings are subject to judicial review); Ex -parte Grossman, 267 U. S. 87, 120-121 (1925) (executive clemency exists to provide relief from harshness or mistake in the judicial system, and is therefore vested in an authority other than the courts). Thus, clemency proceedings are not “‘an integral part of the ... system for finally adjudicating the guilt or innocence of a defendant,’” Evitts, supra, at 393 (quoting Griffin v. Illinois, supra, at 18). Procedures mandated under the Due Process Clause should be consistent with the nature of the governmental power being invoked. Here, the executive’s clemency authority would cease to be a matter of grace committed to the executive authority if it were constrained by the sort of procedural requirements that respondent urges. Respondent is already under a sentence of death, determined to have been lawfully imposed. If clemency is granted, he obtains a benefit; if it is denied, he is no worse off than he was before. Ill Respondent also presses on us the Court of Appeals’ eon-elusion that the provision of a voluntary inmate interview, without the benefit of counsel or a grant of immunity for any statements made by the inmate, implicates the inmate’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. Because there is only one guaranteed clemency review, respondent asserts, his decision to participate is not truly voluntary. And in the interview he may be forced to answer questions; or, if he remains silent, his silence may be used against him. Respondent further asserts there is a substantial risk of incrimination since posteonvietion proceedings are in progress and since he could potentially incriminate himself on other crimes. Respondent therefore concludes that the interview unconstitutionally conditions his assertion of the right to pursue clemency on his waiver of the right to remain silent. While the Court of Appeals accepted respondent’s rubric of “unconstitutional conditions,” we find it unnecessary to address it in deciding this case. In our opinion, the procedures of the Authority do not under any view violate the Fifth Amendment privilege. The Fifth Amendment protects against compelled self-incrimination. See Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U. S. 308, 316-318 (1976). The record itself does not tell us what, if any, use is made by the board of the clemency interview, or of an inmate’s refusal to answer questions posed to him at that interview. But the Authority in its brief dispels much of the uncertainty: “Nothing in the procedure grants clemency applicants immunity for what they might say or makes the interview in any way confidential. Ohio has permissibly chosen not to allow the inmate to .say one thing in the interview and another in a habeas petition, and no amount of discovery will alter this feature of the procedure.” Reply Brief for Petitioners 6. Assuming also that the Authority will draw ¿dverse inferences from respondent’s refusal to answer questions — which it may do in a civil proceeding without offending the Fifth Amendment, Palmigiano, supra, at 316-318 — we do not think that respondent’s testimony at a clemency interview would be “compelled” within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment. It is difficult to see how a voluntary interview could “compel” respondent to speak. He merely faces a choice quite similar to the sorts of choices that a criminal defendant must make in the course of criminal proceedings, none of which has ever been held to violate the Fifth Amendment. Long ago we held that a defendant who took the stand in his own defense could not claim the privilege against self-incrimination when the prosecution sought to cross-examine him. Brown v. Walker, 161 U. S. 591, 597-598 (1896); Brown v. United States, 356 U. S. 148, 154-155 (1958). A defendant who takes the stand in his own behalf may be impeached by proof of prior convictions without violation of the Fifth Amendment privilege. Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554, 561 (1967). A defendant whose motion for acquittal at the close of the government’s case is denied must then elect whether to stand on his motion or to put on a defense, with the accompanying risk that in doing so he will augment the government’s ease against him. McGautha v. California, 402 U. S. 183, 215 (1971). In each of these situations, there are undoubted pressures — generated by the strength of the government’s case against him — pushing the criminal defendant to testify. But it has never been suggested that such pressures constitute “compulsion” for Fifth Amendment purposes. In Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78 (1970), it was claimed that Florida’s requirement of advance notice of alibi from a criminal defendant, in default of which he would be precluded from asserting the alibi defense, violated the privilege. We said: “Nothing in such a rule requires the defendant to rely on an alibi or prevents him from abandoning the defense; these matters are left to his unfettered choice. That choice must be made, but the pressures that bear on his pretrial decision are of the same nature as those that would induce him to call alibi witnesses at the trial: the force of historical fact beyond both his and the State’s control and the strength of the State’s ease built on these facts. Response to that kind of pressure by offering evidence or testimony is not compelled self-incrimination transgressing the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.” Id., at 84-85 (footnote omitted). Here, respondent has the same choice of providing information to the Authority — at the risk of damaging his ease for clemency or for posteonvietion relief — or of remaining silent. But this pressure to speak in the hope of improving his chance of being granted clemency does not make the interview compelled. We therefore hold that the Ohio clemency interview, even on assumptions most favorable to respondent’s claim, does not violate the Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination. IV We hold that neither the Due Process Clause nor the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-inerimination is violated by Ohio’s clemency proceedings. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore Reversed. Justice Stevens in dissent says that a defendant would be entitled to raise an equal protection daim in connection with a demeney decision. Post, at 292. But respondent has raised no such daim here, and therefore we have no occasion to decide that question. Respondent alternatively tries to characterize his claim as a challenge only to the application process conducted by the Authority, and not to the final discretionary decision by the Governor. Brief for Respondent 8. But, respondent still must have a protected life or liberty interest in the application process. Otherwise, as the Court of Appeals correctly noted, he is asserting merely a protected interest in process itself, which is not a cognizable claim. 107 F. 3d 1178, 1184 (CA6 1997); see also Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U. S. 238, 249-250 (1983). For the same reason, respondent’s reliance on Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U. S. 399, 425 (1986), is misplaced. In Ford, the Court held that the Eighth Amendment prevents the execution of a person who has become insane since the time of trial. Id., at 410. This substantive‘constitutional prohibition implicated due process protections. This protected interest, however, arose subsequent to trial, and was separate from the life interest already adjudicated in the inmate’s conviction and sentence. See id., at 425 (Powell, J., concurring). This interest therefore had not been afforded due process protection. The Court’s recognition of a protected interest thus did not rely on the notion of a continuing “original” life interest. The dissent provides no basis for its assertion that the special considerations afforded a capital defendant’s life interest at the trial stage “apply with special force to the final stage of the decisional process that precedes an official deprivation of life.” Post, at 295. This not only ignores our case law to the contrary, supra, at 281 and this page, but also assumes that executive clemency hearings are part and parcel of the judicial process preceding an execution. The dissent miseharacterizes the question at issue as a determination to deprive a person of life. Post, at 290. That determination has already been made with all required due process protections. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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

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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mb. Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court. The question in this Title VII case is whether Congress intended the word “filed” to have the same meaning in subsections (c) and (e) of § 706 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 260, as amended in 1972, 86 Stat. 104M05, 42 U. S. C. §§ 2000e-5 (c) and (e). The former subsection prohibits the filing of an unfair employment practice charge with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) until after a state fair employment practices agency has had an opportunity to consider it. The latter subsection requires that in all events the charge must be filed with the EEOC within 300 days of the occurrence. We hold that a literal reading of the two subsections gives full effect to the several policies reflected in the statute. On August 29, 1975, Mohasco Corp. discharged the respondent from his position as senior marketing economist. On June 15, 1976 — 291 days later — the EEOC received a letter from respondent asserting that Mohasco had discriminated against him because of his religion. The letter was promptly referred to the New York State Division of Human Rights. That state agency reviewed the matter and, in due course, determined that there was no merit in the charge. Meanwhile, on August 20, 1976 — a date more than 60 days after respondent’s letter had been submitted to the EEOC and 357 days after respondent’s discharge — the EEOC notified Mohasco that respondent had filed a charge of employment discrimination. About a year later, on August 24, 1977, the EEOC issued its determination that “there is not reasonable cause to believe the charge is true,” and formally notified respondent that if he wished to pursue the matter further, he had a statutory right to file a private action in a federal district court within 90 days. Respondent commenced this litigation 91 days later in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York. The District Court granted Mohasco’s motion for summary judgment on the ground that respondent’s failure to file a timely charge with the EEOC deprived the court of subject-matter jurisdiction. The court concluded that June 15, 1976 (the 291st day), could not be treated as the date that respondent’s charge was “filed” with the EEOC, because § 706 (c) provides that in States which have their own fair employment practice agencies — and New York is such a State — “no charge may be filed... by the person aggrieved before the expiration of sixty days after proceedings have been commenced under the State or local law, unless such proceedings have been earlier terminated....” Since no proceedings had been commenced before the New York agency prior to June 15, 1976, and since the proceedings that were commenced at that time did not terminate within 60 days, the District Court read § 706 (c) as precluding any filing with the EEOC until 60 days after June 15, 1976. Because that date was 51 days beyond § 706 (e)’s 300-day time limit for filing in so-called “deferral States,” the charge was not timely filed. The District Court refused to apply an EEOC regulation that would have treated respondent’s charge as timely because it was submitted to the EEOC within 300 days of the practice complained of and also within the applicable New York limitations period. The District Court held that the regulation was contrary to the plain language of the statute, and in any event, had not been followed by the EEOC itself in this case. Over the dissent of Judge Meskill, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed. 602 F. 2d 1083 (1979). It recognized that the District Court had read the statute literally, but concluded that a literal reading did not give sufficient weight to the overriding purpose of the Act. In the majority’s view, in order to be faithful to “the strong federal policy in insuring that employment discrimination is redressed,” id., at 1087, it was necessary “to conclude that a charge is 'filed’ for purposes of § 706 (e) when received, and 'filed’ as required by § 706 (c) when the state deferral period ends.” Ibid. By giving the word “filed” two different meanings, the court concluded that the letter received by the EEOC on June 15, 1976, had been filed within 300 days as required by § 706 (e), but had not been filed during the 60-day deferral period for purposes of § 706 (c). Judge Meskill believed that a literal reading of the statute was not only consistent with its basic purpose, but was also warranted by the additional purpose of “requiring] prompt action on the part of Title VII plaintiffs.” 602 F. 2d, at 1092. He noted that Congress had imposed a general requirement of filing within 180 days, and that the exceptional period of 300 days for deferral States was merely intended to give the charging party a fair opportunity to invoke his state remedy without jeopardizing his federal rights; the exception was not intended to allow residents of deferral States to proceed with less diligence than was generally required. Because there is a conflict among the Courts of Appeals on the proper interpretation of the word “filed” in this statute, we granted certiorari. 444 U. S. 990. We now reverse. We first review the plain meaning of the relevant statutory language; we next examine the legislative history of the 1964 Act and the 1972 amendments for evidence that Congress intended the statute to have a different meaning; and finally we consider the policy arguments in favor of a less literal reading of the Act. I Section 706 (e) begins with the general rule that a “charge under this section shall be filed within one hundred and eighty days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred... Since respondent’s letter was submitted.to the EEOC 291 days after the occurrence, he plainly did not exercise the diligence required by that general rule. Nor, as we shall explain, did he have to; but it should be pointed out that had he sent his charge to either the state agency or the EEOC within 180 days, he would have had no difficulty in complying with the terms of the exception to that general rule allowing a later filing with the EEOC in deferral States. That exception allows a filing with the EEOC after 180 days if “the person aggrieved has initially instituted proceedings with a State or local agency with authority to grant or seek relief from such practice... When respondent submitted his letter to the EEOC, he had not yet instituted any state proceedings. Under the literal terms of the statute, it could therefore be argued that he did not bring himself within the exception to the general 180-day requirement. But in Love v. Pullman Co., 404 U. S. 522, 525, we held that “[n]othing in the Act suggests that the state proceedings may not be initiated by the EEOC acting on behalf of the complainant rather than by the complainant himself....” Here, state proceedings were instituted by the EEOC when it immediately forwarded his letter to the state agency on June 15, 1976. Accordingly, we treat the state proceedings as having been instituted on that date. Since the EEOC could not proceed until either state proceedings had ended or 60 days had passed, the proceedings were "initially instituted with a State... agency” prior to their official institution with the EEOC. Therefore, respondent came within § 706 (e)’s exception allowing a federal filing more than 180 days after the occurrence. That exception states that “such charge shall be filed by or on behalf of the person aggrieved within three hundred days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred, or within thirty days after receiving notice that the State or local agency has terminated the proceedings under the State or local law, whichever is earlier....” Since the state proceedings did not terminate until well after the expiration of the 300-day period, see n. 5, supra, the 300-day limitations period is the one applicable to respondent’s charge. The question, then, is whether the June 15, 1976, letter was “filed” when received by the EEOC within the meaning of subsection (e) of § 706. The answer is supplied by subsection (c), which imposes a special requirement for cases arising in deferral States: “no charge may be filed under subsection [(b)] by the person aggrieved before the expiration of sixty days after proceedings have been commenced under the State or local law, unless such proceedings have been earlier terminated....” Thus, in terms, the statute prohibited the EEOC from allowing the charge to be filed on the date the letter was received. Although, as the Court held in Love v. Pullman Co., supra, it was proper for the EEOC to hold respondent’s “complaint in ‘suspended animation,’ automatically filing it upon termination of the State proceedings,” 404 U. S., at 526 (emphasis added), that means that the charge was filed on the 351st day, not the 291st. By that time, however, the 300-day period had run and the filing was therefore untimely. II In contrast to this rather straightforward reading of the statute, respondent urges us to give the word “filed” two different meanings within the same statutory section in order better to effectuate Congress’ purpose underlying Title VII. Essentially, his argument is that a rule permitting filings for up to 300 days after the discriminatory occurrence — regardless of the rule against filing during the deferral period — would help further the cause of eliminating discriminatory employment practices. We therefore turn to the legislative history, but in doing so we emphasize that the words of the statute are not ambiguous. Nor does a literal reading of them lead to “absurd or futile results,” United States v. American Trucking Assns., 310 U. S. 534, 543. For time limitations are inevitably arbitrary to some extent; and the limitations at issue here are not so short that a plaintiff’s remedy is effectively denied for all practical purposes without an opportunity for a hearing. A It is unquestionably true that the 1964 statute was enacted to implement the congressional policy against discriminatory employment practices, and that that basic policy must inform construction of this remedial legislation. It must also be recognized, however, in light of the tempestuous legislative proceedings that produced the Act, that the ultimate product reflects other, perhaps countervailing, purposes that some Members of Congress sought to achieve. The present language was clearly the result of a compromise. It is our task to give effect to the statute as enacted. See Toussie v. United States, 397 U. S. 112, 123-124. The typical time limitations provision in the numerous proposed civil rights bills required the filing of a charge with the new federal fair employment practices agency within six months of the discriminatory conduct. These initial proposals did not provide for mandatory deferral by the federal agency during comparable state administrative proceedings, though some proposals would have authorized the federal agency to enter agreements of cooperation with state agencies, under which the federal agency would refrain from processing charges in specified cases. On February 10, 1964, the House of Representatives passed H. R. 7152, its version of the comprehensive Civil Rights Act. Title VII of that bill contained a 6-month limitations provision for the filing of charges with the EEOC, and directed the EEOC to enter into agreements with state agencies providing for suspension of federal enforcement. In the Senate, H. R. 7152 met with exceptionally strong opposition. The principal opposition focused not on the details of the bill, but on its fundamental purpose. During the course of one of the longest filibusters in the history of the Senate, the bipartisan leadership of the Senate carefully forged the compromise substitute (Dirksen compromise) that was ultimately to become in substantial part the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The purpose of the compromise was to attract sufficient support to achieve the two-thirds vote necessary for cloture. This effort was successful. Fifteen days after the Dirksen compromise was offered as an amendment, a cloture motion carried the necessary votes. Section 706 (d) of the compromise provided for a 90-day limitations period for filing discrimination claims with' the EEOC in nondeferral States, the period ultimately adopted in the 1964 version of the Act. It was the first time the 90-day figure appeared in any proposed bill, and its appearance was unaccompanied by any explanation. Section 706 (b) of the compromise introduced the mandatory deferral concept for the first time, providing that during a 60-day deferral period, “no charge may be filed” — language that figures so prominently in this case. In such deferral States, § 706 (d) extended the time for filing with the EEOC to 210 days. Since the Senate did not explain why it adopted a time limitation of only half that adopted by the House, one can only speculate. But it seems clear that the 90-day provision to some must have represented a judgment that most genuine claims of discrimination would be promptly asserted and that the costs associated with processing and defending stale or dormant claims outweigh the federal interest in guaranteeing a remedy to every victim of discrimination. To others it must have represented a necessary sacrifice of the rights of some victims of discrimination in order that a civil rights bill could be enacted. Section 706 (b) was rather clearly intended to increase the role of States and localities in resolving charges of employment discrimination. And § 706 (d)’s longer time of 210 days for filing with the EEOC in deferral States was included to prevent forfeiture of a complainant’s federal rights while participating in state proceedings. But neither this latter provision nor anything else in the legislative history contains any “suggestion that complainants in some' States were to be allowed to proceed with less diligence than those in other states.” Moore v. Sunbeam Corp., 459 F. 2d 811, 825, n. 35 (CA7 1972). The history identifies only one reason for treating workers in deferral States differently from workers in other States: to give state agencies an opportunity to redress the evil at which the federal legislation was aimed, and to avoid federal intervention unless its need was demonstrated. The statutory plan was not designed to give the worker in a deferral State the option of choosing between his state remedy and his federal remedy, nor indeed simply to allow him additional time in which to obtain state relief. Had that been the plan, a simple statute prescribing a 90-day period in nondeferral States and a 210-day period in deferral States would have served the legislative purpose. Instead, Congress chose to prohibit the filing of any federal charge until after state proceedings had been completed or until 60 days had passed, whichever came sooner. To be sure, in deferral States having fair employment practices agencies over- one year old, Congress in effect gave complainants an additional 60 days in which initially to file a charge and still ensure preservation of their federal rights. In other words, under the 1964 Act, a complainant in such a deferral State could have filed on the 160th day, and then filed with the EEOC on the 210th day at the end of the 60-day deferral period, while a complainant in a nondeferral State had to file on the 90th day with the EEOC. But there is no reason to believe that the 1964 Congress intended deferral state complainants to have the additional advantage of being able to ignore the 210-day limitations period when they failed to invoke their rights early enough to allow the 60-day deferral period to expire within the 210-day period. In sum, the legislative history of the 1964 statute is entirely consistent with the wording of the statute itself. B In 1972, Congress amended § 706 by changing the general limitations period from 90 days to 180 days and correspondingly extended the maximum period for deferral States from 210 days to 300 days. The amendment did not make any change in the procedural scheme, however, although such a change was proposed and rejected. As initially introduced in the House of Representatives, the proposed 1972 amendments to Title VII would have deleted § 706 (b)’s prohibition against the filing of a federal charge until 60 days after the institution of state proceedings, and would have substituted language merely prohibiting the EEOC from taking any action on the charge until the prescribed period had elapsed. The House, however, concluded that no change in this aspect of the 1964 statute should be made, and deleted the amendment prior to passage. The Senate version of the amendments passed with the provision merely prohibiting the EEOC from taking any action on a charge in the deferral period. But at conference, the position of the House prevailed on the understanding that the law as interpreted in Love v. Pullman Co., 404 U. S. 522, was controlling. As already noted, our literal reading of the word “filed” in § 706 is fully supported by the Love opinion. It is true that a section-by-section analysis of the 1972 amendments filed by Senator Williams refers to the then recent decision of the Tenth Circuit in Vigil v. American Tel. & Tel. Co., 455 F. 2d 1222 (1972), see n. 16, supra, with approval, and that that case supports respondent’s reading of the Act. But we do not find that isolated reference — which was first inserted into the legislative history after the completion of the work of both the Senate Committee and House Committee, as well as after the Report of the joint conference just referred to — to represent either a sound interpretation of the 1964 enactment or a conscious intention of Congress to change existing law. The point at which it appears in the legislative history simply refutes any notion that Congress focused on the precise issue, much less adopted the approach of the Vigil case. To the extent that Congress focused on the issue at all in 1972, it expressly rejected the language that would have mandated the exact result that respondent urges. Ill Finally we consider the additional points advanced in support of respondent’s position: (1) that it is unfair to victims of discrimination who often proceed without the assistance of counsel; (2) that it is contrary to the interpretation of the Act by the agency charged with responsibility for its enforcement; and (3) that a less literal reading of the Act would adequately effectuate the policy of deferring to state agencies. The unfairness argument is based on the assumption that a lay person reading the statute would assume that he had 300 days in which to file his first complaint with either a state or federal agency. We find no merit in this argument. We believe that a lay person would be more apt to regard the general obligation of filing within 180 days as the standard of diligence he must satisfy,, and that one who carefully read the entire section would understand it to mean exactly what it says. We must also reject any suggestion that the EEOC may adopt regulations that are inconsistent with the statutory mandate. As we have held on prior occasions, its “interpretation” of the statute cannot supersede the language chosen by Congress. Finally, we reject the argument that the timeliness requirements would be adequately served by allowing the EEOC to treat a letter received on the 291st day as “filed” and interpreting the § 706 (c) prohibition as merely requiring it to postpone any action on the charge for at least 60 days. There are two reasons why this interpretation is unacceptable. By choosing what are obviously quite short deadlines, Congress clearly intended to encourage the prompt processing of all charges of employment discrimination. Under a literal reading of the Act, the EEOC has a duty to commence its investigation no later than 300 days after the alleged occurrence; under respondent's “interpretation” of § 706 (c), that duty might not arise for 360 days. Perhaps the addition of another 60-day delay in the work of an already seriously overburdened agency is not a matter of critical importance. But in a statutory scheme in which Congress carefully prescribed a series of deadlines measured by numbers of days — rather than months or years — we may not simply interject an additional 60-day period into the procedural scheme. We must respect the compromise embodied in the words chosen by Congress. It is not our place simply to alter the balance struck by Congress in procedural statutes by favoring one side or the other in matters of statutory construction. In the end, we cannot accept respondent’s position without unreasonably giving the word “filed” two different meanings in the same section of the statute. Even if the interests of justice might be served in this particular case by a bifurcated construction of that word, in the long run, experience teaches that strict adherence to the procedural requirements specified by the legislature is the best guarantee of evenhanded administration of the law. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed. So ordered. “In the case of an alleged unlawful employment practice occurring in a State, or political subdivision of a State, which has a State or local law prohibiting the unlawful employment practice alleged and establishing or authorizing a State or local authority to grant or seek relief from such practice or to institute criminal proceedings with respect thereto upon receiving notice thereof, no charge may be filed under subsection [(b)] by the person aggrieved before the expiration of sixty days after proceedings have been commenced under the State or local law, unless such proceedings have been earlier terminated, provided that such sixty-day period shall be extended to one hundred and twenty days during the first year after the effective date of such State or local law. If any requirement for the commencement of such proceedings is imposed by a State or local authority other than a requirement of the filing of a written and signed statement of the facts upon which the proceeding is based, the proceeding shall be deemed to have been commenced for the purposes of this subsection at the time such statement is sent by registered mail to the appropriate State or local authority.” 86 Stat. 104. “A charge under this section shall be filed within one hundred and eighty days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred and notice of the charge (including the date, place and circumstances of the alleged unlawful employment practice) shall be served upon the person against whom such charge is made within ten days thereafter, except that in a case of an unlawful employment practice with respect to which the person aggrieved has initially instituted proceedings with a State or local agency with authority to grant dr seek relief from such practice or to institute criminal proceedings with respect thereto upon receiving notice thereof, such charge shall be filed by or on behalf of the person aggrieved within three hundred days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred, or within thirty days after receiving notice that the State or local agency has terminated the proceedings under the State or local law, whichever is earlier, and a copy of such charge shall be filed by the Commission with the State or local agency.” 86 Stat. 105. According to respondent’s complaint, he holds a master’s degree in economics from Columbia University. Record Item No. 1, p. 3. The District Court stated that “[t]he period of limitation for filing a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights is one year. N. Y. Exec. Law § 297 (5) (McKinney Supp. 1977).” App. to Pet. for Cert. A14. The determination by the New York State Division of Human Rights that there was no probable cause to believe Mohasco had engaged in the discriminatory conduct described by respondent was issued on February 9, 1977. That determination was upheld by order of the New York State Human Rights Appeal Board on December 22, 1977. The notice was on a printed form which merely advised Mohasco of the name of the charging party, the date of the alleged violation, and that the nature of the charge was an alleged discharge on the basis of religion. The notice further advised Mohasco that “[bjecause of the Commission’s volume of pending work, we are unable to tell you when we are able to schedule investigation of this charge....” App. 18. One might therefore infer that as of 1976, the EEOC had not overcome its enormous backlog as documented in 1971. See H. R. Rep. No. 92-238, p. 64 (1971), Legislative History of Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 (Committee Print compiled for the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare by the Subcommittee on Labor), p. 124 (1972) (hereinafter 1972 Leg. Hist.); S. Rep. No. 92-415, p. 23, 1972 Leg. Hist. 432; Occidental Life Ins. Co. v. EEOC, 432 U. S. 355, 369, n. 24. App. to Pet. for Cert. A49. App. 19. Petitioner did not assert respondent’s failure to file the action within 90 days as a defense. The pro se complaint prayed for an injunction against alleged continuing unlawful employment practices, compensatory damages against Mohasco and several of its executives jointly and severally in the sum of $100,000, and punitive damages against Mohasco in the sum of $1 million and against each individual defendant in the sum of $100,000. Record Item No. 1, p. 19. The District Court dismissed the complaint against the individual defendants on the ground that they had not been named in the original charge. The validity of that dismissal is not before us. The District Court noted that the EEOC’s letter forwarding respondent’s charge to the state agency had stated that the EEOC would automatically file the charge “at the expiration date of the deferral period, unless the EEOC was notified of an earlier termination of proceedings by the Division of Human Rights.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A15 (emphasis in original). Thus, the Court concluded that the EEOC itself did not deem the charge filed until 60 days after June 15, 1976. Ibid. Title 29 CFR § 1601.12 (b) (1) (v) (A) (1977) state: “In cases where the document is submitted to the Commission more than 180 days from the date of the alleged violation but within the period of limitation of the particular 706 Agency, the case shall be deferred pursuant to the procedures set forth above: Provided, however, That unless the Commission is earlier notified of the termination of the State or local proceedings, the Commission will consider the charge to be filed with the Commission on the 300th day following the alleged discrimination and will commence processing the case. Where the State or local agency terminates its proceedings prior to the 300th day following the alleged act of discrimination, without notification to the Commission of such termination, the Commission will consider the charge to be filed with the Commission on the date the person making the charge is notified of the termination.” A current regulation to substantially the same effect is found at 29 CFR §§ 1601.13 (a), (c), (d)(2) (in) (1979). See n. 4, supra. App. to Pet. for Cert. A15. See. n. 11, supra. The 300-day period expired on June 24, 1976. The decision of the Court of Appeals in this case is consistent with the decision of the Tenth Circuit in Vigil v. American Tel. & Tel. Co., 455 F. 2d 1222 (1972), but is in conflict with the decision of the Seventh Circuit in Moore v. Sunbeam Corp., 459 F. 2d 811 (1972). Anderson v. Methodist Evangelical Hospital, Inc., 464 F. 2d 723 (CA6 1972), cited Vigil with approval, though the court’s conclusion that the plaintiff’s filing in that case was timely would have been the same under the construction of § 706 adopted in the Moore case. The approach of the Eighth Circuit, see Olson v. Rembrandt Printing Co., 511 F. 2d 1228 (1975), also conflicts with the decision of the Second Circuit in this case, but in a way that substantially differs from that of the Seventh Circuit decision in Moore. Olson held that in order to preserve his rights under Title VII, a complainant must under all circumstances initially file his charge with either a state fair employment practices agency or the EEOC within 180 days of the discriminatory occurrence. See also Geromette v. General Motors Corp., 609 F. 2d 1200 (CA6 1979) (citing Olson with approval, thus perhaps signalling a retreat from Anderson’s endorsement of Vigil); Rodriguez v. Southern Pacific Transp. Co., 587 F. 2d 980 (CA9 1978). Cf. Ciccone v. Textron Inc., 616 F. 2d 1216 (CA1 1980) (substantially same approach under similar provisions in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U. S. C. §§ 621-634). As indicated in n. 19, infra, we believe that the restrictive approach exemplified by Olson, is not supported by the statute. Under the Moore decision, which we adopt today, a complainant in a deferral State having a fair employment practices agency over one year old need only file his charge within 240 days of the alleged discriminatory employment practice in order to insure that his federal rights will be preserved. If a complainant files later than that (but not more than 300 days after the practice complained of), his right to seek relief under Title VII will nonetheless be preserved if the State happens to complete its consideration of the charge prior to the end of the 300-day period. In a State with a fair employment practices agency less than one year old, however, a complainant must file within 180 days in order to be sure that his federal rights will be preserved, since the EEOC must defer consideration during proceedings before such a new agency for up to 120 days. See 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5 (e), n. 1, supra. The District Court refused to consider respondent’s allegations that discrimination in the form of blacklisting had continued beyond the date of his discharge, since in its view that allegation was not fairly comprised by respondent’s June 15, 1976, letter to the EEOC. The Court of Appeals unanimously reversed on that point, and remanded the case to the District Court. Petitioner sought review of that ruling in this Court, but we limited our grant of certiorari to the timeliness question discussed in today’s opinion. For purposes of decision, we assume that the discrimination complained of ended with respondent’s discharge on August 29, 1975. Section 706 (e) is quoted in full in n. 2, supra. This language has been construed to require that the filing with the state agency be made within 180 days. Olson v. Rembrandt Printing Co., see n. 16, supra. Although that construction is consistent with the general rule announced at the beginning of § 706 (e), and is supported by one Congressman’s understanding of the procedures at the time of the 1972 amendment to that section, see 1972 Leg. Hist. 1863 (remarks of Rep. Dent), Congress included no express requirement that state proceedings be initiated by any specific date in the portion of the subsection that relates to time limitations in deferral States. Further, there are contemporaneous indications in the legislative history, which, while not authoritative, contradict Representative Dent’s views. See nn. 41-43, infra. See also Doski v. M. Goldseker Co., 539 F. 2d 1326, 1330-1332 (CA4 1976) (rejecting both Olson and its reliance on the analysis of Rep. Dent). In any event, we do not believe that a court should read in a time limitation provision that Congress has not seen fit to include, see Occidental Life Ins. Co. v. EEOC, 432 U. S. 355, at least when dealing with “a statutory scheme in which laymen, unassisted by trained lawyers initiate the process.” Love v. Pullman Co., 404 U. S. 522, 527. In contrast to the construction of the statute we adopt today, the Olson approach, urged upon us by petitioner and amici, is not compelled by the plain meaning of the statutory language. The Court further noted that “[i]t is clear that Congress found nothing wrong, in this circumstance, with EEOC’s holding the charge in abeyance until a state agency is given a chance to act.” 404 U. S., at 526, n. 6. Compare the 6-month limitations provision for filing complaints with the National Labor Relations Board under the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 160 (b). We are not confronted with a case in which it is claimed that the plaintiff was reasonably unaware of the existence of his cause of action until after the expiration of the limitations period. Cf. United States v. Kubrick, 444 U. S. 111 (medical malpractice action). See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 867, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1964) (hereinafter 1964 Senate Report). See also Hodgson v. Lodge 851, Int'l Assn. of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, 454 F. 2d 545, 562 (CA7 1971) (Stevens, J., dissenting). See, e. g, Hearings on Miscellaneous Proposals Regarding the Civil Rights of Persons within the Jurisdiction of the United States before Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Judiciary Committee, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 97, 188, 899, 2294 (1963) (hereinafter 1963 House Judiciary Committee Hearings). Others contained 1-year provisions, see id., at 10, 50, and at one point the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare Committee recommended a bill with a 2-year provision. See 1964 Senate Report, at 13. See, e. g., 1963 House Judiciary Committee Hearings, at 9-10, 50. Id., at 2296; 1964 Senate Report, at 16. See 110 Cong. Rec. 2511-2512, 12598 (1964). Id., at 12593-12594 (remarks of Sen. Clark). See id., at 11926, 13327. The 1972 amendment added a new subsection (a) to § 706. Subsections (b) and (d) in the 1964 version with certain changes thus became the current subsections (c) and (e) in the amended 1972 version. See 110 Cong. Ree. 11937 (1964) (remarks of Sen. Humphrey); id., at 8193, 13087 (remarks of Sen. Dirksen): “[W]ith respect to the enforcement of the title, we undertook to keep primary, exclusive jurisdiction in the hands of the State commissions for a sufficient period of time to let them work out their own problems at the local level.” See id., at 12819. At the time, it was believed that 60 days was more than sufficient time for state administrative resolution of employment discrimination complaints. See id., at 13087 (remarks of Sen. Dirksen): “In the case of California, FEPC [Fair Employment Practice Commission] cases are disposed of in an average of about 5 days. In my own State [Illinois] it is approximately 14 days.” 86 Stat. 104-105. H. R. 1746, 92d Cong., 1 Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

B

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Fortas delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal under 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2) from a judgment of the Supreme Court of Arizona affirming the dismissal of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. 99 Ariz. 181, 407 P. 2d 760 (1965). The petition sought the release of Gerald Francis Gault, appellants’ 15-year-old son, who had been committed as a juvenile delinquent to the State Industrial School by the Juvenile Court of Gila County, Arizona. The Supreme Court of Arizona affirmed dismissal of the writ against various arguments which included an attack upon the constitutionality of the Arizona Juvenile Code because of its alleged denial of procedural due process rights to juveniles charged with being “delinquents.” The court agreed that the constitutional guarantee of due process of law is applicable in such proceedings. It held that Arizona’s Juvenile Code is to be read as “impliedly” implementing the “due process concept.” It then proceeded to identify and describe “the particular elements which constitute due process in a juvenile hearing.” It concluded that the proceedings ending in commitment of Gerald Gault did not offend those requirements. We do not agree, and we reverse. We begin with a statement of the facts. I. On Monday, June 8, 1964, at about 10 a. m., Gerald Francis Gault and a friend, Ronald Lewis, were taken into custody by the Sheriff of Gila County. Gerald was then still subject to a six months’ probation order which had been entered on February 25, 1964, as a result of his having been in the company of another boy who had stolen a wallet from a lady’s purse. The police action on June 8 was taken as the result of a verbal complaint by a neighbor of the boys, Mrs. Cook, about a telephone call made to her in which the caller or callers made lewd or indecent remarks. It will suffice for purposes of this opinion to say that the remarks or questions put to her were of the irritatingly offensive, adolescent, sex variety. At the time Gerald was picked up, his mother and father were both at work. No notice that Gerald was being taken into custody was left at the home. No other steps were taken to advise them that their son had, in effect, been arrested. Gerald was taken to the Children’s Detention Home. When his mother arrived home at about 6 o’clock, Gerald was not there. Gerald’s older brother was sent to look for him at the trailer home of the Lewis family. He apparently learned then that Gerald was in custody. He so informed his mother. The two of them went to the Detention Home. The deputy probation officer, Flagg, who was also superintendent of the Detention Home, told Mrs. Gault “why Jerry was there” and said that a hearing would be held in Juvenile Court at 3 o’clock the following day, June 9. Officer Flagg filed a petition with the court on the hearing day, June 9, 1964. It was not served on the Gaults. Indeed, none of them saw this petition until the habeas corpus hearing on August 17, 1964. The petition was entirely formal. It made no reference to any factual basis for the judicial action which it initiated. It recited only that “said minor is under the age of eighteen years, and is in need of the protection of this Honorable Court; [and that] said minor is a delinquent minor.” It prayed for a hearing and an order regarding “the care and custody of said minor.” Officer Flagg executed a formal affidavit in support of the petition. On June 9, Gerald, his mother, his older brother, and Probation Officers Flagg and Henderson appeared before the Juvenile Judge in chambers. Gerald’s father was not there. He was at work out of the city. Mrs. Cook, the complainant, was not there. No one was sworn at this hearing. No transcript or recording was made. No memorandum or record of the substance of the proceedings was prepared. Our information about the proceedings and the subsequent hearing on June 15, derives entirely from the testimony of the Juvenile Court Judge, Mr. and Mrs. Gault and Officer Flagg at the habeas corpus proceeding conducted two months later. From this, it appears that at the June 9 hearing Gerald was questioned by the judge about the telephone call. There was conflict as to what he said. His mother recalled that Gerald said he only dialed Mrs. Cook’s number and handed the telephone to his friend, Ronald. Officer Flagg recalled that Gerald had admitted making the lewd remarks. Judge McGhee testified that Gerald “admitted making one of these [lewd] statements.” At the conclusion of the hearing, the judge said he would “think about it.” Gerald was taken back to the Detention Home. He was not sent to his own home with his parents. On June 11 or 12, after having been detained since June 8, Gerald was released and driven home. There is no explanation in the record as to why he was kept in the Detention Home or why he was released. At 5 p. m. on the day of Gerald’s release, Mrs. Gault received a note signed by Officer Flagg. It was on plain paper, not letterhead. Its entire text was as follows: “Mrs. Gault: “Judge McGHEE has set Monday June 15, 1964 at 11:00 A. M. as the date and time for further Hearings on Gerald’s delinquency “/s/Flagg” At the appointed time on Monday, June 15, Gerald, his father and mother, Ronald Lewis and his father, and Officers Flagg and Henderson were present before Judge McGhee. Witnesses at the habeas corpus proceeding differed in their recollections of Gerald’s testimony at the June 15 hearing. Mr. and Mrs. Gault recalled that Gerald again testified that he had only dialed the number and that the other boy had made the remarks. Officer Flagg agreed that at this hearing Gerald did not admit -making the lewd remarks. But Judge McGhee recalled that “there was some admission again of some of the lewd statements. He — he didn’t admit any of the more serious lewd statements.” Again, the complainant, Mrs. Cook, was not present. Mrs. Gault asked that Mrs. Cook be present “so she could see which boy that done the talking, the dirty talking over the phone.” The Juvenile Judge said “she didn’t have to be present at that hearing.” The judge did not speak to Mrs. Cook or communicate with her at any time. Probation Officer Flagg had talked to her once — over the telephone on June 9. At this June 15 hearing a “referral report” made by the probation officers was filed with the court, although not disclosed to Gerald or his parents. This listed the charge as “Lewd Phone Calls.” At the conclusion of the hearing, the judge committed Gerald as a juvenile delinquent to the State Industrial School “for the period of his minority [that is, until 21], unless sooner discharged by due process of law.” An order to that effect was entered. It recites that “after a full hearing and due deliberation the Court finds that said minor is a delinquent child, and that said minor is of the age of 15 years.” No appeal is permitted by Arizona law in juvenile cases. On August 3, 1964, a petition for a writ of habeas corpus was filed with the Supreme Court of Arizona and referred by it to the Superior Court for hearing. At the habeas corpus hearing on August 17, Judge McGhee was vigorously cross-examined as to the basis for his actions. He testified that he had taken into account the fact that Gerald was on probation. He was asked “under what section of... the code you found the boy delinquent?” His answer is set forth in the margin. In substance, he concluded that Gerald came within ARS § 8-201-6 (a), which specifies that a “delinquent child” includes one “who has violated a law of the state or an ordinance or regulation of a political subdivision thereof.” The law which Gerald was found to have violated is ARS § 13-377. This section of the Arizona Criminal Code provides that a person who “in the presence or hearing of any woman or child... uses vulgar, abusive or obscene language, is guilty of a misdemeanor....” The penalty specified in the Criminal Code, which would apply to an adult, is $5 to $50, or imprisonment for not more than two months. The judge also testified that he acted under ARS § 8-201-6 (d) which includes in the definition of a “delinquent child” one who, as the judge phrased it, is “habitually involved in immoral matters.” Asked about the basis for his conclusion that Gerald was “habitually involved in immoral matters,” the judge testified, somewhat vaguely, that two years earlier, on July 2, 1962, a “referral” was made concerning Gerald, “where the boy had stolen a baseball glove from another boy and lied to the Police Department about it.” The judge said there was “no hearing,” and “no accusation” relating to this incident, “because of lack of material foundation.” But it seems to have remained in his mind as a relevant factor. The judge also testified that Gerald had admitted making other nuisance phone calls in the past which, as the judge recalled the boy’s testimony, were “silly calls, or funny calls, or something like that.” The Superior Court dismissed the writ, and appellants sought review in the Arizona Supreme Court. That court stated that it considered appellants’ assignments of error as urging (1) that the Juvenile Code, ARS § 8-201 to § 8-239, is unconstitutional because it does not require that parents and children be apprised of the specific charges, does not require proper notice of a hearing, and does not provide for an appeal; and (2) that the proceedings and order relating to Gerald constituted a denial of due process of law because of the absence of adequate notice of the charge and the hearing; failure to notify appellants of certain constitutional rights including the rights to counsel and to confrontation, and the privilege against self-incrimination; the use of unsworn hearsay testimony; and the failure to make a record of the proceedings. Appellants further asserted that it was error for the Juvenile Court to remove Gerald from the custody of his parents without a showing and finding of their unsuitability, and alleged a miscellany of other errors under state law. The Supreme Court handed down an elaborate and wide-ranging opinion affirming dismissal of the writ and stating the court’s conclusions as to the issues raised by appellants and other aspects of the juvenile process. In their jurisdictional statement and brief in this Court, appellants do not urge upon us all of the points passed upon by the Supreme Court of Arizona. They urge that we hold the Juvenile Code of Arizona invalid on its face or as applied in this case because, contrary to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the juvenile is taken from the custody of his parents and committed to a state institution pursuant to proceedings in which the Juvenile Court has virtually unlimited discretion, and in which the following basic rights are denied: 1. Notice of the charges; 2. Right to counsel; 3. Right to confrontation and cross-examination; 4. Privilege against self-incrimination ; 5. Right to a transcript of the proceedings; and 6. Right to appellate review. We shall not consider other issues which were passed upon by the Supreme Court of Arizona. We emphasize that we indicate no opinion as to whether the decision of that court with respect to such other issues does or does not conflict with requirements of the Federal Constitution. II. The Supreme Court of Arizona held that due process of law is requisite to the constitutional validity of proceedings in which a court reaches the conclusion that a juvenile has been at fault, has engaged in conduct prohibited by law, or has otherwise misbehaved with the consequence that he is committed to an institution in which his freedom is curtailed. This conclusion is in accord with the decisions of a number of courts under both federal and state constitutions. This Court has not heretofore decided the precise question. In Kent v. United States, 383 U. S. 541 (1966), we considered the requirements for a valid waiver of the “exclusive” jurisdiction of the Juvenile Court of the District of Columbia so that a juvenile could be tried in the adult criminal court of the District. Although our decision turned upon the language of the statute, we emphasized the necessity that “the basic requirements of due process and fairness” be satisfied in such proceedings. Haley v. Ohio, 332 U. S. 596 (1948), involved the admissibility, in a state criminal court of general jurisdiction, of a confession by a 15-year-old boy. The Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment applied to prohibit the use of the coerced confession. Mr. Justice Douglas said, “Neither naan nor child can be allowed to stand condemned by methods which flout constitutional requirements of due process of law.” To the same effect is Gallegos v. Colorado, 370 U. S. 49 (1962). Accordingly, while these cases relate only to restricted aspects of the subject, they unmistakably indicate that, whatever may be their precise impact, neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor the Bill of Rights is for adults alone. We do not in this opinion consider -the impact of these constitutional provisions upon the totality of the relationship of the juvenile and the state. We do not even consider the entire process relating to juvenile “delinquents.” For example, we are not here concerned with the procedures or constitutional rights applicable to the pre-judicial stages of the juvenile process, nor do we direct our attention to the post-adjudicative or dis-positional process. See note 48, infra. We consider only the problems presented to us by this case. These relate to the proceedings by which a determination is made as to whether a juvenile is a “delinquent” as a result of alleged misconduct on his part, with the consequence that he may be committed to a state institution. As to these proceedings, there appears to be little current dissent from the proposition that the Due Process Clause has a role to play. The problem is to ascertain the precise impact of the due process requirement upon such proceedings. From the inception of the juvenile court system, wide differences have been tolerated — indeed insisted upon— between the procedural rights accorded to adults and those of juveniles. In practically all jurisdictions, there are rights granted to adults which are withheld from juveniles. In addition to the specific problems involved in the present case, for example, it has been held that the juvenile is not entitled to bail, to indictment by grand jury, to a public trial or to trial by jury. It is frequent practice that rules governing the arrest and interrogation of adults by the police are not observed in the case of juveniles. The history and theory underlying this development are well-known, but a recapitulation is necessary for purposes of this opinion. The Juvenile Court movement began in this country at the end of the last century. From the juvenile court statute adopted in Illinois in 1899, the system has spread to every State in the Union, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The con-stitutionaUty of Juvenile Court laws has been sustained in over 40 jurisdictions against a variety of attacks. The early reformers were appalled by adult procedures and penalties, and by the fact that children could be given long prison sentences and mixed in jails with hardened criminals. They were profoundly convinced that society’s duty to the child could not be confined by the concept of justice alone. They believed that society’s role was not to ascertain whether the child was “guilty” or “innocent,” but “What is he, how has he become what he is, and what had best be done in his interest and in the interest of the state to save him from a downward career.” The child — essentially good, as they saw it — was to be made “to feel that he is the object of [the state’s] care and solicitude,” not that he was under arrest or on trial. The rules of criminal procedure were therefore altogether inapplicable. The apparent rigidities, technicalities, and harshness which they observed in both substantive and procedural criminal law were therefore to be discarded. The idea of crime and punishment was to be abandoned. The child was to be “treated” and “rehabilitated” and the procedures, from apprehension through institutionalization, were to be “clinical” rather than punitive. These results were to be achieved, without coming to conceptual and constitutional grief, by insisting that the proceedings were not adversary, but that the state was proceeding as parens patriae. The Latin phrase proved to be a great help to those who sought to rationalize the exclusion of juveniles from the constitutional scheme; but its meaning is murky and its historic credentials are of dubious relevance. The phrase was taken from chancery practice, where, however, it was used to describe the power of the state to act in loco parentis for the purpose of protecting the property interests and the person of the child. But there is no trace of the doctrine in the history of criminal jurisprudence. At common law, children under seven were considered incapable of possessing criminal intent. Beyond that age, they were subjected to arrest, trial, and in theory to punishment like adult offenders. In these old days, the state was not deemed to have authority to- accord them fewer procedural rights than adults. The right of the state, as parens patriae, to deny to the child procedural rights available to his elders was elaborated by the assertion that a child, unlike an adult, has a right “not to liberty but to custody.” He can be made to attorn to his parents, to go to school, etc. If his parents default in effectively performing their custodial functions — that is, if the child is “delinquent” — the state may intervene. In doing so, it does not deprive the child of any rights, because he has none. It merely provides the “custody” to which the child is entitled. On this basis, proceedings involving juveniles were described as “civil” not “criminal” and therefore not subject to the requirements which restrict the state when it seeks to deprive a person of his liberty. Accordingly, the highest motives and most enlightened impulses led to a peculiar system for juveniles, unknown to our law in any comparable context. The constitutional and theoretical basis for this peculiar system is — to say the least — debatable. And in practice, as we remarked in the Kent case, supra, the results have not been entirely satisfactory. Juvenile Court history has again demonstrated that unbridled discretion, however benevolently motivated, is frequently a poor substitute for principle and procedure. In 1937, Dean Pound wrote: “The powers of the Star Chamber were a trifle in comparison with those of our juvenile courts....” The absence of substantive standards has not necessarily meant that children receive careful, compassionate, individualized treatment. The absence of procedural rules based upon constitutional principle has not always produced fair, efficient, and effective procedures. Departures from established principles of due process have frequently resulted not in enlightened procedure, but in arbitrariness. The Chairman of the Pennsylvania Council of Juvenile Court Judges has recently observed: “Unfortunately, loose procedures, high-handed methods and crowded court calendars, either singly or in combination, all too often, have resulted in depriving some juveniles of fundamental rights that have resulted in a denial of due process.” Failure to observe the fundamental requirements of due process has resulted in instances, which might have been avoided, of unfairness to individuals and inadequate or inaccurate findings of fact and unfortunate prescriptions of remedy. Due process of law is the primary and indispensable foundation of individual freedom. It is the basic and essential term in the social compact which defines the rights of the individual and delimits the powers which the state may exercise. As Mr. Justice Frankfurter has said: “The history of American freedom is, in no small measure, the history of procedure.” But in addition, the procedural rules which have been fashioned from the generality of due process are our best instruments for the distillation and evaluation of essential facts from the conflicting welter of data that life and our adversary methods present. It is these instruments of due process which enhance the possibility that truth will emerge from the confrontation of opposing versions and conflicting data. “Procedure is to law what ‘scientific method’ is to science.” It is claimed that juveniles obtain benefits from the special procedures applicable to them which more than offset the disadvantages of denial of the substance of normal due process. As we shall discuss, the observance of due process standards, intelligently and not ruthlessly administered, will not compel the States to abandon or displace any of the substantive benefits of the juvenile process. But it is important, we think, that the claimed benefits of the juvenile process should be candidly appraised. Neither sentiment nor folklore should cause us to shut our eyes, for example, to such startling findings as that reported in an exceptionally reliable study of repeaters or recidivism conducted by the Stanford Research Institute for the President’s Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia. This Commission’s Report states: “In fiscal 1966 approximately 66 percent of the 16- and 17-year-old juveniles referred to the court by the Youth Aid Division had been before the court previously. In 1965, 56 percent of those in the Receiving Home were repeaters. The SRI study revealed that 61 percent of the sample Juvenile Court referrals in 1965 had been previously referred at least once and that 42 percent had been referred at least twice before.” Id., at 773. Certainly, these figures and the high crime rates among juveniles to which we have referred {supra, n. 26), could not lead us to conclude that the absence of constitutional protections reduces crime, or that the juvenile system, functioning free of constitutional inhibitions as it has largely done, is effective to reduce crime or rehabilitate offenders. We do not mean by this to denigrate the juvenile court process or to suggest that there are not aspects of the juvenile system relating to offenders which are valuable. But the features of the juvenile system which its proponents have asserted are of unique benefit will not be impaired by constitutional domestication. For example, the commendable principles relating to the processing and treatment of juveniles separately from adults are in no way involved or affected by the procedural issues under discussion. Further, we are told that one of the important benefits of the special juvenile court procedures is that they avoid classifying the juvenile as a “criminal.” The juvenile offender is now classed as a “delinquent.” There is, of course, no reason why this should not continue. It is disconcerting, however, that this term has come to involve only slightly less stigma than the term “criminal” applied to adults. It is also emphasized that in practically all jurisdictions, statutes provide that an adjudication of the child as a delinquent shall not operate as a civil disability or disqualify him for civil service appointment. There is no reason why the application of due process requirements should interfere with such provisions. Beyond this, it is frequently said that juveniles are protected by the process from disclosure of their devia-tional behavior. As the Supreme Court of Arizona phrased it in the present case, the summary procedures of Juvenile Courts are sometimes defended by a statement that it is the law’s policy “to hide youthful errors from the full gaze of the public and bury them in the graveyard of the forgotten past.” This claim of secrecy, however, is more rhetoric than reality. Disclosure of court records is discretionary with the judge in most jurisdictions. Statutory restrictions almost invariably apply only to the court records, and even as to those the evidence is that many courts routinely furnish information to the FBI and the military, and on request to government agencies and even to private employers. Of more importance are police records. In most States the police keep a complete file of juvenile “police contacts” and have complete discretion as to disclosure of juvenile records. Police departments receive requests for information from the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies, the Armed Forces, and social service agencies, and most of them generally comply. Private employers word their application forms to produce information concerning juvenile arrests and court proceedings, and in some jurisdictions information concerning juvenile police contacts is furnished private employers as well as government agencies. In any event, there is no reason why, consistently with due process, a State cannot continue, if it deems it appropriate, to provide and to improve provision for the confidentiality of records of police contacts and court action relating to juveniles. It is interesting to note, however, that the Arizona Supreme Court used the confidentiality argument as a justification for the type of notice which is here attacked as inadequate for due process purposes. The parents were given merely general notice that their child was charged with “delinquency.” No facts were specified. The Arizona court held, however, as we shall discuss, that in addition to this general “notice,” the child and his parents fnust be advised “of the facts involved in the case” no later than the initial hearing by the judge. Obviously, this does not “bury” the word about the child’s transgressions. It merely defers the time of disclosure to a point when it is of limited use to the child or his parents in preparing his defense or explanation. Further, it is urged that the juvenile benefits from informal proceedings in the court. The early conception of the Juvenile Court proceeding was one in which a fatherly judge touched the heart and conscience of the erring youth by talking over his problems, by paternal advice and admonition, and in which, in extreme situations, benevolent and wise institutions of the State provided guidance and help “to save him from a downward career.” Then, as now, goodwill and compassion were admirably prevalent. But recent studies have, with surprising unanimity, entered sharp dissent as to the validity of this gentle conception. They suggest that the appearance as well as the actuality of fairness, impartiality and orderliness — -in short, the essentials of due process — may be a more impressive and more therapeutic attitude so far as the juvenile is concerned. For example, in a recent study, the sociologists Wheeler and Cottrell observe that when the procedural laxness of the “parens patriae” attitude is followed by stern disciplining, the contrast may have an adverse effect upon the child, who feels that he has been deceived or enticed. They conclude as follows: “Unless appropriate due process of law is followed, even the juvenile who has violated the law may not feel that he is being fairly treated and may therefore resist the rehabilitative efforts of court personnel.” Of course, it is not suggested that juvenile court judges should fail appropriately to take account, in their demeanor and conduct, of the emotional and psychological attitude of the juveniles with whom they are confronted. While due process requirements will, in some instances, introduce a degree of order and regularity to Juvenile Court proceedings to determine delinquency, and in contested cases will introduce some elements of the adversary system, nothing will require that the conception of the kindly juvenile judge be replaced by its opposite, nor do we here rule upon the question whether ordinary due process requirements must be observed with respect to hearings to determine the disposition of the delinquent child. Ultimately, however, we confront the reality of that portion of the Juvenile Court process with which we deal in this case. A boy is charged with misconduct. The boy is committed to an institution where he may be restrained of liberty for years. It is of no constitutional consequence — and of limited practical meaning— that the institution to which he is committed is called an Industrial School. The fact of the matter is that, however euphemistic the title, a “receiving home” or an “industrial school” for juveniles is an institution of confinement in which the child is incarcerated for a greater or lesser time. His world becomes “a building with whitewashed walls, regimented routine and institutional hours....” Instead of mother and father and sisters and brothers and friends and classmates, his world is peopled by guards, custodians, state employees, and “delinquents” confined with him for anything from waywardness to rape and homicide. In view of this, it would be extraordinary if our Constitution did not require the procedural regularity and the exercise of care implied in the phrase “due process.” Under our Constitution, the condition of being a boy does not justify a kangaroo court. The traditional ideas of Juvenile Court procedure, indeed, contemplated that time would be available and care would be used to establish precisely what the juvenile did and why he did it — was it a prank of adolescence or a brutal act threatening serious consequences to himself or society unless corrected? Under traditional notions, one would assume that in a case like that of Gerald Gault, where the juvenile appears to have a home, a working mother and father, and an older brother, the Juvenile Judge would have made a careful inquiry and judgment as to the possibility that the boy could be disciplined and dealt with at home, despite his previous transgressions. Indeed, so far as appears in the record before us, except for some conversation with Gerald about his school work and his “wanting to go to... Grand Canyon with his father,” the points to which the judge directed his attention were little different from those that would be involved in determining any charge of violation of a penal statute. The essential difference between Gerald’s case and a normal criminal case is that safeguards available to adults were discarded in Gerald’s case. The summary procedure as well as the long commitment was possible because Gerald was 15 years of age instead of over 18. If Gerald had been over 18, he would not have been subject to Juvenile Court proceedings. For the particular offense immediately involved, the maximum punishment would have been a fine of $5 to $50, or imprisonment in jail for not more than two months. Instead, he was committed to custody for a maximum of six years. If he had been over 18 and had committed an offense to which such a sentence might apply, he would have been entitled to substantial rights under the Constitution of the United States as well as under Arizona’s laws and constitution. The United States Constitution would guarantee him rights and protections with respect to arrest, search and seizure, and pretrial interrogation. It would assure him of specific notice of the charges and adequate time to decide his course of action and to prepare his defense. He would be entitled to clear advice that he could be represented by counsel, and, at least if a felony were involved, the State would be required to provide counsel if his parents were unable to afford it. If the court acted on the basis of his confession, careful procedures would be required to assure its volun-tariness. If the case went to trial, confrontation and opportunity for cross-examination would be guaranteed. So wide a gulf between the State’s treatment of the adult and of the child requires a bridge sturdier than mere verbiage, and reasons more persuasive than cliché can provide. As Wheeler and Cottrell have put it, “The rhetoric of the juvenile court movement has developed without any necessarily close correspondence to the realities of court and institutional routines.” In Kent v. United States, supra, we stated that the Juvenile Court Judge’s exercise of the power of the state as parens patriae was not unlimited. We said that “the admonition to function in a ‘parental’ relationship is not an invitation to procedural arbitrariness.” With respect to the waiver by the Juvenile Court to the adult court of jurisdiction over an offense committed by a youth, we said that “there is no place in our system of law for reaching a result of such tremendous consequences without ceremony — without hearing, without effective assistance of counsel, without a statement of reasons.” We announced with respect to such waiver proceedings that while “We do not mean... to indicate that the hearing to be held must conform with all of the requirements of a criminal trial or even of the usual administrative hearing; but we do hold that the hearing must measure up to the essentials of due process and fair treatment.” We reiterate this view, here in connection with a juvenile court adjudication of “delinquency,” as a requirement which is part of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of our Constitution. We now turn to the specific issues which are presented to us in the present case. III. Notice of Charges. Appellants allege that the Arizona Juvenile Code is unconstitutional or alternatively that the proceedings before the Juvenile Court were constitutionally defective because of failure to provide adequate notice of the hearings. No notice was given to Gerald’s parents when he was taken into custody on Monday, June 8. On that night, when Mrs. Gault went to the Detention Home, she was orally informed that there would be a hearing the next afternoon and was told the reason why Gerald was in custody. The only written notice Gerald’s parents received at any time was a note on plain paper from Officer Flagg delivered on Thursday or Friday, June 11 or 12, to the effect that the judge had set Monday, June 15, “for further Hearings on Gerald’s delinquency.” A “petition” was filed with the court on June 9 by Officer Flagg, reciting only that he was informed and believed that “said minor is a delinquent minor and that it is necessary that some order be made by the Honorable Court for said minor’s welfare.” The applicable Arizona statute provides for a petition to be filed in Juvenile Court, alleging in general terms that the child is “neglected, dependent or delinquent.” The statute explicitly states that such a general allegation is sufficient, “without alleging the facts.” There is no requirement that the petition be served and it was not served upon, given to, or shown to Gerald or his parents. The Supreme Court of Arizona rejected appellants’ claim that due process was denied because of inadequate notice. It stated that “Mrs. Gault knew the exact nature of the charge against Gerald from the day he was taken to the detention home.” The court also pointed out that the Gaults appeared at the two hearings “without objection.” The court held that because “the policy of the juvenile law is to hide youthful errors from the full gaze of the public and bury them in the graveyard of the forgotten past,” advance notice of the specific charges or basis for taking the juvenile into custody and for the hearing is not necessary. It held that the appropriate rule is that “the infant and his parent or guardian will receive a petition only reciting a conclusion of delinquency. But no later than the initial hearing by the judge, they must be advised of the facts involved in the case. If the charges are denied, they must be given a reasonable period of time to prepare.” We cannot agree with the court’s conclusion that adequate notice was given in this case. Notice, to comply with due process requirements, must be given sufficiently in advance of scheduled court proceedings so that reasonable opportunity to prepare will be afforded, and it must “set forth the alleged misconduct with particularity.” It is obvious, as we have discussed above, that no purpose of shielding the child from the public stigma of knowledge of his having been taken into custody and scheduled for hearing is served by the procedure approved by the court below. The “initial hearing” in the present case was a hearing on the merits. Notice at that time is not timely; and even if there were a conceivable purpose served by the deferral proposed by the court below, it would have to yield to the requirements that the child and his parents or guardian be notified, in writing, of the specific charge or factual allegations to be considered at the hearing, and that such written notice be given at the earliest practicable time, and in any event sufficiently in advance of the hearing to permit preparation. Due process of law requires notice of the sort we have described— that is, notice which would be deemed constitutionally adequate in a civil or criminal proceeding. It does not allow a hearing to bo held in which a youth’s freedom and his parents’ right to his custody are at stake without giving them timely notice, in advance of the hearing, of the specific issues that they must meet. Nor, in the circumstances of this case, can it reasonably be Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

B

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Douglas delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioner is a musician and composer who between the years 1936 and 1939 composed a symphony. In 1945 Henry H. Reichhold, a philanthropist, established a music award offering $25,000, $5,000, and $2,500 for the three best symphonic works written by native-born composers of this hemisphere. The terms of the offer provided that none of the compositions could be published or publicly performed prior to entry in the contest and that each composition receiving an award would remain the property of the composer except that he would grant the Detroit Orchestra, Inc., (1) all synchronization rights as applied to motion pictures, (2) all mechanical rights as applied to phonograph recordings, electrical transcriptions and music rolls, and (3) the exclusive right to authorize the first performance of the composition in each of the countries whose citizens were eligible to enter the contest and to designate the publisher of the composition. Petitioner submitted his symphony and on December 14, 1947, won the $25,000 award. He included that amount in his 1947 income tax return as gross income, claimed the benefits of § 107 (b) of the Internal Revenue Code (26 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 107 (b), 53 Stat. 878, as amended), and computed the tax as though the $25,000 had been received ratably during the years 1937, 1938, and 1939. Thereafter he filed a claim for refund on the ground that the award constituted a nontaxable gift. The Commissioner did not allow the claim but determined a deficiency on the ground that the tax should have been computed under § 107 (b) as though the award had been ratably received over the three-year period ending with 1947. Petitioner paid the deficiency, filed a supplemental claim for refund, and brought this suit to obtain it. The District Court held that the award was a gift and not taxable by reason of § 22 (b) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The Court of Appeals reversed. 190 F. 2d 680. The case is here on certiorari, 342 U. S. 896, because of the conflict between that decision and McDermott v. Commissioner, 80 U. S. App. D. C. 176, 150 F. 2d 585, decided by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. And see Williams v. United States, 114 Ct. Cl. 1, 84 F. Supp. 362. I. In the legal sense payment of a prize to a winner of a contest is the discharge of a contractual obligation. The acceptance by the contestants of the offer tendered by the sponsor of the contest creates an enforceable contract. See 6 Corbin on Contracts, § 1489; Restatement, Contracts, § 521. The discharge of legal obligations — the payment for services rendered or consideration paid pursuant to a contract — is in no sense a gift. The case would be different if an award were made in recognition of past achievements or present abilities, or if payment were given not for services (see Old Colony Trust Co. v. Com missioner, 279 U. S. 716, 730), but out of affection, respect, admiration, charity or like impulses. Where the payment is in return for services rendered, it is irrelevant that the donor derives no economic benefit from it. II. Section 107 (b) defines “artistic work” as the “musical” or “artistic composition” of an individual, “the work on which . . . covered a period of thirty-six calendar months or more from the beginning to the completion” of the composition. In case the gross income from a particular artistic work in the taxable year is not less than a particular percentage (not material here), the tax attributable to the income of the taxable year may be computed as though it had “been received ratably over that part of the period preceding the close of the taxable year but not more than thirty-six calendar months.” The question is whether the amount of the prize should be taxed ratably over the 36 months ending with the close of 1947 (the taxable year in which it was received) or over the last 36 months of the period (1937 to 1939) when petitioner wrote the symphony. The phrase in question, as it originated (H. R. 7378, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., § 128), read “ratably over the period of thirty-six calendar months ending with the close of the taxable year.” In that form the present tax would have been computed as the Commissioner contended, viz. the tax would be laid over a period of 36 months extending back from the close of the taxable year. The change in wording does not seem to us to have made a change in meaning. The present words “ratably over that part of the period preceding the close of the taxable year but not more than thirty-six calendar months” would on their face seem to refer to a period ending with the close of the taxable year and extending back a maximum of 36 months. That wording was adopted in order to treat the income as though it had “been received ratably over (1) the part of the period of the work which preceded the close of the taxable year, or (2) a period of 36 calendar months, whichever of such periods is the shorter.” See S. Rep. No. 1631, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 109. The House Conferees, in agreeing to the change, stated that it “clarifies the language of the House bill.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 2586, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 43. That history strongly suggests that the purpose was not to change the allowable period of allocation from one ending with the close of the taxable year to one covering any 36 months in the past when the work was done, but to prevent tax reduction by proration of income over a period of work greater than the duration of the work preceding the close of the taxable year. That is the construction given by Treasury Regulations 111, § 29.107-2; and while much more could be said, it seems to us that that construction fits the statutory scheme. Affirmed. Me. Justice Frankfurter, not having heard the argument owing to illness, took no part in the disposition of this case. Mr. Justice Jackson dissents. Section 107 (b) provides: “For the purposes of this subsection, the term ‘artistic work or invention’, in the case of an individual, means a literary, musical, or artistic composition of such individual or a patent or copyright covering an invention of or a literary, musical, or artistic composition of such individual, the work on which by such individual covered a period of thirty-six calendar months or more from the beginning to the completion of such composition or invention. If, in the taxable year, the gross income of any individual from a particular artistic work or invention by him is not less than 80 per centum of the gross income in respect of such artistic work or invention in the taxable year plus the gross income therefrom in previous taxable years and the twelve months immediately succeeding the close of the taxable year, the tax attributable to the part of such gross income of the taxable year which is not taxable as a gain from the sale or exchange of a capital asset held for more than 6 months shall not be greater than the aggregate of the taxes attributable to such part had it been received ratably over that part of the period preceding the close of the taxable year but not more than thirty-six calendar months.” Section 22 (b) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code provides: “The following items shall not be included in gross income and shall be exempt from taxation under this chapter: . . . “The value of property acquired by gift, bequest, devise, or inheritance . . . .” See note 1, supra. Section 29.107-2 provides in part: “The method of allocating the gross income from the artistic work or invention to the taxable years in which falls any of the calendar months (not exceeding 36 calendar months) included within the part of the period of work which precedes the close of the current taxable year may be illustrated by the following examples: “Example (1). On October 1, 1942, A, an individual, who makes his returns on a calendar year basis and on the basis of cash receipts and disbursements, receives $36,000 in full payment for a musical composition, the work on which was commenced by A on July 10, 1938, and completed on January 29, 1943. Although the period of work covers 55 calendar months, allocations may be made to only the last 36 calendar months included within the part of the period of work which precedes the close of 1942 (the current taxable year). Therefore, $1,000 ($36,000 divided by 36) must be allocated to each of the 36 calendar months preceding January 1, 1943. Accordingly, $12,000 is allocated to 1940, $12,000 to 1941, and $12,000 to 1942 (the current taxable year). “Example (%). Assume the same facts as in example (1) except that the period of work was commenced by A on July 1, 1941, and completed on September 1, 1944. Although the period of work covers 38 calendar months, allocations may be made to only the 18 calendar months which are included within the part of the period of work which precedes the close of 1942 (the current taxable year). Therefore, $2,000 ($36,000 divided by 18) must be allocated to each of 18 calendar months preceding January 1, 1943. Accordingly, $12,000 is allocated to 1941, and $24,000 to 1942 (the current taxable year).” Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

L

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. This case concerns the time within which health care providers may file an administrative appeal from the initial determination of the reimbursement due them for inpatient services rendered to Medicare beneficiaries. Government contractors, called fiscal intermediaries, receive cost reports annually from care providers and notify them of the reimbursement amount for which they qualify. A provider dissatisfied with the fiscal intermediary’s determination may appeal to an administrative body named the Provider Reimbursement Review Board (PRRB or Board). The governing statute, § 602(h)(1)(D), 97 Stat. 165, 42 U. S. C. § 1395oo(a)(3), sets a 180-day limit for filing appeals from the fiscal intermediary to the PRRB. By a regulation promulgated in 1974, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) authorized the Board to extend the 180-day limitation, for good cause, up to three years. The providers in this case are hospitals who appealed to the PRRB more than ten years after expiration of the 180-day statutory deadline. They assert that the Secretary’s failure to disclose information that made the fiscal intermediary’s reimbursement calculation incorrect prevented them from earlier appealing to the Board. Three positions have been briefed and argued regarding the time for providers’ appeals to the PRRB. First, a Court-appointed amicus curiae has urged that the 180-day limitation is “jurisdictional,” and therefore cannot be enlarged at all by agency or court. Second, the Government maintains that the Secretary has the prerogative to set an outer limit of three years for appeals to the Board. And third, the hospitals argue that the doctrine of equitable tolling applies, stopping the 180-day clock during the time the Secretary concealed the information that made the fiscal intermediary’s reimbursement determinations incorrect. We hold that the statutory 180-day limitation is not “jurisdictional,” and that the Secretary reasonably construed the statute to permit a regulation extending the time for a provider’s appeal to the PRRB to three years. We further hold that the presumption in favor of equitable tolling does not apply to administrative appeals of the kind here at issue. HH The Medicare program covers certain inpatient services that hospitals provide to Medicare beneficiaries. Providers are reimbursed at a fixed amount per patient, regardless of the actual operating costs they incur in rendering these services. But the total reimbursement amount is adjusted upward for hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of low-income patients. This adjustment is made because hospitals with an unusually high percentage of low-income patients generally have higher per-patient costs; such hospitals, Congress therefore found, should receive higher reimbursement rates. See H. R. Rep. No. 99-241, pt. 1, p. 16 (1985). The amount of the disproportionate share adjustment is determined in part by the percentage of the patients served by the hospital who are eligible for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments, a percentage commonly called the SSI fraction. 42 U. S. C. § 1395ww(d) (2006 ed. and Supp. V). At the end of each year, providers participating in Medicare submit cost reports to contractors acting on behalf of HHS known as fiscal intermediaries. Also at year end, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) calculates the SSI fraction for each eligible hospital and submits that number to the intermediary for that hospital. Using these numbers to determine the total payment due, the intermediary issues a Notice of Program Reimbursement (NPR) informing the provider how much it will be paid for the year. If a provider is dissatisfied with the intermediary’s reimbursement determination, the statute gives it the right to file a request for a hearing before the PRRB within 180 days of receiving the NPR. § 1395oo(a)(3) (2006 ed.) In 1974, the Secretary promulgated a regulation, after notice and comment rulemaking, permitting the Board to extend the 180-day time limit upon a showing of good cause; the regulation further provides that “no such extension shall be granted by the Board if such request is filed more than 3 years after the date the notice of the intermediary’s determination is mailed to the provider.” 39 Fed. Reg. 34517 (1974) (codified in 42 CFR § 405.1841(b) (2007)). For many years, CMS released only the results of its SSI fraction calculations and not the underlying data. The Baystate Medical Center—a hospital not party to this case— timely appealed the calculation of its SSI fraction for each year from 1993 through 1996. Eventually, the PRRB determined that CMS had omitted several categories of SSI data from its calculations and was using a flawed process to determine the number of low-income beneficiaries treated by hospitals. These errors caused a systematic undercalculation of the disproportionate share adjustment, resulting in underpayments to the providers. Baystate Medical Center v. Leavitt, 545 F. Supp. 2d 20, 26-30 (DC 2008); see id., at 57-58 (concluding that CMS failed to use the “best available data”). The methodological errors revealed by the Board’s Bay-state decision would have yielded similarly reduced payments to all providers for which CMS had calculated an SSI fraction. In March 2006, the Board’s decision in the Bay-state case was made public. Within 180 days, the hospitals in this case filed a complaint with the Board seeking to challenge their disproportionate share adjustments for the years 1987 through 1994. The hospitals acknowledged that their challenges, unlike Baystate’s timely contest, were more than a decade out of time. But equitable tolling of the limitations period was in order, they urged, due to CMS’s failure to inform the hospitals that their SSI fractions had been based on faulty data. The PRRB held that it lacked jurisdiction over the hospitals’ complaint, reasoning that it had no equitable powers save those legislation or regulation might confer, and that the Secretary’s regulation permitted it to excuse late appeals only for good cause, with three years as the outer limit. On judicial review, the District Court dismissed the hospitals’ claims for relief, holding that nothing in the statute suggests that “Congress intended to authorize equitable tolling.” 686 F. Supp. 2d 56, 70 (DC 2010). The Court of Appeals reversed. 642 F. 3d 1145 (CADC 2011). It relied on the presumption that statutory limitations periods are generally subject to equitable tolling and reasoned that “ ‘the same rebuttable presumption of equitable tolling applicable to suits against private defendants should also apply to suits against the United States.’ ” Id., at 1148 (quoting Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U. S. 89, 95-96 (1990)). The presumption applies to the 180-day time limit for provider appeals from reimbursement determinations, the Court of Appeals held, finding nothing in the statutory provision for PRRB review indicating that Congress intended to disallow equitable tolling. 642 F. 3d, at 1149-1151. We granted the Secretary’s petition for certiorari, 567 U. S. 933 (2012), to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals over whether the 180-day time limit in 42 U. S. C. § 1395oo(a)(3) constricts the Board’s jurisdiction. Compare 642 F. 3d 1145 (case below); Western Medical Enterprises, Inc. v. Heckler, 783 F. 2d 1376, 1379-1380 (CA9 1986) (180-day limit is not jurisdictional and the Secretary may extend it for good cause), with Alacare Home Health Servs., Inc. v. Sullivan, 891 F. 2d 850, 855-856 (CA11 1990) (statute of limitations is jurisdictional and the Secretary lacked authority to promulgate good-cause exception); St. Joseph’s Hospital of Kansas City v. Heckler, 786 F. 2d 848, 852-853 (CA8 1986) (same). Beyond the jurisdictional inquiry, the Secretary asked us to determine whether the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that equitable tolling applies to providers’ Medicare reimbursement appeals to the PRRB, notwithstanding the Secretary’s regulation barring such appeals after three years. II A Characterizing a rule as jurisdictional renders it unique in our adversarial system. Objections to a tribunal’s jurisdiction can be raised at any time, even by a party that once conceded the tribunal’s subject-matter jurisdiction over the controversy. Tardy jurisdictional objections can therefore result in a waste of adjudicatory resources and can disturbingly disarm litigants. See Henderson v. Shinseki, 562 U. S. 428, 434 (2011); Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U. S. 500, 514 (2006). With these untoward consequences in mind, “we have tried in recent cases to bring some discipline to the use” of the term “jurisdiction.” Henderson, 562 U. S., at 435; see also Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 90 (1998) (jurisdiction has been a “word of many, too many, meanings” (internal quotation marks omitted)). To ward off profligate use of the term “jurisdiction,” we have adopted a “readily administrable bright line” for determining whether to classify a statutory limitation as jurisdictional. Arbaugh, 546 U. S., at 516. We inquire whether Congress has “clearly state[d]” that the rule is jurisdictional; absent such a clear statement, we have cautioned, “courts should treat the restriction as nonjurisdictional in character.” Id., at 515-516; see also Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U. S. 134, 137 (2012); Henderson, 562 U. S., at 435-436. This is not to say that Congress must incant magic words in order to speak clearly. We consider “context, including this Court’s interpretations of similar provisions in many years past,” as probative of whether Congress intended a particular provision to rank as jurisdictional. Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U. S. 154, 168 (2010); see also John R. Sand & Gravel Co. v. United States, 552 U. S. 130, 133-134 (2008). We reiterate what it would mean were we to type the governing statute, 42 U. S. C. § 1395oo(a)(3), “jurisdictional.” Under no circumstance could providers engage PRRB review more than 180 days after notice of the fiscal intermediary’s final determination. Not only could there be no equitable tolling. The Secretary’s regulation providing for a good-cause extension, see swpra, at 150, would fall as well. The language Congress used hardly reveals a design to preclude any regulatory extension. Section 1395oo(a)(3) instructs that a provider of services “may obtain a hearing” by the Board regarding its reimbursement amount if “such provider files a request for a hearing within 180 days after notice of the intermediary’s final determination.” This provision “does not speak in jurisdictional terms.” Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 455 U. S. 385, 394 (1982). Indeed, it is less “jurisdictional” in tone than the provision we held to be nonjurisdictional in Henderson. There, the statute provided that a veteran seeking Veterans Court review of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ determination of disability benefits “shall file a notice of appeal . . . within 120 days.” 562 U. S., at 438 (quoting 38 U. S. C. § 7266(a); emphasis added). Section 1395oo(a)(3), by contrast, contains neither the mandatory word “shall” nor the appellation “notice of appeal,” words with jurisdictional import in the context of 28 U. S. C. § 2107’s limitations on the time for appeal from a district court to a court of appeals. See Bowles v. Russell, 551 U. S. 205, 214 (2007). Key to our decision, we have repeatedly held that filing deadlines ordinarily are not jurisdictional; indeed, we have described them as “quintessential claim-processing rules.” Henderson, 562 U. S., at 435; see also Scarborough v. Princ ipi, 541 U. S. 401, 414 (2004) (filing deadline for fee applications under Equal Access to Justice Act); Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U. S. 443, 454 (2004) (filing deadlines for objecting to debtor’s discharge in bankruptcy); Honda v. Clark, 386 U. S. 484, 498 (1967) (filing deadline for claims under the Trading with the Enemy Act). This case is scarcely the exceptional one in which a “century’s worth of precedent and practice in American courts” rank a time limit as jurisdictional. Bowles, 551 U. S., at 209, n. 2; cf. Kontrick, 540 U. S., at 454 (a time limitation may be emphatic, yet not jurisdictional). B Amicus urges that the three requirements in § 1395oo(a) are specifications that together define the limits of the PRRB’s jurisdiction. Subsection (a)(1) specifies the claims providers may bring to the Board, and subsection (a)(2) sets forth an amount-in-controversy requirement. These are jurisdictional requirements, amicus asserts, so we should read the third specification, subsection (a)(3)’s 180-day limitation, as also setting a jurisdictional requirement. Last Term, we rejected a similar proximity-based argument. A requirement we would otherwise classify as non-jurisdictional, we held, does not become jurisdictional simply because it is placed in a section of a statute that also contains jurisdictional provisions. Gonzalez, 565 U. S., at 146-147; see Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749, 763-764 (1975) (statutory provision at issue contained three requirements for judicial review, only one of which was jurisdictional). Amicus also argues that the 180-day time limit for provider appeals to the PRRB should be viewed as jurisdictional because Congress could have expressly made the provision nonjurisdictional, and indeed did so for other time limits in the Medicare Act. Amicus notes particularly that when Medicare beneficiaries request the Secretary to reconsider a benefits determination, the statute gives them a time limit of 180 days or “such additional time as the Secretary may allow.” 42 U. S. C. § 1395ff(b)(1)(D)(i); see also § 1395ff(b)(1)(D)(ii) (permitting Medicare beneficiary to request a hearing by the Secretary within “time limits” the Secretary “shall establish in regulations”). We have recognized, as a general rule, that Congress’ use of “certain language in one part of the statute and different language in another” can indicate that “different meanings were intended.” Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692, 711, n. 9 (2004) (internal quotation marks omitted). Amicus notes this general rule in urging that an express grant of authority for the Secretary to extend the time for beneficiary appeals implies the absence of such leeway for provider appeals. But the interpretive guide just identified, like other canons of construction, is “no more than [a] rul[e] of thumb” that can tip the scales when a statute could be read in multiple ways. Connecticut Nat. Bank v. Germain, 503 U. S. 249, 253 (1992). For the reasons earlier stated, see supra, at 153-155, we are persuaded that the time limitation in § 1395oo(a) is most sensibly characterized as a nonjurisdictional prescription. The limitation therefore does not bar the modest extension contained in the Secretary’s regulation. Ill We turn now to the question whether § 1395oo(a)(3)’s 180-day time limit for a provider to appeal to the PRRB is subject to equitable tolling. A Congress vested in the Secretary large rulemaking authority to administer the Medicare program. The PRRB may adopt rules and procedures only if “not inconsistent” with the Medicare Act or “regulations of the Secretary.” 42 U. S. C. § 1395oo(e). Concerning the 18Q-day period for an appeal to the Board from an intermediary’s reimbursement determination, the Secretary’s regulation implementing § 1395oo, adopted after notice and comment, speaks in no uncertain terms: “A request for a Board hearing filed after [the 180-day time limit] shall be dismissed by the Board, except that for good cause shown, the time limit may be extended. However, no such extension shall be granted by the Board if such request is filed more than 3 years after the date the notice of the intermediary’s determination is mailed to the provider.” 42 CFR § 405.1841(b) (2007). The Secretary allowed only a distinctly limited extension of time to appeal to the PRRB, cognizant that “the Board is burdened by an immense caseload,” and that “procedural rules requiring timely filings are indispensable devices for keeping the machinery of the reimbursement appeals process running smoothly.” High Country Home Health, Inc. v. Thompson, 359 F. 3d 1307, 1310 (CA10 2004). Imposing equitable tolling to permit appeals barred by the Secretary’s regulation would essentially gut the Secretary’s requirement that an appeal to the Board “shall be dismissed” if filed more than 180 days after the NPR, unless the provider shows “good cause” and requests an extension no later than three years after the NPR. A court lacks authority to undermine the regime established by the Secretary unless her regulation is “arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute.” Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 844 (1984). The Secretary’s regulation, we are satisfied, survives inspection under that deferential standard. As HHS has explained, “[i]t is in the interest of providers and the program that, at some point, intermediary determinations and the resulting amount of program payment due the provider or the program become no longer open to correction.” CMS, Medicare: Provider Reimbursement Manual, pt. 1, ch. 29, §2930, p. 29-73 (rev. no. 372, 2011); cf. Taylor v. Freeland & Kronz, 503 U. S. 638, 644 (1992) (“Deadlines may lead to unwelcome results, but they prompt parties to act and produce finality.”). The Secretary brought to bear practical experience in superintending the huge program generally, and the PRRB in particular, in maintaining three years as the outer limit. A court must uphold the Secretary’s judgment as long as it is a permissible construction of the statute, even if it differs from how the court would have interpreted the statute in the absence of an agency regulation. National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. v. Brand X Internet Services, 545 U. S. 967, 980 (2005); see also Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843, n. 11. B Rejecting the Secretary’s position, the Court of Appeals relied principally on this Court’s decision in Irwin, 498 U. S., at 95-96. Irwin concerned the then 30-day time period for filing suit against a federal agency under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-16(c) (1988 ed.). We held in Irwin that “the same rebuttable presumption of equitable tolling applicable to suits against private defendants should also apply to suits against the United States.” 498 U. S., at 95-96. Irwin itself, and equitable-tolling cases we have considered both pre- and post-Irwin, have generally involved time limits for filing suit in federal court. See, e. g., Holland v. Florida, 560 U. S. 631 (2010) (one-year limitation for filing application for writ of habeas corpus); Rotella v. Wood, 528 U. S. 549 (2000) (four-year period for filing civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act suit); United States v. Beggerly, 524 U. S. 38 (1998) (12-year period to bring suit under Quiet Title Act); Lampf Pleva, Lipkind, Prupis & Petigrow v. Gilbertson, 501 U. S. 350 (1991) (one- and three-year periods for commencing civil action under § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934); Honda v. Clark, 386 U. S. 484 (1967) (60-day period for filing suit under Trading with the Enemy Act); Kendall v. United States, 107 U. S. 123 (1883) (six-year period for filing suit in Court of Claims). Courts in those cases rendered in the first instance the decision whether equity required tolling. This case is of a different order. We have never applied the Irwin presumption to an agency’s internal appeal deadline, here the time a provider has to appeal an intermediary’s reimbursement determination to the PRRB. Cf. United States v. Brockamp, 519 U. S. 347, 350 (1997) (assuming, ar-guendo, that Irwin presumption applied to time limit for filing an administrative claim for a tax refund, but concluding based on statutory text, structure, and purpose that there was “good reason to believe that Congress did not want the equitable tolling doctrine to apply”). The presumption of equitable tolling was adopted in part on the premise that “[s]uch a principle is likely to be a realistic assessment of legislative intent.” Irwin, 498 U. S., at 95. But that premise is inapt in the context of providers’ administrative appeals under the Medicare Act. The Act, until 1972, provided no avenue for providers to obtain administrative or judicial review. When Congress first directed the Secretary to establish the PRRB, Congress simultaneously imposed the 180-day deadline, with no statutory exceptions. For nearly 40 years the Secretary has prohibited the Board from extending that deadline, except as provided by regulation. And until the D. C. Circuit’s decision in this case, no court had ever read equitable tolling into § 1395oo(a)(3) or the Secretary’s implementation of that provision. Congress amended § 1395oo six times since 1974, each time leaving untouched the 180-day administrative appeal provision and the Secretary’s rulemaking authority. At no time did Congress express disapproval of the three-year outer time limit set by the Secretary for an extension upon a showing of good cause. See Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n v. Schor, 478 U. S. 833, 846 (1986) (“[W]hen Congress revisits a statute giving rise to a longstanding administrative interpretation without pertinent change, the congressional failure to revise or repeal the agency’s interpretation is persuasive evidence that the interpretation is the one intended by Congress.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). We note, furthermore, that unlike the remedial statutes at issue in many of this Court’s equitable-tolling decisions, see Irwin, 498 U. S., at 91; Bowen v. City of New York, 476 U. S. 467, 480 (1986); Zipes, 455 U. S., at 398, the statutory scheme before us is not designed to be “‘unusually protective’ of claimants,” Bowen, 476 U. S., at 480. Nor is it one “in which laymen, unassisted by trained lawyers, initiate the process.” Zipes, 455 U. S., at 397 (internal quotation marks omitted); The Medicare payment system in question applies to “sophisticated” institutional providers assisted by legal counsel, and “generally capable of identifying an underpayment in [their] own NPR within the 180-day time period specified in 42 U. S. C. § 1395oo(a)(3).” Your Home Visiting Nurse Services, Inc. v. Shalala, 525 U. S. 449, 456 (1999). As repeat players who elect to participate in the Medicare system, providers can hardly claim lack of notice of the Secretary’s regulations. The hospitals ultimately argue that the Secretary’s regulations fail to adhere to the “fundamentals of fair play.” FCC v. Pottsville Broadcasting Co., 309 U. S. 134, 143 (1940). They point, particularly, to 42 CFR § 405.1885(b)(3) (2012), which permits reopening of an intermediary’s reimbursement determination “at any time if it is established that such determination . . . was procured by fraud or similar fault of any party to the determination.” We considered a similar alleged inequity in Your Home and explained that it was justified by the “administrative realities” of the provider reimbursement appeal system. 525 U. S., at 455. There are only a few dozen fiscal intermediaries and they are charged with issuing tens of thousands of NPRs, while each provider can concentrate on a single NPR, its own. Id., at 456. The Secretary, Your Home concluded, could reasonably believe that this asymmetry justifies giving the intermediaries more time to discover overpayments than the providers have to discover underpay-merits. Moreover, the fraud exception allowing indefinite reopening does apply to an intermediary if it “procured” a Board decision by “fraud or similar fault.” Although an intermediary is not a party to its own determination, it does rank as a party in proceedings before the Board. 42 CFR § 405.1843(a). * * * We hold, in sum, that the 180-day statutory deadline for administrative appeals to the PRRB, contained in 42 U. S. C. § 1395oo(a)(3), is not “jurisdictional.” Therefore the Secretary lawfully exercised her rulemaking authority in providing for a three-year “good cause” extension. We further hold that the equitable-tolling presumption our Irwin decision approved for suits brought in court does not similarly apply to administrative appeals of the kind here considered, and that the Secretary’s regulation, 42 CFR § 405.1841(b), is a permissible interpretation of the statute. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. The agency was called the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare until 1979, but for simplicity’s sake we refer to it as HHS throughout this opinion. In 2008, after this case commenced, the Secretary replaced the 1974 regulation with a new prescription limiting “good cause” to “extraordinary circumstances beyond [the provider’s] control (such as a natural or other catastrophe, fire, or strike).” 73 Fed. Reg. 30250 (2008) (codified in 42 CFR § 405.1836(b) (2012)). The new regulation retains the strict three-year cutoff for all claims. § 405.1836(c)(2). The parties agree that this case is governed by the 1974 regulation, and our opinion today addresses only that regulation. In § 951 of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, 117 Stat. 2427, Congress required the Secretary to furnish hospitals with the data necessary to compute their own disproportionate share adjustment. Pursuant to this congressional mandate, the Secretary has adopted procedures for turning over the SSI data to hospitals upon request. 70 Fed. Reg. 47438 (2005). Because no party takes the view that the statutory 180-day time limit is jurisdictional, we appointed John F. Manning to brief and argue this position as amicus curiae. 567 U. S. 955 (2012). Amicus Manning has ably discharged his assigned responsibilities and the Court thanks him for his well-stated arguments. Because neither the Secretary nor the intermediary counts as a party to the intermediary’s determination, 42 CFR §405.1806, providers alone are subject to this exception to the time limitation. The fraud exception apart, reopening time is limited to three years. § 405.1885(a). Within that time, reopening may be sought by the intermediary, the Board, the Secretary, or the provider. Thus an intermediary determination or Board decision could not be reopened if, outside the three-year window, the Secretary discovered errors in calculating the SSI fraction that resulted in overpayments to providers. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. This appeal challenges a decree of a three-judge District Court declaring that certain Alabama statutes violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the extent that they require segregation of the races, in prisons and jails, and establishing a schedule for desegregation of these institutions. The State’s contentions that Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which relates to class actions, was violated in this case and that the challenged statutes are not unconstitutional are without merit. The remaining contention of the State is that the specific orders directing desegregation of prisons and jails make no allowance for the necessities of prison security and discipline, but we do not so read the “Order, Judgment and Decree” of the District Court, which when read as a whole we find unexceptionable. The judgment is affirmed. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

B

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Chief Justice Burger delivered the opinion of the Court. The question presented by this appeal is whether a Massachusetts statute that mandates suspension of a driver’s license because of his refusal to take a breath-analysis test upon arrest for driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquor is void on its face as violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Commonly known as the implied consent law, the Massachusetts statute provides: “Whoever operates a motor vehicle upon any [public] way . . . shall be deemed to have consented to submit to a chemical test or analysis of his breath in the event that he is arrested for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. ... If the person arrested refuses to submit to such test or analysis, after having been informed that his license ... to operate motor vehicles ... in the commonwealth shall be suspended for a period of ninety days for such refusal, no such test or analysis shall be made, but the police officer before whom such refusal was made shall immediately prepare a written report of such refusal[, which] . . . shall be endorsed by a third person who shall have witnessed such refusal[,] . . . shall be sworn to under the penalties of perjury by the police officer before whom such refusal was madejj,] . . . shall set forth the grounds for the officer's belief that the person arrested had been driving a motor vehicle . . . while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, and shall state that such person had refused to submit to such chemical test or analysis when requested by such police officer to do so. Each such report shall be endorsed by the police chief . . . and shall be sent forthwith to the registrar. Upon receipt of such report, the registrar shall suspend any license or permit to operate motor vehicles issued to such person . . . for a period of ninety days.” Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 90, § 24 (1) (f) (WestSupp. 1979). I While driving a vehicle in Acton, Mass., appellee Donald Montrym was involved in a collision about 8:15 p. m. on May 15, 1976. Upon arrival at the scene of the accident an Acton police officer observed, as he wrote in his official report, that Montrym was “glassy eyed,” unsteady on his feet, slurring his speech, and emitting a strong alcoholic odor from his person. The officer arrested Montrym at 8:30 p. m. for operating his vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, driving to endanger, and failing to produce his motor vehicle registration upon request. Montrym was then taken to the Acton police station. There, Montrym was asked to take a breath-analysis examination at 8:45 p. m. He refused to do so. Twenty minutes after refusing to take the test and shortly after consulting his lawyer, Montrym apparently sought to retract his prior refusal by asking the police to administer a breath-analysis test. The police declined to comply with Montrym’s belated request. The statute leaves an officer no discretion once a breath-analysis test has been refused: “If the person arrested refuses to submit to such test or analysis, . . . the police officer before whom such refusal was made shall immediately prepare a written report of such refusal.” §24(l)(f) (emphasis added). The arresting officer completed a report of the events, including the refusal to take the test. As mandated by the statute, the officer’s report recited (a) the fact of Montrym’s arrest for driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, (b) the grounds supporting that arrest, and (c) the fact of his refusal to take the breath-analysis examination. As required by the statute, the officer’s report was sworn to under penalties of perjury, and endorsed by the arresting officer and another officer present when Mon-trym refused to take the test; it was counter endorsed by the chief of police. The report was then sent to the Massachusetts Registrar of Motor Vehicles pursuant to the statute. On June 2, 1976, a state court dismissed the complaint brought against Montrym for driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. Dismissal apparently was predicated on the refusal of the police to administer a breath-analysis test at Montrym’s request after he sought to retract his initial refusal to take the test. The dismissal order of the state court cryptically recites: “Dismissed. Breathalyzer refused when requested within % hr of arrest at station. See affidavit & memorandum.” According to Montrym’s affidavit incorporated by reference in the state court’s dismissal order, he was visited by an attorney at 9:05 o’clock on the night of his arrest; and, after consulting with counsel, he requested a breath-analysis test. The police, however, refused the requests made by Montrym and his counsel between 9:07 and 10:07 p. m. Montrym’s attorney immediately advised the Registrar by letter of the dismissal of this charge and asked that the Registrar stay any suspension of Montrym’s driver’s license. Enclosed with the letter was a copy of Montrym’s affidavit attesting to the officer’s refusal to administer a breath-analysis test at his request. However, Montrym’s attorney did not enclose a certified copy of the state court’s order dismissing the charge. The Registrar, who has no discretionary authority to stay a suspension mandated by the statute, formally suspended Montrym’s license for 90 days on June 7, 1976. The suspension notice stated that it was effective upon its issuance and directed Montrym to return his license at once. It advised Montrym of his right to appeal the suspension. When. Montrym received the suspension notice, his attorney requested an appeal on the question of whether Montrym had in fact refused a breath-analysis test within the meaning of the statute. Montrym surrendered his license by mail on June 8; 1976. Under the Massachusetts statute, Montrym could have obtained an immediate hearing before the Registrar at any time after he had surrendered his license; that hearing would have resolved all questions as to whether grounds existed for the suspension. For reasons not explained, but presumably on advice of counsel, Montrym failed to exercise his right to a hearing before the Registrar; instead, he took an appeal to the Board of Appeal. On June 24, 1976, the Board of Appeal advised Montrym by letter that a hearing of his appeal would be held on July 6, 1976. Four days later, Montrym’s counsel made demand upon the Registrar by letter for the return of his driver’s license. The letter reiterated Montrym’s acquittal of the driving-under-the-influence charge, asserted that the state court’s finding that the officer had refused to administer a breath-analysis test was binding on the Registrar, and declared that suspension of Montrym’s license without first holding a hearing violated his right to due process. The letter did not contain a copy of the state court’s dismissal order, but did threaten the Registrar with suit if the license were not returned immediately. Had Montrym’s counsel enclosed a copy of the order dismissing the drunken-driving charge, the entire matter might well have been disposed of at that stage without more. Thereafter, forgoing his administrative appeal scheduled for hearing on July 6, Montrym brought this action asking the convening of a three-judge United States District Court. The complaint alleges that § 24 (1) (f) is unconstitutional on its face and as applied in that it authorized the suspension of Montrym’s driver’s license without affording him an opportunity for a presuspension hearing. Montrym sought a temporary restraining order enjoining the suspension of his license, compensatory and punitive damages, and declaratory and injunctive relief on behalf of all persons whose licenses had been suspended pursuant to the statute without a prior hearing. On July 9, 1976, a single District Judge issued the temporary restraining order sought by Montrym and directed the Registrar to return Montrym’s license pending further order of the court. Subsequently, a three-judge District Court was convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §§ 2281 (1970 ed.), 2284, and Montrym moved for partial summary judgment on stipulated facts. With one judge dissenting, the three-judge District Court granted Montrym’s motion. Relying principally on this Court’s decision in Bell v. Burson, 402 U. S. 535 (1971), the District Court concluded that Montrym was entitled as a matter of due process to some sort of a presuspension hearing before the Registrar to contest the allegation of his refusal to take the test. In a partial summary judgment order issued on April 4, and a final judgment order issued on April 12, the District Court certified the suit under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23 (b) (2) as a class action on behalf of all persons whose licenses to operate a motor vehicle had been suspended pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 90, § 24 (1) (f) (West Supp. 1979). The court then declared the statute unconstitutional on its face as violative of the Due Process Clause, permanently enjoined the Registrar from further enforcing the statute, and directed him to return the driver’s licenses of the plaintiff class members. Montrym v. Panora, 429 F. Supp. 393 (Mass. 1977). After taking timely appeals from the District Court’s judgment orders, the Registrar moved the District Court for a stay and modification of its judgment, which motions were denied. After release of our opinion in Dixon v. Love, 431 U. S. 105 (1977), upholding the constitutionality of an Illinois statute authorizing the summary suspension of a driver’s license prior to any evidentiary hearing, the Registrar moved for reconsideration of his motions for a stay and modification of judgment. In a second opinion issued October 6, 1977, the District Court reasoned that Love was distinguishable on several grounds and denied the Registrar’s motion to reconsider; the dissenting judge thought Love controlled. Montrym v. Panora, 438 F. Supp. 1157 (Mass. 1977). We noted probable jurisdiction following the submission of supplemental briefs by the parties. Sub nom. Panora v. Montrym, 435 U. S. 967 (1978). We reverse. II The Registrar concedes here that suspension of a driver’s license for statutorily defined cause implicates a protectible property interest; accordingly, the only question presented by this appeal is what process is due to protect against an erroneous deprivation of that interest. Resolution of this inquiry requires consideration of a number of factors: “First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government’s interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail.” Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 335 (1976). Applying this balancing test, the District Court concluded due process required an opportunity for hearing before suspension of a license. 429 F. Supp., at 398-400. Later, the court further held that our decision in Dixon v. Love, supra, did not control. Love was thought distinguishable because the potential for irreparable personal and economic hardship was regarded as greater under the Massachusetts statutory scheme than the Illinois scheme; the risk of error was deemed more substantial as well; and requiring a hearing before suspending a driver’s license for refusing to take a breath-analysis test was believed not to offend the state interest in safe highways. 438 F. Supp., at 1159-1161. We conclude that Love cannot be materially distinguished from the case before us. Both cases involve the constitutionality of a statutory scheme for administrative suspension of a driver’s license for statutorily defined cause without a pre-suspension hearing. In each, the sole question presented is the appropriate timing of the legal process due a licensee. And, in both cases, that question must be determined by reference to the factors set forth in Eldridge. A The first step in the balancing process mandated by Eldridge is identification of the nature and weight of the private interest affected by the official action challenged. Here, as in Love, the private interest affected is the granted license to operate a motor vehicle. More particularly, the driver’s interest is in continued possession and use of his license pending the outcome of the hearing due him. As we recognized in Love, that interest is a substantial one, for the Commonwealth will not be able to make a driver whole for any personal inconvenience and economic hardship suffered by reason of any delay in redressing an erroneous suspension through postsuspension review procedures. 431 U. S., at 113. But, however substantial Montrym’s property interest may be, it is surely no more substantial than the interest involved in Love. The private interest involved here actually is less substantial, for the Massachusetts statute authorizes suspension for a maximum of only 90 days, while the Illinois scheme permitted suspension for as long as a year and even allowed for the possibility of indefinite revocation of a license. To be sure, as the District Court observed, the Illinois statute in Love contained provisions for hardship relief unavailable under the Massachusetts statute. Though we adverted to the existence of such provisions in Love, they were in no sense the “controlling” factor in our decision that the District Court believed them to be. 438 F. Supp., at 1159. Hardship relief was available under the Illinois scheme only after a driver had been suspended and had demonstrated his eligibility for such relief. See Dixon v. Love, 431 U. S., at 114 n. 10. The bearing such provisions had in Love stemmed from the delay involved in providing a postsuspension hearing. Here, unlike the situation in Love, a postsuspension hearing is available immediately upon a driver's suspension and may be initiated by him simply by walking into one of the Registrar’s local offices and requesting a hearing. The Love statute, in contrast, did not mandate that a date be set for a postsuspension hearing until 20 days after a written request for such a hearing was received from the affected driver. Id., at 109-110. The duration of any potentially wrongful deprivation of a property interest is an important factor in assessing the impact of official action on the private interest involved. Fusari v. Steinberg, 419 U. S. 379, 389 (1975). The District Court’s failure to consider the relative length of the suspension periods involved in Love and the case at bar, as well as the relative timeliness of the postsuspension review available to a suspended driver, was erroneous. Neither the nature nor the weight of the private interest involved in this case compels a result contrary to that reached in Love. B Because a primary function of legal process is to minimize the risk of erroneous decisions, Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 U. S. 1, 12-13 (1979); Addington v. Texas, 441 U. S. 418, 423 (1979), the second stage of the Eldridge inquiry requires consideration of the likelihood of an erroneous deprivation of the private interest involved as a consequence of the procedures used. And, although this aspect of the Eld-ridge test further requires an assessment of the relative reliability of the procedures used and the substitute procedures sought, the Due Process Clause has never been construed to require that the procedures used to guard against an erroneous deprivation of a protectible “property” or “liberty” interest be so comprehensive as to preclude any possibility of error. The Due Process Clause simply does not mandate that all governmental decisionmaking comply with standards that assure perfect, error-free determinations. Oreenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, supra, at 7. Thus, even though our legal tradition regards the adversary process as the best means of ascertaining truth and minimizing the risk of error, the “ordinary principle” established by our prior decisions is that “something less than an evidentiary hearing is sufficient prior to adverse administrative action.” Dixon v. Love, supra, at 113. And, when prompt postdeprivation review is available for correction of administrative error, we have generally required no more than that the predeprivation procedures used be designed to provide a reasonably reliable basis for concluding that the facts justifying the official action are as a responsible governmental official warrants them to be. See, e. g., Barry v. Barchi, post, at 64-65; Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S., at 334. As was the case in Love, the predicates for a driver’s suspension under the Massachusetts scheme are objective facts either within the personal knowledge of an impartial government official mr readily ascertainable by him. Cause arises for license suspension if the driver has been arrested for driving while under the influence of an intoxicant, probable cause exists for arrest, and the driver refuses to take a breath-analysis test. The facts of the arrest and the driver’s refusal will inevitably be within the personal knowledge of the reporting officer; indeed, Massachusetts requires that the driver’s refusal be witnessed by two officers. At the very least, the arresting officer ordinarily will have provided the driver with an informal opportunity to tell his side of the story and, as here, will have had the opportunity to observe the driver’s condition and behavior before effecting qny arrest. The District Court, in holding that the Due Process Clause mandates that an opportunity for a further hearing before the Registrar precede a driver’s suspension, overstated the risk of error inherent in the statute’s initial reliance on the corroborated affidavit of a law enforcement officer. The officer whose report of refusal triggers a driver’s suspension is a trained observer and investigator. He is, by reason of his training and experience, well suited for the role the statute accords him in the presuspension process. And, as he is personally subject to civil liability for an unlawful arrest and to criminal penalties for willful misrepresentation of the facts, he has every incentive to ascertain accurately and truthfully report the facts. The specific dictates of due process must be shaped by “the risk of error inherent in the truthfinding process as applied to the generality of cases” rather than the “rare exceptions.” Mathews v. Eldridge, supra, at 344. And, the risk of erroneous observation or deliberate misrepresentation of the facts by the reporting officer in the ordinary case seems insubstantial. Moreover, as this case illustrates, there will rarely be any genuine dispute as to the historical facts providing cause for a suspension. It is significant that Montrym does not dispute that he was arrested, or that probable cause existed for his arrest, or that he initially refused to take the breath-analysis test at the arresting officer’s request. The allegedly “factual” dispute that he claims a constitutional right to raise and have determined by the Registrar prior to his suspension really presents questions of law; namely, whether the state court’s subsequent finding that the police later refused to administer a breath-analysis test at Montrym’s request is binding on the Registrar as a matter of collateral estoppel; and, if so, whether that finding undermines the validity of Montrym’s suspension, which may well be justified under the statute solely on the basis of Montrym’s initial refusal to take the breath-analysis test and notwithstanding the officer’s subsequent refusal to honor Montrym’s belated request for the test. The Commonwealth must have the authority, if it is to protect people from drunken drivers, to require that the breath-analysis test record the alcoholic content of the bloodstream at the earliest possible moment. Finally, even when disputes as to the historical facts do arise, we are not persuaded that the risk of error inherent in the statute’s initial reliance on the representations of the reporting officer is so substantial in itself as to require that the Commonwealth stay its hand pending the outcome of any evidentiary hearing necessary to resolve questions of credibility or conflicts in the evidence. Cf. Barry v. Barchi, post, at 64-65. All that Montrym seeks was available to him immediately upon his suspension, and we believe that the “same day” hearing before the Registrar available under § 24 (l)(g) provides an appropriately timely opportunity for the licensee to tell his side of the story to the Registrar, to obtain correction of clerical errors, and to seek prompt resolution of any factual disputes he raises as to the accuracy of the officer’s report of refusal. Nor would the avowedly “nonevidentiary” presuspension hearing contemplated by the District Court substantially enhance the reliability of the presuspension process. Clerical errors and deficiencies in the officer's report of refusal, of course, could be called to the Registrar’s attention if the driver were provided with an opportunity to respond to the report in writing prior to suspension. But if such errors and deficiencies are genuinely material they already will have been noted by the Registrar in the ordinary course of his review of the report. Just as the Registrar has no power to stay a suspension upon receipt of a report of refusal that complies on its face with statutory requirements, he has no power to suspend a license if the report is materially defective. Necessarily, then, the Registrar must submit the officer’s report to his independent scrutiny. This independent review of the report of refusal by a detached public officer should suffice in the ordinary case to minimize the only type of error that could be corrected by something less than an evidentiary hearing. The only other purpose that might be served by an opportunity to respond to the report of refusal prior to a driver’s suspension would be alerting the Registrar to the existence of factual disputes between the driver and the reporting officer. This would be an exercise in futility, for the Registrar has no discretion to stay a suspension pending the outcome of an evidentiary hearing. And, it simply begs the question of a driver’s right to a presuspension evidentiary hearing to suggest, as did the District Court, that the Registrar be given such discretion. The Massachusetts Legislature has already made the discretionary determination that the District Court apparently would have the Registrar make on a case-by-case basis. It has determined that the Registrar, who is further removed in time and place from the operative facts than the reporting officer, should treat a report of refusal that complies on its face with the statutory requirements as presumptively accurate notwithstanding any factual disputes raised by a driver. Simply put, it has determined that the Registrar is not in a position to make an informed probable-cause determination or exercise of discretion prior to an evi-dentiary hearing. We cannot say the legislature’s judgment in this matter is irrational. In summary, we conclude here, as in Love, that the risk of error inherent in the presuspension procedures chosen by the legislature is not so substantial in itself as to require us to depart from the “ordinary principle” that “something less than an evidentiary hearing is sufficient prior to adverse administrative action.” 431 U. S., at 113. We fail to see how reliability would be materially enhanced by mandating the presuspension “hearing” deemed necessary by the District Court. C The third leg of the Eldridge balancing test requires us to identify the governmental function involved; also, to weigh in the balance the state interests served by the summary procedures used, as well as the administrative and fiscal burdens, if any, that would result from the substitute procedures sought. Here, as in Love, the statute involved was enacted in aid of the Commonwealth’s police function for the purpose of protecting the safety of its people. As we observed in Love, the paramount interest the Commonwealth has in preserving the safety of its public highways, standing alone, fully distinguishes this case from Bell v. Burson, 402 U. S., at 539, on which Montrym and the District Court place principal reliance. See 431 U. S., at 114-115. We have traditionally accorded the states great leeway in adopting summary procedures to protect public health and safety. States surely have at least as much interest in removing drunken drivers from their highways as in summarily seizing mislabeled drugs or destroying spoiled foodstuffs. E. g., Ewing v. Mytinger & Casselberry, Inc., 339 U. S. 594 (1950); North American Storage Co. v. Chicago, 211 U. S. 306 (1908). The Commonwealth’s interest in public safety is substantially served in several ways by the summary suspension of those who refuse to take a breath-analysis test upon arrest. First, the very existence of the summary sanction of the statute serves as a deterrent to drunken driving. Second, it provides strong inducement to take the breath-analysis test and thus effectuates the Commonwealth’s interest in obtaining reliable and relevant evidence for use in subsequent criminal proceedings. Third, in promptly removing such drivers from the road, the summary sanction of the statute contributes to the safety of public highways. The summary and automatic character of the suspension sanction available under the statute is critical to attainment of these objectives. A presuspension hearing would substantially undermine the state interest in public safety by giving drivers significant incentive to refuse the breath-analysis test and demand a presuspension hearing as a dilatory tactic. Moreover, the incentive to delay arising from the availability of a presuspension hearing would generate a sharp increase in the number of hearings sought and therefore impose a substantial fiscal and administrative burden on the Commonwealth. Dixon v. Love, 431 U. S., at 114. Nor is it any answer to the Commonwealth’s interest in public safety that its interest could be served as well in other ways. The fact that the Commonwealth, for policy reasons of its own, elects not to summarily suspend those drivers who do take the breath-analysis test does not, as the District Court erroneously suggested, in any way undermine the Commonwealth’s strong interest in summarily removing from the road those who refuse to take the test. A state plainly has the right to offer incentives for taking a test that provides the most reliable form of evidence of intoxication for use in subsequent proceedings. Indeed, in many cases, the test results could lead to prompt release of the driver with no charge being made on the “drunken driving” issue. And, in exercising its police powers, the Commonwealth is not required by the Due Process Clause to adopt an “all or nothing” approach to the acute safety hazards posed by drunken drivers. We conclude, as we did in Love, that the compelling interest in highway safety justifies the Commonwealth in making a summary suspension effective pending the outcome of the prompt postsuspension hearing available. Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Montrym does not deny having refused the test; he claims that he was not advised of the mandatory 90-day suspension penalty prior to his refusal, as required by the statute; however, the officer’s report of refusal asserts that Montrym was given the required prior warning. Montrym was also acquitted on the driving-to-endanger charge but was found guilty on the registration charge and fined $15. It provides in relevant part: “Upon receipt of such report [of refusal], the registrar shall suspend any license . . . issued to such person ... for a period of ninety days.” Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 90, §24 (1)(f) (West Supp. 1979) (emphasis added). Massachusetts Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 90, §28 (West 1969), provides that any person aggrieved by a ruling of the Registrar may appeal such ruling to the Board of Appeal, which may, after a hearing, order such ruling to be affirmed, modified, or annulled. However, no such appeal shall operate to stay any ruling of the Registrar. In turn, the Board’s decision is subject to judicial review. Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 30A, § 14 (West 1979). Massachusetts Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 90, §24(l)(g) (West 1969), provides: “Any person whose license, permit or right to operate has been suspended under paragraph (/) shall be entitled to a hearing before the registrar which shall be limited to the foEowing issues: (1) did the police officer have reasonable grounds to believe that such person had been operating a motor vehicle whEe under the influence of intoxicating liquor upon any [public] way . . . , (2) was such person placed under arrest, and (3) did such person refuse to submit to such test or analysis. If, after such hearing, the registrar finds on any one of the said issues in the negative, the registrar shaE reinstate such license, permit or right to operate.” As stipulated by the parties, the § 24 (1) (g) hearing is available the moment the driver surrenders his license. At the hearing, the suspended driver may be represented by counsel. Upon request, a hearing officer will examine the report of refusal and return the driver’s license immediately if the report does not comply with the requirements of § 24 (1) (f). If the report complies with those requirements, the burden is on the driver to show either that he was not arrested, that there was no probable cause for arrest, or that he did not refuse to take the breath-analysis test. The hearing may be adjourned at the request of the driver or sua sponte by the hearing officer in order to permit the attendance of witnesses or for the gathering of relevant evidence. Witnesses at the hearing are subject to cross-examination by the driver or his attorney, and he may appeal an adverse decision of the Registrar to the Board of Appeal pursuant to § 28. The Registrar has represented to the Court that a driver can obtain a decision from the hearing officer within one or two days following the driver’s receipt of the suspension notice. Montrym asserts that greater delay will occur if the driver raises factual issues requiring the taking of evidence. But, even under his more pessimistic view, which takes into account the possibility of intervening weekends, the driver will obtain a decision from the hearing officer within 7 to 10 days. Because the District Court held the statute unconstitutional on its face and granted classwide relief, it never reached the “as applied” challenge raised in Montrym’s complaint; nor do we. The validity of that challenge, and the resolution of any contested factual issues relevant to it, must be determined by the District Court on remand in light of our opinion. Also, the question of whether the Commonwealth is constitutionally required to give notice of the § 24 (1) (g) hearing procedure independent of the notice given by the statute itself was neither framed by the pleadings nor decided by the District Court; it is not properly before us notwithstanding the observations of the dissenting opinion on this issue. See post, at 27-28, and n. 4. That the Due Process Clause applies to a state's suspension or revocation of a driver’s license is clear from our decisions in Dixon v. Love, 431 U. S. 105, 112 (1977), and Bell v. Burson, 402 U. S. 535, 539 (1971). An evidentiary hearing into the historical facts would be ill suited for resolution of such questions of law. Indeed, it is not clear whether the Registrar even has the plenary authority to resolve such questions. Ultimately, any legal questions must be resolved finally by the Massachusetts courts on judicial review of the decision of the Board of Appeal after any appeal taken from the ruling of the Registrar. See n. 4, supra. Drunken drivers accounted for 283 of the 884 traffic fatalities in Massachusetts during 1975 alone and must have been responsible for countless other injuries to persons and property. App. 31. More people were killed in alcohol-related traffic accidents in a year in this one State than were killed in the tragic DC-10 crash at O’Hare Airport in May 1979. Traffic deaths commonly exceed 50,000 annually in the United States, and approximately one-half of these fatalities are alcohol related. See U. S. Dept. of Transportation, 1977 Highway Safety Act Report App. A-9 (Table A — 1); U. S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Third Special Report on Alcohol and Health 61 (1978). Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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

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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents the question whether a police officer violates the Fourth Amendment by initiating an investigative traffic stop after running a vehicle's license plate and learning that the registered owner has a revoked driver's license. We hold that when the officer lacks information negating an inference that the owner is the driver of the vehicle, the stop is reasonable. I Kansas charged respondent Charles Glover, Jr., with driving as a habitual violator after a traffic stop revealed that he was driving with a revoked license. See Kan. Stat. Ann. § 8-285(a)(3) (2001). Glover filed a motion to suppress all evidence seized during the stop, claiming that the officer lacked reasonable suspicion. Neither Glover nor the police officer testified at the suppression hearing. Instead, the parties stipulated to the following facts: "1. Deputy Mark Mehrer is a certified law enforcement officer employed by the Douglas County Kansas Sheriff 's Office. 2. On April 28, 2016, Deputy Mehrer was on routine patrol in Douglas County when he observed a 1995 Chevrolet 1500 pickup truck with Kansas plate 295ATJ. 3. Deputy Mehrer ran Kansas plate 295ATJ through the Kansas Department of Revenue's file service. The registration came back to a 1995 Chevrolet 1500 pickup truck. 4. Kansas Department of Revenue files indicated the truck was registered to Charles Glover Jr. The files also indicated that Mr. Glover had a revoked driver's license in the State of Kansas. 5. Deputy Mehrer assumed the registered owner of the truck was also the driver, Charles Glover Jr. 6. Deputy Mehrer did not observe any traffic infractions, and did not attempt to identify the driver [of] the truck. Based solely on the information that the registered owner of the truck was revoked, Deputy Mehrer initiated a traffic stop. 7. The driver of the truck was identified as the defendant, Charles Glover Jr." App. to Pet. for Cert. 60-61. The District Court granted Glover's motion to suppress. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that "it was reasonable for [Deputy] Mehrer to infer that the driver was the owner of the vehicle" because "there were specific and articulable facts from which the officer's common-sense inference gave rise to a reasonable suspicion." 54 Kan.App.2d 377, 385, 400 P.3d 182, 188 (2017). The Kansas Supreme Court reversed. According to the court, Deputy Mehrer did not have reasonable suspicion because his inference that Glover was behind the wheel amounted to "only a hunch" that Glover was engaging in criminal activity. 308 Kan. 590, 591, 422 P.3d 64, 66 (2018). The court further explained that Deputy Mehrer's "hunch" involved "applying and stacking unstated assumptions that are unreasonable without further factual basis," namely, that "the registered owner was likely the primary driver of the vehicle" and that "the owner will likely disregard the suspension or revocation order and continue to drive." Id., at 595-597, 422 P.3d at 68-70. We granted Kansas' petition for a writ of certiorari, 587 U. S. ----, 139 S.Ct. 1445, 203 L.Ed.2d 680 (2019), and now reverse. II Under this Court's precedents, the Fourth Amendment permits an officer to initiate a brief investigative traffic stop when he has "a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity." United States v. Cortez , 449 U.S. 411, 417-418, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981) ; see also Terry v. Ohio , 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). "Although a mere 'hunch' does not create reasonable suspicion, the level of suspicion the standard requires is considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the evidence, and obviously less than is necessary for probable cause." Prado Navarette v. California , 572 U.S. 393, 397, 134 S.Ct. 1683, 188 L.Ed.2d 680 (2014) (quotation altered); United States v. Sokolow , 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989). Because it is a "less demanding" standard, "reasonable suspicion can be established with information that is different in quantity or content than that required to establish probable cause." Alabama v. White , 496 U.S. 325, 330, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990). The standard "depends on the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men , not legal technicians, act." Navarette , supra , at 402, 134 S.Ct. 1683 (quoting Ornelas v. United States , 517 U.S. 690, 695, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996) (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted)). Courts "cannot reasonably demand scientific certainty ... where none exists." Illinois v. Wardlow , 528 U.S. 119, 125, 120 S.Ct. 673, 145 L.Ed.2d 570 (2000). Rather, they must permit officers to make "commonsense judgments and inferences about human behavior." Ibid. ; see also Navarette , supra , at 403, 134 S.Ct. 1683 (noting that an officer " 'need not rule out the possibility of innocent conduct' "). III We have previously recognized that States have a "vital interest in ensuring that only those qualified to do so are permitted to operate motor vehicles [and] that licensing, registration, and vehicle inspection requirements are being observed." Delaware v. Prouse , 440 U.S. 648, 658, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979). With this in mind, we turn to whether the facts known to Deputy Mehrer at the time of the stop gave rise to reasonable suspicion. We conclude that they did. Before initiating the stop, Deputy Mehrer observed an individual operating a 1995 Chevrolet 1500 pickup truck with Kansas plate 295ATJ. He also knew that the registered owner of the truck had a revoked license and that the model of the truck matched the observed vehicle. From these three facts, Deputy Mehrer drew the commonsense inference that Glover was likely the driver of the vehicle, which provided more than reasonable suspicion to initiate the stop. The fact that the registered owner of a vehicle is not always the driver of the vehicle does not negate the reasonableness of Deputy Mehrer's inference. Such is the case with all reasonable inferences. The reasonable suspicion inquiry "falls considerably short" of 51% accuracy, see United States v. Arvizu , 534 U.S. 266, 274, 122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740 (2002), for, as we have explained, "[t]o be reasonable is not to be perfect," Heien v. North Carolina , 574 U.S. 54, 60, 135 S.Ct. 530, 190 L.Ed.2d 475 (2014). Glover's revoked license does not render Deputy Mehrer's inference unreasonable either. Empirical studies demonstrate what common experience readily reveals: Drivers with revoked licenses frequently continue to drive and therefore to pose safety risks to other motorists and pedestrians. See, e.g. , 2 T. Neuman et al., National Coop. Hwy. Research Program Report 500: A Guide for Addressing Collisions Involving Unlicensed Drivers and Drivers With Suspended or Revoked Licenses, p. III-1 (2003) (noting that 75% of drivers with suspended or revoked licenses continue to drive); National Hwy. and Traffic Safety Admin., Research Note: Driver License Compliance Status in Fatal Crashes 2 (Oct. 2014) (noting that approximately 19% of motor vehicle fatalities from 2008-2012 "involved drivers with invalid licenses"). Although common sense suffices to justify this inference, Kansas law reinforces that it is reasonable to infer that an individual with a revoked license may continue driving. The State's license-revocation scheme covers drivers who have already demonstrated a disregard for the law or are categorically unfit to drive. The Division of Vehicles of the Kansas Department of Revenue (Division) "shall" revoke a driver's license upon certain convictions for involuntary manslaughter, vehicular homicide, battery, reckless driving, fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, or conviction of a felony in which a motor vehicle is used. Kan. Stat. Ann. §§ 8-254(a), 8-252. Reckless driving is defined as "driv[ing] any vehicle in willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property." § 8-1566(a). The Division also has discretion to revoke a license if a driver "[h]as been convicted with such frequency of serious offenses against traffic regulations governing the movement of vehicles as to indicate a disrespect for traffic laws and a disregard for the safety of other persons on the highways," "has been convicted of three or more moving traffic violations committed on separate occasions within a 12-month period," "is incompetent to drive a motor vehicle," or "has been convicted of a moving traffic violation, committed at a time when the person's driving privileges were restricted, suspended[,] or revoked." §§ 8-255(a)(1)-(4). Other reasons include violating license restrictions, § 8-245(c), being under house arrest, § 21-6609(c), and being a habitual violator, § 8-286, which Kansas defines as a resident or nonresident who has been convicted three or more times within the past five years of certain enumerated driving offenses, § 8-285. The concerns motivating the State's various grounds for revocation lend further credence to the inference that a registered owner with a revoked Kansas driver's license might be the one driving the vehicle. IV Glover and the dissent respond with two arguments as to why Deputy Mehrer lacked reasonable suspicion. Neither is persuasive. A First, Glover and the dissent argue that Deputy Mehrer's inference was unreasonable because it was not grounded in his law enforcement training or experience. Nothing in our Fourth Amendment precedent supports the notion that, in determining whether reasonable suspicion exists, an officer can draw inferences based on knowledge gained only through law enforcement training and experience. We have repeatedly recognized the opposite. In Navarette , we noted a number of behaviors-including driving in the median, crossing the center line on a highway, and swerving-that as a matter of common sense provide "sound indicia of drunk driving." 572 U.S. at 402, 134 S.Ct. 1683. In Wardlow , we made the unremarkable observation that "[h]eadlong flight-wherever it occurs-is the consummate act of evasion" and therefore could factor into a police officer's reasonable suspicion determination. 528 U.S. at 124, 120 S.Ct. 673. And in Sokolow , we recognized that the defendant's method of payment for an airplane ticket contributed to the agents' reasonable suspicion of drug trafficking because we "fe[lt] confident" that "[m]ost business travelers ... purchase airline tickets by credit card or check" rather than cash. 490 U.S. at 8-9, 109 S.Ct. 1581. So too here. The inference that the driver of a car is its registered owner does not require any specialized training; rather, it is a reasonable inference made by ordinary people on a daily basis. The dissent reads our cases differently, contending that they permit an officer to use only the common sense derived from his "experiences in law enforcement." Post , at 1196 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.). Such a standard defies the "common sense" understanding of common sense, i.e. , information that is accessible to people generally, not just some specialized subset of society. More importantly, this standard appears nowhere in our precedent. In fact, we have stated that reasonable suspicion is an "abstract" concept that cannot be reduced to "a neat set of legal rules," Arvizu , 534 U.S. at 274, 122 S.Ct. 744 (internal quotation marks omitted), and we have repeatedly rejected courts' efforts to impose a rigid structure on the concept of reasonableness, ibid. ; Sokolow , 490 U.S. at 7-8, 109 S.Ct. 1581. This is precisely what the dissent's rule would do by insisting that officers must be treated as bifurcated persons, completely precluded from drawing factual inferences based on the commonly held knowledge they have acquired in their everyday lives. The dissent's rule would also impose on police the burden of pointing to specific training materials or field experiences justifying reasonable suspicion for the myriad infractions in municipal criminal codes. And by removing common sense as a source of evidence, the dissent would considerably narrow the daylight between the showing required for probable cause and the "less stringent" showing required for reasonable suspicion. Prouse , 440 U.S. at 654, 99 S.Ct. 1391 ; see White , 496 U.S. at 330, 110 S.Ct. 2412. Finally, it would impermissibly tie a traffic stop's validity to the officer's length of service. See Devenpeck v. Alford , 543 U.S. 146, 154, 125 S.Ct. 588, 160 L.Ed.2d 537 (2004). Such requirements are inconsistent with our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, and we decline to adopt them here. In reaching this conclusion, we in no way minimize the significant role that specialized training and experience routinely play in law enforcement investigations. See, e.g. , Arvizu , 534 U.S. at 273-274, 122 S.Ct. 744. We simply hold that such experience is not required in every instance. B Glover and the dissent also contend that adopting Kansas' view would eviscerate the need for officers to base reasonable suspicion on "specific and articulable facts" particularized to the individual, see Terry , 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, because police could instead rely exclusively on probabilities. Their argument carries little force. As an initial matter, we have previously stated that officers, like jurors, may rely on probabilities in the reasonable suspicion context. See Sokolow , 490 U.S. at 8-9, 109 S.Ct. 1581 ; Cortez , 449 U.S. at 418, 101 S.Ct. 690. Moreover, as explained above, Deputy Mehrer did not rely exclusively on probabilities. He knew that the license plate was linked to a truck matching the observed vehicle and that the registered owner of the vehicle had a revoked license. Based on these minimal facts, he used common sense to form a reasonable suspicion that a specific individual was potentially engaged in specific criminal activity-driving with a revoked license. Traffic stops of this nature do not delegate to officers "broad and unlimited discretion" to stop drivers at random. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce , 422 U.S. 873, 882, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975). Nor do they allow officers to stop drivers whose conduct is no different from any other driver's. See Brown v. Texas , 443 U.S. 47, 52, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979). Accordingly, combining database information and commonsense judgments in this context is fully consonant with this Court's Fourth Amendment precedents. V This Court's precedents have repeatedly affirmed that " 'the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is "reasonableness." ' " Heien , 574 U.S. at 60, 135 S.Ct. 530 (quoting Riley v. California , 573 U.S. 373, 381, 134 S.Ct. 2473, 189 L.Ed.2d 430 (2014) ). Under the totality of the circumstances of this case, Deputy Mehrer drew an entirely reasonable inference that Glover was driving while his license was revoked. We emphasize the narrow scope of our holding. Like all seizures, "[t]he officer's action must be 'justified at its inception.' " Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court of Nev., Humboldt Cty. , 542 U.S. 177, 185, 124 S.Ct. 2451, 159 L.Ed.2d 292 (2004) (quoting United States v. Sharpe , 470 U.S. 675, 682, 105 S.Ct. 1568, 84 L.Ed.2d 605 (1985) ). "The standard takes into account the totality of the circumstances-the whole picture." Navarette , 572 U.S. at 397, 134 S.Ct. 1683 (internal quotation marks omitted). As a result, the presence of additional facts might dispel reasonable suspicion. See Terry , supra , at 28, 88 S.Ct. 1868. For example, if an officer knows that the registered owner of the vehicle is in his mid-sixties but observes that the driver is in her mid-twenties, then the totality of the circumstances would not "raise a suspicion that the particular individual being stopped is engaged in wrongdoing." Cortez , 449 U.S. at 418, 101 S.Ct. 690 ; Ornelas , 517 U.S. at 696, 116 S.Ct. 1657 (" '[e]ach case is to be decided on its own facts and circumstances' " (quoting Ker v. California , 374 U.S. 23, 33, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963) )). Here, Deputy Mehrer possessed no exculpatory information-let alone sufficient information to rebut the reasonable inference that Glover was driving his own truck-and thus the stop was justified. * * * For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the judgment of the Kansas Supreme Court, and we remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Justice KAGAN, with whom Justice GINSBURG joins, concurring. When you see a car coming down the street, your common sense tells you that the registered owner may well be behind the wheel. See ante, at 1188, 1191. Not always, of course. Families share cars; friends borrow them. Still, a person often buys a vehicle to drive it himself. So your suspicion that the owner is driving would be perfectly reasonable. See ibid. Now, though, consider a wrinkle: Suppose you knew that the registered owner of the vehicle no longer had a valid driver's license. That added fact raises a new question. What are the odds that someone who has lost his license would continue to drive? The answer is by no means obvious. You might think that a person told not to drive on pain of criminal penalty would obey the order-so that if his car was on the road, someone else (a family member, a friend) must be doing the driving. Or you might have the opposite intuition-that a person's reasons for driving would overcome his worries about violating the law, no matter the possible punishment. But most likely (let's be honest), you just wouldn't know. Especially if you've not had your own license taken away, your everyday experience has given you little basis to assess the probabilities. Your common sense can therefore no longer guide you. Even so, Deputy Mark Mehrer had reasonable suspicion to stop the truck in this case, and I join the Court's opinion holding as much. Crucially for me, Mehrer knew yet one more thing about the vehicle's registered owner, and it related to his proclivity for breaking driving laws. As the Court recounts, Mehrer learned from a state database that Charles Glover, the truck's owner, had had his license revoked under Kansas law. See ante, at 1187. And Kansas almost never revokes a license except for serious or repeated driving offenses. See Kan. Stat. Ann. § 8-254 (2001); ante, at 1188 -1189. Crimes like vehicular homicide and manslaughter, or vehicular flight from a police officer, provoke a license revocation; so too do multiple convictions for moving traffic violations within a short time. See ante, at 1188 - 1189. In other words, a person with a revoked license has already shown a willingness to flout driving restrictions. That fact, as the Court states, provides a "reason[ ] to infer" that such a person will drive without a license-at least often enough to warrant an investigatory stop. Ibid. And there is nothing else here to call that inference into question. That is because the parties' unusually austere stipulation confined the case to the facts stated above-i.e., that Mehrer stopped Glover's truck because he knew that Kansas had revoked Glover's license. But as already suggested, I would find this a different case if Kansas had barred Glover from driving on a ground that provided no similar evidence of his penchant for ignoring driving laws. Consider, for example, if Kansas had suspended rather than revoked Glover's license. Along with many other States, Kansas suspends licenses for matters having nothing to do with road safety, such as failing to pay parking tickets, court fees, or child support. See Kan. Stat. Ann. § 8-2110(b) (2018 Cum. Supp.); see also, e.g. , N. J. Stat. Ann. § 39:4-139.10 (West Supp. 2019) ; Ark. Code Ann. § 9-14-239 (Supp. 2019). Indeed, several studies have found that most license suspensions do not relate to driving at all; what they most relate to is being poor. See Brief for Fines and Fees Justice Center et al. as Amici Curiae 7. So the good reason the Court gives for thinking that someone with a revoked license will keep driving-that he has a history of disregarding driving rules-would no longer apply. And without that, the case for assuming that an unlicensed driver is at the wheel is hardly self-evident. It would have to rest on an idea about the frequency with which even those who had previously complied with driving laws would defy a State's penalty-backed command to stay off the roads. But where would that idea come from? As discussed above, I doubt whether our collective common sense could do the necessary work. See supra, at 1191 - 1192. Or otherwise said, I suspect that any common sense invoked in this altered context would not much differ from a "mere 'hunch' "-and so "not create reasonable suspicion." Prado Navarette v. California , 572 U.S. 393, 397, 134 S.Ct. 1683, 188 L.Ed.2d 680 (2014) (quoting Terry v. Ohio , 392 U.S. 1, 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) ). And even when, as under the revocation scheme here, a starting presumption of reasonable suspicion makes sense, the defendant may show that in his case additional information dictates the opposite result. The Court is clear on this point, emphasizing that under the applicable totality-of-the-circumstances test, "the presence of additional facts might dispel reasonable suspicion" even though an officer knows that a car on the road belongs to a person with a revoked license. Ante, at 1186; see ante, at 1191 (stating that further information may "negat[e] an inference that the owner is the driver of the vehicle"). Just as the Court once said of a trained drug-detection dog's "alert," the license-revocation signal is always subject to a defendant's challenge, whether through cross-examination of the officer or introduction of his own fact or expert witnesses. Florida v. Harris , 568 U.S. 237, 247, 133 S.Ct. 1050, 185 L.Ed.2d 61 (2013). That challenge may take any number of forms. The Court offers a clear example of observational evidence dispelling reasonable suspicion: if the officer knows the registered owner of a vehicle is an elderly man, but can see the driver is a young woman. See ante, at 1191. Similarly (if not as cut-and-dry), when the officer learns a car has two or more registered owners, the balance of circumstances may tip away from reasonable suspicion that the one with the revoked license is driving. And so too, the attributes of the car may be relevant. Consider if a car bears the markings of a peer-to-peer carsharing service; or compare the likelihoods that someone other than the registered owner is driving (1) a family minivan and (2) a Ferrari. The officer himself may have a wealth of accumulated information about such matters, and the defendant may probe what that knowledge suggests about the stop at issue. Such a challenge may also use statistical evidence, which is almost daily expanding in sophistication and scope. States or municipalities often keep information about "hit rates" in stops like this one-in other words, the frequency with which those stops discover unlicensed drivers behind the wheel. See generally Brief for Andrew Manuel Crespo as Amicus Curiae 23-27. Somewhat less direct but also useful are state and local data (collected by governments, insurance companies, and academics alike) about the average number of drivers for each registered automobile and the extent to which unlicensed persons continue to drive. See id., at 13-18. (If, to use an extreme example, every car had 10 associated drivers, and losing a license reduced driving time by 90%, an officer would not have reasonable suspicion for a stop.) Here too, defendants may question testifying officers about such information. Indeed, an officer may have his own hit rate, which if low enough could itself negate reasonable suspicion. See, e.g. , United States v. Cortez-Galaviz , 495 F.3d 1203, 1208-1209 (C.A.10 2007) (Gorsuch, J.) (considering, as part of the reasonable suspicion inquiry, the frequency of an officer's misses and the accuracy of the database on which he relied). In this strange case, contested on a barebones stipulation, the record contains no evidence of these kinds. There is but a single, simple fact: A police officer learned from a state database that a car on the road belonged to a person with a revoked license. Given that revocations in Kansas nearly always stem from serious or repeated driving violations, I agree with the Court about the reasonableness of the officer's inference that the owner, "Glover[,] was driving while his license was revoked." Ante, at 1191. And because Glover offered no rebuttal, there the matter stands. But that does not mean cases with more complete records will all wind up in the same place. A defendant like Glover may still be able to show that his case is different-that the "presence of additional facts" and circumstances "dispel[s] reasonable suspicion." Ibid . Which is to say that in more fully litigated cases, the license-revocation alert does not (as it did here) end the inquiry. It is but the first, though no doubt an important, step in assessing the reasonableness of the officer's suspicion. The dissent contends that this approach "pave[s] the road to finding reasonable suspicion based on nothing more than a demographic profile." Post , at 1197 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.). To alleviate any doubt, we reiterate that the Fourth Amendment requires, and Deputy Mehrer had, an individualized suspicion that a particular citizen was engaged in a particular crime. Such a particularized suspicion would be lacking in the dissent's hypothetical scenario, which, in any event, is already prohibited by our precedents. See United States v. Brignoni-Ponce , 422 U.S. 873, 876, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975) (holding that it violated the Fourth Amendment to stop and "question [a vehicle's] occupants [about their immigration status] when the only ground for suspicion [was] that the occupants appear[ed] to be of Mexican ancestry"). The dissent argues that this approach impermissibly places the burden of proof on the individual to negate the inference of reasonable suspicion. Post , at 3. Not so. As the above analysis makes clear, it is the information possessed by the officer at the time of the stop, not any information offered by the individual after the fact, that can negate the inference. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co. , 200 U.S. 321, 337, 26 S.Ct. 282, 50 L.Ed. 499. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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

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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Per Curiam. The controlling claim in this case is that there was an unreasonable search and seizure of evidence, the admission of which vitiated the convictions. Before determining these issues conflicting views as to the facts in this case and the inferences to be drawn from them would have to be resolved. The Solicitor General confesses error and asks that the judgment below should be reversed as to all the petitioners, leaving of course the way open for a new trial. To accept in this case his confession of error would not involve the establishment of any precedent. Accordingly we reverse the judgment as to all the petitioners. „ , „ Reversed. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Per Curiam. This is a proceeding brought by respondent bar associations in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York for the disbarment of petitioner from practice in that court. Petitioner had previously been convicted of contempt in the same court. See Sacher v. United States, 343 U. S. 1. The District Court, after disallowing eight of the specifications in the petition for disbarment, found as to the others that there was no conspiracy as charged therein and no moral turpitude involved, and that the proven contumacious conduct of petitioner stemmed from an excess of zeal for his clients that obscured his recognition of responsibility as an officer of the court. All of the conduct complained of occurred in one protracted trial involving many defendants and counsel. See Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494. There was no allegation or proof of prior misconduct in petitioner's twenty-four years of practice. The Court of Appeals divided upon the propriety of permanent disbarment, but unanimously questioned the importance of one of the two specifications principally relied on by the trial court. At the time the District Court made its decision in this case, the contempt judgment was under review on appeal, and it did not know and could not know that petitioner would be obliged to serve, as he did, a six months’ sentence for the same conduct for which it disbarred him. In view of this entire record and of the findings of the courts below, we are of the opinion that permanent disbarment in this case is unnecessarily severe. The judgment is reversed and the case remanded to the District Court for further consideration and appropriate action not inconsistent with this opinion. Me. Justice Burton would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. Mr. Justice Clark 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:

H

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case, respondent Murphy, who was on probation, made incriminating admissions during a meeting with his probation officer. The issue before us is whether the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the introduction into evidence of the admissions in Murphy’s subsequent criminal prosecution. I In 1974, Marshall Murphy was twice questioned by Minneapolis police concerning the rape and murder of a teenage girl. No charges were-then brought. In 1980, in connection with a prosecution for criminal sexual conduct arising out of an unrelated incident, Murphy pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of false imprisonment. He was sentenced to a prison term of 16 months, which was suspended, and three years’ probation. The terms of Murphy’s probation required, among other things, that he participate in a treatment program for sexual offenders at Alpha House, report to his probation officer as directed, and be truthful with the probation officer “in all matters.” Failure to comply with these conditions, Murphy was informed, could result in his return to the sentencing court for a probation revocation hearing. App. to Pet. for Cert. C-38 — C-35. Murphy met with his probation officer at her office approximately once a month, and his probation continued without incident until July 1981, when the officer learned that he had abandoned the treatment program. The probation officer then wrote to Murphy and informed him that failure to set up a meeting would “result in an immediate request for a warrant.” Id., at C-35. At a meeting in late July, the officer agreed not to seek revocation of probation for nonpartici-pation in the treatment program since Murphy was employed and doing well in other areas. In September 1981, an Alpha House counselor informed the probation officer that, during the course of treatment, Murphy had admitted to a rape and murder in 1974. After discussions with her superior, the officer determined that the police should have this information. She then wrote to Murphy and asked him to contact her to discuss a treatment plan for the remainder of his probationary period. Although she did not contact the police before the meeting, the probation officer knew in advance that she would report any incriminating statements. Upon receipt of the letter, Murphy arranged to meet with his probation officer in her office on September 28, 1981. The officer opened the meeting by telling Murphy about the information she had received from the Alpha House counselor and expressing her belief that this information evinced his continued need for treatment. Murphy became angry about what he considered to be a breach of his confidences and stated that he “felt like calling a lawyer.” The probation officer replied that Murphy would have to deal with that problem outside the office; for the moment, their primary concern was the relationship between the crimes that Murphy had admitted to the Alpha House counselor and the incident that led to his conviction for false imprisonment. During the course of the meeting, Murphy denied the false imprisonment charge, admitted that he had committed the rape and murder, and attempted to persuade the probation officer that further treatment was unnecessary because several extenuating circumstances explained the prior crimes. At the conclusion of the meeting, the officer told Murphy that she had a duty to relay the information to the authorities and encouraged him to turn himself in. Murphy then left the office. Two days later, Murphy called his probation officer and told her that he had been advised by counsel not to surrender himself to the police. The officer then procured the issuance of an arrest and detention order from the judge who had sentenced Murphy on the false imprisonment charge. On October 29, 1981, a state grand jury returned an indictment charging Murphy with first-degree murder. Murphy sought to suppress testimony concerning his confession on the ground that it was obtained in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The trial court found that he was not “in custody” at the time of the statement and that the confession was neither compelled nor involuntary despite the absence of warnings similar to those required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed on federal constitutional grounds. 324 N. W. 2d 340 (1982). Although recognizing that the Fifth Amendment privilege generally is not self-executing, it concluded that, notwithstanding the lack of custody in the usual sense, Murphy’s failure to claim the privilege when he was questioned was not fatal to his claim “[bjecause of the compulsory nature of the meeting, because [Murphy] was under court order to respond truthfully to his agent’s questions, and because the agent had substantial reason to believe that [Murphy’s] answers were likely to be incriminating.” Id., at 344. In the court’s view, “the agent should have warned [Murphy] of his privilege against compelled self-incrimination before she questioned him and... her failure to do so, when she had already decided to report his answers to the police, bars use of [Murphy’s] confession at this trial.” Ibid. We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among state and federal courts concerning whether a statement made by a probationer to his probation officer without prior warnings is admissible in a subsequent criminal proceeding. 459 U. S. 1145 (1983). We now reverse. I — l 1 — I The Fifth Amendment, in relevant part, provides that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to fee a witness against himself.” It has long been held that this prohibition not only permits a person to refuse to testify against himself at a criminal trial in which he is a defendant, but also “privileges him not to answer official questions put to him in any other proceeding, civil or criminal, formal or informal, where the answers might incriminate him in future criminal proceedings.” Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U. S. 70, 77 (1973). In all such proceedings, “a witness protected by the privilege may rightfully refuse to answer unless and until he is protected at least against the use of his compelled answers and evidence derived therefrom in any subsequent criminal case in which he is a defendant.... Absent such protection, if he is nevertheless compelled to answer, his answers are inadmissible against him in a later criminal prosecution.” Id., at 78 (citations omitted). A defendant does not lose this protection by reason of his conviction of a crime; notwithstanding that a defendant is imprisoned or on probation at the time he makes incriminating statements, if those statements are compelled they are inadmissible in a subsequent trial for a crime other than that for which he has been convicted. See Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U. S. 308, 316 (1976). The issue in this case is whether the Fifth Amendment right that Murphy enjoyed would be violated by the admission into evidence at his trial for another crime of the prior statements made by him to his probation officer. A We note first that the general obligation to appear and answer questions truthfully did not in itself convert Murphy’s otherwise voluntary statements into compelled ones. In that respect, Murphy was in no better position than the ordinary witness at a trial or before a grand jury who is subpoenaed, sworn to tell the truth, and obligated to answer on the pain of contempt, unless he invokes the privilege and shows that he faces a realistic threat of self-incrimination. The answers of such a witness to questions put to him are not compelled within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment unless the witness is required to answer over his valid claim of the privilege. This much is reasonably clear from our cases. As this Court has long acknowledged: “The [Fifth] Amendment speaks of compulsion. It does not preclude a witness from testifying voluntarily in matters which may incriminate him. If, therefore, he desires the protection of the privilege, he must claim it or he will not be considered to have been ‘compelled’ within the meaning of the Amendment.” United States v. Monia, 317 U. S. 424, 427 (1943) (footnote omitted). This principle has been applied in cases involving a variety of criminal and noncriminal investigations. See, e. g., United States v. Kordel, 397 U. S. 1, 7-10 (1970); Rogers v. United States, 340 U. S. 367, 370-371 (1951); United States ex rel. Vajtauer v. Commissioner of Immigration, 273 U. S. 103, 112-113 (1927). These cases, taken together, “stand for the proposition that, in the ordinary case, if a witness under compulsion to testify makes disclosures instead of claiming the privilege, the government has not ‘compelled’ him to incriminate himself.” Garner v. United States, 424 U. S. 648, 654 (1976) (footnote omitted). Witnesses who failed to claim the privilege were once said to have “waived” it, but we have recently abandoned this “vague term,” Green v. United States, 355 U. S. 184, 191 (1957), and “made clear that an individual may lose the benefit of the privilege without making a knowing and intelligent waiver.” Garner v. United States, supra, at 654, n. 9. Although we have sometimes suggested in dicta that the usual rule might give way in situations where the government has “substantial reason to believe that the requested disclosures are likely to be incriminating,” Roberts v. United States, 445 U. S. 552, 559 (1980), we have never adopted the view that a witness must “put the Government on notice by formally availing himself of the privilege” only when he alone “is reasonably aware of the incriminating tendency of the questions.” Id., at 562, n.* (Brennan, J., concurring). It has long been recognized that “[t]he Constitution does not forbid the asking of criminative questions,” United States v. Monia, supra, at 433 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting), and nothing in our prior cases suggests that the incriminating nature of a question, by itself, excuses a timely assertion of the privilege. See, e. g., United States v. Mandujano, 425 U. S. 564, 574-575 (1976) (plurality opinion). If a witness — even one under a general compulsion to testify — answers a question that both he and the government should reasonably expect to incriminate him, the Court need ask only whether the particular disclosure was “compelled” within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment. United States v. Kordel, supra, perhaps the first case squarely to hold that a witness under compulsion to make disclosures must assert the privilege in a timely manner, is illustrative. In answering interrogatories submitted by the Government in a civil case against a corporation, a corporate officer who had been notified of contemplated criminal action against him supplied evidence and leads helpful in securing his indictment and conviction. Although the relationship between the civil and criminal actions was clear and “[w]ithout question [the officer] could have invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege,” id., at 7, he did not do so. The Court concluded without hesitation that “[h]is failure at any time to assert the constitutional privilege leaves him in no position to complain now that he was compelled to give testimony against himself.” Id., at 10 (footnote omitted). B Thus it is that a witness confronted with questions that the government should reasonably expect to elicit incriminating evidence ordinarily must assert the privilege rather than answer if he desires not to incriminate himself. If he asserts the privilege, he “may not be required to answer a question if there is some rational basis for believing that it will incriminate him, at least without at that time being assured that neither it nor its fruits may be used against him” in a subsequent criminal proceeding. Maness v. Meyers, 419 U. S. 449, 473 (1975) (White, J., concurring in result) (emphasis in original). But if he chooses to answer, his choice is considered to be voluntary since he was free to claim the privilege and would suffer no penalty as the result of his decision to do so. As the Minnesota Supreme Court recognized, application of this general rule is inappropriate in certain well-defined situations. In each of those situations, however, some identifiable factor “was held to deny the individual a ‘free choice to admit, to deny, or to refuse to answer.’” Garner v. United States, supra, at 657 (quoting Lisenba v. California, 314 U. S. 219, 241 (1941)). Because we conclude that no such factor was present here, we hold that the Minnesota Supreme Court erred in excluding the probation officer’s testimony. 1 A well-known exception to the general rule addresses the problem of confessions obtained from suspects in police custody. Not only is custodial interrogation ordinarily conducted by officers who are “acutely aware of the potentially incriminatory nature of the disclosures sought,” Garner v. United States, 424 U. S., at 657, but also the custodial setting is thought to contain “inherently compelling pressures which work to undermine the individual’s will to resist and to compel him to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely.” Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S., at 467. See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 246-247 (1973). To dissipate “the overbearing compulsion... caused by isolation of a suspect in police custody,” United States v. Washington, 431 U. S. 181, 187, n. 5 (1977), the Miranda Court required the exclusion of incriminating statements obtained during custodial interrogation unless the suspect fails to claim the Fifth Amendment privilege after being suitably warned of his right to remain silent and of the consequences of his failure to assert it. 384 U. S., at 467-469, 475-477. We have consistently held, however, that this extraordinary safeguard “does not apply outside the context of the inherently coercive custodial interrogations for which it was designed.” Roberts v. United States, supra, at 560. The Minnesota Supreme Court recognized that Murphy was not “in custody” when he made his incriminating admissions. He was, to be sure, subject to a number of restrictive conditions governing various aspects of his life, and he would be regarded as “in custody” for purposes of federal habeas corpus. See Jones v. Cunningham, 371 U. S. 236, 241-243 (1963). But custody in that context has been defined broadly to effectuate the purposes of the writ, id., at 243; Hensley v. Municipal Court, 411 U. S. 345, 349-351 (1973), and custody for Miranda purposes has been more narrowly circumscribed. See Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U. S. 492 (1977) (per curiam). Under the narrower standard appropriate in the Miranda context, it is clear that Murphy was not “in custody” for purposes of receiving Miranda protection since there was no “ ‘formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement’ of the degree associated with a formal arrest.” Cali fornia v. Beheler, 463 U. S. 1121, 1125 (1983) (per curiam) (quoting Oregon v. Mathiason, supra, at 495). Notwithstanding the inapplicability of Miranda, the Minnesota Supreme Court held that the probation officer’s failure to inform Murphy of the Fifth Amendment privilege barred use of his confession at trial. Four factors have been advanced in support of this conclusion, but we find them, alone or in combination, insufficient to excuse Murphy’s failure to claim the privilege in a timely manner. First, the probation officer could compel Murphy’s attendance and truthful answers. The Minnesota Supreme Court failed to explain how this transformed a routine interview into an inherently coercive setting. In our view, this factor subjected Murphy to less intimidating pressure than is imposed on grand jury witnesses, who are sworn to tell the truth and placed in a setting conducive to truthtelling. Although warnings in both contexts might serve to dissipate “any possible coercion or unfairness resulting from a witness’ misimpression that he must answer truthfully even questions with incriminating] aspects,” United States v. Washington, 431 U. S., at 188, we have never held that they must be given to grand jury witnesses, id., at 186, and we decline to require them here since the totality of the circumstances is not such as to overbear a probationer’s free will. See Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U. S. 534, 544 (1961). Second, the probation officer consciously sought incriminating evidence. We have already explained that this factor does not give rise to a self-executing privilege, supra, at 428, and we pause here only to emphasize that police officers questioning persons suspected of crimes often consciously seek incriminating statements. The mere fact that an investigation has focused on a suspect does not trigger the need for Miranda warnings in noncustodial settings, Beckwith v. United States, 425 U. S. 341 (1976), and the probation officer’s knowledge and intent have no bearing on the outcome of this case. Third, Murphy did not expect questions about prior criminal conduct and could not seek counsel before attending the meeting. But the nature of probation is such that probationers should expect to be questioned on a wide range of topics relating to their past criminality. Moreover, the probation officer’s letter, which suggested a need to discuss treatment from which Murphy had already been excused, would have led a reasonable probationer to conclude that new information had come to her attention. In any event, Murphy’s situation was in this regard indistinguishable from that facing suspects who are questioned in noncustodial settings and grand jury witnesses who are unaware of the scope of an investigation or that they are considered potential defendants. See United States v. Washington, supra, at 188-189; Beckwith v. United States, supra, at 346-348. Fourth, there were no observers to guard against abuse or trickery. Again, this often will be true when a suspect is subjected to noncustodial interrogation, where no warnings are required. Murphy does not allege that the probation officer was not legitimately concerned with the need for further treatment, and we cannot conclude that her actions would have led a reasonable probationer to believe that his statements to her would remain confidential. A probationer cannot pretend ignorance of the fact that his probation officer “is a peace officer, and as such is allied, to a greater or lesser extent, with his fellow peace officers.” Fare v. Michael C., 442 U. S. 707, 720 (1979). See Cabell v. Chavez-Salido, 454 U. S. 432, 447 (1982). Absent some express or implied promise to the contrary, he may also be charged with knowledge that “the probation officer is duty bound to report wrongdoing by the [probationer] when it comes to his attention, even if by communication from the [probationer] himself.” Fare v. Michael C., supra, at 720. The fact that Murphy apparently expressed no surprise on being informed that his statements would be made available to the police, moreover, strongly suggests that he was not misled by any expectation that his statements would remain confidential. See App. to Pet. for Cert. C-21 (testimony of Mara Widseth); id., at C-28 (testimony of Marshall Murphy). Even a cursory comparison of custodial interrogation and probation interviews reveals the inaptness of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s analogy to Miranda. Custodial arrest is said to convey to the suspect a message that he has no choice but to submit to the officers’ will and to confess. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S., at 456-457. It is unlikely that a probation interview, arranged by appointment at a mutually convenient time, would give rise to a similar impression. Moreover, custodial arrest thrusts an individual into “an unfamiliar atmosphere” or “an interrogation environment... created for no purpose other than to subjugate the individual to the will of his examiner.” Id., at 457. Many of the psychological ploys discussed in Miranda capitalize on the suspect’s unfamiliarity with the officers and the environment. Murphy’s regular meetings with his probation officer should have served to familiarize him with her and her office and to insulate him from psychological intimidation that might overbear his desire to claim the privilege. Finally, the coercion inherent in custodial interrogation derives in large measure from an interrogator’s insinuations that the interrogation will continue until a confession is obtained. Id., at 468. Since Murphy was not physically restrained and could have left the office, any compulsion he might have felt from the possibility that terminating the meeting would have led to revocation of probation was not comparable to the pressure on a suspect who is painfully aware that he literally cannot escape a persistent custodial interrogator. We conclude, therefore, that Murphy cannot claim the benefit of the first exception to the general rule that the Fifth Amendment privilege is not self-executing. 2 The general rule that the privilege must be claimed when self-incrimination is threatened has also been deemed inapplicable in cases where the assertion of the privilege is penalized so as to “foreclos[e] a free choice to remain silent, and... compe[l]... incriminating testimony.” Garner v. United States, 424 U. S., at 661. Because revocation of his probation was threatened if he was untruthful with his probation officer, Murphy argues that he was compelled to make incriminating disclosures instead of claiming the privilege. Although this contention is not without force, we find it unpersuasive on close examination. In each of the so-called “penalty” cases, the State not only compelled an individual to appear and testify, but also sought to induce him to forgo the Fifth Amendment privilege by threatening to impose economic or other sanctions “capable of forcing the self-incrimination which the Amendment forbids.” Lefkowitz v. Cunningham, 431 U. S. 801, 806 (1977). In most of the cases, the attempt to override the witnesses’ privilege proved unsuccessful, and the Court ruled that the State could not constitutionally make good on its prior threat. Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U. S., at 79-84; Sanitation Men v. Commissioner of Sanitation, 392 U. S. 280, 283-284 (1968); Gardner v. Broderick, 392 U. S. 273, 278-279 (1968). These cases make clear that “a State may not impose substantial penalties because a witness elects to exercise his Fifth Amendment right not to give incriminating testimony against himself.” Lefkowitz v. Cunningham, supra, at 805. Occasionally, however, an individual succumbed to the pressure placed upon him, failed to assert the privilege, and disclosed incriminating information, which the State later sought to use against him in a criminal prosecution. Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U. S. 493 (1967), was such a case, and the Court held that an individual threatened with discharge from employment for exercising the privilege had not waived it by responding to questions rather than standing on his right to remain silent. Id., at 498-499. The threat of punishment for reliance on the privilege distinguishes cases of this sort from the ordinary case in which a witness is merely required to appear and give testimony. A State may require a probationer to appear and discuss matters that affect his probationary status; such a requirement, without more, does not give rise to a self-executing privilege. The result may be different if the questions put to the probationer, however relevant to his probationary status, call for answers that would incriminate him in a pending or later criminal prosecution. There is thus a substantial basis in our cases for concluding that if the State, either expressly or by implication, asserts that invocation of the privilege would lead to revocation of probation, it would have created the classic penalty situation, the failure to assert the privilege would be excused, and the probationer’s answers would be deemed compelled and inadmissible in a criminal prosecution. Even so we must inquire whether Murphy’s probation conditions merely required him to appear and give testimony about matters relevant to his probationary status or whether they went further and required him to choose between making incriminating statements and jeopardizing his conditional liberty by remaining silent. Because we conclude that Minnesota did not attempt to take the extra, impermissible step, we hold that Murphy’s Fifth Amendment privilege was not self-executing. As we have already indicated, Murphy was informed that he was required to be truthful with his probation officer in all matters and that failure to do so could result in revocation of probation. The opinion of the Minnesota Supreme Court made clear that this was indeed the case, but its conclusion that the probation officer’s failure to give Murphy adequate warnings barred the use of his incriminating statements in the criminal trial did not rest on the ground that a refusal to furnish incriminating information would have justified revocation of probation. Although the court recognized that imposing a penalty for a valid exercise of the Fifth Amendment privilege could impermissibly foreclose a free choice to remain silent, 324 N. W. 2d, at 342-343, it did not purport to find that Minnesota’s probation revocation statute had such an effect. The court relied instead on the fact that Murphy was under legal compulsion to attend the meeting and to answer truthfully the questions of a probation officer who anticipated incriminating answers. Id., at 344. Such compulsion, however, is indistinguishable from that felt by any witness who is required to appear and give testimony, and, as we have already made clear, it is insufficient to excuse Murphy’s failure to exercise the privilege in a timely manner. The state court did not attempt to define the precise contours of Murphy’s obligation to respond to questions. On its face, Murphy’s probation condition proscribed only false statements; it said nothing about his freedom to decline to answer particular questions and certainly contained no suggestion that his probation was conditional on his waiving his Fifth Amendment privilege with respect to further criminal prosecution. “At this point in our history virtually every schoolboy is familiar with the concept, if not the language, of the [Fifth Amendment].” Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U. S. 433, 439 (1974). Yet Murphy, although he had a right to do so, see State v. Austin, 295 N. W. 2d 246 (Minn. 1980), did not seek clarification of the condition. Without the benefit of an authoritative state-court construction of the condition, we are hesitant to read into the truthfulness requirement an additional obligation that Murphy refi'ain from raising legitimate objections to furnishing information that might lead to his conviction for another crime. Whether we employ a subjective or an objective test, there is no reasonable basis for concluding that Minnesota attempted to attach an impermissible penalty to the exercise of the privilege against self-incrimination. There is no direct evidence that Murphy confessed because he feared that his probation would be revoked if he remained silent. Unlike the police officers in Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U. S. 493 (1967), Murphy was not expressly informed during the crucial meeting with his probation officer that an assertion of the privilege would result in the imposition of a penalty. And the fact that Murphy apparently felt no compunction about adamantly denying the false imprisonment charge on which he had been convicted before admitting to the rape and murder strongly suggests that the “threat” of revocation did not overwhelm his resistance. If Murphy did harbor a belief that his probation might be revoked for exercising the Fifth Amendment privilege, that belief would not have been reasonable. Our decisions have made clear that the State could not constitutionally carry out a threat to revoke probation for the legitimate exercise of the Fifth Amendment privilege. It is not surprising, then, that neither the state court nor any state officer has suggested otherwise. Indeed, in its brief in this Court, the State submits that it would not, and legally could not, revoke probation for refusing to answer questions calling for information that would incriminate in separate criminal proceedings. Brief for Petitioner 36-39, and n. 7. See also Tr. of Oral Arg. 7-8, 10-14. Minnesota’s revocation statute, which was accurately summarized in Murphy’s notice of probation, see App. to Pet. for Cert. C-33 — C-34, authorizes revocation “[w]hen it appears that the defendant has violated any of the conditions of his probation or has otherwise been guilty of misconduct which warrants the imposing or execution of sentence.” Minn. Stat. § 609.14 (1982). Revocation is not automatic under this provision. Even if the probation officer desires revocation, a probationer must be afforded a hearing, Pearson v. State, 308 Minn. 287, 289-290, 241 N. W. 2d 490, 492-493 (1976); State ex rel. Halverson v. Young, 278 Minn. 381, 386-387, 154 N. W. 2d 699, 702-703 (1967), and the court must find that he violated a specific condition, that the violation was intentional or inexcusable, and that the need for confinement outweighs the policies favoring probation. State v. Austin, supra, at 250. We have not been advised of any case in which Minnesota has attempted to revoke probation merely because a probationer refused to make nonimmunized disclosures concerning his own criminal conduct; and, in light of our decisions proscribing threats of penalties for the exercise of Fifth Amendment rights, Murphy could not reasonably have feared that the assertion of the privilege would have led to revocation. Accordingly, we cannot conclude that Murphy was deterred from claiming the privilege by a reasonably perceived threat of revocation. 3 A third exception to the general requirement of a timely assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege, closely related to the penalty exception, has been developed in the context of the federal occupational and excise taxes on gamblers. In recognition of the pervasive criminal regulation of gambling activities and the fact that claiming the privilege in lieu of filing a return would tend to incriminate, the Court has held that the privilege may be exercised by failing to file. Marchetti v. United States, 390 U. S. 39 (1968); Grosso v. United States, 390 U. S. 62 (1968). See also Mackey v. United States, 401 U. S. 667 (1971). “[MJaking a claim of privilege when the disclosures were requested, i. e., when the returns were due, would have identified the claimant as a gambler. The Court therefore forgave the usual requirement that the claim of privilege be presented for evaluation in favor of a ‘claim’ by silence.... If a particular gambler would not have incriminated himself by filing the tax returns, the privilege would not justify a failure to file.” Garner v. United States, 424 U. S., at 658-659, n. 11. But, while a taxpayer who claims the privilege instead of filing gambling tax returns necessarily identifies himself as a gambler, a probationer confronted with incriminating questions ordinarily will have no problem effectively claiming the privilege at the time disclosures are requested. There exists, therefore, no reason to forgive the requirement that the claim be presented for evaluation in a timely manner. H-1 HH t — i We conclude, in summary, that since Murphy revealed incriminating information instead of timely asserting his Fifth Amendment privilege, his disclosures were not compelled incriminations. Because he had not been compelled to incriminate himself, Murphy could not successfully invoke the privilege to prevent the information he volunteered to his probation officer from being used against him in a criminal prosecution. The judgment of the Minnesota Supreme Court is Reversed. The parties stipulated in the trial court that Alpha House was covered by federal statutes providing for the confidentiality of patient records in federally assisted drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs, 21 U. S. C. §1175 and 42 U. S. C. §4582, and the regulations adopted pursuant thereto, 42 CFR pt. 2 (1982). Although the Alpha House counselor legitimately informed Murphy’s probation officer of his incriminating admissions, we assume, without deciding, that the counselor could not have provided the information to the police. See id., §§ 2.39(a), 2.63; Tr. of Oral Arg. 6. We assume, as well, that the probation officer could not have made the counselor’s information available for use in a criminal prosecution. See 42 CFR § 2.39(d) (1982); Tr. of Oral Arg. 6-7. It is unclear whether the probation officer could have ordered Murphy to pursue additional treatment as a condition of probation. App. to Pet. for Cert. C-14 (testimony of Mara Widseth). But there is no evidence that she used treatment as a subterfuge or that her sole purpose was to obtain incriminating statements for the police. Under our view of the case, such a purpose would not change the result. Infra, at 428, 431. The trial court concluded that Murphy’s statement did not constitute an invocation of the privilege against self-incrimination: “[Wlhatever his real intent may have been, we are persuaded by the probation officer’s testimony that he did not express [the] desire [to talk to an attorney] in any context other than a civil suit for the breach of confidentiality.” App. to Pet. for Cert. B-13 — B-14. The Minnesota Supreme Court did not reach this question, and, although we see no reason to question the trial court’s factual finding, our analysis of the case makes further consideration unnecessary. Although a request for a lawyer during custodial interrogation is sufficient to invoke the privilege against self-incrimination, Fare v. Michael C., 442 U. S. 707, 709 (1979), Murphy was not in custody, infra, at 433, and he had no federal right to have an attorney present at the meeting. See United States v. Rea, 678 F. 2d 382, 390 (CA2 1982); People v. Ronald W., 31 App. Div. 2d 163, 165, 295 N. Y. S. 2d 767, 769 (1968), aff’d, 24 N. Y. 2d 732, 249 N. E. 2d 882 (1969); Hughes v. Gwinn, - W. Va. -, -, 290 S. E. 2d 5, 7 (1981). Compare, e. g., United States v. Steele, 419 F. Supp. 1385, 1386-1387 (WD Pa. 1976); People v. Garcia, 240 Cal. App. 2d 9, 12-13, 49 Cal. Rptr. 146, 148 (1966); and State v. Lekas, 201 Kan. 579, 582-584, 442 P. 2d 11, 15-16 (1968), with, e. g., United States v. Miller, 643 F. 2d 713, 715 (CA10 1981); United States v. Holmes, 594 F. 2d 1167 (CA8), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 873 (1979); Nettles v. State, 248 So. 2d 259, 260 (Fla. App. 1971); Connell v. State, 131 Ga. App. 213, 205 S. E. 2d 513, 514 (1974); State v Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 Kagan delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case, a Federal District Court enjoined a state court from considering a plaintiff’s request to approve a class action. The District Court did so because it had earlier denied a motion to certify a class in a related case, brought by a different plaintiff against the same defendant alleging similar claims. The federal court thought its injunction appropriate to prevent relitigation of the issue it had decided. We hold to the contrary. In issuing this order to a state court, the federal court exceeded its authority under the “relitigation exception” to the Anti-Injunction Act. That statutory provision permits a federal court to enjoin a state proceeding only in rare cases, when necessary to “protect or effectuate [the federal court’s] judgments.” 28 U. S. C. §2283. Here, that standard was not met for two reasons. First, the issue presented in the state court was not identical to the one decided in the federal tribunal. And second, the plaintiff in the state court did not have the requisite connection to the federal suit to be bound by the District Court’s judgment. I Because the question before us involves the effect of a former adjudication on this case, we begin our statement of the facts not with this lawsuit, but with another. In August 2001, George McCollins sued respondent Bayer Corporation in the Circuit Court of Cabell County, West Virginia, asserting various state-law claims arising from Bayer’s sale of an allegedly hazardous prescription drug called Baycol (which Bayer withdrew from the market that same month). McCol-lins contended that Bayer had violated West Virginia’s consumer protection statute and the company’s express and implied warranties by selling him a defective product. And pursuant to West Virginia Rule of Civil Procedure 23 (2011), MeCollins asked the state court to certify a class of West Virginia residents who had also purchased Baycol, so that the case could proceed as á class action. Approximately one month later, the suit now before us began in a different part of West Virginia. Petitioners Keith Smith and Shirley Sperlazza (Smith for short) filed state-law claims against Bayer, similar to those raised in MeCollins’ suit, in the Circuit Court of Brooke County, West Virginia. And like MeCollins, Smith asked the court to certify under West Virginia’s Rule 23 a class of Baycol purchasers residing in the State. Neither Smith nor MeCollins knew about the other’s suit. In January 2002, Bayer removed MeCollins’ case to the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia on the basis of diversity jurisdiction. See 28 U. S. C. §§ 1332, 1441. The case was then transferred to the District of Minnesota pursuant to a preexisting order of the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation, which had consolidated all federal suits involving Baycol (numbering in the tens of thousands) before a single District Court Judge. See §1407. Bayer, however, could not remove Smith’s case to federal court because Smith had sued several West Virginia defendants in addition to Bayer, and so the suit lacked complete diversity. See § 1441(b). Smith’s suit thus remained in the state courthouse in Brooke County. Over the next six years, the two cases proceeded along their separate pretrial paths at roughly the same pace. By 2008, both courts were preparing to turn to their respective plaintiffs’ motions for class certification. The Federal District Court was the first to reach a decision. Applying Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, the District Court declined to certify McCollins’ proposed class of West Virginia Baycol purchasers. The District Court’s reasoning proceeded in two steps. The court first ruled that, under West Virginia law, each plaintiff would have to prove “actual injury” from his use of Baycol to recover. App. to Pet. for Cert. 44a. The court then held that because the necessary showing of harm would vary from plaintiff to plaintiff, “individual issues of fact predominate^]” over issues common to all members of the proposed class, and so the case was not suitable for class treatment. Id., at 45a. In the same order, the District Court also dismissed McCollins’ claims on the merits in light of his failure to demonstrate physical injury from his use of Baycol. McCollins chose not to appeal. Although McCollins’ suit was now concluded, Bayer asked the District Court for another order based upon it, this one affecting Smith’s case in West Virginia. In a motion — receipt of which first apprised Smith of McCollins’ suit — Bayer explained that the proposed class in Smith’s ease was identical to the one the federal court had just rejected. Bayer therefore requested that the federal court enjoin the West Virginia state court from hearing Smith’s motion to certify a class. According to Bayer, that order was appropriate to protect the District Court’s judgment in McCollins’ suit denying class certification. The District Court agreed and granted the injunction. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. In re Baycol Prods. Litigation, 593 F. 3d 716 (2010). The court noted that the Anti-Injunction Act generally prohibits federal courts from enjoining state court proceedings. But the court held that the Act’s relitigation exception authorized the injunction here because ordinary rules of issue preclusion barred Smith from seeking certification of his proposed class. According to the court, Smith was invoking a similar class action rule as McCollins had used to seek certification “of the same class” in a stdt alleging “the same legal theories,” id., at 724; the issue in the state court therefore was “sufficiently identical” to the one the federal court had decided to warrant preclusion, ibid. In addition, the court held, the parties in the two proceedings were sufficiently alike: Because Smith was an unnamed member of the class McCollins had proposed, and because their “interests were aligned,” Smith was appropriately bound by the federal court’s judgment. Ibid. We granted certiorari, 561 U. S. 1057 (2010), because the order issued here implicates two circuit splits arising from application of the Anti-Injunction Act’s relitigation exception. The first involves the requirement of preclusion law that a subsequent suit raise the “same issue” as a previous case. The second concerns the scope of the rule that a court’s judgment cannot bind nonparties. We think the District Court erred on both grounds when it granted the injunction, and we now reverse. HH HH The Anti-Injunction Act, first enacted in 1793, provides: “A court of the United States may not grant an injunction to stay proceedings in a State court except as expressly authorized by Act of Congress, or where necessary in aid of its jurisdiction, or to protect or effectuate its judgments.” 28 U. S. C. § 2283. The statute, we have recognized, “is a necessary concomitant of the Framers' decision to authorize, and Congress’ decision to implement, a dual system of federal and state courts.” Chick Kam Choo v. Exxon Corp., 486 U. S. 140, 146 (1988). And the Act’s core message is one of respect for state courts. The Act broadly commands that those tribunals “shall remain free from interference by federal courts.” Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Locomotive Engineers, 398 U. S. 281, 282 (1970). That edict is subject to only “three specifically defined exceptions.” Id., at 286. And those exceptions, though designed for important purposes, “are narrow and are ‘not [to] be enlarged by loose statutory construction.’” Chick Kam Choo, 486 U. S., at 146 (quoting Atlantic Coast Line, 398 U. S., at 287; alteration in original). Indeed, “[a]ny doubts as to the propriety of a federal injunction against state court proceedings should be resolved in favor of permitting the state courts to proceed.” Id., at 297. This case involves the last of the Act’s three exceptions, known as the relitigation exception. That exception is designed to implement “well-recognized concepts” of claim and issue preclusion. Chick Kam Choo, 486 U. S., at 147. The provision authorizes an injunction to prevent state litigation of a claim or issue “that previously was presented to and decided by the federal court.” Ibid. But in applying this exception, we have taken special care to keep it “strict and narrow.” Id., at 148. After all, a court does not usually “get to dictate to other courts the preclusion consequences of its own judgment.” 18 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure §4405, p. 82 (2d ed. 2002) (hereinafter Wright & Miller): ■ Deciding whether and how prior litigation has preclusive effect is usually the bailiwick of the second court (here, the one in West Virginia). So issuing an injunction under the relitigation exception is resorting to heavy artillery. For that reason, every benefit of the doubt goes toward the state court, see Atlantic Coast Line, 398 U. S., at 287, 297; an injunction can issue only if preclusion is clear beyond peradventure. The question here is whether the federal court’s rejection of McCollins’ proposed class precluded a later adjudication in state court of Smith’s certification motion. For the federal court’s determination of the class issue to have this preclu-sive effect, at least two conditions must be met. First, the issue the federal court decided must be the same as the one presented in the state tribunal. See 18 Wright & Miller § 4417, at 412. And second, Smith must have been a party to the federal suit, or else must fall within one of a few discrete exceptions to the general rule against binding nonparties. See 18A id., § 4449, at 330. In fact, as we will explain, the issues before the two courts were not the same, and Smith was neither a party nor the exceptional kind of nonparty who can be bound. So the courts below erred in finding the certification issue precluded, and erred all the more in thinking an injunction appropriate. A In our most recent case on the relitigation exception, Chick Kam Choo v. Exxon, we applied the “same issue” requirement of preclusion law to invalidate a federal court’s injunction. 486 U. S., at 151. The federal court had dismissed a suit involving Singapore law on grounds of forum non conveniens. After the plaintiff brought the same claim in Texas state court, the federal court issued an injunction barring the plaintiff from pursuing relief in that alternate forum. We held that the District Court had gone too far. “[A]n essential prerequisite for applying the relitigation exception,” we explained, “is that the... issues which the federal injunction insulates from litigation in state proceedings actually have been decided by the federal court.” Id., at 148. That prerequisite, we thought, was not satisfied because the issue to be adjudicated in state court was not the one the federal court had resolved. The federal court had considered the permissibility of the claim under federal forum non conveniens principles. But the Texas courts, we thought, “would apply a significantly different forum non conveniens analysis,” id., at 149; they had in prior cases rejected the strictness of the federal doctrine. Our conclusion followed: “[W]hether the Texas state courts are an appropriate forum for [the plaintiff’s] Singapore law claims has not yet been litigated.” Ibid. Because the legal standards in the two courts differed, the issues before the courts differed, and an injunction was unwarranted. The question here closely resembles the one in Chick Kam Choo. The class Smith proposed in state court mirrored the class McCollins sought to certify in federal court: Both included all Baycol purchasers resident in West Virginia. Moreover, the substantive claims in the two suits broadly overlapped: Both complaints alleged that Bayer had sold a defective product in violation of the State’s consumer protection law and the company’s warranties. So far, so good for preclusion. But not so fast: a critical question — the question of the applicable legal standard — remains. The District Court ruled that the proposed class did not meet the requirements of Federal Rule 23 (because individualized issues would predominate over common ones). But the state court was poised to consider whether the proposed class satisfied West Virginia Rule 23. If those two legal standards differ (as federal and state forum non conveniens law differed in Chick Kam Choo) — then the federal court resolved an issue not before the state court. In that event, much like in Chick Kam Choo, “whether the [West "Virginia] state cour[t]” should certify the proposed class action “has not yet been litigated.” 486 U. S., at 149. The Court of Appeals and Smith offer us two competing ways of deciding whether the West Virginia and Federal Rules differ, but we think the right path lies somewhere in the middle. The Eighth Circuit relied almost exclusively on the near-identity of the two Rules’ texts. See 593 F. 3d, at 723. That was the right place to start, but not to end. Federal and state courts, after all, can and do apply identically worded procedural provisions in widely varying ways. If a State’s procedural provision tracks the language of a Federal Rule, but a state court interprets that provision in a manner federal courts have not, then the state court is using a different standard and thus deciding a different issue. See 18 Wright & Miller § 4417, at 454 (stating that preclusion is “inappropriate” when “different legal standards... masquer-ad[e] behind similar legal labels”). At the other extreme, Smith contends that the source of law is all that matters: a different sovereign must in each and every case “ ‘have the opportunity, if it chooses, to construe its procedural rule differently/ ” Brief for Petitioners 22 (quoting ALI, Principles of the Law, Aggregate Litigation §2.11, Reporters’ Notes, Comment b, p. 179 (2010)). But if state courts have made crystal clear that they follow the same approach as the federal court applied, we see no need to ignore that determination; in that event, the issues in the two cases would indeed be the same. So a federal court considering whether the relitigation exception applies should examine whether state law parallels its federal counterpart. But as suggested earlier, see supra, at 307, the federal court must resolve any uncertainty on that score by leaving the question of preclusion to the state courts. Under this approach, the West Virginia Supreme Court has gone some way toward resolving the matter before us by declaring its independence from federal courts’ interpretation of the Federal Rules — and particularly of Rule 23. In In re W Va. Rezulin Litigation, 214 W. Va. 52, 585 S. E. 2d 52 (2003) (In re Rezulin), the West Virginia high court considered a plaintiff’s motion to certify a class — coincidentally enough, in a suit about an allegedly defective pharmaceutical product. The court made a point of complaining about the parties’ and lower court’s near-exclusive reliance on federal cases about Federal Rule 23 to decide the certification question. Such cases, the court cautioned, “ ‘may be persuasive, but [they are] not binding or controlling.’” Id., at 61, 585 S. E. 2d, at 61. And lest anyone mistake the import of this message, the court went on: The aim of “this rule is to avoid having our legal analysis of our Rules ‘amount to nothing more than Pavlovian responses to federal decisional law.’ ” Ibid, (emphasis deleted). Of course, the state courts might still have adopted an approach to their Rule 23 that tracked the analysis the federal court used in McCollins’ case. But absent clear evidence that the state courts had done so, we could not conclude that they would interpret their Rule in the same way. And if that is so, we could not tell whether the certification issues in the state and federal courts were the same. That uncertainty would preclude an injunction. But here the case against an injunction is even stronger, because the West Virginia Supreme Court has disapproved the approach to Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement that the Federal District Court embraced. Recall that the federal court held that the presence of a single individualized issue — injury from the use of Baycol — prevented class certification. See supra, at 304. The court did not identify the common issues in the case; nor did it balance these common issues against the need to prove individual injury to determine which predominated. The court instead applied a strict test barring class treatment when proof of each plaintiff’s injury is necessary. By contrast, the West Virginia Supreme Court in In re Rezulin adopted an all-things-considered, balancing inquiry in interpreting its Rule 23. Rejecting any “rigid test,’’ the state court opined that the predominance requirement “contemplates a review of many factors.” 214 W. Va., at 72, 585 S. E. 2d, at 72. Indeed, the court noted, a “ ‘single common issue’ ” in a case could outweigh “‘numerous... individual questions.’” Ibid. That meant, the court further explained (quoting what it termed the “leading treatise” on the subject), that even objections to certification “ ‘based on... causation, or reliance’ ” — which typically involve showings of individual injury — “‘will not bar predominance satisfaction.’” Ibid, (quoting 2 A. Conte & H. Newberg, Newberg on Class Actions §4.26, p. 241 (4th ed. 2002)). So point for point, the analysis set out in In re Rezulin diverged from the District Court’s interpretation of Federal Rule 23. A state court using the In re Rezulin standard would decide a different question than the one the federal court had earlier resolved. This case, indeed, is little more than a rerun of Chick Earn Choo. A federal court and a state court apply different law. That means they decide distinct questions. The federal court’s resolution of one issue does not preclude the state court’s determination of another. It then goes without saying that the federal court may not issue an injunction. The AwA-Injunetion Act’s re-litigation exception does not extend nearly so far. B The injunction issued here runs into another basic premise of preclusion law: A court’s judgment binds only the parties to a suit, subject to a handful of discrete and limited exceptions. See, e.g., 18A Wright & Miller.§4449, at 330. The importance of this rule and the narrowness of its exceptions go hand in hand. We have repeatedly “emphasize[d] the fundamental nature of the general rule” that only parties can be bound by prior judgments; accordingly, we have taken a “constrained approach to nonparty preclusion.” Taylor v. Sturgell, 553 U. S. 880, 898 (2008). Against this backdrop, Bayer defends the decision below by arguing that Smith— an unnamed member of a proposed but uncertified class— qualifies as a party to the McCollins litigation. See Brief for Respondent 32-34. Alternatively, Bayer claims that the District Court’s judgment binds Smith under the recognized exception to the rule against nonparty preclusion for members of class actions. See id., at 34-39. We think neither contention has merit. Bayer’s first claim ill-comports with any proper understanding of what a “party” is. In general, “[a] ‘party* to litigation is ‘[o]ne by or against whom a lawsuit is brought,’” United States ex rel. Eisenstein v. City of New York, 556 U. S. 928, 933 (2009), or one who “become[s] a party by intervention, substitution, or third-party practice,” Karcher v. May, 484 U. S. 72, 77 (1987). And we have further held that an unnamed member of a certified class may be “considered a ‘party’ for the [particular] purpos[e] of appealing” an adverse judgment. Devlin v. Scardelletti, 536 U. S. 1, 7 (2002). But as the dissent in Devlin noted, no one in that case was “willing to advance the novel and surely erroneous argument that a nonnamed class member is a party to the class-action litigation before the class is certified.” Id., at 16, n. 1 (opinion of Scalia, J.). Still less does that argument make sense once certification is denied. The definition of the term “party” can on no account be stretched so far as to cover a person like Smith, whom the plaintiff in a lawsuit was denied leave to represent. If the judgment in the McCollins litigation can indeed bind Smith, it must do so under principles of non-party preclusion. As Bayer notes, see Brief for Respondent 37, one such principle allows unnamed members of a class action to be bound, even though they are not parties to the suit. See Cooper v. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, 467 U. S. 867, 874 (1984) (“[Ujnder elementary principles of prior adjudication a judgment in a properly entertained class action is binding on class members in any subsequent litigation”); see also Taylor, 553 U. S., at 894 (stating that nonparties can be bound in “properly conducted class actions”). But here Bayer faces a conundrum. If we know one thing about the McCollins suit, we know that it was not a class action. Indeed, the very ruling that Bayer argues ought to be given preclusive effect is the District Court’s decision that a class could not properly be certified. So Bayer wants to bind Smith as a member of a class action (because it is only as such that a nonparty in Smith’s situation can be bound) to a determination that there could not be a class action. And if the logic of that position is not immediately transparent, here is Bayer’s attempt to clarify: “[Ujntil the moment when class certification was denied, the McCollins case was a properly conducted class action.” Brief for Respondent 37. That is true, according to Bayer, because McCollins’’interests were aligned with the members of the class he proposed and he “act[ed] in a representative capacity when he sought class certification.” Id., at 36. But wishing does not make it so. McCollins sought class certification, but he failed to obtain that result. Because the District Court found that individual issues predominated, it held that the action did not satisfy Federal Rule 23’s requirements for class proceedings. In these circumstances, we cannot say that a properly conducted class action existed at any time in the litigation. Federal Rule 23 determines what is and is not a class action in federal court, where McCollins brought his suit. So in the absence of a certification under that Rule, the precondition for binding Smith was not met. Neither a proposed class action nor a rejected class action may bind nonparties. What does have this effect is a class action approved under Rule 23. But McCollins’ lawsuit was never that. We made essentially these same points in Taylor v. Stur-gell just a few Terms ago. The question there concerned the propriety of binding nonparties under a theory of “virtual representation” based on “identity of interests and some kind of relationship between parties and nonparties.” 553 U. S., at 901. We rejected the theory unanimously, explaining that it “would fiecogniz[e], in effect, a common-law kind of class action.’ ” Ibid. Such a device, we objected, would authorize preclusion “shorn of [Rule 23’s] procedural protections.” Ibid. Or as otherwise stated in the opinion: We could not allow “circumvent[ion]” of Rule 23’s protections through a “virtual representation doctrine that allowed courts to 'create de facto class actions at will.’ ” Ibid. We could hardly have been more clear that a “properly conducted class action,” with binding effect on nonparties, can come about in federal courts in just one way — through the procedure set out in Rule 23. Bayer attempts to distinguish Taylor by noting that the party in the prior litigation there did not propose a class action. But we do not see why that difference matters. Yes, McCollins wished to represent a class, and made a motion to that effect. But it did not come to pass. To allow McCollins7 suit to bind nonparties would be to adopt the very theory Taylor rejected. Bayer’s strongest argument comes not from established principles of preclusion, but instead from policy concerns relating to use of the class action device. Bayer warns that under our approach class counsel can repeatedly try to certify the same class “by the simple expedient of changing the named plaintiff in the caption of the complaint.” Brief for Respondent 47-48. And in this world of “serial relitigation of class certification,” Bayer contends, defendants “would be forced in effect to buy litigation peace by settling.” Id., at 2,12; see also In re Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., Tires Prods. Liability Litigation, 333 F. 3d 763, 767 (CA7 2003) (objecting to “an asymmetric system in which class counsel can win but never lose” because of their ability to relitigate the issue of certification). But this form of argument flies in the face of the rule against nonparty preclusion. That rule perforce leads to re-litigation of many issues, as plaintiff after plaintiff after plaintiff (none precluded by the last judgment because none a party to the last suit) tries his hand at establishing some legal principle or obtaining some grant of relief. We confronted a similar policy concern in Taylor, which involved litigation brought under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The Government there cautioned that unless we bound nonparties a “ ‘potentially limitless’ ” number of plaintiffs, perhaps coordinating with each other, could “mount a series of repetitive lawsuits” demanding the selfsame documents. 553 U. S., at 903. But we rejected this argument, even though the payoff in a single successful FOIA suit— disclosure of documents to the public — could “trum[p]” or “subsum[e]” all prior losses, just as a single successful class certification motion could do. In re Bridgestone/Firestone, 333 F. 3d, at 766, 767. As that response suggests, our legal system generally relies on principles of stare decisis and comity among courts to mitigate the sometimes substantial costs of similar litigation brought by different plaintiffs. We have not thought that the right approach (except in the discrete categories of cases we have recognized) lies in binding nonparties to a judgment. And to the extent class actions raise special problems of relitigation, Congress has provided a remedy that does not involve departing from the usual rules of preclusion. In the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA), 28 U. S. C. §§ 1332(d), 1453 (2006 ed. and Supp. Ill), Congress enabled defendants to remove to federal court any sizable class action involving minimal diversity of citizenship. Once removal takes place, Federal Rule 23 governs certification. And federal courts may consolidate multiple overlapping suits against a single defendant in one court (as the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation did for the many actions involving Baycol). See § 1407. Finally, we would expect federal courts to apply principles of comity to each other’s class certification decisions when addressing a common dispute. See, e. g., Cortez Byrd Chips, Inc. v. Bill Harbert Constr. Co., 529 U. S. 193, 198 (2000) (citing Landis v. North American Co., 299 U. S. 248, 254 (1936)). CAFA may be cold comfort to Bayer with respect to suits like this one beginning before its enactment. But Congress’s decision to address the relitigation concerns associated with class actions through the mechanism of removal provides yet another reason for federal courts to adhere in this context to longstanding principles of preclusion. And once again, that is especially so when the federal court is deciding whether to go so far as to enjoin a state proceeding. * * The Anti-Injunction Act prohibits the order the District Court entered here. The Act's relitigation exception authorizes injunctions only when a former federal adjudication clearly precludes a state court decision. As we said more than 40 years ago, and have consistently maintained since that time, “[a]ny doubts... should be resolved in favor of permitting the state courts to proceed.” Atlantic Coast Line, 398 U. S., at 297. Under this approach, close cases have easy answers: The federal court should not issue an injunction, and the state court should decide the preclusion question. But this case does not even strike us as close. The issues in the federal and state lawsuits differed because the relevant legal standards differed. And the mere proposal of a class in the federal action could not bind persons who were not parties there. For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is .Reversed. Justice Thomas joins Parts I and II-A of this opinion. The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, 119 Stat. 4, which postdates and therefore does not govern this lawsuit, now enables a defendant to remove to federal court certain docs actions involving nondiveroo parties. See 28 U. S. C. §§ 1332(d), 1453(b); see also infra, at 317-318. Although McCollins had originally sought certification under W. Va. Rule of Civ. Proc. 23 (2011), federal procedural rules govern a case that has been removed to federal court. See Skady Grove Orthopedic Associates, P. A. v. Allstate Ins. Co., 559 U. S. 393 (2010). Compare In re Bay col Prods. Litigation, 593 F. 3d 716,723 (CA8 2010) (ease below) (holding that two eases involve the same iosuo when “[t]ho state and federal [elass] certification rules... are not significantly different”), with J. R. Clearwater Inc. v. Ashland Chemical Co., 93 F. 3d 176, 180 (CA5 1996) (holding that two caaes implicate different issues evon when “[the state rule] is modeled on... the Federal Rules” because a “[state] court might well exercise [its] discretion in a different manner”). Compare 593 F. 3d, at 724 (“[T]he denial of elass certification is binding on unnamed [putative] class members” because they are “in privity to [the parties] in the prior action”), mid In re Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., Tiros Prods. Liability Litigation, 333 F. 3d 763, 768-769 (CA7 2003) (same), with In re Ford Motor Co., 471 F. 3d 1233, 1245 (CA11 2006) (holding that “[t]he denial of elass certification” prevents a court from “binding” anyone other than “the parties appearing before it”), and In re General Motors Corp. Pick-Up Truck Fuel Tank Prods. Liability Litigation, 134 F. 3d 133, 141 (CA3 1998) (holding that putative “class memboro aro not partios” and so cannot be bound by a court’s ruling when “there is no class pending”). That is especially so because an injunction is not the only way to correct a state trial court’s erroneous refusal to give preclusive effect to a federal judgment. As we have noted before, “the state appellate courts and ultimately this Court” can review and reverse such a ruling. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Locomotive Engineers, 398 U. S. 281, 287 (1970). We have held that federal common law governs the preclusive effect of a decision of a federal court sitting in diversity. See Semtek Int’l Inc. v. Lockheed Martin Corp., 531 U. S. 497, 508 (2001). Smith assumes that federal common law should here incorporate West Virginia’s preclusion law, see Brief for Petitioners 15-16, whereas Bayer favors looking only to federal rules of preclusion because of the federal interests at stake in this ease, see Brief for Respondent 18. We do not think the question matters here. Neither party identifies any way in which federal and state principles of preclusion law differ in any relevant respect. Nor have we found any such divergence. Compare, e. g., Montana v. United States, 440 U. S. 147, 153-154 (1979) (describing elements of issue preclusion), with State v. Miller, 194 W. Va. 3, 9, 459 S. E. 2d 114, 120 (1995) (same). We therefore need not decide whether, in general, federal common law ought to incorporate state law in situations such as this. Because we rest our decision on the Anti-Injunction Act and the principles of issue preclusion that inform it, we do not consider Smith’s argument, based on Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts, 472 U. S. 797 (1985), that the District Court’s action violated the Due Process Clause. The District Court’s approach to the predominance inquiry is consistent with the approach employed by the Eighth Circuit. See In re St. Jude Medical, Inc., 522 F. 3d 836, 837-840 (2008) (holding that most commercial misrepresentation eases are “unsuitable for class treatment” because individual issues of reliance necessarily predominate). We express no opinion as to the correctness of this approach. Bayer argues that In re Rezulin does not preclude an injunction in this ease because the West Virginia court there decided that common issues predominated over individual ioouco of damages, not over individual issues of liability (as exist here). See Brief for Respondent 25-26. We think Bayer is right about this distinction, but wrong about its consequence. Our point is not that In re Rezulin dictates the answer to the class certification question here; the two eases are indeed too dissimilar for that to be true. The point instead is that In re Rezulin articulated a general approach to the predominance requirement that differs markedly from the one the federal court used. Minor variations in the application of what is in essence the same legal standard do not defeat preclusion; but where, as here, the State’s courts “would apply a significantly different... analysis,” Chick Kam Choo v. Exxon Corp., 486 U. S. 140, 149 (1988), the federal and state courts decide different issues. In support of its claim that Smith counts as a party, Bayer cites two cases in which we held that a putative member of an uncertified class may wait until after the court rules on the certification motion to file an individual claim or move to intervene in the suit. See Brief for Respondent 32-33 (citing United Airlines, Inc. v. McDonald, 432 U. S. 385 (1977); American Pipe & Constr. Co. v. Utah, 414 U. S. 538 (1974)). But these eases, which were specifically grounded in policies of judicial administration, demonstrate only that a person not a party to a class suit may receive certain benefits (such as the tolling of a Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 Murphy delivered the opinion of the Court. This case adds another chapter to the body of law growing out of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. That Amendment provides: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” In other words, the Fourth Amendment is a recognition of the fact that in this nation individual liberty depends in large part upon freedom from unreasonable intrusion by those in authority. It is the duty of this Court to give effect to that freedom. In January, 1946, the petitioners sought to lease part of the Kell farm in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and to erect a building thereon. Kell suspected that they intended to build and operate an illegal still. He accordingly reported the matter to the appropriate federal authority, the Alcohol Tax Unit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue. The federal agents told Kell to accept the proposition, provided he did nothing to entice or encourage the petitioners into going ahead with their plans and provided he kept the agents informed of all developments. Nilsen, one of the agents, was assigned in February to work on the farm in the disguise of a “dumb farm hand” and to accept work at the still if petitioners should offer it. Toward the end of March, 1946, Kell agreed with petitioners to let them rent part of his farm for $300 a month. Kell and Nilsen assisted petitioners in the erection of the building, a roughly constructed barn about 200 yards from the Kell farmhouse. Nilsen also assisted in the erection of the still and the vats. Operation of the still began about May 13, 1946. Nil-sen thereafter worked as “mash man” at a salary of $100 a week, which he turned over to the Government. During this period he was in constant communication with his fellow agents. By prearrangement, he would meet one or more of the agents at various places within a few miles of the Kell farm; at these meetings “the conversation would be about the still building I had assisted in erecting or about the illicit distillery that I was working at on the Kell farm.” On May 20 he met with one of his superior officers and gave him samples of alcohol, several sugar bags, a yeast wrapper and an empty five-gallon can which had been taken from the still premises. On May 26 Nilsen received a two-way portable radio set from his superiors. He used this set to transmit frequent bulletins on the activities of the petitioners. On the basis of radio intelligence supplied by Nilsen, a truckload of alcohol was seized on May 31 about an hour after it had left the farm. At about 9 p. m. in the evening of June 3, 1946, Nilsen radioed his superior that the still operators were awaiting the arrival of a load of sugar and that alcohol was to be taken from the farm when the sugar truck arrived. Nil-sen apparently knew then that a raid was scheduled for that night, for he told Kell during the evening that “tonight is the night.” He radioed at 11 p. m. that the truck had been delayed but that petitioners Roett and Antoniole were at the still. Three federal agents then drove to within three miles of the farm, at which point they were met by Kell. The remainder of the distance was traversed in Kell’s automobile. They arrived at the farm at about 11:45 p. m. The agents stated that the odor of fermenting mash and the sound of a gasoline motor were noticeable as the car was driven onto the farm premises; the odor became stronger and the noise louder as they alighted from the car and approached the building containing the still. Van De Car, one of the agents, went around one end of the building. Looking through an open door into a dimly lighted interior he could see a still column, a boiler and a gasoline pump in operation. He also saw Antoniole bending down near the pump. He entered the building and placed Antoniole under arrest. Thereupon he “seized the illicit distillery.” After this arrest and seizure, Van De Car looked about further and observed a large number of five-gallon cans which he later found to contain alcohol and some vats which contained fermenting mash. Another agent, Casey, testified that he could see several of these cans through the open door before he entered; he subsequently counted the cans and found that there were 262 of them. After he entered he saw the remainder of the distillery equipment, including four large mash vats. The third agent, Gettel, proceeded to a small truck standing in the yard and “searched it thoroughly for papers and things of an evidentiary nature.” It does not appear whether he was successful in his search or whether he took anything from the truck. A few minutes later Roett was arrested outside the building. Petitioners Trupiano and Riccardelli apparently were arrested later that night by other agents, the place and the circumstances not being revealed by the record before us. In addition, three other persons were arrested that night because of their connections with the illegal operations; one of them, who was unknown to Nilsen, was arrested when he arrived at the farm with a truck loaded with coke. The agents engaged in this raid without securing a search warrant or warrants of arrest. It is undenied that they had more than adequate opportunity to obtain such warrants before the raid occurred, various federal judges and commissioners being readily available. All of the persons arrested were charged with various violations of the Internal Revenue Code arising out of their ownership and operation of the distillery. Prior to the return of an indictment against them, the four petitioners filed in the District Court for the District of New Jersey a motion alleging that the federal agents had illegally seized “a still, alcohol, mash and other equipment,” and asking that “all such evidence” be excluded and suppressed at any trial and that “all of the aforesaid property” be returned. The District Court denied the motion after a hearing, holding that the seizure was reasonable and hence constitutional. 70 F. Supp. 764. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed per curiam the order of the District Court. 163 F. 2d 828. Thus we have a case where contraband property was seized by federal agents without a search warrant under circumstances where such a warrant could easily have been obtained. The Government, however, claims that the failure to secure the warrant has no effect upon the validity of the seizure. Reference is made to the well established right of law enforcement officers to arrest without a warrant for a felony committed in their presence, Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 156-167, a right said to be unaffected by the fact that there may have been adequate time to procure a warrant of arrest. Since one of the petitioners, Antoniole, was arrested while engaged in operating an illegal still in the presence of agents of the Alcohol Tax Unit, his arrest was valid under this view even though it occurred without the benefit of a warrant. And since this arrest was valid, the argument is made that the seizure of the contraband open to view at the time of the arrest was also lawful. Reliance is here placed on the long line of cases recognizing that an arresting officer may look around at the time of the arrest and seize those fruits and evidences of crime or those contraband articles which are in plain sight and in his immediate and discernible presence. Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, 392; Carroll v. United States, supra, 158; Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20, 30; United States v. Lee, 274 U. S. 559, 563; Marron v. United States, 275 U. S. 192, 198-199; Go-Bart Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 344, 358; United States v. Lefkowits, 285 U. S. 452, 465; Harris v. United States, 331 U. S. 145, 150-151. We sustain the Government’s contention that the arrest of Antoniole was valid. The federal agents had more than adequate cause, based upon the information supplied by Nilsen, to suspect that Antoniole was engaged in felonious activities on the farm premises. Acting on that suspicion, the agents went to the farm and entered onto the premises with the consent of Kell, the owner. There Antoniole was seen through an open doorway by one of the agents to be operating an illegal still, an act felonious in nature. His arrest was therefore valid on the theory that he was committing a felony in the discernible presence of an agent of the Alcohol Tax Unit, a peace officer of the United States. The absence of a warrant of arrest, even though there was sufficient time to obtain one, does not destroy the validity of an arrest under these circumstances. Warrants of arrest are designed to meet the dangers of unlimited and unreasonable arrests of persons who are not at the moment committing any crime. Those dangers, obviously, are not present where a felony plainly occurs before the eyes of an officer of the law at a place where he is lawfully present. Common sense then dictates that an arrest in that situation is valid despite the failure to obtain a warrant of arrest. But we cannot agree that the seizure of the contraband property was made in conformity with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. It is a cardinal rule that, in seizing goods and articles, law enforcement agents must secure and use search warrants wherever reasonably practicable. Carroll v. United States, supra, 156; Go-Bart Co. v. United States, supra, 358; Taylor v. United States, 286 U. S. 1, 6; Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 14-15. This rule rests upon the desirability of having magistrates rather than police officers determine when searches and seizures are permissible and what limitations should be placed upon such activities. United States v. Lefkowitz, supra, 464. In their understandable zeal to ferret out crime and in the excitement of the capture of a suspected person, officers are less likely to possess the detachment and neutrality with which the constitutional rights of the suspect must be viewed. To provide the necessary security against unreasonable intrusions upon the private lives of individuals, the framers of the Fourth Amendment required adherence to judicial processes wherever possible. And subsequent history has confirmed the wisdom of that requirement. The facts of this case do not measure up to the foregoing standard. The agents of the Alcohol Tax Unit knew every detail of the construction and operation of the illegal distillery long before the raid was made. One of them was assigned to work on the farm along with the illicit operators, making it possible for him to secure and report the minutest facts. In cooperation with the farm owner, who served as an informer, this agent was in a position to supply information which could easily have formed the basis for a detailed and effective search warrant. Concededly, there was an abundance of time during which such a warrant could have been secured, even on the night of the raid after the odor and noise of the distillery confirmed their expectations. And the property was not of a type that could have been dismantled and removed before the agents had time to secure a warrant; especially is this so since one of them was on hand at all times to report and guard against such a move. See United States v. Kaplan, 89 F. 2d 869, 871. What was said in Johnson v. United States, supra, 15, is equally applicable here: “No reason is offered for not obtaining a search warrant except the inconvenience to the officers and some slight delay necessary to prepare papers and present the evidence to a magistrate. These are never very convincing reasons and, in these circumstances, certainly are not enough to by-pass the consti-tutionál requirement. ... If the officers in this case were excused from the constitutional duty of presenting their evidence to a magistrate, it is difficult to think of a case in which it should be required.” And so when the agents of the Alcohol Tax Unit decided to dispense with a search warrant and to take matters into their own hands, they did precisely what the Fourth Amendment was designed to outlaw. Uninhibited by any limitations that might have been contained in a warrant, they descended upon the distillery in a midnight raid. Nothing circumscribed their activities on that raid except their own good senses, which the authors of the Amendment deemed insufficient to justify a search or seizure except in exceptional circumstances not here present. The limitless possibilities afforded by the absence of a warrant were epitomized by the one agent who admitted searching “thoroughly” a small truck parked in the farmyard for items of an evidentiary character. The fact that they actually seized only contraband property, which would doubtless have been described in a warrant had one been issued, does not detract from the illegality of the seizure. See Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313; Byars v. United States, 273 U. S. 28; Taylor v. United States, supra. Moreover, the proximity of the contraband property to the person of Antoniole at the moment of his arrest was a fortuitous circumstance which was inadequate to legalize the seizure. As we have seen, the existence of this property and the desirability of seizing it were known to the agents long before the seizure and formed one of the main purposes of the raid. Likewise, the arrest of An-toniole and the other petitioners in connection with the illicit operations was a foreseeable event motivating the raid. But the precise location of the petitioners at the time of their arrest had no relation to the foreseeability or necessity of the seizure. The practicability of obtaining a search warrant did not turn upon whether Antoniole and the others were within the distillery building when arrested or upon whether they were then engaged in operating the illicit equipment. Antoniole just happened to be working amid the contraband surroundings at 11:45 p. m. on the night in question, while the other three petitioners chanced to be some place else. But Antoniole might well have been outside the building at that particular time. If that had been the case and he had been arrested in the farmyard, the entire argument advanced by the Government in support of the seizure without warrant would collapse. We do not believe that the applicability of the Fourth Amendment to the facts of this case depends upon such a fortuitous factor as the precise location of Antoniole at the time of the raid. In other words, the presence or absence of an arrestee at the exact time and place of a foreseeable and anticipated seizure does not determine the validity of that seizure if it occurs without a warrant. Rather the test is the apparent need for summary seizure, a test which clearly is not satisfied by the facts before us. A search or seizure without a warrant as an incident to a lawful arrest has always been considered to be a strictly limited right. It grows out of the inherent necessities of the situation at the time of the arrest. But there must be something more in the way of necessity than merely a lawful arrest. The mere fact that there is a valid arrest does not ipso facto legalize a search or seizure without a warrant. Carroll v. United States, supra, 158. Otherwise the exception swallows the general principle, making a search warrant completely unnecessary wherever there is a lawful arrest. And so there must be some other factor in the situation that would make it unreasonable or impracticable to require the arresting officer to equip himself with a search warrant. In the case before us, however, no reason whatever has been shown why the arresting officers could not have armed themselves during all the weeks of their surveillance of the locus with a duly obtained search warrant — no reason, that is, except indifference to the legal process for search and seizure which the Constitution contemplated. We do not take occasion here to reexamine the situation involved in Harris v. United States, supra. The instant case relates only to the seizure of contraband the existence and precise nature and location of which the law enforcement officers were aware long before making the lawful arrest. That circumstance was wholly lacking in the Harris case, which was concerned with the permissible scope of a general search without a warrant as an incident to a lawful arrest. Moreover, the Harris case dealt with the seizure of Government property which could not have been the subject of a prior search warrant, it having been found unexpectedly during the course of a search. In contrast, the contraband seized in this case could easily have been specified in a prior search warrant. These factual differences may or may not be of significance so far as general principles are concerned. But the differences are enough to justify confining ourselves to the precise facts of this case, leaving it to another day to test the Harris situation by the rule that search warrants are to be obtained and used wherever reasonably practicable. What we have here is a set of facts governed by a principle indistinguishable from that recognized and applied in Taylor v. United States, supra. The Court there held that the seizure of illicit whiskey was unreasonable, however well-grounded the suspicions of the federal agents, where there was an abundant opportunity to obtain a search warrant and to proceed in an orderly, judicial way. True, the Taylor case did not involve a seizure in connection with an arrest. And the officers there made an unlawful entry onto the premises. But those factors had no relation to the practicability of obtaining a search warrant before making the seizure. It was the time element and the foreseeability of the need for a search and seizure that made the warrant essential. The Taylor case accordingly makes plain the illegality of the seizure in the instant proceeding. The Fourth Amendment was designed to protect both the innocent and the guilty from unreasonable intrusions upon their right of privacy while leaving adequate room for the necessary processes of law enforcement. The people of the United States insisted on writing the Fourth Amendment into the Constitution because sad experience had taught them that the right to search and seize should not be left to the mere discretion of the police, but should as a matter of principle be subjected to the requirement of previous judicial sanction wherever possible. The effective operation of government, however, could hardly be embarrassed by the requirement that arresting officers who have three weeks or more within which to secure the authorization of judicial authority for making search and seizure should secure such authority and not be left to their own discretion as to what is to be searched and what is to be seized. Such a requirement partakes of the very essence of the orderly and effective administration of the law. It is a mistake to assume that a search warrant in these circumstances would contribute nothing to the preservation of the rights protected by the Fourth Amendment. A search warrant must describe with particularity the place to be searched and the things to be seized. Without such a warrant, however, officers are free to determine for themselves the extent of their search and the precise objects to be seized. This is no small difference. It is a difference upon which depends much of the potency of the right of privacy. And it is a difference that must be preserved even where contraband articles are seized in connection with a valid arrest. It follows that it was error to refuse petitioners’ motion to exclude and suppress the property which was improperly seized. But since this property was contraband, they have no right to have it returned to them. Reversed. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Per Curiam. The motion of the appellant the Senate of the Legislature of California to take judicial notice of official judicial records is denied. The motion to strike the motion to dismiss or affirm is also denied. The motion to affirm is granted and the judgment is affirmed. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

B

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Blackmun delivered the opinion of the Court. At issue here is the constitutionality of subsection (a) of § 5 of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act, 1974 Pa. Laws, Act No. 209, Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 35, § 6605 (a) (Purdon 1977). This statute subjects a physician who performs an abortion to potential criminal liability if he fails to utilize a statutorily prescribed technique when the fetus “is viable” or when there is “sufficient reason to believe that the fetus may be viable.” A three-judge Federal District Court declared § 5 (a) unconstitutionally vague and overbroad and enjoined its enforcement. App. 239a-244a. Pursuant to 28 IT. S. C. § 1253, we noted probable jurisdiction sub nom. Beal v. Franklin, 435 U. S. 913 (1978). I The Abortion Control Act was passed by the Pennsylvania Legislature, over the Governor’s veto, in the year following this Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), and Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973). It was a comprehensive statute. Section 1 gave the Act its title. Section 2 defined, among other terms, “informed consent” and “viable.” The latter was specified to mean “the capability of a fetus to five outside the mother’s womb albeit with artificial aid.” See Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S., at 160. Section 3 (a) proscribed the performance of an abortion “upon any person in the absence of informed consent thereto by such person.” Section 3 (b) (i) prohibited the performance of an abortion in the absence of the written consent of the woman’s spouse, provided that the spouse could be located and notified, and the abortion was not certified by a licensed physician “to be necessary in order to preserve the life or health of the mother.” Section 3 (b)(ii), applicable if the woman was unmarried and under the age of 18, forbade the performance of an abortion in the absence of the written consent of “one parent or person in loco parentis” of the woman, unless the abortion was certified by a licensed physician “as necessary in order to preserve the life of the mother.” Section 3 (e) provided that whoever performed an abortion without such consent was guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree. Section 4 provided that whoever, intentionally and willfully, took the life of a premature infant aborted alive, was guilty of murder of the second degree. Section 5 (a), set forth in n. 1, supra, provided that if the fetus was determined to be viable, or if there was sufficient reason to believe that the fetus might be viable, the person performing the abortion was required to exercise the same care to preserve the life and health of the fetus as would be required in the case of a fetus intended to be born alive, and was required to adopt the abortion technique providing the best opportunity for the fetus to be aborted alive, so long as a different technique was not necessary in order to preserve the life or health of the mother. Section 5 (d), also set forth in n. 1, imposed a penal sanction for a violation of § 5 (a). Section 6 specified abortion controls. It prohibited abortion during the stage of pregnancy subsequent to viability, except where necessary, in the judgment of a licensed physician, to preserve the life or health of the mother. No abortion was to be performed except by a licensed physician and in an approved facility. It required that appropriate records be kept, and that quarterly reports be filed with the Commonwealth’s Department of Health. And it prohibited solicitation or advertising with respect to abortions. A violation of § 6 was a misdemeanor of the first or third degrees, as specified. Section 7 prohibited the use of public funds for an abortion in the absence of a certificate of a physician stating that the abortion was necessary in order to preserve the life or health of the mother. Finally, § 8 authorized the Department of Health to make rules and regulations with respect to performance of abortions and the facilities in which abortions were performed. See Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 35, §§ 6601-6608 (Purdon 1977). Prior to the Act’s effective date, October 10, 1974, the present suit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania challenging, on federal constitutional grounds, nearly all of the Act’s provisions. The three-judge court on October 10 issued a preliminary injunction restraining the enforcement of a number of those provisions. Each side sought a class-action determination; the plaintiffs’, but not the defendants’, motion to this effect was granted. The case went to trial in January 1975. The court received extensive testimohy from expert witnesses on all aspects of abortion procedures. The resulting judgment declared the Act to be severable, upheld certain of its provisions, and held other provisions unconstitutional. Planned Parenthood Assn. v. Fitzpatrick, 401 F. Supp. 554 (1975). The court sustained the definition of “informed consent” in § 2; the facility-approval requirement and certain of the reporting requirements of § 6; § 8’s authorization of rules and regulations; and, by a divided vote, the informed consent requirement of § 3 (a). It overturned § 3 (b) (i)’s spousal-consent requirement and, again by a divided vote, §3(b)(ii)’s parental-consent requirement; § 6’s reporting requirements relating to spousal and parental consent; § 6’s prohibition of advertising; and § 7’s restriction on abortion funding. The definition of “viable” in § 2 was declared void for vagueness and, because of the incorporation of this definition, § 6’s proscription of abortions after viability, except to preserve the life or health of the woman, was struck down. Finally, in part because of the incorporation of the definition of “viable,” and in part because of the perceived overbreadth of the phrase “may be viable,” the court invalidated the viability-determination and standard-of-care provisions of § 5 (a). 401 F. Supp., at 594. Both sides appealed to this Court. While the appeals were pending, the Court decided Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U. S. 748 (1976) ; Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52 (1976); and Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U. S. 106 (1976). Virginia State Board shed light on the prohibition of advertising for abortion services. Planned Parenthood had direct bearing on the patient-, spousal-, and parental-consent issues and was instructive on the definition-of-viability issue. Singleton concerned the issue of standing to challenge abortion regulations. Accordingly, that portion of the three-judge court’s judgment which was the subject of the plaintiffs’ appeal was summarily affirmed. Franklin v. Fitzpatrick, 428 U. S. 901 (1976). And that portion of the judgment which was the subject of the defendants’ appeal was vacated and remanded for further consideration in the light of Planned Parenthood, Singleton, and Virginia State Board. Beal v. Franklin, 428 U. S. 901 (1976). On remand, the parties entered into a stipulation which disposed of all issues except the constitutionality of §§ 5 (a) and 7. Relying on this Court’s supervening decisions in Beal v. Doe, 432 U. S. 438 (1977), and Maher v. Roe, 432 U. S. 464 (1977), the District Court found, contrary to its original view, see 401 F. Supp., at 594, that § 7 did not violate either Tit. XIX of the Social Security Act, as added, 79 Stat. 343, and amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1396 et seq., or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. App. 241a. The court, however, declared: “After reconsideration of section 5 (a) in light of the most recent Supreme Court decisions, we adhere to our original view and decision that section 5 (a) is unconstitutional.” Id., at 240a-214a. Since the plaintiffs-appellees have not appealed from the ruling with respect to § 7, the only issue remaining in this protracted litigation is the validity of § 5 (a). II Three cases in the sensitive and earnestly contested abortion area provide essential background for the present controversy. In Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), this Court concluded that there is a right of privacy, implicit in the liberty secured by the Fourteenth Amendment, that “is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” Id., at 153. This right, we said, although fundamental, is not absolute or unqualified, and must be considered against important state interests in the health of the pregnant woman and in the potential life of the fetus. “These interests are separate and distinct. Each grows in substantiality as the woman approaches term and, at a point during pregnancy, each becomes ‘compelling.’ ” Id., at 162-163. For both logical and biological reasons, we indicated that the State’s interest in the potential life of the fetus reaches the compelling point at the stage of viability. Hence, prior to viability, the State may not seek to further this interest by directly restricting a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. But after viability, the State, if it chooses, may regulate or even prohibit abortion except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman. Id., at 163-164. We did not undertake in Roe to examine the various factors that may enter into the determination of viability. We-simply observed that, in the medical and scientific communities, a fetus is considered viable if it is “potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid.” Id., at 160. We added that there must be a potentiality of “meaningful life,” id., at 163, not merely momentary survival. And we noted that viability “is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks.” Id., at 160. We thus left the point flexible for anticipated advancements in medical skill. Roe stressed repeatedly the central role of the physician, both in consulting with the woman about whether or not to have an abortion, and in determining how any abortion was to be carried out. We indicated that up to the points where important state interests provide compelling justifications for intervention, “the abortion decision in all its aspects is inherently, and primarily, a medical decision,” id., at 166, and we added that if this privilege were abused, “the usual remedies, judicial and intra-professional, are available.” Ibid. Roe’s companion case, Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973), underscored the importance of affording the physician adequate discretion in the exercise of his medical judgment. After the Court there reiterated that “a pregnant woman does not have an absolute constitutional right to an abortion on her demand,” id., at 189, the Court discussed, in a vagueness-attack context, the Georgia statute’s requirement that a physician’s decision to perform an abortion must rest upon “his best clinical judgment.” The Court found it critical that that judgment “may be exercised in the light of all factors— physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age — relevant to the well-being of the patient.” Id., at 192. The third case, Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52 (1976), stressed similar themes. There a Missouri statute that defined viability was challenged on the ground that it conflicted with the discussion of viability in Roe and that it was, in reality, an attempt to advance the point of viability to an earlier stage in gestation. The Court rejected that argument, repeated the Roe definition of viability, 428 U. S., at 63, and observed again that viability is “a matter of medical judgment, skill, and technical ability, and we preserved [in Roe] the flexibility of the term.” Id., at 64. The Court also rejected a contention that “a specified number of weeks in pregnancy must be fixed by statute as the point of viability.” Id., at 6-5. It said: “In any event, we agree with the District Court that it is not the proper function of the legislature or the courts to place viability, which essentially is a medical concept, at a specific point in the gestation period. The time when viability is achieved may vary with each pregnancy, and the determination of whether a particular fetus is viable is, and must be, a matter for the judgment of the responsible attending physician.” Id., at 64. In these three cases, then, this Court has stressed viability, has declared its determination to be a matter for medical judgment, and has recognized that differing legal consequences ensue upon the near and far sides of that point in the human gestation period. We reaffirm these principles. Viability is reached when, in the judgment of the attending physician on the particular facts of the case before him, there is a reasonable likelihood of the fetus’ sustained survival outside the womb, with or without artificial support. Because this point may differ with each pregnancy, neither the legislature nor the courts may proclaim one of the elements entering into the ascertainment of viability — be it weeks of gestation or fetal weight or any other single factor — as the determinant of when the State has a compelling interest in the life or health of the fetus. Viability is the critical point. And we have recognized no attempt to stretch the point of viability one way or the other. With these principles in mind, we turn to the issues presented by the instant controversy. Ill The attack mounted by the plaintiffs-appellees upon § 5 (a) centers on both the viability-determination requirement and the stated standard of care. The former provision, requiring the physician to observe the care standard when he determines that the fetus is viable, or when “there is sufficient reason to believe that the fetus may be viable," is asserted to be unconstitutionally vague because it fails to inform the physician when his duty to the fetus arises, and because it does not make the physician’s good-faith determination of viability conclusive. This provision is also said to be unconstitutionally overbroad, because it carves out a new time period prior to the stage of viability, and could have a restrictive effect on a couple who wants to abort a fetus determined by genetic testing to be defective. The standard of care, and in particular the requirement that the physician employ the abortion technique “which would provide the best opportunity for the fetus to be aborted alive so long as a different technique would not be necessary in order to preserve the life or health of the mother,” is said to be void for vagueness and to be unconstitutionally restrictive in failing to afford the physician sufficient professional discretion in determining which abortion technique is appropriate. The defendants-appellants, in opposition, assert that the Pennsylvania statute is concerned only with post-viability abortions and with prescribing a standard of care for those abortions. They assert that the terminology “may be viable” correctly describes the statistical probability of fetal survival associated with viability; that the viability-determination requirement is otherwise sufficiently definite to be interpreted by the medical community; and that it is for the legislature, not the judiciary, to determine whether a viable but genetically defective fetus has a right to life. They contend that the standard-of-care provision preserves the flexibility required for sound medical practice, and that it simply requires that when a physician has a choice of procedures of equal risk to the woman, he must select the procedure least likely to be fatal to the fetus. IV We agree with plaintiffs-appellees that the viability-determination requirement of § 5 (a) is ambiguous, and that its uncertainty is aggravated by the absence of a scienter requirement with respect to the finding of viability. Because we conclude that this portion of the statute is void for vagueness, we find it unnecessary to consider appellees’ alternative arguments based on the alleged overbreadth of § 5 (a). A It is settled that, as a matter of due process, a criminal statute that “fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute,” United States v. Harriss, 347 U. S. 612, 617 (1954), or is so indefinite that “it encourages arbitrary and erratic arrests and convictions,” Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U. S. 156, 162 (1972), is void for vagueness. See generally Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 108-109 (1972). This appears to be especially true where the uncertainty induced by the statute threatens to inhibit the exercise of constitutionally protected rights. Id., at 109; Smith v. Goguen, 415 U. S. 566, 573 (1974); Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U. S. 589, 603-604 (1967). Section 5 (a) requires every person who performs or induces an abortion to make a determination, “based on his experience, judgment or professional competence,” that the fetus is not viable. If such person determines that the fetus is viable, or if “there is sufficient reason to believe that the fetus may be viable,” then he must adhere to the prescribed standard of care. See n. 1, supra. This requirement contains a double ambiguity. First, it is unclear whether the statute imports a purely subjective standard, or whether it imposes a mixed subjective and objective standard. Second, it is uncertain whether the phrase “may be viable” simply refers to viability, as that term has been defined in Roe and in Planned Parenthood, or whether it refers to an undefined penumbral or “gray” area prior to the stage of viability. The statute requires the physician to conform to the prescribed standard of care if one of two conditions is satisfied: if he determines that the fetus “is viable,” or “if there is sufficient reason to believe that the fetus may be viable.” Apparently, the determination of whether the fetus “is viable” is to be based on the attending physician's “experience, judgment or professional competence,” a subjective point of reference. But it is unclear whether the same phrase applies to the second triggering condition, that is, to “sufficient reason to believe that the fetus may be viable.” In other words, it is ambiguous whether there must be “sufficient reason” from the perspective of the judgment, skill, and training of the attending physician, or “sufficient reason” from the perspective of a cross section of the medical community or a panel of experts. The latter, obviously, portends not an inconsequential hazard for the typical private practitioner who may not have the skills and technology that are readily available at a teaching hospital or large medical center. The intended distinction between the phrases “is viable” and “may be viable” is even more elusive. Appellants argue that no difference is intended, and that the use of the “may be viable” words k “simply incorporates the acknowledged medical fact that a fetus is 'viable’ if it has that statistical ‘chance’ of survival recognized by the medical community.” Brief for Appellants 28. The statute, however, does not support the contention that “may be viable” is synonymous with, or merely intended to explicate the meaning of, “viable.” Section 5 (a) requires the physician to observe the prescribed standard of care if he determines “that the fetus is viable or if there is sufficient reason to believe that the fetus may be viable” (emphasis supplied). The syntax clearly implies that there are two distinct conditions under which the physician must conform to the standard of care. Appellants’ argument that “may be viable” is synonymous with “viable” would make either the first or the second condition redundant or largely superfluous, in violation of the elementary canon of construction that a statute should be interpreted so as not to render one part inoperative. See United States v. Menasche, 348 TJ. S. 528, 538-539 (1955). Furthermore, the suggestion that “may be viable” is an explication of the meaning of “viable” flies in the face of the fact that the statute, in § 2, already defines “viable.” This, presumably, was intended to be the exclusive definition of “viable” throughout the Act. In this respect, it is significant that § 6 (b) of the Act speaks only of the limited availability of abortion during the stage of a pregnancy “subsequent to viability.” The concept of viability is just as important in § 6 (b) as it is in § 5 (a). Yet in § 6 (b) the legislature found it unnecessary to explain that a “viable” fetus includes one that “may be viable.” Since we must reject appellants’ theory that “may be viable” means “viable,” a second serious ambiguity appears in the statute. On the one hand, as appellees urge and as the District Court found, see 401 F. Supp., at 572, it may be that “may be viable” carves out a new time period during pregnancy when there is a remote possibility of fetal survival outside the womb, but the fetus has not yet attained the reasonable likelihood of survival that physicians associate with viability. On the other hand, although appellants do not argue this, it may be that “may be viable” refers to viability as physicians understand it, and “viable” refers to some undetermined stage later in pregnancy. We need not resolve this question. The crucial point is that “viable” and “may be viable” apparently refer to distinct conditions, and that one of these conditions differs in some indeterminate way from the definition of viability as set forth in Roe and in Planned Parenthood. Because of the double ambiguity in the viability-determination requirement, this portion of the Pennsylvania statute is readily distinguishable from the requirement that an abortion must be “necessary for the preservation of the mother’s life or health,” upheld against a vagueness challenge in United States v. Vuitch, 402 U. S. 62, 69-72 (1971), and the requirement that a physician determine, on the basis of his “best clinical judgment/’ that an abortion is “necessary,” upheld against a vagueness attack in Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S., at 191-192. The contested provisions in those cases had been interpreted to allow the physician to make his determination in the light of all attendant circumstances — psychological and emotional as well as physical — that might be relevant to the well-being of the patient. The present statute does not afford broad discretion to the physician. Instead, it conditions potential criminal liability on confusing and ambiguous criteria. It therefore presents serious problems of notice, discriminatory application, and chilling effect on the exercise of constitutional rights. B The vagueness of the viability-determination requirement of § 5 (a) is compounded by the fact that the Act subjects the physician to potential criminal liability without regard to fault. Under § 5 (d), see n. 1, supra, a physician who fails to abide by the standard of care when there is sufficient reason to believe that the fetus “may be viable” is subject “to such civil.or criminal liability as would pertain to him had the fetus been a child who was intended to be born and not aborted.” To be sure, the Pennsylvania law of criminal homicide, made applicable to the physician by § 5 (d), conditions guilt upon a finding of scienter. See Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 18, §§2501-2504 (Purdon 1973 and Supp. 1978). The required mental state, however, is that of “intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or negligently caus[ing] the death of another human being.” §2501 (1973)., Thus, the Pennsylvania law of criminal homicide requires scienter with respect to whether the physician’s actions will result in the death of the fetus. But neither the Pennsylvania law of criminal homicide, nor the Abortion Control Act, requires that the physician be culpable in failing to find sufficient reason to believe that the fetus may be viable. This Court has long recognized that the constitutionality of a vague statutory standard is closely related to whether that standard incorporates a requirement of mens rea. See, for example, United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U. S. 422, 434 — 446 (1978); Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U. S., at 163; Boyce Motor Lines v. United States, 342 U. S. 337, 342 (1952). Because of the absence of a scienter requirement in the provision directing the physician to determine whether the fetus is or may be viable, the statute is little more than “a trap for those who act in good faith.” United States v. Ragen, 314 U. S. 513, 524 (1942). The perils of strict criminal liability are particularly acute here because of the uncertainty of the viability determination itself. As the record in this case indicates, a physician determines whether or not a fetus is viable after considering a number of variables: the gestational age of the fetus, derived from the reported menstrual history of the woman; fetal weight, based on an inexact estimate of the size and condition of the uterus; the woman’s general health and nutrition; the quality of the available medical facilities; and other factors. Because of the number and the imprecision of these variables, the probability of any particular fetus’ obtaining meaningful life outside the womb can be determined only with difficulty. Moreover, the record indicates that even if agreement may be reached on the probability of survival, different physicians equate viability with different probabilities of survival, and some physicians refuse to equate viability with any numerical probability at all. In the face of these uncertainties, it is not unlikely that experts will disagree over whether a particular fetus in the second trimester has advanced to the stage of viability. The prospect of such disagreement, in conjunction with a statute imposing strict civil and criminal liability for an erroneous determination of viability, could have a profound chilling effect on the willingness of physicians to perform abortions near the point of viability in the manner indicated by their best medical judgment. Because we hold that the viability-determination provision of § 5 (a) is void on its face, we need not now decide whether, under a properly drafted statute, a finding of bad faith or some other type of scienter would be required before a physician could be held criminally responsible for an erroneous determination of viability. We reaffirm, however, that “the determination of whether a particular fetus is viable is, and must be, a matter for the judgment of the responsible attending physician.” Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 64. State regulation that impinges upon this determination, if it is to be constitutional, must allow the attending physician “the room he needs to make his best medical judgment.” Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S., at 192. V We also conclude that the standard-of-care provision of § 5 (a) is impermissibly vague. The standard-of-care provision, when it applies, requires the physician to “exercise that degree of professional skill, care and diligence to preserve the life and health of the fetus which such person would be required to exercise in order to preserve the life and health of any fetus intended to be bom and not aborted and the abortion technique employed shall be that which would provide the best opportunity for the fetus to be aborted alive so long as a different technique would not be necessary in order to preserve the life or health of the mother.” Plaintiffs-appellees focus their attack on the second part of the standard, requiring the physician to employ the abortion technique offering the greatest possibility of fetal survival, provided some other technique would not be necessary in order to preserve the life or health of the mother. The District Court took extensive testimony from various physicians about their understanding of this requirement. That testimony is illuminating. When asked what method of abortion they would prefer to use in the second trimester in the absence of § 5 (a), the plaintiffs’ experts said that they thought saline amnio-infusion was the method of choice. This was described as a method involving removal of amniotic fluid and injection of a saline or other solution into the amniotic sac. See Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 75-79. All physicians agreed, however, that saline amnio-infusion nearly always is fatal to the fetus, and it was commonly assumed that this method would be prohibited by the statute. When the plaintiffs’ and defendants’ physician-experts respectively were asked what would be the method of choice under § 5 (a), opinions differed widely. Preferences ranged from no abortion, to prostaglandin infusion, to hysterotomy, to oxytocin induction. Each method, it was generally conceded, involved disadvantages from the perspective of the woman. Hysterotomy, a type of Caesarean section procedure, generally was considered to have the highest incidence of fetal survival of any of the abortifacients. Hysterotomy, however, is associated with the risks attendant upon any operative procedure involving anesthesia and incision of tissue. And all physicians agreed that future children born to a woman having a hysterotomy would have to be delivered by Caesarean section because of the likelihood of rupture of the scar. Few of the testifying physicians had had any direct experience with prostaglandins, described as drugs that stimulate uterine contractibility, inducing premature expulsion of the fetus. See Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 77-78. It was generally agreed that the incidence of fetal survival with prostaglandins would be significantly greater than with saline amnio-infusion. Several physicians testified, however, that prostaglandins have undesirable side effects, such as nausea, vomiting, headache, and diarrhea, and indicated that they are unsafe with patients having a history of asthma, glaucoma, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, or epilepsy. See Wynn v. Scott, 449 F., Supp. 1302, 1326 (ND Ill. 1978). One physician recommended oxytocin induction. He doubted, however, whether the procedure would be fully effective in all cases, and he indicated that the procedure was prolonged and expensive. The parties acknowledge that there is disagreement among medical authorities about the relative merits and the safety of different abortion procedures that may be used during the second trimester. See Brief for Appellants 24. The appellants submit, however, that the only legally relevant considerations are that alternatives exist among abortifacients, “and that the physician, mindful of the state’s interest in protecting viable life, must make a competent and good faith medical judgment on the feasibility of protecting the fetus’ chance of survival in a manner consistent with the life and health of the pregnant woman.” Id., at 25. We read § 5 (a), however, to be much more problematical. The statute does not clearly specify, as appellants imply, that the woman’s life and health must always prevail over the fetus’ life and health when they conflict. The woman’s life and health are not mentioned in the first part of the stated standard of care, which sets forth the general duty to the viable fetus; they are mentioned only in the second part which deals with the choice of abortion procedures. Moreover, the second part of the standard directs the physician to employ the abortion technique best suited to fetal survival “so long as a different technique would not be necessary in order to preserve the life or health of the mother” (emphasis supplied). In this context, the word “necessary” suggests that a particular technique must be indispensable to the woman’s life or health- — -not merely desirable — before it may be adopted. And “the life or health of the mother,” as used in § 5 (a), has not been construed by the courts of the Commonwealth to mean, nor does it necessarily imply, that all factors relevant to the welfare of the woman may be taken into account by the physician in making his decision. Cf. United States v. Vuitch, 402 U. S., at 71-72; Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S., at 191. Consequently, it is uncertain whether the statute permits the physician to consider his duty to the patient to be paramount to his duty to the fetus, or whether it requires the physician to make a “trade-off” between the woman’s health and additional percentage points of fetal survival. Serious ethical and constitutional difficulties, that we do not address, lurk behind this ambiguity. We hold only that where conflicting duties of this magnitude are involved, the State, at the least, must proceed with greater precision before it may subject a physician to possible criminal sanctions. Appellants’ further suggestion that § 5 (a) requires only that the physician make a good-faith selection of the proper abortion procedure finds no support in either the language or an authoritative interpretation of the statute. Certainly, there is nothing to suggest a mens rea requirement with respect to a decision whether a particular abortion method is necessary in order to preserve the life or health of the woman. The choice of an appropriate abortion technique, as the record in this case so amply demonstrates, is a complex medical judgment about which experts can — and do — disagree. The lack of any scienter requirement exacerbates the uncertainty of the statute. We conclude that the standard-of-care provision, like the viability-determination requirement, is void for vagueness. The judgment of the District Court is affirmed. It is so ordered. Section 5 reads in pertinent part: “(a) Every person who performs or induces an abortion shall prior thereto have made a determination based on his experience, judgment or professional competence that the fetus is not viable, and if the determination is that the fetus is viable or if there is sufficient reason to believe that the fetus may be viable, shall exercise that degree of professional skill, care and diligence to preserve the life and health of the fetus which such person would be required to exercise in order to preserve the life and health of any fetus intended to be bom and not aborted and the abortion technique employed shall be that which would provide the best opportunity for the fetus to be aborted alive so long as a different technique would not be necessary in order to preserve the life or health of the mother. “(d) Any person who fails to make the determination provided for in subsection (a) of this section, or who fails to exercise the degree of professional skill, care and diligence or to provide the abortion technique as provided for in subsection (a) of this section... shall be subject to such civil or criminal liability as would pertain to him had the fetus been a child who was intended to be bom and not aborted.” The three-judge court was designated in September 1974 pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §2281 (1970 ed.). This statute was repealed by Pub. L. 94^381, § 1, 90 Stat. 1119, but the repeal did not apply to any action commenced on or before August 12, 1976. § 7. The plaintiffs named in the complaint, as amended, were Planned Parenthood Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Inc., a nonprofit corporation; appellee John Franklin, M. D., a licensed and board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist and medical director of Planned Parenthood; Concern for Health Options: Information, Care and Education, Inc. (CHOICE), a nonprofit corporation; and Clergy Consultation Service of Northeastern Pennsylvania, a voluntary organization. Later, appellee Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia intervened as a party plaintiff. Named as original defendants were F. Emmett Fitzpatrick, Jr., District Attorney of Philadelphia County, and Hel Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

E

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. Every year, hundreds of thousands of aliens are apprehended at or near the border attempting to enter this country illegally. Many ask for asylum, claiming that they would be persecuted if returned to their home countries. Some of these claims are valid, and by granting asylum, the United States lives up to its ideals and its treaty obligations. Most asylum claims, however, ultimately fail, and some are fraudulent. In 1996, when Congress enacted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), 110 Stat. 3009-546, it crafted a system for weeding out patently meritless claims and expeditiously removing the aliens making such claims from the country. It was Congress's judgment that detaining all asylum seekers until the full-blown removal process is completed would place an unacceptable burden on our immigration system and that releasing them would present an undue risk that they would fail to appear for removal proceedings. This case concerns the constitutionality of the system Congress devised. Among other things, IIRIRA placed restrictions on the ability of asylum seekers to obtain review under the federal habeas statute, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that these restrictions are unconstitutional. According to the Ninth Circuit, they unconstitutionally suspend the writ of habeas corpus and violate asylum seekers' right to due process. We now review that decision and reverse. Respondent's Suspension Clause argument fails because it would extend the writ of habeas corpus far beyond its scope "when the Constitution was drafted and ratified." Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 746, 128 S.Ct. 2229, 171 L.Ed.2d 41 (2008). Indeed, respondent's use of the writ would have been unrecognizable at that time. Habeas has traditionally been a means to secure release from unlawful detention, but respondent invokes the writ to achieve an entirely different end, namely, to obtain additional administrative review of his asylum claim and ultimately to obtain authorization to stay in this country. Respondent's due process argument fares no better. While aliens who have established connections in this country have due process rights in deportation proceedings, the Court long ago held that Congress is entitled to set the conditions for an alien's lawful entry into this country and that, as a result, an alien at the threshold of initial entry cannot claim any greater rights under the Due Process Clause. See Nishimura Ekiu v. United States, 142 U.S. 651, 660, 12 S.Ct. 336, 35 L.Ed. 1146 (1892). Respondent attempted to enter the country illegally and was apprehended just 25 yards from the border. He therefore has no entitlement to procedural rights other than those afforded by statute. In short, under our precedents, neither the Suspension Clause nor the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment requires any further review of respondent's claims, and IIRIRA's limitations on habeas review are constitutional as applied. I A We begin by briefly outlining the provisions of immigration law that are pertinent to this case. Under those provisions, several classes of aliens are "inadmissible" and therefore "removable." 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182, 1229a(e)(2)(A). These include aliens who lack a valid entry document "at the time of application for admission." § 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I). An alien who arrives at a "port of entry," i.e., a place where an alien may lawfully enter, must apply for admission. An alien like respondent who is caught trying to enter at some other spot is treated the same way. §§ 1225(a)(1), (3). If an alien is inadmissible, the alien may be removed. The usual removal process involves an evidentiary hearing before an immigration judge, and at that hearing an alien may attempt to show that he or she should not be removed. Among other things, an alien may apply for asylum on the ground that he or she would be persecuted if returned to his or her home country. § 1229a(b)(4) ; 8 C.F.R. § 1240.11(c) (2020). If that claim is rejected and the alien is ordered removed, the alien can appeal the removal order to the Board of Immigration Appeals and, if that appeal is unsuccessful, the alien is generally entitled to review in a federal court of appeals. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1229a(c)(5), 1252(a). As of the first quarter of this fiscal year, there were 1,066,563 pending removal proceedings. See Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), Adjudication Statistics: Pending Cases (Jan. 2020). The average civil appeal takes approximately one year. During the time when removal is being litigated, the alien will either be detained, at considerable expense, or allowed to reside in this country, with the attendant risk that he or she may not later be found. § 1226(a). Congress addressed these problems by providing more expedited procedures for certain "applicants for admission." For these purposes, "[a]n alien present in the United States who has not been admitted or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival...)" is deemed "an applicant for admission." § 1225(a)(1). An applicant is subject to expedited removal if, as relevant here, the applicant (1) is inadmissible because he or she lacks a valid entry document; (2) has not "been physically present in the United States continuously for the 2-year period immediately prior to the date of the determination of inadmissibility"; and (3) is among those whom the Secretary of Homeland Security has designated for expedited removal. §§ 1225(b)(1)(A)(i), (iii)(I)-(II). Once "an immigration officer determines" that a designated applicant "is inadmissible," "the officer [must] order the alien removed from the United States without further hearing or review." § 1225(b)(1)(A)(i). Applicants can avoid expedited removal by claiming asylum. If an applicant "indicates either an intention to apply for asylum" or "a fear of persecution," the immigration officer "shall refer the alien for an interview by an asylum officer." §§ 1225(b)(1)(A)(i)-(ii). The point of this screening interview is to determine whether the applicant has a "credible fear of persecution." § 1225(b)(1)(B)(v). The applicant need not show that he or she is in fact eligible for asylum-a "credible fear" equates to only a "significant possibility" that the alien would be eligible. Ibid. Thus, while eligibility ultimately requires a "well-founded fear of persecution on account of," among other things, "race" or "political opinion," §§ 1101(a)(42)(A), 1158(b)(1)(A), all that an alien must show to avoid expedited removal is a "credible fear." If the asylum officer finds an applicant's asserted fear to be credible, the applicant will receive "full consideration" of his asylum claim in a standard removal hearing. 8 C.F.R. § 208.30(f) ; see 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(B)(ii). If the asylum officer finds that the applicant does not have a credible fear, a supervisor will review the asylum officer's determination. 8 C.F.R. § 208.30(e)(8). If the supervisor agrees with it, the applicant may appeal to an immigration judge, who can take further evidence and "shall make a de novo determination." §§ 1003.42(c), (d)(1) ; see 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(B)(iii)(III). An alien subject to expedited removal thus has an opportunity at three levels to obtain an asylum hearing, and the applicant will obtain one unless the asylum officer, a supervisor, and an immigration judge all find that the applicant has not asserted a credible fear. Over the last five years, nearly 77% of screenings have resulted in a finding of credible fear. And nearly half the remainder (11% of the total number of screenings) were closed for administrative reasons, including the alien's withdrawal of the claim. As a practical matter, then, the great majority of asylum seekers who fall within the category subject to expedited removal do not receive expedited removal and are instead afforded the same procedural rights as other aliens. Whether an applicant who raises an asylum claim receives full or only expedited review, the applicant is not entitled to immediate release. Applicants "shall be detained pending a final determination of credible fear of persecution and, if found not to have such a fear, until removed." § 1225(b)(1)(B)(iii)(IV). Applicants who are found to have a credible fear may also be detained pending further consideration of their asylum applications. § 1225(b)(1)(B)(ii) ; see Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U. S. ----, ----, ----, 138 S.Ct. 830, 836-837, 842, 200 L.Ed.2d 122 (2018). B The IIRIRA provision at issue in this case, § 1252(e)(2), limits the review that an alien in expedited removal may obtain via a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. That provision allows habeas review of three matters: first, "whether the petitioner is an alien"; second, "whether the petitioner was ordered removed"; and third, whether the petitioner has already been granted entry as a lawful permanent resident, refugee, or asylee. §§ 1252(e)(2)(A)-(C). If the petitioner has such a status, or if a removal order has not "in fact" been "issued," § 1252(e)(5), the court may order a removal hearing, § 1252(e)(4)(B). A major objective of IIRIRA was to "protec[t] the Executive's discretion" from undue interference by the courts; indeed, "that can fairly be said to be the theme of the legislation." Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U.S. 471, 486, 119 S.Ct. 936, 142 L.Ed.2d 940 (1999) ( AAADC ). In accordance with that aim, § 1252(e)(5) provides that "[t]here shall be no review of whether the alien is actually inadmissible or entitled to any relief from removal." And "[n]otwithstanding" any other "habeas corpus provision"-including 28 U.S.C. § 2241 -"no court shall have jurisdiction to review" any other "individual determination" or "claim arising from or relating to the implementation or operation of an order of [expedited] removal." § 1252(a)(2)(A)(i). In particular, courts may not review "the determination" that an alien lacks a credible fear of persecution. § 1252(a)(2)(A)(iii) ; see also §§ 1252(a)(2)(A)(ii), (iv) (other specific limitations). Even without the added step of judicial review, the credible-fear process and abuses of it can increase the burdens currently "overwhelming our immigration system." 84 Fed. Reg. 33841 (2019). The past decade has seen a 1,883% increase in credible-fear claims, and in 2018 alone, there were 99,035 claims. See id., at 33838 (data for fiscal years 2008 to 2018). The majority have proved to be meritless. Many applicants found to have a credible fear-about 50% over the same 10-year period-did not pursue asylum. See EOIR, Adjudication Statistics: Rates of Asylum Filings in Cases Originating With a Credible Fear Claim (Nov. 2018); see also 84 Fed. Reg. 33841 (noting that many instead abscond). In 2019, a grant of asylum followed a finding of credible fear just 15% of the time. See EOIR, Asylum Decision Rates in Cases Originating With a Credible Fear Claim (Oct. 2019). Fraudulent asylum claims can also be difficult to detect, especially in a screening process that is designed to be expedited and that is currently handling almost 100,000 claims per year. The question presented thus has significant consequences for the immigration system. If courts must review credible-fear claims that in the eyes of immigration officials and an immigration judge do not meet the low bar for such claims, expedited removal would augment the burdens on that system. Once a fear is asserted, the process would no longer be expedited. C Respondent Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam, a Sri Lankan national, crossed the southern border without inspection or an entry document at around 11 p.m. one night in January 2017. App. 38. A Border Patrol agent stopped him within 25 yards of the border, and the Department detained him for expedited removal. Id., at 37-39, 106; see §§ 1182(a)(7)(A)(i)(I), 1225(b)(1)(A)(ii), and (b)(1)(B)(iii)(IV). He claimed a fear of returning to Sri Lanka because a group of men had once abducted and severely beaten him, but he said that he did not know who the men were, why they had assaulted him, or whether Sri Lankan authorities would protect him in the future. Id., at 80. He also affirmed that he did not fear persecution based on his race, political opinions, or other protected characteristics. Id., at 76-77; see § 1101(a)(42)(A). The asylum officer credited respondent's account of the assault but determined that he lacked a "credible" fear of persecution, as defined by § 1225(b)(1)(B)(v), because he had offered no evidence that could have made him eligible for asylum (or other removal relief). Id., at 83, 87, 89; see § 1158(b)(1)(A). The supervising officer agreed and signed the removal order. Id., at 54, 107. After hearing further testimony from respondent, an Immigration Judge affirmed on de novo review and returned the case to the Department for removal. Id., at 97. Respondent then filed a federal habeas petition. Asserting for the first time a fear of persecution based on his Tamil ethnicity and political views, id., at 12-13, he argued that he "should have passed the credible fear stage," id., at 30. But, he alleged, the immigration officials deprived him of "a meaningful opportunity to establish his claims" and violated credible-fear procedures by failing to probe past his denial of the facts necessary for asylum. Id., at 27, 32. Allegedly they also failed to apply the "correct standard" to his claims-the "significant possibility" standard-despite its repeated appearance in the records of their decisions. Id., at 30; see id., at 53, 84-89, 97. Respondent requested "a writ of habeas corpus, an injunction, or a writ of mandamus directing [the Department] to provide [him] a new opportunity to apply for asylum and other applicable forms of relief." Id., at 33. His petition made no mention of release from custody. The District Court dismissed the petition, holding that §§ 1252(a)(2) and (e)(2) and clear Ninth Circuit case law foreclosed review of the negative credible-fear determination that resulted in respondent's expedited removal order. 287 F.Supp.3d 1077, 1081 (SD Cal. 2018). The court also rejected respondent's argument "that the jurisdictional limitations of § 1252(e) violate the Suspension Clause," again relying on Circuit precedent. Id., at 1082-1083. The Ninth Circuit reversed. It found that our Suspension Clause precedent demands "reference to the writ as it stood in 1789." 917 F.3d 1097, 1111 (2019). But without citing any pre-1789 case about the scope of the writ, the court held that § 1252(e)(2) violates the Suspension Clause. See id., at 1113-1119. The court added that respondent "has procedural due process rights," specifically the right " 'to expedited removal proceedings that conformed to the dictates of due process.' " Id., at 1111, n. 15 (quoting United States v. Raya-Vaca, 771 F.3d 1195, 1203 (CA9 2014) ). Although the decision applied only to respondent, petitioners across the Circuit have used it to obtain review outside the scope of § 1252(e)(2), and petitioners elsewhere have attempted to follow suit. The Ninth Circuit's decision invalidated the application of an important provision of federal law and conflicted with a decision from another Circuit, see Castro v. United States Dept. of Homeland Security, 835 F.3d 422 (CA3 2016). We granted certiorari, 589 U. S. ----, 140 S.Ct. 427, 205 L.Ed.2d 244 (2019). II A The Suspension Clause provides that "[t]he Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." U. S. Const., Art. I, § 9, cl. 2. In INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 121 S.Ct. 2271, 150 L.Ed.2d 347 (2001), we wrote that the Clause, at a minimum, "protects the writ as it existed in 1789," when the Constitution was adopted. Id., at 301, 121 S.Ct. 2271 (internal quotation marks omitted). And in this case, respondent agrees that "there is no reason" to consider whether the Clause extends any further. Brief for Respondent 26, n. 12. We therefore proceed on that basis. B This principle dooms respondent's Suspension Clause argument, because neither respondent nor his amici have shown that the writ of habeas corpus was understood at the time of the adoption of the Constitution to permit a petitioner to claim the right to enter or remain in a country or to obtain administrative review potentially leading to that result. The writ simply provided a means of contesting the lawfulness of restraint and securing release. In 1768, Blackstone's Commentaries-usually a "satisfactory exposition of the common law of England," Schick v. United States, 195 U.S. 65, 69, 24 S.Ct. 826, 49 L.Ed. 99 (1904) -made this clear. Blackstone wrote that habeas was a means to "remov[e] the injury of unjust and illegal confinement." 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 137 (emphasis deleted). Justice Story described the "common law" writ the same way. See 3 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1333, p. 206 (1833). Habeas, he explained, "is the appropriate remedy to ascertain... whether any person is rightfully in confinement or not." Ibid. We have often made the same point. See, e.g., Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 484, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973) ("It is clear... from the common-law history of the writ... that the essence of habeas corpus is an attack by a person in custody upon the legality of that custody, and that the traditional function of the writ is to secure release from illegal custody"); Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U.S. 74, 79, 125 S.Ct. 1242, 161 L.Ed.2d 253 (2005) (similar); Munaf v. Geren, 553 U.S. 674, 693, 128 S.Ct. 2207, 171 L.Ed.2d 1 (2008) (similar). In this case, however, respondent did not ask to be released. Instead, he sought entirely different relief: vacatur of his "removal order" and "an order directing [the Department] to provide him with a new... opportunity to apply for asylum and other relief from removal." App. 14 (habeas petition). See also id., at 31 ("a fair procedure to apply for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT relief"); id., at 14 ("a new, meaningful opportunity to apply for asylum and other relief from removal"). Such relief might fit an injunction or writ of mandamus-which tellingly, his petition also requested, id., at 33-but that relief falls outside the scope of the common-law habeas writ. Although the historic role of habeas is to secure release from custody, the Ninth Circuit did not suggest that release, at least in the traditional sense of the term, was required. Instead, what it found to be necessary was a "meaningful opportunity" for review of the procedures used in determining that respondent did not have a credible fear of persecution. 917 F.3d at 1117. Thus, even according to the Ninth Circuit, respondent's petition did not call for traditional habeas relief. Not only did respondent fail to seek release, he does not dispute that confinement during the pendency of expedited asylum review, and even during the additional proceedings he seeks, is lawful. Nor could he. It is not disputed that he was apprehended in the very act of attempting to enter this country; that he is inadmissible because he lacks an entry document, see §§ 1182(a)(7)(A), 1225(b)(1)(A)(i) ; and that, under these circumstances, his case qualifies for the expedited review process, including "[m]andatory detention" during his credible-fear review, §§ 1225(b)(1)(B)(ii), (iii)(IV). Moreover, simply releasing him would not provide the right to stay in the country that his petition ultimately seeks. Without a change in status, he would remain subject to arrest, detention, and removal. §§ 1226(a), 1229a(e)(2). While respondent does not claim an entitlement to release, the Government is happy to release him-provided the release occurs in the cabin of a plane bound for Sri Lanka. That would be the equivalent of the habeas relief Justice Story ordered in a case while riding circuit. He issued a writ requiring the release of a foreign sailor who jumped ship in Boston, but he provided for the sailor to be released into the custody of the master of his ship. Ex parte D'Olivera, 7 F.Cas. 853, 854 (No. 3,967) (CC Mass. 1813). Respondent does not want anything like that. His claim is more reminiscent of the one we rejected in Munaf. In that case, American citizens held in U. S. custody in Iraq filed habeas petitions in an effort to block their transfer to Iraqi authorities for criminal prosecution. See 553 U.S. at 692, 128 S.Ct. 2207. Rejecting this use of habeas, we noted that "[h]abeas is at its core a remedy for unlawful executive detention" and that what these individuals wanted was not "simple release" but an order requiring them to be brought to this country. Id., at 693, 697, 128 S.Ct. 2207. Claims so far outside the "core" of habeas may not be pursued through habeas. See, e.g., Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521, 535, n. 13, 131 S.Ct. 1289, 179 L.Ed.2d 233 (2011). Like the habeas petitioners in Munaf, respondent does not want "simple release" but, ultimately, the opportunity to remain lawfully in the United States. That he seeks to stay in this country, while the habeas petitioners in Munaf asked to be brought here from Iraq, see post, at 2002 - 2004 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.), is immaterial. In this case as in Munaf, the relief requested falls outside the scope of the writ as it was understood when the Constitution was adopted. See Castro, 835 F.3d at 450-451 (Hardiman, J., concurring dubitante) ("Petitioners here seek to alter their status in the United States in the hope of avoiding release to their homelands. That prayer for relief... dooms the merits of their Suspension Clause argument" (emphasis deleted)). III Disputing this conclusion, respondent argues that the Suspension Clause guarantees a broader habeas right. To substantiate this claim, he points to three bodies of case law: British and American cases decided prior to or around the time of the adoption of the Constitution, decisions of this Court during the so-called "finality era" (running from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century), and two of our more recent cases. None of these sources support his argument. A Respondent and amici supporting his position have done considerable research into the use of habeas before and around the time of the adoption of the Constitution, but they have not unearthed evidence that habeas was then used to obtain anything like what is sought here, namely, authorization for an alien to remain in a country other than his own or to obtain administrative or judicial review leading to that result. All that their research (and the dissent's) shows is that habeas was used to seek release from detention in a variety of circumstances. In fact, respondent and his amici do not argue that their cases show anything more. See Brief for Respondent 27 (arguing that habeas was "available" at the founding "to test all forms of physical restraint"); Brief for Scholars of the Law of Habeas Corpus as Amici Curiae 11 (the "historical record... demonstrates that the touchstone for access to the writ" was "whether the petitioner challenges control of his person"). Because respondent seeks to use habeas to obtain something far different from simple release, his cause is not aided by the many release cases that he and his amici have found. Thus, for present purposes, it is immaterial that habeas was used to seek release from confinement that was imposed for, among other things, contempt of court (see Bushell's Case, Vaugh. 135, 124 Eng. Rep. 1006 (C. P. 1670)), debt (see Hollingshead's Case, 1 Salk. 351, 91 Eng. Rep. 307 (K. B. 1702); Rex v. Nathan, 2 Str. 880, 93 Eng. Rep. 914 (K. B. 1724)), medical malpractice (see Dr. Groenvelt's Case, 1 Raym. Ld. 213, 91 Eng. Rep. 1038 (K. B. 1702)), failing to pay an assessment for sewers (see Hetley v. Boyer, Cro. Jac. 336, 79 Eng. Rep. 287 (K. B. 1613)), failure to lend the King money (see Darnel's Case, 3 How. St. Tr. 1 (K. B. 1627)), carrying an authorized "dagg," i.e., handgun (see Gardener's Case, Cro. Eliz. 821, 78 Eng. Rep. 1048 (K. B. 1600)), "impressment" into military service or involuntary servitude (see St. Cyr, 533 U.S. at 302, 121 S.Ct. 2271 ), or refusing to pay a colonial tax (see Oldham & Wishnie 496). Nor does it matter that common-law courts sometimes ordered or considered ordering release in circumstances that would be beyond the reach of any habeas statute ever enacted by Congress, such as release from private custody. See, e.g., Rex v. Delaval, 3 Burr. 1434, 1435-1437, 97 Eng. Rep. 913, 914 (K. B. 1763) (release of young woman from "indentures of apprenticeship"); Rex v. Clarkson, 1 Str. 444, 93 Eng. Rep. 625 (K. B. 1722) (release from boarding school); Lister's Case, 8 Mod. 22, 88 Eng. Rep. 17 (K. B. 1721) (release of wife from estranged husband's restraint). What matters is that all these cases are about release from restraint. Accord, Preiser, 411 U.S. at 484-485, and nn. 3-5, 93 S.Ct. 1827. Respondent and his amici note that habeas petitioners were sometimes released on the condition that they conform to certain requirements. See Brief for Respondent 30; Legal Historians Brief 18. For example, they cite a case in which a man was released on condition that he treat his wife well and support her, and another in which a man was released on condition that he issue an apology. Ibid. But what respondent sought in this case is nothing like that. Respondent does not seek an order releasing him on the condition that he do or refrain from doing something. What he wants-further review of his asylum claim-is not a condition with which he must comply. Equally irrelevant is the practice, discussed in the dissent, of allowing the executive to justify or cure a defect in detention before requiring release. See post, at 2001 - 2002. Respondent does not seek this sort of conditional release either, because the legality of his detention is not in question. Respondent contends that two cases show that habeas could be used to secure the right of a non-citizen to remain in a foreign country, but neither proves his point. His first case, involving a Scot named Murray, is one for which no official report is available for us to review. We could hardly base our decision here on such a decision. His second case, Somerset v. Stewart, Lofft. 1, 98 Eng. Rep. 499 (K. B. 1772), is celebrated but does not aid respondent. James Somerset was a slave who was "detain[ed]" on a ship bound for Jamaica, and Lord Mansfield famously ordered his release on the ground that his detention as a slave was unlawful in England. Id., at 19, 98 Eng. Rep., at 510. This relief, release from custody, fell within the historic core of habeas, and Lord Mansfield did not order anything else. It may well be that a collateral consequence of Somerset's release was that he was allowed to remain in England, but if that is so, it was due not to the writ issued by Lord Mansfield, but to English law regarding entitlement to reside in the country. At the time, England had nothing like modern immigration restrictions. As late as 1816, the word "deportation" apparently "was not to be found in any English dictionary." The Use of the Crown's Power of Deportation Under the Aliens Act, 1793-1826, in J. Dinwiddy, Radicalism and Reform in Britain, 1780-1850, p. 150, n. 4 (1992); see also, e.g., Craies, The Right of Aliens To Enter British Territory, 6 L. Q. Rev. 27, 35 (1890) ("England was a complete asylum to the foreigner who did not offend against its laws"); Haycraft, Alien Legislation and the Prerogative of the Crown, 13 L. Q. Rev. 165, 180 (1897) ("There do not appear to have been any transactions in Parliament or in the [Crown's] Privy Council directly affecting [deportation] from the time of Elizabeth [I] to that of George III"). For a similar reason, respondent cannot find support in early 19th-century American cases in which deserting foreign sailors used habeas to obtain their release from the custody of American officials. In none of the cases involving deserters that have been called to our attention did the court order anything more than simple release from custody. As noted, Justice Story ordered a sailor's release into the custody of his ship's master. See Ex parte D'Olivera, 7 F.Cas. at 854. Other decisions, while ordering the release of detained foreign deserters because no statute authorized detention, chafed at having to order even release. See Case of the Deserters from the British Frigate L'Africaine, 3 Am. L. J. & Misc. Repertory 132, 135-136 (Md. 1810) (reporting judge's statement "that he never would interfere to prevent" the British consul himself from detaining British deserters); Case of Hippolyte Dumas, 2 Am. L. J. & Misc. Repertory 86, 87 (Pa. 1809) (noting "inconvenience" that U. S. law did not discourage desertion of foreign sailors); Commonwealth v. Holloway, 1 Serg.&Rawle 392, 396 (Pa. 1815) (opinion of Tilghman, C. J.) (same); id., at 397 (opinion of Yeates, J.) (same). These cases thus do not contemplate the quite different relief that respondent asks us to sanction here. In these cases, as in Somerset, it may be that the released petitioners were able to remain in the United States as a collateral consequence of release, but if so, that was due not to the writs ordering their release, but to U. S. immigration law or the lack thereof. These decisions came at a time when an "open door to the immigrant was the... federal policy." Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580, 588, n. 15, 72 S.Ct. 512, 96 L.Ed. 586 (1952) ; see also St. Cyr, 533 U.S. at 305, 121 S.Ct. 2271 (first immigration regulation enacted in 1875). So release may have had the side effect of enabling these individuals to remain in this country, but that is beside the point. The relief that a habeas court may order and the collateral consequences of that relief are two entirely different things. Ordering an individual's release from custody may have the side effect of enabling that person to pursue all sorts of opportunities that the law allows. For example, release may enable a qualified surgeon to operate on a patient; a licensed architect may have the opportunity to design a bridge; and a qualified pilot may be able to fly a passenger jet. But a writ of habeas could not be used to compel an applicant to be afforded those opportunities or as a means to obtain a license as a surgeon, architect, or pilot. Similarly, while the release of an alien may give the alien the opportunity to remain in the country if the immigration laws permit, we have no evidence that the writ as it was known in 1789 could be used to require that aliens be permitted to remain in a country other than their own, or as a means to seek that permission. Respondent's final examples involve international extradition, but these cases are no more pertinent than those already discussed. For one thing, they post-date the founding era. England was Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. We have held that the Fourth Amendment permits police officers to approach individuals at random in airport lobbies and other public places to ask them questions and to request consent to search their luggage, so long as a reasonable person would understand that he or she could refuse to cooperate. This case requires us to determine whether the same rule applies to police encounters that take place on a bus. I Drug interdiction efforts have led to the use of police surveillance at airports, train stations, and bus depots. Law enforcement officers stationed at such locations routinely approach individuals, either randomly or because they suspect in some vague way that the individuals may be engaged in criminal activity, and ask them potentially incriminating questions. Broward County has adopted such a program. County Sheriff’s Department officers routinely board buses at scheduled stops and ask passengers for permission to search their luggage. In this case, two officers discovered cocaine when they searched a suitcase belonging to Terrance Bostick. The underlying facts of the search are in dispute, but the Florida Supreme Court, whose decision we review here, stated explicitly the factual premise for its decision: “ ‘Two officers, complete with badges, insignia and one of them holding a recognizable zipper pouch, containing a pistol, boarded a bus bound from Miami to Atlanta during a stopover in Fort Lauderdale. Eyeing the passengers, the officers, admittedly without articulable suspicion, picked out the defendant passenger and asked to inspect his ticket and identification. The ticket, from Miami to Atlanta, matched the defendant’s identification and both were immediately returned to him as unremarkable. However, the two police officers persisted and explained their presence as narcotics agents on the lookout for illegal drugs. In pursuit of that aim, they then requested the defendant’s consent to search his luggage. Needless to say, there is a conflict in the evidence about whether the defendant consented to the search of the second bag in which the contraband was found and as to whether he was informed of his right to refuse consent. However, any conflict must be resolved in favor of the state, it being a question of fact decided by the trial judge.’” 554 So. 2d 1153, 1154-1155 (1989), quoting 510 So. 2d 321, 322 (Fla. App. 1987) (Letts, J., dissenting in part). Two facts are particularly worth noting. First, the police specifically advised Bostick that he had the right to refuse consent. Bostick appears to have disputed the point, but, as the Florida Supreme Court noted explicitly, the trial court resolved this evidentiary conflict in the State’s favor. Second, at no time did the officers threaten Bostick with a gun. The Florida Supreme Court indicated that one officer carried a zipper pouch containing a pistol — the equivalent of carrying a gun in a holster — but the court did not suggest that the gun was ever removed from its pouch, pointed at Bostick, or otherwise used in a threatening manner. The dissent’s characterization of the officers as “gun-wielding inquisitor[s],” post, at 448, is colorful, but lacks any basis in fact. Bostick was arrested and charged with trafficking in cocaine. He moved to suppress the cocaine on the grounds that it had been seized in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The trial court denied the motion but made no factual findings. Bostick subsequently entered a plea of guilty, but reserved the right to appeal the denial of the motion to suppress. The Florida District Court of Appeal affirmed, but considered the issue sufficiently important that it certified a question to the Florida Supreme Court. 510 So. 2d, at 322. The Supreme Court reasoned that Bostick had been seized because a reasonable passenger in his situation would not have felt free to leave the bus to avoid questioning by the police. 554 So. 2d, at 1154. It rephrased and answered the certified question so as to make the bus setting dispositive in every case. It ruled categorically that “ ‘an impermissible seizure result[s] when police mount a drug search on buses during scheduled stops and question boarded passengers without articulable reasons for doing so, thereby obtaining consent to search the passengers’ luggage.’” Ibid. The Florida Supreme Court thus adopted a per se rule that the Broward County Sheriff’s practice of “working the buses” is unconstitutional. The result of this decision is that police in Florida, as elsewhere, may approach persons at random in most public places, ask them questions and seek consent to a search, see id., at 1156; but they may not engage in the same behavior on a bus. Id., at 1157. We granted certiorari, 498 U. S. 894 (1990), to determine whether the Florida Supreme Court’s per se rule is consistent with our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. II The sole issue presented for our review is whether a police encounter on a bus of the type described above necessarily constitutes a “seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The State concedes, and we accept for purposes of this decision, that the officers lacked the reasonable suspicion required to justify a seizure and that, if a seizure took place, the drugs found in Bostick’s suitcase must be suppressed as tainted fruit. Our cases make it clear that a seizure does not occur simply because a police officer approaches an individual and asks a few questions. So long as a reasonable person would feel free “to disregard the police and go about his business,” California v. Hodari D., 499 U. S. 621, 628 (1991), the encounter is consensual and no reasonable suspicion is required. The encounter will not trigger Fourth Amendment scrutiny unless it loses its consensual nature. The Court made precisely this point in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 19, n. 16 (1968): “Obviously, not all personal intercourse between policemen and citizens involves ‘seizures’ of persons. Only when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen may we conclude that a ‘seizure’ has occurred.” Since Terry, we have held repeatedly that mere police questioning does not constitute a seizure. In Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491 (1983) (plurality opinion), for example, we explained that “law enforcement officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment by merely approaching an individual on the street or in another public place, by asking him if he is willing to answer some questions, by putting questions to him if the person is willing to listen, or by offering in evidence in a criminal prosecution his voluntary answers to such questions.” Id., at 497; see id., at 523, n. 3 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). There is no doubt that if this same encounter had taken place before Bostick boarded the bus or in the lobby of the bus terminal, it would not rise to the level of a seizure. The Court has dealt with similar encounters in airports and has found them to be “the sort of consensual encounters] that im-plicare] no Fourth Amendment interest.” Florida v. Rodriguez, 469 U. S. 1, 5-6 (1984). We have stated that even when officers have no basis for suspecting a particular individual, they may generally ask questions of that individual, see INS v. Delgado, 466 U. S. 210, 216 (1984); Rodriguez, supra, at 5-6; ask to examine the individual’s identification, see Delgado, supra, at 216; Royer, supra, at 501 (plurality opinion); United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544, 557-558 (1980); and request consent to search his or her luggage, see Royer, supra, at 501 (plurality opinion) — as long as the police do not convey a message that compliance with their requests is required. Bostick insists that this case is different because it took place in the cramped confines of a bus. A police encounter is much more intimidating in this setting, he argues, because police tower over a seated passenger and there is little room to move around. Bostick claims to find support in language from Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U. S. 567, 573 (1988), and other cases, indicating that a seizure occurs when a reasonable person would believe that he or she is not “free to leave.” Bostick maintains that a reasonable bus passenger would not have felt free to leave under the circumstances of this case because there is nowhere to go on a bus. Also, the bus was about to depart. Had Bostick disembarked, he would have risked being stranded and losing whatever baggage he had locked away in the luggage compartment. The Florida Supreme Court found this argument persuasive, so much so that it adopted a per se rule prohibiting the police from randomly boarding buses as a means of drug interdiction. The state court erred, however, in focusing on whether Bostick was “free to leave” rather than on the principle that those words were intended to capture. When police attempt to question a person who is walking down the street or through an airport lobby, it makes sense to inquire whether a reasonable person would feel free to continue walking. But when the person is seated on a bus and has no desire to leave, the degree to which a reasonable person would feel that he or she could leave is not an accurate measure of the coercive effect of the encounter. Here, for example, the mere fact that Bostick did not feel free to leave the bus does not mean that the police seized him. Bostick was a passenger on a bus that was scheduled to depart. He would not have felt free to leave the bus even if the police had not been present. Bostick’s movements were “confined” in a sense, but this was the natural result of his decision to take the bus; it says nothing about whether or not the police conduct at issue was coercive. In this respect, the Court’s decision in INS v. Delgado, supra, is dispositive. At issue there was the INS’ practice of visiting factories at random and questioning employees to determine whether any were illegal aliens. Several INS agents would stand near the building’s exits, while other agents walked through the factory questioning workers. The Court acknowledged that the workers may not have been free to leave their worksite, but explained that this was not the result of police activity: “Ordinarily, when people are at work their freedom to move about has been meaningfully restricted, not by the actions of law enforcement officials, but by the workers’ voluntary obligations to their employers.” Id., at 218. We concluded that there was no seizure because, even though the workers were not free to leave the building without being questioned, the agents’ conduct should have given employees “no reason to believe that they would be detained if they gave truthful answers to the questions put to them or if they simply refused to answer.” Ibid. The present case is analytically indistinguishable from Delgado. Like the workers in that case, Bostick’s freedom of movement was restricted by a factor independent of police conduct — i. e., by his being a passenger on a bus. Accordingly, the “free to leave” analysis on which Bostick relies is inapplicable. In such a situation, the appropriate inquiry is whether a reasonable person would feel free to decline the officers’ requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. This formulation follows logically from prior cases and breaks no new ground. We have said before that the crucial test is whether, taking into account all of the circumstances surrounding the encounter, the police conduct would “have communicated to a reasonable person that he was not at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about his business.” Chesternut, supra, at 569. See also Hodari D., 499 U. S., at 628. Where the encounter takes place is one factor, but it is not the only one. And, as the Solicitor General correctly observes, an individual may decline an officer’s request without fearing prosecution. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 25. We have consistently held that a refusal to cooperate, without more, does not furnish the minimal level of objective justification needed for a detention or seizure. See Delgado, supra, at 216-217; Royer, 460 U. S., at 498 (plurality opinion); Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47, 52-53 (1979). The facts of this case, as described by the Florida Supreme Court, leave some doubt whether a seizure occurred. Two officers walked up to Bostick on the bus, asked him a few questions, and asked if they could search his bags. As we have explained, no seizure occurs when police ask questions of an individual, ask to examine the individual’s identification, and request consent to search his or her luggage — so long as the officers do not convey a message that compliance with their requests is required. Here, the facts recited by the Florida Supreme Court indicate that the officers did not point guns at Bostick or otherwise threaten him and that they specifically advised Bostick that he could refuse consent. Nevertheless, we refrain from deciding whether or not a seizure occurred in this case. The trial court made no express findings of fact, and the Florida Supreme Court rested its decision on a single fact — that the encounter took place on a bus —rather than on the totality of the circumstances. We remand so that the Florida courts may evaluate the seizure question under the correct legal standard. We do reject, however, Bostick’s argument that he must have been seized because no reasonable person would freely consent to a search of luggage that he or she knows contains drugs. This argument cannot prevail because the “reasonable person” test presupposes an innocent person. See Royer, supra, at 519, n. 4 (Blackmun, J., dissenting) (“The fact that [respondent] knew the search was likely to turn up contraband is of course irrelevant; the potential intrusiveness of the officers’ conduct must be judged from the viewpoint of an innocent person in [his] position”). Accord, Chesternut, 486 U. S., at 574 (“This ‘reasonable person’ standard . . . ensures that the scope of Fourth Amendment protection does not vary with the state of mind of the particular individual being approached”). The dissent characterizes our decision as holding that police may board buses and by an “intimidating show of authority,” post, at 447 (emphasis added), demand of passengers their “voluntary” cooperation. That characterization is incorrect. Clearly, a bus passenger’s decision to cooperate with law enforcement officers authorizes the police to conduct a search without first obtaining a warrant only if the cooperation is voluntary. “Consent” that is the product of official intimidation or harassment is not consent at all. Citizens do not forfeit their constitutional rights when they are coerced to comply with a request that they would prefer to refuse. The question to be decided by the Florida courts on remand is whether Bostick chose to permit the search of his luggage. The dissent also attempts to characterize our decision as applying a lesser degree of constitutional protection to those individuals who travel by bus, rather than by other forms of transportation. This, too, is an erroneous characterization. Our Fourth Amendment inquiry in this case — whether a reasonable person would have felt free to decline the officers’ requests or otherwise terminate the encounter — applies equally to police encounters that take place on trains, planes, and city streets. It is the dissent that would single out this particular mode of travel for differential treatment by adopting a per se rule that random bus searches are unconstitutional. The dissent reserves its strongest criticism for the proposition that police officers can approach individuals as to whom they have no reasonable suspicion and ask them potentially incriminating questions. But this proposition is by no means novel; it has been endorsed by the Court any number of times. Terry, Royer, Rodriguez, and Delgado are just a few examples. As we have explained, today’s decision follows logically from those decisions and breaks no new ground. Unless the dissent advocates overruling a long, unbroken line of decisions dating back more than 20 years, its criticism is not well taken. This Court, as the dissent correctly observes, is not empowered to suspend constitutional guarantees so that the Government may more effectively wage a “war on drugs.” See post, at 440, 450-451. If that war is to be fought, those who fight it must respect the rights of individuals, whether or not those individuals are suspected of having committed a crime. By the same token, this Court is not empowered to forbid law enforcement practices simply because it considers them distasteful. The Fourth Amendment proscribes unreasonable searches and seizures; it does not proscribe voluntary cooperation. The cramped confines of a bus are one relevant factor that should be considered in evaluating whether a passenger’s consent is voluntary. We cannot agree, however, with the Florida Supreme Court that this single factor will be dispositive in every case. We adhere to the rule that, in order to determine whether a particular encounter constitutes a seizure, a court must consider all the circumstances surrounding the encounter to determine whether the police conduct would have communicated to a reasonable person that the person was not free to decline the officers’ requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. That rule applies to encounters that take place on a city street or in an airport lobby, and it applies equally to encounters on a bus. The Florida Supreme Court erred in adopting a per se rule. The judgment of the Florida Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. The dissent acknowledges that the Florida Supreme Court’s answer to the certified question reads like a per se rule, but dismisses as “implausible” the notion that the court would actually apply this rule to “trump” a careful analysis of all the relevant facts. Post, at 445. Implausible as it may seem, that is precisely what the Florida Supreme Court does. It routinely grants review in bus search cases and quashes denials of motions to suppress expressly on the basis of its answer to the certified question in this case. See, e. g., McBride v. State, 554 So. 2d 1160 (1989); Mendez v. State, 554 So. 2d 1161 (1989); Shaw v. State, 555 So. 2d 351 (1989); Avery v. State, 555 So. 2d 351 (1989); Serpa v. State, 555 So. 2d 1210 (1989); Jones v. State, 559 So. 2d 1096 (1990). Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Jackson delivered the opinion of the Court. A specially constituted three-judge District Court has summarily, without trial, entered final judgment ousting a Conservator who, on orders of the Federal Home Loan Bank Commissioner, had taken possession of the Long Beach Federal Savings and Loan Association. It granted this and other relief on the principal ground that § 5 (d) of the Home Owners’ Loan Act of 1933, as amended, violates Article I, §§ 1 and 8 of the Constitution. The Federal Home Loan Bank Administration on May 20, 1946, without notice or hearing, appointed Ammann conservator for the Association and he at once entered into possession. The grounds assigned were that the Association was conducting its affairs in an unlawful, unauthorized and unsafe manner, that its management was unfit and unsafe, that it was pursuing a course injurious to, and jeopardizing the interests of, its members, creditors and the public. Plaintiffs at once commenced this class action in the right of the Association against the Conservator and Fahey, Chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the Association as a nominal defendant, and several others not important to the issue here. The complaint alleged that the Conservator and the Chairman had seized the property without due process of law, motivated by malice and ill will, and that the seizure for various reasons was in violation of the Constitution. It asked return of the Association to its former management, permanent injunction against further interference, and other relief. Other parties in interest intervened. Temporary restraining orders issued and a three-judge court was duly convened. Personal service was secured upon Ammann, the Conservator, but Fahey, the Federal Home Loan Bank Commissioner, officially an inhabitant of the District of Columbia, could not be served in California. A motion for substituted service, therefore, was granted and process was served upon him in the District of Columbia. It was believed that this was authorized by Judicial Code, § 57, 28 U. S. C. § 118. Ammann moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that it failed to state a cause of action. Fahey appeared specially to move dismissal or quashing return of service on him upon the ground that he could not, in his official capacity, be sued in California and had not been served properly with process. Neither had answered the complaint, nor had their time to do so expired, when final judgment was granted against them. The three-judge court set a variety of pending motions for argument and, after argument mainly on the constitutionality of § 5 (d), with only pleadings and motion papers before it, held the section unconstitutional, ordered removal of the Conservator, permanently enjoined the authorities from holding an administrative hearing on the matter, permanently enjoined an apprehended merger, restored the institution to its former management, ordered the Conservator to account and enjoined these authorities “from ever asserting any claims, right, title or interest" in or to the Association’s property. 68 F. Supp. 418. The case is here on direct appeal. 50 Stat. 752-53, 28 U. S. C. §§ 349a, 380a. It is manifest that whatever merit there may be in various subsidiary and collateral questions, this drastic decree can stand only if the section, as applied here, is unconstitutional. Its defect is said to consist of delegation of legislative functions to the supervising authority without adequate standards of action or guides to policy. Section 5 (d) of the Act gives to the Board “full power to provide in the rules and regulations herein authorized for the reorganization, consolidation, merger, or liquidation of such associations, including the power to appoint a conservator or a receiver to take charge of the affairs of any such association, and to require an equitable readjustment of the capital structure of the same; and to release any such association from such control and permit its further operation.” 48 Stat. 133, 12 U. S. C. § 1464 (d). This, the District Court held, was unconstitutional delegation of the congressional function. It relied on Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U. S. 388, and Schechter Corp. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495. Both cited cases dealt with delegation of a power to make federal crimes of acts that never had been such before and to devise novel rules of law in a field in which there had been no settled law or custom. The latter case also involved delegation to private groups as well as to public authorities. Chief Justice Hughes emphasized these features, saying that the Act under examination was not merely to deal with practices “which offend against existing law, and could be the subject of judicial condemnation without further legislation, or to create administrative machinery for the application of established principles of law to particular instances of violation. Rather, the purpose is clearly disclosed to authorize new and controlling prohibitions through codes of laws which would embrace what the formulators would propose, and what the President would approve, or prescribe, as wise and beneficent measures for the government of trades and industries in order to bring about their rehabilitation, correction and development, according to the general declaration of policy in section one.” Schechter Corp. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495, 535. The savings and loan associations with which § 5 (d) deals, on the other hand, are created, insured and aided by the Federal Government. It may be that explicit standards in the Home Owners’ Loan Act would have been a desirable assurance of responsible administration. But the provisions of the statute under attack are not penal provisions as in the case of Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451, or United States v. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S. 81. The provisions are regulatory. They do not deal with unprecedented economic problems of varied industries. They deal with a single type of enterprise and with the problems of insecurity and mismanagement which are as old as banking enterprise. The remedies which are authorized are not new ones unknown to existing law to be invented by the Board in exercise of a lawless range of power. Banking is one of the longest regulated and most closely supervised of public callings. It is one in which accumulated experience of supervisors, acting for many states under various statutes, has established well-defined practices for the appointment of conservators, receivers and liquidators. Corporate management is a field, too, in which courts have experience and many precedents have crystallized into well-known and generally acceptable standards. A discretion to make regulations to guide supervisory action in such matters may be constitutionally permissible while it might not be allowable to authorize creation of new crimes in uncharted fields. The Board adopted rules and regulations governing appointment of conservators. They provided the grounds upon which a conservator might be named, and they are the usual and conventional grounds found in most state and federal banking statutes. They are sufficiently explicit, against the background of custom, to be adequate for proper administration and for judicial review if there should be a proper occasion for it. It is complained that these regulations provide for hearing after the conservator takes possession instead of before. This is a drastic procedure. But the delicate nature of the institution and the impossibility of preserving credit during an investigation has made it an almost invariable custom to apply supervisory authority in this summary manner. It is a heavy responsibility to be exercised with disinterestedness and restraint, but in the light of the history and customs of banking we cannot say it is unconstitutional. In this case an administrative hearing was demanded and specifications were asked as to the charges against the management of the Association. The hearing was granted and a statement of complaints against the management was furnished. The causes for the appointment of a conservator as therein set forth by the Board included withdrawals by the president without proper voucher therefor; payment of salaries and fees not commensurate with services rendered; a director’s unlawful removal of a cashier’s check in the amount of $50,000 during an examination by Federal Home Loan Bank examiners; leasing properties of the Association for a twenty-year period on terms which would not provide adequate consideration to the Association; use of the Association for personal gain of one or more officers and directors; failure to maintain proper accounts and to make proper reports; and falsification of records. It also charged certain manipulations of the affairs of another institution by the president of this institution. The plaintiffs nevertheless demanded and obtained an injunction to prevent the administrative hearing and they have therefore cut off the making of a record as to whether these charges are well-founded. Nor did the trial court take evidence on the subject. We must assume that-the supervising authorities would be able to sustain the statements of fact and to justify the conclusions in their changes for the purpose of determining the case without trial. We are therefore unable to agree with the court below that the section is invalid and hence that regardless of the charges the management was free to go on undisciplined and unchecked. But even if the section were defective, which we think it is not in a constitutional sense, another obstacle stands in the way of ousting this conservator. The Long Beach Federal Savings and Loan Association was organized in 1934 under § 5 of the Home Owners’ Loan Act of 1933, subsection (d) of which is now sought to be declared unconstitutional. The present management obtained a charter which provided that the Association “shall at all times be subject to the provisions of the Home Owners’ Loan Act of 1933, providing for Federal savings and loan associations, and to any amendments thereof, and to any valid rules and regulations made thereunder as the same may be amended from time to time,” and that it might be “liquidated, merged, consolidated, or reorganized, as is provided in the rules and regulations for Federal savings and loan associations . . . .” In 1937, upon the Association’s request, an amended charter was issued which likewise provided that the Association was to exercise its powers subject to the Home Owners’ Loan Act and regulations issued thereunder. This is a stockholder’s derivative action in which plaintiffs sue only in the right of the Association. It is an elementary rule of constitutional law that one may not “retain the benefits of the Act while attacking the constitutionality of one of its important conditions.” United States v. San Francisco, 310 U. S. 16, 29. As formulated by Mr. Justice Brandeis, concurring in Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U. S. 288, 348, “The Court will not pass upon the constitutionality of a statute at the instance of one who has availed himself of its benefits.” In the name and right of the Association it is now being asked that the Act under which it has its existence be struck down in important particulars, hardly severable from those provisions which grant its right to exist. Plaintiffs challenge the constitutional validity of the only provision under which proceedings may be taken to liquidate or conserve the Association for the protection of its members and the public. If it can hold the charter that it obtained under this Act and strike down the provision for terminating its powers or conserving its assets, it may perpetually go on, notwithstanding any abuses which its management may perpetrate. It would be intolerable that the Congress should endow an association with the right to conduct a public banking business on certain limitations and that the Court at the behest of those who took advantage from the privilege should remove the limitations intended for public protection. It would be difficult to imagine a more appropriate situation in which to apply the doctrine that one who utilizes an Act to gain advantages of corporate existence is estopped from questioning the validity of its vital conditions. We hold that plaintiffs are estopped, as the Association would be, from challenging the provisions of the Act which authorize the Board to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which a conservator may be named. There are other important and difficult questions raised in the case which it becomes unnecessary to decide. Objection is made to the administrative hearing upon the ground that it is before the same authority which has preferred the charges and that it cannot be expected, therefore, to be fair and impartial and that the Act does not provide for judicial review of the Board’s determination on the hearing. We cannot agree that courts should assume in advance that an administrative hearing may not be fairly conducted. We do not now decide whether the determination of the Board in such proceeding is subject to any manner of judicial review. The absence from the statute of a provision for court review has sometimes been held not to foreclose review. Stark v. Wickard, 321 U. S. 288; Federal Reserve Board v. Agnew, 329 U. S. 441; Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. A. § 1009. Nor do we mean to be understood that if supervising authorities maliciously, wantonly and without cause destroy the credit of a financial institution, there are not remedies. One of the allegations of the complaint is that it was intended that this institution would be merged with other institutions to the injury of its shareholders. The allegation seems to be based on the fact that a different institution with which the management of the Long Beach institution was connected was merged by the authorities in a way that was highly objectionable to some of the shareholders and aroused concern of the public authorities. We find no explicit threat to merge the Long Beach institution and there is no such finding by the court below. The Government has assured us at the bar .that there is no plan for such a merger in contemplation. Nevertheless, such a merger was enjoined. In view of the absence of a finding of the threat or of evidence to sustain one, we accept the Government’s assurance that merger will not follow and, hence, we do not consider it necessary to discuss the legality of hypothetical mergers. Since the judgment that has been rendered against the Conservator, who was duly served with process, must be reversed, we find it unnecessary to decide whether Fahey was an indispensable party or was properly brought into the case by substituted service. It is obvious that there is more to this litigation than meets the eye on the pleadings. The plaintiffs’ charges that ill will and malice actuated the supervising authorities, as well as the charges of the defendants that the institution has been mismanaged and that the management is unfit, are alike undetermined by the courts below, and we make no determination or intimation concerning the merits of these issues or as to other remedies or relief than that in the judgment before us. Our decision is that it was error in the court below to hold the section unconstitutional, to oust the Conservator or to enjoin any of his proceedings or to enjoin the administrative Hearing, and this without prejudice to any other administrative or judicial proceedings which may be warranted by law. The judgment is Reversed. Mr. Justice Douglas concurs in the result. Mr. Justice Rutledge concurs in the result and in the Court’s opinion insofar as it rests upon the ground that the controlling statute, § 5 (d) of the Home Owners’ Loan Act of 1933, is not unconstitutional. The Rules and Regulations for the Federal Savings and Loan System provide in part as follows: Part 206. Appointment of Conservator or Receiver. §206.1. Receiver or conservator; appointment, (a) Whenever, in the opinion of the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration, any Federal savings and loan association: (1) Is conducting its business in an unlawful, unauthorized, or unsafe manner; (2) Is in an unsound or unsafe condition, or has a management which is unsafe or unfit to manage a Federal savings and loan association; (3) Cannot with safety continue in business ; (4) Is impaired in that its assets do not have an aggregate value (in the judgment of the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration) at least equal to the aggregate amount of its liabilities to its creditors, members, and all other persons; (5) Is in imminent danger of becoming impaired; (6) Is pursuing a course that is jeopardizing or injurious to the interests of its members, creditors, or the public; (7) Has suspended payment of its obligations; (8) Has refused to submit its books, papers, records, or affairs for inspection to any examiner or lawful agent appointed by the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration; (9) Has refused by the refusal of any of its officers, directors, or employees to be examined upon oath by the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration or its representative concerning its affairs; or (10) Has refused or failed to observe a lawful order of the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration, the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration may appoint the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation receiver for such Federal association, which appointment shall be for the purpose of liquidation, or the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration may appoint a conservator for such Federal association to conserve the assets of the association pending further disposition of its affairs. The appointment shall be by order, which order shall state on which of the above causes the appointment is based. Any conservator so appointed shall furnish bond for himself and his employees, in form and amount and with surety acceptable to the Governor of the Federal Home Loan Bank System, or any Deputy or Assistant Governor, but no bond shall be required of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation as receiver. The conservator or receiver shall forthwith upon appointment take possession of the association and, at the time such conservator or receiver shall demand possession, such conservator or receiver shall notify the officer or employee of the association, if any, who shall be in the home office of the association and appear to be in charge of such office, of the action of the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration. The Secretary of the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration shall, forthwith upon adoption thereof, mail a certified copy of the order of appointment to the address of the association as it shall appear on the records of the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration and to each director of the association, known by the Secretary to be such, at the last address of each as the same shall appear on the records of the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration. If such certified copy of the order appointing the conservator or receiver is received at the offices of the association after the taking of possession by the conservator or receiver, such conservator or receiver shall hand the same to any officer or director of the association who may make demand therefor. § 206.2. Hearing on appointment. Within fourteen days (Sundays and holidays included) after the appointment of a conservator or receiver for a Federal association not at the time of such appointment in the hands of a conservator, such Federal association, which has not, by its board of directors, consented to or requested the appointment of a conservator or receiver, may file an answer and serve a written demand for a hearing, authorized by its board of directors, which demand shall state the address to which notice of hearing shall be sent. Upon receipt of such answer and written demand for a hearing the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration shall issue and serve a notice of hearing upon the institution by mailing a copy of the order of hearing to the address stated in the demand therefor and shall conduct a hearing, at which time and place the Federal association may appear and show cause why the conservator or receiver should not have been appointed and why an order should be entered by the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration discharging the conservator or receiver. Such hearing shall be held either in the district of the Federal Home Loan Bank of which such Federal association is a member or in Washington, D. C., as the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration shall determine, unless the association otherwise consents in writing. Such hearing may be held before the Federal Home Loan Bank Commissioner or before a trial examiner or hearing officer, as the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration shall determine. Such Federal association, which has not, by its board of directors, consented to or requested the appointment of a conservator or receiver, may, within seven days (Sundays and holidays included) of such appointment, serve a written or telegraphic demand, authorized by its board of directors, upon the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration for a more definite statement of the cause or causes for the action. The time of service upon the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration for the purposes of this section shall be the time of receipt by the Secretary of the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration. § 206.4. Discharge of conservator or receiver. An order of the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration discharging a conservator and returning the association to its management shall restore to such Federal association all its rights, powers and privileges and shall restore the rights, powers and privileges of its officers and directors, all as of the time specified in such order, except as such order may otherwise provide. An order of the Federal Home Loan Bank Administration discharging a receiver and returning the association to its management shall by operation of law and without any conveyance or other instrument, act or deed, restore to such Federal association all its rights, powers and privileges, revest in such Federal association the title to all its property, and restore the rights, powers and privileges of its officers and directors, all as of the time specified in such order, except as such order may otherwise provide. 24 C. F. R. Cum. Supp. § 206.1 et seq., as amended, 24 C. F. R. 1943 Supp. § 206.1. Bank Conservation Act of March 9, 1933, § 203, 48 Stat. 2-3, 12 U. S. C. §203; Banking Act of 1933, §31, 48 Stat. 194, 12 U. S. C. §71a; National Housing Act, §406, 48 Stat. 1259-60, 12 U. S. C. § 1729. E. g., New York Banking Law, § 606, 4 McKinney’s Consolidated Laws of New York, pp. 708-709, (pocket part, 1946) 125-26; Page’s Ohio General Code Ann., § 687; 1 Deering’s California General Laws, Act 986, § 13.11; Massachusetts Laws Ann. c. 167, § 22; c. 170B, § 4; Jones Illinois Stat. Ann., § 14.40. See note 2. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

H

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court. Under Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509 (1982), federal district courts must dismiss “mixed” habeas corpus petitions — those containing both unexhausted and exhausted claims. In this case, we decide whether the District Court erred by dismissing, pursuant to Rose, a pro se habeas petitioner’s two habeas petitions without giving him two particular advisements. Because we hold that the District Court’s failure to provide these warnings did not make the dismissals improper, we need not address the second question presented, whether respondent’s subsequent untimely petitions relate back to his “improperly dismissed” initial petitions. I On April 19, 1997, five days before his 1-year statute of limitations under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 110 Stat. 1214, would have run, respondent signed and delivered to prison authorities two pro se federal habeas corpus petitions. The first petition related to respondent’s conviction for, among other things, conspiring to murder John Loguercio and attempting to murder Loguercio’s wife; the second related to his conviction for the first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit the murder of Thomas Weed. Because the petitions contained unexhausted claims, respondent also filed motions to stay the petitions so that he could return to state court to exhaust the unexhausted claims. The Magistrate Judge gave respondent three options: (1) The petitions could be dismissed without prejudice and respondent could refile after exhausting the unexhausted claims; (2) the unexhausted claims could be dismissed and respondent could proceed with only the exhausted claims; or (3) respondent could contest the Magistrate Judge’s finding that some of the claims had not been exhausted. App. 51-52; 81-82. With respect to his petition in the Loguercio case, respondent chose the first option. With respect to the Weed case, respondent failed to respond to the Magistrate Judge. The District Court dismissed respondent’s petitions without prejudice. In both cases, respondent proceeded by filing ha-beas corpus petitions in the California Supreme Court, which were both summarily denied. Respondent subsequently refilled his pro se habeas petitions in Federal District Court. The District Court, in both cases, dismissed the petitions with prejudice as untimely under AEDPA’s 1-year statute of limitations, 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d), and denied respondent’s motions for a certificate of appealability (COA). The Ninth Circuit consolidated respondent’s motions for a COA, and then granted a COA on the question whether his federal ha-beas petitions were timely under § 2244(d). A divided panel concluded that both of respondent’s initial federal habeas petitions were timely filed and held that his later petitions related back to the initial petitions. Ford v. Hubbard, 330 F. 3d 1086, 1097 (2003). Although the District Court correctly concluded that it did not have discretion to stay respondent’s mixed petitions, see Rose, supra, at 522, the Ninth Circuit determined that the District Court could have acted on the stay motions if respondent had chosen the Magistrate Judge’s second option— dismissal of the unexhausted claims — and then renewed the prematurely filed stay motions. Under the Ninth Circuit’s view, the District Court was obligated to advise respondent that it could consider his stay motions only if he chose this route. 330 F. 3d, at 1099. The District Court’s failure to inform respondent was, according to the Court of Appeals, prejudicial error because it deprived respondent of a “fair and informed opportunity to have his stay motions heard, to exhaust his unexhausted claims, and ultimately to have his claims considered on the merits.” Id., at 1100. The District Court also committed prejudicial error, according to the Ninth Circuit, for failing to inform respondent that AEDPA’s 1-year statute of limitations had run on both of his petitions and that, consequently, he would be barred from refiling his petitions in federal court if he failed to amend them or if he chose to dismiss the petitions without prejudice in order to exhaust the unexhausted claims. Under the Court of Appeals’ view, the District Court “definitively, although not intentionally,” misled respondent by telling him that if he chose the first option, the dismissal would be without prejudice. Ibid. The Court of Appeals concluded that respondent should have been told that, because AEDPA’s statute of limitations had run with respect to his claims, a dismissal without prejudice would effectively result in a dismissal with prejudice unless equitable tolling applied. Id., at 1101. According to the Court of Appeals, the District Court’s error in this regard deprived respondent of the opportunity to make a “meaningful” choice between the two options. Id., at 1102. We granted certiorari, 540 U. S. 1099 (2004). II Under Rose, federal district courts must dismiss mixed habeas petitions. 455 U. S., at 510, 522. Subsequent to the Court’s decision in Rose, Congress enacted AEDPA, which imposed a 1-year statute of limitations for filing a federal habeas corpus petition. See 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(1). The combined effect of Rose and AEDPA’s limitations period is that if a petitioner comes to federal court with a mixed petition toward the end of the limitations period, a dismissal of his mixed petition could result in the loss of all of his claims — including those already exhausted — because the limitations period could expire during the time a petitioner returns to state court to exhaust his unexhausted claims. To address this, the Ninth Circuit has held that a district court may employ a stay-and-abeyance procedure. See Calderon v. United States Dist. Court for Northern Dist. of Cal. ex rel. Taylor, 134 F. 3d 981, 988 (1998). The stay-and-abeyance procedure involves three steps: first, dismissal of any unexhausted claims from the original mixed habeas petition; second, a stay of the remaining claims, pending exhaustion of the dismissed unexhausted claims in state court; and third, amendment of the original petition to add the newly exhausted claims that then relate back to the original petition. Id., at 986. In this case, the Ninth Circuit held that if a pro se prisoner files a mixed petition, the district court must give two specific warnings regarding the stay-and-abeyance procedure: first, that “it would not have the power to consider [a prisoner’s] motions to stay the [mixed] petitions unless he opted to amend them and dismiss the then-unexhausted claims,” 330 F. 3d, at 1092-1093, and, second, if applicable, “that [a prisoner’s] federal claims would be time-barred, absent cause for equitable tolling, upon his return to federal court if he opted to dismiss the petitions ‘without prejudice’ and return to state eourt to exhaust all of his claims,” id., at 1093. Without addressing the propriety of this stay-and-abeyance procedure, we hold that federal district judges are not required to give pro se litigants these two warnings. District judges have no obligation to act as counsel or paralegal to pro se litigants. In McKaskle v. Wiggins, 465 U. S. 168, 183-184 (1984), the Court stated that “[a] defendant does not have a constitutional right to receive personal instruction from the trial judge on courtroom procedure” and that “the Constitution [does not] require judges to take over chores for a pro se defendant that would normally be attended to by trained counsel as a matter of course.” See also Martinez v. Court of Appeal of Cal., Fourth Appellate Dist., 528 U. S. 152, 162 (2000) (“[T]he trial judge is under no duty to provide personal instruction on courtroom procedure or to perform any legal ‘chores’ for the defendant that counsel would normally carry out”). Explaining the details of federal habeas procedure and calculating statutes of limitations are tasks normally and properly performed by trained counsel as a matter of course. Requiring district courts to advise a pro se litigant in such a manner would undermine district judges’ role as impartial decisionmakers. And, to the extent that respondent is concerned with a district court’s potential to mislead pro se habeas petitioners, the warnings respondent advocates run the risk of being misleading themselves. Specifically, the first warning could encourage the use of stay-and-abeyance when it is not in the petitioner’s best interest to pursue such a course. This could be the case, for example, where the petitioner’s unexhausted claims are particularly weak and petitioner would therefore be better off proceeding only with his exhausted claims. And it is certainly the case that not every litigant seeks to maximize judicial process. The second advisement would force upon district judges the potentially burdensome, time-consuming, and fact-intensive task of making a case-specific investigation and calculation of whether the AEDPA limitations period has already run or will have run by the time the petitioner returns to federal court. As the dissent below recognized, district judges often will not be able to make these calculations based solely on the face of habeas petitions. 330 F. 3d, at 1108. Such calculations depend upon information contained in documents that do not necessarily accompany the petitions. This is so because petitioners are not required by 28 U. S. C. §2254 or the Rules Governing §2254 Cases to attach to their petitions, or to file separately, state-court records. See 1 R. Hertz & J. Liebman, Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure § 15.2c, p. 711 (4th ed. 2001) (“Most petitioners do not have the ability to submit the record with the petition, and the statute and rules relieve them of any obligation to do so and require the state to furnish the record with the answer”). District judges, thus, might err in their calculation of the statute of limitations and affirmatively misinform pro se petitioners of their options. Respondent nevertheless argues that the advisements are necessary to ensure that pro se petitioners make informed decisions and do not unknowingly forfeit rights. Brief for Respondent 27-32. Respondent reads Rose as mandating that “a prisoner be given ‘the choice of returning to state court to exhaust his claims or amending or resubmitting the habeas petition to present only exhausted claims to the district court.’ ” Brief for Respondent 25-26, 27 (quoting Rose, 455 U. S., at 510) (emphasis in brief). But Rose requires only that “a district court must dismiss ... ‘mixed petitions,’ leaving the prisoner with the choice” described above. Ibid. In other words, Rose requires dismissal of mixed petitions, which, as a practical matter, means that the prisoner must follow one of the two paths outlined in Rose if he wants to proceed with his federal habeas petition. But nothing in Rose requires that both of these options be equally attractive, much less suggests that district judges give specific advisements as to the availability and wisdom of these options. As such, any advisement of this additional option would not “simply implement what this Court already requires.” Brief for Respondent 27 (emphasis in original). Respondent also relies heavily upon Castro v. United States, 540 U. S. 375 (2003). In Castro, we held that a federal district court cannot sua sponte recharacterize a pro se litigant’s motion as a first §2255 motion unless it informs the litigant of the consequences of the recharacterization, thereby giving the litigant the opportunity to contest the recharacterization, or to withdraw or amend the motion. Id., at 377. Castro dealt with a District Court, of its own volition, taking away a petitioner’s desired route — namely, a Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33 motion — and transforming it, against his will, into a §2255 motion. Cf. id., at 386 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (“Recharacterization ... requires a court deliberately to override the pro se litigant’s choice of procedural vehicle for his claim”). We recognized that although this practice is often used to help pro se petitioners, it could also harm them. Id., at 381-382. Because of these competing considerations, we reasoned that the warning would “help the pro se litigant understand . . . whether he should withdraw or amend his motion [and] whether he should contest the recharacterization.” Id., at 384 (emphasis in original). Castro, then, did not address the question whether a district court is required to explain to a pro se litigant his options before a voluntary dismissal and its reasoning sheds no light on the question we confront. Therefore, we hold that district courts are not required to give the particular advisements required by the Ninth Circuit before dismissing a pro se petitioner’s mixed habeas petition under Rose. We remand the case for further proceedings given the Court of Appeals’ concern that respondent had been affirmatively misled quite apart from the District Court’s failure to give the two warnings. For the foregoing 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. Finding it impossible to put respondent in the position he had occupied prior to the District Court’s “erroneous dismissal” of his initial petitions, the Ninth Circuit concluded that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c)’s amendment procedures apply to “ensure that {respondent’s] rights are not unduly prejudiced as a result of the district court’s errors.” 330 F. 3d, at 1102. Accordingly, it held that “a pro se habeas petitioner who files a mixed petition that is improperly dismissed by the district court, and who then . . . returns to state court to exhaust his unexhausted claims and subsequently re-files a second petition without unreasonable delay,” may have his second petition relate back to the initial timely petition. Ibid. As explained above, we need not address whether the Ninth Circuit’s decision on this ground was correct. There is one circumstance where nonindigent petitioners must furnish the court with portions of the record. See 28 U. S. C. § 2254(f) (“If the applicant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence .. to support the State court’s determination of a factual issue ... , the applicant, if able, shall produce that part of the record pertinent to a determination of the sufficiency of the evidence”; “[i]f the applicant, because of indigency or other reason is unable to produce such part of the record,” a court must direct the State to produce 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:

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. Plaintiffs are 18 States who, by this motion for leave to file a bill of complaint, seek to invoke this Court’s original jurisdiction under Art. Ill, § 2, cl. 2, of the Constitution. Named as defendants are the Nation’s four major automobile manufacturers and their trade association. Plaintiffs allege a conspiracy among the defendants to restrain the development of motor vehicle air pollution control equipment. They allege that the conspiracy began as early as 1953 but was concealed until January 1969. Count I of the proposed complaint charges a violation of the federal antitrust laws. Count II charges a common-law conspiracy in restraint of trade independently of the Sherman and Clayton Acts. In their prayer for relief, plaintiffs seek an injunction requiring the defendants to undertake “an accelerated program of spending, research and development designed to produce a fully effective pollution control device or devices and/or pollution free engine at the earliest feasible date” and also ordering defendants to install effective pollution control devices in all motor vehicles they manufactured during the conspiracy and as standard equipment in all future motor vehicles which they manufacture. Other prophylactic relief is also sought. The proposed complaint plainly presents important questions of vital national importance. See, e. g., Hearings before the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the Senate Committee on Public Works, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. (1967). Our jurisdiction over the controversy cannot be disputed. Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U. S. 439; Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., 206 U. S. 230. For reasons which will appear, however, we deny leave to file the bill of complaint. The gravamen of plaintiffs’ allegations is a horizontal conspiracy among the major automobile manufacturers to impede the research and development of automotive air pollution control devices. See generally L. Jaffe & L. Tribe, Environmental Protection 141-180 (1971). It is argued that the facts alleged in support of the statutory and common-law claims are identical and that they could be elicited as well by a Special Master appointed by this Court as by a federal district court judge, and that resort to a Special Master would not place a burden on this Court’s time and resources substantially greater than when we hear an antitrust case on direct appeal from a district court under the Expediting Act, 32 Stat. 823, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 29. And it is argued that the sheer number of States that seek to invoke our original jurisdiction in this motion is reason enough for us to grant leave to file. The breadth of the constitutional grant of this Court’s original jurisdiction dictates that we be able to exercise discretion over the cases we hear under this jurisdictional head, lest our ability to administer our appellate docket be impaired. Massachusetts v. Missouri, 308 U. S. 1, 19; Ohio v. Wyandotte Chemicals Corp., 401 U. S. 493, 497-499; H. Hart & H. Wechsler, The Federal Courts and the Federal System 258-260 (1953); Woods & Reed, The Supreme Court and Interstate Environmental Quality: Some Notes on the Wyandotte Case, 12 Ariz. L. Rev. 691; Note, 11 Stan. L. Rev. 665, 694-700. In Massachusetts v. Missouri, su-pra, at 18-19, where Massachusetts sought to invoke our original jurisdiction in order to collect a tax claim, we said: “In the exercise of our original jurisdiction so as truly to fulfill the constitutional purpose we not only must look to the nature of the interest of the complaining State — the essential quality of the right asserted — but we must also inquire whether recourse to that jurisdiction ... is necessary for the State’s protection. ... To open this Court to actions by States to recover taxes claimed to 'be payable by citizens of other States, in the absence of facts showing the necessity for such intervention, would be to assume a burden which the grant of original jurisdiction cannot be regarded as compelling this Court to assume and which might seriously interfere with the discharge by this Court of its duty in deciding the cases and controversies appropriately brought before it.” By the same token, we conclude that the availability of the federal district court as an alternative forum and the nature of the relief requested suggest we remit the parties to the resolution of their controversies in the customary forum. The nature of the remedy which may be necessary, if a case for relief is made out, also argues against taking original jurisdiction. Air pollution is, of course, one of the most notorious types of public nuisance in modern experience. Congress has not, however, found a uniform, nationwide solution to all aspects of this problem and, indeed, has declared “that the prevention and control of air pollution at its source is the primary responsibility of States and local governments.” 81 Stat. 485, 42 U. S. C. § 1857 (a)(3). To be sure, Congress has largely preempted the field with regard to “emissions from new motor vehicles,” 42 U. S. C. § 1857f-6a (a); 31 Fed. Reg. 5170 (1966); and motor vehicle fuels and fuel additives, 84 Stat. 1699, 42 U. S. C. § 1857f-6c (c)(4). See Currie, Motor Vehicle Air Pollution: State Authority and Federal Pre-emption, 68 Mich. L. Rev. 1083 (1970); Hill, The Politics of Air Pollution: Public Interest and Pressure Groups, 10 Ariz. L. Rev. 37, 4VA5 (1968); Stevens, Air Pollution and the Federal System: Responses to Felt Necessities, 22 Hastings L. J. 661, 674-676 (1971). It has also pre-empted the field so far as emissions from airplanes are concerned, 42 U. S. C. §§ 1857Í-9 to 1857Í-12. So far as factories, incinerators, and other stationary devices are implicated, the States have broad control to an extent not necessary to relate here. See Stevens, supra, passim; Comment, 58 Calif. L. Rev. 1474 (1970). But in certain instances, as, for example, where federal primary and secondary ambient air quality standards have been established, 42 U. S. C. §§ 1857c-4 and 1857c-5, or where “hazardous air pollutant [s]” have been defined, 42 U. S. C. § 1857c-7, there may be federal pre-emption. See 42 U. S. C. § 1857c-8 et seq. Moreover, geophysical characteristics which define local and regional airsheds are often significant considerations in determining the steps necessary to abate air pollution. See Hearings before the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the Senate Committee on Public Works, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 130 (1967); Coons, Air Pollution & Government Structure, 10 Ariz. L. Rev. 48, 60-64 (1968). Thus, measures which might be adequate to deal with pollution in a city such as San Francisco, might be grossly inadequate in a city such as Phoenix, where geographical and meteorological conditions trap aerosols and particulates. As a matter of law as well as practical necessity corrective remedies for air pollution, therefore, necessarily must be considered in the context of localized situations. We conclude that the causes should be heard in the appropriate federal district courts. The motions of the States of North Dakota and West Virginia to be joined as parties plaintiff are granted. The motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied and the parties are remitted without prejudice to the other federal forum. It is so ordered. MR. Justice Powell took no part in the consideration or decision of these motions. Fifteen States originally moved for leave to file a bill of complaint. We subsequently granted leave to the State of Idaho to intervene as plaintiff. 403 U. S. 949. By today’s decision we also grant leave to the States of North Dakota and West Virginia to be joined as parties plaintiff. A third count of plaintiffs’ proposed complaint also charged “a public nuisance contrary to the public policy of the Plaintiff States . . . [and] the federal government.” Motion for Leave to File Bill of Complaint 12. In a memorandum filed with this Court Feb. 19, 1972, however, plaintiffs struck this count from their proposed complaint; but Idaho, the intervenor, did not join in that motion. In light of our disposition of Counts I and II of the bill of complaint, Idaho’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint solely for Count III should be denied a fortiori. Should any of the plaintiffs desire to renew the public nuisance count of the bill of complaint in the District Court, they are free to do so under our decision today in Illinois v. City of Milwaukee, ante, p. 91. In addition to the 18 States which are plaintiffs, 16 other States and the City of New York have filed a brief as amicus curiae supporting plaintiffs’ motion for leave to file a bill of complaint. Because federal motor vehicle emission control standards apply only to new motor vehicles, States also retain broad residual power over used motor vehicles. Moreover, citizens, States, and local governments may initiate actions to enforce compliance with federal standards and to enforce other statutory and common-law rights. 42 U. S. C. § 1857h-2. National primary ambient air quality standards are those “which in the judgment of the Administrator [of the Environmental Protection Agency] ... are requisite to protect the public health . . . 42 U. S. C. § 1857c — 4 (b) (1). Secondary ambient air quality standards are those “requisite to protect the public welfare,” 42 U. S. C. § 1857c-4 (b)(2), which “includes, but is not limited to, effects on soils, water, crops, vegetation, manmade materials, animals, wildlife, weather, visibility, and climate, damage to and deterioration of property, and hazards to transportation, as well as effects on economic values and on personal comfort and well-being.” 42 TJ. S. G. § 1857h (h). For implementation plans for primary and secondary ambient air quality standards, see 42 U. S. C. § 1857c-5. Rules and regulations setting ambient air quality standards have been promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency. 36 Fed. Reg. 22384 (1971). It was in recognition of this fact that Congress directed the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to “designate as an air quality control region any interstate area or major intrastate area which he deems necessary or appropriate for the attainment and maintenance of ambient air quality standards.” 42 U. S. C. § 1857c-2 (c). Multi-district litigation apparently involving the same factual claims as are presented here has been consolidated in the District Court for the Central District of California and pretrial proceedings are already under way. See In re Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Equipment, 311 F. Supp. 1349 (Jud. Panel on Multidist. Lit. 1970). Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988, commonly known as the Westfall Act, accords federal employees absolute immunity from common-law tort claims arising out of acts they undertake in the course of their official duties. See 28 U. S. C. § 2679(b)(1). When a federal employee is sued for wrongful or negligent conduct, the Act empowers the Attorney General to certify that the employee “was acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the claim arose.” § 2679(d)(1), (2). Upon the Attorney General’s certification, the employee is dismissed from the action, and the United States is substituted as defendant in place of the employee. The litigation is thereafter governed by the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 60 Stat. 842. If the action commenced in state court, the case is to be removed to a federal district court, and the certification remains “conclusiv[e]... for purposes of removal.” § 2679(d)(2). In Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno, 515 U. S. 417, 420 (1995), we held that the Attorney General’s Westfall Act scope-of-employment certification is subject to judicial review. Today, we address three further questions regarding the Westfall Act’s operation: (1) Is Attorney General certification proper when a federal officer denies the occurrence of the tortious conduct alleged by the plaintiff; (2) does § 2679(d)(2), by rendering the Attorney General’s certification “conclusiv[e]... for purposes of removal,” bar remand even if the federal court determines that the United States should not be substituted as defendant in place of the federal employee; and (3) does 28 U. S. C. § 1447(d)’s bar on appellate review of remand orders override §2679(d)(2)’s direction that, for purposes of removal, the Attorney General’s certification is conclusive. The first two questions were advanced in the petition for certiorari; in our order granting review, we asked the parties to address the impact of § 1447(d) on this case. Pat Osborn, plaintiff-petitioner in the civil action now before the Court, sued federal employee Barry Haley in a Kentucky state court. She alleged that Haley tortiously interfered with her employment with a private contractor and conspired to cause her wrongful discharge. Osborn further alleged that Haley’s efforts to bring about her discharge were outside the scope of his employment. The United States Attorney, serving as the Attorney General’s delegate, countered Osborn’s allegations by certifying that Haley “was acting within the scope of his employment... at the time of the conduct alleged in [Osborn’s] complaint.” App. to Brief in Opposition 23 (hereinafter Luber App.). Based on this certification, the case was removed to the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, as § 2679(d)(2) instructs. In the federal forum, the United States Attorney denied the tortious conduct Osborn attributed to Haley, asserting that the wrongdoing she alleged never occurred. Accepting Osborn’s allegations as true, the District Court entered an order that rejected the Attorney General’s Westfall Act certification, denied the Government’s motion to substitute the United States as defendant in place of Haley, and remanded the case to the state court. On appeal, the Sixth Circuit vacated the District Court’s order, and instructed that court to retain jurisdiction over the case. We affirm the Court of Appeals’ judgment. On the merits, we agree with the Sixth Circuit that the District Court, in denying substitution of the United States as defendant in lieu of Haley, misconstrued the Westfall Act. Substitution of the United States is not improper simply because the Attorney General’s certification rests on an understanding of the facts that differs from the plaintiff’s allegations. The United States, we hold, must remain the federal defendant in the action unless and until the District Court determines that the employee, in fact, and not simply as alleged by the plaintiff, engaged in conduct beyond the scope of his employment. On the jurisdictional issues, we hold that the Attorney General’s certification is conclusive for purposes of removal, £ e., once certification and removal are effected, exclusive competence to adjudicate the ease resides in the federal court, and that court may not remand the suit to the state court. We also hold that § 1447(d)’s bar on appellate review of remand orders does not displace § 2679(d)(2), which shields from remand an action removed pursuant to the Attorney General’s certification. I Petitioner Pat Osborn worked for Land Between the Lakes Association (LBLA), a private company that contracted with the United States Forest Service to provide staff for the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area in Kentucky. While employed by LBLA, Osborn applied for a trainee position with the Forest Service. Respondent Barry Haley, a Forest Service officer, was responsible for the Service’s hiring process. At a meeting with LBLA employees, Haley announced that he had hired someone else for the job Osborn sought. Osborn asked why Haley did not inform her before the meeting, and she made a joke at Haley’s expense. After the meeting, Osborn’s supervisor told her to apologize to Haley; she refused. A few weeks later, Osborn filed a complaint with the United States Department of Labor, asking the Department to investigate whether the Forest Service, in its hiring decision, had given appropriate consideration to the veterans’ preference points to which she was entitled. The Department’s investigator, Robert Kuenzli, after interviewing Haley, concluded that the hiring procedure had been handled correctly. Kuenzli so informed Osborn, who then asked him to close her complaint. On the same day LBLA’s executive director, respondent Gaye Luber, summoned Osborn and demanded that she apologize to Haley for “not being a good Forest Service partner.” Complaint ¶ 18, Luber App. 4. Osborn again refused. Two days later, she was fired. Osborn filed suit against Haley, Luber, and LBLA in a Kentucky state court. She alleged that Haley tortiously interfered with her employment relationship with LBLA and conspired to cause her wrongful discharge. Specifically, she charged that Haley maliciously induced Luber to fire her, and that Haley did so in retaliation for Osborn’s Department of Labor complaint requesting a veterans’ preference inquiry. Complaint ¶29, id., at 7. In response the local United States Attorney, invoking the Westfall Act, certified on behalf of the Attorney General that Haley “was acting within the scope of his employment with the U. S. Forest Service, at the time of the conduct alleged in [Osborn’s] complaint.” Id., at 23. As is customary, the certification stated no reasons for the determination. In the Westfall Act, Congress instructed: “Upon certification by the Attorney General that the defendant employee was acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the claim arose, any civil action or proceeding commenced upon such claim in a State court shall be removed without bond at any time before trial by the Attorney General to the district court of the United States for the district and division embracing the place in which the action or proceeding is pending. Such action or proceeding shall be deemed to be an action or proceeding brought against the United States under the provisions of this title and all references thereto, and the United States shall be substituted as the party defendant. This certification of the Attorney General shall conclusively establish scope of office or employment for purposes of removal” 28 U. S. C. § 2679(d)(2) (emphasis added). Citing this provision, as well as the federal officer removal statute, § 1442, the United States removed the case to the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. The United States Attorney notified the District Court that the United States should be substituted for Haley as defendant, and filed a motion to dismiss on the ground that Osborn had not exhausted administrative remedies, as required by the FTCA. Osborn opposed the substitution and the motion to dismiss. She argued that Haley’s conduct was outside the scope of his employment, hence the Westfall Act afforded him no immunity. As support for her opposition, Osborn submitted a memorandum of understanding between LBLA and the Forest Service, which cautioned Forest Service employees against involvement in LBLA employment decisions. Apparently under the impression that the United States, at that preliminary stage, did not dispute Osborn’s factual allegations, the District Court declined to conduct an evidentiary hearing. Under Kentucky law, the court observed, if Osborn’s allegations were true, Haley had acted outside the scope of his employment. In the District Court’s view the closeness in time of Osborn’s request for a Department of Labor investigation, Kuenzli’s call to Haley, and Luber’s demand for an apology justified an inference that Haley interfered with Osborn’s employment in violation of the LBLA-Forest Service memorandum of understanding. So reasoning, the District Court overruled the Westfall Act certification and denied substitution. Under this ruling, the United States was no longer before the court. Furthermore, the parties were not of diverse citizenship and no federal law was at issue. The District Court therefore held that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the case. Invoking § 1447(c), the court concluded that the case must be remanded to the state court. The United States moved for reconsideration, urging that, contrary to the District Court’s impression, the Government did contest Osborn’s factual allegations. Recalling that it had denied Osborn’s allegations in its answer to her complaint, the United States submitted sworn declarations from Haley and Luber. Haley’s stated that he was not in communication with Luber between the time of Kuenzli’s investigation and Osborn’s firing. Luber’s declaration stated that Osborn’s request for an investigation regarding her veterans’ preference points could not have had any bearing on Osborn’s termination, for Luber was unaware of the request at the relevant time. Absent contrary evidence, the Government maintained, these declarations sufficed to support the certification and the continuance of the United States as defendant in place of Haley. In the alternative, the Government sought discovery. The District Court denied the Government’s reconsideration motion. The Haley and Luber declarations, the court said, clarified that the controversy centered on whether there had been any communication between Haley and Luber influencing Luber’s decision to fire Osborn. The Westfall Act would have shielded Haley, the Court suggested, had the United States admitted a Haley-Luber communication but defended its content as within the scope of Haley’s employment. Westfall Act certification was improper, the court concluded, because the United States did not admit, but instead denied, the occurrence of the event central to proof of Osborn’s claim. The District Court acknowledged disagreement among the Circuits on the availability of a Westfall Act certification when the United States “den[ies] the occurrence of the basic incident charged.” Wood v. United States, 995 F. 2d 1122, 1124 (CA1 1993) (en banc). Compare ibid, and McHugh v. University of Vermont, 966 F. 2d 67, 74-75 (CA2 1992) (prohibiting incident-denying certifications), with Heuton v. Anderson, 75 F. 3d 357, 360 (CA8 1996); Kimbro v. Velten, 30 F. 3d 1501, 1508 (CADC 1994); and Melo v. Hafer, 13 F. 3d 736, 746-747 (CA3 1994) (allowing incident-denying certifications). Choosing to follow the First Circuit’s opinion in Wood, the District Court adhered to its prior ruling that the Westfall Act certification in this case was invalid. On appeal, the Sixth Circuit vacated the District Court’s order denying certification and substitution. 422 F. 3d 359, 365 (2005). The Court of Appeals, in accord with Heuton, Kimbro, and Melo, held that a Westfall Act certification is not improper simply because the United States denies the occurrence of the incident on which the plaintiff centrally relies. 422 F. 3d, at 364. Rather, the court held, where “the Attorney General’s certification is based on a different understanding of the facts than is refleeted in the complaint, including a denial of the harm-causing incident, the district court must resolve the factual dispute.” Ibid, (quoting Melo, 13 F. 3d, at 747). The Sixth Circuit also vacated the District Court’s order remanding the ease to the state court. Section 2679(d)(2), the Court of Appeals stressed, instructs that the “certification of the Attorney General shall conclusively establish scope of office or employment for purposes of removal.” The court read that instruction to proscribe shuttling cases back to state courts and, instead, to require district court adjudication of the controversy even when a Westfall Act certification is rejected and, correspondingly, substitution of the United States as defendant is denied. 422 F. 3d, at 365. On that issue too, the Court of Appeals noted a division among the Circuits. Compare Borneman v. United States, 213 F. 3d 819, 826 (CA4 2000); Garcia v. United States, 88 F. 3d 318, 325-327 (CA5 1996); and Aliota v. Graham, 984 F. 2d 1350, 1356 (CA3 1993) (holding that a district court lacks authority to remand a case removed under § 2679(d)(2)), with Haddon v. United States, 68 F. 3d 1420, 1427 (CADC 1995); and Nasuti v. Scannell, 906 F. 2d 802, 814, n. 17 (CA1 1990) (holding remand proper when district court rejects the Attorney General’s certification). We granted certiorari. 547 U. S. 1126 (2006). II We consider first the Court of Appeals’ jurisdiction to review the District Court’s disposition of this case. We address in turn the questions whether the appellate court had jurisdiction to review (1) the order rejecting the Attorney General’s certification and denying substitution of the United States as defendant, and (2) the order remanding the case to the state court. A The District Court’s rejection of certification and substitution effectively denied Haley the protection afforded by the Westfall Act, a measure designed to immunize covered federal employees not simply from liability, but from suit. See § 2(a)(5), 102 Stat. 4563; Lamagno, 515 U. S., at 425-426; H. R. Rep. No. 100-700, p. 4 (1988). Under the collateral order doctrine of Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541 (1949), this ruling qualifies as a reviewable final decision within the compass of 28 U. S. C. § 1291. Meeting the three criteria of Cohen, the District Court’s denial of certification and substitution conclusively decided a contested issue, the issue decided is important and separate from the merits of the action, and the District Court’s disposition would be effectively unreviewable later in the litigation. 337 U. S., at 546. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511, 525-527 (1985) (holding that district court rejection of a defendant’s qualified immunity plea is immediately appeal-able under the Cohen doctrine because suit immunity “is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial” against the immune official). As cogently explained by the Fifth Circuit in Mitchell v. Carlson, 896 F. 2d 128,133 (1990), retaining the federal employee as a party defendant “effectively denie[s] [him] immunity from suit if [he] was entitled to such immunity under the Westfall Act. Under the Act, once the United States Attorney certifies that the federal employee acted within the scope of [his] employment, the plaintiff properly can proceed only against the United States as defendant. The federal employee remains immune from suit. By [rejecting the Attorney General’s certification], the district court subject[s] [the employee] to the burden of defending a suit..., a burden from which [the Westfall Act spares him].” Tellingly, the Courts of Appeals are unanimous in holding that orders denying Westfall Act certification and substitution are amenable to immediate review under Cohen. See Woodruff v. Covington, 389 F. 3d 1117, 1124 (CA10 2004); Mathis v. Henderson, 243 F. 3d 446, 448 (CA8 2001); Borne-man, 213 F. 3d, at 826 (CA4); Lyons v. Brown, 158 F. 3d 605, 607 (CA1 1998); Taboos v. Mlynczak, 149 F. 3d 576, 579 (CA7 1998); Coleman v. United States, 91 F. 3d 820, 823 (CA6 1996); Flohr v. Mackovjak, 84 F. 3d 386, 390 (CA11 1996); Kimbro, 30 F. 3d, at 1503 (CADC); Aliota, 984 F. 2d, at 1354 (CA3); Pelletier v. Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, 968 F. 2d 865, 873 (CA9 1992); McHugh, 966 F. 2d, at 69 (CA2); Carlson, 896 F. 2d, at 133 (CA5). We confirm that the Courts of Appeals have ruled correctly on this matter. B In our order granting certiorari we asked the parties to address, in addition to the issues presented in the petition, this further question: Did the Court of Appeals have jurisdiction to review the District Court’s remand order, notwithstanding 28 U. S. C. § 1447(d)’s declaration that “[a]n order remanding a case to the State court from which it was removed is not reviewable on appeal or otherwise”? In answering this question, we also resolve the second question presented in the petition for certiorari — whether the West-fall Act’s rule against remanding actions removed pursuant to § 2679(d)(2) applies when the federal court determines that the United States should not be substituted as defendant in place of the federal employee. Our disposition is informed by, and tracks, the Third Circuit’s reasoning in Aliota, 984 F. 2d, at 1354-1357. We begin with the provision we asked the parties to address: § 1447(d). That provision states in relevant part: “An order remanding a case to the State court from which it was removed is not reviewable on appeal or otherwise... In Thermtron Products, Inc. v. Hermansdorfer, 423 U. S. 336 (1976), we held that the preceding subsection, § 1447(c), confined §1447(d)’s scope. Under § 1447(d), the Court explained, “only remand orders issued under § 1447(c) and invoking the [mandatory] grounds specified therein — that removal was improvident and without jurisdiction — are immune from review.” Id., at 346. Thermtron had been properly removed to the federal court. The sole reason the District Court gave for remanding it was that court’s crowded docket. This Court held the remand order reviewable, observing that § 1447(c) could not sensibly be read to confer on the district courts' “carte blanche authority... to revise the federal statutes governing removal.” Id., at 351. See also Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U. S. 706 (1996) (holding abstention-based remand order immediately appealable). But see Gravitt v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 430 U. S. 723 (1977) (per curiam) (holding unreviewable a remand order purporting to rest on a ground within the scope of § 1447(c)). The United States urges us to apply Thermtron and hold the remand order in this case reviewable because that order was not based on a ground specified in § 1447(c). To determine whether Thermtron controls, we must start with an examination of the Westfall Act’s design, particularly its prescriptions regarding the removal and remand of actions filed in state court. As earlier noted, see supra, at 229-230, the Act grants the Attorney General authority to certify that a federal employee named defendant in a tort action was acting within the scope of his or her employment at the time in question. § 2679(d)(1), (2). If the action is commenced in a federal court, and the Attorney General certifies that the employee “was acting within the scope of his office or employment at the [relevant] time,” the United States must be substituted as the defendant. § 2679(d)(1). If the action is launched in a state court, and the Attorney General makes the same certification, the action “shall be removed” to the appropriate federal district court, and again the United States must be substituted as the defendant. § 2679(d)(2). Of prime importance to our decision, § 2679(d)(2) concludes with the command: “Th[e] certification of the Attorney General shall conclusively establish scope of office or employment for purposes of removal.” (Emphasis added.) This directive markedly differs from Congress’ instruction for eases in which the Attorney General “refuse[s] to certify scope of office or employment.” § 2679(d)(3). In that event, the defendant-employee may petition the court in which the action was instituted to make the scope-of-employment certification. If the complaint was filed in a state court, the Attorney General may remove the case to the appropriate federal court, but he is not obliged to do so. Ibid. If the court, state or federal, issues the certification, “the United States shall be substituted as the party defendant.” Ibid. If removal has occurred, and thereafter “the district court determines that the employee was not acting within the scope of his office or employment, the action... shall be remanded to the State court.” Ibid, (emphasis added). The Act’s distinction between removed cases in which the Attorney General issues a scope-of-employment certification, and those in which he does not, leads us to conclude that Congress gave district courts no authority to return cases to state courts on the ground that the Attorney General’s certification was unwarranted. Absent certification, § 2679(d)(3) directs that the case must be remanded to the state court in which the action commenced. In contrast, when the Attorney General certifies scope of employment, his certificate “conclusively establish[es] scope of office or employment for purposes of removal.” § 2679(d)(2) (emphasis added). Section 2679(d)(2) does not preclude a district court from resubstituting the federal official as defendant for purposes of trial if the court determines, postremoval, that the Attorney General’s scope-of-employment certification was incorrect. For purposes of establishing a forum to adjudicate the case, however, § 2679(d)(2) renders the Attorney General’s certification dispositive. Were it open to a district court to remand a removed action on the ground that the Attorney General’s certification was erroneous, the final instruction in § 2679(d)(2) would be weightless. The Attorney General’s certification would not “conclusively establish scope of office or employment” for either trial or removal. Instead, the Attorney General’s scope certification would supply only a tentative basis for removal, rather than a conclusive one. In Lamagno, the Court unanimously agreed that Congress spoke unambiguously on this matter: Congress adopted the “conelusiv[e]... for purposes of removal” language to “foreclose needless shuttling of a case from one court to another.” 515 U. S., at 433, n. 10; see id., at 440 (Souter, J., dissenting) (“[Tjhere is nothing equivocal about [§ 2679(d)(2)’s] provision that once a state tort action has been removed to a federal court after a certification by the Attorney General, it may never be remanded to the state system.”). With the Westfall Act’s provisions on removal of actions filed in state court in clear view, we return to the question whether an order remanding a case removed pursuant to § 2679(d)(2) is reviewable. Thermtron held that § 1447(d) must be read together with § 1447(c). There is stronger cause, we conclude, to hold that § 1447(c) and (d) must be read together with the later enacted § 2679(d)(2). Both § 1447(d) and § 2679(d)(2) are antishuttling provisions. Each aims to prevent “prolonged litigation of questions of jurisdiction of the district court to which the cause is removed.” United States v. Rice, 327 U. S. 742, 751 (1946). Section 2679(d)(2) is operative when the Attorney General certifies scope of employment, triggering removal of the case to a federal forum. At that point, § 2679(d)(2) renders the federal court exclusively competent and categorically precludes a remand to the state court. The command that the Attorney General’s certification “shall conclusively establish scope of office or employment for purposes of removal,” § 2679(d)(2), differentiates certified Westfall Act cases from the typical ease remanded for want of subject-matter jurisdiction. Ordinarily, when the plaintiff moves to remand a removed case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, the federal district court undertakes a threshold inquiry; typically the court determines whether complete diversity exists or whether the complaint raises a federal question. In Attorney General certified Westfall Act cases, however, no threshold determination is called for; the Attorney General’s certificate forecloses any jurisdictional inquiry. By declaring the Attorney General’s certification “conclusive” as to the federal forum’s jurisdiction, Congress has barred a district court from passing the case back to the state court where it originated based on the court’s disagreement with the Attorney General’s scope-of-employment determination. Our decision that § 2679(d)(2) leaves the district court without authority to send a certified case back to the state court scarcely means that whenever the district court misconstrues a jurisdictional statute, appellate review of the remand is in order. Such an exception would, of course, collide head on with § 1447(d), and with our precedent. See, e. g., Things Remembered, Inc. v. Petrarca, 516 U. S. 124, 127-128 (1995). Only in the extraordinary case in which Congress has ordered the intercourt shuttle to travel just one way— from state to federal court — does today’s decision hold sway. In short, of the two antishuttling commands, § 1447(d) and § 2679(d)(2), only one can prevail. We hold that § 2679(d)(2) controls. Tailor-made for Westfall Act eases, § 2679(d)(2) is a forum-selecting rule Congress made “conclusive,” beyond the ken of district courts to revise. See Thermtron, 423 U. S., at 351. C In Lamagno, the Court considered, but did not definitively resolve, the question whether Article III permits “[tjreating the Attorney General’s certification as conclusive for purposes of removal but not for purposes of substitution.” 515 U. S., at 434. It was argued in that case that if certification is rejected and substitution denied “because the federal court concludes that the employee acted outside the scope of his employment, and if the tort plaintiff and the [defendant-employee] are not of diverse citizenship,... then the federal court will be left with a case without a federal question to support the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction.” Id., at 434-435. Lamagno was an action commenced in federal court on the basis of diversity of citizenship, so there was in that case “not even the specter of an Article III problem.” Id., at 435. In the case before us, the question would arise only if, after full consideration, the District Court determines that Haley in fact engaged in the tortious conduct outside the scope of his employment charged in Osborn’s complaint. At that point, however, little would be left to adjudicate, at least as to Haley’s liability. Because a significant federal question (whether Haley has Westfall Act immunity) would have been raised at the outset, the case would “aris[e] under” federal law, as that term is used in Article III. See Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U. S. 480, 493 (1983). Even if only state-law claims remained after resolution of the federal question, the District Court would have discretion, consistent with Article III, to retain jurisdiction. See Carnegie-Mellon Univ. v. Cohill, 484 U. S. 343, 350-351 (1988) (when federal character of removed case is eliminated while the case is sub judice, court has discretion to retain jurisdiction, to remand, or to dismiss); cf. Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715, 725 (1966) (pendent jurisdiction may be exercised when federal and state claims have a “common nucleus of operative fact” and would “ordinarily be expected to [be tried] all in one judicial proceeding”). See also 28 U. S. C. § 1367 (“Supplemental jurisdiction”). “[Considerations of judicial economy, convenience and fairness to litigants,” Gibbs, 383 U. S., at 726, make it reasonable and proper for a federal court to proceed to final judgment, once it has invested time and resources to resolve the pivotal seope-of-employment contest. Thus, under the precedent that guides us, the Westfall Act’s command that a district court retain jurisdiction over a case removed pursuant to § 2679(d)(2) does not run afoul of Article III. III With the jurisdictional issues resolved, we reach the principal question raised by petitioner Osborn: whether the United States Attorney validly certified that Haley “was acting within the scope of his employment... at the time of the conduct alleged in the complaint.” Luber App. 23. We note first that the certificate is formally in order; it closely tracks the language of the Westfall Act. See § 2679(d)(2) (authorizing certification “that the defendant employee was acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the claim arose”). In Lamagno, we held that the Attorney General’s certification is “the first, but not the final word” on whether the federal officer is immune from suit and, correlatively, whether the United States is properly substituted as defendant. 515 U. S., at 432. A plaintiff may request judicial review of the Attorney General’s scope-of-employment determination, as Osborn did here. As earlier recounted, see swpra, at 234, the District Court initially accepted Osborn’s allegations as true because it believed that the United States did not dispute them. Applying Kentucky law, that court determined that “Haley’s alleged actions occurred outside the scope of his employment.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 24a. In a motion for reconsideration, the Government clarified that, far from admitting Osborn’s allegations, it disputed the very occurrence of the harm-causing conduct Osborn alleged. In support of the motion, the Government submitted affidavits from Haley and Luber denying that they engaged in the conduct ascribed to them in Osborn’s complaint. The Government contended that Haley remained within the proper bounds of his employment at the relevant time and place because the wrongdoing Osborn alleged never happened. The Government’s reconsideration motion asked the District Court to resolve the factual dispute, i. e., to determine whether, as the complaint alleged, Haley prevailed upon Luber to discharge Osborn, or whether, as Haley asserted, he never communicated with Luber about Osborn’s LBLA employment. The court did not grant the Government’s request for resolution of the factual dispute. Instead, it held the Westfall Act certification invalid precisely because the Government denied that Haley engaged in harm-causing conduct. Two Courts of Appeals have held that Westfall Act certification is improper when the Government denies the occurrence of the alleged injury-causing action or episode. See Wood, 995 F. 2d, at 1123 (CA1); McHugh, 966 F. 2d, at 74-75 (CA2). The Sixth Circuit, in this ease, and several other Courts of Appeals have held that a plaintiff’s allegation of conduct beyond the scope of a federal official’s employment does not block certification where the Government contends that the alleged tortious conduct did not occur. See Heuton, 75 F. 3d, at 360 (CA8); Kimbro, 30 F. 3d, at 1508 (CADC); Melo, 13 F. 3d, at 746-747 (CA3). We agree that Westfall Act certification is proper when a federal officer charged with misconduct asserts, and the Government determines, that the incident or episode in suit never occurred. A The Westfall Act grants a federal employee suit immunity, we reiterate, when “acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the claim arose.” § 2679(d)(1), (2). That formulation, we are persuaded, encompasses an employee on duty at the time and place of an “incident” alleged in a complaint who denies that the incident occurred. See Wood, 995 F. 2d, at 1134 (joint opinion of Coffin, Selya, and Boudin, JJ., dissenting) (“[Sjurely the statute applies with the same force whether a postal service driver says that he did not hit the plaintiff’s ear or that he did so but was not at fault.”); Meló, 13 F. 3d, at 747. And just as the Government’s certification that an employee “was acting within the scope of his employment” is subject to threshold judicial review, Lamagno, 515 U. S., at 434, so a complaint’s charge of conduct outside the scope of employment, when contested, warrants immediate judicial investigation. Were it otherwise, a federal employee would be stripped of suit immunity not by what the court finds, but by what the complaint alleges. In sum, given the purpose of the Westfall Act to shield covered employees not only from liability but from suit, it is altogether appropriate to afford protection to a “negligent... employee... as a matter of course.” Wood, 995 F. 2d, at 1135 (joint opinion of Coffin, Selya, and Boudin, JJ., dissenting). But it would make scant sense to read the Act as leaving an employee charged with an intentional tort to fend for himself when he denies wrongdoing and asserts he “engaged only in proper behavior occurring wholly within the scope of his Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

I

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. The two cases consolidated for our review concern the timeliness of claims filed against the United States under the Tucker Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1491. Petitioners are property owners who participated in a federal program to promote development of affordable rental housing in areas not traditionally served by conventional lenders. In exchange for low-interest mortgage loans issued by the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA), petitioners agreed to devote their properties to low- and middle-income housing and to abide by related restrictions during the life of the loans. Petitioners allege that the promissory notes governing their loans guaranteed the borrower the right to prepay at any time and thereby gain release from the federal program and the restrictions it places on the use of a participating owner’s property. In the suits that yielded the judgments before us, petitioners charged that Congress abridged that release right in the Emergency Low Income Housing Preservation Act of 1987 (ELIHPA or Act), 101 Stat. 1877, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1472(c) (1994 ed. and Supp. V). That Act placed permanent restraints upon prepayment of FmHA loans. Petitioners asserted in their complaints that ELIHPA effected both a repudiation of their contracts and a taking of their property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The Federal Circuit held petitioners’ claims time barred under 28 U. S. C. § 2501, which prescribes that all Tucker Act claims must be filed within six years of the date they “first accrue[d].” In the Federal Circuit’s view, passage of ELIHPA constituted an immediate breach of the FmHA loan agreements and therefore triggered the running of the limitations period. Petitioners filed suit not “within six years of,” but over nine years after, ELIHPA’s enactment. On that account, the Federal Circuit held their claims untimely, and their suits properly dismissed. Accepting for purposes of this decision that the loan contracts guaranteed the absolute prepayment right petitioners allege, we reverse the Federal Circuit’s judgment. ELIHPA’s enactment, we conclude, qualified as a repudiation of the parties’ bargain, not a present breach of the loan agreements. Accordingly, breach would occur, and the six-year limitations period would commence to run, when a borrower tenders prepayment and the Government then dishonors its obligation to accept the tender and release its control over use of the property that secured the loan. I A Under §§ 515 and 521 of the Housing Act of 1949, 76 Stat. 671, 82 Stat. 551, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §§ 1485,1490a, the FmHA makes direct loans to private, nonprofit entities to develop or construct rural housing designed to serve the elderly and low- or middle-income individuals and families. Section 515 loans require the borrower, inter alia, to execute various loan documents, including a loan agreement, a promissory note, and a real estate mortgage. Before December 21, 1979, each petitioner entered into a loan agreement with the FmHA under §§515 and 521 “to provide rental housing and related facilities for eligible occupants... in rural areas.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A165. In the loan agreements, each petitioner certified that it was unable to obtain a comparable loan in the commercial market. See id., at A177. The loan agreements contained various provisions designed to ensure that the projects were affordable for people with low incomes. Those provisions included restrictions as to eligible tenants, the rents petitioners could charge, and the rate of return petitioners could realize, as well as requirements regarding the maintenance and financial operations of each project. See id., at A17Q-A174. Each loan agreement also specified the length of the loan, ordinarily 40 or 50 years. The promissory notes executed by petitioners required payment of the principal on each mortgage in scheduled installments, plus interest. See id., at A176-A177. The notes also contained the prepayment provision curtailed by the legislation involved in the litigation now before us. That provision read: “Prepayments of scheduled installments, or any portion thereof, may be made at any time at the option of Borrower.” Id., at A176. No other provision of the loan documents addressed prepayment. In 1979, Congress found that many § 515 participants had prepaid their mortgages, thus threatening the continued availability of affordable rural housing. Concerned that “these projects [remain] available to low and moderate income families for the entire original term of the loan,” H. R. Rep. No. 96-154, p. 43 (1979), Congress amended the National Housing Act to stem the loss of low-cost rural housing due to prepayments, see Housing and Community Development Amendments of 1979, 93 Stat. 1101. In these 1979 amendments, Congress prohibited the FmHA from accepting prepayment of any loan made before or after the date of enactment unless the owner agreed to maintain, the low-income use of the rental housing for a 15-year or 20-year period from the date of the loan. 93 Stat. 1134-1135. That requirement could be avoided if the FmHA determined that there was no longer a need for the low-cost housing. Id., at 1135. The 1979 amendments applied to all program loans, past, present, and future. In 1980, however, Congress further amended the National Housing Act to eliminate retroactive application of the §515 prepayment limitations imposed by the 1979 legislation. The Housing and Community Development Act of 1980, 94 Stat. 1614, provided that the prepayment restrictions would apply only to loans entered into after December 21, 1979, the date that amendment was.enacted. §514, 94 Stat. 1671-1672. The 1980 Act also required the Secretary of Agriculture to inform Congress of the repeal’s adverse effects, if any, on the availability of low-income housing. Id., at 1672. By 1987, Congress had again become concerned about the dwindling supply of low- and moderate-income rural housing in the face of increasing prepayments of mortgages under § 515. A House of Representatives Committee found that owners were “prepay[ing] or... refinancing] their FmHA loans, without regard to the low income and elderly tenants in these projects.” H. R. Rep. No. 100-122, p. 53. Responsive to that concern, Congress passed ELIHPA, which amended the Housing Act of 1949 to impose permanent restrictions upon prepayment of §515 mortgages entered into before December 21, 1979. This legislation, enacted on February 5, 1988, provides that before FmHA can accept an offer to prepay such a mortgage, “the [FmHA] shall make reasonable efforts to enter into an agreement with the borrower under which the borrower will make a binding commitment to extend the low income use of the assisted housing and related facilities involved for not less than the 20-year period beginning on the date on which the agreement is executed.” 42 U. S. C. § 1472(c)(4)(A) (1994 ed.). The legislation further provides that the FmHA may include incentives in such an agreement, including an increase in the rate of return on investment, reduction of the interest rate on the loan, and an additional loan to the borrower. § 1472(c)(4)(B) (1994 ed. and Supp. V). Under ELIHPA, if the FmHA determines after a “reasonable period” that an agreement cannot be reached, the owner who sought to prepay must offer to sell the housing to “any qualified nonprofit organization or public agency at a fair market value determined by 2 independent appraisers.” § 1472(c)(5)(A)(i) (1994 ed.). If an offer to buy is not made by a nonprofit organization or agency within 180 days, the FmHA may accept the owner’s offer to prepay. § 1472(c)(5)(A)(ii). The offer-for-sale requirement may be avoided if the FmHA determines that prepayment will not “materially affec[t]” housing opportunities for minorities and one of two other conditions is met: Prepayment will not displace the tenants of the affected housing, or there is “an adequate supply of safe, decent, and affordable rental housing within the market area” and “sufficient actions have been taken to ensure” that such housing “will be made available” to displaced tenants. § 1472(c)(5)(G)(ii). ELIHPA’s implementing regulations establish a process by which the FmHA addresses prepayment requests. Under those procedures, the FmHA first “develofps] an incentive offer,” making a “reasonable effort... to enter into an agreement with the borrower to maintain the housing for low-income use that takes into consideration the economic loss the borrower may suffer by foregoing [sic] prepayment.” 7 CFR §1965.210 (2002). Only if the borrower rejects that offer will the FmHA attempt to make the determinations — regarding the effect on minority housing opportunities, the displacement of tenants, and the supply of affordable housing in the market — required by 42 U. S. C. § 1472(c)(5)(G) before prepayment can be accepted. 7 CFR § 1965.215(a) (2002). B Petitioners in Franconia filed this action in the United States Court of Federal Claims on May 30,1997. Plaintiffs included petitioners — all of whom had entered into loan agreements before December 21, 1979, and were therefore subject to ELIHPA — and others, who had entered into loan agreements after December 21,1979, and were therefore unaffected by the Act. See App. to Pet. for Cert. A3, n. 2. Petitioners alleged that ELIHPA repudiated their loan contracts, which, they asserted, gave them the right “to terminate their participation in the Government’s housing program by exercising their option to prepay at any time.” Id., at A112. Their complaint sought relief on two theories: breach of contract and a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s proscription against taking property without just compensation. See id., at A132-A133. The Court of Federal Claims granted the Government’s motion to dismiss petitioners’ contract claims as barred by the six-year statute of limitations in 28 U. S. C. § 2501. 43 Fed. Cl. 702 (1999). That provision states: “Every claim of which the United States Court of Federal Claims has jurisdiction shall be barred unless the petition thereon is filed within six years after such claim first accrues.” The court concluded that petitioners’ contract claims first accrued on May 23, 1988, the effective date of regulations implementing ELIHPA. Id., at 709. That was so, the court said, because those regulations breached the only performance required of the Government under the promissory notes: “to keep its promise to allow borrowers an unfettered prepayment right.” Id., at 710. The court also dismissed petitioners’ takings claims sua sponte; because “the [Government] conduct... alleged to have constituted a taking” was “Congress’s change of the prepayment option,” the court reasoned, any claim based on that conduct “accrued at the time of the 1988 legislation.” Id., at 711. The Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of petitioners’ claims on timeliness grounds. 240 F. 3d 1358 (2001). The Court of Appeals agreed with the Court of Federal Claims on the respective benefits and burdens generated by the promissory notes: Petitioners enjoyed “an unfettered right to prepay their loans at any time,” id., at 1363, while the Government had an obligation “to continue to allow borrowers” that option, ibid. If the Government’s “continuing duty was breached,” the court concluded, “the breach occurred immediately upon enactment of ELIHPA because, by its terms, ELIHPA took away the borrowers’ unfettered right of prepayment.” Ibid. Thus, the court ruled, the statute of limitations began to run on February 5,1988, the date of ELIHPA’s passage, see id., at 1364; given that limitations-triggering date, the court held, petitioners’ claims, filed over nine years post-ELIHPA, were time barred. In holding petitioners’ claims untimely, the Federal Circuit rejected the argument pressed by petitioners that the passage of ELIHPA qualified as a repudiation. Were ELIHPA so regarded, petitioners’ suit would be timely if filed within six years of either the date performance fell due (the date petitioners tendered prepayment) or the date on which petitioners elected to treat the repudiation as a present breach. “An anticipatory repudiation occurs,” the Court of Appeals recognized, “when an obligor communicates to an obligee that he will commit a breach in the future.” Id., at 1363 (internal quotation marks omitted). “The doctrine of anticipatory repudiation does not apply in this case,” the court reasoned, because after ELIHPA revoked the promise to allow unrestricted prepayment, the Government owed no future performance under the contracts. Id., at 1364. Petitioners’ takings claims were time barred for essentially the same reason, the Federal Circuit held. The “property” allegedly taken without just compensation was petitioners’ contractual “right to prepay their FmHA loans at any time,” id., at 1365; the takings claim thus arose when, upon passage of ELIHPA, the Government “took away and conclusively abolished” the unrestricted prepayment option, id., at 1366. On September 16, 1998, the Grass Valley petitioners, all of whom had entered into § 515 loan agreements before December 21, 1979, joined by other plaintiffs with post-1979 loans, filed an action in the Court of Federal Claims virtually identical to the Franconia action. On April 12, 2000, that court granted the Government’s motion to dismiss the Grass Valley petitioners’ contract claims for the reasons it had dismissed the claims of the Franconia petitioners. 46 Fed. Cl. 629, 633-635 (2000). The Federal Circuit affirmed without opinion. Judgt. order reported at 7 Fed. Appx. 928 (2001). We granted certiorari, 534 U. S. 1073 (2002), and now reverse the two judgments of the Federal Circuit before us for review. II A A waiver of the sovereign immunity of the United States “cannot be implied but must be unequivocally expressed.” United States v. King, 395 U. S. 1, 4 (1969). That requirement is satisfied here. Once the United States waives its immunity and does business with its citizens, it does so much as a party never cloaked with immunity. Cf. Clearfield Trust Co. v. United States, 318 U. S. 363, 369 (1943) (“The United States does business on business terms.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Another threshold matter confines this controversy. For purposes of our disposition, the United States agrees, it may be assumed that petitioners obtained precisely the promise they allege — a promise that permits them an unfettered right to prepay their mortgages any time over the life of the loans, thereby gaining release from federal restrictions on the use of their property. See Brief for United States 18-19; Tr. of Oral Arg. 29-30. The sole issue before us is thus cleanly presented: were petitioners’ complaints initiated within the six-year limitations period prescribed in 28 U. S. C. § 2501? “When the United States enters into contract relations, its rights and duties therein are governed generally by the law applicable to contracts between private individuals.” Mobil Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast, Inc. v. United States, 530 U. S. 604, 607 (2000) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under applicable “principles of general contract law,” Priebe & Sons, Inc. v. United States, 332 U. S. 407, 411 (1947), whether petitioners’ claims were filed “within six years after [they] first aecrue[d],” 28 U. S. C. § 2501, depends upon when the Government breached the prepayment undertaking stated in the promissory notes. See 1 C. Corman, Limitations of Actions §7.2.1, p. 482 (1991) (“The cause of action for breach of contract accrues, and the statute of limitations begins to rim, at the time of the breach.” (footnote omitted)); see also 18 W. Jaeger, Williston on Contracts §2021A, p. 697 (3d ed. 1978) (same). In declaring ELIHPA a present breach of petitioners’ loan contracts, the Federal Circuit reasoned that the Government had but one obligation under those agreements: “to continue to allow borrowers the unfettered right to prepay their loans at any time.” 240 F. 3d, at 1363; see also 43 Fed. Cl., at 710 (Government’s contractual duty was “to keep its promise to allow borrowers an unfettered prepayment right”). If that continuing duty was breached, the court maintained, the breach occurred immediately, totally, and definitively when ELIHPA took away the borrowers’ unfettered right to prepay. See 240 F. 3d, at 1363. The Court of Appeals so ruled despite petitioners’ insistence that “the government’s performance obligation under the contracts was to accept prepayment” whenever tendered during the long life of the loans, even decades into the future. Id., at 1362 (emphasis added); see also 43 Fed. Cl., at 710. The Federal Circuit, we are persuaded, incorrectly characterized the performance allegedly due from the Government under the promissory notes. If petitioners enjoyed a “right to prepay their loans at any time,” 240 F. 3d, at 1363, then necessarily the Government had a corresponding obligation to accept prepayment and execute the appropriate releases. See Brief for Petitioners 6-6. Absent an obligation on the lender to accept prepayment, the obligation “to allow” borrowers to prepay would be meaningless. A loan contract of such incomplete design would be illusory. See J. Murray, Contracts §2, p. 6 (2d rev. ed. 1974) (promise required to create a binding contract must be an “undertaking or commitment to do or refrain from doing [something in the future”). Once the Government’s pledged performance is properly comprehended as an obligation to accept prepayment, the error in the Federal Circuit’s reasoning becomes apparent. Failure by the promisor to perform at the time indicated for performance in the contract establishes an immediate breach. See Restatement (Second) of Contracts §235(2) (1979) (hereinafter Restatement) (“When performance of a duty under a contract is due[,] any non-performance is a breach.”); Murray, supra, §206, at 417; But the promisor’s renunciation of a “contractual duty before the time fixed in the contract for... performance” is a repudiation. 4 A. Corbin, Contracts §959, p. 855 (1951) (emphasis added); Restatement §250 (repudiation entails a statement or “voluntary affirmative act” indicating that the promisor “will commit a breach” when performance becomes due). Such a repudiation ripens into a breach prior to the time'for performance only if the promisee “elects to treat it as such.” See Roehm v. Horst, 178 U. S. 1, 13 (1900) (repudiation “give[s] the promisee the right of electing either to... wait till the time for [the promisor’s] performance has arrived, or to act upon [the renunciation] and treat it as a final assertion by the promisor that he is no longer bound by the contract”). Viewed in this light, ELIHPA effected a repudiation of the FmHA loan contracts, not an immediate breach. The Act conveyed an announcement by the Government that it would not perform as represented in the promissory notes if and when, at some point in the future, petitioners attempted to prepay their mortgages. See Restatement § 250, Comment b (“[A] statement of intention not to perform except on conditions which go beyond the contract constitutes a repudiation.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Murray, supra, § 208, at 421. Unless petitioners treated ELIHPA as a present breach by filing suit prior to the date indicated for performance, breach would occur when a borrower attempted to prepay, for only at that time would the Government’s responsive performance become due. In sum, once it is understood that ELIHPA is most sensibly characterized as a repudiation, the decisions below lose force. To recapitulate, “[t]he time of accrual... depends on whether the injured party chooses to treat the... repudiation as a present breach.” 1 C. Corman, Limitation of Actions §7.2.1, p. 488 (1991). If that party “[e]leets to place the repudiator in breach before the performance date, the accrual date of the cause of action is accelerated from [the] time of performance to the date of such election.” Id., at 488-489. But if the injured party instead opts to await performance, “the cause of action accrues, and the statute of limitations commences to run, from the time fixed for performance rather than from the earlier date of repudiation.” Id., at 488. The Government draws no distinction “between a duty to allow petitioners to prepay and a duty to accept tendered prepayments”; “any such distinction,” the Government acknowledges, “would be without significance.” Brief for United States 33. Indeed, the Government recognizes, if petitioners had an “unfettered right to prepay,” then, “of course,” that right would be complemented by an “obligation to accept any prepayment tendered.” Ibid. In defense of the judgment below, the Government relies on two other grounds. First, the Government draws upon the text of §2501, which bars any claims not “filed within six years after [the] claim first accrues.” The words “first accrues,” the Government contends, are key. See id., at 11. Those words, according to the Government, convey Congress’ intent to guard the sovereign against claims that might be deemed timely under statutes of limitations applicable to private parties. Id., at 28. As the Government reads §2501, the “first accrues” qualification ensures that suits against the United States are filed on “the earliest possible date,” id., at 17, thereby providing the Government with “reasonably prompt notice of the fiscal implications of past enactments,” id., at 16. See ibid. (“[S]trict construction of [§2501]... serves the salutary purpose of ensuring that a Congress close to the one that enacted the statute [alleged to have caused a breach of contract] — rather than a Congress serving perhaps many decades later — may and must address the consequences.”); see Tr. of Oral Arg. 45-46. We do not agree that § 2501 creates a special accrual rule for suits against the United States. Contrary to the Government’s contention, the text of §2501 is unexceptional: A number of contemporaneous state statutes of limitations applicable to suits between private parties also tie the commencement of the limitations period to the date a claim “first accrues.” See J. Angelí, Limitations of Actions 536-588 (6th ed. 1876) (quoting state statutes of limitations). Equally telling, in its many years of applying and interpreting §2501, the Court of Federal Claims has never attributed to the words “first accrues” the meaning the Government now proposes. Instead, in other settings, that court has adopted the repudiation doctrine in its traditional form when evaluating the timeliness of suits governed by §2501. See Plaintiffs in Winstar-Related Cases v. United States, 37 Fed. Cl. 174, 183-184 (1997), aff’d sub nom. Ariadne Financial Services Pty. Ltd. v. United States, 133 F. 3d 874 (CA Fed. 1998). In line with our recognition that limitations principles should generally apply to the Government “in the same way that” they apply to private parties, Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U. S. 89, 95 (1990), we reject the Government’s proposed construction of §2501. That position, we conclude, presents an “undüly restrictiv[e]” reading of the congressional waiver of sovereign immunity, Bowen v. City of New York, 476 U. S. 467,479 (1986), rather than “a realistic assessment of legislative intent,” Irwin, 498 U. S., at 95. Two practical considerations reinforce this conclusion. Cf. Crown Coat Front Co. v. United States, 386 U. S. 503, 517 (1967) (the words “first accrues” must be interpreted “with due regard to those practical ends which are to be served by any limitation of the time within which an action must be brought” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Reading §2501 as the Government proposes would seriously distort the repudiation doctrine in suits brought under the Tucker Act. Assuming a claim could “first accrue” for limitations purposes on the date of repudiation, but see supra, at 144, a party aggrieved by the Government’s renunciation of a contractual obligation anticipating future performance would be compelled by the looming limitations bar to forgo the usual option of awaiting the time performance is due before filing an action for breach. The Government’s construction of §2501 would thus convert the repudiation doctrine from a shield for the promisee into a sword by which the Government could invoke its own wrongdoing to defeat otherwise timely suits. As Professor Corbin explained, “[t]he plaintiff should not be penalized for leaving to the defendant an opportunity to retract his wrongful repudiation; and he would be so penalized if the statutory period of limitation is held to begin to run against him immediately.” Corbin, Contracts § 989, at 967; see Roehm v. Horst, 178 U. S., at 10 (“[I]t seems reasonable to allow an option to the injured party, either to sue immediately, or to wait till the time when the act was to be done,... which may be advantageous to the innocent party.”). There is also reason to doubt that the Government’s reading of § 2501 would inure to the benefit of the United States. Putting prospective plaintiffs to the choice of either bringing suit soon after the Government’s repudiation or forever relinquishing their claims would surely proliferate litigation. Every borrower of FmHA loans, for example, would be forced to sue the Government within six years of ELIHPA’s enactment in order to preserve a claim stemming from that Act. Faced with the prospect of forever forgoing such a claim, even a borrower that had not previously wished to prepay might well conclude that early exit from the FmHA program is the only safe course. The Government would thus find itself defending against highly speculative damages claims in a profusion of lawsuits, most of which would never have been brought under a less novel interpretation of § 2501. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 33-34. The Government also seeks to avoid the repudiation doctrine by attacking as “futile” petitioners’ “search for an exact parallel in contracts solely between private parties.” Brief for United States 13. The law of repudiation does not govern here, the Government ultimately contends, because the “statement of intent not to perform” on which petitioners base their claim is an Act of Congress. Id., at 24. According to the Government, a congressional enactment like ELIHPA that precludes the Government from honoring a contractual obligation anticipating future performance always constitutes a present breach. This is so, the Government maintains, because “the promisor” — the agency or official responsible for administering the contract — does not “remai[n] free to change its mind and render the requisite performance” without violating binding federal law. Id., at 27. Accordingly, the Government concludes, the essential purpose of the repudiation doctrine — to avoid an unnecessary lawsuit by allowing the promisor an opportunity to adhere to its undertaking — is inapplicable. We reject the Government’s premise, and therefore its conclusion. Just as Congress may announce the Government’s intent to dishonor an obligation to perform in the future through a duly enacted law, so may it retract that renouncement prior to the time for performance, thereby enabling the agency or contracting official to perform as promised. Indeed, Congress “change[d] its mind” in just this manner before it enacted ELIHPA. Ibid. In the 1979 amendments to the National Housing Act, Congress repudiated the promissory notes at issue here by conditioning prepayment of all §515 loans on the borrower’s agreement to maintain the low-income use of its property for a specified period. See Housing and Community Development Amendments of 1979,93 Stat. 1134-1135. One year later, Congress removed those conditions on pre-1979 loans, thereby retracting the repudiation. See Housing and Community Development Act of 1980, 94 Stat. 1671-1672; supra, at 135. We comprehend no reason why an Act of Congress may not constitute a repudiation of a contract to which the United States is a party. Congress may renounce the Government’s contractual duties without triggering an immediate breach because Congress may withdraw that repudiation if given the opportunity to do so. “Hence,... the fact that [the Government’s] repudiation rested upon the enactment of a new statute makes no significant difference.” Mobil Oil, 530 U. S., at 620; see id., at 619 (“[I]f legislation passed by Congress and signed by the President is not a ‘statement by the obligor’ ” capable of triggering a repudiation, “it is difficult to imagine what would constitute such a statement.” (quoting Restatement §250)). B To answer the question presented — when does the statute of limitations on petitioners’ claims begin to run, see Pet. for Cert, i — we need not separately address petitioners’ alternative theory of recovery based on the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The Federal Circuit’s holding that takings relief was time barred hinged entirely on its conclusion that petitioners’ contract claims accrued upon passage of ELIHPA. See 240 F. 3d, at 1365-1366. Because that conclusion was incorrect, we hold, the Federal Circuit erred in dismissing petitioners’ takings theory on grounds of untimeliness. * * * Concluding that each petitioner’s claim is timely if filed within six years of a wrongly rejected tender of prepayment, we reverse the judgments of the Federal Circuit and remand the Franconia and Grass Valley cases reviewed herein for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Since 1994, the program has been entrusted to the Rural Housing Service, known between 1994 and 1996 as Rural Housing and Community Development Services. That agency was created by the Secretary of Agriculture under authority provided by the Department of Agriculture Reorganization Act of 1994, 108 Stat. 3219, as amended, 110 Stat. 1128, 1131. See also 1 CFR § 2003.18 (2002) (functional organization of Rural Housing Service). Our references to the FmHA should be understood to include these successor agencies. In 1986, Congress had passed a temporary moratorium that precluded § 515 prepayments in most cases. The moratorium originally was to expire in 1987, but it was extended into 1988 by another temporary measure. See note following 42 U. S. C. § 1472, p. 163 (1994 ed.). In 1992, Congress passed the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992,106 Stat. 3672, codified in relevant part at 42 U. S. C. § 1472(c) (1992 legislation). That provision, which had no effect on petitioners’ loans, extended ELIHPA’s restrictions to loans made after those of petitioners, i. e., loans made from December 21,1979, through 1989. See 106 Stat. 3841. The claims of the latter group of Franconia plaintiffs remain pending before the Court of Federal Claims. See App. to Pet. for Cert. A3, n.2. The Federal Circuit thus disagreed with the Court of Federal Claims in one respect: The former concluded that petitioners’ claims had accrued on the date of ELIHPA’s enactment, while the latter held that those claims had accrued on the effective date of regulations implementing the Act. 240 F. 3d, at 1365, n. 3. This disagreement is irrelevant to, and rendered academic by, our resolution of the petitions. Like the Court of Federal Claims, see 43 Fed. Cl. 702, 708-709 (1999), the Federal Circuit rejected petitioners’ “alternative argument” that even if the limitations period commenced to run upon enactment of legislation installing prepayment restrictions, the 1992 legislation, rather than ELIHPA, served as the operative provision. 240 F. 3d, at 1365, and n. 4. Petitioners contended that ELIHPA represented an emergency measure that curtailed prepayment rights only temporarily; the definitive legislative action, they maintained, occurred later, when the 1992 legislation made curtailment of their prepayment rights permanent. Id., at 1365. The Federal Circuit concluded that although Congress had designated certain provisions in ELIHPA “interim measures,” ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted), “no similar language... indicate^] that [ELIHPA’s] restrictions on FmHA loan prepayments were anything but permanent as to” borrowers in petitioners’ situation, ibid. The Court of Federal Claims dismissed the Grass Valley petitioners’ takings claims as untimely in a separate decision. 51 Fed. Cl. 436, 439 (2002). The record indicates that at least one petitioner has attempted to prepay, see App. to Pet. for Cert. A157-A158, but contains no information about how many others have done so or when any such attempts took place, see 43 Fed. CL, at 707. Application of our holding to each petitioner in light of such determinations is a task for the lower courts on remand. As petitioners observe, see Reply Brief 6, n. 6, the “first accrues” qualification might serve a meaningful purpose in the context of tolling of disabilities for successive claimants. In that context, the qualification would ensure that suit could be delayed only during the disability of the claimant to whom a right of action first accrued; successive claimants laboring under a disability would be unprotected by any Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court. Under Idaho law, a public employee may elect to have a portion of his wages deducted by his employer and remitted to his union to pay union dues. He may not, however, choose to have an amount deducted and remitted to the union’s political action committee, because Idaho law prohibits payroll deductions for political activities. A group of unions representing Idaho public employees challenged this limitation. They conceded that the limitation was valid as applied at the state level, but argued that it violated their First Amendment rights when applied to county, municipal, school district, and other local public employers. We do not agree. The First Amendment prohibits government from “abridging the freedom of speech”; it does not confer an affirmative right to use government payroll mechanisms for the purpose of obtaining funds for expression. Idaho’s law does not restrict political speech, but rather declines to promote that speech by allowing public employee checkoffs for political activities. Such a decision is reasonable in light of the State’s interest in avoiding the appearance that carrying out the public’s business is tainted by partisan political activity. That interest extends to government at the local as well as state level, and nothing in the First Amendment prevents a State from determining that its political subdivisions may not provide payroll deductions for political activities. I Idaho’s Right to Work Act declares that the “right to work shall not be infringed or restricted in any way based on membership in, affiliation with, or financial support of a labor organization or on refusal to join, affiliate with, or financially or otherwise support a labor organization.” 1985 Idaho Sess. Laws ch. 2, § 1 (codified at Idaho Code § 44-2001 (Michie 2003)). As part of that policy, the Act prohibits any requirement for the payment of dues or fees to a labor organization as a condition of employment, § 44-2003, but authorizes employers to deduct union fees from an employee’s wages with the employee’s “signed written authorization,” §44-2004(1). The Act covers all employees, “including all employees of the state and its political subdivisions.” §44-2011. Prior to 2003, employees could authorize both a payroll deduction for general union dues and a payroll deduction for union political activities conducted through a political action committee. App. 55-56,83-84. In 2003, the Idaho Legislature passed the Voluntary Contributions Act (VCA). 2003 Sess. Laws chs. 97 and 340 (codified at Idaho Code §§ 44-2601 through 44-2605, and §44-2004). That legislation, among other things, amended the Right to Work Act by adding a prohibition on payroll deductions for political purposes. That amendment provides: “Deductions for political activities as defined in chapter 26, title 44, Idaho Code, shall not be deducted from the wages, earnings or compensation of an employee.” §44-2004(2). The term “political activities” is defined as “electoral activities, independent expenditures, or expenditures made to any candidate, political party, political action committee or political issues committee or in support of or against any ballot measure.” § 44-2602(l)(e). Violations of § 44-2004(2) are punishable by a fine not exceeding $1,000 or up to 90 days of imprisonment, or both. § 44-2007. Shortly before the VCA was to take effect, plaintiff labor organizations sued the Bannock County prosecuting attorney, the Idaho secretary of state, and the Idaho attorney general in their official capacities, alleging that the ban on political payroll deductions was unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. App. 18-41. The District Court rejected that argument with respect to public employers at the state level, concluding that the First Amendment does not compel the State “to subsidize speech by providing, at its own expense, payroll deductions for the purpose of paying union dues or association fees for State employees.” Pocatello Ed. Assn. v. Heideman, 2005 WL 3241745, *2 (D Idaho, Nov. 23, 2005). The ban was valid at the state level because “the State is incurring costs to set up and maintain the [payroll deduction] program.” Ibid. The court struck down the VC A, however, “to the extent that it applies to local governments and private employers,” because the State had failed to identify any subsidy it provided to such employers to administer payroll deductions. Id., at *2 (footnote omitted), *6. The state defendants appealed, contending that the ban on political payroll deductions may be constitutionally applied to local government employees. Pocatello Ed. Assn. v. Heideman, 504 F. 3d 1053, 1057 (CA9 2007). Neither party challenged the District Court’s rulings as to private and state-level employees, and therefore the only issue remaining concerned application of the ban to local government employees. The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that there was “no subsidy by the State of Idaho for the payroll deduction systems of local governments.” Id., at 1059. The appellate court remarked that “the generalized lawmaking power held by the legislature with respect to a state’s political subdivisions does not establish that the state is acting as a proprietor” with respect to local government employers. Id., at 1064. The court instead regarded the relationship between the State and its political subdivisions as analogous to that between the State and a regulated private utility. See id., at 1063-1065 (citing Consolidated Edison Co. of N. Y. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 530 (1980)). While “Idaho has the ultimate power of control over the units of government at issue,” it did not “actually operat[e] or contro[l] the payroll deduction systems of local units of government.” 504 F. 3d, at 1068. The court therefore applied strict scrutiny to Idaho’s decision to prevent local government employers from allowing payroll deductions for political purposes, and held the statute unconstitutional as applied at the local level. Ibid. We granted certiorari, 552 U. S. 1294 (2008), and now reverse. II Restrictions on speech based on its content are “presumptively invalid” and subject to strict scrutiny. Davenport v. Washington Ed. Assn., 551 U. S. 177, 188 (2007); R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 382 (1992). The unions assert that the ban on checkoffs for political activities falls into this category because the law singles out political speech for disfavored treatment. The First Amendment, however, protects the right to be free from government abridgment of speech. While in some contexts the government must accommodate expression, it is not required to assist others in funding the expression of particular ideas, including political ones. “[A] legislature’s decision not to subsidize the exercise of a fundamental right does not infringe the right, and thus is not subject to strict scrutiny.” Regan v. Taxation With Representation of Wash., 461 U. S. 540, 549 (1983); cf. Smith v. Highway Employees, 441 U. S. 463, 465 (1979) (per curiam) (“First Amendment does not impose any affirmative obligation on the government to listen, to respond or, in this context, to recognize [a labor] association and bargain with it”). The court below concluded, and Idaho does not dispute, that “unions face substantial difficulties in collecting funds for political speech without using payroll deductions.” 504 F. 3d, at 1058. But the parties agree that the State is not constitutionally obligated to provide payroll deductions at all. See Plaintiffs’ Reply Memorandum 10; see also Toledo Area AFL-CIO Council v. Pizza, 154 F. 3d 307, 319-320 (CA6 1998); cf. Charlotte v. Firefighters, 426 U. S. 283, 286 (1976) (“Court would reject. .. contention ... that respondents’ status as union members or their interest in obtaining a dues checkoff... entitle[s] them to special treatment under the Equal Protection Clause”). While publicly administered payroll deductions for political purposes can enhance the unions’ exercise of First Amendment rights, Idaho is under no obligation to aid the unions in their political activities. And the State’s decision not to do so is not an abridgment of the unions’ speech; they are free to engage in such speech as they see fit. They simply are barred from enlisting the State in support of that endeavor. Idaho’s decision to limit public employer payroll deductions as it has “is not subject to strict scrutiny” under the First Amendment. Regan, 461 U. S., at 549. Given that the State has not infringed the unions’ First Amendment rights, the State need only demonstrate a rational basis to justify the ban on political payroll deductions. Id., at 546-551. The prohibition is not “aim[ed] at the suppression of dangerous ideas,” id., at 548 (internal quotation marks omitted), but is instead justified by the State’s interest in avoiding the reality or appearance of government favoritism or entanglement with partisan politics. We have previously recognized such a purpose in upholding limitations on public employee political activities. See Civil Service Comm’n v. Letter Carriers, 413 U. S. 548, 565 (1973) (public perception of partiality can undermine confidence in representative government); Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 96-100 (1947) (Congress may limit political acts by public officials to promote integrity in the discharge of official duties); cf. Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788, 809 (1985) (limitations on speech may be justified by interest in “avoiding the appearance of political favoritism”); Greer v. Spock, 424 U. S. 828, 839 (1976) (upholding policy aimed at keeping official military activities “wholly free of entanglement with partisan political campaigns of any kind”). Banning payroll deductions for political speech similarly furthers the government’s interest in distinguishing between internal governmental operations and private speech. Idaho’s decision to allow payroll deductions for some purposes but not for political activities is plainly reasonable. Davenport guides our resolution here. That case also involved a distinction based on the content of speech: Specific consent was required from nonunion members before agency fees charged to them could be used for election-related activities, but consent was not required with respect to agency fees used for other purposes. 551 U. S., at 181-182. We rejected the unions’ argument that this requirement violated the First Amendment because it turned on the content of the speech at issue. Id., at 188-190. We recognized that the statute, rather than suppressing union speech, simply declined to assist that speech by granting the unions the right to charge agency fees for election activities. That decision was reasonable given the State’s interest in preserving the integrity of the election process. Ibid. We also concluded that the State did “not have to enact an across-the-board limitation ... to vindicate [its] more narrow concern.” Id., at 189. Here the restriction is on the use of a checkoff to fund political activities, but the same analysis governs. Idaho does not suppress political speech but simply declines to promote it through public employer checkoffs for political activities. The concern that political payroll deductions might be seen as involving public employers in politics arises only because Idaho permits public employer payroll deductions in the first place. As in Davenport, the State’s response to that problem is limited to its source — in this case, political payroll deductions. The ban on such deductions plainly serves the State’s interest in separating public employment from political activities. III The question remains whether the ban is valid at the local level. The unions abandoned their challenge to the restriction at the state level, but contend that strict scrutiny is still warranted when the ban is applied to local government employers. In that context, the unions argue, the State is no longer declining to facilitate speech through its own payroll system, but is obstructing speech in the local governments’ payroll systems. See Brief for Respondents 44-46. We find that distinction unpersuasive, and hold that the same deferential review applies whether the prohibition on payroll deductions for political speech is directed at state or local governmental entities. “Political subdivisions of States — counties, cities, or whatever — never were and never have been considered as sovereign entities.” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 575 (1964). They are instead “subordinate governmental instrumentalities created by the State to assist in the carrying out of state governmental functions.” Ibid.; see also Louisiana ex rel. Folsom v. Mayor and Administrators of New Orleans, 109 U. S. 285, 287 (1883) (“Municipal corporations are instrumentalities of the State for the convenient administration of government within their limits”). State political subdivisions are “merely . . . department^] of the State, and the State may withhold, grant or withdraw powers and privileges as it sees fit.” Trenton v. New Jersey, 262 U. S. 182, 187 (1923). Here the Idaho Legislature has elected to withhold from all public employers the power to provide payroll deductions for political activities. The State’s legislative action is of course subject to First Amendment and other constitutional scrutiny whether that action is applicable at the state level, the local level, both, or some subpart of either. But we are aware of no case suggesting that a different analysis applies under the First Amendment depending on the level of government affected, and the unions have cited none. The ban on political payroll deductions furthers Idaho’s interest in separating the operation of government from partisan politics. That interest extends to all public employers at whatever level of government. In reaching the opposite conclusion, the Court of Appeals invoked our decision in Consolidated Edison Co. of N. Y. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 530. In that case, we held that a state commission could not, consistent with the First Amendment, prohibit a privately owned electric utility from discussing controversial issues in its bill inserts. Id., at 544. We ruled that the fact that the State regulated the utility did not authorize the prohibition. Id., at 540. The Court of Appeals concluded that the same analysis applied here, and that “the State’s broad powers of control over local government entities are solely those of a regulator, analogous to the [state commission’s] regulatory powers over [the private utility].” 504 F. 3d, at 1065. That analogy is misguided. A private corporation is subject to the government’s legal authority to regulate its conduct. A political subdivision, on the other hand, is a subordinate unit of government created by the State to carry out delegated governmental functions. A private corporation enjoys constitutional protections, see First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, 778, n. 14 (1978), but a political subdivision, “created by a state for the better ordering of government, has no privileges or immunities under the federal constitution which it may invoke in opposition to the will of its creator.” Williams v. Mayor of Baltimore, 289 U. S. 36, 40 (1933); see Trenton v. New Jersey, supra, at 185 (municipality, as successor to a private water company, does not enjoy against the State the same constitutional rights as the water company: “The relations existing between the State and the water company were not the same as those between the State and the City”). Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals found it significant that “there is no subsidy by the State of Idaho for the payroll deduction systems of local governments.” 504 F. 3d, at 1059; see also 2005 WL 3241745, *2. The Court of Appeals emphasized that there was no evidence that “Idaho has attempted to use its asserted powers to manage the day-to-day operations of local government personnel.” 504 F. 3d, at 1067. Given the relationship between the State and its political subdivisions, however, it is immaterial how the State allocates funding or management responsibilities between the different levels of government. The question is whether the State must affirmatively assist political speech by allowing public employers to administer payroll deductions for political activities. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, the answer is no. * * * The Court of Appeals ruling that Idaho Code § 44-2004(2) is unconstitutional with respect to local units of government is reversed. It is so ordered. The unions also challenged other provisions of the VCA, including one requiring labor organizations to establish a “separate segregated fund” for political activities. Idaho Code §§ 44-2601 through 44-2605 (Michie 2003); see App. 27-34. In response to that challenge, the State agreed to strike “all of the VCA except for its ban on political payroll deductions.” Poca tello Ed. Assn. v. Heideman, 2005 WL 3241745, *1 (D Idaho, Nov. 23,2005). The State assérted that the ban could be “given effect since it operates without reference to the existence of a separate segregated fund.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). The unions do not dispute that the ban on political payroll deductions is severable from the other challenged provisions. Plaintiffs’ Reply Memorandum in Support of Their Motion for Summary Judgment and in Opposition to the State Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment in No. Civ. 03-256-E-BLW (D Idaho, Aug. 15, 2005), p. 3 (hereinafter Plaintiffs’ Reply Memorandum). Justice Bkeyer finds this analysis inapplicable because the challenged provision removes politically related deductions from an existing system. Post, at 366 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). But available deductions do not have tenure; a legislature is free to address concerns as they arise. Justice Breyer would also subject the ban to more exacting scrutiny by analogizing it to various direct restrictions on expression. See post, at 367-368. That analogy misses the mark. A decision not to assist fund-raising that may, as a practical matter, result in fewer contributions is simply not the same as directly limiting expression. Cf. Regan v. Taxation With Representation of Wash., 461 U. S. 540, 550 (1983) (“Although [a union] does not have as much money as it wants, and thus cannot exercise its freedom of speech as much as it would like, the Constitution does not confer an entitlement to such funds as may be necessary to realize all the advantages of that freedom” (internal quotation marks omitted)). We therefore would not subject Idaho’s statute to the “open-ended rough-and-tumble of factors” proposed by the dissent as an alternative to rational basis review. Jerome B. Grubart, Inc. v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 513 U. S. 527, 547 (1995); see post, at 368. Justice Breyer suggests that the han on political payroll deductions may not be applied evenhandedly to all politically related deductions. Post, at 369-370. Justice Stevens goes further and would find the ban unconstitutional in all its applications as discriminatory. Post, at 370 (dissenting opinion). The District Court, however, noted that the ban “is not viewpoint-based,” 2005 WL 3241745, *3; the unions acknowledged in their Court of Appeals brief that they “have not attempted to establish that Section 44-2004(2) is based on viewpoint discrimination,” Brief for Plaintiffs-Appellees in No. 06-35004 (CA9), p. 18, n. 13; and nothing in the Questions Presented before this Court raised any issue of viewpoint discrimination. The ban on political payroll deductions is by its terms not limited to any particular type of political contribution. Nothing in the record suggests that public employers permit deductions for some political activities but not for those of unions. Idaho’s attorney general — charged with enforcing the ban — explicitly confirmed that it “applies to all organizations, to any deduction regarding political issues, applies regardless of viewpoint or message, applies to all employers, and it does not single out any candidates or issues.” App. 110. If the ban is not enforced evenhandedly, plaintiffs are free to bring an as-applied challenge. See National Endowment for Arts v. Finley, 524 U. S. 569, 587 (1998). Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court. This case raises an important question of federal appellate jurisdiction that was not considered by the Court of Appeals: Whether one member of a School Board has standing to appeal from a declaratory judgment against the Board. We conclude that although the School Board itself had a sufficient stake in the outcome of the litigation to appeal, an individual Board member cannot invoke the Board’s interest in the case to confer standing upon himself. I — I In September 1981 a group of high school students in Wil-liamsport, Pennsylvania, formed a club called “Petros” for the purpose of promoting “spiritual growth and positive attitudes in the lives of its members.” App. 46. The group asked the Principal of the high school for permission to meet on school premises during student activity periods scheduled diming the regular schoolday on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Principal allowed Petros to hold an organizational meeting that was attended by approximately 45 students. At that meeting passages of scripture were read and some students prayed. There is no evidence that any students, or parents, expressed any opposition or concern about future meetings of Petros. The Principal nevertheless advised the group that they could not hold any further meetings until he had discussed the matter with the School Superintendent. The Superintendent, in turn, advised the students that he would respond to their written request for recognition after he received “competent legal advice [from the School District’s Solicitor] as to the propriety of approving establishment of the proposed prayer club” on school premises. Id., at 42. On November 16, 1981, the Principal and the Superintendent met with representatives of Petros and advised them that “based on the Solicitor’s legal opinion, their request must be denied.” 563 F. Supp. 697, 701 (MD Pa. 1983). The legal opinion is not a part of the record; nor does the record contain any evidence that the Principal, the Superintendent, or any other person except the Solicitor had voiced any opposition to the proposed meetings by Petros. Indeed, Petros was informed that it could meet off school premises and “would be given released time during the activity period” if it could secure “a location and an adult supervisor, preferably a clergyman” for their meetings. Ibid. The students thereafter wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Williamsport Area School Board appealing the Superintendent’s decision. At a meeting held January 19, 1982, the Board upheld the Superintendent’s decision and “denied the appeal on the basis of the Solicitor’s opinion.” Ibid. (citations omitted). II On June 2, 1982, 10 of the students filed suit in the United States District Court against the Williamsport Area School District, the 9 members of the School Board, the Superintendent of the District, and the Principal of the high school. Although there is a general allegation in the first paragraph of the complaint that the action was brought against the defendants “in their individual and official capacities,” App. 13, the specific allegation concerning each of the named members of the Board was in this form: “John C. Youngman, Jr., is a member of the Williamsport Area School Board and is sued in that capacity,” id., at 16. The complaint alleged that the defendants’ refusal to recognize Petros and to allow it to meet on the same basis as other student groups because óf its religious activities violated the First Amendment. The complaint prayed for declaratory and injunctive relief. One answer was filed on behalf of all the defendants. Although they admitted most of the material allegations of the complaint, they alleged that they had “requested and received in writing an opinion from the school district solicitor and legal counsel that it would be unlawful, improper and unconstitutional to recognize said group as a student organization.” Id., at 33. After plaintiffs completed their discovery (defendants took no depositions), the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment supported by affidavits, the deposition testimony, and statements of material fact not in dispute. On November 9, 1982, the District Court entered an order finding that the record was incomplete. It thereupon directed the parties to submit affidavits or other documentation concerning “the exact nature of the activity period, the type of activities or clubs that have been, and would be, approved, and what proposed groups, if any, have been denied approval.” Id., at 101. After that additional information was supplied, and after the case had been fully briefed, the District Court on May Í2, 1983, filed a detailed and carefully written opinion in which it stated: “Presently before the court are the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment. . . . Although the case presents only a question of law, this is not to say that the facts are unimportant. On the contrary, the undisputed facts are of paramount importance to the resolution of the legal question presented in this case. A slight change in the facts could very well have dictated a contrary decision. “After carefully reviewing those facts, and after giving full consideration to all pertinent legal authority, the court concludes that because the defendant school district is not constitutionally required to deny the plaintiffs the opportunity to meet, by doing so solely on constitutional grounds it has impermissibly burdened their free-speech rights. Accordingly, summary judgment will be granted in favor of the plaintiffs.” 563 F. Supp., at 699-700. The final order entered by the District Court was a ruling “in favor of the plaintiffs and against the defendants on plaintiffs’ freedom of speech claim.” No injunction was entered, and no relief was granted against any defendant in his individual capacity. The District Court, in effect, merely held that the Board’s attorney was incorrect in his legal advice. The School District did not challenge the judgment of the District Court in any way. It made no motion for a stay and took no appeal. Instead, it decided to comply with the judgment and to allow Petros to conduct the meetings it had requested. However, John C. Youngman, Jr., who was then still a member of the Board, did file a timely notice of appeal. H h-i I — i In the Court of Appeals no one raised any question about Mr. Youngman’s standing to appeal. The court did note that all of the original plaintiffs had graduated from high school, but it granted a motion to add additional plaintiffs who were currently enrolled students in order to prevent the case from becoming moot. 741 F. 2d 538, 542, n. 4 (CA3 1984). Neither the majority nor the dissenting opinion even mentioned Mr. Youngman. After repeatedly stressing “the crucial role which the particular facts play in every first amendment analysis,” id., at 541-542, the majority of the Court of Appeals held “that the particular circumstances disclosed by this record and present at the Williamsport Area High School lead to the inexorable conclusion that the constitutional balance of interests tilts against permitting the Petros activity to be conducted within the school as a general activity program,” id., at 561. In dissent, Judge Adams suggested that the majority had implicitly adopted a per se rule because of its concern about “the possibility of unconstitutional extensions of the Wil-liamsport arrangement elsewhere,” instead of performing the “more difficult adjudicative task [of carefully sifting the facts] on a case-by-case basis.” Id., at 569. The importance of the question presented by the students’ petition for certiorari persuaded us that the case merited plenary review. 469 U. S. 1206 (1985). After granting cer-tiorari, however, we noticed that neither the Board nor any of the defendants except Mr. Youngman opposed the students’ position and that only Mr. Youngman had challenged the District Court’s judgment by invoking the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals. We therefore find it necessary to answer the question whether Mr. Youngman had a sufficient stake in the outcome of the litigation to support appellate jurisdiction. The parties and the amici have identified three different capacities in which Mr. Youngman may have had standing to appeal — as an individual, as a member of the Board, and as a parent. IV Before considering each of the standing theories, it is appropriate to restate certain basic principles that limit the power of every federal court. Federal courts are not courts of general jurisdiction; they have only the power that is authorized by Article III of the Constitution and the statutes enacted by Congress pursuant thereto. See, e. g., Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 173-180 (1803). For that reason, every federal appellate court has a special obligation to “satisfy itself not only of its own jurisdiction, but also that of the lower courts in a cause under review,” even though the parties are prepared to concede it. Mitchell v. Maurer, 293 U. S. 237, 244 (1934). See Juidice v. Vail, 430 U. S. 327, 331-332 (1977) (standing). “And if the record discloses that the lower court was without jurisdiction this court will notice the defect, although the parties make no contention concerning it. [When the lower federal court] lack[s] jurisdiction, we have jurisdiction on appeal, not of the merits but merely for the purpose of correcting the error of the lower court in entertaining the suit.” United States v. Corrick, 298 U. S. 435, 440 (1936) (footnotes omitted). This obligation to notice defects in a court of appeals’ subject-matter jurisdiction assumes a special importance when a constitutional question is presented. In such cases we have strictly adhered to the standing requirements to ensure that our deliberations will have the benefit of adversary presentation and a full development of the relevant facts. Thus, as we emphasized in Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 472 (1982): “[A]t an irreducible minimum, Art. Ill requires the party who invokes the court’s authority to ‘show that he personally has suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the defendant,’ Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U. S. 91, 99 (1979), and that the injury ‘fairly can be traced to the challenged action’ and ‘is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision,’ Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Org., 426 U. S. 26, 38, 41 (1976). . . . “The requirement of ‘actual injury redressable by the court,’ Simon, supra, at 39, serves several of the ‘implicit policies embodied in Article III,’ Flast [v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83,] 96 [(1968)]. It tends to assure that the legal questions presented to the court will be resolved, not in the rarified atmosphere of a debating society, but in a concrete factual context conducive to a realistic appreciation of the consequences of judicial action. The ‘standing’ requirement serves other purposes. Because it assures an actual factual setting in which the litigant asserts a claim of injury in fact, a court may decide the case with some confidence that its decision will not pave the way for lawsuits which have some, but not all, of the facts of the case actually decided by the court.” V The first paragraph of the complaint alleged that the action was brought against the defendants “in their individual and official capacities.” App. 13. There is, however, nothing else in the complaint, or in the record on which the District Court’s judgment was based, to support the suggestion that relief was sought against any School Board member in his or her individual capacity. Certainly the District Court’s judgment granted no such relief. See n. 1, supra. Accordingly, to paraphrase our holding in Brandon v. Holt, 469 U. S. 464, 469 (1985), “[t]he course of proceedings . . . make it abundantly clear that the action against [Mr. Youngman] was in his official capacity and only in that capacity.” See Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U. S. 159, 167, n. 14 (1985). Since the judgment against Mr. Youngman was not in his individual capacity, he had no standing to appeal in that capacity. VI As a member of the School Board sued in his official capacity Mr. Youngman has no personal stake in the outcome of the litigation and therefore did not have standing to file the notice of appeal. As we held in Brandon v. Holt, supra, “a judgment against a public servant ‘in his official capacity’ imposes liability on the entity that he represents provided, of course, the public entity received notice and an opportunity to respond.” Id., at 471-472. We repeated this point in Kentucky v. Graham: “Official-capacity suits . . . ‘generally represent only another way of pleading an action against an entity of which an officer is an agent.’ Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658, 690, n. 55 (1978). As long as the government entity receives notice and an opportunity to respond, an official-capacity suit is, in all respects other than name, to be treated as a suit against the entity. Brandon, supra, at 471-472. It is not a suit against the official personally, for the real party in interest is the entity. Thus, while an award of damages against an official in his personal capacity can be executed only against the official’s personal assets, a plaintiff seeking to recover on a damages judgment in an official-capacity suit must look to the government entity itself.” 473 U. S., at 165-166 (emphasis in original, footnote omitted). Mr. Youngman’s status as a School Board member does not permit him to “step into the shoes of the Board” and invoke its right to appeal. In this case, Mr. Youngman was apparently the lone dissenter in a decision by the other eight members of the School Board to forgo an appeal. Tr. of Oral Arg. 7. Generally speaking, members of collegial bodies do not have standing to perfect an appeal the body itself has declined to take. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit so held in Smuck v. Hobson, 132 U. S. App. D. C. 372, 374-375, 408 F. 2d 175, 177-178 (1969) (en banc) (footnote omitted): “We also find that Mr. Smuck has no appealable interest as a member of the Board of Education. While he was in that capacity a named defendant, the Board of Education was undeniably the principal figure and could have been sued alone as a collective entity. Appellant Smuck had a fair opportunity to participate in its defense, and in the decision not to appeal. Having done so, he has no separate interest as an individual in the litigation. The order directs the Board to take certain actions. But since its decisions are made by vote as a collective whole, there is no apparent way in which Smuck as an individual could violate the decree and thereby become subject to enforcement proceedings.” See id., at 387, 408 F. 2d, at 190 (McGowan, J., concurring in part and concurring in result). VII At oral argument Mr. Youngman advised the Court that he is the parent of at least one student attending the Williams-port Area High School and that as a matter of conscience he is opposed to prayer activities on school premises during regular school hours. The Solicitor General submits that Mr. Youngman’s status as a parent provides an adequate predicate for federal appellate jurisdiction. Mr. Youngman’s status as an aggrieved parent, however, like any other kindred fact showing the existence of a justi-ciable “case” or “controversy” under Article III, must affirmatively appear in the record. As the first Justice Harlan observed, “the presumption ... is that the court below was without jurisdiction” unless “the contrary appears affirmatively from the record.” King Bridge Co. v. Otoe County, 120 U. S. 225, 226 (1887). Accord, Thomas v. Board of Trustees, 195 U. S. 207, 210 (1904); Minnesota v. Northern Securities Co., 194 U. S. 48, 62-63 (1904). That lack of standing was not noticed by either party matters not, for as we said in Mansfield C. & L. M. R. Co. v. Swan, 111 U. S. 379, 382 (1884): “[T]he rule, springing from the nature and limits of the judicial power of the United States, is inflexible and without exception, which requires this court, of its own motion, to deny its own jurisdiction, and, in the exercise of its appellate power, that of all other courts of the United States, in all cases where such jurisdiction does not affirmatively appear in the record on which, in the exercise of that power, it is called to act. On every writ of error or appeal, the first and fundamental question is that of jurisdiction, first, of this court, and then of the court from which the record comes. This question the court is bound to ask and answer for itself, even when not otherwise suggested, and without respect to the relation of the parties to it.” Accord, Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Willard, 220 U. S. 413, 419 (1911); Kentucky v. Powers, 201 U. S. 1, 35-36 (1906); Great Southern Fire Proof Hotel Co. v. Jones, 177 U. S. 449, 453 (1900). See Thomson v. Gaskill, 315 U. S. 442, 446 (1942). Moreover, because it is not “sufficient that jurisdiction may be inferred argumentatively from averments in the pleadings,” Grace v. American Central Ins. Co., 109 U. S. 278, 284 (1883); Thomas v. Board of Trustees, 195 U. S., at 210, it follows that the necessary factual predicate may not be gleaned from the briefs and arguments themselves. This “first principle of federal jurisdiction” applies “whether the case is at the trial stage or the appellate stage.” P. Bator, P. Mishkin, D. Shapiro, & H. Wechsler, Hart and Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System 835-836 (2d ed. 1973). There is nothing in the record indicating anything about Mr. Youngman’s status as a parent. Nor is there anything in the record to indicate that he or his children have suffered any injury as a result of the District Court’s judgment, or as a result of the activities of Petros subsequent to the entry of that judgment. For all that appears in the record, Mr. Youngman and his children might even be active supporters of Petros. The reasons why Mr. Youngman may not take an appeal in his individual capacity also foreclose an appeal in his capacity as a parent. His interest as a parent in the outcome of the litigation differs from his interest as a member of the School Board which, as we have already noted, is legally that of a “different legal personage.” See n. 6, supra. Since Mr. Youngman was not sued as a parent in the District Court, he had no right to participate in the proceedings in that court in that capacity without first filing an appropriate motion or pleading setting forth the claim or defense that he desired to assert. Thus, even if one were amenable to the dissent’s unprecedented (and unexplained) suggestion that the principle governing determination of subject-matter jurisdiction should be relaxed on appeal, the proposed exception for litigants who were “proper part[ies]” in the District Court, post, at 552, would not help Mr. Youngman because he could not perfect an appeal in either capacity in which he was a “party” in the District Court, i. e., as a School Board member sued in his individual capacity or as a Board member sued in his official capacity. Tacitly conceding Mr. Youngman’s lack of standing on these two bases, the dissent instead would confer standing on Mr. Youngman as a parent — a capacity in which he plainly was not a party in the District Court and to which, therefore, the dissent’s reasoning does not apply. Having failed to assert his parental interest in the District Court — or to adduce any factual support for that interest in this Court— Mr. Youngman has no right to prosecute an appeal in his capacity as a parent. We therefore hold that because the Court of Appeals was without jurisdiction to hear the appeal, it was without authority to decide the merits. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded with instructions to dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction. It is so ordered. The full text of the court’s order read as follows: “NOW, this 12th day of May, 1983, in accordance with the reasoning set forth in the accompanying Opinion, it is hereby ordered that: “(1) Summary judgment is granted in favor of the defendants and against the plaintiffs on plaintiffs’ free exercise claim; “(2) Summary judgment is granted in favor of the plaintiffs and against the defendants on plaintiffs’ freedom of speech claim; and, “(3) The Clerk of the Court shall close this case.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 105a. We are advised that his term of office expired while the case was pending before the Court of Appeals. In this regard, consider also the Court of Appeals’ emphasis on “the specific facts of the ease,” 741 F. 2d, at 559 (emphasis deleted); its statement that the “facts of this case concededly present a close question,” ibid.; its reference to “the unique situation presented here,” id., at 559, n. 28; and the following statement: “Because each additional fact and factor impacts so heavily upon a school prayer analysis in a determination as to whether the particular circumstances pass constitutional muster, we feel it necessary to be precise in considering the relevant facts leading to a particular conclusion.” Id., at 560, n. 30. See also, e. g., Sumner v. Mata, 449 U. S. 539, 547-548, n. 2 (1981); City of Kenosha v. Bruno, 412 U. S. 507, 511 (1973); Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc., 306 U. S. 583, 588 (1939); St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U. S. 283, 287-288, n. 10 (1938); Stratton v. St. Louis Southwestern R. Co., 282 U. S. 10, 13 (1930); Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley, 211 U. S. 149, 152 (1908) (citing cases); Cameron v. Hodges, 127 U. S. 322, 325 (1888). Cf. Capron v. Van Noorden, 2 Cranch 126, 127 (1804). We have frequently recognized the importance of the facts and the factfinding process in constitutional adjudication. See, e. g., Minnick v. California Dept. of Corrections, 452 U. S. 105, 120-127 (1981); England v. Louisiana Board of Medical Examiners, 375 U. S. 411, 416 (1964) (“How the facts are found will often dictate the decision of federal claims”); Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293, 312 (1963) (“It is the typical, not the rare, case in which constitutional claims turn upon the resolution of contested factual issues”). Cf. supra, at 538-540, and n. 3. The fact that Mr. Youngman was sued in his official capacity does not give him standing to appeal in his individual capacity. Acts performed by the same person in two different capacities “are generally treated as the transactions of two different legal personages.” F. James & G. Hazard, Civil Procedure § 11.6, p. 594 (3d ed. 1985). The fact that Mr. Youngman is named in a petition for attorney’s fees that was filed in the District Court after the appeal was taken clearly cannot affect his standing to appeal. Moreover, as we held in Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U. S., at 165 (footnote and citation omitted), “liability on the merits and responsibility for fees go hand in hand; where a defendant has not been prevailed against, either because of legal immunity or on the merits, [42 U. S. C.] § 1988 does not authorize a fee award against that defendant.” Accord, id., at 164, 168-170. It might be an entirely different ease if, for example, state law authorized School Board action solely by unanimous consent, in which event Mr. Youngman might claim that he was legally entitled to protect “the effectiveness of [his] vot[e].” Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433, 438 (1939). See id., at 438-446; id., at 456 (Black, J., concurring). But in that event Mr. Youngman would have to allege that his vote was diluted or rendered nugatory under state law and even then he would have a mandamus or like remedy against the Secretary of the School Board, ef. id., at 436-437 (mandamus action “to compel a proper record of legislative action”); he would not be entitled to take legal action in the Board’s authority in his own name. For the same reason, Mr. Youngman does not have standing on the rationale employed in Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U. S. 236, 241, n. 5 (1968), that he was forced to violate his constitutional oath. Unlike the members of the School Board majority in Allen who were put “in the position of having to choose between violating their oath and taking a step . . . that would be likely to bring their expulsion from office and also a reduction in state funds for their school districts,” ibid., Mr. Youngman has voted his conscience and, as a member of the Board, must abide by its decision not to appeal absent some state-law provision to the contrary. “The rules of standing, whether as aspects of the Art. Ill ease-or-controversy requirement or as reflections of prudential considerations defining and limiting the role of the courts, are threshold determinants of the propriety of judicial intervention. It is the responsibility of the complainant clearly to allege facts demonstrating that he is a proper party to invoke judicial resolution of the dispute and the exercise of the court’s remedial powers.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 517-518 (1975). See McNutt v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 298 U. S. 178, 190 (1936) (“Here, the allegation in the bill of complaint as to jurisdictional amount was traversed by the answer. The court made no adequate finding upon that issue of fact, and the record contains no evidence to support the allegation of the bill. There was thus no showing that the District Court had jurisdiction and the bill should have been dismissed upon that ground”); Jackson v. Ashton, 8 Pet. 148, 149 (1834); Bingham v. Cabot, 3 Dall. 382, 383-384 (1798). Because his status as a parent was obviously different from his official status as a member of the Board, in order to participate as a parent in the District Court litigation it was incumbent upon Mr. Youngman under Rule 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to make “timely application” by an appropriate motion “stat[ing] the grounds” for intervention and “setting forth the claim or defense for which intervention is sought.” Fed. Rules Civ. Proe. 24(a), (c). No such pleading was filed in either of the courts below. It is particularly important to observe these requirements in eases in which the interest of the litigant seeking to appeal diverges from the interest of the party to the suit. In this case, Mr. Youngman’s interest as a parent was not necessarily parallel to the interest of the School Board. For although the record plainly demonstrates that the School Board was interested in obeying the law — it dutifully followed its lawyer’s advice when he concluded that group worship conducted on school premises would violate the Establishment Clause — it also decided not to appeal the District Court’s contrary ruling, and the record does not indicate that the Board disfavored (or favored) groups such as Petros. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. The issue before the Court is whether the Constitution permits a juvenile offender to be sentenced to life in prison without parole for a nonhomicide crime. The sentence was imposed by the State of Florida. Petitioner challenges the sentence under the Eighth Amendment’s Gruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, made applicable to the States by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660 (1962). I Petitioner is Terrance Jamar Graham. He was born on January 6, 1987. Graham’s parents were addicted to crack cocaine, and their drug use persisted in his early years. Graham was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in elementary school. He began drinking alcohol and using tobacco at age 9 and smoked marijuana at age 13. In July 2003, when Graham was age 16, he and three other school-age youths attempted to rob a barbeque restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida. One youth, who worked at the restaurant, left the back door unlocked just before closing time. Graham and another youth, wearing masks, entered through the unlocked door. Graham’s masked accomplice twice struck the restaurant manager in the back of the head with a metal bar. When the manager started yelling at the assailant and Graham, the two youths ran out and escaped in a car driven by the third accomplice. The restaurant manager required stitches for his head injury. No money was taken. Graham was arrested for the robbery attempt. Under Florida law, it is within a prosecutor’s discretion whether to charge 16- and 17-year-olds as adults or juveniles for most felony crimes. Fla. Stat. § 985.227(l)(b) (2003) (subsequently renumbered at § 985.557(l)(b) (2007)). Graham’s prosecutor elected to charge Graham as an adult. The charges against Graham were armed burglary with assault or battery, a first-degree felony carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, §§ 810.02(l)(b), (2)(a) (2003); and attempted armed robbery, a second-degree felony carrying a maximum penalty of 15 years' imprisonment, §§ 812.13(2)(b), 777.04(1), (4)(a), 775.082(3)(c). On December 18, 2003, Graham pleaded guilty to both charges under a plea agreement. Graham wrote a letter to the trial court. After reciting “this is my first and last time getting in trouble,” he continued, “I’ve decided to turn my life around.” App. 379-380. Graham said, “I made a promise to God and myself that if I get a second chance, I’m going to do whatever it takes to get to the [National Football League].” Id., at 380. The trial court accepted the plea agreement. The court withheld adjudication of guilt as to both charges and sentenced Graham to concurrent 3-year terms of probation. Graham was required to spend the first 12 months of his probation in the county jail, but he received credit for the time he had served awaiting trial, and was released on June 25, 2004. Less than six months later, on the night of December 2, 2004, Graham again was arrested. The State’s case was as follows: Earlier that evening, Graham participated in a home invasion robbery. His two accomplices were Meigo Bailey and Kirkland Lawrence, both 20-year-old men. According to the State, at 7 p.m. that night, Graham, Bailey, and Lawrence knocked on the door of the home where Carlos Rodriguez lived. Graham, followed by Bailey and Lawrence, forcibly entered the home and held a pistol to Rodriguez's chest. For the next 30 minutes, the three held Rodriguez and another man, a friend of Rodriguez, at gunpoint while they ransacked the home searching for money. Before leaving, Graham and his accomplices barricaded Rodriguez and his Mend inside a closet. The State further alleged that Graham, Bailey, and Lawrence, later the same evening, attempted a second robbery, during which Bailey was shot. Graham, who had borrowed his father’s car, drove Bailey and Lawrence to the hospital and left them there. As Graham drove away, a police sergeant signaled him to stop. Graham continued at a high speed but crashed into a telephone pole. He tried to flee on foot but was apprehended. Three handguns were found in his car. When detectives interviewed Graham, he denied involvement in the crimes. He said he encountered Bailey and Lawrence only after Bailey had been shot. One of the detectives told Graham that the victims of the home invasion had identified him. He asked Graham, “Aside from the two robberies tonight how many more were you involved in?” Graham responded, “Two to three before tonight.” Id., at 160. The night that Graham allegedly committed the robbery, he was 34 days short of his 18th birthday. On December 13, 2004, Graham’s probation officer filed with the trial court an affidavit asserting that Graham had violated the conditions of his probation by possessing a firearm, committing crimes, and associating with persons engaged in criminal activity. The trial court held hearings on Graham’s violations about a year later, in December 2005 and January 2006. The judge who presided was not the same judge who had accepted Graham’s guilty plea to the earlier offenses. Graham maintained that he had no involvement in the home invasion robbery; but, even after the court underscored that the admission could expose him to a life sentence on the earlier charges, he admitted violating probation conditions by fleeing. The State presented evidence related to the home invasion, including testimony from the victims. The trial court noted that Graham, in admitting his attempt to avoid arrest, had acknowledged violating his probation. The court further found that Graham had violated his probation by committing a home invasion robbery, by possessing a firearm, and by associating with persons engaged in criminal activity. The trial court held a sentencing hearing. Under Florida law the minimum sentence Graham could receive absent a downward departure by the judge was 5 years’ imprisonment. The maximum was life imprisonment. Graham’s attorney requested the minimum nondeparture sentence of 5 years. A presentence report prepared by the Florida Department of Corrections recommended that Graham receive an even lower sentence — at most 4 years’ imprisonment. The State recommended that Graham receive 30 years on the armed burglary count and 15 years on the attempted armed robbery count. After hearing Graham’s testimony, the trial court explained the sentence it was about to pronounce: “Mr. Graham, as I look back on your case, yours is really candidly a sad situation. You had, as far as I can tell, you have quite a family structure. You had a lot of people who wanted to try and help you get your life turned around including the court system, and you had a judge who took the step to try and give you direction through his probation order to give you a chance to get back onto track. And at the time you seemed through your letters that that is exactly what you wanted to do. And I don’t know why it is that you threw your life away. I don’t know why. “But you did, and that is what is so sad about this today is that you have actually been given a chance to get through this, the original charge, which were very serious charges to begin with.... The attempted robbery with a weapon was a very serious charge. “[I]n a very short period of time you were back before the Court on a violation of this probation, and then here you are two years later standing before me, literally the — facing a life sentence as to — up to life as to count 1 and up to 15 years as to count 2. “And I don’t understand why you would be given such a great opportunity to do something with your life and why you would throw it away. The only thing that I can rationalize is that you decided that this is how you were going to lead your life and that there is nothing that we can do for you. And as the state pointed out, that this is an escalating pattern of criminal conduct on your part and that we can’t help you any further. We can’t do anything to deter you. This is the way you are going to lead your life, and I don’t know why you are going to. You’ve made that decision. I have no idea. But, evidently, that is what you decided to do. “So then it becomes a focus, if I can’t do anything to help you, if I can’t do anything to get you back on the right path, then I have to start focusing on the community and trying to protect the community from your actions. And, unfortunately, that is where we are today is I don’t see where I can do anything to help you any further. You’ve evidently decided this is the direction you’re going to take in life, and it’s unfortunate that you made that choice. “I have reviewed the statute. I don’t see where any further juvenile sanctions would be appropriate. I don’t see where any youthful offender sanctions would be appropriate. Given your escalating pattern of criminal conduct, it is apparent to the Court that you have decided that this is the way you are going to live your life and that the only thing I can do now is to try and protect the community from your actions.” Id., at 392-394. The trial court found Graham guilty of the earlier armed burglary and attempted armed robbery charges. It sentenced him to the maximum sentence authorized by law on each charge: life imprisonment for the armed burglary and 15 years for the attempted armed robbery. Because Florida has abolished its parole system, see Fla. Stat. § 921.002(l)(e) (2003), a life sentence gives a defendant no possibility of release unless he is granted executive clemency. Graham filed a motion in the trial court challenging his sentence under the Eighth Amendment. The motion was deemed denied after the trial court failed to rule on it within 60 days. The First District Court of Appeal of Florida affirmed, concluding that Graham’s sentence was not grossly disproportionate to his crimes. 982 So. 2d 43 (2008). The court took note of the seriousness of Graham’s offenses and their violent nature, as well as the fact that they “were not committed by a pre-teen, but a seventeen-year-old who was ultimately sentenced at the age of nineteen.” Id., at 52. The court concluded further that Graham was incapable of rehabilitation. Although Graham “was given an unheard of probationary sentence for a life felony,... wrote a letter expressing his remorse and promising to refrain from the commission of further crime, and... had a strong family structure to support him,” the court noted, he “rejected his second chance and chose to continue committing crimes at an escalating pace.” Ibid. The Florida Supreme Court denied review. 990 So. 2d 1058 (2008) (table). We granted certiorari. 556 U. S. 1220 (2009). II The Eighth Amendment states: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” To determine whether a punishment is cruel and unusual, courts must look beyond historical conceptions to “ ‘the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.’” Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 102 (1976) (quoting Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 101 (1958) (plurality opinion)). “This is because ‘[t]he standard of extreme cruelty is not merely descriptive, but necessarily embodies a moral judgment. The standard itself remains the same, but its applicability must change as the basic mores of society change.’ ” Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U. S. 407, 419 (2008) (quoting Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 382 (1972) (Burger, C. J., dissenting)). The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause prohibits the imposition of inherently barbaric punishments under all circumstances. See, e. g., Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U. S. 730 (2002). “[P]unishments of torture,” for example, “are forbidden.” Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U. S. 130, 136 (1879). These cases underscore the essential principle that, under the Eighth Amendment, the State must respect the human attributes even of those who have committed serious crimes. For the most part, however, the Court’s precedents consider punishments challenged not as inherently barbaric but as disproportionate to the crime. The concept of proportionality is central to the Eighth Amendment. Embodied in the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments is the “precept of justice that punishment for crime should be graduated and proportioned to [the] offense.” Weems v. United States, 217 U. S. 349, 367 (1910). The Court’s cases addressing the proportionality of sentences fall within two general classifications. The first involves challenges to the length of term-of-years sentences given all the circumstances in a particular case. The second comprises cases in which the Court implements the proportionality standard by certain categorical restrictions on the death penalty. In the first classification the Court considers all of the circumstances of the case to determine whether the sentence is unconstitutionally excessive. Under this approach, the Court has held unconstitutional a life without parole sentence for the defendant’s seventh nonviolent felony, the crime of passing a worthless check. Solem v. Helm, 463 U. S. 277 (1983). In other cases, however, it has been difficult for the challenger to establish a lack of proportionality. A leading case is Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U. S. 957 (1991), in which the offender was sentenced under state law to life without parole for possessing a large quantity of cocaine. A closely divided Court upheld the sentence. The controlling opinion concluded that the Eighth Amendment contains a “narrow proportionality principle,” that “does not require strict proportionality between crime and sentence” but rather “forbids only extreme sentences that are ‘grossly disproportionate’ to the crime.” Id., at 997, 1000-1001 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Again closely divided, the Court rejected a challenge to a sentence of 25 years to life for the theft of a few golf clubs under California’s so-called three-strikes recidivist sentencing scheme. Ewing v. California, 538 U. S. 11 (2003); see also Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U. S. 63 (2003). The Court has also upheld a sentence of life with the possibility of parole for a defendant’s third nonviolent felony, the crime of obtaining money by false pretenses, Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U. S. 263 (1980), and a sentence of 40 years for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and distribution of marijuana, Hutto v. Davis, 454 U. S. 370 (1982) (per curiam). The controlling opinion in Harmelin explained its approach for determining whether a sentence for a term of years is grossly disproportionate for a particular defendant’s crime. A court must begin by comparing the gravity of the offense and the severity of the sentence. 501 U. S., at 1005 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). “[I]n the rare case in which [this] threshold comparison... leads to an inference of gross dis-proportionality” the court should then compare the defendant’s sentence with the sentences received by other offenders in the same jurisdiction and with the sentences imposed for the same crime in other jurisdictions. Ibid. If this comparative analysis “validate^] an initial judgment that [the] sentence is grossly disproportionate,” the sentence is cruel and unusual. Ibid. The second classification of cases has used categorical rules to define Eighth Amendment standards. The previous cases in this classification involved the death penalty. The classification in turn consists of two subsets, one considering the nature of the offense, the other considering the characteristics of the offender. With respect to the nature of the offense, the Court has concluded that capital punishment is impermissible for nonhomicide crimes against individuals. Kennedy, 551 U. S., at 437-438; see also Enmund v. Florida, 458 U. S. 782 (1982); Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S. 584 (1977). In cases turning on the characteristics of the offender, the Court has adopted categorical rules prohibiting the death penalty for defendants who committed their crimes before the age of 18, Roper v. Simmons, 543 U. S. 551 (2005), or whose intellectual functioning is in a low range, Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U. S. 304 (2002). See also Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U. S. 815 (1988). In the cases adopting categorical rules the Court has taken the following approach. The Court first considers “objective indicia of society’s standards, as expressed in legislative enactments and state practice” to determine whether there is a national consensus against the sentencing practice at issue. Roper, supra, at 563. Next, guided by “the standards elaborated by controlling precedents and by the Court’s own understanding and interpretation of the Eighth Amendment’s text, history, meaning, and purpose,” Kennedy, 554 U. S., at 421, the Court must determine in the exercise of its own independent judgment whether the punishment in question violates the Constitution. Roper, supra, at 564. The present case involves an issue the Court has not considered previously: a categorical challenge to a term-of-years sentence. The approach in cases such as Harmelin and Ewing is suited for considering a gross proportionality challenge to a particular defendant’s sentence, but here a sentencing practice itself is in question. This case implicates a particular type of sentence as it applies to an entire class of offenders who have committed a range of crimes. As a result, a threshold comparison between the severity of the penalty and the gravity of the crime does not advance the analysis. Here, in addressing the question presented, the appropriate analysis is the one used in cases that involved the categorical approach, specifically Atkins, Roper, and Kennedy. Ill A The analysis begins with objective indicia of national consensus. “[T]he ‘clearest and most reliable objective evidence of contemporary values is the legislation enacted by the country's legislatures.”' Atkins, supra, at 312 (quoting Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302, 331 (1989)). Six jurisdictions do not allow life without parole sentences for any juvenile offenders. See Appendix, infra, Part III. Seven jurisdictions permit life without parole for juvenile offenders, but only for homicide crimes. Id., Part II. Thirty-seven States as well as the District of Columbia permit sentences of life without parole for a juvenile nonhomicide offender in some circumstances. Id., Part I. Federal law also allows for the possibility of life without parole for offenders as young as 13. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. §§2241 (2006 ed. and Supp. II), 5032 (2006 ed.). Relying on this metric, the State and its amici argue that there is no national consensus against the sentencing practice at issue. This argument is incomplete and unavailing. “There are measures of consensus other than legislation.” Kennedy, supra, at 433. Actual sentencing practices are an important part of the Court's inquiry into consensus. See Enmund, supra, at 794-796; Thompson, supra, at 831-832 (plurality opinion); Atkins, supra, at 316; Roper, supra, at 564-565; Kennedy, supra, at 433-434. Here, an examination of actual sentencing practices in jurisdictions where the sentence in question is permitted by statute discloses a consensus against its use. Although these statutory schemes contain no explicit prohibition on sentences of life without parole for juvenile nonhomieide offenders, those sentences are most infrequent. According to a recent study, nationwide there are only 109 juvenile offenders serving sentences of life without parole for nonhomicide offenses. See P. Annino, D. Rasmussen, & C. Rice, Juvenile Life without Parole for Non-Homicide Offenses: Florida Compared to Nation 2 (Sept. 14, 2009) (hereinafter Annino). The State contends that this study’s tally is inaccurate because it does not count juvenile offenders who were convicted of both a homicide and a nonhomicide offense, even when the offender received a life without parole sentence for the nonhomicide. See Brief for Respondent 34; Tr. of Oral Arg. in Sullivan v. Florida, O. T. 2009, No. 08-7621, pp. 28-31. This distinction is unpersuasive. Juvenile offenders who committed both homicide and nonhomicide crimes present a different situation for a sentencing judge than juvenile offenders who committed no homicide. It is difficult to say that a defendant who receives a life sentence on a nonhomicide offense but who was at the same time convicted of homicide is not in some sense being punished in part for the homicide when the judge makes the sentencing determination. The instant case concerns only those juvenile offenders sentenced to life without parole solely for a nonhomicide offense. Florida farther criticizes this study because the authors were unable to obtain complete information on some States and because the study was not peer reviewed. See Brief for Respondent 40. The State does not, however, provide any data of its own. Although in the first instance it is for the litigants to provide data to aid the Court, we have been able to supplement the study’s findings. The study’s authors were not able to obtain a definitive tally for Nevada, Utah, or Virginia. See Annino 11-13. Our research shows that Nevada has five juvenile nonhomicide offenders serving life without parole sentences, Utah has none, and Virginia has eight. See Letter from Alejandra Livingston, Offender Management Division, Nevada Dept, of Corrections, to Supreme Court Library (Mar. 26, 2010) (available in Clerk of Court’s ease file); Letter from Steve Gehrke, Utah Dept, of Corrections, to Supreme Court Library (Mar. 29, 2010) (same); Letter from Dr. Tama S. Celi, Virginia Dept, of Corrections, to Supreme Court Library (Mar. 30, 2010) (same). Finally, since the study was completed, a defendant in Oklahoma has apparently been sentenced to life without parole for a rape and stabbing he committed at the age of 16. See Stogsdill, Delaware County Teen Sentenced in Rape, Assault Case, Tulsa World, May 5, 2010, p. A12. Thus, adding the individuals counted by the study to those we have been able to locate independently, there are 123 juvenile nonhomicide offenders serving life without parole sentences. A significant majority of those, 77 in total, are serving sentences imposed in Florida. Annino 2. The other 46 are imprisoned in just 10 States — California, Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia. Id., at 14; supra, at 63 and this page; Letter from Thomas P. Hoey, Dept, of Corrections, Government of the District of Columbia, to Supreme Court Library (Mar. 31, 2010) (available in Clerk of Court’s case file); Letter from Judith Simon Garrett, U. S. Dept, of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), to Supreme Court Library (Apr. 9,2010) (same). Thus, only 11 jurisdictions nationwide in fact impose life without parole sentences on juvenile non-homicide offenders — and most of those do so quite rarely— while 26 States, the District of Columbia, and the Federal Government do not impose them despite statutory authorization. The numbers cited above reflect all current convicts in a jurisdiction’s penal system, regardless of when they were convicted. It becomes all the more clear how rare these sentences are, even within the jurisdictions that do sometimes impose them, when one considers that a juvenile sentenced to life without parole is likely to live in prison for decades. Thus, these statistics likely reflect nearly all juvenile nonhomicide offenders who have received a life without parole sentence stretching back many years. It is not certain that this opinion has identified every juvenile nonhomi-cide offender nationwide serving a life without parole sentence, for the statistics are not precise. The available data, nonetheless, are sufficient to demonstrate how rarely these sentences are imposed even if there are isolated cases that have not been included in the presentations of the parties or the analysis of the Court. It must be acknowledged that in terms of absolute numbers juvenile life without parole sentences for nonhomicides are more common than the sentencing practices at issue in some of this Court’s other Eighth Amendment cases. See, e. g., Enmund, 458 U. S., at 794 (only six executions of non-triggerman felony murderers between 1954 and 1982), Atkins, 536 U. S., at 316 (only five executions of mentally retarded defendants in 13-year period). This contrast can be instructive, however, if attention is first given to the base number of certain types of offenses. For example, in the year 2007 (the most recent year for which statistics are available), a total of 13,480 persons, adult and juvenile, were arrested for homicide crimes. That same year, 57,600 juveniles were arrested for aggravated assault; 3,580 for forcible rape; 34,500 for robbery; 81,900 for burglary; 195,700 for drug offenses; and 7,200 for arson. See Dept, of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Statistical Briefing Book, online at http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ojstatbb/ (as visited May 14, 2010, and available in Clerk of Court’s ease file). Although it is not certain how many of these numerous juvenile offenders were eligible for life without parole sentences, the comparison suggests that in proportion to the opportunities for its imposition, life without parole sentences for juveniles convicted of nonhomicide crimes is as rare as other sentencing practices found to be cruel and unusual. The evidence of consensus is not undermined by the fact that many jurisdictions do not prohibit life without parole for juvenile nonhomieide offenders. The Court confronted a similar situation in Thompson, where a plurality concluded that the death penalty for offenders younger than 16 was unconstitutional. A number of States then allowed the juvenile death penalty if one considered the statutory scheme. As is the case here, those States authorized the transfer of some juvenile offenders to adult court; and at that point there was no statutory differentiation between adults and juveniles with respect to authorized penalties. The plurality concluded that the transfer laws show “that the States consider 15-year-olds to be old enough to be tried in criminal court for serious crimes (or too old to be dealt with effectively in juvenile court), but tells us nothing about the judgment these States have made regarding the appropriate punishment for such youthful offenders.” 487 U. S., at 826, n. 24. Justice O’Connor, concurring in the judgment, took a similar view. Id., at 850 (“When a legislature provides for some 15-year-olds to be processed through the adult criminal justice system, and capital punishment is available for adults in that jurisdiction, the death penalty becomes at least theoretically applicable to such defendants.... [HJowever, it does not necessarily follow that the legislatures in those jurisdictions have deliberately concluded that it would be appropriate”). The same reasoning obtains here. Many States have chosen to move away from juvenile court systems and to allow juveniles to be transferred to, or charged directly in, adult court under certain circumstances. Once in adult court, a juvenile offender may receive the same sentence as would be given to an adult offender, including a life without parole sentence. But the fact that transfer and direct charging laws make life without parole possible for some juvenile non-homicide offenders does not justify a judgment that many States intended to subject such offenders to life without parole sentences. For example, under Florida law a child of any age can be prosecuted as an adult for certain crimes and can be sentenced to life without parole. The State acknowledged at oral argument that even a 5-year-old, theoretically, could receive such a sentence under the letter of the law. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 36-87. All would concede this to be unrealistic, but the example underscores that the statutory eligibility of a juvenile offender for life without parole does not indicate that the penalty has been endorsed through deliberate, express, and full legislative consideration. Similarly, the many States that allow life without parole for juvenile nonhomicide offenders but do not impose the punishment should not be treated as if they have expressed the view that the sentence is appropriate. The sentencing practice now under consideration is exceedingly rare. And “it is fair to say that a national consensus has developed against it.” Atkins, supra, at 316. B Community consensus, while “entitled to great weight,” is not itself determinative of whether a punishment is cruel and unusual. Kennedy, 554 U. S., at 434 (internal quotation marks omitted). In accordance with the constitutional design, “the task of interpreting the Eighth Amendment remains our responsibility.” Roper, 543 U. S., at 575. The judicial exercise of independent judgment requires consideration of the culpability of the offenders at issue in light of their crimes and characteristics, along with the severity of the punishment in question. Id., at 568; Kennedy, supra, at 438; cf. Solem, 463 U. S., at 292. In this inquiry the Court also considers whether the challenged sentencing practice serves legitimate penological goals. Kennedy, supra, at 441-446; Roper, supra, at 571-572; Atkins, 536 U. S., at 318-320. Roper established that because juveniles have lessened culpability they are less deserving of the most severe punishments. 543 U. S., at 569. As compared to adults, juveniles have a “‘lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility’ ”; they “are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure”; and their characters are “not as well formed.” Id., at 569-570. These salient characteristics mean that “[i]t is difficult even for expert psychologists to differentiate between the juvenile offender whose crime reflects unfortunate yet transient immaturity, and the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.” Id., at 573. Accordingly, “juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders.” Id., at 569. A juvenile is not absolved of responsibility for his actions, but his transgression “is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult.” Thompson, supra, at 835 (plurality opinion). No recent data provide reason to reconsider the Court’s observations in Roper about the nature of juveniles. As petitioner’s amici point out, developments in psychology and brain science continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds. For example, parts of the brain involved in behavior control continue to mature through late adolescence. See Brief for American Medical Association et al. 16-24; Brief for American Psychological Association et al. 22-27. Juveniles are more capable of change than are adults, and their actions are less likely to be evidence of “irretrievably depraved character” than are the actions of adults. Roper, 543 U. S., at 570. It remains true that “[f]rom a moral standpoint it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor’s character deficiencies will be reformed.” Ibid. These matters relate to the status of the offenders in question; and it is relevant to consider next the nature of the offenses to which this harsh penalty-might apply. The Court has recognized that defendants who do not kill, intend to kill, or foresee that life will be taken are categorically less deserving of the most serious forms of punishment than are murderers. Kennedy, supra; Enmund, 458 U. S. 782; Tison v. Arizona, 481 U. S. 137 (1987); Coker, 433 U. S. 584. There is a line “between homicide and other serious violent offenses against the individual.” Kennedy, 554 U. S., at 438. Serious nonhomicide crimes “may be devastating in their harm... but ‘in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public/... they cannot be compared to murder in their ‘severity and irrevocability.’” Ibid, (quoting Coker, 433 U. S., at 598 (plurality opinion)). This is because “[l]ife is over for the victim of the murderer,” but for the victim of even a very serious nonhomicide crime, “life... is not over and normally is not beyond repair.” Ibid, (plurality opinion). Although an offense like robbery or rape is “a serious crime deserving serious punishment,” Enmund, supra, at 797, those crimes differ from homicide crimes in a moral sense. It follows that, when compared to an adult murderer, a juvenile offender who did not kill or intend to kill has a twice diminished moral culpability. The age of the offender and the nature of the crime each bear on the analysis. As for the punishment, life without parole is “the second most severe penalty permitted by law.” Harmelin, 501 U. S., at 1001 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). It is true that a death sentence is “unique in its severity and irrevocability,” Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 187 (1976) (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.); yet life without parole sentences share some characteristics with death sentences that are shared by no other sentences. The State does not execute the offender sentenced to life without parole, but the sentence alters the offender’s life by a forfeiture that is irrevocable. It deprives the convict of the most basic liberties without giving hope of restoration, except perhaps by executive clemency — the remote possibility of which does not mitigate the harshness of the sentence. Solem, 463 U. S., at 300-301. As one court observed in overturning a life without parole sentence for a juvenile defendant, this sentence “means denial of hope; it means that good behavior and character improvement are immaterial; it means that whatever the future might hold in store for the mind and spirit of [the convict], he will remain in prison for the rest of his days.” Naovarath v. State, 105 Nev. 525, 526, 779 P. 2d 944 (1989). The Court has recognized the severity of sentences that deny convicts the possibility of parole. In Rummel, 445 U. S. 263, the Court rejected an Eighth Amendment challenge to a life sentence for a defendant’s third nonviolent felony but stressed that the sentence gave the defendant the possibility of parole. Noting that “parole is an established variation on imprisonment of convicted criminals,” it was evident that an analysis of the petitioner’s sentence “could hardly ignore the possibility that he will not actually be imprisoned for the rest of his life.” Id., at 280-281 (internal quotation marks omitted). And in Solem, the only previous case striking down a sentence for a term of years as grossly disproportionate, the defendant’s sentence was deemed “far more severe than the life sentence we considered in Rum-mel,” because it did not give the defendant the possibility of parole. 463 U. S., at 297. Life without parole is an especially harsh punishment for a juvenile. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. This case presents the question whether cash payments to state police troopers, designated as meal allowances, are included in gross income under § 61 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U. S. C. § 61 (a), and, if so, are otherwise excludable under § 119 of the Code, 26 U. S. C. § 119. I The pertinent facts axe not in dispute. Respondent is a state police trooper employed by the Division of State Police of the Department of Law and Public Safety of the State of New Jersey. During 1970, the tax year in question, he received a base salary of $8,739.38, and an additional $1,697.54 designated as an allowance for meals. The State instituted the cash meal allowance for its state police officers in July 1949. Prior to that time, all troopers were provided with midshift meals in kind at various meal stations located throughout the State. A trooper unable to eat at an. official meal station could, however, eat at a restaurant and obtain reimbursement. The meal-station system proved unsatisfactory to the State because it required troopers to leave their assigned areas of patrol unguarded for extended periods of time. As a result, the State closed its meal stations and instituted a cash-allowance system. Under this system, troopers remain on call in their assigned patrol areas during their midshift break. Otherwise, troopers are not restricted in any way with respect to where they may eat in the patrol area and, indeed, may eat at home if it is located within that area. Troopers may also bring their midshift meal to the job and eat it in or near their patrol cars. The meal allowance is paid biweekly in advance and is included, although separately stated, with the trooper’s salary. The meal-allowance money is also separately accounted for in the State’s accounting system. Funds are never commingled between the salary and meal-allowance accounts. Because of these characteristics of the meal-allowance system, the Tax Court concluded that the “meal allowance was not intended to represent additional compensation.” 65 T. C. 44, 47 (1975). Notwithstanding this conclusion, it is not disputed that the meal allowance has many features inconsistent with its characterization as a simple reimbursement for meals that would otherwise have been taken at a meal station. For example, troopers are not required to spend their meal allowances on their midshift meals, nor are they required to account for the manner in which the money is spent. With one limited exception not relevant here, no reduction in the meal allowance is made for periods when a trooper is not on patrol because, for example, he is assigned to a headquarters building or is away from active duty on vacation, leave, or sick leave. In addition, the cash allowance for meals is described on a state police recruitment brochure as an item of salary to be received in addition to an officer’s base salary and the amount of the meal allowance is a subject of negotiations between the State and the police troopers’ union. Finally, the amount of an officer’s cash meal allowance varies with his rank and is included in his gross pay for purposes of calculating pension benefits. On his 1970 income tax return, respondent reported $9,066 in wages. That amount included his salary plus $326.45 which represented cash meal allowances reported by the State on respondent’s Wage and Tax Statement (Form W-2). The remaining amount of meal allowance, $1,371.09, was not reported. On audit, the Commissioner determined' that this amount should have been included in respondent’s 1970 income and assessed a deficiency. Respondent sought review in the United States Tax Court, arguing that the cash meal allowance was not compensatory but was furnished for the convenience of the employer and hence was not “income” within the meaning of § 61 (a) and that, in any case, the allowance could be excluded under § 119. In a reviewed decision, the Tax Court, with six dissents, held that the cash meal payments were income within the meaning of § 61 and, further, that such payments were not excludable under § 119. 65 T. C. 44 (1975). The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in a per curiam opinion, held that its earlier decision in Saunders v. Commissioner, 215 F. 2d 768 (1954), which determined that cash payments under the New Jersey meal-allowance program were not taxable, required reversal. 544 F. 2d 686 (1976). We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals on the question. 430 U. S. 944 (1977). We reverse. II A The starting point in the determination of the scope of “gross income” is the cardinal principle that Congress in creating the income tax intended “to use the full measure of its taxing power.” Helvering v. Clifford, 309 U. S. 331, 334 (1940); accord, Helvering v. Midland Mutual Life Ins. Co., 300 U. S. 216, 223 (1937); Douglas v. Willcuts, 296 U. S. 1, 9 (1935); Irwin v. Gavit, 268 U. S. 161, 166 (1925). In applying this principle to the construction of § 22 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939 this Court stated that “Congress applied no limitations as to the source of taxable receipts, nor restrictive labels as to their nature [, but intended] to tax all gains except those specifically exempted.” Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co., 348 U. S. 426, 429-430 (1955), citing Commissioner v. Jacobson, 336 U. S. 28, 49 (1949), and Helvering v. Stockholms Enskilda Bank, 293 U. S. 84, 87-91 (1934). Although Congress simplified the definition of gross income in § 61 of the 1954 Code, it did not intend thereby to narrow the scope of that concept. See Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co., supra, at 432, and n. 11; H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., A18 (1954); S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 168 (1954). In the absence of a specific exemption, therefore, respondent’s meal-allowance payments are income within the meaning of § 61 since, like the payments involved in Glenshaw Glass Co., the payments are “undeniably] accessions to wealth, clearly realized, and over which the '[respondent has] complete dominion.” Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co., supra, at 431. See also Commissioner v. LoBue, 351 U. S. 243, 247 (1956); Van Rosen v. Commissioner, 17 T. C. 834, 838 (1951). Respondent contends, however, that § 119 can be construed to be a specific exemption covering the meal-allowance payments to New Jersey troopers. Alternatively, respondent argues that notwithstanding § 119 a specific exemption may be found in a line of lower-court cases and administrative rulings which recognize that benefits conferred by an employer on an employee “for the convenience of the employer” — at least when such benefits are not “compensatory” — are not income within the meaning of the Internal Revenue Code. In responding to these contentions, we turn first to § 119. Since we hold that § 119 does not cover cash payments of any kind, we then trace the development over several decades of the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine as a determinant of the tax status of meals and lodging, turning finally to the question whether the doctrine as applied to meals and lodging survives the enactment of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. B Section 119 provides that an employee may exclude from income “the value of any meals... furnished to him by his employer for the convenience of the emloyer, but only if... the meals are furnished on the business premises of the employer By its terms, § 119 covers meals furnished by the employer and not cash reimbursements for meals. This is not a mere oversight. As we shall explain at greater length below, the form of § 119 which Congress enacted originated in the Senate and the Report accompanying the Senate bill is very clear: “Section 119 applies only to meals or lodging furnished in kind.” S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 190 (1954). See also Treas. Reg. § 1.119-1 (c)(2), 26 CFR § 1.119-1 (1977). Accordingly, respondent’s meal-allowance payments are not subject to exclusion under § 119. C The convenience-of-the-employer doctrine is not a tidy one. The phrase “convenience of the employer” first appeared in O. D. 265, 1 Cum. Bull. 71 (1919), in a ruling exempting from the income tax board and lodging furnished seamen aboard ship. The following year, T. D. 2992, 2 Cum. Bull. 76 (1920), was issued and added a convenience-of-the-employer section to Treas. Regs. 45, Art. 33, the income tax regulations then in effect. As modified, Art. 33 stated: “Art. 33. Compensation paid other than in cash.... When living quarters such as camps are furnished to employees for the convenience of the employer, the ratable value need not be added to the cash compensation of the employee, but where a person receives as compensation for services rendered a salary and in addition thereto living quarters, the value to such person of the quarters furnished constitutes income subject to tax....” While T. D. 2992 extended the convenience-of-the-employer test as a general rule solely to items received in kind, O. D. 514, 2 Cum. Bull. 90 (1920), extended the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine to cash payments for “supper money.” The rationale of both T. D. 2992 and O. D. 514 appears to have been that benefits conferred by an employer on an employee in the designated circumstances were not compensation for services and hence not income. Subsequent rulings equivocate on whether the noncompensatory character of a benefit could be inferred merely from its characterization by the employer or whether there must be additional evidence that employees are granted a benefit solely because the employer’s business could not function properly unless an employee was furnished that benefit on the employer’s premises. O. D. 514, for example, focuses only on the employer’s characterization. Two rulings issued in 1921, however, dealing respectively with cannery workers and hospital employees, emphasize the necessity of the benefits to the functioning of the employer’s business, and this emphasis was made the authoritative interpretation of the convenience-of-the-employer provisions of the regulations in Mim. 5023, 1940-1 Cum. Bull. 14. Adding complexity, however, is Mim. 6472, 1950-1 Cum. Bull. 15, issued in 1950. This mimeograph states in relevant part: “The 'convenience of the employer’ rule is simply an administrative test to be applied only in cases in which the compensatory character of... benefits is not otherwise determinable. It follows that the rule should not be applied in any case in which it is evident from the other circumstances involved that the receipt of quarters or meals by the employee represents compensation for services rendered.” Ibid, Mimeograph 6472 expressly modified all previous rulings which had suggested that meals and lodging could be excluded from income upon a simple finding that the furnishing of such benefits was necessary to allow an employee to perform his duties properly. However, the ruling apparently did not affect O. D. 514, which, as noted above, creates an exclusion from income based solely on an employer’s characterization of a payment as noncompensatory. Coexisting with the regulations and administrative determinations of the Treasury, but independent of them, is a body of case law also applying the convenience-of-the-employer test to exclude from an employee’s statutory income benefits conferred by his employer. An early case is Jones v. United States, 60 Ct. Cl. 552 (1925). There the Court of Claims ruled that neither the value of quarters provided an Army officer for nine months of a tax year nor payments in commutation of quarters paid the officer for the remainder of the year were includable in income. The decision appears to rest both on a conclusion that public quarters by tradition and law were not “compensation received as such” within the meaning of § 213 of the Revenue Act of 1921, 42 Stat. 237, and also on the proposition that “public quarters for the housing of... officers is as much a military necessity as the procurement of implements of warfare or the training of troops.” 60 Ct. Cl., at 569; see id., at 565-568. The Court of Claims, in addition, rejected the argument that money paid in commutation of quarters was income on the ground that it was not “gain derived... from labor” within the meaning of Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U. S. 189 (1920), but apparently was at most a reimbursement to the officer for furnishing himself with a necessity of his job in those instances in which the Government found it convenient to leave the task of procuring quarters to an individual officer. 60 Ct. Cl., at 574-578. Subsequent judicial development of the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine centered primarily in the Tax Court. In two reviewed cases decided more than a decade apart, Benaglia v. Commissioner, 36 B. T. A. 838 (1937), and Van Rosen v. Commissioner, 17 T. C. 834 (1951), that court settled on the business-necessity rationale for excluding food and lodging from an employee’s income. Van Rosen’s unanimous decision is of particular interest in interpreting the legislative history of the 1954 recodification of the Internal Revenue Code since it predates that recodification by only three years. There, the Tax Court expressly rejected any reading of Jones, supra, that would make tax consequences turn on the intent of the employer, even though the employer in Van Rosen as in Jones was the United States and, also as in Jones, the subsistence payments involved in the litigation were provided by military regulation. In addition, Van Rosen refused to follow the Jones holding with respect to cash allowances, apparently on the theory that a civilian who receives cash allowances for expenses otherwise nondeductible has funds he can “take, appropriate, use and expend,” 17 T. C., at 838, in substantially the same manner as “any other civilian employee whose employment is such as to permit him to live at home while performing the duties of his employment.” Id., at 836; see id., at 839-840. It is not clear from the opinion whether the last conclusion is based on notions of equity among taxpayers or is simply an evidentiary conclusion that, since Van Rosen was allowed to live at home while performing his duties, there was no business purpose for the furnishing of food and lodging. Two years later, the Tax Court in an unreviewed decision in Doran v. Commissioner, 21 T. C. 374 (1953), returned in part to the employer’s-characterization rationale rejected by Van Rosen. In Doran, the taxpayer was furnished lodging in kind by a state school. State law required the value of the lodging to be included in the employee’s compensation. Although the court concluded that the lodging was furnished to allow the taxpayer to be on 24-hour call, a reason normally sufficient to justify a convenience-of-the-employer exclusion, it required the value of the lodging to be included in income on the basis of the characterization of the lodging as compensation under state law. The approach taken in Doran is the same as that in Mim. 6472, supra. However, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Diamond v. Sturr, 221 F. 2d 264 (1955), on facts indistinguishable from Doran, reviewed the law prior to 1954 and held that the business-necessity view of the convenience-of-the-employer test, “having persisted through the interpretations of the Treasury and the Tax Court throughout years of re-enactment of the Internal Revenue Code,” was the sole test to be applied. 221 F. 2d, at 268. D Even if we assume that respondent’s meal-allowance payments could have been excluded from income under the 1939 Code pursuant to the doctrine we have just sketched, we must nonetheless inquire whether such an implied exclusion survives the 1954 recodification of the Internal Revenue Code. Cf. Helvering v. Winmill, 305 U. S. 79, 83 (1938). Two provisions of the 1954 Code are relevant to this inquiry: § 119 and § 120, now repealed, which allowed police officers to exclude from income subsistence allowances of up to $5 per day. In enacting § 119, the Congress was determined to “end the confusion as to the tax status of meals and lodging furnished an employee by his employer.” H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 18 (1954); S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 19 (1954). However, the House and Senate initially differed on the significance that should be given the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine for the purposes of § 119. As explained in its Report, the House proposed to exclude meals from gross - income “if they [were] furnished at the place of employment and the employee [was] required to accept them at the place of employment as a condition of his employment.” H. R. Rep. No. 1337, supra, at 18; see H. R. 8300, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., § 119 (1954). Since no reference whatsoever was made to the concept, the House view apparently was that a statute “designed to end the confusion as to the tax status of meals and lodging furnished an employee by his employer” required complete disregard of the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine. The Senate, however, was of the view that the doctrine had at least a limited role to play. After noting the existence of the doctrine and the Tax Court’s reliance on state law to refuse to apply it in Doran v. Commissioner, supra, the Senate Report states: “Your committee believes that the House provision is ambiguous in providing that meals or lodging furnished on the employer’s premises, which the employee is required to accept as a condition of his employment, are excludable from income whether or not furnished as compensation. Your committee has provided that the basic test of exclusion is to be whether the meals or lodging are furnished primarily for the convenience of the employer (and thus excludable) or whether they were primarily for the convenience of the employee (and therefore taxable). However, in deciding whether they were furnished for the convenience of the employer, the fact that a State statute or an employment contract fixing the terms of the employment indicate the meals or lodging are intended as compensation is not to be determinative. This means that employees of State institutions who are required to live and eat on the premises will not be taxed on the value of the meals and lodging even though the State statute indicates the meals and lodging are part of the employee’s compensation.” S. Rep. No. 1622, supra, at 19. In a technical a]}pendix, the Senate Report further elaborated: “Section 119 applies only to meals or lodging furnished in kind. Therefore, any cash allowances for meals or lodging received by an employee will continue to be includible in gross income to the extent that such allowances constitute compensation.” Id., at 190-191. After conference, the House acquiesced in the Senate’s version of § 119. Because of this, respondent urges that § 119 as passed did not discard the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine, but indeed endorsed the doctrine shorn of the confusion created by Mim. 6472 and cases like Doran. Respondent further argues that, by negative implication, the technical appendix to the Senate Report creates a.class of noncom-pensatory cash meal payments that are to be excluded from income. We disagree. The Senate unquestionably intended to overrule Doran and rulings like Mim. 6472. Equally clearly the Senate refused completely to abandon the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine as the House wished to do. On the other hand, the Senate did not propose to leave undisturbed the convenience-of-the-employer doctrine as it had evolved' prior to the promulgation of Mim. 6472. The language of § 119 quite plainly rejects the reasoning behind rulings like O. D. 514, see n. 15, supra, which rest on the employer’s characterization of the nature of a payment. This conclusion is buttressed by the Senate’s choice of a term of art, “convenience of the employer,” in describing one of the conditions for exclusion under § 119. In so choosing, the Senate obviously intended to adopt the meaning of that term as it had developed over time, except, of course, to the extent § 119 overrules decisions like Doran. As we have noted above, Van Rosen v. Commissioner, 17 T. C. 834 (1951), provided the controlling court definition at the time of the 1954 recodification and it expressly rejected the Jones theory of “convenience of the employer” — and by implication the theory of O. D. 514— and adopted as the exclusive rationale the business-necessity theory. See 17 T. C., at 838-840. The business-necessity theory was also the controlling administrative interpretation of “convenience of the employer” prior to Mim. 6472. See supra, at 85-86, and n. 19. Finally, although the Senate Report did not expressly define “convenience of the employer” it did describe those situations in which it wished to reverse the courts and create an exclusion as those where “an employee must accept... meals or lodging in order properly to perform his duties.” S. Rep. No. 1622, supra, at 190. As the last step in its restructuring of prior law, the Senate adopted an additional restriction created by the House and not theretofore a part of the law, which required that meals subject to exclusion had to be taken on the business premises of the employer. Thus § 119 comprehensively modified the prior law, both expanding and contracting the exclusion for meals and lodging previously provided, and it must therefore be construed as its draftsmen obviously intended it to be— as a replacement for the prior law, designed to “end [its] confusion.” Because § 119 replaces prior law, respondent’s further argument — that the technical appendix in the Senate Report recognized the existence under § 61 of an exclusion for a class of noncompensatory cash payments — is without merit. If cash meal allowances could be excluded on the mere showing that such payments served the convenience of the employer, as respondent suggests, then cash would be more widely excluded from income than meals in kind, an extraordinary result given the presumptively compensatory nature of cash payments and the obvious intent of § 119 to narrow the circumstances in which meals could be excluded. Moreover, there is no reason to suppose that Congress would have wanted to recognize a class of excludable cash meal payments. The two precedents for the exclusion of cash — O. D. 514 and Jones v. United States — both rest on the proposition that the convenience of the employer can be inferred from the characterization given the cash payments by the employer, and the heart of this proposition is undercut by both the language of § 119 and the Senate Report. Jones also rests on Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U. S. 189 (1920), but Congress had no reason to read Eisner’s, definition of income into § 61 and, indeed, any assumption that Congress did is squarely at odds with Commissioner v. Glenshaw Class Co., 348 U. S. 426 (1955). See id., at 430-431. Finally, as petitioner suggests, it is much more reasonable to assume that the cryptic statement in the technical appendix — “cash allowances... will continue to be includable in gross income to the extent that such allowances constitute compensation” — was meant to indicate only that meal payments otherwise deductible under § 162 (a)(2) of the 1954 Code were not affected by § 119. Moreover, even if we were to assume with respondent that cash meal payments made for the convenience of the employer could qualify for an exclusion notwithstanding the express limitations upon the doctrine embodied in § 119, there would still be no reason to allow the meal.allowance here to be excluded. Under the pre-1954 convenience-of-the-employer doctrine respondent’s allowance is indistinguishable from that in Van Rosen v. Commissioner, supra, and hence it is income. Indeed, the form of the meal allowance involved here has drastically changed from that passed on in Saunders v. Commissioner, 215 F. 2d 768 (CA3 1954), relied on by the Third Circuit below, see supra, at 82, and in its present form the allowance is not excludable even under Saunders’ analysis. In any case, to avoid the completely unwarranted result of creating a larger exclusion for cash than kind, the meal allowances here would have to be demonstrated to be necessary to allow respondent “properly to perform his duties.” There is not even a suggestion on this record of any such necessity. Finally, respondent argues that it is unfair that members of the military may exclude their subsistence allowances from income while respondent cannot. While this may be so, arguments of equity have little force in construing the boundaries of exclusions and deductions from income many of which, to be administrable, must be arbitrary. In any case, Congress has already considered respondent's equity argument and has rejected it in the repeal of § 120 of the 1954 Code. That provision as enacted allowed state troopers like respondent to exclude from income up to $5 of subsistence allowance per day. Section 120 was repealed after only four years, however, because it was “inequitable since there are many other individual taxpayers whose duties also require them to incur subsistence expenditures regardless of the tax effect. Thus, it appears that certain police officials by reason of this exclusion are placed in a more favorable position taxwise than other individual income taxpayers who- incur the same types of expense... H. R. Rep. No. 775, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., 7 (1957). Reversed. “§ 61. Gross income defined. “'(a) General definition. “Except as otherwise provided in this subtitle, gross income means all income from whatever source derived, including (but not limited to) the following items: “(1) Compensation for services, including fees, commissions, and similar items....” “§ 119. Meals or lodging furnished for the convenience of the employer. “There shall be excluded from gross income of an employee the value of any meals or lodging furnished to him by his employer for the convenience of the employer, but only if— “(1) in the case of meals, the meals are furnished on the business premises of the employer.... “In determining whether meals... are furnished for the convenience of the employer, the provisions of an employment contract or of a State statute fixing terms of employment shall not be determinative of whether the meals or lodging are intended as compensation.” References to “respondent” are to Robert J. Kowalski. Nancy A. Kowalski, also a respondent, is a party solely because she filed a joint return with her husband for the 1970 tax year. Respondent was entitled to $1,740 in meal allowances, see n. 7, infra, but for reasons not disclosed by the record received the lesser amount. While on active duty, New Jersey troopers are generally required to live in barracks. Meals furnished in kind at the barracks before or after a patrol shift are not involved in this case. Nor is the meal allowance intended to pay for meals eaten before or after a shift in those instances in which the trooper is not living in the barracks. However, because of the duration of some patrols, a trooper may be required to eat more than one meal per shift while on the road. The amount of the allowance is adjusted only when an officer is on military leave. Troopers, such as respondent, and other noncommissioned officers received $1,740 per year; lieutenants and captains received $1,776, majors $1,848, and the Superintendent $2,136. On October 1, 1970, the Division of State Police began to withhold income tax from amounts paid as cash meal allowances. No claim has been made that the change in the Division's withholding policy has any relevance for this case. A seventh judge concurred in the majority opinion with respect to §§ 61 and 119, but dissented on the ground that the meal allowance was deductible under § 162 (a) of the Code, see n. 30, infra, as “ordinary and necessary expenditures required as a part of petitioner’s duties.” 65 T. C., at 63. Since respondent has not made this contention here, we have no occasion to consider it. The Tax Court also determined that amounts of meal allowance attributable to respondent’s expenses while “away from home” as defined in § 162 (a) (2) of the Code, see n. 30, infra, were properly deducted from respondent’s income as travel expenses. See United States v. Correll, 389 U. S. 299 (1967). The Commissioner did not appeal from this holding. See Wilson v. United States, 412 F. 2d 694 (CA1 1969) (troopers’ subsistence allowance taxable); United States v. Keeton, 383 F. 2d 429 (CA10 1967) (per curiam) (troopers’ subsistence allowance nontaxable); United States v. Morelan, 356 F. 2d 199 (CA8 1966) (same); United States v. Barrett, 321 F. 2d 911 (CA5 1963) (same); Magness v. Commissioner, 247 F. 2d 740 (CA5 1957) (troopers’ subsistence allowance taxable), cert. denied, 355 U. S. 931 (1958); Saunders v. Commissioner, 215 F. 2d 768 (CA3 1954) (troopers’ meal allowance nontaxable). See also Ghastin v. Commissioner, 60 T. C. 264 (1973) (troopers’ subsistence allowance taxable); Hyslope v. Commissioner, 21 T. C. 131 (1953) (troopers’ meal allowance taxable). 53 Stat. 9, as amended, ch. 59, 53 Stat. 574. This section provided: “(a) GENERAL DEFINITION.' — '’Gross income’ includes gains, profits, and income derived from salaries, wages, or compensation for personal service,... or gains or profits and income derived from any source whatever.” (Emphasis added.) The House and Senate Reports state: “[Section 61] corresponds to section 22 (a) of the 1939 Code. While the language in existing section 22 (a) has been simplified, the all-inclusive nature of statutory gross income has not been affected thereby. Section 61 (a) is as broad in scope as section 22 (a).” Substantially identical language appeared in the income tax regulations on the date of the 1954 recodification of the Internal Revenue Code. See Treas. Regs. 111, § 29.22 (a)-3 (1943); Treas. Regs. 118, § 39.22 (a)-3 (1953). “ ‘Supper money’ paid by an employer to an employee, who voluntarily performs extra labor for his employer after regular business hours, such payment not being considered additional compensation and not being charged to the salary account, is considered as being paid for the convenience of the employer....” (Emphasis added.) See n. 15, supra. O. D. 914, 4 Cum. Bull. 85 (1921), is another ruling that makes tax consequences turn on the intention of the employer. Under 0. D. 914, lodging furnished to employees of the Indian Service was determined to be income if the Department of the Interior charged such lodging to the appropriation from which compensation was normally paid ; otherwise, it was not. See also O. D. 11, 1 Cum. Bull. 66 (1919) (semble) (“maintenance” paid to Red Cross workers includable in income only to the extent it exceeds actual living expenses). “Where, from the location and nature of the work, it is necessary that employees engaged in fishing and canning be furnished with lodging and sustenance by the employer, the value of such lodging and sustenance may be considered as being furnished for the convenience of the employer and need not, therefore, be included in computing net income....” O. D. 814, 4 Cum. Bull. 84, 84-85 (1921). “Where the employees of a hospital are subject to immediate service on demand at any time during the twenty-four hours of the day and on that account are required to accept quarters and meals at the hospital, the value of such quarters and meals may be considered as being furnished for the convenience of the hospital and does not represent additional compensation to the employees. On the other hand, where the employees... could, if they so desired, obtain meals and lodging elsewhere than in the hospital and yet perform the duties required of them by such hospital, the ratable value of the board and lodging furnished is considered additional compensation.” O. D. 915, 4 Cum. Bull. 85, 85-86 (1921). “3. As a general rule, the test of ‘convenience of the employer’ is satisfied if living quarters or meals are furnished to an employee who is required to accept such quarters and meals in order to perform properly his duties.” 1940-1 Cum. Bull., at 15, citing O. D. 915, supra, n. 18. See 1950-1 Cum. Bull., at 16. “The better and more accurate statement of the reason for the exclusion from the employee’s income of the value of subsistence and quarters furnished in kind is found, we think, in Arthur Benaglia, 36 B. T. A. 838, where it was pointed out that, on the facts, the subsistence and quarters were not supplied by the employer and received by the employee 'for his personal convenience^] comfort or pleasure, but solely because he could not otherwise perform the services required of him.’ In other words, though there was an element of gain to the employee, in that he received subsistence and quarters which otherwise he would have had to supply for himself, he had nothing he could take, appropriate, use and expend according to his own dictates, but rather, the ends of the employer’s business dominated and controlled, just as in the furnishing of a place to work and in the supplying of the tools and machinery with which to work. The fact that certain personal wants and needs of the employee were Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Mr. Justice Frankfurter, Mr. Justice Douglas, and Mr. Justice Murphy joined. Eleven Indian tribes have sued the United States in the Court of Claims under the Act of August 26, 1935, which gives that court jurisdiction to hear and adjudicate cases involving “any and all legal and equitable claims arising under or growing out of the original Indian title, claim, or rights in . . . the lands . . . occupied by the Indian tribes and bands described in” certain unratified treaties negotiated with Indian tribes in the Territory of Oregon. Four of the tribes, the Tillamooks, Coquilles, Too-too-to-neys and Chetcos, successfully identified themselves as entitled to sue under the Act, proved their original Indian title to designated lands, and demonstrated an involuntary and uncompensated taking of such lands. The Court of Claims thereupon held that original Indian title was an interest the taking of which without the consent of the Indian tribes entitled them to compensation. In answer to government contentions that original Indian title, in the absence of some form of official “recognition,” could be appropriated without liability upon the part of the sovereign, the Act of 1848, establishing the Territory of Oregon, was cited by the Court of Claims as affording any recognition required to support the claim for compensation. The issues decided, not previously passed upon by this Court and being of importance to the administration of Indian affairs, prompted this Court to grant certiorari. The case was argued during the 1945 term and on April 1, 1946, was restored to the docket for reargument before a full bench. The events giving rise to the claims here occurred as part of the opening and development of the Territory of Oregon. After creating a government for that territory by the Act of 1848, Congress in 1850 authorized the negotiation of treaties with Indian tribes in the area. Under the latter Act, Anson Dart, later succeeded by General Joel Palmer, was appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Oregon region and was instructed to negotiate treaties for the extinguishment of Indian claims to lands in that district. On August 11,1855, Palmer and respondent tribes concluded a treaty providing for the cession of Indian lands in return for certain money payments and the creation of a reservation. The treaty was to be operative only upon ratification. It was not submitted to the Senate until February, 1857, and was never ratified. Pending expected ratification, and following recommendations from Palmer, the President on November 9, 1855, created a reservation, subject to future diminution and almost identical with that provided for in the treaty. A large part of this reservation, called the Coast or Siletz Reservation, consisted of lands to which the Tillamook Tribe held original Indian title. Almost immediately the Tillamooks were confined to that portion of their land within the reservation, and the other three respondent tribes, as well as other tribes, were moved from their original possessions to the reservation. In 1865 an Executive Order reduced the size of the reservation; in 1875 Congress by statute approved the Executive Orders of 1855 and 1865, and in order to open more land for public settlement, removed additional land from the reservation. By an Act of 1894, Congress officially accepted and approved the reservation as it then existed, and thenceforward did not take reservation lands without compensation. The claims of respondent tribes are for the wrongful taking which occurred when they were deprived of their original possessions by the Executive Order of November 9, 1855. Even as to the Tillamooks, the Court of Claims found the taking complete as of November 9, 1855, since this tribe was forced to share its former lands with other Indians, and since the reservation was, in any event, only a conditional one, subject to being opened for public settlement at the will of the President. Petitioner disputes neither this finding nor the proof of original Indian title as of 1855. Other than the benefits flowing from the Act of 1894, none of the four respondent tribes has received any compensation for the loss of its lands. Until the present jurisdictional act of 1935, these tribes, lacking consent of the United States to be sued, were forbidden access to the courts. They alone of the tribes with whom Dart and Palmer negotiated some twenty-odd treaties between 1850 and 1855 have yet to receive recognition for the loss of lands held by original Indian title. Until now this Court has had no opportunity or occasion to pass upon the precise issue presented here. In only one Act prior to 1935 has Congress authorized judicial determination of the right to recover for a taking of nothing more than original Indian title; and no case under that Act, passed in 1929, reached this Court. In 1930 Congress again authorized adjudication of Indian claims arising out of original Indian title, but expressly directed an award of damages if a taking of lands held by immemorial possession were shown. This Act thus eliminated any judicial determination of a right to recover, once original Indian title was established. Prior to 1929, adjudications of Indian claims against the United States were limited to issues arising out of treaties, statutes, or other events and transactions carefully designated by Congress. This Court has always strictly construed such jurisdictional acts and has not offered judicial opinion on the justness of the handling of Indian lands, except in so far as Congress in specific language has permitted its justiciable recognition. The language of the 1935 Act is specific, and its consequences are clear. By this Act Congress neither admitted nor denied liability. The Act removes the impediments of sovereign immunity and lapse of time and provides for judicial determination of the designated claims. No new right or cause of action is created. A merely moral claim is not made a legal one. The cases are to be heard on their merits and decided according to legal principles pertinent to the issues which might be presented under the Act. Accordingly the 1935 statute permits judicial determination of the legal and equitable claims growing out of original Indian title. That which was within the power of Congress to withhold from judicial scrutiny has now been submitted to the courts. If, as has many times been said, the manner of extinguishing Indian title is usually a political question and presents a non-justiciable issue, Congress has expressly and effectively directed otherwise by seeking in the 1935 Act judicial disposition of claims arising from original Indian title. “By consenting to be sued, and submitting the decision to judicial action, they have considered it as a purely judicial question, which we are now bound to decide, as between man and man . . United States v. Arredondo, 6 Pet. 691, 711 (1832). It has long been held that by virtue of discovery the title to lands occupied by Indian tribes vested in the sovereign. This title was deemed subject to a right of occupancy in favor of Indian tribes, because of their original and previous possession. It is with the content of this right of occupancy, this original Indian title, that we are concerned here. As against any but the sovereign, original Indian title was accorded the protection of complete ownership; but it was vulnerable to affirmative action by the sovereign, which possessed exclusive power to extinguish the right of occupancy at will. Termination of the right by sovereign action was complete and left the land free and clear of Indian claims. Third parties could not question the justness or fairness of the methods used to extinguish the right of occupancy. Nor could the Indians themselves prevent a taking of tribal lands or forestall a termination of their title. However, it is now for the first time asked whether the Indians have a cause of action for compensation arising out of an involuntary taking of lands held by original Indian title. We cannot but affirm the decision of the Court of Claims. Admitting the undoubted power of Congress to extinguish original Indian title compels no conclusion that compensation need not be paid. In speaking of the original claims of the Indians to their lands, Marshall had this to say: “It is difficult to comprehend the proposition . . . that the discovery . . . should give the discoverer rights in the country discovered, which annulled the pre-existing right of its ancient possessors. ... It gave the exclusive right to purchase, but did not found that right on a denial of the right of the possessor to sell. . . . The king purchased their lands, . . . but never coerced a surrender of them.” Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, 543, 544, 547 (1832). In our opinion, taking original Indian title without compensation and without consent does not satisfy the “high standards for fair dealing” required of the United States in controlling Indian affairs. United States v. Santa Fe Pacific R. Co., 314 U. S. 339, 356 (1941). The Indians have more than a merely moral claim for compensation. A contrary decision would ignore the plain import of traditional methods of extinguishing original Indian title. The early acquisition of Indian lands, in the main, progressed by a process of negotiation and treaty. The first treaties reveal the striking deference paid to Indian claims, as the analysis in Worcester v. Georgia, supra, clearly details. It was usual policy not to coerce the surrender of lands without consent and without compensation. The great drive to open Western lands in the 19th Century, however productive of sharp dealing, did not wholly subvert the settled practice of negotiated extinguishment of original Indian title. In 1896, this Court noted that, “. . . nearly every tribe and band of Indians within the territorial limits of the United States was under some treaty relations with the government.” Marks v. United States, 161 U. S. 297, 302 (1896). Something more than sovereign grace prompted the obvious regard given to original Indian title. Long before the end of the treaty system of Indian government and the advent of legislative control in 1871, Congress had evinced its own attitude toward Indian relations. The Ordinance of 1787 declared, “the utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their land and property shall never be taken from them without their consent ...” 1 Stat. 50, 52. When in 1848 the territorial government of Oregon was created, § 14 of that Act secured to the inhabitants of the new territory all the rights and privileges guaranteed by the Ordinance of 1787. Nor did congressional regard for Indian lands change in 1871. In providing for the settlement of Dakota Territory, Congress in 1872 directed the extinguishment of the interests of Indians in certain lands and the determination of what “compensation ought, in justice and equity, to be made to said bands ... for the extinguishment of whatever title they may have to said lands.” 17 Stat. 281; Buttz v. Northern Pacific Railroad, 119 U. S. 55, 59 (1886). The latest indicia of congressional regard for Indian claims is the Indian Claims Commission Act, 60 Stat. 1049, 1050, § 2 (5), in which not only are claims similar to those of the case at bar to be heard, but “claims based upon fair and honorable dealings that are not recognized by any existing rule of law or equity” may be submitted to the Commission with right of judicial review. Congressional and executive action consistent with the prevailing idea of non-coercive, compensated extinguishment of Indian title is clear in the facts of the present case. The Act of 1848 declared a policy of extinguishing Indian claims in Oregon only by treaty. The statute of 1850 put in motion the treaty-making machinery. Respondent tribes were among those with whom treaties were negotiated. In many cases, expected ratification did not follow. In the case of respondent tribes alone have no steps been taken to make amends for the taking of Indian lands pending treaty ratification. To determine now that compensation must be paid is only a fair result. Petitioner would admit liability only if, in addition to clear proof of original Indian title, some act of official “recognition” were shown. Original Indian title would not attain the status of a compensable interest until some definite act of sovereign acknowledgment followed. Apparently petitioner has seized upon language of the Court of Claims in Duwamish Indians v. United States, 79 Ct. Cl. 530 (1934), and from it has fashioned a full-blown concept of “recognized Indian title.” The jurisdictional act in that case authorized suits on “all claims of whatsoever nature, both legal and equitable.” Claims based solely on original Indian title were held to be outside the limits of the act; and unless a treaty or act of Congress recognizing the Indians’ title by right of occupancy were shown, recovery could not be had. A more specific jurisdictional act was deemed necessary to authorize a suit based upon original Indian title alone. Petitioner reads into the Duwamish case far too much. When the first jurisdictional act specifically allowing suit on original Indian title in language identical with that of the 1935 Act later came before the Court of Claims in Coos Bay Indian Tribe v. United States, 87 Ct. Cl. 143 (1938), the court clearly recognized the specific directives of the act and denied recovery solely because original Indian title had not been proved. “Recognition” appeared to count only as a possible method of proving Indian title itself, not as a requisite in addition to proof of that title. Furthermore, in the case at bar, the unmistakable language of the Court of Claims stands squarely against the significance petitioner would attach to the Duwamish decision: “The Duwamish case did not hold or intend to hold that an Indian tribe could not recover compensation on the basis of original Indian use and occupancy title as for a taking if the jurisdictional act authorized the bringing of a suit and rendition of judgment for compensation on the basis of such original title.” Alcea Band of Tillamooks v. United States, 103 Ct. Cl. 494, 556, 59 F. Supp. 934 (1945). Authority for petitioner’s position is not found in Shoshone Indians v. United States, 324 U. S. 335 (1945). The jurisdictional act there limited suits to those claims “arising under or growing out of the treaty of July 2, 1863 . . .” Suits based upon original Indian title were not authorized, but we thought a claim would properly arise under the treaty if it were based upon a taking of land which the treaty had in any way “recognized” or acknowledged as belonging to the Indians. The Court thrice noted that claims based upon original Indian title were not involved, and made no attempt to settle controversies brought under other jurisdictional acts authorizing the litigation of claims arising from the taking of original Indian title. Nor do other cases in this Court lend substance to the dichotomy of “recognized” and “unrecognized” Indian title which petitioner urges. Many cases recite the paramount power of Congress to extinguish the Indian right of occupancy by methods the justice of which “is not open to inquiry in the courts.” United States v. Santa Fe Pacific R. Co., supra, at 347. Lacking a jurisdictional act permitting judicial inquiry, such language cannot be questioned where Indians are seeking payment for appropriated lands; but here in the 1935 statute Congress has authorized decision by the courts upon claims arising out of original Indian title. Furthermore, some cases speak of the unlimited power of Congress to deal with those Indian lands which are held by what petitioner would call “recog-nizecT title; yet it cannot be doubted that, given the consent of the United States to be sued, recovery may be had for an involuntary, uncompensated taking of “recognized” title. We think the same rule applicable to a taking of original Indian title. “Whether this tract . . . was properly called a reservation ... or unceded Indian country, ... is a matter of little moment . . . the Indians’ right of occupancy has always been held to be sacred; something not to be taken from him except by his consent, and then upon such consideration as should be agreed upon.” Minnesota v. Hitchcock, 185 U. S. 373, 388-89 (1902). Requiring formal acknowledgment of original Indian title as well as proof of that title would nullify the intended consequences of the 1935 Act. The rigors of “recognition,” according to petitioner’s view, would appear to require in every case some definite act of the United States guaranteeing undisturbed, exclusive and perpetual occupancy, which, for example, a treaty or statute could provide. Yet it was the very absence of such acknowledgment which gave rise to the present statute. Congress was quite familiar with the precision advisable when drafting statutes giving jurisdiction to the Court of Claims in Indian cases. In 1925 an act authorizing the litigation of any and all claims of certain Indian tribes was passed. In June, 1934, that act was held, for lack of specificity, not to extend to claims based on original title. The following year Congress passed the present Act, employing the specific language used once before in the Act of 1929, under which Coos Bay Indian Tribe v. United States, supra, arose. The considered attention given to the many ramifications of Indian affairs in the 1930’s suggests that Congress well realized the import of the words used in the jurisdictional act of 1935, and that Congress did not expect respondent tribes to be turned out of court either because congressional power over Indian title was deemed to have no limits or because there was, as was obvious to all, no formal guarantee of perpetual and exclusive possession prior to the taking of respondents’ lands in 1855. Respondents have satisfactorily proved their claim of original Indian title and an involuntary taking thereof. They are entitled to compensation under the jurisdictional act of 1935. The power of Congress over Indian affairs may be of a plenary nature; but it is not absolute. It does not “enable the United States to give the tribal lands to others, or to appropriate them to its own purposes, without rendering, or assuming an obligation to render, just compensation for them.” United States v. Creek Nation, 295 U.S. 103, 110 (1935). In view of the grounds upon which decision rests, it is not necessary to consider the alternate holding of the court below relative to the 1848 act affording sufficient “recognition” of respondents’ Indian title. Affirmed. Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. 49 Stat. 801. The pertinent section in full provides: “That jurisdiction is hereby conferred on the Court of Claims with the right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States by either party, as in other cases, to hear, examine, adjudicate, and render final judgment . . . (b) any and all legal and equitable claims arising under or growing out of the original Indian title, claim, or rights in, to, or upon the whole or any part of the lands and their appurtenances occupied by the Indian tribes and bands described in the unratified treaties published in Senate Executive Document Numbered 25, Fifty-third Congress, first session (pp. 8 to 15), at and long prior to the dates thereof, except the Coos Bay, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Tribes, it being the intention of this Act to include all the Indian tribes or bands and their descendants, with the exceptions named, residing in the then Territory of Oregon west of the Cascade Range at and long prior to the dates of the said unratified treaties, some of whom, in 1855, or later, were removed by the military authorities of the United States to the Coast Range, the Grande Ronde, and the Siletz Reservations in said Territory.” The remaining seven plaintiff tribes failed to state a cause of action under the jurisdictional act and the rules of the Court of Claims. “Original Indian title” is used to designate the Indian right of occupancy based upon aboriginal possession. 9 Stat. 323. The Act created a territorial government and declared: “That nothing in this act contained shall be construed to impair the rights of person or property now pertaining to the Indians in said Territory, so long as such rights shall remain unextinguished by treaty between the United States and such Indians, or to affect the authority of the government of the United States to make any regulation respecting such Indians, their lands, property, or other rights, by treaty, law, or otherwise, which it would have been competent to the government to make if this act had never passed . . .” 9 Stat. 323. 9 Stat. 437. 28 Stat. 286,323. 28 Stat. 286, 323. In 1851 Dart and Palmer negotiated treaties with nineteen tribes other than respondents. None of these treaties was ratified; but twelve of the nineteen tribes were included in further treaties made in 1853, 1854, and 1855, and Congress in 1897 and 1912 provided for paying the remaining seven tribes for their lands taken under the unratified treaties. 45 Stat. 1256, as amended in respects immaterial here, 47 Stat. 307. Coos Bay Indian Tribe v. United States, 87 Ct. Cl. 143 (1938), discussed infra p. 50, arose under the 1929 Act. 46 Stat. 531, amending 44 Stat. 1263. Assiniboine Indian Tribe v. United States, 77 Ct. Cl. 347 (1933) was litigated under this jurisdictional act. United States v. Mille Lac Chippewas, 229 U. S. 498, 500 (1913); The Sac and Fox Indians, 220 U. S. 481, 489 (1911). United States v. Santa Fe Pacific R. Co., 314 U. S. 339, 347 (1941), and cases note 27 infra. Johnson v. McIntosh, 8 Wheat. 543, 573-74 (1823). United States v. Santa Fe Pacific R. Co., 314 U. S. 339 (1941). Beecher v. Wetherby, 95 U. S. 517 (1877). The “moral” obligation upon Congress, of which the cases speak, refers more to the obligation to open the courts to suit by the Indians. It does not mean that there is no substantive right in the Indians. So in United States v. Blackfeather, 155 U. S. 180, 194 (1894) it was held that, “While there may be a moral obligation on the part of the government to reimburse the money embezzled by the Indian superintendent . . the jurisdictional act in point did not extend to such a claim. Yet, given consent to suit, it would hardly be said that there was no substantive right against the United States for embezzlement of Indian funds. “The practical admission of the European conquerors of this country renders it unnecessary for us to speculate on the extent of that right which they might have asserted from conquest . . . The conquerors have never claimed more than the exclusive right of purchase from the Indians ...” 1 Op. A. G. 465, 466 (1821) (William Wirt). See the analysis in Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law (1945) 51-66. 16 Stat. 544. 9 Stat. 323, 329, § 14. 43 Stat. 886. Duwamish Indians v. United States, 79 Ct. Cl. 530, 600 (1934). 45 Stat. 1407. Shoshone Indians v. United States, 324 U. S. 335, 337, 339, 354 (1945). The statements in many cases are directed to disputes between third parties, one of whom attempts to raise a defect in the other’s title by tracing it to a government grant out of Indian territory and attacking the power or the method used by the sovereign to convey Indian lands. Beecher v. Wetherby, 95 U. S. 517, 525 (1877); Buttz v. Northern Pacific Railroad, 119 U. S. 55, 66 (1886); Martin v. Waddell, 16 Pet. 367, 409 (1842); Clark v. Smith, 13 Pet. 195, 201 (1839). And in other cases, the issue was not the right of Indian tribes to be compensated for an extinguishment of original Indian title by the United States. Shoshone Indians v. United States, 324 U. S. 335 (1945); United States v. Santa Fe Pacific R. Co., 314 U. S. 339 (1941); Conley v. Ballinger, 216 U. S. 84 (1910); Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U. S. 553 (1903); Cherokee Nation v. Hitchcock, 187 U. S. 294 (1902). Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U. S. 553, 566 (1903); Beecher v. Wetherby, 95 U. S. 517, 525 (1877). The Lone Wolf case was properly assessed in Shoshone Tribe v. United States, 299 U. S. 476, 497 (1937): “Power to control and manage the property and affairs of Indians in good faith for their betterment and welfare may be exerted in many ways and at times even in derogation of the provisions of a treaty.” See also Oklahoma v. Texas, 258 U. S. 574, 592 (1922). In Barker v. Harvey, 181 .U. S. 481 (1901), the Indian claims were deemed extinguished by non-presentment to the land commission, and this was true even if the claims had been “recognized” by the Mexican government priol- to the cession of lands to the United States. United States v. Klamath Indians, 304 U. S. 119 (1938); Chippewa Indians v. United States, 301 U. S. 358 (1937); Shoshone Tribe v. United States, 299 U. S. 476 (1937); United States v. Creek Nation, 295 U.S. 103 (1935). Other cases also draw no distinction between original Indian title and “recognized” Indian title. “The Indian title as against the United States was merely a title and right to the perpetual occupancy of the land with the privilege of using it in such mode as they saw fit until such right of occupation had been surrendered to the government. When Indian reservations were created, either by treaty or executive order, the Indians held the land by the same character of title, to wit, the right to possess and occupy the lands for the uses and purposes designated.” Spalding v. Chandler, 160 U. S. 394, 403 (1896). Of similar tenor is Conley v. Ballinger, 216 U. S. 84, 90-91 (1910). The older cases explaining and giving substance to the Indian right of occupancy contain no suggestion that only “recognized” Indian title was being considered. Indeed, the inference is quite otherwise. Mitchel v. United States, 9 Pet. 711,746 (1835); Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, 543-48 (1832); Johnson v. McIntosh, 8 Wheat. 543, 573-74 (1823). Duwamish Indians v. United States, 79 Ct. Cl. 530 (1934). 45 Stat. 1256, as amended in respects immaterial here, 47 Stat. 307. “The decade from 1930 to 1939 is as notable in the history of Indian legislation as that of the 1830’s or the 1880's.” Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law (1945) 83. Stephens v. Cherokee Nation, 174 U. S. 445, 478 (1899). Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

B

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Douglas delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a suit brought by owners and operators of tobacco warehouses in Georgia to enjoin officials of Georgia from enforcing certain provisions of the Georgia Tobacco Identification Act. Ga. Laws 1960, No. 557, p. 214. A three-judge court was convened, 28 U. S. C. §§ 2281, 2284, and it granted the relief. 189 F. Supp. 54. The case is here by direct appeal. 28 U. S. C. § 1253. The provisions of the Georgia Act that are challenged concern type 14 flue-cured leaf tobacco. It is defined in § 1 of the Act as “that flue-cured leaf tobacco grown in the traditional loose-leaf area which consists of the State[s] of Georgia, Florida, and Alabama.” By § 13 (A) of the Act type 14 tobacco received in a warehouse for sale shall be marked with a “white sheet ticket.” Sales at these warehouses are sales within the competence of Congress to regulate. As stated in Mulford v. Smith, 307 U. S. 38, 47: “In Georgia nearly one hundred per cent, of the tobacco so sold is purchased by extra-state purchasers. In markets where tobacco is sold to both interstate and intrastate purchasers it is not known, when the grower places his tobacco on the warehouse floor for sale, whether it is destined for interstate or intrastate commerce. Regulation to be effective, must, and therefore may constitutionally, apply to all sales." Congress in 1935 enacted the Tobacco Inspection Act, 49 Stat. 731, 7 U. S. C. § 511, and in its declaration of purpose, § 2, 7 U. S. C. § 511a, stated: . . the classification of tobacco according to type, grade, and other characteristics affects the prices received therefor by producers; without uniform standards of classification and inspection the evaluation of tobacco is susceptible to speculation, manipulation, and control, and unreasonable fluctuations in prices and quality determinations occur which are detrimental to producers and persons handling tobacco in commerce; such fluctuations constitute a burden upon commerce and make the use of uniform standards of classification and inspection imperative for the protection of producers and others engaged in commerce and the public interest therein.” (Italics added.) By § 511b the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized “to establish standards for tobacco by which its type, grade, size, condition, or other characteristics may be determined, which standards shall be the official standards of the United States . . . .” (Italics added.) Detailed standards have been prescribed by the Secretary. As to the “type” of tobacco, the regulations state: “. . . Tobacco which has the same characteristics and corresponding qualities, colors, and lengths shall be treated as one type, regardless of any factors of historical or geographical nature which cannot be determined by an examination of the tobacco.” 7 CFR, 1961 Cum. Supp., § 29.1096. (Italics added.) Type 14 is defined as “That type of flue-cured tobacco commonly known as Southern Flue-cured or New Belt of Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, produced principally in the southern section of Georgia and to some extent in Florida and Alabama.” 7 CFR, 1961 Cum. Supp., § 29.1100. (Italics added.) The regulations also provide that the classification of the tobacco by type be placed on a federal inspection certificate and announced at the time the lot is offered in the auction (7 CFR § 29.80, 7 CFR, 1961 Cum. Supp., § 29.1144) — an identification made by a blue ticket. The question is whether the federal scheme of regulation has left room for Georgia to identify type 14 tobacco with a white tag when it is grown in Georgia, Florida, or Alabama. It is earnestly argued that there is no conflict between Georgia’s regulation and the federal law, as all that Georgia requires is that type 14 tobacco, grown in Georgia, be labeled as such. In that connection it is pointed out that type 14 tobacco as defined by the federal regulations includes tobacco “produced principally” in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama and that labeling it by its geographical origin merely supplements the federal regulation and does not conflict with it. We do not have here the question whether Georgia’s law conflicts with the federal law. Rather we have the question of pre-emption. Under the federal law there can be but one “official” standard — one that is “uniform” and that eliminates all confusion by classifying tobacco not by geographical origin but by its characteristics. In other words, our view is that Congress, in legislating concerning the types of tobacco sold at auction, preempted the field and left no room for any supplementary state regulation concerning those same types. As we have seen, the Federal Tobacco Inspection Act in § 2, 7 U. S. C. § 511a, says that “uniform standards of classification and inspection” are “imperative for the protection of producers and others engaged in commerce and the public interest therein.” The House Report No. 1102, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., reviewed at length the harm to growers that resulted from the absence of regulations governing the “grades” of tobacco sold on the auction market. “There are between 60 and 100 grades in a single type of tobacco, and it is not practical for a farmer to familiarize himself with the technical factors on which these grades are based . . . .” Id., p. 2. The need for “a definite standard” of grading, id., p. 2, or of “standard grades,” id., p. 4, was repeated over and again. The importance of a “standard grade” was emphasized in the debates on the floor of the House. Congressman Hancock stated that this legislation provided that tobacco on the auction market “would be inspected by competent judges of tobacco in Government employ and graded according to United States standards of quality . . . .” 79 Cong. Rec. 11870. Congressman Mitchell added that “Standard grades would serve as a guide to farmers in classifying their tobacco for market.” Id., 11878. The Senate Report No. 1211, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., based its approval of the bill on a report made by the Department of Agriculture. After stating that the purpose of the bill was to provide “uniform standards” for the protection of farmers, the report added: “The bill would authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to establish standards for tobacco by which its type, grade, size, condition, or other characteristics may be determined, and the standards so established would be the official standards of the United States for such purpose.” Id., p. 1. The Act, as we have seen, adopts that view by making the “type, grade, size, condition” given inspected tobacco “the official standards of the United States." § 3, 7 U. S. C. § 511b. The regulations are precise and unequivocal in saying what those “official standards” are. Among other things they say, as already noted, that tobacco “which has the same characteristics and corresponding qualities, colors, and lengths shall be treated as one type, regardless of any factors of historical or geographical nature which cannot be determined by an examination of the tobacco.” 7 CFR, 1961 Cum. Supp., § 29.1096. Tobacco is includable in type 14, regardless of where it may have been grown, provided it meets the specifications of that type. We have then a case where the federal law excludes local regulation, even though the latter does no more than supplement the former. Under the definition of types or grades of tobacco and the labeling which the Federal Government has adopted, complementary state regulation is as fatal as state regulations which conflict with the federal scheme. Missouri Pacific R. Co. v. Porter, 273 U. S. 341, 346; Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230; Hood & Sons v. Du Mond, 336 U. S. 525, 543. Affirmed. Mr. Justice Whittaker concurs in the result. Of the several infirmities which Georgia’s law is alleged to have, only one was reached by the lower court, namely, the constitutionality of the law in light of the requirements of the Commerce Clause. The complaint also challenged the constitutionality of the law on the grounds that it violated both the Equal Protection and the Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Plainly the case was one to be heard by a three-judge court. See Florida Lime Growers v. Jacobsen, 362 U. S. 73. The manner of sale is described in Townsend v. Yeomans, 301 U. S. 441, 446; Gurrin v. Wallace, 306 U. S. 1, 7-8; American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 328 U. S. 781, 800. The court below stated: “The Georgia statute defines Type 14 tobacco on the basis of geographical origin and upon no other basis. If it is grown in Georgia, it would be Type 14 under the Georgia law and be given a white tag; while if it came from the other side of the Savannah River in South Carolina it would not be Type 14 and would be given a blue tag. . . . “Both the purpose and effect of the Georgia enactment were to make a distinction at the markets, by the color tags, between tobacco grown in Georgia and that grown elsewhere. The effect was to create a wide disparity of price between the two groups of tobacco, the Carolina growers receiving a much lower amount. This resulted in losses of business to the plaintiff warehousemen.” 189 F. Supp. 54, 59. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

J

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Chief Justice Warren delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal draws into question the constitutionality of §5 (a)(1)(D) of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 992, 50 U. S. C. § 784 (a)(1)(D), which provides that, when a Communist-action organization is under a final order to register, it shall be unlawful for any member of the organization “to engage in any employment in any defense facility.” In Communist Party v. Subversive Activities Control Board, 367 U. S. 1 (1961), this Court sustained an order of the SACB requiring the Communist Party of the United States to register as a Communist-action organization under the Act. The Board’s order became final on October 20, 1961. At that time appellee, a member of the Communist Party, was employed as a machinist at the Seattle, Washington, shipyard of Todd Shipyards Corporation. On August 20, 1962, the Secretary of Defense, acting under authority delegated by § 5 (b) of the Act, designated that shipyard a “defense facility.” Appellee’s continued employment at the shipyard after that date subjected him to prosecution under § 5 (a)(1)(D), and on May 21, 1963, an indictment was filed charging him with a violation of that section. The indictment alleged in substance that appellee had “unlawfully and willfully engage [d] in employment” at the shipyard with knowledge of the outstanding order against the Party and with knowledge and notice of the shipyard’s designation as a defense facility by the Secretary of Defense. The United States District Court for the Western District of Washington granted appellee’s motion to dismiss the indictment on October 4, 1965. To overcome what it viewed as a “likely constitutional infirmity” in § 5 (a) (1)(D), the District Court read into that section “the requirements of active membership and specific intent.” Because the indictment failed to allege that appellee’s Communist Party membership was of that quality, the indictment was dismissed. The Government, unwilling to accept that narrow construction of § 5 (a)(1)(D) and insisting on the broadest possible application of the statute, initially took its appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On the Government’s motion, the case was certified here as properly a direct appeal to this Court under 18 U. S. C. § 3731. We noted probable jurisdiction. 384 U. S. 937. We affirm the judgment of the District Court, but on the ground that § 5 (a) (1)(D) is an unconstitutional abridgment of the right of association protected by the First Amendment. We cannot agree with the District Court that § 6 (a) (1)(D) can be saved from constitutional infirmity by limiting its application to active members of Communist-action organizations who have the specific intent of furthering the unlawful goals of such organizations. The District Court relied on Scales v. United States, 367 U. S. 203 (1961), in placing its limiting construction on § 5 (a) (1)(D). It is true that in Scales we read the elements of active membership and specific intent into the membership clause of the Smith Act. However, in Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500 (1964), we noted that the Smith Act’s membership clause required a defendant to have knowledge of the organization’s illegal advocacy, a requirement that “was intimately connected with the construction limiting membership to ‘active’ members.” Id., at 511, n. 9. Aptheker involved a challenge to § 6 of the Subversive Activities Control Act, 50 U. S. C. § 785, which provides that, when a Communist organization is registered or under a final order to register, it shall be unlawful for any member thereof with knowledge or notice thereof to apply for a passport. We held that “[t]he clarity and preciseness of the provision in question make it impossible to narrow its indiscriminately cast and overly broad scope without substantial rewriting.” Id., at 515. We take the same view of § 5 (a)(1)(D). It is precisely because that statute sweeps indiscriminately across all types of association with Communist-action groups, without regard to the quality and degree of membership, that it runs afoul of the First Amendment. In Aptheker, we held § 6 unconstitutional because it too broadly and indiscriminately infringed upon constitutionally protected rights. The Government has argued that,, despite the overbreadth which is obvious on the face of §5 (a)(1)(D), Aptheker is not controlling in this case because the right to travel is a more basic freedom than the right to be employed in a defense facility. We agree that Aptheker is not controlling since it was decided under the Fifth Amendment. But we cannot agree with the Government’s characterization of the essential issue in this case. It is true that the specific disability imposed by §5 (a)(1)(D) is to limit the employment opportunities of those who fall within its coverage, and such a limitation is not without serious constitutional implications. See Greene v. McElroy, 360 U. S. 474, 492 (1959). But the operative fact upon which the job disability depends is the exercise of an individual’s right of association, which is protected by the provisions of the First Amendment. Wherever one would place the right to travel on a scale of constitutional values, it is clear that those rights protected by the First Amendment are no less basic in our democratic scheme. The Government seeks to defend the statute on the ground that it was passed pursuant to Congress’ war power. The Government argues that this Court has given broad deference to the exercise of that constitutional power by the national legislature. That argument finds support in a number of decisions of this Court. However, the phrase “war power” cannot be invoked as a talismanic incantation to support any exercise of congressional power which can be brought within its ambit. “[E]ven the war power does not remove constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties.” Home Bldg. & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, 290 U. S. 398, 426 (1934). More specifically in this case, the Government asserts that §5 (a)(1)(D) is an expression “of the growing concern shown by the executive and legislative branches of government ovér the risks of internal subversion in plants on which the national defense depend[s].” Yet, this concept of “national defense” cannot be deemed an end in itself, justifying any exercise of legislative power-designed to promote such a goal. Implicit in the term “national defense” is the notion of defending those values and ideals which set this Nation apart. For almost two centuries, our country has taken singular pride in the democratic ideals enshrined in its Constitution, and the most cherished of those ideals have found expression in the First Amendment. It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties — the freedom of association — which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile. When Congress’ exercise of one of its enumerated powers clashes with those individual liberties protected by the Bill of Rights, it is our “delicate and difficult task” to determine whether the resulting restriction on freedom can be tolerated. See Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 161 (1939). The Government emphasizes that the purpose of § 5 (a) (1) (D) is to reduce the threat of sabotage and espionage in the Nation’s defense plants. The Government’s interest in such a prophylactic measure is not insubstantial. But it cannot be doubted that the means chosen to implement that governmental purpose in this instance cut deeply into the right of association. Section 5 (a)(1)(D) put appellee to the choice of surrendering his organizational affiliation, regardless of whether his membership threatened the security of a defense facility, or giving up his job. When appellee refused to make that choice, he became subject to a possible criminal penalty of five years’ imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. The statute quite literally establishes guilt by association alone, without any need to establish that an individual’s association poses the threat feared by the Government in proscribing it. The inhibiting effect on the exercise of First Amendment rights is clear. It has become axiomatic that “[precision of regulation must be the touchstone in an area so closely touching our most precious freedoms.” NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 438 (1963); see Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500, 512-513; Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, 488 (1960). Such precision is notably lacking in §5 (a)(1)(D). That statute casts its net across a broad range of associational activities, indiscriminately trapping membership which can be constitutionally punished and membership which cannot be so proscribed. It is made irrelevant to the statute’s operation that an individual may be a passive or inactive member of a designated organization, that he may be unaware of the organization’s unlawful aims, or that he may disagree with those unlawful aims. It is also made irrelevant that an individual who is subject to the penalties of § 5 (a)(1)(D) may occupy a nonsensitive position in a defense facility. Thus, §5 (a)(1)(D) contains the fatal defect of overbreadth because it seeks to bar employment both for association which may be proscribed and for association which may not be proscribed consistently with First Amendment rights. See Elfbrandt v. Russell, 384 U. S. 11; Aptheker v. Secretary of State, supra; NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Flowers, 377 U. S. 288 (1964); NAACP v. Button, supra. This the Constitution will not tolerate. We are not unmindful of the congressional concern over the danger of sabotage and espionage in national defense industries, and nothing we hold today should be read to deny Congress the power under narrowly drawn legislation to keep from sensitive positions in defense facilities those who would use their positions to disrupt the Nation’s production facilities. We have recognized that, while the Constitution protects against invasions of individual rights, it does not withdraw from the Government the power to safeguard its vital interests. Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U. S. 144, 160 (1963). Spies and saboteurs do exist, and Congress can, of course, prescribe criminal penalties for those who engage in espionage and sabotage. The Government can deny access to its secrets to those who would use such information to harm the Nation. And Congress can declare sensitive positions in national defense industries off limits to those who would use such positions to disrupt the production of defense materials. The Government has told us that Congress, in passing §5 (a)(1)(D), made a considered judgment that one possible alternative to that statute— an industrial security screening program — would be inadequate and ineffective to protect against sabotage in defense facilities. It is not our function to examine the validity of that congressional judgment. Neither is it our function to determine whether an industrial security screening program exhausts the possible alternatives to the statute under review. We are concerned solely with determining whether the statute before us has exceeded the bounds imposed by the Constitution when First Amendment rights are at stake. The task of writing legislation which will stay within those bounds has been committed to Congress. Our decision today simply recognizes that, when legitimate legislative concerns are expressed in a statute which imposes a substantial burden on protected First Amendment activities, Congress must achieve its goal by means which have a “less drastic” impact on the continued vitality of First Amendment freedoms. Shelton v. Tucker, supra; cf. United States v. Brown, 381 U. S. 437, 461 (1965). The Constitution and the basic position of First Amendment rights in our democratic fabric demand nothing less. Affirmed. Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. The Act was passed over the veto of President Truman. In his veto message, President Truman told Congress, “The Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of State have all advised me that the bill would seriously damage the security and the intelligence operations for which they are responsible. They have strongly expressed the hope that the bill would not become law.” H. R. Doc. No. 708, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1950). President Truman also observed that “the language of the bill is so broad and vague that it might well result in penalizing the legitimate activities of people who are not Communists at all, but loyal citizens.” Id., at 3. Section 3 (3) (a) of the Act, 50 U. S. C. §782 (3) (a), defines a “Communist-action organization” as: “any organization in the United States (other than a diplomatic representative or mission of a foreign government accredited as such by the Department of State) which (i) is substantially directed, dominated, or controlled by the foreign government or foreign organization controlling the world Communist movement . . . and (ii) operates primarily to advance the objectives of such world Communist movement . . . .” The Government has persisted in this view in its arguments to this Court. Brief for the Government 48-56. We initially heard oral argument in this case on November 14, 1966. On June 5, 1967, we entered the following order: “Case is restored to the calendar for reargument and counsel are directed to brief and argue, in addition to the questions presented, the question whether the delegation of authority to the Secretary of Defense to designate 'defense facilities’ satisfies pertinent constitutional standards.” 387 U. S. 939. We heard additional arguments on October 9, 1967. In addition to arguing that §5 (a)(1)(D) is invalid under the First Amendment, appellee asserted the statute was also unconstitutional because (1) it offended substantive and procedural due process under the Fifth Amendment; (2) it contained an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the Secretary of Defense; and (3) it is a bill of attainder. Because we agree that the statute is contrary to the First Amendment, we find it unnecessary to consider the other constitutional arguments. 18 U. S. C. § 2385. Our decisions leave little doubt that the right of association is specifically protected by the First Amendment. E. g., Aptheker v. Secretary of State, supra, at 507; Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, 372 U. S. 539, 543 (1963); Bates v. City of Little Bock, 361 U. S. 516, 522-523 (1960); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449, 460 (1958). See generally Emerson, Freedom of Association and Freedom of Expression, 74 Yale L. J. 1 (1964). See, e. g., Lichter v. United States, 334 U. S. 742, 754-772 (1948); Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, 93 (1943). Brief for the Government 15. The appellee has worked at the shipyard, apparently without incident and apparently without concealing his Communist Party membership, for more than 10 years. And we are told that, following appellee’s indictment and arrest, “he was released on his own recognizance, and immediately returned to his job as a machinist at the Todd Shipyards, where he has worked ever since.” Brief for Ap-pellee 6, n. 8. As far as we can determine, appellee is the only individual the Government has attempted to prosecute under §5 (a)(1)(D). We recognized in Greene v. McElroy, 360 U. S., at 492, that “the right to hold specific private employment and to follow a chosen profession free from unreasonable governmental interference comes within the ‘liberty’ and ‘property’ concepts of the Fifth Amendment.” 50 U. S. C. § 794 (c). The Government has insisted that Congress, in enacting §5 (a)(1)(D), has not sought “to punish membership in ‘Communist-action’ . . . organizations.” Brief for the Government 53. Rather, the Government asserts, Congress has simply sought to regulate access to employment in defense facilities. But it is clear the employment disability is imposed only because of such membership. See Scales v. United, States, 367 U. S. 203 (1961). See Elfbrandt v. Russell, 384 U. S. 11 (1966). A number of complex motivations may impel an individual to align himself with a particular organization. See Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, 372 U. S. 539, 562-565 (1963) (concurring opinion). It is for that reason that the mere presence of an individual’s name on an organization's membership rolls is insufficient to impute to him the organization’s illegal goals. See Cole v. Young, 351 U. S. 536, 546 (1956): “[I]t is difficult to justify summary suspensions and unreviewable dismissals on loyalty grounds of employees who are not in ‘sensitive’ positions and who are thus not situated where they could bring about any discernible adverse effects on the Nation’s security.” Congress has already provided stiff penalties for those who conduct espionage and sabotage against the United States. 18 U. S. C. §§792-798 (espionage); §§2151-2156 (sabotage). The Department of Defense, pursuant to Executive Order 10865, as amended by Executive Order 10909, has established detailed procedures for screening those working in private industry who, because of their jobs, must have access to classified defense information. 32 CFB, Part 155. The provisions of those regulations are not before the Court in this case. It has been suggested that this case should be decided by “balancing” the governmental interests expressed in §5 (a)(1)(D) against the First Amendment rights asserted by the appellee. This we decline to do. We recognize that both interests are substantial, but we deem it inappropriate for this Court to label one as being more important or more substantial than the other. Our inquiry is more circumscribed. Faced with a clear conflict between a federal statute enacted in the interests of national security and an individual’s exercise of his First Amendment rights, we have confined our analysis to whether Congress has adopted a constitutional means in achieving its concededly legitimate legislative goal. In making this determination we have found it necessary to measure the validity of the means adopted by Congress against both the goal it has sought to achieve and the specific prohibitions of the First Amendment. But we have in no way “balanced” those respective interests. We have ruled only that the Constitution requires that the conflict between congressional power and individual rights be accommodated by legislation drawn more narrowly to avoid the conflict. There is, of course, nothing novel in that analysis. Such a course of adjudication was enunciated by Chief Justice Marshall when he declared: “Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.” M’Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421 (1819) (emphasis added). In this case, the means chosen by Congress are contrary to the “letter and spirit” of the First Amendment. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. We held in Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630 (1993), that a plaintiff may state a claim for relief under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by alleging that a State “adopted a reapportionment scheme so irrational on its face that it can be understood only as an effort to segregate voters into separate voting districts because of their race, and that the separation lacks sufficient justification.” Id., at 658. Appellees Ray Hays, Edward Adams, Susan Shaw Singleton, and Gary Stokley claim that the State of Louisiana’s congressional districting plan is such a “racial gerrymander,” and that it violates the Fourteenth Amendment. But appellees do not live in the district that is the primary focus of their racial gerrymandering claim, and they have not otherwise demonstrated that they, personally, have been subjected to a racial classification. For that reason, we conclude that appellees lack standing to bring this lawsuit. I Louisiana has been covered by § 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), 79 Stat. 438, as amended, 84 Stat. 315, 42 U. S. C. § 1973b(b), since November 1, 1964, see 28 CFR pt. 51, App. The effect of such coverage is set forth in VRA § 5, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c: Whenever a covered jurisdiction “shall enact or seek to administer any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting different from that in force or effect on November 1, 1964,” it must first either obtain a declaratory judgment from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia that' the 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 receive “preelearance” from the Attorney General to the same effect. Any redistricting plan in Louisiana is subject to these requirements. Accordingly, in 1991, Louisiana submitted to the Attorney General for preclearance a districting plan for its Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE). Louisiana’s BESE districts historically have paralleled its congressional districts, so the submitted plan contained one majority-minority district (that is, a district “in which a majority of the population is a member of a specific minority group,” Voinovich v. Quitter, 507 U. S. 146, 149 (1993)) out of eight, as did Louisiana’s congressional districting plan then in force. The Attorney General refused to preclear the plan, claiming that Louisiana had failed to demonstrate that its decision not to create a second majority-minority district was free of racially discriminatory purpose. See Defense Exh. 17 in No. 92-1522 (WD La.) (letter from U. S. Dept, of Justice, Assistant Attorney General John Dunne, to Louisiana Assistant Attorney General Angie R. LaPlace, Oct. 1, 1991). The Attorney General subsequently precleared a revised BESE plan, which contained two majority-minority districts. See Brief for Appellants State of Louisiana et al. 3, n. 2. As a result of the 1990 census, Louisiana’s congressional delegation was reduced from eight to seven representatives, requiring Louisiana to redraw its district boundaries. Perhaps in part because of its recent experience with the BESE districts, the Louisiana Legislature set out to create a dis-tricting plan containing two majority-minority districts. See, e. g., Tr. 11 (Aug. 19, 1993). Act 42 of the 1992 Regular Session, passed in May 1992, was such a plan. One of Act 42’s majority-minority districts, District 2, was located in the New Orleans area and resembled the majority-minority district in the previous district map. The other, District 4, was “[a] Z-shaped creature” that “zigzag[ged] through all or part of 28 parishes and five of Louisiana’s largest cities.” Congressional Quarterly, Congressional Districts in the 1990s, p. 323 (1993). A map of Louisiana’s congressional districts under Act 42 is attached as Appendix A. The Attorney General precleared Act 42. Appellees Hays, Adams, Singleton, and Stokley are residents of Lincoln Parish, which is located in the north-central part of Louisiana. According to the complaint, all but Singleton reside in that part of Lincoln Parish that was contained in the majority-minority District 4 of Act 42. See Pet. for Permanent Injunction and Declaratory Judgment in No. CV 92-1522 (WD La.), p. 4. In August 1992, appellees filed suit in state court, challenging Act 42 under the State and Federal Constitutions, as well as the VRA. The State removed the case to the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, and, as required by the VRA, a three-judge court convened to hear the case pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2284. After a 2-day trial, the District Court denied appellees’ request for a preliminary injunction, denied the state and federal constitutional claims, and took the VRA claims under advisement. While the case was pending, this Court decided Shaw v. Reno, whereupon the District Court revoked its prior rulings and held another 2-day hearing. Focusing almost exclusively on the oddly shaped District 4, the District Court decided that Act 42 violated the Constitution, and enjoined its enforcement. See Hays v. Louisiana, 839 F. Supp. 1188 (WD La. 1993) (Hays I). Louisiana appealed directly to this Court, pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1253. While the appeal was pending, the Louisiana Legislature repealed Act 42 and enacted a new district-ing plan, Act 1 of the 1994 Second Extraordinary Session. The Attorney General precleared Act 1. We then vacated the District Court’s judgment and remanded the case “for further consideration in light of Act 1.” 512 U. S. 1230 (1994). A map of Act 1 is attached as Appendix B. Act 1, like Act 42, contains two majority-minority districts, one of which (District 2) is again located in the New Orleans area.. The second majority-minority district in Act 1, however, is considerably different from that in Act 42.' While Act 42’s District 4 ran in a zigzag fashion along the northern and eastern borders of the State, Act l’s District 4 begins in the northwestern part of the State and runs southeast along the Red River until it reaches Baton Rouge. For present purposes, the most significant difference between the two district maps is that in Act 42, part of Lincoln Parish was contained in District 4, while in Act 1, Lincoln Parish is entirely contained in District 5. On remand, the District Court allowed appellees to amend their complaint to challenge Act l’s constitutionality and permitted the United States to intervene as a defendant. It then held another 2-day hearing and concluded, largely for the same reasons that it had invalidated Act 42, that Act 1 was unconstitutional. See Hays v. Louisiana, 862 F. Supp. 119 (WD La. 1994) (Hays II). The court enjoined the State from conducting any elections pursuant to Act 1, substituted its own districting plan, and denied the State’s motion for a stay of judgment pending appeal. Louisiana and the United States appealed directly to this Court. We stayed the District Court’s judgment, 512 U. S. 1273 (1994), and noted probable jurisdiction, 513 U. S. 1056 (1994). II The District Court concluded that appellees had standing to challenge Act 42, see Hays I, 839 F. Supp., at 1192, but did not reconsider standing when faced with Act 1. The question of standing is not subject to waiver, however: “[W]e are required to address the issue even if the courts below have not passed on it, and even if the parties fail to raise the issue before us. The federal courts are under an independent obligation to examine their own jurisdiction, and standing ‘is perhaps the most important of [the jurisdictional] doctrines.’” FW/PBS, Inc. v. Dallas, 493 U. S. 215, 230-231 (1990) (citations omitted). It is by now well settled that “the irreducible constitutional minimum of standing contains three elements. First, the plaintiff must have suffered an ‘injury in fact’ — an invasion of a legally protected interest that is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical. Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of ... . Third, it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560-561 (1992) (footnote, citations, and internal quotation marks omitted); see also, e. g., Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 751 (1984); Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 472 (1982). In light of these principles, we have repeatedly refused to recognize a generalized grievance against allegedly illegal governmental conduct as sufficient for standing to invoke the federal judicial power. See, e. g., Valley Forge Christian College, supra; Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War, 418 U. S. 208 (1974); United States v. Richardson, 418 U. S. 166 (1974); Ex parte Lévitt, 302 U. S. 633 (1937) (per curiam). We have also made clear that “it is the burden of the ‘party who seeks the exercise of jurisdiction in his favor,’ McNutt v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 298 U. S. 178, 189 (1936), ‘clearly to allege facts demonstrating that he is a proper party to invoke judicial resolution of the dispute.’ Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 518 (1975).” FW/PBS, supra, at 231. And when a case has proceeded to final judgment after a trial, as this case has, “those facts (if controverted) must be ‘supported adequately by the evidence adduced at trial’” to avoid dismissal on standing grounds. Lujan, supra, at 561 (quoting Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U. S. 91, 115, n. 31 (1979)). The rule against generalized grievances applies with as much force in the equal protection context as in any other. Allen v. Wright made clear that even if a governmental actor is discriminating on the basis of race, the resulting injury “accords a basis for standing only to ‘those persons who are personally denied equal treatment’ by the challenged discriminatory conduct.” 468 U. S., at 755 (quoting Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U. S. 728, 740 (1984)); see also Valley Forge Christian College, supra, at 489-490, n. 26 (disapproving the proposition that every citizen has “standing to challenge every affirmative-action program on the basis of a personal right to a government that does not deny equal protection of the laws”). We therefore reject appellees’ position that “anybody in the State has a claim,” Tr. of Oral Arg. 36, and adhere instead to the principles outlined above. We discussed the harms caused by racial classifications in Shaw. We noted that, in general, “[t]hey threaten to stigmatize individuals by reason of their membership in a racial group and to incite racial hostility.” 509 U. S., at 643. We also noted “representational harms” the particular type of racial classification at issue in Shaw may cause: “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.” Id., at 648. Accordingly, we held that “redistricting legislation that is so bizarre on its face that it is ‘unexplainable on grounds other than race’ demands the same close scrutiny that we give other state laws that classify citizens by race.” Id., at 644 (citation omitted). Any citizen able to demonstrate that he or she, personally, has been injured by that kind of racial classification has standing to challenge the classification in federal court. Demonstrating the individualized harm our standing doctrine requires may not be easy in the racial gerrymandering context, as it will frequently be difficult to discern why a particular citizen was put in one district or another. See id., at 646 (noting “the difficulty of determining from the face of a single-member districting plan that it purposefully distinguishes between voters on the basis of race”). Where a plaintiff resides in a racially gerrymandered district, however, the plaintiff has been denied equal treatment because of the legislature’s reliance on racial criteria, and therefore has standing to challenge the legislature’s action, cf. Northeastern Fla. Chapter, Associated Gen. Contractors of America v. Jacksonville, 508 U. S. 656 (1993). Voters in such districts may suffer the special representational harms racial classifications can cause in the voting context. On the other hand, where a plaintiff does not live in such a district, he or she does not suffer those special harms, and any inference that the plaintiff has personally been subjected to a racial classification would not be justified absent specific evidence tending to support that inference. Unless such evidence is present, that plaintiff would be asserting only a generalized grievance against governmental conduct of which he or she does not approve. In this litigation, appellees have not produced evidence sufficient to carry the burden our standing doctrine imposes upon them. Even assuming (without deciding) that Act 1 causes injury sufficient to invoke strict scrutiny under Shaw, appellees have pointed to no evidence tending to show that they have suffered that injury, and our review of the record has revealed none. Neither Act 1 itself, see App. to Juris. Statement for Louisiana et al. 111-120; Appendix B, infra, nor any other evidence in the record indicates that appellees, or any other residents of Lincoln Parish, have been subjected to racially discriminatory treatment. The record does contain evidence tending to show that the legislature was aware of the racial composition of District 5, and of Lincoln Parish. We recognized in Shaw, however, 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.” 509 U. S., at 646. It follows that proof of “[t]hat sort of race consciousness” in the redistricting process is inadequate to establish injury in fact. Ibid. Appellees urge that District 5 is a “segregated” voting district, and thus that their position is no different from that of a student in a segregated school district, see Brief for Appel-lees 17 (citing Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954)); Tr. of Oral Arg. 33. But even assuming, arguendo, that the evidence in this litigation is enough to state a Shaw claim with respect to District 4, that does not prove anything about the legislature’s intentions with respect to District 5, nor does the record appear to reflect that the legislature intended District 5 to have any particular racial composition. Of course, it may be true that the racial composition of District 5 would have been different if the legislature had drawn District 4 in another way. But an allegation to that effect does not allege a cognizable injury under the Fourteenth Amendment. We have never held that the racial composition of a particular voting district, without more, can violate the Constitution. Cf. Shaw, supra, at 644-649; Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55 (1980). Appellees insist that they challenged Act 1 in its entirety, not District 4 in isolation. Tr. of Oral Arg. 36. That is true. It is also irrelevant. The fact that Act 1 affects all Louisiana voters by classifying each of them as a member of a particular congressional district does not mean — even if Act 1 inflicts race-based injury on some Louisiana voters — that every Louisiana voter has standing to challenge Act 1 as a racial classification. Only those citizens able to allege injury “as a direct result of having personally been denied equal treatment,” Allen, 468 U. S., at 755 (emphasis added), may bring such a challenge, and citizens who do so carry the burden of proving their standing, as well as their case on the merits. Appellees’ reliance on Powers v. Ohio, 499 U. S. 400 (1991), is unavailing. Powers held that “[a]n individual juror does not have a right to sit on any particular petit jury, but he or she does possess the right not to be excluded from one on account of race.” Id., at 409. But of course, where an individual juror is excluded from a jury because of race, that juror has personally suffered the race-based harm recognized in Powers, and it is the fact of personal injury that appellees have failed to establish here. Thus, appellees’ argument that “they do have a right not to be placed into or excluded from a district because of the color of their skin,” Brief for Appellees 16, cannot help them, because they have not established that they have suffered such treatment in this litigation. Justice Stevens agrees that appellees lack standing, but on quite different grounds: In his view, appellees’ failure to allege and prove vote dilution deprives them of standing, irrespective of whether they have alleged and proved the injury discussed in Shaw. Post, at 751; see also Miller v. Johnson, post, at 931 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Justice White’s dissenting opinion in Shaw argued that position, see Shaw, 509 U. S., at 659 (“Appellants have not presented a cognizable claim, because they have not alleged a cognizable injury”); post, at 751-752 (quoting Justice White’s dissent in Shaw), but it did not prevail. Justice Stevens offers no special reason to revisit the issue here. We conclude that appellees have failed to show that they have suffered the injury our standing doctrine requires. Ap-pellees point us to no authority for the proposition that an equal protection challenge may go forward in federal court absent that showing of individualized harm, and we decline appellees’ invitation to approve that proposition in this litigation. Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court is vacated, and the cases are remanded with instructions to dismiss the complaint. It is so ordered. Justice Ginsburg concurs in the judgment. APPENDIX A TO OPINION OF THE COURT APPENDIX B TO OPINION OF THE COURT Between Reconstruction and the early 1980’s, all of Louisiana’s congressional districts contained a majority of white citizens, and it had not elected any black congressional representatives. In 1983, a three-judge court invalidated Louisiana’s 1982 districting plan, on the ground that it diluted minority voting strength in the New Orleans area in violation of VRA § 2, 42 U. S. C. § 1973, and ordered the legislature to draw up a new plan. See Major v. Treen, 574 F. Supp. 325 (ED La. 1983). The new plan contained a majority-black district in the New Orleans area; in 1990, that district elected Louisiana’s first black representative since Reconstruction. See Congressional Quarterly, Congressional Districts in the 1990s, pp. 319-320 (1993). Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 District Court on August 3, 1964, entered a judgment holding invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, §§13 and 18 of Chapter II of the Constitution of Vermont relating to apportionment of the General Assembly of the State of Vermont. 234 F. Supp. 191. Paragraph (3) of the judgment of the District Court is as follows: “(3) Therefore, subject to the provisions hereinafter appearing, the injunction that plaintiffs have requested restraining the officers of the State and those of the counties, towns and cities charged with the conduct of the elections of members of the General Assembly from proceeding with elections pursuant to the present method, of apportionment is granted; and the defendants Philip H. Hoff, Governor of Vermont, Howard E. Armstrong, Secretary of State, the Town Clerks of the Towns of Vermont, and the County Clerks of the Counties of Vermont, and their respective successors in office, are perpetually enjoined from doing any act or taking any steps in furtherance of nominating or holding elections of senators or representatives to the Senate or House of Representatives of the State of Vermont pursuant to said method, and said defendants are further enjoined from certifying or in any other manner declaring .that the results of such nominations or elections are valid or that the General Assembly of the State of Vermont which, if constitutionally elected, would be convened on January 6, 1965, is properly or legally constituted, unless by some other authorized lawful and constitutional method Senators and Representatives are nominated and elected to the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Vermont pursuant'to a reap-portionmént or redistricting of the Senate and a reapportionment or redistricting of the House of Representatives to be effected promptly, such reapportionment or redistricting of the Senate and reapportionment or redistricting of the House of Representatives haying been done in such manner as to achieve substantially equal weighting of the votes of all voters in the choice of members of the General Assembly as guaranteed by the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. It is, however, permissible for the September 1964 primary elections for nominees for the offices of Senators and Representatives and for the general elections to be held on November 3, 1964 to be conducted as presently scheduled to be conducted, and if, in the meantime, no members shall have been chosen by a constitutionally valid method, the members of the General Assembly chosen as heretofore may convene on January 6, 1965, provided that legislation shall be limited to the devising of a constitutional method of reapportionment and redistricting, and that the terms of said members shall expire on March 31; 1965.” 234 F. Supp., at 200. Appellants appealed to this Court from Paragraph (3) of the judgment of the District Court. On December 14, 1964, we noted probable jurisdiction of both appeals, stáyed that portion of the judgment which is the subject of these appeals, and set these cases for oral argument on January 18, 1965. 379 U. S. 942. All of the parties to and intervenors in these cases have now moved that this Court modify the District Court’s judgment to conform to a Stipulation signed by them and affirm the judgment of the District Court as so modified. The parties stipulate that Paragraph (3) of the judgment be deleted and in lieu thereof the order include the following: “Therefore, subject to the provisions hereinafter appearing, the injunction that plaintiffs have requested restraining the officers of the State and those of the counties, towns and cities charged with the conduct of the elections of members of the General Assembly from proceeding with elections pursuant to the present method of apportionment is granted; and the defendants Philip H. Hoff, Governor of Vermont, Howard E. Armstrong, Secretary of State, the Town Clerks of the • Towns of Vermont, and the County Clerks of the Counties of Vermont, and their respective successors in office, are perpetually enjoined from doing any act ,or taking any steps in furtherance of nominating or holding elections, of senators or representatives to the Senate or House of Representatives of the State of Vermont pursuant to said method, and said defendants are further enjoined from certifying or in any other manner declaring that the results of such nominations or elections are valid or that the General Assembly of the State of Vermont which, if constitutionally elected, would be convened on January 6,1965, is properly or legally constituted,- unless by some other authorized lawful and constitutional method Senators and Representatives are nominated and elected- to the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Vermont pursuant to a reapportionment or redistricting of the House of Representatives to be effected promptly, such reapportionment or redistricting of the Senate and reapportionment or redistricting of the House of Representatives having been done in such manner as to achieve substantial equality in the choice of members of the Generai Assembly as guaranteed by the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. It is, however, permissible for the September 1964 primary elections for nominees for the offices .of Senators and Representatives and for the general elections to be held on November 3, 1964 to be conducted as presently scheduled to be conducted, and if, in the meantime, no members shall have been chosen by a constitutionally valid method, the members of the General Assembly chosen as heretofore may convene on January 6,1965, provided that: “(a) A reapportionment bill or bills be introduced in at least one House of the General Assembly by February 1, 1965. “(b) Should the General Assembly desire to submit the matter of reapportionment to a constitutional convention, legislation shall be enacted on or before March 1, 1965 tó provide for the convening of a constitutional convention on or before June 1, 1965. “(c) Should legislation be enacted setting up a constitutional convention, said convention shall finish its deliberations by September 1, 1965. “(d) If the matter of reapportionment is not referred to a constitutional convention, reapportionment legislation shall be enacted so as to comply with the mandate of the Court on or before July 1, 1965. “(e) The General Assembly shall be empowered to enact all legislation as usual for the operation of state, town and county governments between January 6, 1965 and July 1, 1965. “(f) If reapportionment legislation is not enacted by July 1, 1965, and if a constitutional convention shall fail to reapportion the General Assembly by September 1, 1965, the Court shall reapportion the General Assembly so as to comply with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. “(g) In any event, a reapportioned General Assembly shall have been elected and ready to serve by the first Wednesday after the first Monday in January, 1966. “(h) The terms of office of the members to the 1965 General Assembly shall expire on July 1, 1965, except that their offices may continue if called into special session by the Governor of the State of Vermont to act upon a State emergency not pertaining to reapportionment.” The cases are removed from the argument list, the Stipulation is approved, and, in accordance therewith, the judgment of the District Court is modified by vacating Paragraph (3) and substituting in lieu thereof the quoted language of the Stipulation. As so modified, the judgment of the District Court dated August 3, 1964, is affirmed. The judgment of this Court shall issue forthwith. Memorandum of Mr. Justice Harlan. I would approve the Stipulation submitted by the parties except for subparagraph (f). That provision envisages a reapportionment of the Vermont Legislature by the District Court itself if an apportionment of that body, satisfying the requirements of Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, is not accomplished by the other means, and within the timetable, set forth in the Stipulation. The prospect of the federal courts engaging in such a political undertaking is for me a spectacle not easy to contemplate. Whether such a course may be an inevitable ultimate consequence of Reynolds v. Sims is a matter which should be determined only after the fullest and most deliberate consideration on the part of this Court. Cf. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 495-496, and 349 U. S. 294. I do not believe that any of the summary dispositions made in reapportionment cases following Reynolds v. Sims, see, e. g., Williams v. Moss, 378 U. S. 558, forecloses or obviates the need for such a consideration of this far-reaching question. The parties to a particular litigation should not be permitted by stipulation to thrust a federal court into this foreign activity. Except in the foregoing respects, I join in the Court’s, disposition of the matter. “(f) If reapportionment legislation is not enacted by July 1,1965, and if a constitutional convention shall fail to reapportion the General Assembly by September 1, 1965, the Court shall reapportion the General Assembly so as to comply with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” The District Court in its order of August 3,1964, declined to pass on this question. Paragraph (4) of the order read: “(4) No action is taken now upon the alternative request of plaintiffs that this court order that elections of Senators and Representatives be on a state-wide basis; and jurisdiction is retained for the entry of such further orders as may be necessary and proper hereafter.” 234 F. Supp. 191, 201. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

B

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Per Curiam. Petitioner is an indigent. He was charged with robbery, larceny, and assault in New York. When his case was called for trial, petitioner asked that the court furnish him, at state expense, with the minutes of a prior preliminary hearing, at which the major state witnesses had testified. A New York statute provided that a transcript of the hearing would be furnished “on payment of . . . fees at the rate of five cents for every hundred words.” N. Y. Code Crim. Proc. § 206. The trial court denied the request for a free transcript. Petitioner was convicted of the crimes charged and sentenced to a term of 15-20 years in prison. His conviction was affirmed by the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court. The New York Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal. We denied a petition for certiorari. The issue under the Federal Constitution of the denial of the preliminary hearing transcript was raised by petitioner at each stage of these proceedings. Petitioner next applied for habeas corpus in the Northern District of New York. His petition was denied, the court believing that petitioner had no federal constitutional right to a free transcript of his preliminary hearing. Thereafter, the New York Court of Appeals decided People v. Montgomery, 18 N. Y. 2d 993, 224 N. E. 2d 730 (1966). That case holds that the statutory requirement of payment for a preliminary hearing transcript, as applied to an indigent, is a denial of equal protection and unconstitutional, under both the Federal and State Constitutions. On petitioner’s appeal from the District Court, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit determined that petitioner should apply to the state courts for relief under the doctrine of Montgomery. The court acknowledged that petitioner had already exhausted his state remedies. But it thought the “constitutional necessity for federal court intervention” was “open to doubt” and that “the question ought to be decided in favor of permitting a state court determination in the first instance.” Accordingly, it dismissed the petition for habeas corpus without prejudice to renewal of the questions presented by petitioner after further proceedings in the courts of New York. Petitioner sought certiorari. We grant the writ, and we vacate the judgment below. Our decisions for more than a decade now have made clear that differences in access to the instruments needed to vindicate legal rights, when based upon the financial situation of the defendant, are repugnant to the Constitution. See, e. g., Draper v. Washington, 372 U. S. 487 (1963); Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956). Only last Term, in Long v. District Court of Iowa, 385 U. S. 192 (1966), we reiterated the statement first made in Smith v. Bennett, 365 U. S. 708, 709 (1961), that “to interpose any financial consideration between an indigent prisoner of the State and his exercise of a state right to sue for his liberty is to deny that prisoner the equal protection of the laws.” We have no doubt that the New York statute struck down by the New York Court of Appeals in Montgomery, as applied to deny a free transcript to an indigent, could not meet the test of our prior decisions. Nor do we believe there can be any doubt that petitioner adequately made known his desire to obtain the minutes of his preliminary hearing. We agree with Judge Medina, dissenting in the Court of Appeals, that the demand was “clear and unequivocal.” In Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443 (1953), we considered the statutory requirement, under 28 U. S. C. § 2254, that a petitioner exhaust his state remedies before applying for federal habeas corpus relief. We concluded that Congress had not intended “to require repetitious applications to state courts.” 344 U. S., at 449, n. 3. We declined to rule that the mere possibility of a successful application to the state courts was sufficient to bar federal relief. Such a rule would severely limit the scope of the federal habeas corpus statute. The observations made in the Brown case apply here. Petitioner has already thoroughly exhausted his state remedies, as the Court of Appeals recognized. Still more state litigation would be both unnecessarily time-consuming and otherwise burdensome. This is not a case in which there is any substantial state interest in ruling once again on petitioner’s case. We can conceive of no reason why the State would wish to burden its judicial calendar with a narrow issue the resolution of which is predetermined by established federal principles. The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the writ of certiorari are granted, the judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for proceedings consistent with this opinion. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

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 Marshall delivered the opinion of the Court. The question before us is whether a federal district court has discretion under the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction to remand a properly removed case to state court when all federal-law claims in the action have been eliminated and only pendent state-law claims remain. I Respondents, William and Carrie Boyle, commenced this action by filing a complaint against petitioners, Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU) and John Kordesich, in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. CMU is William Boyle’s former employer; Kordesich is William Boyle’s former supervisor. In the complaint, William Boyle charged CMU with violation of federal and state age-discrimination laws, wrongful discharge, breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, and misrepresentation. He stated many of the same claims, as well as tortious interference with a contractual relationship, against Kordesich. Carrie Boyle claimed that these alleged wrongs had caused her to suffer a loss of consortium, loss of companionship, and loss of her husband’s household services. All of respondents’ claims arose from CMU’s discharge of William Boyle. Petitioners removed the case from state court to the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania under 28 U. S. C. § 1441(a), which allows a defendant to remove an action that falls within the original jurisdiction of the federal district courts. Petitioners stated that the entire lawsuit fell within the original jurisdiction, and hence within the removal jurisdiction, of the District Court because the complaint stated a claim arising under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, 81 Stat. 602, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §§621-634, and the state-law claims in the complaint were pendent to this federal-law claim. Respondents did not contest the removal. Six months later, respondents moved to amend their complaint to delete the allegations of age discrimination and defamation and the request for damages for loss of consortium. In this motion, respondents stated that they now believed these claims were not tenable. At the same time, respondents filed a motion, conditional upon amendment of the complaint, to remand the suit to state court. Respondents noted that the amendment would eliminate their sole federal-law claim, which had provided the basis for removal of the case, and argued that a remand to state court was appropriate in these circumstances. After granting the motion to amend, the District Court remanded the remaining claims to the state court in which respondents initially had filed the action. Boyle v. Carnegie-Mellon University, Civ. Action No. 84-2285 (Oct. 10, 1985). In its opinion, the District Court first examined whether any provision of the federal removal statute, 28 U. S. C. §§ 1441-1451, supported a remand. The court noted that two sections of the statute authorize district courts to remand after removal. Under 28 U. S. C. § 1447(c), a court shall remand any case that “was removed improvidently and without jurisdiction”; under 28 U. S. C. § 1441(c), a court may remand any claim that is both independently nonremovable and “separate and independent” of the claim providing the basis for removal of the case. The court held that § 1447(c) did not apply because the removal was jurisdictionally proper and that § 1441(c) did not apply because the remaining state-law claims in the case, although independently nonremovable, were pendent to, rather than separate and independent of, the federal-law claim that had provided the basis for removal. The District Court then stated that in Thermtron Products, Inc. v. Hermansdorfer, 423 U. S. 336 (1976), this Court had suggested that a district court could not remand a removed ease or claim without specific statutory authorization. The District Court noted, however, that a number of appellate decisions since Thermtron had approved the remand of removed pendent state-law claims when the federal-law claim providing the basis for removal had been eliminated from the suit. The court found these later decisions persuasive and consequently opted to remand respondents’ remaining state-law claims. Petitioners filed a petition for writ of mandamus with the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and a divided panel granted the petition. 41 PEP Cases 1046 (1986). Both the majority and the dissent agreed with the District Court’s conclusion that neither § 1447(c) nor § 1441(c) authorized a remand in this case. The majority, after noting a division among the Circuits on the question, held that under Thermtron this absence of statutory authorization precluded the District Court from ordering a remand. The dissent countered that Thermtron’s admonition against remanding removed cases to state court without specific statutory authorization did not extend to cases involving pendent jurisdiction. The dissent noted that under the pendent jurisdiction doctrine, a district court has discretion to dismiss without prejudice cases involving pendent claims, and argued that fairness, efficiency, comity, and common sense supported the authority of removal courts to remand such cases as well. The Court of Appeals granted respondents’ petition for rehearing en banc and vacated the panel opinions and writ of mandamus. 41 FEP Cases 1888 (1986). After the rehearing, the en banc court divided evenly on the question whether the District Court had authority to remand respondents’ case to state court. Civ. Action No. 85-3619 (Nov. 24, 1986). Accordingly, the court issued an order denying petitioners’ application for a writ of mandamus. This order effectively left undisturbed the remand of respondents’ case. We granted certiorari, 479 U. S. 1083 (1987), to resolve the split among the Circuits as to whether a district court has discretion to remand a removed case to state court when all federal-law claims have dropped out of the action and only pendent state-law claims remain. We now affirm. II The modern doctrine of pendent jurisdiction stems from this Court’s decision in Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715 (1966). Prior to Gibbs, this Court had recognized that considerations of judicial economy and procedural convenience justified the recognition of power in the federal courts to decide certain state-law claims involved in cases raising federal questions. See Hurn v. Oursler, 289 U. S. 238, 243-247 (1933). The test for determining when a federal court had jurisdiction over such state-law claims was murky, however, and the lower courts experienced considerable difficulty in applying it. In Gibbs, the Court responded to this confusion, and the resulting hesitancy of federal courts to recognize jurisdiction over state-law claims, by establishing a new yardstick for deciding whether a federal court has jurisdiction over a state-law claim brought in a case that also involves a federal question. The Court stated that a federal court has jurisdiction over an entire action, including state-law claims, whenever the federal-law claims and state-law claims in the case “derive from a common nucleus of operative fact” and are “such that [a plaintiff] would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one judicial proceeding.” 383 U. S., at 725. The Court intended this standard not only to clarify, but also to broaden, the scope of federal pendent jurisdiction. See ibid. (stating that the prior approach, at least as applied by lower courts, was “unnecessarily grudging”). According to Gibbs, “considerations of judicial economy, convenience and fairness to litigants” support a wide-ranging power in the federal courts to decide state-law claims in cases that also present federal questions. Id., at 726. At the same time, however, Gibbs drew a distinction between the power of a federal court to hear state-law claims and the discretionary exercise of that power. The Gibbs Court recognized that a federal court’s determination of state-law claims could conflict with the principle of comity to the States and with the promotion of justice between the litigating parties. For this reason, Gibbs emphasized that “pendent jurisdiction is a doctrine of discretion, not of plaintiff’s right.” Ibid. Under Gibbs, a federal court should consider and weigh in each case, and at every stage of the litigation, the values of judicial economy, convenience, fairness, and comity in order to decide whether to exercise jurisdiction over a case brought in that court involving pendent state-law claims. When the balance of these factors indicates that a case properly belongs in state court, as when the federal-law claims have dropped out of the lawsuit in its early stages and only state-law claims remain, the federal court should decline the exercise of jurisdiction by dismissing the case without prejudice. Id., at 726-727. As articulated by Gibbs, the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction thus is a doctrine of flexibility, designed to allow courts to deal with cases involving pendent claims in the manner that most sensibly accommodates a range of concerns and values. In the case before us, respondents’ complaint stated a single federal-law claim and a number of state-law claims. The state-law claims fell within the jurisdiction of the District Court to which the action was removed because they derived from the same nucleus of operative fact as the federal-law claim: CMU’s dismissal of William Boyle. Under the pendent jurisdiction doctrine set forth in Gibbs, however, the District Court had to consider throughout the litigation whether to exercise its jurisdiction over the case. When the single federal-law claim in the action was eliminated at an early stage of the litigation, the District Court had a powerful reason to choose not to continue to exercise jurisdiction. The question that this case presents is whether the District Court could relinquish jurisdiction over the case only by dismissing it without prejudice or whether the District Court could relinquish jurisdiction over the case by remanding it to state court as well. This Court’s crafting of the pendent jurisdiction doctrine in Gibbs strongly supports the conclusion that when a district court may relinquish jurisdiction over a removed case involving pendent claims, the court has discretion to remand the case to state court. Gibbs itself does not directly address this issue; because the plaintiff in Gibbs filed his suit in federal court, remand was not an option in the case, and the Court spoke only of dismissal. But Gibbs establishes that the pendent jurisdiction doctrine is designed to enable courts to handle cases involving state-law claims in the way that will best accommodate the values of economy, convenience, fairness, and comity, and Gibbs further establishes that the Judicial Branch is to shape and apply the doctrine in that light. Because in some circumstances a remand of a removed case involving pendent claims will better accommodate these values than will dismissal of the case, the animating principle behind the pendent jurisdiction doctrine supports giving a district court discretion to remand when the exercise of pendent jurisdiction is inappropriate. As many lower courts have noted, a remand generally will be preferable to a dismissal when the statute of limitations on the plaintiff’s state-law claims has expired before the federal court has determined that it should relinquish jurisdiction over the case. In such a case, a dismissal will foreclose the plaintiff from litigating his claims. This consequence may work injustice to the plaintiff: although he has brought his suit in timely manner, he is time barred from pressing his case. Equally important, and more easily overlooked, the foreclosure of the state-law claims may conflict with the principle of comity to States. The preclusion of valid state-law claims initially brought in timely manner in state court undermines the State’s interest in enforcing its law. The operation of state statutes of limitations thus provides a potent reason for giving federal district courts discretion to remand, as well as to dismiss, removed pendent claims. Even when the applicable statute of limitations has not expired, a remand may best promote the values of economy, convenience, fairness, and comity. Both litigants and States have an interest in the prompt and efficient resolution of controversies based on state law. Any time a district court dismisses, rather than remands, a removed case involving pendent claims, the parties will have to refile their papers in state court, at some expense of time and money. Moreover, the state court will have to reprocess the case, and this procedure will involve similar costs. Dismissal of the claim therefore will increase both the expense and the time involved in enforcing state law. Under the analysis set forth in Gibbs, this consequence, even taken alone, provides good reason to grant federal courts wide discretion to remand cases involving pendent claims when the exercise of pendent jurisdiction over such cases would be inappropriate. Petitioners argue that the federal removal statute prohibits a district court from remanding properly removed cases involving pendent claims. This argument is based not on the language of Congress, but on its silence. Petitioners note that the removal statute explicitly authorizes remands in two situations. By failing similarly to provide for remands of removed cases involving pendent claims, petitioners assert, Congress intended to preclude district courts from remanding such cases. We cannot accept petitioners’ reasoning. We do not dispute that Congress could set a limitation of this kind on the federal courts’ administration of the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction. But Congress has not done so, expressly or otherwise, in the removal statute. The principal flaw in petitioners’ argument is that it fails to recognize that the removal statute does not address specifically any aspect of a district court’s power to dispose of pendent state-law claims after removal: just as the statute makes no reference to a district court’s power to remand pendent claims, so too the statute makes no reference to a district court’s power to dismiss them. Yet petitioners concede, as they must, that a federal court has discretion to dismiss a removed case involving pendent claims. Given that Congress’ silence in the removal statute does not negate the power to dismiss such cases, that silence cannot sensibly be read to negate the power to remand them. Indeed, one section of the removal statute strongly suggests that had Congress decided to address the proper disposition of removed cases involving pendent claims, Congress would have authorized the district courts to remand them. In 28 U. S. C. § 1441(c), Congress dealt with the situation in which a claim that would be removable if sued upon alone is joined with one or more “separate and independent” claims that are not themselves removable. The section provides that the entire case may be removed and that the district court, in its discretion, may either adjudicate all claims in the suit or remand the independently nonremovable claims. See n. 3, supra. This section is not directly applicable to suits involving pendent claims, because pendent claims are not “separate and independent” within the meaning of the removal statute. See American Fire & Casualty Co. v. Finn, 341 U. S. 6, 12-14 (1951) (interpreting the “separate and independent” clause). The section, however, clearly manifests a belief that when a court has discretionary jurisdiction over a removed state-law claim and the court chooses not to exercise its jurisdiction, remand is an appropriate alternative. Thus, the removal statute, far from precluding district courts from remanding pendent state-law claims, actually supports such authority. As petitioners point out, this Court’s opinion in Thermtron Products, Inc. v. Hermansdorfer, 423 U. S. 336 (1976), contains some language that could be read to support the opposite conclusion. In Thermtron, a District Court remanded a properly removed ease to state court on the ground that the federal docket was overcrowded. This Court held that the remand was improper. In so doing, the Court stated several times that a district court may not remand a case to a state court on a ground not specified in the’removal statute. See id., at 345. See also id., at 345, n. 9 (“Lower federal courts have uniformly held that cases properly removed from state to federal court within the federal court’s jurisdiction may not be remanded for discretionary reasons not authorized by the controlling statute”); id., at 351 (“[W]e are not convinced that Congress ever intended to extend carte blanche authority to the district courts to revise the federal statutes governing removal by remanding cases on grounds that seem justifiable to them but which are not recognized by the controlling statute”). Petitioners, again noting that the removal statute does not explicitly authorize the remand of cases involving pendent state-law claims, argue that Thermtron thus compels a holding that such remands are impermissible. The language from Thermtron that petitioners cite, viewed in isolation, is admittedly far-reaching, but it loses controlling force when read against the circumstances of that case. The Thermtron decision was a response to a clearly impermissible remand, of a kind very different from that at issue here. In Thermtron, the District Court had no authority to decline to hear the removed case. The court had diversity jurisdiction over the case, which is not discretionary. Thus, the District Court could not properly have eliminated the case from its docket, whether by a remand or by a dismissal. In contrast, when a removed case involves pendent state-law claims, a district court has undoubted discretion to decline to hear the case. The only remaining issue is whether the district court may decline jurisdiction through a remand as well as through a dismissal. The Thermtron opinion itself recognized this distinction by stating that federal courts have no greater power to remand cases because of an overcrowded docket than they have to dismiss cases on that ground. Id., at 344. The implication of this statement, which is confirmed by common sense, is that an entirely different situation is presented when the district court has clear power to decline to exercise jurisdiction. Thermtron therefore does not control the decision in this case. Petitioners also argue that giving district courts discretion to remand cases involving pendent state-law claims will allow plaintiffs to secure a state forum through the use of manipulative tactics. Petitioners’ concern appears to be that a plaintiff whose suit has been removed to federal court will be able to regain a state forum simply by deleting all federal-law claims from the complaint and requesting that the district court remand the case. Brief for Petitioners 18-20. This concern, however, hardly justifies a categorical prohibition on the remand of cases involving state-law claims regardless of whether the plaintiff has attempted to manipulate the forum and regardless of the other circumstances in the case. A district court can consider whether the plaintiff has engaged in any manipulative tactics when it decides whether to remand a case. If the plaintiff has attempted to manipulate the forum, the court should take this behavior into account in determining whether the balance of factors to be considered under the pendent jurisdiction doctrine support a remand in the case. The district courts thus can guard against forum manipulation without a blanket rule that would prohibit the remand of all cases involving pendent state-law claims. We conclude that a district court has discretion to remand to state court a removed case involving pendent claims upon a proper determination that retaining jurisdiction over the case would be inappropriate. The discretion to remand enables district courts to deal with cases involving pendent claims in the manner that best serves the principles of economy, convenience, fairness, and comity which underlie the pendent jurisdiction doctrine. Such discretion is precluded neither by the removal statute nor by our decision in Thermtron. We therefore affirm the decision below denying the petition for a writ of mandamus. It is so ordered. Section 1441(a) provides: “Except as otherwise expressly provided by Act of Congress, any civil action brought in a State court of which the district courts of the United States have original jurisdiction, may be removed by the defendant or the defendants, to the district court of the United States for the district and division embracing the place where such action is pending.” Section 1447(e) provides, in pertinent part: “If at any time before final judgment it appears that the case was removed improvidently and without jurisdiction, the district court shall remand the case, and may order the payment of just costs.” Section 1441(c) provides: “Whenever a separate and independent claim or cause of action, which would be removable if sued upon alone, is joined with one or more otherwise non-removable claims or causes of action, the entire case may be removed and the district court may determine all issues therein, or, in its discretion, may remand all matters not otherwise within its original jurisdiction.” Petitioners also appealed the District Court’s decision. The Court of Appeals, however, dismissed the appeal on the ground that 28 U. S. C. § 1447(d) bars appeals from remands to state courts with a single exception not applicable to this case. Compare In re Romulus Community Schools, 729 F. 2d 431 (CA6 1984), Fox v. Custis, 712 F. 2d 84 (CA4 1983), and Hofbauer v. Northwestern National Bank of Rochester, 700 F. 2d 1197 (CA8 1983) (approving remand of remaining pendent state-law claims when all federal claims were eliminated from ease), with Cook v. Weber, 698 F. 2d 907 (CA7 1983), and In re Greyhound Lines, Inc., 598 F. 2d 883 (CA5 1979) (disapproving such remands). The test established in Hurn v. Oursler provided that if a plaintiff presented “two distinct grounds,” one state and one federal, “in support of a single cause of action,” the federal court had jurisdiction over the entire action, but that if the plaintiff’s assertions amounted to “two separate and distinct causes of action,” the federal court had jurisdiction only over the federal “cause of action.” 289 U. S., at 246. The difficulty with this test, as many commentators noted, was that it centered on the inherently elusive concept of a “cause of action.” See, e. g., Shulman & Jaegerman, Some Jurisdictional Limitations on Federal Procedure, 45 Yale L. J. 393, 397-410 (1936). In Gibbs, the Court stated that “if the federal claims are dismissed before trial. . . the state claims should be dismissed as well.” 383 U. S., at 726. More recently, we have made clear that this statement does not establish a mandatory rule to be applied inflexibly in all cases. See Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U. S. 397, 403-405 (1970). The statement simply recognizes that in the usual case in which all federal-law claims are eliminated before trial, the balance of factors to be considered under the pendent jurisdiction doctrine — judicial economy, convenience, fairness, and comity-will point toward declining to exercise jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims. The Court in Gibbs also indicated that these factors usually will favor a decision to relinquish jurisdiction when “state issues substantially predominate, whether in terms of proof, of the scope of the issues raised, or of the comprehensiveness of the remedy sought.” 383 U. S., at 726. See, e. g., In re Romulus Community Schools, 729 F. 2d, at 439; Kaib v. Pennzoil Co., 545 F. Supp. 1267, 1271 (WD Pa. 1982). Moreover, if a plaintiff bringing suit in state court knows that, notwithstanding the expiration of a statute of limitations, a federal court to which a case is removed must dismiss the case upon deciding that the exercise of pendent jurisdiction would be inappropriate, the plaintiff may well decline to allege any federal-law claims. By forgoing all federal-law claims, the plaintiff can insulate himself from the risk that the combination of removal, dismissal under the pendent jurisdiction doctrine, and the expiration of a statute of limitations will foreclose him from litigating his state-law claims. Such protection will appear especially attractive to a plaintiff who has any doubt about the validity of his federal-law claims, because he will know that if the district court dismisses these claims on the merits prior to trial, the court may well decide that the rest of the case is unsuitable for resolution in a federal court and therefore dismiss the remaining claims. Thus, a rule that would require federal courts to dismiss a removed case that is not suitable for resolution in a federal court would operate not only to foreclose some plaintiffs from litigating their state-law claims, but also to chill other plaintiffs from bringing their federal-law claims. Petitioners argue that the federal courts do not need discretion to remand because they can retain jurisdiction over any case in which the statute of limitations has expired. See Brief for Petitioners 20. At least one Court of Appeals has made the identical argument. See Cook v. Weber, 698 F. 2d, at 909. This solution to the problem of an expired statute of limitations, however, is far from satisfying. Under petitioners’ suggested approach, district courts would retain jurisdiction over eases that apart from the statute-of-limitations concern properly belong in state courts. There is no reason to compel or encourage district courts to retain jurisdiction over such cases when the alternative of a remand is readily available. In similar vein, the dissent argues that federal courts do not need discretion to remand because some States have saving clauses that alleviate the statute-of-limitations problem arising from the dismissal of cases. But the existence of such clauses in some States, while diminishing the reason for remand in particular eases, hardly reverses our general conclusion that the balance of factors to be weighed under Gibbs, considered in light of the range of state statutes of limitations, supports giving federal district courts the authority to remand eases involving pendent claims. The dissent’s claim that our decision renders superfluous the two provisions of the removal statute that authorize remands is unjustified. The remand power that we recognize today derives from the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction and applies only to cases involving pendent claims. Sections 1441(e) and 1447(c), as the dissent recognizes, do not apply to eases over which a federal court has pendent jurisdiction. Thus, the remand authority conferred by the removal statute and the remand authority conferred by the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction overlap not at all. The dissent’s reliance on St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U. S. 283 (1938), is misplaced for a similar reason. In St. Paul, the defendant removed a diversity case to federal court, and the plaintiff later reduced the amount of damages claimed to a figure below the jurisdictional amount. The District Court remanded the ease to state court, but this Court held that the remand was impermissible. The Court stated that “events occurring subsequent to removal which reduce the amount recoverable ... do not oust the district court’s [diversity] jurisdiction.” Id., at 293. The Court then held that because the District Court continued to have diversity jurisdiction over the case, the court could not relinquish the case, whether through a dismissal or through a remand. See id., at 296. The argument cited by the dissent, focusing on forum manipulation concerns, provided an auxiliary policy consideration supporting the Court’s determination that the District Court’s remand was inappropriate. We agree that forum manipulation concerns are legitimate and serious. See infra, at 357. We do not think, however, that St. Paul fairly, or even plausibly, can be read to suggest that these concerns necessitate a blanket prohibition on remands when the federal district court’s jurisdiction over a case is inherently discretionary. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 Blackmun delivered the opinion of the Court. These two consolidated cases center in the Ute Indian Supervision Termination Act of August 27, 1954 (hereafter Partition Act), 68 Stat. 868, as amended, 70 Stat. 936 and 76 Stat. 597, 25 U. S. C. §§ 677-677aa; the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 881, as amended, §§ 3 (a)(4) and (5), 10(b) and 15(c)(1), 15 U. S. C. §§ 78c (a)(4) and (5), 78j (b) and 78o (c)(1); the emergence of Affiliated Ute Citizens of the State of Utah (AUC), an unincorporated association, and of Ute Distribution Corp. (UDC), a Utah corporation; and the alleged victimization of Indian shareholders in their sales of UDC shares. I Background The Ute Partition Act pertained to the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah. At the time of the Act’s adoption the tribe had a membership of about 1,765, consisting of 439 mixed-bloods and 1,326 full-bloods. Section 1 of the Act stated its purpose, namely “to provide for the partition and distribution of the assets of the... Tribe... between the mixed-blood and full-blood members thereof; for the termination of Federal supervision over the trust, and restricted property, of the mixed-blood members of said tribe; and for a development program for the full-blood members thereof, to assist them in preparing for termination of Federal supervision over their property.” 25 U. S. C. § 677. The then-estimated value of the cash, accounts receivable, and land owned by the tribe was $20,702,885. The tribe possessed additional assets consisting of oil, gas, and mineral rights (principally oil shale deposits underlying the reservation), and unadju-dicated and unliquidated claims against the United States. Section 8 of the Act, 25 U. S. C. § 677g, called for the preparation of the rolls of full-blood members and mixed-blood members, and for the finality of those rolls. Section 5, as amended, 25 U. S. C. § 677d, provided that upon the publication of the final rolls “the tribe shall thereafter consist exclusively of full-blood members,” and that mixed-blood members “shall have no interest therein except as otherwise provided” in the Act. Section 10, 25 U. S. C. § 677i, stated that when the final membership rolls had been published, the tribal business committee, representing the full-bloods, and the “authorized representatives” of the mixed-bloods were to “commence a division of the assets of the tribe that are then susceptible to equitable and practicable distribution.” This was to be based “upon the relative number of persons comprising the final membership roll of each group.” Upon the adoption of a plan of division, the mixed-bloods were to prepare a further plan for the distribution of their group’s assets to the individual members. § 13 of the Act, 25 U. S. C. § 6771. After each mixed-blood had received his distributive share, directly or in whole or in part through the device of a corporation or other entity in which he had an interest, federal restrictions were to be removed except as to any remaining interest in tribal property, that is, the un-adjudicated or unliquidated claims against the United States, gas, oil, and mineral rights, and other tribal assets not susceptible of equitable and practicable distribution. § 16, 25 U. S. C. § 677o. The Secretary of the Interior then was to issue a proclamation “declaring that the Federal trust relationship to such individual is terminated.” § 23, 25 U. S. C. § 677v. Those assets, such as the mineral estate, excepted from the division plans, were to be “managed jointly by the Tribal Business Committee and the authorized representatives of the mixed-blood group.” § 10, 25 U. S. C. § 677i. Section 6 of the Act, 25 U. S. C. § 677e, authorized the mixed-bloods to organize, to adopt a constitution and bylaws, and to provide, by that constitution, for the selection of authorized representatives with power “to take any action that is required by [the Act] to be taken by the mixed-blood members as a group.” Pursuant to this grant of power the mixed-bloods, in 1956, organized AUC as an unincorporated association. AUC’s constitution, Art. V, § 1 (b), empowered its board of directors to delegate to corporations organized in accordance with the Act “such powers and authority as may be necessary or desirable in the accomplishment of the objects and purposes for which said corporations may be so organized.” UDC was incorporated in 1958 with the stated purpose “to manage jointly with the Tribal Business Committee of the full-blood members of the Ute Indian Tribe... all unadjudicated or unliquidated claims against the United States, all gas, oil, and mineral rights of every kind, and all other assets not susceptible to equitable and practicable distribution to which the mixed-blood members of the said tribe... are now, or may hereafter become entitled... and to receive the proceeds therefrom and to distribute the same to the stockholders of this corporation....” The formation of UDC was part of the plan formulated by the mixed-bloods for the distribution of assets to the individual members of their group. By a resolution adopted by a 42-5 vote at a special meeting at which a quorum was present and voting, AUC approved the articles of UDC. The Secretary also approved them. In January 1959 the AUC directors by a unanimous vote (5-0) irrevocably delegated authority to UDC— and, indeed, to two other Utah corporations of the mixed-bloods, Antelope-Sheep Range Company and Rock Creek Cattle Range Company, see § 13 of the Act, 25 U. S. C. § 6771 (3) — to accomplish the purposes for which they were formed. UDC then issued 10 shares of its capital stock in the name of each mixed-blood Ute, a total of 4,900 shares. UDC and First Security Bank of Utah, N. A. (the bank), executed a written agreement dated December 31, 1958, by which the bank became transfer agent for UDC stock. UDC apparently also decided at this time not to deliver the certificates for its shares to the shareholders but, instead, to deposit them with the bank; the bank was then to issue receipts to the respective shareholders. Counsel advised the bank that this was “because- of some rather unfavorable experiences had in the Indian service with the loss of valuable instruments.” UDC’s articles provided that if a mixed-blood shareholder determined to sell or dispose of his UDC stock at any time prior to August 27, 1964, that is, within 10 years from the date of the Partition Act, he was first to offer it to members of the tribe, both mixed-blood and full-blood, in a form approved by the Secretary; that no sale of stock prior to that date was valid unless and until that offer was made; and that if the offer was not accepted by any member of the tribe, the sale to a nonmember could then be made but at a price no lower than that offered to the members. The articles further provided that all UDC stock certificates should have stamped thereon a prescribed legend referring to those sale conditions. The certificates so issued bore that legend. In addition, each certificate had on its face, in red lettering, a warning that the certificate did not represent stock in an ordinary business corporation, that its future value or return could not be determined, and that the stock should not be sold or encumbered by its owner, but should be retained and preserved for the benefit of the shareholder and his family. The UDC shareholders were advised of the substance of this warning on several occasions after the stock had been issued. UDC’s president testified that many responded by saying that their shares were their business and that they could do as they pleased with them. In August 1960 the Secretary promulgated regulations setting forth the procedure a mixed-blood should follow before effecting a pre-August 27, 1964, sale of his stock to an outsider. 25 Fed. Reg. 7620; 25 CFR §§ 243.1-243.12 (1962). These prescribed for the sale of the stock essentially the same procedure required under §15 of the Act, 25 U. S. C. § 677n, for a mixed-blood’s disposal of his interest in real property. 25 CFR §243.12 (1962). The seller first notified the superintendent of the reservation of the price and terms on which his offer was made. 25 CFR § 243.5 (1962). The superintendent then notified UDC and the business committee of the tribe and posted notices about the reservation. 25 CFR §243.6 (1962). If no member accepted the offer, the superintendent so informed the offeror, who was then free to sell “at any time within six months thereafter to any person at the same or greater price and upon the same terms and conditions upon which it was offered to the members.” 25 CFR § 243.8 (1962). Upon the sale to a nonmember, the seller furnished an affidavit to the superintendent stating the amount he had received. The superintendent prepared a certificate that the stock had first been offered to members and sent the certificate to the bank. The bank attached it to the stock book. The termination proclamation, contemplated by § 23 of the Act, 25 U. S. C. § 677v, was issued and published by the Secretary effective at midnight August 27, 1961. 26 Fed. Reg. 8042. This, of course, did not purport to terminate the trust status of the undivided assets. Cf. Menominee Tribe v. United States, 391 U. S. 404 (1968). II The Present Litigation A. The AUC Case. In April 1968 AUC, on its own behalf and as representative of its 490 mixed-blood members, instituted suit against the United States seeking (1) pro rata distribution to the individual members of the 27.16186% of the mineral estate underlying the reservation, and (2) a determination that AUC and not UDC is entitled to manage that property jointly with the business committee of the full-bloods. Jurisdiction was asserted under 25 U. S. C. § 345 (authorizing an action against the United States for an Indian allotment claim, see n. 11, infra), and under 28 U. S. C. §§ 1399 and 2409 (authorizing a partition action where the United States is a tenant in common or a joint tenant). The United States moved to dismiss the complaint for want of subject matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim. The District Court granted this motion on both grounds. The Tenth Circuit affirmed. 431 F. 2d 1349 (1970). B. The Reyos Case. In February 1965 Anita It. Reyos and 84 other mixed-bloods sued the bank, two of the bank’s employee-officers, John B. Gale and Yerl Haslem, and certain automobile dealers, charging violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and of Rule 10b-5 of the Securities and Exchange Commission. By subsequent amendment to the complaint the United States was added as a party defendant. Jurisdiction was asserted under 28 U. S. C. §§ 1331 and 1346 (b). The parties selected 12 “bellwether plaintiffs” from among the 85 for purposes of initial trial. These plaintiffs had sold UDC shares to various nonmembers including the defendants Gale and Haslem. The sales took place after the proclamation of termination of the federal trust relationship. The District Court held the bank and the two officer defendants liable for damages to each of the 12 plaintiffs. It also ruled that the United States possessed, and did not fulfill, a duty to prevent the sales and thus, under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U. S. C. §§ 2671-2680, was liable for damages with respect to sales that had taken place before August 27, 1964. It also ruled, however, that the United States was not liable with respect to sales after that date or to two plaintiffs whom the court found to be contributorily negligent. The court determined that the fair value of the UDC stock at the times of the plaintiffs’ sales was $1,500 per share. The damages against the two individuals and the bank were fixed in the aggregate at $129,519.56. Damages against the United States were fixed in the aggregate at $77,947.35. Judgment was entered accordingly under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 54 (b). The several defendants appealed and the 12 plaintiffs whose cases were tried cross-appealed. The Tenth Circuit reversed and remanded- 431 F. 2d 1337 (1970). C. On the petition of AUC and the 12 plaintiffs this Court granted certiorari in both cases because of the importance of the issues for Indians whose federal supervision is in the course of termination. 402 U. S. 905 (1971). Ill The AUC Case The two cases, although different, have their roots in the formation of UDC, and it is not inappropriate that the cases were consolidated and are here together. A. As hereinabove noted, AUC in its litigation seeks two things: outright distribution of the mixed-bloods’ percentage of the mineral estate, and a determination that AUC is entitled to participate in management with the business committee of the full-bloods. There is, and can be, no dispute that the United States holds title to the land, including the mineral interest, constituting the Uintah and Ouray Reservation. Prior to the 1954 Act all members of the tribe were the beneficial owners of that mineral interest. The division of the interest between the full-bloods, on the one hand, and the mixed-bloods, on the other, came about by reason of the Act and of the procedures set in motion by the Act. To the extent, therefore, that AUC, by its suit, seeks distribution to the individual mixed-bloods whom it purports to represent, it is necessarily a suit against the United States. The United States, of course, may not be sued without its consent. United States v. Sherwood, 312 U. S. 584, 586 (1941). This long-established principle has been applied in actions for the possession or conveyance of real estate. Malone v. Bowdoin, 369 U. S. 643 (1962). It has been applied to Indian lands the title to which the United States holds in trust. Minnesota v. United States, 305 U. S. 382 (1939); Oregon v. Hitchcock, 202 U. S. 60, 70 (1906). It has been applied, specifically, in a suit by an Indian who has a beneficial interest in land. Naganab v. Hitchcock, 202 U. S. 473 (1906). Naganab, therefore,' controls the distribution aspect of the AUC case unless the United States has consented to be sued. The consent, it is claimed, exists in 25 U. S. C. § 345. This, however, is an allotment statute. Allotment is a term of art in Indian law. U. S. Dept, of the Interior, Federal Indian Law 774 (1958). It means a selection of specific land awarded to an individual allottee from a common holding. Reynolds v. United States, 174 F. 212 (CA8 1909). See the Act of February 8, 1887, 24 Stat. 388, as amended, 25 U. S. C. §§ 331-334. Section 345 authorizes, and provides governmental consent for, only actions for allotment. First Moon v. White Tail, 270 U. S. 243 (1926); Harkins v. United States, 375 F. 2d 239 (CA 10 1967); United States v. Preston, 352 F. 2d 352, 355 (CA9 1965). See Arenas v. United States, 322 U. S. 419 (1944). Although the interest in the mineral estate that AUC seeks to have conveyed pro rata to the individual mixed-bloods perhaps could be made the subject of an allotment, it has never been so subjected. Neither is it appurtenant to an allotment. The interest relates to the tribal land of the reservation. It remains tribal property. Further, § 10 of the 1954 Act, 25 U. S. C. § 677i, itself contemplates and provides specifically for the non-allocation of that interest. We therefore readily conclude that § 345 has no application here. Neither do 28 U. S. C. §§ 1399 and 2409 afford a basis for jurisdiction; they have application only to partition suits where the United States is a tenant in common or a joint tenant. That is not this situation. The AUC action, therefore, was properly dismissed for want of jurisdiction. B. AUC’s prayer for a determination as to management rights deserves a further word. The Ute Partition Act was the result of proposals initiated by the tribe itself. See H. R. Rep. No. 2493, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1954); S. Rep. No. 1632, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 7 (1954). The tribe also drafted the Act. Id., at 3 and 7, respectively. It provided for organization by the mixed-bloods and “for the selection of authorized representatives” with power to take any action the Act required to be taken by the mixed-bloods as a group. § 6, 25 U. S. C. § 677e. AUC was formed in 1956 and was the product of this organizational power. Its constitution and bylaws authorize the delegation of necessary or desirable power or authority to corporations formed by the mixed-bloods. UDC was formed by mixed-bloods in 1958 specifically to manage mineral rights and unadjudicated claims against the United States jointly with the business committee. AUC approved UDC’s articles and by resolution delegated authority to UDC to act in accord with those articles. These steps were taken pursuant to the Partition Act. UDC’s formation and structure were contemplated by the Act, and AUC itself created and breathed life and vigor into UDC. All this was within Congress’ power. United States v. Waller, 243 U. S. 452, 462 (1917); Tiger v. Western Investment Co., 221 U. S. 286 (1911). UDC’s legitimacy was further recognized by its anticipatory exemption from federal income tax, under the Act of August 2, 1956, § 3, 70 Stat. 936; by the freeing of its shares from mortgage, levy, attachment, and the like, so long as the shares remained in the ownership of the original shareholder or his heirs or legatees, under the Act of September 25, 1962, 76 Stat. 597, 598; and by the inclusion of UDC by name as an entity to receive the trust fund resulting from the judgment against the United States in favor of the Confederated Bands of Ute Indians, under the Act of August 1, 1967, 81 Stat. 164, as amended, 82 Stat. 171, 25 U. S. C. § 676a. Clearly, it is UDC and not AUC that is entitled to manage the oil, gas, and mineral rights with the committee of the full-bloods. IV The Reyos Case In this case the 85 plaintiffs sought damages for alleged violations by the defendants, in connection with sales by the plaintiffs of their UDC shares, of § 10 (b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U. S. C. § 78j (b), and of Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder by the Securities and Exchange Commission, 17 CFR § 240.10b-5. The sales in question were effected in 1963 and 1964; some were made before, and some were made after, the expiration of the Secretary’s specified 10-year period following the passage of the Ute Partition Act. The claims center in the facts that the bank, by its agreement with UDC, was the transfer agent for UDC shares; that it had physical possession of all the stock certificates with their specific legend of caution and warning; that, because of the bank’s possession, a shareholder’s possible contact with, and awareness of, the legend was minimized; that the bank handled the documents implementing the first-refusal procedure; and that the mixed-blood who contemplated the sale of his shares was compelled to deal through the bank. The District Court made lengthy and meticulously, detailed findings of fact. Some are not challenged by any of the parties. Others are challenged. The following, we conclude, are adequately supported by the record: 1. In 1959, after the bank was retained as transfer agent, UDC’s attorney wrote the bank advising it that UDC’s directors, by formal minute, had instructed him to ask the bank “to discourage the sale of stock of the Ute Distribution Corporation by any of its stockholders and to emphasize and stress to the said stockholders the importance of retaining said stock.” The letter further stated, “[W]e trust you will impress upon anyone desiring to make a transfer that there is no possible way of determining the true value of this stock.” 2. The bank maintained a branch office in Roosevelt, Utah. Many mixed-bloods resided in that area. This was, “among other things for the purpose of facilitating and assisting mixed-bloods in the transfer” of the UDC stock. Defendants Gale and Haslem were the bank’s assistant managers at Roosevelt. They were also notaries public. 3. With respect to most of the sales of UDC stock by the 12 plaintiffs to nonmembers of the tribe, either Gale or Haslem prepared and notarized the necessary transfer papers, including signature guarantees and the affidavits of the sellers to the effect that they were receiving not less than the price at which the shares had been offered to members of the tribe. The procedure with respect to the preparation and execution of these affidavits was informal at best. In at least one case the affidavit was signed in blank; in another Gale dissuaded the seller from reading the affidavit before she signed it. 4. Some of the affidavits do not accurately describe the sales to which they relate. Although they state that the sales were for cash, some sellers actually received second-hand automobiles or other tangible property. The superintendent relied on the recitals in the affidavits in preparing his authenticating certificates that were transmitted to the bank as transfer agent. 5. During 1963 and 1964 mixed-bloods sold 1,387 shares of UDC stock. All were sold to nonmembers of the tribe. Haslem purchased 60 of these himself (all after August 27, 1964),.and Gale purchased 63 (44 before that date and 19 after). The 113 shares Haslem and Gale purchased constituted 8%% of the total sold by mixed-bloods during those two years. The 12 plaintiffs sold 120 shares; of these Gale purchased 10 and Haslem purchased six. They paid cash for the shares they purchased. Thirty-two other white men bought shares from mixed-bloods during the period. 6. In 1964 and 1965 UDC stock was sold by mixed-bloods at prices ranging from $300 to $700 per share. Shares were being transferred between whites, however, at prices from $500 to $700 per share. 7. Gale and Haslem possessed standing orders from non-Indian buyers. About seven of these were from outside the State. Some of the prospective purchasers maintained deposits at the bank for the purpose of ready consummation of any transaction. 8. The two men received various commissions and gratuities for their services in facilitating the transfer of UDC stock from mixed-bloods to non-Indians. Gále supplied some funds as sales advances to the mixed-blood sellers. He and Haslem solicited contracts for open purchases of UDC stock and did so on bank premises and during business hours. 9. In connection with all this, the bank sought individual accounts from the tribal members. 10. The United States mails and other instrumen-talities of interstate commerce were employed by the bank and by Gale and Haslem in connection with the transfer of the UDC shares. The District Court concluded: 1. As to the United States: The Government had reason to know that the mixed-bloods were selling UDC shares to non-Indians under circumstances of a doubtful nature. It owed a duty to the mixed-bloods to discourage and prevent those sales. Its failure to perform that duty was the proximate cause of the sales. 2. As to Gale and Haslem: The two men had devised a plan or scheme to acquire, for themselves and others, shares in UDC from mixed-bloods. In violation of their duty to make a fair disclosure, they succeeded in acquiring shares from mixed-bloods for less than fair value. 3. As to the bank: It was put upon notice of the improper activities of its employees, Gale and Haslem, knowingly created the apparent authority on their part, and was responsible for their conduct. Its liability was joint and several with that of Gale and Haslem. The District Court then ruled that each of the defendants, that is, the United States, the bank, Gale, and Haslem, was liable to each of the 12 plaintiffs (32 transactions involving 122 shares), except that the Government was not liable with respect to any sale after August 27, 1964, or with respect to sales made by plaintiffs Workman and Oran F. Curry because of their knowledge and contributory negligence. Using a $1,500-per-share value for UDC stock, as of the times of the sales, the above-described judgments for $129,519.56 and $77,947.35 were computed and entered. The Court of Appeals reversed in substantial part. It held: 1. As to the United States: There was no duty on the part of the Government to the petitioners, in connection with their sales of UDC stock, that continued after the 1961 termination. No form of wardship or of federal trust relationship existed with respect to the shares after that date. Thus, damages under the Tort Claims Act were not to be awarded. 431 F. 2d, at 1340-1343. 2. As to Gale and Haslem: They were liable only in those instances where the employee personally purchased shares for his own account or for resale to an undisclosed principal at a higher price. With respect to the other transactions, the two employees performed essentially ministerial functions related to share transfers and their conduct was not sufficient to incur liability. The court remanded the case on the issue of damages, 431 F. 2d, at 1345-1349. 3. As to the bank: There was no violation of any duty it may have had to plaintiffs by its contract with UDC. This was so despite the facts that Gale and Haslem were active in encouraging a market for the UDC stock and that the bank may have had some indirect benefit by way of increased deposits. 431 F. 2d, at 1343-1345. The bank, however, was liable to the extent Gale and Haslem were liable. 431 F. 2d, at 1346-1347. In summary, then, the Court of Appeals decided the Reyos case in favor of the United States and, in large part, in favor of the bank; held Gale and Haslem personally liable, and the bank also, only with respect to a few sales; and, as to those sales, remanded the case on the issue of damages. We consider, in turn, the posture of the several defendants. A. The United States. The proclamation of August 26, 1961, was contemplated by § 23 of the Act, 25 U. S. C. § 677v. To the extent the nature of the property so permitted, this marked the fulfillment of the purpose set forth in § 1 of the Act, 25 U. S. C. § 677, namely, the termination of federal supervision over the trust and restricted property of the mixed-bloods. It stated specifically that the mixed-blood thereupon “shall not be entitled to any of the services performed for Indians because of his status as an Indian.” This broad reference obviously included the shares of UDC although the undivided interests in turn held by UDC and shared with the full-bloods remained subject to restrictions after the proclamation. § 16 (a), 25 U. S. C. § 677o(a). The UDC stock itself, however, was free of restriction; as to it, federal termination was complete. Each mixed-blood could sell his shares as he wished and to whom he pleased, subject thereafter only to the restrictions imposed by UDC’s own articles. There was no remaining governmental authority over those shares. And without such authority there can be no liability on the part of the United States for failure to restrain a sale. The petitioners’ argument that the right of first refusal created a duty on the part of the Government does not persuade us. This first-refusal right with respect to UDC stock is provided for in the corporation’s articles and thus was created by UDC itself. The corporation’s action in this respect imposed no duty on the United States. To be sure, the first-refusal right was undoubtedly patterned after the first refusal provided for a period with respect to real estate in § 15 of the Act, 25 U. S. C. § 677n, and the Secretary’s regulations were made applicable to the first-refusal right in stock “as far as practicable.” 25 CFR § 243.12 (1962). But this parallel created no obligation. B. Gale and Haslem. Section 10 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U. S. C. § 78j, makes it unlawful “for any person, directly or indirectly,” to “employ, in connection with the purchase or sale of any security... any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance in contravention” of any rule “the Commission may prescribe as necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors.” One such rule so prescribed is Rule 10b-5. This declares that, in connection with the purchase or sale of any security, it shall be “unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly,” (1) “To employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud,” (2) “To make any untrue statement of a material fact” or to omit to state a material fact so that the statements made “in the light of the circumstances,” are misleading, and (3) “To engage in any act, practice, or course of business which operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon any person.” These proscriptions, by statute and rule, are broad and, by repeated use of the word “any,” are obviously meant to be inclusive. The Court has said that the 1934 Act and its companion legislative enactments embrace a “fundamental purpose... to substitute a philosophy of full disclosure for the philosophy of caveat emptor and thus to achieve a high standard of business ethics in the securities industry.” SEC v. Capital Gains Research Bureau, 375 U. S. 180, 186 (1963). In the case just cited the Court noted that Congress intended securities legislation enacted for the purpose of avoiding frauds to be construed “not technically and restrictively, but flexibly to effectuate its remedial purposes.” Id., at 195. This was recently said once again in Superintendent of Insurance v. Bankers Life & Casualty Co., 404 U. S. 6, 12 (1971). In the light of the congressional philosophy and purpose, so clearly emphasized by the Court, we conclude that the Court of Appeals viewed too narrowly the activities of defendants Gale and Haslem. We would agree that if the two men and the employer bank had functioned merely as a transfer agent, there would have been no duty of disclosure here. But, as the Court of Appeals itself observed, the record shows that Gale and Haslem “were active in encouraging a market for the UDC stock among non-Indians.” 431 F. 2d, at 1345. They did this by soliciting and accepting standing orders from non-Indians. They and the bank, as a result, received increased deposits because of the development of this market. The two men also received commissions and gratuities from the expectant non-Indian buyers. The men, and hence the bank, as the Court found, were “entirely familiar with the prevailing market for the shares at all material times.” 431 F. 2d, at 1347. The bank itself had acknowledged, by letter to AUC in January 1958, that “it would be our duty to see that these transfers were properly made” and that, with respect to the sale of shares, “the bank would be acting for the individual stockholders.” The mixed-blood sellers “considered these defendants to be familiar with the market for the shares of stock and relied upon them when they desired to sell their shares.” 431 F. 2d, at 1347. Clearly, the Court of Appeals was right to the extent that it held that the two employees had violated Rule 1 Ob — 5; in the instances specified in that holding the record reveals a misstatement of a material fact, within the proscription of Rule 10b-5 (2), namely, that the prevailing market price of the UDC shares was the figure at which their purchases were made. We conclude, however, that the Court of Appeals erred when it held that there was no violation of the Rule unless the record disclosed evidence of reliance on material fact misrepresentations by Gale and Haslem. 431 F. 2d, at 1348. We do not read Rule 10b-5 so restrictively. To be sure, the second subparagraph of the rule specifies the making of an untrue statement of a material fact and the omission to state a material fact. The first and third subparagraphs are not so restricted. These defendants’ activities, outlined above, disclose, within the very language of one or the other of those sub-paragraphs, a “course of business” or a “device, scheme, or artifice” that operated as a fraud upon the Indian sellers. Superintendent of Insurance v. Bankers Life & Casualty Co., supra. This is so because the defendants devised a plan and induced the mixed-blood holders of UDC stock to dispose of their shares without disclosing to them material facts that reasonably could have been expected to influence their decisions to sell. The individual defendants, in a distinct sense, were market makers, not only for their personal purchases constituting 8%% of the sales, but for the other sales their activities produced. This being so, they possessed the affirmative duty under the Rule to disclose this fact to the mixed-blood sellers. See Chasins v. Smith, Barney & Co., 438 F. 2d 1167 (CA2 1970). It is no answer to urge that, as to some Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 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. Mr. Justice Fortas delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a civil action brought by the United States to enjoin the appellees from participating in an alleged conspiracy to restrain trade in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act. The United States District Court for the Southern District of California concluded that the proof failed to establish the alleged violation, and entered judgment for the defendants. The case is here on direct appeal under § 2 of the Expediting Act, 32 Stat. 823, 15 U. S. C. § 29 (1964 ed.). We reverse. I. The appellees are the General Motors Corporation, which manufactures, among other things, the Chevrolet line of cars and trucks, and three associations of Chevrolet dealers in and around Los Angeles, California. All of the Chevrolet dealers in the area belong to one or more of the appellee associations. Chevrolets are ordinarily distributed by dealers operating under a franchise from General Motors. The dealers purchase the cars from the manufacturer, and then retail them to the public. The relationship between manufacturer and dealer is incorporated in a comprehensive uniform Dealer Selling Agreement. This agreement does not restrict or define those to whom the dealer may sell. Nor are there limitations as to the territory within which the dealer may sell. Compare White Motor Co. v. United States, 372 U. S. 253. The franchise agreement does, however, contain a clause (hereinafter referred to as the “location clause”) which prohibits a dealer from moving to or establishing “a new or different location, branch sales office, branch service station, or place of business including any used car lot or location without the prior written approval of Chevrolet.” Beginning in the late 1950’s, “discount houses” engaged in retailing consumer goods in the Los Angeles area and “referral services” began offering to sell new cars to the public at allegedly bargain prices. Their sources of supply were the franchised dealers. By 1960 a number of individual Chevrolet dealers, without authorization from General Motors, had developed working relationships with these establishments. A customer would enter one of these establishments and examine the literature and price lists for automobiles produced by several manufacturers. In some instances, floor models were available for inspection. Some of the establishments negotiated with the customer for a trade-in of his old car, and provided financing for his new-car purchase. The relationship with the franchised dealer took var-c ious forms. One arrangement was for the discounter to refer the customer to the dealer. The car would then be offered to him by the dealer at a price previously agreed upon between the dealer and the discounter. In 1960, a typical referral agreement concerning Chevrolets provided that the price to the customer was not to exceed $250 over the dealer’s invoiced cost. For its part in supplying the customer, the discounter received $50 per sale. Another common arrangement was for the discounter itself to negotiate the sale, the dealer’s role being to furnish the car and to transfer title to the customer at the direction of the discounter. One dealer furnished Chev-rolets under such an arrangement, charging the discounter $85 over its invoiced cost, with the discounter getting the best price it could from its customer. These were the principal forms of trading involved in this case, although within each there were variations, and there were schemes which fit neither pattern. By 1960 these methods for retailing new cars had reached considerable dimensions. Of the 100,000 new Chevro-lets sold in the Los Angeles area in that year, some 2,000 represented discount house or referral sales. One Chevrolet dealer attributed as much as 25% of its annual sales to participation in these arrangements, while another accounted for between 400 and 525 referral sales in a single year. Approximately a dozen of the 85 Chevrolet dealers in the Los Angeles area were furnishing cars to discounters in 1960. As the volume of these sales grew, the nonparticipating Chevrolet dealers located near one or more of the discount outlets began to feel the pinch. Dealers lost sales because potential customers received, or thought they would receive, a more attractive deal from a discounter who obtained its Chevrolets from a distant dealer. The discounters vigorously advertised Chevrolets for sale, with alluring statements as to price savings. The discounters also advertised that all Chevrolet dealers were obligated to honor the new-car warranty and to provide the free services contemplated therein; and General Motors does indeed require Chevrolet dealers to service Chevrolet cars, wherever purchased, pursuant to the new-car warranty and service agreement. Accordingly, nonparticipating dealers were increasingly called upon to service, without compensation, Chevrolets purchased through discounters. Perhaps what grated most was the demand that they “precondition” cars so purchased — make the hopefully minor adjustments and do the body and paint work necessary to render a factory-fresh car both customer- and road-worthy. On June 28, 1960, at a regular meeting of the appellee Losor Chevrolet Dealers Association, member dealers discussed the problem and resolved to bring it to the attention of the Chevrolet Division’s Los Angeles zone manager, Robert O’Connor. Shortly thereafter, a delegation from the association called upon O’Connor, presented evidence that some dealers were doing business with the discounters, and asked for his assistance. O’Connor promised he would speak to the offending dealers. When no help was forthcoming, Owen Keown, a director of Losor, took matters into his own hands. First, he spoke to Warren Biggs and Wilbur Newman, Chevrolet dealers who were then doing a substantial business with discounters. According to Keown’s testimony, Newman told him that he would continue the practice “until... told not to by” Chevrolet, and that “when the Chevrolet Motor Division told him not to do it, he knew that they wouldn’t let some other dealer carry on with it.” Keown then reported the foregoing events at the association’s annual meeting in Honolulu on November 10, 1960. The member dealers present agreed immediately to flood General Motors and the Chevrolet Division with letters and telegrams asking for help. Salesmen, too, were to write. Hundreds of letters and wires descended upon Detroit — with telling effect. Within a week Chevrolet’s O’Connor was directed to furnish his superiors in Detroit with “a detailed report of the discount house operations... as well as what action we in the Zone are taking to curb such sales.” By mid-December General Motors had formulated its response. On December 15, James M. Roche, then an executive vice president of General Motors, wrote to some of the complaining dealers. He noted that the practices to which they were objecting “in some instances represent the establishment of a second and unauthorized sales outlet or location contrary to the provisions of the General Motors Dealers Selling Agreements.” (Emphasis supplied.) Recipients of the letter were advised that General Motors personnel proposed to discuss that matter with each of the dealers. O’Connor in Los Angeles was apprised of the letter’s content and instructed to carry on the personal discussions referred to therein. With respect to the offending dealers, he was to work with Roy Cash, regional manager for the Chevrolet Division. Cash had been briefed on the subject in Detroit on December 14. General Motors personnel proceeded to telephone all area dealers, both to identify those associated with the discounters and to advise nonparticipants that General Motors had entered the lists. The principal offenders were treated to unprecedented individual confrontations with Cash, the regional manager. These brief meetings were wholly successful in obtaining from each dealer his agreement to abandon the practices in question. Some capitulated during the course of the four- or five-minute meeting, or immediately thereafter. One dealer, who met not with Cash but with the city sales manager for Chevrolet, put off decision for a week “to make sure that the other dealers, or most of them, had stopped their business dealings with discount houses.” There is evidence that unanimity was not obtained without reference to the ultimate power of General Motors. The testimony of dealer Wilbur Newman was that regional manager Cash related a story, the relevance of which was not lost upon him, that in handling children, “I can tell them to stop something. If they don’t do it... I can knock their teeth down their throats.” By mid-January General Motors had elicited from each dealer a promise not to do business with the discounters. But such agreements would require policing— a fact which had been anticipated. General Motors earlier had initiated contacts with firms capable of performing such a function. This plan, unilaterally to police the agreements, was displaced, however, in favor of a joint effort between General Motors, the three ap-pellee associations, and a number of individual dealers. On December 15, 1960, representatives of the three appellee associations had met and appointed a joint committee to study the situation and to keep in touch with Chevrolet’s O’Connor. Early in 1961, the three associations agreed jointly to finance the “shopping” of the discounters to assure that no Chevrolet dealer continued to supply them with cars. Each of the associations contributed $5,000, and a professional investigator was hired. He was instructed to try to purchase new Chevrolets from the proscribed outlets, to tape-record the transactions, if any, and to gather all the necessary documentary evidence — which the associations would then lay “at the doorstep of Chevrolet.” These joint associational activities were both preceded and supplemented by similar “shopping” activities by individual dealers and by ap-pellee Losor Chevrolet Dealers Association. General Motors collaborated with these policing activities. There is evidence that zone manager O’Connor and a subordinate, Jere Faust, actively solicited the help of individual dealers in uncovering violations. Armed with information of such violations obtained from the dealers or their associations, O’Connor or members of his staff would ask the offending dealer to come in and talk. The dealer then was confronted with the car purchased by the “shopper,” the documents of sale, and in most cases a tape recording of the transaction. In every instance, the embarrassed dealer repurchased the car, sometimes at a substantial loss, and promised to stop such sales. At the direction of O’Connor or a subordinate, the checks with which the cars were repurchased were made payable to an attorney acting jointly for the three defendant associations. O’Connor testified that on no occasion did he “force” a dealer to repurchase; he merely made the opportunity available. But one dealer testified that when an assistant zone manager for the Chevrolet Division asked him to come in and talk about discount sales, “he specified a sum of money which I was to bring with me when I came down and saw him.... I kept the appointment and brought a cashier’s check. I knew when I came down to Los Angeles that I was going to repurchase an automobile....” Another dealer testified that upon being confronted with evidence that one of his cars had been purchased through a referral service, he not only bought it back (without questioning the correctness of the price exacted) but also fired the employee responsible for the transaction — although the employee had been commended by the Chevrolet Division a few weeks earlier as the “number one fleet salesman” in the 11-state Pacific region. By the spring of 1961, the campaign to eliminate the discounters from commerce in new Chevrolet cars was a success. Sales through the discount outlets seem to have come to a halt. Not until a federal grand jury commenced an inquiry into the matters which we have sketched does it appear that any Chevrolet dealer resumed its business association with the discounters. II. On these basic facts, the Government first proceeded criminally. A federal grand jury in the Southern District of California‘returned an indictment. After trial, the defendants were found not guilty. The present civil action, filed shortly after return of the indictment, was then brought to trial. Both the Government and the appellees urge the importance, for purposes of decision, of the “location clause” in the Dealer Selling Agreement which prohibits a franchised dealer from moving to or establishing “a new or different location, branch sales office, branch service station, or place of business... without the prior written approval of Chevrolet.” The appellees contend that this contractual provision is lawful, and that it justifies their actions. They argue that General Motors acted lawfully to prevent its dealers from violating the “location clause,” that the described arrangements with discounters constitute the establishment of additional sales outlets in violation of the clause, and that the individual dealers — and their associations — have an interest in uniform compliance with the franchise agreement, which interest they lawfully sought to vindicate. The Government invites us to join in the assumption, only for purposes of this case, that the “location clause” encompasses sales by dealers through the medium of discounters. But it urges us to hold that, so construed, the provision is unlawful as an unreasonable restraint of trade in violation of the Sherman Act. We need not reach these questions concerning the meaning, effect, or validity of the “location clause” or of any other provision in the Dealer Selling Agreement, and we do not. We do not decide whether the “location clause” may be construed to prohibit a dealer, party to it, from selling through discounters, or whether General Motors could by unilateral action enforce the clause, so construed. We have here a classic conspiracy in restraint of trade: joint, collaborative action by dealers, the appellee associations, and General Motors to eliminate a class of competitors by terminating business dealings between them and a minority of Chevrolet dealers and to deprive franchised dealers of their freedom to deal through discounters if they so choose. Against this fact of unlawful combination, the “location clause” is of no avail. Whatever General Motors might or might not lawfully have done to enforce individual Dealer Selling Agreements by action within the borders of those agreements and the relationship which each defines, is beside the point. And, because the action taken constitutes a combination or conspiracy, it is not necessary to consider what might be the legitimate interest of a dealer in securing compliance by others with the “location clause,” or the lawfulness of action a dealer might individually take to vindicate this interest. The District Court decided otherwise. It concluded that the described events did not add up to a combination or conspiracy violative of the antitrust laws. But its conclusion cannot be squared with its own specific findings of fact. These findings include the essentials of a conspiracy within § 1 of the Sherman Act: That in the summer of 1960 the Losor Chevrolet Dealers Association, “through some of its dealer-members,” complained to General Motors personnel about sales through discounters (Finding 34); that at a Losor meeting in November 1960 the dealers there present agreed to embark on a letter-writing campaign directed at enlisting the aid of General Motors (Finding 35); that in December and January General Motors personnel discussed the matter with every Chevrolet dealer in the Los Angeles area and elicited from each a promise not to do business with the discounters (Finding 39); that representatives of the three associations of Chevrolet dealers met on December 15, 1960, and created a joint investigating committee (Finding 40); that the three associations then undertook jointly to police the agreements obtained from each of the dealers by General Motors; that the associations supplied information to General Motors for use by it in bringing wayward dealers into line, and that Chevrolet’s O’Connor asked the associations to do so (Findings 41 and 42); that as a result of this collaborative effort, a number of Chevrolet dealers were induced to repurchase cars they had sold through discounters and to promise to abjure such sales in future (Finding 42). These findings by the trial judge compel the conclusion that a conspiracy to restrain trade was proved. The error of the trial court lies in its failure to apply the correct and established standard for ascertaining the existence of a combination or conspiracy under § 1 of the Sherman Act. See United States v. Parke, Davis & Co., 362 U. S. 29, 44-45. The trial court attempted to justify its conclusion on the following reasoning: That each defendant and alleged co-conspirator acted to promote its own self-interest; that General Motors, as well as the defendant associations and their members, has a lawful interest in securing compliance with the “location clause” and in thus protecting the franchise system of distributing automobiles — business arrangements which the court deemed lawful and proper; and that in seeking to vindicate these interests the defendants and their alleged co-conspirators entered into no “agreements” among themselves, although they may have engaged in “parallel action.” These factors do not justify the result reached. It is of no consequence, for purposes of determining whether there has been a combination or conspiracy under § 1 of the Sherman Act, that each party acted in its own lawful interest. Nor is it of consequence for this purpose whether the “location clause” and franchise system are lawful or economically desirable. And although we regard as clearly erroneous and irreconcilable with its other findings the trial court’s conclusory “finding” that there had been no “agreement” among the defendants and their alleged co-conspirators, it has long been settled that explicit agreement is not a necessary part of a Sherman Act conspiracy — certainly not where, as here, joint and collaborative action was pervasive in the initiation, execution, and fulfillment of the plan. United States v. Parke, Davis & Co., supra, at 43; United States v. Bausch & Lomb Optical Co., 321 U. S. 707, 722-723; Federal Trade Comm’n v. Beech-Nut Packing Co., 257 U. S. 441, 455. Neither individual dealers nor the associations acted independently or separately. The dealers collaborated, through the associations and otherwise, among themselves and with General Motors, both to enlist the aid of General Motors and to enforce dealers’ promises to forsake the discounters. The associations explicitly entered into a joint venture to assist General Motors in policing the dealers’ promises, and their joint proffer of aid was accepted and utilized by General Motors. Nor did General Motors confine its activities to the contractual boundaries of its relationships with individual dealers. As the trial court found (Finding 39), General Motors at no time announced that it would terminate the franchise of any dealer which furnished cars to the discounters. The evidence indicates that it had no intention of acting in this unilateral fashion. On the contrary, overriding corporate policy with respect to proper dealer relations dissuaded General Motors from engaging in this sort of wholly unilateral conduct, the validity of which under the antitrust laws was assumed, without being decided, in Parke Davis, supra. As Parke Davis had done, General Motors sought to elicit from all the dealers agreements, substantially interrelated and interdependent, that none of them would do business with the discounters. These agreements were hammered out in meetings between nonconforming dealers and officials of General Motors’ Chevrolet Division, and in telephone conversations with other dealers. It was acknowledged from the beginning that substantial unanimity would be essential if the agreements were to be forthcoming. And once the agreements were secured, General Motors both solicited and employed the assistance of its alleged co-conspirators in helping to police them. What resulted was a fabric interwoven by many strands of joint action to eliminate the discounters from participation in the market, to inhibit the free choice of franchised dealers to select their own methods of trade and to provide multilateral surveillance and enforcement. This process for achieving and enforcing the desired objective can by no stretch of the imagination be described as “unilateral” or merely “parallel.” See Parke Davis, supra, at 46; Federal Trade Comm’n v. Beech-Nut Packing Co., 257 U. S. 441, 453; United States v. Bausch & Lomb Optical Co., 321 U. S. 707, 722-723; Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. United States, 306 U. S. 208, 226; United States v. Masonite Corp., 316 U. S. 265, 275; Turner, The Definition of Agreement Under the Sherman Act: Conscious Parallelism and Refusals to Deal, 75 Harv. L. Rev. 655 (1962). There can be no doubt that the effect of the combination or conspiracy here was to restrain trade and commerce within the meaning of the Sherman Act. Elimination, by joint collaborative action, of discounters from access to the market is a per se violation of the Act. In Klor’s, Inc. v. Broadway-Hale Stores, Inc., 359 U. S. 207, the Court was confronted with the question whether “a group of powerful businessmen may act in concert to deprive a single merchant, like Klor, of the goods he needs to compete effectively.” 359 U. S., at 210. The allegation was that manufacturers and distributors of electrical appliances had conspired among themselves and with a major retailer, Broadway-Hale, “either not to sell to Klor’s [ Broadway-Hale’s next-door neighbor and competitor] or to sell to it only at discriminatory prices and highly unfavorable terms.” 359 U. S., at 209. The Court concluded that the alleged group boycott of even a single trader violated the statute without regard to the reasonableness of the conduct in the circumstances. Group boycotts of a trader, said the Court, are among those “classes of restraints which from their ‘nature or character’ were unduly restrictive....” 359 U. S., at 211. This was not new doctrine, for it had long been recognized that “there are certain agreements or practices which because of their pernicious effect on competition and lack of any redeeming virtue are conclusively presumed to be unreasonable and therefore illegal without elaborate inquiry as to the precise harm they have caused or the business excuse for their use,” and that group boycotts are of this character. Northern Pac. R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S. 1, 5. See also Fashion Originators’ Guild of America, Inc. v. Federal Trade Comm’n, 312 U. S. 457, and Eastern States Retail Lumber Dealers’ Assn. v. United States, 234 U. S. 600, 613-614, neither of which involved price-fixing. The principle of these cases is that where businessmen concert their actions in order to deprive others of access to merchandise which the latter wish to sell to the public, we need not inquire into the economic motivation underlying their conduct. See Barber, Refusals To Deal Under the Federal Antitrust Laws, 103 U. Pa. L. Rev. 847, 872-885 (1955). Exclusion of traders from the market by means of combination or conspiracy is so inconsistent with the free-market principles embodied in the Sherman Act that it is not to be saved by reference to the need for preserving the collaborators’ profit margins or their system for distributing automobiles, any more than by reference.to the allegedly tortious conduct against which a combination or conspiracy may be directed — as in Fashion Originators’ Guild of America, Inc. v. Federal Trade Comm’n, supra, at 468. We note, moreover, that inherent in the success of the combination in this case was a substantial restraint upon price competition — a goal unlawful per se when sought to be effected by combination or conspiracy. E. g., United States v. Parke, Davis & Co., 362 U. S. 29, 47; United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, 223. And the per se rule applies even when the effect upon prices is indirect. Simpson v. Union Oil Co., 377 U. S. 13, 16-22; Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., supra. There is in the record ample evidence that one of the purposes behind the concerted effort to eliminate sales of new Chevrolet cars by discounters was to protect franchised dealers from real or apparent price competition. The discounters advertised price savings. See n. 7, supra. Some purchasers found and others believed that discount prices were lower than those available through the franchised dealers. Ibid. Certainly, complaints about price competition were prominent in the letters and telegrams with which the individual dealers and salesmen bombarded General Motors in November I960. (Finding 38.) And although the District Court found to the contrary, there is evidenpe in the record that General Motors itself was not unconcerned about the effect of discount sales upon general price levels. The protection of price competition from conspiratorial restraint is an object of special solicitude under the antitrust laws. We cannot respect that solicitude by closing our eyes to the effect upon price competition of the removal from the market, by combination or conspiracy, of a class of traders. Nor do we propose to construe the Sherman Act to prohibit conspiracies to fix prices at which competitors may sell, but to allow conspiracies or combinations to put competitors out of business entirely. Accordingly, we reverse and remand to the United States District Court for the Southern District of California in order that it may fashion appropriate equitable relief. See United States v. Parke, Davis & Co., supra, at 47-48. It is so ordered. The statute reads in relevant part: “Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal....” 26 Stat. 209, 15 U. S. C. § 1 (1964 ed.). Named as co-conspirators but not as defendants are “[t]he officers, directors, and members of [the three associations], certain officers and employees of such members, certain officers and employees of General Motors, other Chevrolet dealers in the Southern California area, and others to the plaintiff unknown....” Since the evidence does not consistently distinguish between “discount houses” and “referral services,” based either on the variety of goods offered to the public or on the nature of the arrangement between the establishment and the franchised dealer which supplied it with cars, we shall hereinafter use the term “discounter” to embrace all such establishments. One dealer, for example, paid its referral service one-third of the gross profit on each sale, up to $75, there being no fixed price at which the sale was to take place. The same dealer earlier had paid a flat fee of $17.50 for every referral, whether or not the sale was consummated. At least one discount house actually purchased its cars from cooperative dealers, then resold them to its customers. In this situation, which in the trade is referred to as “bootlegging,” the customer does not receive a new-car warranty. General Motors, while disapproving of the practice, does not assert that it violates the “location clause.” In those arrangements against which General Motors and the associations did direct their efforts, title to the new car passed directly from dealer to retail customer, who thus obtained a new-car warranty and service agreement. There must also be distinguished the ubiquitous practice of using “bird dogs” — informal sources who steer occasional customers toward a particular dealer, in return for relatively small fees — often a bottle of liquor. This practice, is not only deemed by General Motors not to violate the “location clause,” but has the corporation’s endorsement as a desirable sales device. As the District Court found, 70% of the local Chevrolet dealers were located within five miles of one or more of the 23 discount house or referral outlets. There is evidence in the record that discount sales undercut the prices at which franchised dealers were able to, or chose to, compete. Two purchasers of Chevrolets, one on referral and the other in a discount house “sale,” testified that they had “shopped” other dealers but found the discount and referral prices lower. Dealers and their salesmen complained to General Motors about sales lost through inability to meet the discounters’ price. Moreover, the discounters advertised and actually provided auto loans at interest rates substantially lower than those offered by G. M. A. C., General Motors’ financing subsidiary. There is also evidence that it was not just price itself which induced customers to purchase Chevrolets through the discounters. One customer testified that he preferred the discount house because he thereby avoided the haggling over price which seems an inevitable facet of purchasing a car in the orthodox way. Others apparently assumed, without bothering to confirm by comparison shopping, that “discount” stores would offer lower prices. This assumption was fed by discount house advertising which promised “the lowest price anywhere” and “savings of hundreds of dollars.” Dealer Biggs put the same sentiments into a letter to both Keown and Chevrolet’s zone manager O’Connor, written on November 5, 1960. The day before, in O’Connor’s presence, Keown had challenged Biggs to justify his dealings with the discounters. Biggs wrote: “We would be most reluctant to discard an account as good as this one without rather concrete assurance that it would not immediately be picked up by another Chevrolet dealer.” Two weeks later, O’Connor forwarded Biggs' letter to General Motors officials in Detroit. In Keown’s words, “We were seeking the assistance of the higher echelon officials of Chevrolet and General Motors in bringing about an end to the discount house sale of Chevrolets.” O’Connor’s report, dated November 22, recounted that “zone management” had talked with the offending dealers “in an attempt to have them desist,” and that “[o]ur Dealer Associations have formed a committee to call on the supplying dealers and have asked them and have attempted to persuade them to discontinue this practice.” Supported by a copy of dealer Biggs’ letter, see n. 8, supra, O’Connor predicted that “many dealers will cease this type of business if they had any assurance that the account would not be picked up by some other dealer, immediately upon relinquishment.” Roche wrote to those dealers who had complained directly to John Gordon, then president of General Motors. On December 29, 1960, a virtually identical letter went out to all General Motors dealers throughout the Nation, under the signature of the general sales managers for the respective divisions. One dealer testified that he abruptly terminated arrangements long maintained with two discount houses, despite the fact that one of these connections owed him $20,000 and the other $28,000. In the preceding four weeks the latter had reduced its indebtedness by $52,000 and could reasonably have been expected to erase it completely within a few weeks. The dealer anticipated that upon cancellation of the accounts these debts would become uncollectible. His fears were justified. The accounts were terminated. The debts remained unpaid. According to Francis Bruder, a dealer who had been doing business with the discounters since 1957, “Cash told me that he felt certain that the other dealers would discontinue dealing with discount houses and referral services as well. I left this meeting with the impression that every dealer who had been doing business with a discount house or referral service would soon quit.” This was precisely the impression General Motors had intended to implant. As was explained in an inter-office memorandum to the general sales manager of General Motors’ Chevrolet Division, “[All dealers were talked to] in order that every dealer with whom the subject was discussed would know that a similar discussion was being held with all other dealers so that, if certain dealers should elect to discontinue their cooperation with a discount house, we might be able to discourage some other dealer who might be solicited from starting the practice.” The District Court characterized this December 15 meeting as the first between representatives of the three associations, pertaining to the problem of discount house and referral sales. However, as we have previously noted, n. 10, supra, O’Connor reported to General Motors three weeks earlier, on November 22, that the three associations had formed a committee which already had called upon nonconforming dealers. The record does not enable us to resolve this factual conflict, nor is its resolution important. On either version, the appellee associations entered into an explicit agreement to act together to eliminate the new mode of intrabrand competition. The Government’s complaint contains no reference to the “location clause,” and the Government concedes that its case was tried on a conspiracy theory, the defendants injecting the contractual issue by way of defense. Trial counsel for the Government did advert to the clause in the District Court, but it does not appear that he challenged its validity, as construed, in the same sense..that the Government does here. See Trial Transcript, pp. 9, 17-18. In light of our disposition of the case, we have no occasion to consider whether the Government’s argument directed to the clause, as construed, is properly before us. We note that, as in United States v. Parke, Davis & Co., 362 U. S. 29, 44-45, the ultimate conclusion by the trial judge, that the defendants’ conduct did not constitute a combination or conspiracy-in violation of the Sherman Act, is not to be shielded by the “clearly erroneous” test embodied in Rule 52 (a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. That Rule in part provides: “Findings of fact shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous, and due regard shall be given to the opportunity- of the trial court to judge of the credibility of the witnesses.” As in Parke Davis, supra, the question here is not one of “fact,” but consists rather of the legal standard required to be applied to the undisputed facts of the case. See United States v. Singer Mfg. Co., 374 U. S. 174, 194, n. 9; United States v. Mississippi Valley Co., 364 U. S. 520, 526, and cases there cited. Moreover, the trial court’s customary opportunity to evaluate the demeanor and thus the credibility of the witnesses, which is the rationale behind Rule 52 (a) (see United States v. Oregon State Med. Soc., 343 U. S. 326, 331-332), plays only a restricted role here. This was essentially a “paper case.” It did not unfold by the testimony of “live” witnesses. Of the 38 witnesses who gave testimony, only three appeared in person. The testimony of the other 35 witnesses was submitted either by affidavit, by deposition, or in the form of an agreed-upon narrative of testimony given in the earlier criminal proceeding before another judge. A vast number of documents were also introduced, and bear on the question for decision. In any event, we resort to the record not to contradict the trial court’s findings of fact, as distinguished from its conclusory “findings,” but to supplement the court’s factual findings and to assist us in determining whether they support the court’s ultimate legal conclusion that there was no conspiracy. The December letters to all dealers said only that “[i]n effect, in some instances” the arrangements in question might violate the unauthorized location clause of the Dealer Selling Agreement. No dealer was told, either by letter or in person, that its conduct violated the franchise agreement, and no dealer was warned that continuance of discount house or referral sales would result in termination of its franchise. Zone manager O’Connor did not regard his instructions from Detroit as authorizing him to go that far, and he was of the view that “the general letter [to all dealers] didn’t suggest any such thing.” We refer to this without considering whether General Motors could lawfully have taken such action. James Roche testified, “It is not [General Motors’] practice to threaten dealers with termination of their franchise.” Good dealers and dealer locations, he said, are hard to come by. In many dealerships, General Motors itself has invested substantial fun<fs.;. Therefore, said Roche, “we would not want our people to go in and wave the franchise agreement, selling agreement, and threaten the dealer with termination in the event he didn’t agree, after following — after reading a letter he was violating our agreement and should change his practice. Instead we expected that this would be handled on a sound, calm, sensible business-like approach.” There are also statutory inhibitions on the right of an automobile manufacturer to terminate dealer franchises. See Act of Aug. 8, 1956, c. 1038, §2, 70 Stat. 1125, 15 U. S. C. § 1222 (1964 ed.); Kessler & Stern, Competition, Contract, and Vertical Integration, 69 Yale L. J. 1, 103-114 (1959). Compare Klein v. American Luggage Works, Inc Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. The Rules on Containers are collectively bargained-for guidelines requiring marine shipping companies to allow some of the large cargo containers that they own or lease to be loaded or unloaded by longshoremen at the pier. In NLRB v. Longshoremen, 447 U. S. 490 (1980) (ILA I), we reviewed the National Labor Relations Board’s conclusion that the Rules and their enforcement constituted unlawful secondary activity under §§ 8(b)(4)(B) and 8(e) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §§ 158(b)(4) (B) and 158(e). Respondent union, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), defended the Rules as lawful under the “work preservation” doctrine of National Woodwork Manufacturers Assn. v. NLRB, 386 U. S. 612 (1967). We ruled, however, that the Board’s preliminary definition of the work in dispute had been legally erroneous, because it focused on the off-pier work of nonlongshoremen rather than on the work of longshoremen sought to be preserved. 447 U. S., at 507-508. We therefore affirmed the Court of Appeals’ remand of the Rules to the Board, directing it to “focus on the work of the bargaining unit employees, not on the work of other employees who may be doing the same or similar work.” Id., at 507. The Board then sustained the Rules, but held that their enforcement against “short-stopping” truckers and “traditional” warehousers is unlawful. 266 N. L. R. B. 230 (1983). The question now presented is whether the Board’s partial invalidation of the Rules as applied in these two contexts is consistent with ILA I. I At issue is the response of unionized dockworkers to a technological innovation known as “containerization.” Traditionally, longshoremen employed by steamship or steve-doring companies loaded and unloaded cargo into and out of oceangoing vessels at the pier. Cargo arriving at the pier by truck was “transferred piece by piece from the truck’s tailgate to the ship by longshoremen.... The longshoremen checked the cargo, sorted it, placed it on pallets and moved it by forklift to the side of the ship, and lifted it by means of a sling or hook into the ship’s hold. The process was reversed for cargo taken off incoming ships.” 447 U. S., at 495. As we explained in some detail in ILA I, the advent of containerization some 25 years ago profoundly transformed this traditional pattern, by reducing the cost of ocean cargo transport and “largely eliminat[ing] the need for cargo handling at intermediate stages.” Id., at 509. It is thus unsurprising that “the amount of on-pier work involved in cargo handling has been drastically reduced” and that containerization has been since its inception a “hotly disputed topic of collective bargaining” between the ILA and the marine shipping companies. Id., at 495-496. The Rules are the evolutionary product of the ILA’s bargaining efforts that began with the introduction of the first oceangoing container ship in the Port of New York in 1957. The Rules do not require that all containers be loaded or unloaded by longshoremen at the pier. Instead, they apply only to containers that would otherwise be loaded or unloaded within the local port area, defined for convenience as anywhere within a 50-mile radius of the port. Rule 1(a). Containers directly coming from or going to points beyond the 50-mile radius are not affected by the Rules. Rule 2. Even within the 50-mile area, containers that go directly to the owner of the cargo or to “bona fide” warehouses are exempted from the Rules. Rules 1(a)(2) and (3), 2(B)(4). To ensure compliance, a fine of $1,000 is levied against a marine shipping company for each of its containers that it allows to be handled in violation of the Rules. Rule 7(c). As we noted in ILA I: “The practical effect of the Rules is that some 80% of containers pass over the piers intact. The remaining 20% are [loaded and unloaded] by longshoremen, regardless of whether that work duplicates work done by non-ILA employees off-pier.” 447 U. S., at 499. Although the marine shipping companies and longshoremen have accepted the various compromises that the Rules represent, three groups of non-ILA employers are unhappy with the Rules. Freight consolidators, truckers, and ware-housers all also load and unload containers. Freight consolidators are in the business of arranging for small loads of cargo to be delivered to their off-pier facilities, where consolidator employees combine the cargo with cargo from other parties to pack full containers, which are then delivered to the pier. Consolidators also receive from incoming vessels containers packed with several parties’ cargo, which they unload and disperse to the respective owners. Unlike consolidators, many of whose businesses have been founded on containerization, some truckers and warehousers have always performed some off-pier cargo handling work. For example, prior to containerization, some interstate truckers would pick up cargo at the pier, drive a short distance to a central facility, and then unload and reload the cargo to meet weight, safety, or delivery requirements. Such unloading and reloading near the pier still sometimes occurs, even if the cargo is picked up in containers. The trucking practice of stopping in the vicinity of the pier to unload and reload cargo for reasons related to trucking requirements is known as “shortstopping.” Similarly, some warehousers have always performed some loading and unloading of cargo stored at the warehouse for reasons unrelated to marine transportation; such cargo handling is still sometimes necessary even though cargo is shipped in containers. All these facts were before the Court in ILA I. We did not find that any of them required invalidation of the Rules. Instead, because we found that the Board had erred as a matter of law in defining the “work” in controversy, we remanded to the Board for further proceedings. 447 U. S., at 512-513. Nine cases involving charges of unfair labor practices filed by consolidators, truckers, or warehousers against the ILA were then consolidated by the Board and sent to an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) for factfinding and disposition. The charging parties claimed generally that the Rules constitute an unlawful agreement in violation of § 8(e), and that enforcement of the Rules, which has resulted in marine transport companies not dealing with certain off-pier employers, constitutes secondary boycotting illegal under § 8(b)(4)(B). In a detailed opinion, the ALJ sustained the Rules as a valid work preservation agreement. He found that the “historic jurisdiction” of longshoremen “includes all work in connection with the loading and unloading of cargo on ships,... including such related intermediate steps as receipt, storage, sorting, checking, palletizing, cargo repair, carpentry, maintenance and delivery.” 266 N. L. R. B., at 247. He rejected the argument that containerization has so changed the character of the cargo transportation industry that this work has simply disappeared. Noting that the Rules are “narrowly tailored” to preserve only the work of loading and unloading containers, and that “[n]o other work is sought,” id., at 251, the ALJ also found that “the Rules merely restore to the unit work traditionally performed by the ILA.” Id., at 252. With regard to the alleged secondary nature of the Rules, the ALJ found that the Rules have a clear work-preserving objective and that no secondary motivation was shown: “On this record, there can be little question that... the Rules represented a negotiated response to accommodate the... inroads on ILA work jurisdiction” caused by containerization, and “the evidence fails to disclose any significant ILA interest in the labor relations of the [off-pier] employers boycotted by the Rules.” Id., at 248-249. The ALJ did not end his inquiry there, however. He concluded that despite the work preservation objective of the Rules, they might still be invalid if they had the effect of reserving for longshoremen cargo handling work that had been done by nonlongshore labor prior to containerization and thus was not “created” by containerization. Id., at 252. The ALJ reasoned that “to the extent that the Rules seek to compensate longshoremen for losses at the expense of inland employees whose jobs did not derive from containerization, a proscribed ‘work acquisition’ objective would attach.” Ibid. He then found that, although the “skills utilized... are indistinct from those of deep sea longshoremen,” cargo handling work done by shortstoppers and “traditional” warehousers is work “assumed for a different purpose” than longshore cargo handling and “preexisted” containerization. Id., at 256. He declared that the Rules therefore took on an impermissible secondary character when applied in those two contexts, and sustained unfair labor charges in three cases. The Board adopted the ALJ’s findings and conclusions, stating that “the ILA had an overall work preservation objective in negotiating the Rules,” and that “the work of loading and unloading containers claimed by the Rules is functionally related to the traditional loading and unloading work of the longshoremen.” Id., at 236, 237. The Board therefore held the Rules lawful as a general matter. It also agreed with the ALJ’s partial invalidation “as applied,” however, after modifying the ALJ’s views in two respects. First, the Board provided a definition of “the work in dispute,” because the ALJ had not done so explicitly. Id., at 236. Second, the Board rejected the ALJ’s “findings that an illegal work acquisition objective is revealed in the Rules,” because his analysis “appeared] to conflict” with the direction in ILA I to focus on the work of longshoremen, not off-pier laborers. 266 N. L. R. B., at 236-237. “By focusing on the economic character of the trucking and warehousing industry and on the work historically performed by trucking and warehousing employees, the [ALJ’s]... findings give undue emphasis to the work historically performed by trucking and warehousing employees and to the fact that this work was not created by containerization.” Ibid. Nevertheless, the Board held the Rules unlawful “as applied to ‘shortstopping’ and ‘traditional’ warehousing practices.” Id., at 236. The Board reasoned that some cargo loading and unloading work required to be performed by longshoremen under the Rules would unnecessarily duplicate the similar work done by “shortstopping” truckers and “traditional” warehousers. Because cargo in containers can now be moved directly to and from warehouses and trucking terminals without loading or unloading at the pier, the necessity for such longshore labor has been removed, while “traditional” warehousers and “shortstopping” truckers must still do some container loading and unloading at their facilities. Thus, the Board concluded, the loading and unloading work of the longshoremen “no longer exists as a step in the cargo handling process” and “essentially was eliminated” in these two contexts. Id., at 237. Because the Rules seek to preserve this “eliminated” work, the Board concluded that they have “an illegal work acquisition objective” as applied. Ibid. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the Board’s general validation of the Rules, concluding that the Board’s crucial dual findings — that the shipping companies have the “right to control” container work, and that the Rules had a bona fide work preservation objective — were supported by substantial evidence. American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. NLRB, 734 F. 2d 966, 977-978 (1984). For two reasons, however, the Court of Appeals refused to enforce the Board’s decision that the Rules constitute unlawful secondary activity when applied to containers destined for “shortstopping” truckers and “traditional” warehousers. First, in concluding that a partial objective of the Rules is “work acquisition,” the Board had failed to make any factual finding that the Rules actually operate to deprive “short-stopping” truckers or “traditional” warehousers of any work. Id., at 979. Second, the Court of Appeals concluded that, as a matter of law, an agreement that preserves duplicative or technologically “eliminated” work simply does not constitute “work acquisition.” National Woodwork had approved as lawful primary activity a collective-bargaining agreement whose objective was “protection of union members from a diminution of work flowing from changes in technology.” 386 U. S., at 648 (Harlan, J., concurring). The ALJ and the Board both had found that the same work-preserving purpose underlies the Rules on Containers. The Rules do not “in any way prevent the identical off-pier work,” and although such work may be economically inefficient, “it is not our function as a court of review to weigh the economic cost of the Rules.” 734 F. 2d, at 979. The Court of Appeals therefore concluded that “the Rules are lawful in their entirety and may be enforced.” Id., at 980. Although a number of the charging parties sought review of the Fourth Circuit’s decision, we granted only the Board’s petition for certiorari, 469 U. S. 1188 (1985), thereby limiting our inquiry to the alleged unlawfulness of the Rules with regard to “shortstopping” truckers and “traditional” warehousers. II A We have labored in the past to determine Congress’ will as expressed in §§ 8(b)(4)(B) and 8(e) — this case requires no new development. In light of the Board’s factual findings, we believe the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that the Rules do not violate these provisions, flows as a matter of course from National Woodwork and ILA 7. In National Woodwork, after reviewing in detail the relevant legislative and judicial history, we concluded that “Congress meant that both § 8(e) and § 8(b)(4)(B) reach only secondary pressures.” 386 U. S., at 638; accord, Houston Contractors Assn. v. NLRB, 386 U. S. 664, 668 (1967). In this regard, the prohibitory scope of § 8(e) was found to be no broader than that of § 8(b)(4)(B). 386 U. S., at 635, 638. The purpose of §8(e) had been to close a “loophole” in the labor laws that allowed unions to employ “hot cargo” agreements to pressure neutral employers not to handle nonunion goods. Id., at 634-637; see Carpenters v. NLRB, 357 U. S. 93 (1958) (Sand Door). However, we concluded, “Congress in enacting § 8(e) had no thought of prohibiting agreements directed to work preservation.” 386 U. S., at 640. Such agreements “are not used as a sword” to achieve secondary objectives, but as “a shield carried solely to preserve the members’ jobs.” Id., at 630. Because the labor laws do not prohibit bona fide primary activity, we stated that the central inquiry for evaluating claims of work preservation is “whether, under all the surrounding circumstances, the Union’s objective was preservation of work for [the primary employer’s] employees, or whether the agreements and boycott were tactically calculated to satisfy union objectives elsewhere.... The touchstone is whether the agreement or its maintenance is addressed to the labor relations of the contracting employer vis a vis his own employees.” Id., at 644-645. We expressly noted that a different case might be presented if a union engaged in activity “to reach out to monopolize jobs or acquire new job tasks when their own jobs are not threatened....” Id., at 630-631 (emphasis added). We reaffirmed the National Woodwork analysis in ILA I, and noted that “a lawful work preservation agreement must pass two tests”: the objective of the agreement must be preservation of work for members of the union rather than some secondary goal, and the “right of control” test of NLRB v. Pipefitters, 429 U. S. 507 (1977), must be satisfied. 447 U. S., at 504. We ruled, however, that the Board had erred as an initial matter by defining the “work in dispute” as “off-pier” container loading and unloading. Id., at 506. Because technological innovation may significantly change the character of an industry, work preservation agreements negotiated to address such change “typically come into being when employees’ traditional work is displaced.” Id., at 505. Consequently, the place where work is to be done often lies at the heart of the controversy, and is seldom relevant to the definition of the work itself. See id., at 506-507. The Board’s focus on the container work performed off-pier by nonlongshoremen was erroneous because it ignored the question whether “the parties have tailored their agreement to the objective of preserving the essence of the traditional work patterns,” id., at 510, n. 24, and “foreclosed — by definition — any possibility that the longshoremen could negotiate an agreement to permit them to continue to play any part in the loading or unloading of containerized cargo.” Id., at 508. ILA I concluded, however, that collective-bargaining agreements designed to “accommodate change” while still preserving some type of work for union members may nevertheless be lawful primary agreements; the work preservation doctrine does not require that unions block progress by refusing to permit any use at all of new technology in order to avoid the prohibitions of §§8(b)(4)(B) and 8(e). Id., at 506. The inquiry is whether “the objective of the agreement was work preservation rather than the satisfaction of union goals elsewhere,” id., at 510, and the analytical focus must be “on the work of the bargaining unit employees, not on the work of other employees... doing the same or similar work.” Id., at 507. “The effect of work preservation agreements on the employment opportunities of employees not represented by the union, no matter how severe, is of course irrelevant... so long as the union had no forbidden secondary purpose.” Id., at 507, n. 22. Because the Board’s analysis had proceeded from an erroneous premise, we remanded. We directed the Board to examine “how the contracting parties sought to preserve... work, to the extent possible, in the face of” containerization, and “to evaluate the relationship between traditional long-shore work and the work which the Rules attempt to assign to ILA members.” Id., at 509. If, on remand, the Rules were found to be a bona fide attempt to preserve longshore work, rather than an effort “‘tactically calculated to satisfy union objectives elsewhere,’” then the Rules would be valid. Id., at 511, quoting National Woodwork, 386 U. S., at 644. “[T]he question is not whether the Rules represent the most rational or efficient response to innovation, but whether they are a legally permissible effort to preserve jobs.” 447 U. S., at 511. B We accept the Board’s factual findings as supported by substantial evidence, Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U. S. 474 (1951), and are mindful of the rule that the Board’s construction of the Act is due our deference. See, e. g., Beth Israel Hospital v. NLRB, 437 U. S. 483, 500-501 (1978); NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U. S. 221, 236 (1963). We are in agreement with the Board’s basic statutory conclusions: §§ 8(b)(4)(B) and 8(e) prohibit secondary, but not primary, union activity, and bona fide work preservation agreements and their enforcement may constitute protected primary goals. Now that the Board has fully developed the factual record regarding the Rules, the only question presented is whether, as a matter of law, the Board applied the “work preservation” doctrine consistently with our prior eases. In our view, the Board committed two fundamental errors. First, by focusing on the effect that the Rules may have on “shortstopping” truckers and “traditional” warehousers, the Board contravened our direction that such extra-unit effects, “no matter how severe,” are “irrelevant” to the analysis. 447 U. S., at 507, n. 22. “So long as the union had no forbidden secondary purpose” to disrupt the business relations of a neutral employer, ibid., such effects are “incidental to primary activity.” Pipefitters, 429 U. S., at 526. Here the ALJ, Board, and Court of Appeals all have agreed that the Rules were motivated entirely by the longshoremen’s understandable desire to preserve jobs against “the steadily dwindling volume” of cargo work at the pier. 734 F. 2d, at 978. Given this clear primary objective to preserve work in the face of a threat to jobs, extra-unit effects of a work preservation agreement alone provide an insufficient basis for concluding that the agreement has an unlawful secondary objective. Absent some additional showing of an attempt “to reach out to monopolize jobs,” National Woodwork, supra, at 630, that is, proof of an attempt “not to preserve, but to aggrandize,” Pipefitters, supra, at 528-530, n. 16, such an agreement is lawful. Second, we believe the Board misconstrued our cases in suggesting that “eliminated” work can never be the object of a work preservation agreement. Technological innovation will often by design eliminate some aspect of an industry’s work. For example, in National Woodwork the agreement at issue strove to preserve carpentry work done by hand at the jobsite, even though new off-site machining techniques had eliminated the necessity for much of this work. Yet the jobs of carpenters were no less threatened, nor was their attempt to preserve them any less primary, than if the contractor had decided to subcontract the cutting and fitting of doors to nonunion workers. Cf. Fibreboard Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S. 203, 209 (1964). Similarly, containers have eliminated some of the work of loading and unloading cargo by hand for all participants in the industry — longshoremen, truckers, and warehousers alike. “Elimination” of work in the sense that it is made unnecessary by innovation is not of itself a reason to condemn work preservation agreements under §§ 8(b)(4)(B) and 8(e); to the contrary, such elimination provides the very premise for such agreements. It must not be forgotten that the relevant inquiry under §§ 8(b)(4)(B) and 8(e) is whether a union’s activity is primary or secondary — that is, whether the union’s efforts are directed at its own employer on a topic affecting employees’ wages, hours, or working conditions that the employer can control, or, instead, are directed at affecting the business relations of neutral employers and are “tactically calculated” to achieve union objectives outside the primary employer-employee relationship. See National Woodwork, 386 U. S., at 644-645; Pipefitters, 429 U. S., at 528-529, and n. 16. The various linguistic formulae and evidentiary mechanisms we have employed to describe the primary/secondary distinction are not talismanic nor can they substitute for analysis. See generally Railroad Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U. S. 369, 386-390 (1969). The inquiry is often an inferential and fact-based one, at times requiring the drawing of lines “more nice than obvious.” Electrical Workers v. NLRB, 366 U. S. 667, 674 (1961); see Pipefitters, supra, at 531 (“commonsense inference”). In this case, however, the ALJ, Board, and Court of Appeals all found that the ILA negotiated the Rules on Containers with the sole object of preserving work for its members and that there is no evidence of “any significant ILA interest in the labor relations of the class of employers boycotted by the Rules.” 266 N. L. R. B., at 249. Furthermore, as the Fourth Circuit noted, this is not a case in which an avowed work preservation agreement “seeks to claim work so different from that traditionally performed by the bargaining unit employees” that a secondary objective might be inferred. 734 F. 2d, at 980. When the objective of an agreement and its enforcement is so clearly one of work preservation, the lawfulness of the agreement under §§ 8(b)(4)(B) and 8(e) is secure absent some other evidence of secondary purpose. In sum, we believe that the Board correctly identified as erroneous the ALJ’s focus on the effect of the Rules on the work of employees outside the bargaining unit, but then fell into the same analytical trap. The crucial findings are that the ILA’s objective consistently has been to preserve long-shore work, and that the ILA’s employers have the power to control assignment of that work. ILA I, 447 U. S., at 504. In light of these facts, further inquiry into the effects of the Rules as applied was inconsistent with our precedents in this concededly difficult area. C In ILA I it was argued that the Rules preserve work made “utterly useless” by containerization and thus are “nothing less than an invidious form of ‘featherbedding’ to block full implementation of modern technological progress.” Id., at 526-527 (Burger, C. J., dissenting). Similar arguments are repeated today, see post, at 89, 90, and were presented in National Woodwork as well. See 386 U. S., at 644. Our response is no different than it was 18 years ago: “Those arguments are addressed to the wrong branch of government.” Ibid. Justice Harlan wrote separately in National Woodwork to underscore the Court’s reasoning on this point: “The only question thus to be decided... is whether Congress meant, in enacting §§ 8(b)(4)(B) and 8(e) of the National Labor Relations Act, to prevent this kind of labor-management arrangement designed to forestall possible adverse effects upon workers arising from changing technology. “[BJoth sides of today’s division in the Court agree that we must be especially careful to eschew a resolution of the issue according to our own economic ideas and to find one in what Congress has done. “In view of Congress’ deep commitment to the resolution of matters of vital importance to management and labor through the collective bargaining process, and its recognition of the boycott as a legitimate weapon in that process, it would be unfortunate were this Court to attribute to Congress, on the basis of such an opaque legislative record, a purpose to outlaw the kind of collective bargaining and conduct involved in these cases. Especially at a time when Congress is continuing to explore methods for meeting the economic problems increasingly arising in this technological age from scientific advances, this Court should not take such a step until Congress has made unmistakably clear that it wishes wholly to exclude collective bargaining as one avenue of approach to solutions in this elusive aspect of our economy.” Id., at 648-650. Congress has not altered the provisions at issue in the 18 years since National Woodwork was decided, nor has any new evidence been offered regarding Congress’ original intent. In the meantime, management and labor alike have relied on the work preservation doctrine to guide their bargaining. In such circumstances we should follow the normal presumption of stare decisis in cases of statutory interpretation. See Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U. S. 720, 736-737 (1977); Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 671 (1974). Ill Under the Rules on Containers, the ILA has given up some 80% of all containerized cargo work and the technological “container revolution” has secured its position in the industry. We have often noted that a basic premise of the labor laws is that “collective discussions backed by the parties’ economic weapons will result in decisions that are better for both management and labor and for society as a whole.” First National Maintenance Corp. v. NLRB, 452 U. S. 666, 678 (1981). The Rules represent a negotiated compromise of a volatile problem bearing directly on the well-being of our national economy. We concur with the ALJ, Board, and Court of Appeals that the Rules on Containers are a lawful work preservation agreement. Nothing in this record supports a conclusion that their enforcement has had a secondary, rather than primary, objective. The judgment below is therefore Affirmed. Containers are large metal boxes designed to fit without adjustment into the holds of special ships and onto the chassis of special trucks and railroad cars. “Because cargo does not have to be handled and repacked as it moves from the warehouse by truck to dock, into the vessel, then from the vessel to the dock and by truck or rail to its destination, the costs of handling are greatly reduced. Expenses of separate export packaging, storage, losses from pilferage and breakage, and costs of insurance and processing cargo documents may also be decreased. Perhaps most significantly, a container ship can be loaded or unloaded in a fraction of the time required for a conventional ship. As a result, the unprofitable in-port time of each ship is reduced, and a smaller number of ships are needed to carry a given volume of cargo.” NLRB v. Longshoremen, 447 U. S. 490, 494-495 (1980). The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in this case characterized the ILA’s position regarding containers as “one of resistence [sic]” from the outset. 266 N. L. R. B. 230, 244 (1983). The 1959 agreement between the ILA and the New York Shipping Association, a multiemployer bargaining group for marine shipping companies in New York, reserved for longshoremen “[a]ny work performed in connection with the loading and discharging of containers... which is performed in the Port.” Ibid. Discontent continued, however, over increasing off-pier use of containers. In 1969, after the lengthiest longshoremen’s strike in the history of the Port of New York, a set of Rules substantially similar to the current Rules was negotiated. The Rules were recognized as a compromise, reserving for the ILA only about 20% of the total containerized cargo handled in New York. Nevertheless, the next five years were marked by work slowdowns and stoppages related to containerization, and the Rules were amended several times to increase their enforceability. The text of the current Rules is substantively identical to the Rules printed as an Appendix to ILA I. 447 U. S., at 513-522. These Rules have been negotiated between the ILA and the Council of North Atlantic Shipping Associations, a multiemployer bargaining group encompassing the marine shipping companies in 36 major ports on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Longshoremen on the west coast are represented by a different union, the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union. Although containerization has been a controversial collective-bargaining topic on the west coast as well, see Ross, Waterfront Lab. Response to Technological Change: A Tale of Two Unions, 21 Labor L. J. 397 (1970), only the ILA and the Atlantic and Gulf coast shippers are before the Court in this case. The ALJ found that the 50-mile rule developed from the use of the description “50 miles from Columbus Circle” to resolve early container-related grievances in New York. 266 N. L. R. B., at 245, n. 24. The Board approved the 50-mile rule as “a rational attempt to claim only that work actually performed in the general area surrounding the port.” Id., at 235. A warehouse is deemed “bona fide” if the container is to remain in storage at the warehouse for 30 days or more. Rule 2(B)(4). The ALJ found that this 30-day rule, like the 50-mile rule, represents a negotiated attempt to preserve traditional work patterns; it distinguishes traditional, pre-containerization warehouse functions from “warehouses... being used as ‘drop points’ for [container unloading] and reloading immediately onto trucks.” 266 N. L. R. B., at 257. As the Board found, prior to containerization some short-term cargo storage work was performed by longshoremen at marine terminal warehouses, and containerization has “diverted” some of this traditional longshore work to off-pier warehouses. Id., at 236. The 30-day rule was therefore approved as “a rational attempt to distinguish between short-term storage at a marine terminal warehouse and long-term storage at an inland public warehouse.” Ibid. The Rules also do not apply to “container loads of mail, household effects of a person who is relocating his place of residence, with no other type of cargo in the container, or personal effects of military personnel.” Rules 2(A)(4) and (B)(4). The Board accepted the ALJ’s findings that such “traditional” warehouse cargo handling work is performed in connection with, for example, “the ongoing storage of a manufacturer’s goods for distribution on short notice to customers based on future orders and the ongoing storage of a company’s purchased inventory for distribution on short notice to its foreign facilities as demand required.” 266 N. L. R. B., at 236. Two eases were vacated and remanded in ILA I. International Longshoremen’s Assn. (Dolphin Forwarding), 236 N. L. R. B. 525 (1978) (consolidators), and International Longshoremen’s Assn. (Associated Transport), 231 N. L. R. B. 351 (1977) (truckers), enf. denied, 613 F. 2d 890 (1979), vacated and remanded, 447 U. S. 490 (1980). Three cases were remanded by Courts of Appeals in light of ILA I. International Longshoremen’s Assn. (Consolidated Express), 221 N. L. R. B. 956 (1975) (consolidators), enf’d, 537 F. 2d 706 (CA2 1976), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 1041, same case, 602 F. 2d 494 (CA3 1979), vacated and remanded, 448 U. S. 902 (1980), remanded, 641 F. 2d 90 (CA3 1981); International Longshoremen’s Assn. (Beck Arabia), 245 N. L. R. B. 1325 (1979) (remanded by CA4) (warehousers); International Longshoremen’s Assn. (Puerto Rico Marine Management), 245 N. L. R. B. 1320 (1979) (remanded by CA5) (consolidators). The Board itself decided to reconsider one case, International Longshoremen’s Assn. (Terminal Corp.), 250 N. L. R. B. 8 (1980) (warehousers), and to add two other pending complaints, International Longshoremen’s Assn. (Hill Creek Farms), Nos. 4-CC-1133 Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 Souter delivered the opinion of the Court. The issue here is whether a 13-year-old student’s Fourth Amendment right was violated when she was subjected to a search of her bra and underpants by school officials acting on reasonable suspicion that she had brought forbidden prescription and over-the-counter drugs to school. Because there were no reasons to suspect the drugs presented a danger or were concealed in her underwear, we hold that the search did violate the Constitution, but because there is reason to question the clarity with which the right was established, the official who ordered the unconstitutional search is entitled to qualified immunity from liability. I The events immediately prior to the search in question began in 13-year-old Savana Redding’s math class at Safford Middle School one October day in 2003. The assistant principal of the school, Kerry Wilson, came into the room and asked Savana to go to his office. There, he showed her a day planner, unzipped and open flat on his desk, in which there were several knives, lighters, a permanent marker, and a cigarette. Wilson asked Savana whether the planner was hers; she said it was, but that a few days before she had lent it to her Mend, Marissa Glines. Savana stated that none of the items in the planner belonged to her. Wilson then showed Savana four white prescription-strength ibuprofen 400-mg pills, and one over-the-counter blue naproxen 200-mg pill, all used for pain and inflammation but banned under school rules without advance permission. He asked Savana if she knew anything about the pills. Savana answered that she did not. Wilson then told Savana that he had received a report that she was giving these pills to fellow students; Savana denied it and agreed to let Wilson search her belongings. Helen Romero, an administrative assistant, came into the office, and together with Wilson they searched Savana’s backpack, finding nothing. At that point, Wilson instructed Romero to take Savana to the school nurse’s office to search her clothes for pills. Romero and the nurse, Peggy Sehwallier, asked Savana to remove her jacket, socks, and shoes, leaving her in stretch pants and a T-shirt (both without pockets), which she was then asked to remove. Finally, Savana was told to pull her bra out and to the side and shake it, and to pull out the elastic on her underpants, thus exposing her breasts and pelvic area to some degree. No pills were found. Savana’s mother filed suit against Safford Unified School District #1, Wilson, Romero, and Sehwallier for conducting a strip search in violation of Savana’s Fourth Amendment rights. The individuals (hereinafter petitioners) moved for summary judgment, raising a defense of qualified immunity. The District Court for the District of Arizona granted the motion on the ground that there was no Fourth Amendment violation, and a panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed. 504 F. 3d 828 (2007). A closely divided Circuit sitting en bane, however, reversed. Following the two-step protocol for evaluating claims of qualified immunity, see Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194, 200 (2001), the Ninth Circuit held that the strip search was unjustified under the Fourth Amendment test for searches of children by school officials set out in New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325 (1985). 531 F. 3d 1071, 1081-1087 (2008). The Circuit then applied the test for qualified immunity, and found that Savana’s right was clearly established at the time of the search: “ '[tjhese notions of personal privacy are “clearly established” in that they inhere in all of us, particularly middle school teenagers, and are inherent in the privacy component of the Fourth Amendment’s proscription against unreasonable searches.’” Id., at 1088-1089 (quoting Brannum v. Overton Cty. School Bd., 516 F. 3d 489, 499 (CA6 2008)). The upshot was reversal of summary judgment as to Wilson, while affirming the judgments in favor of Sehwallier, the school nurse, and Romero, the administrative assistant, since they had not acted as independent decision-makers. 531 F. 3d, at 1089. We granted certiorari, 555 U. S. 1130 (2009), and now affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand. II The Fourth Amendment “right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures” generally requires a law enforcement officer to have probable cause for conducting a search. “Probable cause exists where ‘the facts and circumstances within [an officer’s] knowledge and of which [he] had reasonably trustworthy information [are] sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that’ an offense has been or is being committed,” Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160, 175-176 (1949) (quoting Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 162 (1925)), and that evidence bearing on that offense will be found in the place to be searched. In T. L. O., we recognized that the school setting “requires some modification of the level of suspicion of illicit activity needed to justify a search,” 469 U. S., at 340, and held that for searches by school officials “a careful balancing of governmental and private interests suggests that the public interest is best served by a Fourth Amendment standard of reasonableness that stops short of probable cause,” id., at 341. We have thus applied a standard of reasonable suspicion to determine the legality of a school administrator’s search of a student, id., at 342, 345, and have held that a school search “will be permissible in its scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction,” id., at 342. A number of our cases on probable cause have an implicit bearing on the reliable knowledge element of reasonable suspicion, as we have attempted to flesh out the knowledge component by looking to the degree to which known facts imply prohibited conduct, see, e. g., Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143, 148 (1972); id., at 160, n. 9 (Marshall, J., dissenting), the specificity of the information received, see, e. g., Spinelli v. United States, 393 U. S. 410, 416-417 (1969), and the reliability of its source, see, e. g., Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U. S. 108, 114 (1964). At the end of the day, however, we have realized that these factors cannot rigidly control, Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213, 230 (1983), and we have come back to saying that the standards are “fluid concepts that take their substantive content from the particular contexts” in which they are being assessed, Ornelas v. United States, 517 U. S. 690, 696 (1996). Perhaps the best that can be said generally about the required knowledge component of probable cause for a law enforcement officer’s evidence search is that it raise a “fair probability,” Gates, 462 U. S., at 238, or a “substantial chance,” id., at 244, n. 13, of discovering evidence of criminal activity. The lesser standard for school searches could as readily be described as a moderate chance of finding evidence of wrongdoing. Ill A In this case, the school’s policies strictly prohibit the non-medical use, possession, or sale of any drug on school grounds, including “‘[a]ny prescription or over-the-counter drug, except those for which permission to use in school has been granted pursuant to Board policy.’ ” App. to Pet. for Cert. 128a. A week before Savana was searched, another student, Jordan Romero (no relation of the school’s administrative assistant), told the principal and Assistant Principal Wilson that “certain students were bringing drugs and weapons on campus,” and that he had been sick after taking some pills that “he got from a classmate.” App. 8a. On the morning of October 8, the same boy handed Wilson a white pill that he said Marissa Glines had given him. He told Wilson that students were planning to take the pills at lunch. Wilson learned from Peggy Schwallier, the school nurse, that the pill was ibuprofen 400 mg, available only by prescription. Wilson then called Marissa out of class. Outside the classroom, Marissa’s teacher handed Wilson the day planner, found within Marissa’s reach, containing various contraband items. Wilson escorted Marissa back to his office. In the presence of Helen Romero, Wilson requested Marissa to turn out her pockets and open her wallet. Marissa produced a blue pill, several white ones, and a razor blade. Wilson asked where the blue pill came from, and Marissa answered, “ ‘I guess it slipped in when she gave me the IBU 400s.’” Id., at 13a. When Wilson asked whom she meant, Marissa replied, “‘Savana Redding.’” Ibid. Wilson then enquired about the day planner and its contents; Marissa denied knowing anything about them. Wilson did not ask Marissa any followup questions to determine whether there was any likelihood that Savana presently had pills: neither asking when Marissa received the pills from Savana nor where Savana might be hiding them. Sehwallier did not immediately recognize the blue pill, but information provided through a poison control hotline indicated that the pill was a 200-mg dose of an antiinflammatory drug, generically called naproxen, available over the counter. At Wilson’s direction, Marissa was then subjected to a search of her bra and underpants by Romero and Sehwallier, as Savana was later on. The search revealed no additional pills. It was at this juncture that Wilson called Savana into his office and showed her the day planner. Their conversation established that Savana and Marissa were on friendly terms: while she denied knowledge of the contraband, Savana admitted that the day planner was hers and that she had lent it to Marissa. Wilson had other reports of their friendship from staff members, who had identified Savana and Marissa as part of an unusually rowdy group at the school’s opening dance in August, during which alcohol and cigarettes were found in the girls’ bathroom. Wilson had reason to connect the girls with this contraband, for Wilson knew that Jordan Romero had told the principal that before the dance, he had been at a party at Savana’s house where alcohol was served. Marissa’s statement that the pills came from Savana was thus sufficiently plausible to warrant suspicion that Savana was involved in pill distribution. This suspicion of Wilson’s was enough to justify a search of Savana’s backpack and outer clothing. If a student is reasonably suspected of giving out contraband pills, she is reasonably suspected of carrying them on her person and in the carryall that has become an item of student uniform in most places today. If Wilson’s reasonable suspicion of pill distribution were not understood to support searches of outer clothes and backpack, it would not justify any search worth making. And the look into Savana’s bag, in her presence and in the relative privacy of Wilson’s office, was not excessively intrusive, any more than Romero’s subsequent search of her outer clothing. B Here it is that the parties part company, with Savana’s claim that extending the search at Wilson’s behest to the point of making her pull out her underwear was constitutionally unreasonable. The exact label for this final step in the intrusion is not important, though strip search is a fair way to speak of it. Romero and Schwallier directed Savana to remove her clothes down to her underwear, and then “pull out” her bra and the elastic band on her underpants. Id., at 23a. Although Romero and Schwallier stated that they did not see anything when Savana followed their instructions, App. to Pet. for Cert. 135a, we would not define strip search and its Fourth Amendment consequences in a way that would guarantee litigation about who was looking and how much was seen. The very fact of Savana’s pulling her underwear away from her body in the presence of the two officials who were able to see her necessarily exposed her breasts and pelvic area to some degree, and both subjective and reasonable societal expectations of personal privacy support the treatment of such a search as categorically distinct, requiring distinct elements of justification on the part of school authorities for going beyond a search of outer clothing and belongings. Savana’s subjective expectation of privacy against such a search is inherent in her account of it as embarrassing, frightening, and humiliating. The reasonableness of her expectation (required by the Fourth Amendment standard) is indicated by the consistent experiences of other young people similarly searched, whose adolescent vulnerability intensifies the patent intrusiveness of the exposure. See Brief for National Association of Social Workers et al. as Amici Curiae 6-14; Hyman & Perone, The Other Side of School Violence: Educator Policies and Practices that may Contribute to Student Misbehavior, 36 J. School Psychology 7, 13 (1998) (strip search can “result in serious emotional damage”). The common reaction of these adolescents simply registers the obviously different meaning of a search exposing the body from the experience of nakedness or near undress in other school circumstances. Changing for gym is getting ready for play; exposing for a search is responding to an accusation reserved for suspected wrongdoers and fairly understood as so degrading that a number of communities have decided that strip searches in schools are never reasonable and have banned them no matter what the facts may be, see, e.g., New York City Dept. of Education, Reg. No. A-432, p. 2 (2005), online at http://docs.nycenet.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-21/A-432.pdf (“Under no circumstances shall a strip-search of a student be conducted”). The indignity of the search does not, of course, outlaw it, but it does implicate the rule of reasonableness as stated in T. L. O., that “the search as actually conducted [be] reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” 469 U. S., at 341 (internal quotation marks omitted). The scope will be permissible, that is, when it is “not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.” Id., at 342. Here, the content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion. Wilson knew beforehand that the pills were prescription-strength ibuprofen and over-the-counter naproxen, common pain relievers equivalent to two Advil, or one Aleve. He must have been aware of the nature and limited threat of the specific drugs he was searching for, and while just about anything can be taken in quantities that will do real harm, Wilson had no reason to suspect that large amounts of the drugs were being passed around, or that individual students were receiving great numbers of pills. Nor could Wilson have suspected that Savana was hiding common painkillers in her underwear. Petitioners suggest, as a truth universally acknowledged, that “students ... hid[e] contraband in or under their clothing,” Reply Brief for Petitioners 8, and cite a smattering of eases of students with contraband in their underwear, id., at 8-9. But when the categorically extreme intrusiveness of a search down to the body of an adolescent requires some justification in suspected facts, general background possibilities fall short; a reasonable search that extensive calls for suspicion that it will pay off. But nondangerous school contraband does not raise the specter of stashes in intimate places, and there is no evidence in the record of any general practice among Safford Middle School students of hiding that sort of thing in underwear; neither Jordan nor Marissa suggested to Wilson that Savana was doing that, and the preceding search of Marissa that Wilson ordered yielded nothing. Wilson never even determined when Marissa had received the pills from Savana; if it had been a few days before, that would weigh heavily against any reasonable conclusion that Savana presently had the pills on her person, much less in her underwear. In sum, what was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear. We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable. In so holding, we mean to cast no ill reflection on the assistant principal, for the record raises no doubt that his motive throughout was to eliminate drugs from his school and protect students from what Jordan Romero had gone through. Parents are known to overreact to protect their children from danger, and a school official with responsibility for safety may tend to do the same. The difference is that the Fourth Amendment places limits on the official, even with the high degree of deference that courts must pay to the educator’s professional judgment. We do mean, though, to make it clear that the T L. O. concern to limit a school search to reasonable scope requires the support of reasonable suspicion of danger or of resort to underwear for hiding evidence of wrongdoing before a search can reasonably make the quantum leap from outer clothes and backpacks to exposure of intimate parts. The meaning of such a search, and the degradation its subject may reasonably feel, place a search that intrusive in a category of its own demanding its own specific suspicions. IV A school official searching a student is “entitled to qualified immunity where clearly established law does not show that the search violated the Fourth Amendment.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U. S. 223, 243-244 (2009). To be established clearly, however, there is no need that “the very action in question [have] previously been held unlawful.” Wilson v. Layne, 526 U. S. 603, 615 (1999). The unconstitutionality of outrageous conduct obviously will be unconstitutional, this being the reason, as Judge Posner has said, that “[t]he easiest cases don’t even arise.” K. H. v. Morgan, 914 F. 2d 846, 851 (CA7 1990). But even as to action less than an outrage, “officials can still be on notice that their conduct violates established law ... in novel factual circumstances.” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U. S. 730, 741 (2002). T. L. O. directed school officials to limit the intrusiveness of a search, “in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction,” 469 U. S., at 342, and as we have just said at some length, the intrusiveness of the strip search here cannot be seen as justifiably related to the circumstances. But we realize that the lower courts have reached divergent conclusions regarding how the T L. O. standard applies to such searches. A number of judges have read T L. O. as the en banc minority of the Ninth Circuit did here. The Sixth Circuit upheld a strip search of a high school student for a drug, without any suspicion that drugs were hidden next to her body. Williams v. Ellington, 936 F. 2d 881, 882-883, 887 (1991). And other courts considering qualified immunity for strip searches have read T. L. O. as “a series of abstractions, on the one hand, and a declaration of seeming deference to the judgments of school officials, on the other,” Jenkins v. Talladega City Bd. of Ed., 115 F. 3d 821, 828 (CA11 1997) (en banc), which made it impossible “to establish clearly the contours of a Fourth Amendment right... [in] the wide variety of possible school settings different from those involved in T. L. O.” itself, ibid. See also Thomas v. Roberts, 323 F. 3d 950 (CA11 2003) (granting qualified immunity to a teacher and police officer who conducted a group strip search of a fifth grade class when looking for a missing $26). We think these differences of opinion from our own are substantial enough to require immunity for the school officials in this case. We would not suggest that entitlement to qualified immunity is the guaranteed product of disuniform views of the law in the other federal, or state, courts, and the fact that a single judge, or even a group of judges, disagrees about the contours of a right does not automatically render the law unclear if we have been clear. That said, however, the cases viewing school strip searches differently from the way we see them are numerous enough, with well-reasoned majority and dissenting opinions, to counsel doubt that we were sufficiently clear in the prior statement of law. We conclude that qualified immunity is warranted. V The strip search of Savana Redding was unreasonable and a violation of the Fourth Amendment, but petitioners Wilson, Romero, and Schwallier are nevertheless protected from liability through qualified immunity. Our conclusions here do not resolve, however, the question of the liability of petitioner Safford Unified School District #1 under Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U. S. 658, 694 (1978), a claim the Ninth Circuit did not address. The judgment of the Ninth Circuit is therefore affirmed in part and reversed in part, and this case .is remanded for consideration of the Monell claim. It is so ordered. When the object of a school search is the enforcement of a school rule, a valid search assumes, of course, the rule’s legitimacy. But the legitimacy of the rule usually goes without saying as it does here. The Court said plainly in New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 342, n. 9 (1985), that standards of conduct for schools are for school administrators to determine ■without second-guessing by courts lacking the experience to appreciate what may be needed. Except in patently arbitrary instances, Fourth Amendment analysis takes the rule as a given, as it obviously should do in this ease. There is no need here either to explain the imperative of keeping drugs out of schools, or to explain the reasons for the school’s rule banning all drugs, no matter how benign, without advance permission. Teachers are not pharmacologists trained to identify pills and powders, and an effective drug ban has to be enforceable fast. The plenary ban makes sense, and there is no basis to claim that the search was unreasonable owing to some defect or shortcoming of the rule it was aimed at enforcing. Poison control centers across the country maintain 24-hour help hotlines to provide “immediate access to poison exposure management instructions and information on potential poisons.” American Association of Poison Control Centers, online at http://www.aapcc.org/dnn/About/ tabid/74/Default.aspx (all Internet materials as visited June 19, 2009, and available in Clerk of Court’s ease file). There is no question here that justification for the school officials’ search was required in accordance with the T. L. O. standard of reasonable suspicion, for it is common ground that Savana had a reasonable expectation of privacy covering the personal things she chose to carry in her backpack, cf. 469 U. S., at 339, and that Wilson’s decision to look through it was a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. An Advil tablet, caplet, or gel caplet contains 200 mg ibuprofen. See 2007 Physicians’ Desk Reference for Nonprescription Drugs, Dietary Supplements, and Herbs 674 (28th ed. 2006). An Aleve caplet contains 200 mg naproxen and 20 mg sodium. See id., at 675. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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

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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Black delivered the opinion of the Court. We must decide whether § 315 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 bars a broadcasting station from removing defamatory statements contained in speeches broadcast by legally qualified candidates for public office, and if so, whether that section grants the station a federal immunity from liability for libelous statements so broadcast. Section 315 reads: “(a) If any licensee shall permit any person who is a legally qualified candidate for any public office to use a broadcasting station, he shall afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office in the use of such broadcasting station: Provided, That such licensee shall have no power of censorship over the material broadcast under the provisions of this section. No obligation is imposed upon any licensee to allow the use of its station by any such candidate.” This suit for libel arose as a result of a speech made over the radio and television facilities of respondent, WDAY, Inc., by A. C. Townley — a legally qualified candidate in the 1956 United States senatorial race in North Dakota. Because it felt compelled to do so by the requireménts of § 315, WDAY permitted Townley to broadcast his speech, uncensored in any respect, as a reply to previous speeches made over WDAY by two other senatorial candidates. Townley’s speech, in substance, accused his opponents, together with petitioner, Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union of America, of conspiring to “establish a Communist Farmers Union Soviet right here in North Dakota.” Farmers Union then sued Townley and WDAY for libel in a North Dakota State District Court. That court dismissed the complaint against WDAY on the ground that § 315 rendered the station immune from liability for the defamation alleged. The Supreme Court of North Dakota affirmed, stating: “Section 315 imposes a mandatory duty upon broadcasting stations to permit all candidates for the same office to use their facilities if they have permitted one candidate to use them. Since power of censorship of political broadcasts is prohibited it must follow as a corollary that the mandate prohibiting censorship includes the privilege of immunity from liability for defamatory statements made by the speakers.” For. this reason it held that the state libel laws could not apply to WDAY. 89 N. W. 2d 102, 110. We granted certiorari because the questions decided are important to the administration of the Federal Communications Act. 358 U. S. 810. I. Petitioner argues that § 315’s prohibition against censorship leaves broadcasters free to delete libelous material from candidates’ speeches, and that therefore no federal immunity is granted a broadcasting station by that sec-tion. The term censorship, however, as commonly understood, connotes any examination of thought or expression in order to prevent publication of “objectionable” mate-rial. We find no clear expression 'of legislative intent, nor any other convincing 'reason to, indicate Congress meant to give “censorship” a narrower meaning in § 315. In arriving at this view, we note that petitioner’s interpretation has not generally been favored in previous considerations of the section. Although the first, and for years the only judicial decision dealing with the censorship provision did hold that a station may remove defamatory statements from political broadcasts, subsequent judicial interpretations of § 315 have with considerable uniformity recognized that an individual licensee has no. such power. And while for some years the Federal Communications Commission^ views'on this matter were not clearly articúlated, since 1948 it has continuously held that licensees cannot remove allegedly libelous matter from speeches by candidates. Similarly, the legislative history of the measure both prior to its first enactment in 1927, and subsequently, shows a deep hostility to censorship either by the Commission or by a licensee. More important, it is obvious that permitting a broadcasting station to censor allegedly libelous remarks would undermine the basic purpose for which § 315 was passed— full and unrestricted discussion of political issues. by legally qualified candidates. That section dates back to, and was adopted verbatim from, the Radio Act of 1927. In that Act, Congress provided for the first time a comprehensive federal plan for regulating the new and expanding art of radio broadcasting. Recognizing radio’s potential importance as a medium of communication of political ideas, Congress sought to foster its broadest possible utilization by encouraging broadcasting stations to make their facilities available to candidates for office without discrimination, and by insuring that these candidates when broadcasting were not to be hampered by censorship of the issues they could discuss. Thus, expressly applying this country’s tradition of free expression to the field of radio broadcasting, Congress has from the first emphatically forbidden the Commission to exercise any power of censorship over radio communication. It is in line with this same tradition that the individual licensee, has consistently been denied “power of censorship” in the vital area of political broadcasts. The decision a broadcasting station would have to make in censoring libelous discussion, by a candidate is far from easy. Whether a statement is defamatory is rarely clear. Whether such a statement is actionably libelous is an even more complex question, involving as it does, consideration of various legal defenses such as “truth” and the privilege of fair comment. Such issues have always troubled courts. Yet, under petitioner’s view of the statute they Would have to be resolved by an individual licensee during the stress of a political campaign, often, necessarily, without adequate consideration or basis for decision. Quite possibly, if a station were held responsible for the broadcast of libelous material, all remarks evenly faintly objectionable would be excluded out of an excess of caution. Moreover, if any censorship were permissible, a station so inclined could intentionally inhibit a candidate’s legitimate presentation under the guise of lawful censorship of libelous matter. Because of the time limitation inherent in. a political campaign, erroneous decisions by a station could not be corrected by the courts promptly enough to permit the candidate to bring improperly excluded matter before the public. It follows from all this that allowing censorship, even of the attenuated type advocated here, would almost inevitably force a candidate to avoid controversial issues during political debates over radio and television, and hence restrict the coverage of consideration relevant to intelligent political decision. We cannot believe, and we certainly are unwilling to assume, that Congress intended any such result. II. Petitioner alternatively argues that § 315 does not grant a station immunity from liability for defamatory statements made during a political broádcast even though the section prohibits the station from censoring allegedly libelous matter. Again, we cannot agree. For under this interpretation, unless a licensee refuses to permit any candidate to talk at all, the section would sanction the unconscionable result of permitting civil and perhaps criminal liability to be imposed for the very conduct the statute demands of the licensee. Accordingly, judicial interpretations reaching the issue have found an immu-' nity implicit in the section. . And in all those cases concluding that a licensee had no immunity, § 315 had been construed — improperly as we hold — to permit a station to censor potentially actionable material. In no case has a court even implied that the licensee would not be rendered immune were it denied the power to censor libelous material. Petitioner contends, however, that the legislative history of § 315 shows that Congress did not intend to grant an immunity.^ Some of the history supports such an inference. As it reached the Senate, the provision which became § 18 of the Radio Act of 1927 provided in part that if a station permitted one candidate to use its facilities, it should “be. deemed a common carrier in interstate commerce . . .” and could not discriminate against other political candidates or censor material broadcast by them. . In the Senate, Senator Dill — the bill’s floor manager — introduced an amendment to this provision which, among other things, specifically granted a station immunity from civil and criminal liability for “any uncensored utterances thus broadcast.” The amendment was adopted by the Senate, but its provision expressly granting immunity was removed by the Conference Committee without any explanation. Section 18 was incorporated into the Communications Act of 193á with no explanatory discussion. Subsequently, a great deal of pressure built up for legislation to remove all possible doubt as'to broadcasters’ liability for libel either by granting them a power to censor libelous statements or by providing an express legislative immunity. Many legislative proposals were made to accomplish these purposes, but no legislation providing either was ever enacted. Thus, whatever adverse inference mhy be drawn from the failure of Congress to legislate an express immunity is offset by its refusal to permit stations to avoid liability by censoring broadcasts. And more than balancing any adverse inferences drawn from congressional failure to legislate an express immunity is the fact that the Federal Communications Commission — the body entrusted with administering the provisions of the Act — has long interpreted § 315 as granting stations an immunity. Not only has this interpretation been adhered to despite many subsequent legislative proposals to modify § 315, but with full knowledge of the Commission’s interpretation Congress has since made significant additions to that section without amending it to depart from the Commission’s view. In light of this contradictory legislative background, we do not feel compelled to reach a result which seems so in conflict with traditional concepts of fairness. Petitioner nevertheless urges that broadcasters do not need a specific immunity to protect themselves from liability for defamation since they may either insure against any loss, or in the alternative, deny all political candidates use of station facilities. We have no means of knowing to what extent insurance is available to broadcasting stations, or what it would cost them. Moreover, since §.315 expressly prohibits stations from charging political candidates higher rates than they charge for comparable time used for other purposes, any cost of insurance would probably have to be absorbed by the stations themselves. Petitioner’s reliance on the stations’ freedom from obligation “to allow use of its station by any such candidate,” seems equally misplaced. While denying, all candidates use of stations would protect broadcasters from liability, it would also effectively withdraw political discussion from the air. Instead the thrust of § 315 is to facilitate political debate over radio and television. Recognizing this, the Communications Commission considers the carrying of political broadcasts a public service criterion to be considered both in license renewal proceedings, and in comparative contests for a radio or television construction permit. Certainly Congress knew the obvious — that if a licensee could protect himself from liability in no other way but by refusing to broadcast candidates’ speeches, the necessary effect would be to hamper the congressional plan to develop broadcasting as a political outlet, rather than to foster it. We are aware that causes of action for libel are widely recognized throughout the States. But we have not hesitated to abrogate state law where satisfied that its enforcement would stand “as an obstacle to the. accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.” Here, petitioner is asking us to attribute to § 315 a meanifig which would either frustrate the underlying purposes for which it was enacted, -or alternatively impose unreasonable burdens on the parties governed by that legislation. Iri the absence of clear expression by Congress we will not assume that it desired such a result. Agreeing with the state courts of North Dakota that § 315 grants a licensee an immunity from liability for libelous material it broadcasts, we merely read § 315 in accordance with what we believe to be its undérlying purpose. Affirmed. 48 Stat. 1088, as amended, 47 U. S. C._ § 315 (a). See also, § 18 of the Radio Act of 1927, 44 Stat. 1170. Sorensen v. Wood, 123 Neb. 348, 243 N. W. 82. Following this decision the case .was remanded for a new trial. Appeal from a judgment for plaintiff was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Nebraska. Appeal to this Court was dismissed sub nom. KFAB Broadcasting Co. v. Sorensen, 290 U. S. 599, because, as the records of this Court disclose, the Supreme Court of Nebraska's holding had been based on adequate state grounds, namely, that the case had become moot through settlement. See Lamb v. Sutton, 164 F. Supp. 928; Yates v. Associated Broadcasters, Inc., 7 Pike and Fischer Radio Reg. 2088; Felix v. Westinghouse Radio Stations, Inc., 89 F. Supp. 740, rev’d on other grounds, 186 F. 2d 1; Charles Parker Co. v. Silver City Crystal Co., 142 Conn. 605, 116 A. 2d 440; Josephson v. Knickerbocker Broadcasting Co., 179 Misc. 787, 38 N. Y. S. 2d 985. But see Daniell v. Voice of New Hampshire, Inc., 10 Pike and Fischer Radio Reg. 2045; Houston Post Co. v. United States, 79 F. Supp. 199. See In re Bellingham Broadcasting Co., 8 F. C. C. 159, 172. In re Port Huron Broadcasting Co., 12 F. C. C. 1069; In re WDSU Broadcasting Corp., 7 Pike and Fischer Radio Reg. 769; Public Notice (FCC 54-1155), Use of Broadcast Facilities by Candidates For Public Office, 19 Fed. Reg. 5948, 5951; Public Notice (FCC 58-936), Use of Broadcast Facilities by Candidates For Public Office, 23 Fed. Reg. 7817, 7820-7821. See S. Rep. No. 1567, 80th Cong., 2d Sess. 13-14 (1948), where, discussing S. 1333, the Committee Report stated: “The flat prohibition against the licensee of any station exercising any censorship authority over any political- or public question discussion is retained and emphasized. This means that the Commission cannot itself or by rule or regulation require the licensee to censor, alter, or in any manner affect or control the subject matter of any such broadcast and the licensee may not in his own discretion exercise any such censorship authority. . . . “[SJection 326 of the present act, which deals with the,question of censorship of radio' communications by - the Commission . . . makes clear that the Commission has-absolutely no power of censorship over radio communications and, that it cannot impose any regulation or condition which would'interfere with the right of free speech by radio.” . And see, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 404, 69th Cong., 1st Sess. 17-18 (minority views); S. Rep. No. 772, 69th Cong., 1st Sess. 4; ,67 Cong. Rec. 5480, 5484, 12356; 78 Cong. Rec. 10991-10992; Hearings before Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on S. 1 and S. 1754, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 2, 121, 125-134; Hearings before Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on H. R. 7716, 72d Cong., 2d SeSs., pt. 2, 9-13; Hearings before Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on S. 814, 78th Cong., 1st Sess. 59-68, 943-945. §29 of the Radio Act of 1927, 44 Stat. 1172; §326 of the Communications Act of. 1934, 48 Stat. 1091, as amended, 47 U. S. C. § 326. Lamb v. Sutton; Yates v. Associated Broadcasters, Inc.; Josephson v. Knickerbocker Broadcasting Co., supra, note 3. Cf. Felix v. Westinghouse Radio Stations, Inc.; Charles Parker Co. v. Silver City Crystal Co., supra, note 3. Houston Post Co. v. United States, supra, note 3; Sorensen v. Wood, supra, note 2; Daniell v. Voice of New Hampshire, Inc., supra, note 3. H. R. 9971, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., as reported to the full Senate, May 6, 1926, p. 50, § 4. 67 Cong. Rec. 12501. H. R. Rep. No. 1886, 69th Cong., 2d Sess. 10,18. See, e. g., H. R. 9230, 74th Cong., 1st Sess.; S. 814, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., §§ 7, 9, 10, 11; S. 1333, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., §15; 98 Cong. Rec. 7401. See also Hearings before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on H. R. 7716, 72d Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 2, 9-11; Hearings before Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on S. 2910, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 63-67; Hearings before Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on S. 814, 78th Cong., 1st Sess. 59-68, 162-163; 362-381, 943-945; Hearings before Select Committee of the House to Investigate the FCC, pursuant to H. Res. No. 691, 80th Cong., 2d Sess. 1-109. See note 5, supra. In Port Huron only two of the five Commissioners participating in the decision expressly concluded that § 315 barred state prosecutions for libel. Two of the others expressed no view on the subject. And one dissented. The Commission’s 1948 report to Congress stated, however, that the Commission had interpreted § 315 to grant a federal immunity. 14 F. C. C. Ann. Rep. 28 (1948). And in WDSU, released November 26, 1951, a majority of the Commission affirmed the Commission’s Port Huron decision. 7 Pike and Fischer Radio Reg. 769. See also 24 F. C. C. Ann. Rep. 123 (1958); Lamb v. Sutton, supra, note 3, at 932-933; Daniell v. Voice of New Hampshire, Inc., supra, note 3, at 2047; Charles Parker Co. v. Silver City Crystal Co., supra, note 3, 142 Conn., at 619, 116 A. 2d, at 446. The Commission’s position with respect to § 315 was not only reported to Congress in an Annual Report.of the Commission, 14 F. C. C. Ann. Rep. 28 (1948), but it was made the subject of-a special investigation by á Select Committee of the House, expressly constituted for that purpose. See H. R. Rep. No. 2461, 80th Cong., 2d Sess. See also In re WDSU Broadcasting Corp., supra, note 5, at 772-773. Compare H. R. Rep. No. 2426, 82d Cong., 2d Sess. 20-21. For examples of legislative proposals to modify §315 see, e. g., S. 2539, 82d Cong., 2d Sess.; H. R. 4814, 84th Cong., 1st Sess. A dissent here suggests that since WDAYis broadcast was required by federal law, there is a “strong likelihood” that the North Dakota courts might hold that the broadcast was not tortious under state law, or if tortious, was privileged. The North Dakota District Court, however, struck down a state statute which would have granted WDAY an immunity as in violation of a state constitutional provision saving to “every man” a court remedy for any injury done his “person or reputation.” In this situation we do not think that the record justifies the inference that WDAY could have obtained an immunity by calling it a privilege. But whatever North Dakota might hold, the question for us is whether Congress intended to subject a federal licensee to possible liability under the law of some or all of the 49 States for broadcasting in a way required by federal law. In re City of Jacksonville, 12 Pike and Fischer Radio Reg. 113, 125-126, 180 i-j; In re Loyola University, 12 Pike and Fischer Radio Reg. 1017, 1099. See also In re Homer P. Rainey, 11 F. C. C. 898. Cf. F. C. C. Report, In re Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees, 1 Pike and Fischer Radio Reg., pt. 3, 91:201. See, e. g., statement of Senator Fess, 67 Cong. Rec. 12356. Bethlehem Steel Co. v. New York Labor Board, 330 U. S. 767, 773; Hill v. Florida, 325 U. S. 538, 542. See also San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236; California v. Taylor, 353 U. S. 553. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 BREYERdelivered the opinion of the Court. Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 829 et seq.,as amended, a breach of fiduciary duty complaint is timely if filed no more than six years after "the date of the last action which constituted a part of the breach or violation" or "in the case of an omission the latest date on which the fiduciary could have cured the breach or violation." 29 U.S.C. § 1113. The question before us concerns application of this provision to the timeliness of a fiduciary duty complaint. It requires us to consider whether a fiduciary's allegedly imprudent retention of an investment is an "action" or "omission" that triggers the running of the 6-year limitations period. In 2007, several individual beneficiaries of the Edison 401(k) Savings Plan (Plan) filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Plan and all similarly situated beneficiaries (collectively, petitioners) against Edison International and others (collectively, respondents). Petitioners sought to recover damages for alleged losses suffered by the Plan, in addition to injunctive and other equitable relief based on alleged breaches of respondents' fiduciary duties. The Plan is a defined-contribution plan, meaning that participants' retirement benefits are limited to the value of their own individual investment accounts, which is determined by the market performance of employee and employer contributions, less expenses. Expenses, such as management or administrative fees, can sometimes significantly reduce the value of an account in a defined-contribution plan. As relevant here, petitioners argued that respondents violated their fiduciary duties with respect to three mutual funds added to the Plan in 1999 and three mutual funds added to the Plan in 2002. Petitioners argued that respondents acted imprudently by offering six higher priced retail-class mutual funds as Plan investments when materially identical lower priced institutional-class mutual funds were available (the lower price reflects lower administrative costs). Specifically, petitioners claimed that a large institutional investor with billions of dollars, like the Plan, can obtain materially identical lower priced institutional-class mutual funds that are not available to a retail investor. Petitioners asked, how could respondents have acted prudently in offering the six higher priced retail-class mutual funds when respondents could have offered them effectively the same six mutual funds at the lower price offered to institutional investors like the Plan? As to the three funds added to the Plan in 2002, the District Court agreed. It wrote that respondents had "not offered any credible explanation" for offering retail-class, i.e., higher priced mutual funds that "cost the Plan participants wholly unnecessary [administrative] fees," and it concluded that, with respect to those mutual funds, respondents had failed to exercise "the care, skill, prudence and diligence under the circumstances" that ERISA demands of fiduciaries. No. CV 07-5359 (CD Cal., July 8, 2010), App. to Pet. for Cert. 65, 130, 142, 109. As to the three funds added to the Plan in 1999, however, the District Court held that petitioners' claims were untimely because, unlike the other contested mutual funds, these mutual funds were included in the Plan more than six years before the complaint was filed in 2007. 639 F.Supp.2d 1074, 1119-1120 (C.D.Cal.2009). As a result, the 6-year statutory period had run. The District Court allowed petitioners to argue that, despite the 1999 selection of the three mutual funds, their complaint was nevertheless timely because these funds underwent significant changes within the 6-year statutory period that should have prompted respondents to undertake a full due-diligence review and convert the higher priced retail-class mutual funds to lower priced institutional-class mutual funds. App. to Pet. for Cert. 142-150. The District Court concluded, however, that petitioners had not met their burden of showing that a prudent fiduciary would have undertaken a full due-diligence review of these funds as a result of the alleged changed circumstances. According to the District Court, the circumstances had not changed enough to place respondents under an obligation to review the mutual funds and to convert them to lower priced institutional-class mutual funds. Ibid. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court as to the six mutual funds. 729 F.3d 1110 (2013). With respect to the three mutual funds added in 1999, the Ninth Circuit held that petitioners' claims were untimely because petitioners had not established a change in circumstances that might trigger an obligation to review and to change investments within the 6-year statutory period. Petitioners filed a petition for certiorari asking us to review this latter holding. We agreed to do so. Section 1113reads, in relevant part, that "[n]o action may be commenced with respect to a fiduciary's breach of any responsibility, duty, or obligation" after the earlier of "six years after (A) the date of the last action which constituted a part of the breach or violation, or (B) in the case of an omission the latest date on which the fiduciary could have cured the breach or violation." Both clauses of that provision require only a "breach or violation" to start the 6-year period. Petitioners contend that respondents breached the duty of prudence by offering higher priced retail-class mutual funds when the same investments were available as lower priced institutional-class mutual funds. The Ninth Circuit, without considering the role of the fiduciary's duty of prudence under trust law, rejected petitioners' claims as untimely under § 1113on the basis that respondents had selected the three mutual funds more than six years before petitioners brought this action. The Ninth Circuit correctly asked whether the "last action which constituted a part of the breach or violation" of respondents' duty of prudence occurred withinthe relevant 6-year period. It focused, however, upon the act of "designating an investment for inclusion" to start the 6-year period. 729 F.3d, at 1119. The Ninth Circuit stated that "[c]haracterizing the mere continued offering of a plan option, without more, as a subsequent breach would render" the statute meaningless and could even expose present fiduciaries to liability for decisions made decades ago. Id.,at 1120. But the Ninth Circuit jumped from this observation to the conclusion that only a significant change in circumstances could engender a new breach of a fiduciary duty, stating that the District Court was "entirely correct" to have entertained the "possibility" that "significant changes" occurring "within the limitations period" might require " 'a full due diligence review of the funds,' " equivalent to the diligence review that respondents conduct when adding new funds to the Plan. Ibid. We believe the Ninth Circuit erred by applying a statutory bar to a claim of a "breach or violation" of a fiduciary duty without considering the nature of the fiduciary duty. The Ninth Circuit did not recognize that under trust law a fiduciary is required to conduct a regular review of its investment with the nature and timing of the review contingent on the circumstances. Of course, after the Ninth Circuit considers trust-law principles, it is possible that it will conclude that respondents did indeed conduct the sort of review that a prudent fiduciary would have conducted absent a significant change in circumstances. An ERISA fiduciary must discharge his responsibility "with the care, skill, prudence, and diligence" that a prudent person "acting in a like capacity and familiar with such matters" would use. § 1104(a)(1); see also Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer,573 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 2459, 189 L.Ed.2d 457 (2014). We have often noted that an ERISA fiduciary's duty is "derived from the common law of trusts." Central States, Southeast & Southwest Areas Pension Fund v. Central Transport, Inc.,472 U.S. 559, 570, 105 S.Ct. 2833, 86 L.Ed.2d 447 (1985). In determining the contours of an ERISA fiduciary's duty, courts often must look to the law of trusts. We are aware of no reason why the Ninth Circuit should not do so here. Under trust law, a trustee has a continuing duty to monitor trust investments and remove imprudent ones. This continuing duty exists separate and apart from the trustee's duty to exercise prudence in selecting investments at the outset. The Bogert treatise states that "[t]he trustee cannot assume that if investments are legal and proper for retention at the beginning of the trust, or when purchased, they will remain so indefinitely." A. Hess, G. Bogert, & G. Bogert, Law of Trusts and Trustees § 684, pp. 145-146 (3d ed. 2009)(Bogert 3d). Rather, the trustee must "systematic[ally] conside[r] all the investments of the trust at regular intervals" to ensure that they are appropriate. Bogert 3d § 684, at 147-148; see also In re Stark's Estate, 15 N.Y.S. 729, 731 (Surr.Ct.1891)(stating that a trustee must "exercis[e] a reasonable degree of diligence in looking after the security after the investment had been made"); Johns v. Herbert,2 App.D.C. 485, 499 (1894)(holding trustee liable for failure to discharge his "duty to watch the investment with reasonable care and diligence"). The Restatement (Third) of Trusts states the following: "[A] trustee's duties apply not only in making investments but also in monitoring and reviewing investments, which is to be done in a manner that is reasonable and appropriate to the particular investments, courses of action, and strategies involved." § 90, Comment b,p. 295 (2007). The Uniform Prudent Investor Act confirms that "[m]anaging embraces monitoring" and that a trustee has "continuing responsibility for oversight of the suitability of the investments already made." § 2, Comment, 7B U.L.A. 21 (1995) (internal quotation marks omitted). Scott on Trusts implies as much by stating that, "[w]hen the trust estate includes assets that are inappropriate as trust investments, the trustee is ordinarily under a duty to dispose of them within a reasonable time." 4 A. Scott, W. Fratcher, & M. Ascher, Scott and Ascher on Trusts § 19.3.1, p. 1439 (5th ed. 2007). Bogert says the same. Bogert 3d § 685, at 156-157 (explaining that if an investment is determined to be imprudent, the trustee "must dispose of it within a reasonable time"); see, e.g., State Street Trust Co. v. De Kalb,259 Mass. 578, 583, 157 N.E. 334, 336 (1927)(trustee was required to take action to "protect the rights of the beneficiaries" when the value of trust assets declined). In short, under trust law, a fiduciary normally has a continuing duty of some kind to monitor investments and remove imprudent ones. A plaintiff may allege that a fiduciary breached the duty of prudence by failing to properly monitor investments and remove imprudent ones. In such a case, so long as the alleged breach of the continuing duty occurred within six years of suit, the claim is timely. The Ninth Circuit erred by applying a 6-year statutory bar based solely on the initial selection of the three funds without considering the contours of the alleged breach of fiduciary duty. The parties now agree that the duty of prudence involves a continuing duty to monitor investments and remove imprudent ones under trust law. Brief for Petitioners 24 ("Trust law imposes a duty to examine the prudence of existing investments periodically and to remove imprudent investments"); Brief for Respondents 3 ("All agree that a fiduciary has an ongoing duty to monitor trust investments to ensure that they remain prudent"); Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae7 ("The duty of prudence under ERISA, as under trust law, requires plan fiduciaries with investment responsibility to examine periodically the prudence of existing investments and to remove imprudent investments within a reasonable period of time"). The parties disagree, however, with respect to the scope of that responsibility. Did it require a review of the contested mutual funds here, and if so, just what kind of review did it require? A fiduciary must discharge his responsibilities "with the care, skill, prudence, and diligence" that a prudent person "acting in a like capacity and familiar with such matters" would use. § 1104(a)(1). We express no view on the scope of respondents' fiduciary duty in this case. We remand for the Ninth Circuit to consider petitioners' claims that respondents breached their duties within the relevant 6-year period under § 1113, recognizing the importance of analogous trust law. A final point: Respondents argue that petitioners did not raise the claim below that respondents committed new breaches of the duty of prudence by failing to monitor their investments and remove imprudent ones absent a significant change in circumstances. We leave any questions of forfeiture for the Ninth Circuit on remand. The Ninth Circuit's judgment 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:

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 Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sustained the order granting summary judgment to the respondents who are, respectively, the Chairman and counsel of the Internal Security Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate. Petitioners’ claim is essentially that respondents tortiously entered into and participated in a conspiracy and concert of action with Louisiana officials to seize property and records of petitioners by unlawful means in violation of petitioners’ Fourth Amendment rights. The circumstances of the searches and arrests involved are set forth in Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479 (1965), and in Judge Wisdom’s dissenting opinion in the District Court in that case, 227 F. Supp. 556, 573 (D. C. E. D. La. 1964). Louisiana courts held the arrests and searches illegal because the warrants secured by the police had not been supported by a showing of probable cause. In a civil suit by these same petitioners against the Louisiana officials allegedly involved in the conspiracy, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, reversing a summary judgment in favor of third-party defendants, held that plaintiffs had raised a genuine issue of material fact whether the Chairman “and the other members of the [State] Committee were 'acting in the sphere of legitimate legislative activity,’ which would entitle them to immunity.” Pfister v. Arceneaux, 376 F. 2d 821. In the present case, the court below recognized “considerable difficulty” in reaching the conclusion that, on the basis of the affidavits of the parties, there were no disputed issues of fact with respect to petitioners’ claim. It nevertheless upheld summary dismissal of the action on the ground that “the record before the District Court contained unchallenged facts of a nature and scope sufficient to give [respondents] an immunity against answer-ability in damages . . . .” In support of this conclusion the court addressed itself to only that part of petitioners’ claims which related to the take-over of the records by respondents after the “raids.” As to this, it held that the subject matter of the seized records was within the jurisdiction of the Senate Subcommittee and that the issuance of subpoenas to the Louisiana committee to obtain the records held by it was validated by subsequent Subcommittee ratification. On this basis, the court held that the acts for which petitioners seek relief were privileged, citing Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367 (1951). The court did not specifically comment upon petitioners’ contention that the record shows a material dispute of fact as to their claim that respondent Sour-wine actively collaborated with counsel to the Louisiana committee in making the plans for the allegedly illegal “raids” pursuant to the claimed authority of the Louisiana committee and on its behalf, in which petitioners claim that their property and records were seized in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. In the absence of the factual refinement which can occur only as a result of trial, we need not and, indeed, could not express judgment as to the legal consequences of such collaboration, if it occurred. There is controverted evidence in the record, such as the date appearing on certain documents which respondents’ evidence disputes as a typographical error, which affords more than merely colorable substance to petitioners’ assertions as to respondent Sourwine. We make no comment as to whether this evidence standing alone would be sufficient to support a verdict in petitioners’ favor against respondent Sourwine, or would require a verdict in his favor. But we believe that, as against an employee of the committee, this showing is sufficient to entitle petitioners to go to trial. In respect of respondent Eastland, we agree with the lower courts that petitioners’ complaint must be dismissed. The record does not contain evidence of his involvement in any activity that could result in liability. It is the purpose and office of the doctrine of legislative immunity, having its roots as it does in the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution, Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168, 204 (1881), that legislators engaged “in the sphere of legitimate legislative activity,” Tenney v. Brandhove, supra, 341 U. S., at 376, should be protected not only from the consequences of litigation’s results but also from the burden of defending themselves. This Court has held, however, that this doctrine is less absolute, although applicable, when applied to officers or employees of a legislative body, rather than to legislators themselves. As the Court said in Tenney v. Brandhove, supra, the doctrine, in respect of a legislator, “deserves greater respect than where an official acting on behalf of the legislature is sued ....” (341 U. S., at 378.) Cf. Wheeldin v. Wheeler, 373 U. S. 647 (1963). In light of this principle, we are compelled to hold that there is a sufficient factual dispute with respect to respondent Sourwine to require reversal of the judgment below as to him. Accordingly, we affirm the order of the Court of Appeals as to respondent Eastland and reverse and remand to the District Court as to respondent Sourwine for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion. Mr. Justice Black took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. As the Court pointed out in Tenney, supra (per Frankfurter, J.), in Kilbourn v. Thompson, supra, this Court “allowed a judgment against the Sergeant-at-Arms, but found that one could not be entered against the defendant members of the House.” 341 U. S., at 378. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellee Harry Vail, Jr., is a judgment debtor who was held in contempt of court by the County Court of Dutchess County, N. Y., and who thereafter sought to have the statutory provisions authorizing contempts enjoined as unconstitutional in an action brought under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The state-court proceedings against Vail were found by the District Court to be in most respects representative of those against the other named appellees as well. Vail defaulted on a credit arrangement with the Public Loan Co., and in January 1974, a default judgment for $534.36 was entered against him in the City Court of Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Three months later, when the judgment remained unpaid, Vail was served with a subpoena requiring him to attend a deposition so as to give information relevant to the satisfaction of the judgment. The subpoena required him to appear at the office of the creditor’s attorney on May 28, a little more than a month after the date on which it was served, and stated, as is required by N. Y. Civ. Prac. Law § 5223 (McKinney 1963), that “failure to comply . . . is punishable as a contempt of court.” Vail did not appear for the deposition. Nearly two months after the scheduled deposition date, appellant Juidice, a Justice of the Dutchess County Court, issued an order requiring Vail to appear in that court on August 13 to show cause why he should not be punished for contempt. Vail failed to appear for that hearing. On August 30, appellant Juidice entered an order holding Vail in contempt and imposing a fine in the amount of $250 plus costs. Vail failed to pay the fine. On September 23, appellant Juidice issued an ex parte commitment order, and Vail was arrested and jailed pursuant to this order on October 1. He was released the following day when he paid the fine which had been imposed by the order. Shortly thereafter, Vail, who had ignored for a period of more than nine months every stage of the state-court proceedings in which he had been a defendant, became a plaintiff in an action brought in the United States District Court. He and his coplaintiffs there sought to enjoin, on behalf of a class of judgment debtors, the use of the statutory contempt procedures authorized by New York law and employed by appellant justices on the ground that the procedures leading to imprisonment for contempt of court violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. As they never appeared in the New York courts, they obviously did not raise these constitutional claims in the state-court proceedings. The contentions made before the District Court, however, could have been raised by appellees in the state courts, as a defense to the ongoing proceedings. Had the County Court ruled against these contentions, appellees could have appealed to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. They chose, by resorting to the federal courts, not to avail themselves of this forum afforded them by the State of New York. We must decide whether, with the existence of an available forum for raising constitutional issues in a state judicial proceeding, the United States District Court could properly entertain appellees’ § 1983 action in light of our decisions in Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), and Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S. 592 (1975). We hold that it could not. I A three-judge District Court was convened in response to appellees’ complaint and the action was later certified as a Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23 (b) (2) class action. The class was defined to include “all persons who have been, or are presently subject to the civil contempt proceedings contained in the challenged sections of the Judiciary Law.” App. to Jurisdictional Statement 18a. At the same time the District Court rendered an opinion granting partial summary judgment to the appellees and “declaring that Sections 756, 757, 770, 772, 773, 774 and 775 of the Judiciary Law of the State of New York are unconstitutional on their face and permanently enjoining the operation of said statutes against plaintiffs and members of their class, namely, all persons who have been or are presently subject to civil contempt proceedings pursuant to the above sections of the Judiciary Law . . . .” Id., at 20a. Appellants in this Court challenged the District Court’s failure to abstain on Younger grounds as well as its decision on the merits. We noted probable jurisdiction, 426 U. S. 946, and since we agree with appellants’ first contention we do not reach the merits of the constitutional dispute. Although raised by neither of the parties, we are first obliged to examine the standing of appellees, as a matter of the case-or-controversy requirement associated with Art. III, to seek injunctive relief in the District Court. North Carolina v. Rice, 404 U. S. 244 (1971); O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488, 493-498 (1974). At the time this lawsuit was commenced, or the additional appellees added, the named appellees, except Patrick Ward and Joseph Rabasco, had already been imprisoned pursuant to the contempt order, and, again excepting Ward and Rabasco, had been released after payment of the court-imposed fine. Ward had not been imprisoned, but alleged that he was “in imminent danger of being imprisoned pursuant to the Order of Contempt . . ." Complaint ¶ 55. A temporary restraining order, which has remained in effect throughout this lawsuit, was issued by the District Court, enjoining the State from incarcerating Ward pursuant to the contempt order. Rabasco similarly alleged the threat of imprisonment after the issuance by the state court of an order to show cause which he has not complied with. The District Court restrained further state proceedings against Rabasco. All of the named appellees, except Ward and Rabasco, then, having been released from jail, no longer had a live controversy with appellants or other New York State officials as to either the contempt citation or the short periods of incarceration which would entitle them to injunctive relief. These New York supplemental proceedings, which follow judgments on a debt, differ in this respect from the Ohio State proceedings involved in Huffman, supra. In Huffman, the Ohio State court had closed down the federal plaintiff’s movie house for a period of time in the future. Although its decree had become final at the time the federal plaintiff instituted its federal action, the effect of the decree continued. 420 U. S., at 598. That plaintiff accordingly had the requisite standing. O’Shea v. Littleton, supra, at 495-496. Here, however, once the period of incarceration is served or the fine paid, the effect of the orders imposing a fine or commitment has expended itself. And, in the case where the payment of the fine satisfies the entire judgment, not only the orders in the supplemental proceedings but the original judgment as well is rendered functus officio. As the complaint does not allege, and as the District Court did not find, that these appellees were threatened with further or repeated proceedings, only Ward and Rabasco had the necessary standing to seek injunctive relief. See Ellis v. Dyson, 421 U. S. 426 (1975); Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452 (1974). Appellees Ward and Rabasco do have standing, since they are subject to pending proceedings in the state courts. Since Ward and Rabasco have standing, and since their standing, unlike that of the plaintiff in Steffel v. Thompson, supra, is predicated on the existence of a pending, and not merely a threatened, proceeding, we deal with appellants’ Younger contentions. The District Court decided that our holdings in Younger and Huffman did not mandate dismissal of the complaint in this case, because the action sought to be enjoined in Younger was a criminal prosecution, and the action sought to be enjoined in Huffman was for the abatement of a civil nuisance and therefore closely akin to a criminal proceeding. This was not an implausible reading of our holdings in those cases, since in Huffman, the most recent of the two, we had reserved the applicability of abstention to civil cases generally in this language: “Informed by the relevant principles of comity and federalism, at least three Courts of Appeals have applied Younger when the pending state proceedings were civil in nature. See Duke v. Texas, 477 F. 2d 244 (CA5 1973); Lynch v. Snepp, 472 F. 2d 769 (CA4 1973); Cousins v. Wigoda, 463 F. 2d 603 (CA7 1972). For the purposes of the case before us, however, we need make no general pronouncements upon the applicability of Younger to all civil litigation. It suffices to say that for the reasons heretofore set out, we conclude that the District Court should have applied the tests laid down in Younger in determining whether to proceed to the merits of appellee’s prayer for relief against this Ohio civil nuisance proceeding.” 420 U. S., at 607. We now hold, however, that the principles of Younger and Huffman are not confined solely to the types of state actions which were sought to be enjoined in those cases. As we emphasized in Huffman, the “ 'more vital consideration’ ” behind the Younger doctrine of nonintervention lay not in the fact that the state criminal process was involved but rather in “ 'the notion of “comity,” that is, a proper respect for state functions, a recognition of the fact that the entire country is made up of a Union of separate state governments, and a continuance of the belief that the National Government will fare best if the States and their institutions are left free to perform their separate functions in their separate ways.’ ” Huffman, 420 U. S., at 601, quoting Younger, 401 U. S., at 44. This is by no means a novel doctrine. In Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908), the watershed case which sanctioned the use of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as a sword as well as a shield against unconstitutional conduct of state officers, the Court said: “But the Federal court cannot, of course, interfere in a case where the proceedings were already pending in a state court. Taylor v. Taintor, 16 Wall. 366, 370; Harkrader v. Wadley, 172 U. S. 148.” Id., at 162. These principles apply to a case in which the State’s contempt process is involved. A State’s interest in the contempt process, through which it vindicates the regular operation of its judicial system, so long as that system itself affords the opportunity to pursue federal claims within it, is surely an important interest. Perhaps it is not quite as important as is the State’s interest in the enforcement of its criminal laws, Younger, supra, or even its interest in the maintenance of a quasi-criminal proceeding such as was involved in Huffman, supra. But we think it is of sufficiently great import to require application of the principles of those cases. The contempt power lies at the core of the administration of a State’s judicial system, cf. Ketchum v. Edwards, 153 N. Y. 534, 539, 47 N. E. 918, 920 (1897). Whether disobedience of a court-sanctioned subpoena, and the resulting process leading to a finding of contempt of court, is labeled civil, quasi-criminal, or criminal in nature, we think the salient fact is that federal-court interference with the State’s contempt process is “an offense to the State’s interest . . . likely to be every bit as great as it would be were this a criminal proceeding,” Huffman, supra, at 604. Moreover, such interference with the contempt process not only “unduly interfere[s] with the legitimate activities of the Stat[e],” Younger, supra, at 44, but also “can readily be interpreted ‘as reflecting negatively upon the state court’s ability to enforce constitutional principles,’ ” Huffman, supra, at 604. The District Court relied upon our decision in Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103 (1975), to justify its refusal to dismiss appellees’ suit, and it spoke of the possibility that a debtor in the position of appellees might be “thrown in jail without an actual hearing” (emphasis added). But Gerstein explained the reason for the inapplicability of Younger to that case in a way which clearly distinguishes it from this: “The District Court correctly held that respondents’ claim for relief was not barred by the equitable restrictions on federal intervention in state prosecutions, Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971). The injunction was not directed at the state prosecutions as such, but only at the legality of pretrial detention without a judicial hearing, an issue that could not be raised in defense of the criminal prosecution.” 420 U. S., at 108 n. 9. (Emphasis added.) Here it is abundantly clear that appellees had an opportunity to present their federal claims in the state proceedings. No more is required to invoke Younger abstention. There is no support in Gerstein or in our other cases for the District Court's belief that the state courts must have an actual hearing (to which a recalcitrant defendant would presumably be brought by force) in order for Younger and Huffman to apply. Appellees need be accorded only an opportunity to fairly pursue their constitutional claims in the ongoing state proceedings, Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U. S. 564, 577 (1973), and their failure to avail themselves of such opportunities does not mean that the state procedures were inadequate. Presumptively, therefore, the principles which underlie Younger call for dismissal of the action. II We noted in Huffman that Younger principles do not apply, even where otherwise applicable, “in those cases where the District Court properly finds that the state proceeding is motivated by a desire to harass or is conducted in bad faith, or where the challenged statute is ‘ “flagrantly and patently violative of express constitutional prohibitions in every clause, sentence and paragraph, and in whatever manner and against whomever an effort might be made to apply it.” ’ ” Huffman, 420 U. S., at 611. We think it wholly impossible to say that the New York statutes in question here met the second part of this exception. Nor is the first part of the exception either alleged in appellees’ complaint or proved by their evidence. While some paragraphs of the complaint could be construed to make such allegations as to the creditors, there are no comparable allegations with respect to appellant justices who issued the contempt orders. This exception may not be utilized unless it is alleged and proved that they are enforcing the contempt procedures in bad faith or are motivated by a desire to harass. Cf. Cameron v. Johnson, 390 U. S. 611, 619 (1968). There are neither allegations, proof, nor findings to that effect here. We conclude that the District Court erred in enjoining enforcement of the New York Judiciary Law’s contempt procedures for the reasons of federalism and comity enunciated in Younger and Huffman. Its judgment is accordingly Reversed. There originally were three named plaintiffs. Subsequent to the bringing of this suit, five additional named plaintiffs were added. We conclude, infra, at 331-333, that not all of the named plaintiffs had the requisite standing to seek the relief sought. The issuance of the subpoena is authorized by N. Y. Civ. Prac. Law §§ 5223 and 5224 (McKinney 1963). These subpoenas are issued by the creditor’s attorney, acting, however, as an officer of the court, cf. N. Y. Civ. Prac. Law § 2308 (a) (McKinney 1974). N. Y. Jud. Law § 757 (1) (McKinney 1975) . §§ 770, 772, 773. The fine was payable to the Public Loan Co. in reduction of its judgment. § 756. See n. 14, infra. See N. Y. Civ. Prac. Law § 5701 (a) (2) (McKinney 1963); Rudd v. Rudd, 45 App. Div. 2d 22, 356 N. Y. S. 2d 136 (1974). Since we find that the District Court erred in reaching the merits of the injunctive claim, we need not decide whether the District Court’s action in granting partial summary judgment was proper, when neither party had moved for summary judgment and when the state defendants had not yet answered the complaint. While several of the named appellees, upon payment of the fine, had satisfied the underlying default judgment, this is not true in all of the cases. Appellee Vail, for example, owed, pursuant to the default judgment, $534.36. His payment of the contempt fine of $250 plus costs, did not satisfy the full default judgment. As to him, and the other appellees similarly situated, since the underlying action on the debt, to which the contempt proceedings were ancillary, had not ended, it is conceivable that the prospect of further contempt orders in the underlying action could have given Vail the requisite constitutional standing to seek to enjoin the contempt processes as unconstitutional. But standing cannot be based on such speculative conjectures which are neither alleged nor proved. Since the complaint does not allege the likelihood, or even the possibility, of future contempt orders, none of the appellees, excepting Ward and Rabasco, have standing. O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488, 493-499 (1974); Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U. S. 614, 617 (1973). The District Court read Younger as applying “to civil proceedings only when intervention would disrupt the very interests which would underlie a state’s criminal laws.” Vail v. Quinlan, 406 F. Supp. 951, 958. Neither Ex parte Young, nor the cases cited by it, expressly premised this conclusion on § 5 of the Judiciary Act of 1793, 1 Stat. 335, or its successor sections (now 28 U. S. C. § 2283). These cases, rather, are “an application of the reason underlying the Act,” Toucey v. New York Life Ins. Co., 314 U. S. 118, 135 (1941), and reflect the applicability, wholly independent of a statutory codification, of the longstanding policies which inhere in the notions of comity and federalism, see Younger, 401 U. S., at 43-45; 1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law *411-412. Contempt in these cases, serves, of course, to vindicate and preserve the private interests of competing litigants, People ex rel. Munsell v. Court of Oyer and Terminer, 101 N. Y. 245, 247-249, 4 N. E. 259, 259-261 (1886), but its purpose is by no means spent upon purely private concerns. It stands in aid of the authority of the judicial system, so that its orders and judgments are not rendered nugatory, Ketchum v. Edwards, 153 N. Y. 534, 539, 47 N. E. 918, 920 (1897) (“The interest in maintaining respect for the action of courts, and of orderly jurisprudence, forbids that litigants should be permitted, under plea of hardship or injustice, real or pretended, to nullify or set at nought orders or decrees, however improvidently made, even if it may seem certain that the court acted in granting them under misapprehension or mistake”); cf. Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co., 221 U. S. 418, 443 (1911); King v. Barnes, 113 N. Y. 476, 21 N.E. 182 (1889). As we did in Huffman, we save for another day the question of “the applicability of Younger to all civil litigation,” 420 U. S., at 607. The most propitious moment would have been at the hearing on the order to show cause. Even after the order of contempt had been issued, a motion to vacate pursuant to N. Y. Civ. Prac. Law § 5015 (McKinney Supp. 1976-1977) was available, and it would have been possible to seek a stay or a temporary restraining order on the fine and commitment, see N. Y. Civ. Prac. Law § 2201 (McKinney 1974); Rudd v. Rudd, 45 App. Div. 2d 22, 356 N. Y. S. 2d 136 (1974). Should the state courts ultimately have sustained the validity of the state statutory system, appellees would have had final recourse, available as of right, to this Court, 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2). It does not appear settled in New York whether persons faced with civil contempt will be assigned counsel if indigent, see Rudd v. Rudd, supra; but cf. In re Smiley, 36 N. Y. 2d 433, 330 N. E. 2d 53 (1975) (no inherent power in courts to direct provision of counsel or to require the compensation of retained counsel in private suits; no “risk of loss of liberty or grievous forfeiture”). In any case, the relevant datum is that the due process contentions concerning assigned counsel, as with the other contentions, could have been presented to the New York State courts by the same parties or their attorneys who, instead, chose to ignore the pending state-court proceedings by filing this suit in federal court. Appellees Vail and McNair, apart from their request for declaratory and injunctive relief, also sought damages for alleged past violations of their constitutional rights stemming from the brief periods of incarceration. Appellants, however, are no longer involved in this aspect of the lawsuit, having been dismissed by the District Court on grounds of judicial immunity. Appellees have not challenged the District Court’s dismissal of the state-court justices from those counts, and none of the parties here have addressed the issue of the availability of damages to these appellees. The issue of damages is therefore not before us, and we intimate no opinion as to the applicability of Younger-Huffman principles to a § 1983 suit seeking only such relief in the District Court. Cf. Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167 (1961); Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S., at 607 n. 19, 609 n. 21. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. On November 27, 1959, petitioner was found guilty of first degree murder by a Colorado jury, which fixed his penalty at death. Following subsequent state proceedings, he sought a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. He alleged that he had received inadequate representation by appointed trial counsel, that the trial court had not properly determined the voluntariness of confessions admitted against him, and that the procedure used to determine his sanity fell short of constitutional requirements. On June 2, 1967, the District Court denied the writ, denied a certificate of probable cause to appeal, see 28 U. S. C. § 2253, but granted a stay of execution to June 16, 1967, to allow time for appeal. The District Court filed a written opinion and order to that effect on June 5, 1967. Three days later, on June 8, petitioner’s attorneys filed with the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit a three-page document requesting a further stay of execution, a certificate of probable cause to appeal, and leave to appeal in forma pauperis. This document merely stated the formal history of the case in numbered paragraphs, noted one of the issues, and alleged that “this petition merits further hearing by this Court.” On the following day, June 9, counsel were heard orally by a panel of the Court of Appeals. The hearing was not recorded. The court granted a further stay of execution. On June 18, without further argument or submissions by counsel, the Court of Appeals issued an order granting the certificate of probable cause, and, in the next sentence, affirming the District Court’s denial of habeas corpus. Petitioner sought a writ of certiorari in this Court, alleging that the procedure followed by the Court of Appeals violated the standards established by, or implicit in, Nowakowski v. Maroney, 386 U. S. 542. We grant the writ, vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals, and remand to that court for further appropriate proceedings. Nowakowski, supra, held that when a district court grants a certificate of probable cause the court of appeals must “proceed to a disposition of the appeal in accord with its ordinary procedure.” 386 U. S., at 543. The principle underlying that decision was that if an appellant persuades an appropriate tribunal that probable cause for an appeal exists, he must then be afforded an opportunity to address the underlying merits. This principle is no less applicable when a court of appeals, having received submissions relating only to probable cause and other procedural matters, decides that probable cause indeed exists. As we only recently noted in Carafas v. LaVallee, ante, p. 234, at 242, Nowakowski does not prevent the courts of appeals from adopting appropriate summary procedures for final disposition of such cases. Carafas requires the courts of appeals to give sufficient indication that an appeal has been disposed of on the merits, but nothing in Nowakowski and nothing we say here prevents the courts of appeals from considering the questions of probable cause and the merits together, and nothing said there or here necessarily requires full briefing and oral argument in every instance in which a certificate is granted. We hold only that where an appeal possesses sufficient merit to warrant a certificate, the appellant must be afforded adequate opportunity to address the merits, and that if a summary procedure is adopted the appellant must be informed, by rule or otherwise, that his opportunity will or may be limited. Within this general framework, the promulgation of specific procedures is a matter for the courts of appeals. The motion to proceed in forma pauperis and petition for a writ of certiorari are granted. The judgment of the Court of Appeals affirming the judgment of the District Court is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion. The stay of execution heretofore granted by Me. Justice White is continued in force pending the disposition of the matter by the Court of Appeals, on condition that the petitioner proceed with due diligence in that court. It is so ordered. Petitioner’s statement of facts alleges not only that trial counsel was guilty of egregious neglect at trial but also that there were understandable reasons: there is said to be evidence that during the period of the trial the attorney’s attention was preoccupied with other matters, to wit, the commission of a series of felonies. In an effort to determine whether the merits had been addressed, and whether petitioner was on notice that they should be addressed in full, at the unrecorded hearing on June 9, this Court solicited further submissions from the parties in this case. Petitioner replied that the merits had been raised only to the extent necessary to show grounds for a certificate of probable cause. Respondent replied that petitioner was given all the time he wanted. Respondent was unable, however, to point to any rule or decision forewarning an applicant for a certificate of probable cause to make his argument on the underlying issues in full. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court. The petition in this case asked us to consider two aspects of “statute of limitations” law. One concerns the date upon which a civil action accrues under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and the limitations period starts to run. The other concerns “fraudulent concealment,” a doctrine that extends the time for a plaintiff to file suit. In respect to the first, we focus upon, and disapprove, an accrual rule followed in the Third Circuit called the “last predicate act” rule. In respect to the second, we hold that a plaintiff may not rely upon “fraudulent concealment” unless he has been reasonably diligent in trying to discover his cause of action. I The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U. S. C. §§ 1961-1968, among other things, makes it a crime “to conduct” an “enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.” § 1962(c). The phrase “racketeering activity” is a term of art defined in terms of activity that violates other laws, including more than 50 specifically mentioned federal statutes, which forbid, for example, murder-for-hire, extortion, and various kinds of fraud. § 1961(1). The word “pattern” is also a term of art defined to require “at least two acts of racketeering activity,. .. the last of which occurred within ten years ... after the commission of a prior act of racketeering activity.” § 1961(5). A special RICO provision — commonly known as civil RICO — permits “[a]ny person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation” of RICO’s criminal provisions to recover treble damages and attorney’s fees. § 1964(c). RICO does not say what limitations period governs the filing of civil RICO claims. But in Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Associates, Inc., 483 U. S. 143, 156 (1987), this Court held that civil RICO actions are subject to the 4-year limitations period contained in § 4B of the Clayton Act (Antitrust), as added by 69 Stat. 283, and as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 15b — the statute of limitations that governs private civil antitrust actions seeking treble damages; Marvin and Mary Klehr, the petitioners here, are dairy farmers. They filed this civil RICO action on August 27, 1993, claiming that A. O. Smith Corporation and A. O. Smith Harvestore Products, Inc. (whom we shall simply call “Harvestore”), had committed several acts of mail and wire fraud, 18 U. S. C. §§ 1341, 1343, thereby violating RICO and causing them injury. Their injury, they said, began in 1974, when Harvestore sold them a special “Harvestore” brand silo, which they used for storing cattle feed. The Klehrs alleged that they bought the silo in reliance on Harvestore’s representations, made through advertisements and a local dealer, that the silo would limit the amount of oxygen in contact with the silage, thus preventing moldy and fermented feed, and thereby producing healthier cows, more milk, and higher profits. The representations, they claim, were false; the silo did not keep oxygen away from the feed, the feed became moldy and fermented, the cows ate the bad feed, and milk production and profits went down. They add that Harvestore committed other acts — consisting primarily of additional representations made to them and to others and sales made to others — over a period of many years after 1974. Harvestore, pointing out that the Klehrs had filed suit almost 20 years after they had bought the silo, moved to dismiss the lawsuit on the ground that the limitations period had long since run. The Klehrs could not file suit, Harvestore said, unless their claim had accrued within the four years prior to filing, i. e., after August 25, 1989, or unless some special legal doctrine nonetheless tolled the running of the limitations period or estopped Harvestore from asserting a statute of limitations defense. See Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U. S. 392, 396-397 (1946); Bailey v. Glover, 21 Wall. 342, 349-350 (1875); Cada v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 920 F. 2d 446, 450-451 (CA7 1990), cert. denied, 501 U. S. 1261 (1991). The Klehrs responded by producing evidentiary material designed to support a legal justification for the late filing. Essentially they claimed that Harvestore had covered up its fraud — preventing them from noticing the silo’s malfunction — for example, by means of an unloading device that hid the mold by chopping up the feed instantly as it emerged; through continued dealer misrepresentations; with advertisements that tried to convince farmers that warm, brown, molasses-smelling feed was not fermented feed, but good feed; and even by hanging on the silo itself a plaque that said: “DANGER DO NOT ENTER NOT ENOUGH OXYGEN TO SUPPORT LIFE” Not until 1991, say the Klehrs, did they become sufficiently suspicious to investigate the silo, at which time, by opening the silo wall and chopping through the feed with an ice chisel, they discovered “ ‘mold hanging all over the silage.’ ” Brief for Petitioners 16. The District Court, after examining the Klehrs’ evidence, found their lawsuit untimely. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the dismissal, and said that a civil RICO action accrues “ ‘as soon as the plaintiff discovers, or reasonably should have discovered, both the existence and source of his injury and that the injury is part of a pattern.’ ” 87 F. 3d 231, 238 (1996) (quoting Association of Commonwealth Claimants v. Moylan, 71 F. 3d 1398, 1402 (CA8 1995)). After examining the Klehrs’ evidence de novo, the Circuit held that they failed to satisfy the standard. It said they had suffered “one single, continuous injury . . . sometime in the 1970s”; and that they should have discovered “the existence and source of [their] injury,” as well as any related “pattern,” well before August 1989. 87 F. 3d, at 239. The Circuit refused to find “fraudulent concealment” because, among other things, the Klehrs had not been sufficiently “diligen[t].” Id., at 238, 239, n. 11. We granted certiorari in this case to consider the Klehrs’ claim in light of a split of authority among the Courts of Appeals. Two other Circuits, like the Eighth Circuit here, have applied forms of an “injury and pattern discovery” civil RICO accrual rule. Bivens Gardens Office Building, Inc. v. Barnett Bank, 906 F. 2d 1546, 1554-1555 (CA11 1990), cert. denied, 500 U. S. 910 (1991); Bath v. Bushkin, Gaims, Gaines & Jonas, 913 F. 2d 817, 820 (CA10 1990). Other Circuits have applied forms of an “injury discovery” rule, i. e., without the “pattern.” See Grimmett v. Brown, 75 F. 3d 506, 511 (CA9 1996), cert. dism’d as improvidently granted, 519 U. S. 233 (1997); McCool v. Strata Oil Co., 972 F. 2d 1452, 1464-1465 (CA7 1992); Rodriguez v. Banco Central Corp., 917 F. 2d 664, 665-666 (CA1 1990); Bankers Trust Co. v. Rhoades, 859 F. 2d 1096, 1102 (CA2 1988), cert. denied, 490 U. S. 1007 (1989); Pocahontas Supreme Coal Co. v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 828 F. 2d 211, 220 (CA4 1987); see also Riddell v. Riddell Washington Corp., 866 F. 2d 1480, 1489-1490 (CADC 1989) (assuming, but not deciding, that injury discovery rule applies). One court, the Third Circuit, has applied a “last predicate act” rule, which we shall discuss below. We also agreed to decide the Klehrs’ argument that “reasonable diligence” is not a necessary component of the doctrine of “fraudulent concealment.” For reasons we shall describe, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. II A We shall first discuss the Third Circuit’s accrual rule — the “last predicate act” rule — for it is the only accrual rule that can help the Klehrs. Like the Eighth Circuit, the Third Circuit believes that the limitations period starts to run when a plaintiff knew or should have known that the RICO claim (including a “pattern of racketeering activity”) existed, but the Third Circuit has added an important exception, which it states as follows: “[If], as a part of the same pattern of racketeering activity, there is further injury to the plaintiff or further predicate acts occur, . . . the accrual period shall run from the time when the plaintiff knew or should have known of the last injury or the last predicate act which is part of the same pattern of racketeering activity. The last predicate act need not have resulted in injury to the plaintiff but must be part of the same pattern.” Keystone Ins. Co. v. Houghton, 863 F. 2d 1125, 1130 (1988). For purposes of assessing the rule’s lawfulness, we assume, as do the Klehrs, that this rule means that as long as Harvestore committed one predicate act within the limitations period (i. e., the four years preceding suit), the Klehrs can recover, not just for any added harm caused them by that late-committed act, but for all the harm caused them by all the acts that make up the total “pattern.” We also assume that they can show at least one such late-committed act. Finally, we note that the point of difference between the Third Circuit and the other Circuits has nothing to do with the plaintiff’s state of mind or knowledge. It concerns only the accrual consequences of a late-committed act. Consequently, we can consider the merits of the rule on the simplifying assumption that the plaintiff is perfectly knowledgeable. We conclude that the Third Circuit’s rule is not a proper interpretation of the law. We have two basic reasons. First, as several other Circuits have pointed out, the last predicate act rule creates a limitations period that is longer than Congress could have contemplated. Because a series of predicate acts (including acts occurring at up to 10-year intervals) can continue indefinitely, such an interpretation, in principle, lengthens the limitations period dramatically. It thereby conflicts with a basic objective — repose—that underlies limitations periods. See Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S. 261, 271 (1985) (citing Adams v. Woods, 2 Cranch 336, 342 (1805)); Crown, Cork & Seal Co. v. Parker, 462 U. S. 345, 352 (1983). Indeed, the rule would permit plaintiffs who know of the defendant’s pattern of activity simply to wait, “sleeping on their rights,” ibid., as the pattern continues and treble damages accumulate, perhaps bringing suit only long after the “memories of witnesses have faded or evidence is lost,” Wilson, supra, at 271. We cannot find in civil RICO a compensatory objective that would warrant so significant an extension of the limitations period, and civil RICO’s further purpose — encouraging potential private plaintiffs diligently to investigate, see Malley-Duff, 483 U. S., at 151—suggests the contrary. We recognize that RICO’s criminal statute of limitations runs from the last, i. e., the most recent, predicate act. But there are significant differences between civil and criminal RICO actions, and this Court has held that criminal RICO does not provide an apt analogy. Id., at 155-156 (declining to apply criminal RICO’s 5-year statute of limitations to civil RICO actions and noting “competing equities unique to civil RICO actions or, indeed, any other federal civil remedy”). Second, the Third Circuit rule is inconsistent with the ordinary Clayton Act rule, applicable in private antitrust treble damages actions, under which “a cause of action accrues and the statute begins to run when a defendant commits an act that injures a plaintiff’s business.” Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 401 U. S. 321, 338 (1971); Connors v. Hallmark & Son Coal Co., 935 F. 2d 336, 342, n. 10 (CADC 1991); 1 C. Corman, Limitation of Actions § 6.5.5.1, p. 449 (1991) (hereinafter Corman); 2 P. Areeda & H. Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law ¶ 338b, p. 145 (rev. ed. 1995) (hereinafter Areeda). We do not say that a pure injury accrual rule always applies without modification in the civil RICO setting in the same way that it applies in traditional antitrust eases. For example, civil RICO requires not just a single act, but rather a “pattern” of acts. Furthermore, there is some debate as to whether the running of the limitations period depends on the plaintiff’s awareness of certain elements of the cause of action. As we said earlier, however, for purposes of evaluating the Third Circuit’s rule we can assume knowledgeable parties. Hence the special problems associated with a discovery rule, see Part II — B, infra, are not at issue. And we believe, in these circumstances, the Clayton Act analogy is helpful. In Malley-Duff, this Court indicated why the analogy is useful. It concluded “that there is a need for a uniform statute of limitations for civil RICO, that the Clayton Act clearly provides a far closer analogy than any available state statute, and that the federal policies that lie behind RICO and the practicalities of RICO litigation make the selection of the 4-year statute of limitations for Clayton Act actions . . . the most appropriate limitations period for RICO actions.” 483 U. S., at 156 (citing 15 U. S. C. § 15b). The Court left open the accrual question. But it did not rule out the use of a Clayton Act analogy. As the Court has explained, Congress consciously patterned civil RICO after the Clayton Act. 483 U. S., at 150-151 (comparing 15 U. S. C. § 15(a) with 18 U. S. C. § 1964(c)); see also Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479, 489 (1985). And by the time civil RICO was enacted, the Clayton Act’s accrual rule was well established. See Crummer Co. v. DuPont, 223 F. 2d 238, 247-248 (CA5), cert. denied, 350 U. S. 848 (1955); Foster & Kleiser Co. v. Special Site Sign Co., 85 F. 2d 742, 750-751 (CA9 1936), cert. denied, 299 U. S. 613 (1937); Bluefields S. S. Co. v. United Fruit Co., 243 F. 1, 20 (CA3 1917). The Clayton Act helps here because it makes clear precisely where, and how, the Third Circuit’s rule goes too far. Antitrust law provides that, in the case of a “continuing violation,” say, a price-fixing conspiracy that brings about a series of unlawfully high priced sales over a period of years, “each overt act that is part of the violation and that injures the plaintiff,” e. g., each sale to the plaintiff, “starts the statutory period running again, regardless of the plaintiff’s knowledge of the alleged illegality at much earlier times.” 2 Areeda ¶ 338b, at 145 (footnote omitted); see also Zenith, supra, at 338; Hanover Shoe, Inc. v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 392 U. S. 481, 502, n. 15 (1968); DXS, Inc. v. Siemens Medical Systems, Inc., 100 F. 3d 462, 467 (CA6 1996). But the commission of a separate new overt act generally does not permit the plaintiff to recover for the injury caused by old overt acts outside the limitations period. Zenith, supra, at 338; Pennsylvania Dental Assn. v. Medical Serv. Assn., 815 F. 2d 270, 278 (CA3), cert. denied, 484 U. S. 851 (1987); Hennegan v. Pacifico Creative Serv., Inc., 787 F. 2d 1299, 1300 (CA9), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 886 (1986); National Souvenir Center v. Historic Figures, Inc., 728 F. 2d 503, 509 (CADC), cert. denied sub nom. C. M. Uberman Enterprises, Inc. v. Historic Figures, Inc., 469 U. S. 825 (1984); Imperial Point Colonnades Condominium, Inc. v. Mangurian, 549 F. 2d 1029, 1034-1035 (CA5 1977); Crummer Co., supra, 247-248. Cf. 2 Areeda ¶ 338b, at 149. Similarly, some Circuits have adopted a “separate accrual” rule in civil RICO cases, under which the commission of a separable, new predicate act within a 4-year limitations period permits a plaintiff to recover for the additional damages caused by that act. But, as in the antitrust cases, the plaintiff cannot use an independent, new predicate act as a bootstrap to recover for injuries caused by other earlier predicate acts that took place outside the limitations period. See, e. g., Grimmett, 75 F. 3d, at 512-514; McCool v. Strata Oil Co., 972 F. 2d, at 1465-1466, and n. 10; Bivens Gardens Office Building, Inc. v. Barnett Bank, 906 F. 2d, at 1552, n. 9; State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Ammann, 828 F. 2d 4, 5 (CA9 1987) (Kennedy, J., concurring). But see Bingham v. Zolt, 66 F. 3d 553, 560 (CA2 1995) (citing Bankers Trust, 859 F. 2d, at 1103). Thus, the Klehrs may point to new predicate acts that took place after August 1989, such as sales to other farmers or the printing of new Harvestore advertisements. But that fact does not help them, for, as the Court of Appeals pointed out, they have not shown how any new act could have caused them harm over and above the harm that the earlier acts caused. 87 F. 3d, at 239. Nor can the presence of the new act help them recover for the injuries caused by pre-1989 acts, for it is in this respect that we find the Third Circuit’s rule incorrect. Petitioners also point to Zenith, a case in which this Court considered antitrust damages that were so “speculative” or “unprovable,” 401 U. S., at 339, at the time of a defendant’s unlawful act (and plaintiff’s initial injury) that to follow the normal accrual rule (starting the limitations period at the point the act first causes injury) would have left the plaintiff without relief. This Court held that, in such a case, a claim for the injuries that had been speculative would accrue when those injuries occurred, even though the act that caused them had taken place more than four years earlier. Id., at 339-340. This case does not help the petitioners here, however, for their injuries — the harm to their farm — have always been specific and calculable. B We recognize that our holding in Part II-A does not resolve other conflicts among the Circuits. For' example, the Circuits have applied “discovery” accrual rules, which extend accrual periods for plaintiffs who could not reasonably obtain certain key items of information. The use of a discovery rule may reflect the fact that a high percentage of civil RICO cases, unlike typical antitrust cases, involve fraud claims. See Sedima, supra, at 499, n. 16 (most civil RICO claims involve underlying fraud offense); 1 A. Mathews, A. Weissman, & J. Sturc, Civil RICO Litigation, p. 1-6 (2d ed. 1992) (citing Report of the Ad Hoc Civil RICO Task Force of the ABA Section of Corporation, Banking and Business Law 243 (1985)) (as of 1985, approximately 90% of civil RICO cases resulting in a published decision involved mail, wire, or securities fraud as a predicate offense); cf. Connors, 935 F. 2d, at 342 (federal courts generally apply discovery accrual rule when statute does not call for a different rule); 1 Corman § 6.5.5.1, at 449 (same). Moreover, different Circuits have applied discovery accrual rules that differ, one from the other, in important ways. Compare, e. g., Bankers Trust, supra, at 1103 (civil RICO cause of action accrues when the plaintiff discovers or should have discovered his injury), with 87 F. 3d, at 238 (civil RICO cause of action accrues when, in addition, plaintiff discovers or should have discovered the “source” of injury and a “pattern”). We further realize that, contrary to our assumption in Part II-A, supra (where we discussed a legal issue in respect to which knowledge was irrelevant), the Klehrs did claim that they lacked knowledge of the faulty silo — the “source” of their injury. But that particular “lack of knowledge” claim does not require us to consider the various “discovery rule” differences among the Circuits, because the Klehrs failed the “knowledge” test that favors them the most — the Eighth Circuit’s “injury plus source plus pattern” rule. That rule would have found the Klehrs’ action timely had it not been the case that the Klehrs reasonably “should have discovered” all of those elements prior to 1989. 87 F. 3d, at 239. If the Klehrs cannot fit their case through the Eighth Circuit’s larger hole, they cannot squeeze it through a smaller one. In addition, the major difference among the Circuits— whether a discovery rule includes knowledge about a “pattern” — is clearly not at issue here. Harvestore marketed and sold its “oxygen-limiting” silos for many years before the Klehrs purchased theirs, and the Klehrs have not claimed lack of knowledge of a “pattern.” Nor has anyone argued any other legal differences among the Circuits’ various tests that would affect the outcome in this case. In these circumstances, we believe we should not consider differences among the various discovery accrual rules used by the Circuits. The legal questions involved may be subtle and difficult. Compare id., at 238 (claim accrues with discovery of existence and source of injury, plus pattern), with Bivens Gardens, supra, at 1554 (claim accrues with discovery of injury and pattern); see also Cada, 920 F. 2d, at 451 (describing differences among various discovery rules and doctrines of “equitable tolling” and “equitable estoppel”). And the facts of this case do not force focused argument as to how the traditional Clayton Act “injury” accrual rule, principles of equitable tolling, and doctrines of equitable estoppel should interact in circumstances where the application of one, or another, of these different limitations doctrines would make a significant legal difference. To say this is not, as the concurrence claims, to advocate a “mix-and-match” statute of limitations theory. Post, at 200, n. 3. Rather, it is to recognize that the Clayton Act’s express statute of limitations does not necessarily provide all the answers. We shall, at the very least, wait for a case that clearly presents these or related issues, providing an opportunity for full argument, before we attempt to resolve them. Finally, the Klehrs have asked us to review the Eighth Circuit’s application of its rule in this case. Doing so would involve examining an evidentiary record of several thousand pages to determine the validity of the independent conclusion of each of two lower courts that the Klehrs should reasonably have discovered the silo’s flaws before 1989 (and that a reasonable factfinder could not conclude to the contrary). That conclusion is highly fact based, depending not only upon how much mold the Klehrs noticed in their silage and when, but also upon such matters as the effect of the Klehrs’ failure to consult the herd performance records they were continu-. ously sent, and whether their having done so would have led them to tell veterinarians a more revealing story, to question Harvestore’s representatives more fully, or to investigate the silo sooner. See 87 F. 3d, at 234. We have no reason to believe that there is any very obvious or exceptional error below. And our writ of certiorari commits us to decide only the purely legal question whether or not a claim accrues “where the Respondent continues to commit predicate acts” in the 4-year period immediately preceding suit. Pet. for Cert. i. We have answered that question in Part II-A. And we shall not go beyond the writ’s question to reexamine the fact-based rule-application issue that the Klehrs now raise, and which the Eighth Circuit decided in Harvestore’s favor. Ill Our writ of certiorari contained one further question, namely, whether “affirmative continuing acts of fraud . . . coupled with active cover up of the fraud, act to equitably toll the statute of limitations ... whether or not Petitioners have exercised reasonable diligence to discover their claim.” Ibid. (emphasis added). This question refers to the doctrine of “fraudulent concealment,” which some courts have said “equitably tolls” the running of a limitations period, see, e. g., Grimmett, 75 F. 3d, at 514, while other courts have said it is a form of “equitable estoppel,” see, e. g., Wolin v. Smith Barney Inc., 83 F. 3d 847, 852 (CA7 1996). Regardless, the question presented here focuses upon a relevant difference among the Circuits in respect to the requirement of “reasonable diligence” on the part of the plaintiff. Some Circuits have held that when a plaintiff does not, in fact, know of a defendant’s unlawful activity, and when the defendant takes “affirmative steps” to conceal that unlawful activity, those circumstances are sufficient to toll the limitations period (or to “estop” the defendant from asserting a limitations defense) irrespective of what the plaintiff should have known. See, e. g., id., at 852-853. Other courts have held that a plaintiff who has not exercised reasonable diligence may not benefit from the doctrine. See, e. g., Wood v. Carpenter, 101 U. S. 135, 143 (1879); Bailey, 21 Wall., at 349-350; J. Geils Band Employee Benefit Plan v. Smith Barney Shearson, Inc., 76 F. 3d 1245, 1252-1255 (CA1 1996) (diligence required for fraudulent concealment under federal law); Urland v. Merrell-Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 822 F. 2d 1268, 1273-1274 (CA3 1987) (same with respect to Pennsylvania law); see also 2 Corman § 9.7.1, at 56-57, 60-61, 64-66. We limit our consideration of the question to the context of civil RICO. In that context, we conclude that “reasonable diligence” does matter, and a plaintiff who is not reasonably diligent may not assert “fraudulent concealment.” We reach this conclusion for two reasons. First, in the related antitrust context, where the “fraudulent concealment” doctrine is invoked fairly often, relevant authority uniformly supports the requirement. Professor Areeda says, for example, that “[t]he concealment requirement is satisfied only if the plaintiff shows that he neither knew nor, in the exercise of due diligence, could reasonably have known of the offense.” 2 Areeda ¶ 338, at 152; see also I. Scher, Antitrust Adviser § 10.27, p. 10-62 (4th' ed. 1995). We have found many antitrust cases that say the same, and none that says the contrary. See, e. g., Conmar Corp. v. Mitsui & Co., 858 F. 2d 499, 502 (CA9 1988), cert. denied sub nom. VSL Corp. v. Conmar Corp., 488 U. S. 1010 (1989); Texas v. Allan Constr. Co., 851 F. 2d 1526, 1533 (CA5 1988); Pinney Dock & Transport Co. v. Penn Central Corp., 838 F. 2d 1445, 1465 (CA6), cert. denied sub nom. Pinney Dock & Transport Co. v. Norfolk & Western R. Co., 488 U. S. 880 (1988); New York v. Hendrickson Bros., Inc., 840 F. 2d 1065, 1083 (CA2), cert. denied, 488 U. S. 848 (1988); Berkson v. Del Monte Corp., 743 F. 2d 53, 56 (CA1 1984), cert. denied, 470 U. S. 1056 (1985); Charlotte Telecasters, Inc. v. Jefferson-Pilot Corp., 546 F. 2d 570, 574 (CA4 1976). Second, those courts that do not require “reasonable diligence” have said that the “fraudulent concealment” doctrine seeks to punish defendants for affirmative, discrete acts of concealment; the behavior of plaintiffs is consequently irrelevant. See Wolin, supra, at 852; Robertson v. Seidman & Seidman, 609 F. 2d 583, 593 (CA2 1979); cf. Urland, supra, at 1280-1281 (Becker, J., dissenting). Whether or not that is so in the legal contexts at issue in those cases (which were not antitrust cases), it is not so in respect either to antitrust or to civil RICO. Rather, in both of those latter contexts private civil actions seek not only to compensate victims but also to encourage those victims themselves diligently to investigate and thereby to uncover unlawful activity. See Malley-Duff, 483 U. S., at 151. That being so, we cannot say that the “fraudulent concealment” is concerned only with the behavior of defendants. For that reason, and in light of the consensus of authority, we conclude that “fraudulent concealment” in the context of civil RICO embodies a “due diligence” requirement. In their brief on the merits, petitioners have asked us to examine whether the Eighth Circuit properly applied the “due diligence” requirement to the evidentiary materials before it. That fact-based question, however, is beyond the scope of our writ; and for reasons similar to those discussed earlier, see supra, at 193, we shall not consider it. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is Affirmed. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice O’Connor delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioner brought suit against the Monroe County Board of Education and other defendants, alleging that her fifth-grade daughter had been the victim of sexual harassment by another student in her class. Among petitioner’s claims was a claim for monetary and injunctive relief under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX), 86 Stat. 373, as amended, 20 U. S. C. § 1681 et seq. The District Court dismissed petitioner’s Title IX claim on the ground that “student-on-student,” or peer, harassment provides no ground for a private cause of action under the statute. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed. We consider here whether a private damages action may lie against the school board in cases of student-on-student harassment. We conclude that it may, but only where the funding recipient acts with deliberate indifference to known acts of harassment in its programs or activities. Moreover, we conclude that such an action will lie only for harassment that is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim’s access to an educational opportunity or benefit. Petitioner’s Title IX claim was dismissed under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Accordingly, in reviewing the legal sufficiency of petitioner’s cause of action, “we must assume the truth of the material facts as alleged in the complaint.” Summit Health, Ltd. v. Pinhas, 500 U. S. 322, 325 (1991). A Petitioner’s minor daughter, LaShonda, was allegedly the victim of a prolonged pattern of sexual harassment by one of her fifth-grade classmates at Hubbard Elementary School, a public school in Monroe County, Georgia. According to petitioner’s complaint, the harassment began in December 1992, when the elassmate, G. F., attempted to touch LaShon-da’s breasts and genital area and made vulgar statements such as “ T want to get in bed with you’ ” and “ T want to feel your boobs.’” Complaint ¶7. Similar conduct allegedly occurred on or about January 4 and January 20, 1993. Ibid. LaShonda reported each of these incidents to her mother and to her classroom teacher, Diane Fort. Ibid. Petitioner, in turn, also contacted Fort, who allegedly assured petitioner that the school principal, Bill Querry, had been informed of the incidents. Ibid. Petitioner contends that, notwithstanding these reports, no disciplinary action was taken against G. F. Id., ¶ 16. G. F/s conduct allegedly continued for many early February, G. F. purportedly placed a door stop in his pants and proceeded to act in a sexually suggestive manner toward LaShonda during physical education class. Id., ¶ 8. LaShonda reported G. F.’s behavior to her physical education teacher, Whit Maples. Ibid. Approximately one week later, G. F. again allegedly engaged in harassing behavior, this time while under the supervision of another classroom teacher, Joyce Pippin. Id., ¶ 9. Again, LaShonda allegedly reported the incident to the teacher, and again petitioner contacted the teacher to follow up. Ibid. Petitioner alleges that G. F. once more harassing conduct toward LaShonda in physical education class in early March, and that LaShonda reported the incident to both Maples and Pippen. Id., ¶ 10. In mid-April 1993, G. F. allegedly rubbed his body against LaShonda in the school hallway in what LaShonda considered a sexually suggestive manner, and LaShonda again reported the matter to Fort. Id., ¶ 11. The string of incidents finally G. F. was charged with, and pleaded guilty to, sexual battery for his misconduct. Id., ¶ 14. The complaint alleges that LaShonda had suffered during the months of harassment, however; specifically, her previously high grades allegedly dropped as she became unable to concentrate on her studies, id., ¶ 15, and, in April 1993, her father discovered that she had written a suicide note, ibid. The complaint further alleges that, at one point, LaShonda told petitioner that she “‘didn’t know how much longer she could keep [G. F.] off her.”’ Id., ¶ 12. Nor was LaShonda G. F.’s only victim; it is alleged that other girls in the class fell prey to G. F.’s conduct. Id., ¶ 16. At one point, in fact, a group composed of LaShonda and other female students tried to speak with Principal Querry about G. F.’s behavior. Id., ¶ 10. According to the complaint, however, a teacher denied the students’ request with the statement, “‘If [Querry] wants you, he’ll call you.’” Ibid. Petitioner alleges that no disciplinary action was taken in response to G. F.’s behavior toward LaShonda. Id., ¶ 16. In addition to her conversations with Fort and Pippen, petitioner alleges that she spoke with Principal Querry in mid-May 1993. When petitioner inquired as to what action the school intended to take against G. F., Querry simply stated, “ ‘I guess I’ll have to threaten him a little bit harder.’ ” Id., ¶ 12. Yet, petitioner alleges, at no point during the many months of his reported misconduct was G. F. disciplined for harassment. Id., ¶ 16. Indeed, Querry allegedly asked petitioner why LaShonda “‘was the only one complaining.’” Id., ¶ 12. Nor, according to the complaint, was any effort made to separate G. F. and LaShonda. Id., ¶ 16. On the contrary, notwithstanding LaShonda’s frequent complaints, only after more than three months of reported harassment was she even permitted to change her classroom seat so that she was no longer seated next to G. F. Id., ¶ 13. Moreover, petitioner alleges that, at the time of the events in question, the Monroe County Board of Education (Board) had not instructed its personnel on how to respond to peer sexual harassment and had not established a policy on the issue. Id., ¶ 17. B On May 4,1994, petitioner filed suit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia against the Board, Charles Dumas, the school district’s superintendent, and Principal Querry. The complaint alleged that the Board is a recipient of federal funding for purposes of Title IX, that “[t]he persistent sexual advances and harassment by the student G. F. upon [LaShonda] interfered with her ability to attend school and perform her studies and activities,” and that “[t]he deliberate indifference by Defendants to the unwelcome sexual advances of a student upon LaShonda created an intimidating, hostile, offensive and abus[ive] school environment in violation of Title IX.” Id., ¶¶27, 28. The complaint sought compensatory and punitive damages, attorney’s fees, and injunctive relief. Id., ¶ 32. The defendants (all respondents petitioner’s complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, and the District Court granted respondents’ motion. See 862 F. Supp. 363, 368 (MD Ga. 1994). With regard to petitioner’s claims under Title IX, the court dismissed the claims against individual defendants on the ground that only federally funded educational institutions are subject to liability in private causes of action under Title IX. Id., at 367. As for the Board, the court concluded that Title IX provided no basis for liability absent an allegation “that the Board or an employee of the Board had any role in the harassment.” Ibid. Petitioner appealed the District Court’s decision dismissing her Title IX claim against the Board, and a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed. 74 F. 3d 1186, 1195 (1996). Borrowing from Title VII law, a majority of the panel determined that student-on-student harassment stated a cause of action against the Board under Title IX: “[W]e conclude that as Title VII encompasses a claim for damages due to a sexually hostile working environment created by co-workers and tolerated by the employer, Title IX encompasses a claim for damages due to a sexually hostile educational environment created by a fellow student or students when the supervising authorities knowingly fail to act to eliminate the harassment.” Id., at 1193. The Eleventh Circuit panel recognized that petitioner sought to state a claim based on school “officials’ failure to take action to stop the offensive acts of those over whom the officials exercised control,” ibid., and the court concluded that petitioner had alleged facts sufficient to support a claim for hostile environment sexual harassment on this theory, id., at 1195. The Eleventh Circuit granted the Board’s motion for rehearing en banc, 91 F. 3d 1418 (1996), and affirmed the District Court’s decision to dismiss petitioner’s Title IX claim against the Board, 120 F. 3d 1390 (1998). The en banc court relied, primarily, on the theory that Title IX was passed pursuant to Congress’ legislative authority under the Constitution’s Spending Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 1, and that the statute therefore must provide potential recipients of federal education funding with “unambiguous notice of the conditions they are assuming when they accept” it. 120 F. 3d, at 1399. Title IX, the court reasoned, provides recipients with notice that they must stop their employees from engaging in discriminatory conduct, but the statute fails to provide a recipient with sufficient notice of a duty to prevent student-on-student harassment. Id., at 1401. Writing in dissent, four judges urged that the statute, by declining to identify the perpetrator of discrimination, encompasses misconduct by third parties: “The identity of the perpetrator is simply irrelevant under the language” of the statute. Id., at 1412 (Barkett, J., dissenting). The plain language, the dissenters reasoned, also provides recipients with sufficient notice that a failure to respond to student-on-student harassment could trigger liability for the district. Id., at 1414. We granted certiorari, 524 U. S. 980 (1998), in order to resolve a conflict in the Circuits over whether, and under what circumstances, a recipient of federal educational funds can be liable in a private damages action arising from student-on-student sexual harassment, compare 120 F. 3d 1390 (CA11 1998) (case below), and Rowinsky v. Bryan Independent School Dist., 80 F. 3d 1006, 1008 (CA5) (holding that private damages action for student-on-student harassment is available under Title IX only where funding recipient responds to these claims differently based on gender of vietim), cert. denied, 519 U. S. 861 (1996), with Doe v. University of Illinois, 138 F. 3d 653, 668 (CA7 1998) (upholding private damages action under Title IX for funding recipient’s inadequate response to known student-on-student harassment), vacated and remanded, post, p. 1142, Brzonkala v. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 132 F. 3d 949, 960-961 (CA4 1997) (same), vacated and District Court decision affirmed en banc, 169 F. 3d 820 (CA4 1999) (not addressing merits of Title IX hostile environment sexual harassment claim and directing District Court to hold this claim in abeyance pending this Court’s decision in the instant case), and Oona, R.-S.- v. McCaffrey, 143 F. 3d 473, 478 (CA9 1998) (rejecting qualified immunity claim and concluding that Title IX duty to respond to student-on-student harassment was clearly established by 1992-1993), cert. denied, post, p. 1154. We now reverse. II Title IX provides, with certain exceptions not at issue here, that “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 20 U. S. C. § 1681(a). Congress authorized an administrative enforcement scheme for Title IX. Federal departments or agencies with the authority to provide financial assistance are entrusted to promulgate rules, regulations, and orders to enforce the objectives of § 1681, see § 1682, and these departments or agencies may rely on “any... means authorized by law,” including the termination of funding, ibid., to give effect to the statute’s restrictions. There is no dispute here that the Board is a recipient of federal education funding for Title IX purposes. 74 F. 3d, at 1189. Nor do respondents support an argument that student-on-student harassment cannot rise to the level of “discrimination” for purposes of Title IX. Rather, at issue here is the question whether a recipient of federal education funding may be liable for damages under Title IX under any circumstances for discrimination in the form of student-on-student sexual harassment. A Petitioner urges that Title IX’s plain language compels the conclusion that the statute is intended to bar recipients of federal funding from permitting this form of discrimination in their programs or activities. She emphasizes that the statute prohibits a student from being “subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 20 U. S. C. § 1681(a) (emphasis added). It is Title IX’s “unmistakable focus on the benefited class,” Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 691 (1979), rather than the perpetrator, that, in petitioner’s view, compels the conclusion that the statute works to protect students from the discriminatory misconduct of their peers. Here, however, we are asked to do more than define the scope of the behavior that Title IX proscribes. We must determine whether a district’s failure to respond to student-on-student harassment in its schools can support a private suit for money damages. See Gebser v. Logo Vista Independent School Dist., 524 U. S. 274, 283 (1998) (“In this case,... petitioners seek not just to establish a Title IX violation but to recover damages...”). This Court has indeed recognized an implied private right of action under Title IX, see Cannon v. University of Chicago, supra, and we have held that money damages are available in such suits, Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, 508 U. S. 60 (1992). Because we have repeatedly treated Title IX as legislation enacted pursuant to Congress’ authority under the Spending Clause, however, see, e. g., Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School Dist., supra, at 287 (Title IX); Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, supra, at 74-75, and n. 8 (Title IX); see also Guardians Assn. v. Civil Serv. Comm/n of New York City, 463 U. S. 582, 598-599 (1983) (opinion of White, J.) (Title VI), private damages actions are available only where recipients of federal funding had adequate notice that they could be liable for the conduct at issue. When Congress acts pursuant to its spending power, it generates legislation “much in the nature of a contract: in return for federal funds, the States agree to comply with federally imposed conditions.” Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Haldeman, 451 U. S. 1, 17 (1981). In interpreting language in spending legislation, we thus “insis[t] that Congress speak with a clear voice,” recognizing that “[t]here can, of course, be no knowing acceptance [of the terms of the putative contract] if a State is unaware of the conditions [imposed by the legislation] or is unable to ascertain what is expected of it.” Ibid.; see also id., at 24-25. Invoking urge vides no notice that recipients of federal educational funds could be liable in damages for harm arising from student-on-student harassment. Respondents contend, specifically, that the statute only proscribes misconduct by grant recipients, not third parties. Respondents argue, moreover, that it would be contrary to the very purpose of Spending Clause legislation to impose liability on a funding recipient for the misconduct of third parties, over whom recipients exercise little control. See also Rowinsky v. Bryan Independent School Dist., 80 F. 3d, at 1013. We agree with respondents that a funds may be liable in damages under Title IX only for its own misconduct. The recipient itself must “exclud[e] [persons] from participation in,... den[y] [persons] the benefits of, or... subjee[t] [persons] to discrimination under” its “program[s] or activities]” in order to be liable under Title IX. The Government’s enforcement power may only be exercised against the funding recipient, see § 1682, and we have not extended damages liability under Title IX to parties outside the scope of this power. See National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Smith, 525 U. S. 459, 467, n. 5 (1999) (rejecting suggestion “that the private right of action available under... § 1681(a) is potentially broader than the Government’s enforcement authority”); cf. Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School DisL, supra, at 289 (“It would be unsound, we think, for a statute’s express system of enforcement to require notice to the recipient and an opportunity to come into voluntary compliance while a judicially implied system of enforcement permits substantial liability without regard to the recipient’s knowledge or its corrective actions upon receiving notice”). We disagree with respondents’ assertion, however, that petitioner seeks to hold the Board liable for G. F.’s actions instead of its own. Here, petitioner attempts to hold the Board liable for its own decision to remain idle in the face of known student-on-student harassment in its schools. In Gebser, we concluded that a recipient of federal education funds may be liable in damages under Title IX where it is deliberately indifferent to known acts of sexual harassment by a teacher. In that ease, a teacher had entered into a sexual relationship with an eighth-grade student, and the student sought damages under Title IX for the teacher’s misconduct. We recognized that the scope of liability in private damages actions under Title IX is circumscribed by Pennhursts requirement that funding recipients have notiee of their potential liability. 524 U. S., at 287-288. Invoking Pennhurst, Guardians Assn., and Franklin, in Gebser we once again required “that ‘the receiving entity of federal funds [have] notice that it will be liable for a monetary award’ ” before subjecting it to damages liability. 524 U. S., at 287 (quoting Franklin v. Gwinnett Comity Public Schools, 503 U. S., at 74). We also recognized, however, that this limitation on private damages actions is not a bar to liability where a funding recipient intentionally violates the statute. Id., at 74-75; see also Guardians Assn. v. Civil Serv. Comm’n of New York City, supra, at 597-598 (opinion of White, J.) (same with respect to Title VI). In particular, we concluded that Pennhurst does not bar a private damages action under Title IX where the funding recipient engages in intentional conduct that violates the clear terms of the statute. Accordingly, we rejected the use agency impute liability to the district for the misconduct of its teachers. 524 U. S., at 283. Likewise, we declined the invitation to impose liability under what amounted to a negligence standard — holding the district liable for its failure to react to teacher-student harassment of which it knew or should have known. Ibid. Rather, we concluded that the district could be liable for damages only where the district itself intentionally acted in clear violation of Title IX by remaining deliberately indifferent to acts of teacher-student harassment of which it had actual knowledge. Id., at 290. Contrary to the dissent’s suggestion, the misconduct of the teacher in Gebser was not “treated as the grant recipient’s actions.” Post, at 661 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). Liability arose, rather, from “an official decision by the recipient not to remedy the violation.” Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School Dist., supra, at 290. By employing the “deliberate indifference” theory already used to establish municipal liability under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, see Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School Dist., supra, at 290-291 (citing Board of Comm’rs of Bryan Cty. v. Brown, 520 U. S. 397 (1997), and Canton v. Harris, 489 U. S. 378 (1989)), we concluded in Gebser that recipients could be liable in damages only where their own deliberate indifference effectively “cause[dj” the discrimination, 524 U. S., at 291; see also Canton v. Harris, supra, at 385 (recognizing that a municipality will be liable under § 1983 only if “the municipality itself causes the constitutional violation at issue” (emphasis in original)). The high standard imposed in Gebser sought to eliminate any “risk that the recipient would be liable in damages not for its own official decision but instead for its employees’ independent actions.” 524 U. S., at 290-291. Gebser thus established that a recipient intentionally violates Title IX, and is subject to a private damages action, where the recipient is deliberately indifferent to known acts of teacher-student discrimination. Indeed, whether viewed as “discrimination” or “subjecting]” students to discrimination, Title IX “[unquestionably... placed on [the Board] the duty not” to permit teacher-student harassment in its schools, Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, supra, at 75, and recipients violate Title IX’s plain terms when they remain deliberately indifferent to this form of misconduct. We consider here whether the misconduct identified in Gebser — deliberate indifference to known acts of harassment — amounts to an intentional violation of Title IX, capable of supporting a private damages action, when the harasser is a student rather than a teacher. We conclude that, in certain limited circumstances, it does. As an initial matter, in Gebser we expressly rejected the use of agency principles in the Title IX context, noting the textual differences between Title IX and Title VII. 524 U. S., at 283; cf. Faragher v. Boca Raton, 624 U. S. 775, 791-792 (1998) (invoking agency principles on ground that definition of “employer” in Title VII includes agents of employer); Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U. S. 57, 72 (1986) (same). Additionally, the regulatory scheme surrounding Title IX has long provided funding recipients with notice that they may be liable for their failure to respond to the discriminatory acts of certain nonagents. The Department of Education requires recipients to monitor third parties for discrimination in specified circumstances and to refrain from particular forms of interaction with outside entities that are known to discriminate. See, e.g., 34 CFR §§ 106.31(b)(6), 106.31(d), 106.37(a)(2), 106.38(a), 106.51(a)(3) (1998). The common law, too, has put on may be held responsible under state law for their failure to protect students from the tortious acts of third parties. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 320, and Comment a (1965). In fact, state courts routinely uphold claims alleging that schools have been negligent in failing to protect their students from the torts of their peers. See, e. g., Rupp v. Bryant, 417 So. 2d 658, 666-667 (Fla. 1982); Brakatcek v. Millard School DM., 202 Neb. 86, 99-100, 273 N. W. 2d 680, 688 (1979); McLeod v. Grant County School Dist. No. 128, 42 Wash. 2d 316, 320, 255 P. 2d 360, 362-363 (1953). This is not to say that the identity of the vant. On the contrary, both the “deliberate indifference” standard and the language of Title IX narrowly circumscribe the set of parties whose known acts of sexual harassment can trigger some duty to respond on the part of funding recipients. Deliberate indifference makes sense as a theory of direct liability under Title IX only where the funding recipient has some control over the alleged harassment. A recipient cannot be directly liable for its indifference where it lacks the authority to take remedial action. The language in conjunction with the requirement that the recipient have notice of Title IX’s prohibitions to be liable for damages— also cabins the range of misconduct that the statute proscribes. The statute’s plain language confines the scope of prohibited conduct based on the recipient’s degree of control over the harasser and the environment in which the harassment occurs. If a funding recipient does not engage in harassment directly, it may not be liable for damages unless its deliberate indifference “subject[s]” its students to harass-raent. That is, the deliberate indifference must, at a minimum, “cause [students] to undergo” harassment or “make them liable or vulnerable” to it. Random House Dictionary of the English Language 1415 (1966) (defining “subject” as “to cause to undergo the action of something specified; expose” or “to make liable or vulnerable; lay open; expose”); Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 2275 (1961) (defining “subject” as “to cause to undergo or submit to: make submit to a particular action or effect: EXPOSE”). Moreover, because the harassment must occur “under” “the operations of” a funding recipient, see 20 U. S. C. § 1681(a); § 1687 (defining “program or activity”), the harassment must take place in a context subject to the school district’s control, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, supra, at 2487 (defining “under” as “in or into a condition of subjection, regulation, or subordination”; “subject to the guidance and instruction of”); Random House Dictionary, supra, at 1543 (defining “under” as “subject to the authority, direction, or supervision of”). These factors combine to limit a recipient’s damages liability to circumstances wherein the recipient exercises substantial control over both the harasser and the context in which the known harassment occurs. Only then can the recipient be said to “expose” its students to harassment or “cause” them to undergo it “under” the recipient’s programs. We agree with the dissent that these conditions are satisfied most easily and most obviously when the offender is an agent of the recipient. Post, at 661. We rejected the use of agency analysis in Gebser, however, and we disagree that the term “under” somehow imports an agency requirement into Title IX. See post, at 660-661. As noted above, the theory in Gebser was that the recipient was directly liable for its deliberate indifference to discrimination. See supra, at 642-643. Liability in that ease did not arise because the “teacher’s actions [were] treated” as those of the funding recipient, post, at 661; the district was directly liable for its own failure to act. The terms “subjee[t]” and "under” impose limits, but nothing about these terms requires the use of agency principles. as and on school grounds — the bulk of G. F.’s misconduct, in fact, took place in the classroom — the misconduct is taking place "under” an "operation” of the funding recipient. See Doe v. University of Illinois, 138 F. 3d, at 661 (finding liability where school fails to respond properly to “student-on-student sexual harassment that takes place while the students are involved in school activities or otherwise under the supervision of school employees”). In these circumstances, the recipient retains substantial control over the context in which the harassment occurs. More importantly, however, in this setting the Board exercises significant control over the harasser. We have observed, for example, “that the nature of [the State’s] power [over public schoolchildren] is custodial and tutelary, permitting a degree of supervision and control that could not be exercised over free adults.” Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646, 655 (1995). On more than one occasion, this Court has recognized the importance of school officials’ “comprehensive authority..., consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in the schools.” Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 507 (1969); see also New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 342, n. 9 (1985) (“The maintenance of discipline in the schools requires not only that students be restrained from assaulting one another, abusing drugs and alcohol, and committing other crimes, but also that students conform themselves to the standards of conduct prescribed by school authorities”); 74 F. 3d, at 1193 (“The ability to control and influence behavior exists to an even greater extent in the classroom than in the workplace...”). The common law, too, recognizes the school’s disciplinary authority. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 152 (1965). We thus conclude that recipients of federal funding may be liable for “subject[ing3” them students to discrimination where the recipient is deliberately indifferent to known acts of student-on-student sexual harassment and the harasser is under the school’s disciplinary authority. events in question here, in fact, school attorneys and administrators were being told that student-on-student harassment could trigger liability under Title IX. In March 1993, even as the events alleged in petitioner’s complaint were unfolding, the National School Boards Association issued a publication, for use by “school attorneys and administrators in understanding the law regarding sexual harassment of employees and students,” which observed that districts could be liable under Title IX for their failure to respond to student-on-student harassment. See National School Boards Association Council of School Attorneys, Sexual Harassment in the Schools: Preventing and Defending Against Claims v, 45 (rev. ed.). Drawing on Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines interpreting Title VII, the publication informed districts that, “if [a] school district has constructive notice of severe and repeated acts of sexual harassment by fellow students, that may form the basis of a [TJitle IX claim.” Ibid. The publication even correctly anticipated a form of Gebser’s actual notice requirement: “It is unlikely that courts will hold a school district liable for sexual harassment by students against students in the absence of actual knowledge or notice to district employees.” Sexual Harassment in the Schools, stipra, at 45. Although we do not rely on this publication as an “indicium of congressional notice,” see post, at 671, we do find support for our reading of Title IX in the fact that school attorneys have rendered an analogous interpretation. Likewise, although they were promulgated too late to contribute to the Board’s notice of proscribed misconduct, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has recently adopted policy guidelines providing that student-on-student harassment falls within the scope of Title IX’s proscriptions. See Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, Sexual Harassment Guidance: Harassment of Students by School Employees, Other Students, or Third Parties, 62 Fed. Reg. 12034, 12039-12040 (1997) (OCR Title IX Guidelines); see also Department of Education, Racial Incidents and Harassment Against Students at Educational Institutions, 59 Fed. Reg. 11448, 11449 (1994). We stress that our be liable for their deliberate indifference to known acts of peer sexual harassment — does not mean that recipients can avoid liability only by purging their schools of actionable peer harassment or that administrators must engage in particular disciplinary action. We thus disagree with respondents’ contention that, if Title IX provides a cause of action for student-on-student harassment, “nothing short of expulsion of every student accused of misconduct involving sexual overtones would protect school systems from liability or damages.” See Brief for Respondents 16; see also 120 F. 3d, at 1402 (Tjoflat, J.) (“[A] school must immediately suspend or expel a student accused of sexual harassment”). Likewise, the dissent erroneously imagines that victims of peer harassment now have a Title IX right to make particular remedial demands. See post, at 686 (contemplating that victim could demand new desk assignment). In fact, as we have previously noted, courts should refrain from second-guessing the disciplinary decisions made by school administrators. New Jersey v. T. L. O., supra, at 342-343, n. 9. School they require so long as funding recipients are deemed “deliberately indifferent” to acts of student-on-student harassment only where the recipient’s response to the harassment or lack thereof is clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances. The dissent consistently miseharaeterizes this standard to require funding recipients to “remedy” peer harassment, post, at 658, 662, 668,683, and to “ensur[e] that... students conform their conduct to” certain rules, post, at 666. Title IX imposes no sueh requirements. On the contrary, the recipient must merely respond to known peer harassment in a manner that is not clearly unreasonable. This is not a mere “reasonableness” standard, as the dissent assumes. See post, at 679. In an appropriate case, there is no reason why courts, on a motion to dismiss, for summary judgment, or for a directed verdict, could not identify a response as not “clearly unreasonable” as a matter of law. see post, at 664-668, we acknowledge that school administrators shoulder substantial burdens as a result of legal constraints on their disciplinary authority. To the extent that these restrictions arise from federal statutes, Congress can review7- these burdens -with attention to the difficult position in which such legislation may place our Nation’s schools. We believe, however, that the standard set out here is sufficiently flexible to account both for the level of disciplinary authority available to the school and for the potential liability arising from certain forms of disciplinary action. A university might not, for example, be expected to exercise the same degree of control over its students that a grade school would enjoy, see post, at 666-668, and it would be entirely reasonable for a school to refrain from a form of disciplinary action that would expose it to constitutional or statutory claims. can show that the Board’s response to reports of G. F.’s misconduct was clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances, petitioner may be able to show that the Board “subjected]” LaShonda to discrimination by failing to respond in any way over a period of five months to complaints of G. F.’s in-sehool misconduct from LaShonda and other female students. B The requirement that recipients receive adequate notice of Title IX’s proscriptions also bears on the proper definition of “discrimination” in the context of a private damages action. We have elsewhere concluded that sexual harassment is a form of discrimination for Title IX purposes and that Title IX proscribes harassment with sufficient clarity to satisfy Pennhurst’s notice requirement and serve as a basis for a damages action. See Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School Dist., 524 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. Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court. Respondent Rosa Elvira Montoya de Hernandez was detained by customs officials upon her arrival at the Los Ange-les Airport on a flight from Bogota, Colombia. She was found to be smuggling 88 cocaine-filled balloons in her alimentary canal, and was convicted after a bench trial of various federal narcotics offenses. A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed her convictions, holding that her detention violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution because the customs inspectors did not have a “clear indication” of alimentary canal smuggling at the time she was detained. 731 F. 2d 1369 (1984). Because of a conflict in the decisions of the Courts of Appeals on this question and the importance of its resolution to the enforcement of customs laws, we granted certiorari. 469 U. S. 1188. We now reverse. Respondent arrived at Los Angeles International Airport shortly after midnight, March 5, 1983, on Avianca Flight 080, a direct 10-hour flight from Bogota, Colombia. Her visa was in order so she was passed through Immigration and proceeded to the customs desk. At the customs desk she encountered Customs Inspector Talamantes, who reviewed her documents and noticed from her passport that she had made at least eight recent trips to either Miami or Los Angeles. Talamantes referred respondent to a secondary customs desk for further questioning. At this desk Talamantes and another inspector asked respondent general questions concerning herself and the purpose of her trip. Respondent revealed that she spoke no English and had no family or friends in the United States. She explained in Spanish that she had come to the United States to purchase goods for her husband’s store in Bogota. The customs inspectors recognized Bogota as a “source city” for narcotics. Respondent possessed $5,000 in cash, mostly $50 bills, but had no billfold. She indicated to the inspectors that she had no appointments with merchandise vendors, but planned to ride around Los Angeles in taxicabs visiting retail stores such as J. C. Penney and K-Mart in order to buy goods for her husband’s store with the $5,000. Respondent admitted that she had no hotel reservations, but stated that she planned to stay at a Holiday Inn. Respondent could not recall how her airline ticket was purchased. When the inspectors opened respondent’s one small valise they found about four changes of “cold weather” clothing. Respondent had no shoes other than the high-heeled pair she was wearing. Although respondent possessed no checks, waybills, credit cards, or letters of credit, she did produce a Colombian business card and a number of old receipts, waybills, and fabric swatches displayed in a photo album. At this point Talamantes and the other inspector suspected that respondent was a “balloon swallower,” one who attempts to smuggle narcotics into this country hidden in her alimentary canal. Over the years Inspector Talamantes had apprehended dozens of alimentary canal smugglers arriving on Avianca Flight 080. See App. 42; United States v. Mendez-Jimenez, 709 F. 2d 1300, 1301 (CA9 1983). The inspectors requested a female customs inspector to take respondent to a private area and conduct a patdown and strip search. During the search the female inspector felt respondent’s abdomen area and noticed a firm fullness, as if respondent were wearing a girdle. The search revealed no contraband, but the inspector noticed that respondent was wearing two pairs of elastic underpants with a paper towel lining the crotch area. When respondent returned to the customs area and the female inspector reported her discoveries, the inspector in charge told respondent that he suspected she was smuggling drugs in her alimentary canal. Respondent agreed to the inspector’s request that she be x-rayed at a hospital but in answer to the inspector’s query stated that she was pregnant. She agreed to a pregnancy test before the x ray. Respondent withdrew the consent for an x ray when she learned that she would have to be handcuffed en route to the hospital. The inspector then gave respondent the option of returning to Colombia on the next available flight, agreeing to an x ray, or remaining in detention until she produced a monitored bowel movement that would confirm or rebut the inspectors’ suspicions. Respondent chose the first option and was placed in a customs office under observation. She was told that if she went to the toilet she would have to use a wastebasket in the women’s restroom, in order that female customs inspectors could inspect her stool for balloons or capsules carrying narcotics. The inspectors refused respondent’s request to place a telephone call. Respondent sat in the customs office, under observation, for the remainder of the night. During the night customs officials attempted to place respondent on a Mexican airline that was flying to Bogota via Mexico City in the morning. The airline refused to transport respondent because she lacked a Mexican visa necessary to land in Mexico City. • Respondent was not permitted to leave, and was informed that she would be detained until she agreed to an x ray or her bowels moved. She remained detained in the customs office under observation, for most of the time curled up in a chair leaning to one side. She refused all offers of food and drink, and refused to use the toilet facilities. The Court of Appeals noted that she exhibited symptoms of discomfort consistent with “heroic efforts to resist the usual calls of nature.” 731 F. 2d, at 1371. At the shift change at 4:00 o’clock the next afternoon, almost 16 hours after her flight had landed, respondent still had not defecated or urinated or partaken of food or drink. At that time customs officials sought a court order authorizing a pregnancy test, an x ray, and a rectal examination. The Federal Magistrate issued an order just before midnight that evening, which authorized a rectal examination and involuntary x ray, provided that the physician in charge considered respondent’s claim of pregnancy. Respondent was taken to a hospital and given a pregnancy test, which later turned out to be negative. Before the results of the pregnancy test were known, a physician conducted a rectal examination and removed from respondent’s rectum a balloon containing a foreign substance. Respondent was then placed formally under arrest. By 4:10 a. m. respondent had passed 6 similar balloons; over the next four days she passed 88 balloons containing a total of 528 grams of 80% pure cocaine hydrochloride. After a suppression hearing the District Court admitted the cocaine in evidence against respondent. She was convicted of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, 21 U. S. C. § 841(a)(1), and unlawful importation of cocaine, 21 U. S. C. §§ 952(a), 960(a). A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed respondent’s convictions. The court noted that customs inspectors had a “justifiably high level of official skepticism” about respondent’s good motives, but the inspectors decided to let nature take its course rather than seek an immediate magistrate’s warrant for an x ray. 731 F. 2d, at 1372. Such a magistrate’s warrant required a “clear indication” or “plain suggestion” that the traveler was an alimentary canal smuggler under previous decisions of the Court of Appeals. See United States v. Quintero-Castro, 705 F. 2d 1099 (CA9 1983); United States v. Mendez-Jimenez, 709 F. 2d 1300, 1302 (CA9 1983); but cf. South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364, 370, n. 5 (1976). The court applied this required level of suspicion to respondent’s case. The court questioned the “humanity” of the inspectors’ decision to hold respondent until her bowels moved, knowing that she would suffer “many hours of humiliating discomfort” if she chose not to submit to the x-ray examination. The court concluded that under a “clear indication” standard “the evidence available to the customs officers when they decided to hold [respondent] for continued observation was insufficient to support the 16-hour detention.” 731 F. 2d, at 1373. The Government contends that the customs inspectors reasonably suspected that respondent was an alimentary canal smuggler, and this suspicion was sufficient to justify the detention. In support of the judgment below respondent argues, inter alia, that reasonable suspicion would not support respondent’s detention, and in any event the inspectors did not reasonably suspect that respondent was carrying narcotics internally. The Fourth Amendment commands that searches and seizures be reasonable. What is reasonable depends upon all of the circumstances surrounding the search or seizure and the nature of the search or seizure itself. New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 337-342 (1985). The permissibility of a particular law enforcement practice is judged by “balancing its intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests.” United States v. Villamonte-Marquez, 462 U. S. 579, 588 (1983); Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 654 (1979); Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523 (1967). Here the seizure of respondent took place at the international border. Since the founding of our Republic, Congress has granted the Executive plenary authority to conduct routine searches and seizures at the border, without probable cause or a warrant, in order to regulate the collection of duties and to prevent the introduction of contraband into this country. See United States v. Ramsey, 431 U. S. 606, 616-617 (1977), citing Act of July 31, 1789, ch. 5, 1 Stat. 29. This Court has long recognized Congress’ power to police entrants at the border. See Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 623 (1886). As we stated recently: “‘Import restrictions and searches of persons or packages at the national border rest on different considerations and different rules of constitutional law from domestic regulations. The Constitution gives Congress broad comprehensive powers “[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,” Art. I, §8, cl. 3. Historically such broad powers have been necessary to prevent smuggling and to prevent prohibited articles from entry.’” Ramsey, supra, at 618-619, quoting United States v. 12 200-Ft. Reels of Film, 413 U. S. 123, 125 (1973). Consistently, therefore, with Congress’ power to protect the Nation by stopping and examining persons entering this country, the Fourth Amendment’s balance of reasonableness is qualitatively different at the international border than in the interior. Routine searches of the persons and effects of entrants are not subject to any requirement of reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or warrant, and first-class mail may be opened without a warrant on less than probable cause, Ramsey, supra. Automotive travelers may be stopped at fixed checkpoints near the border -without individualized suspicion even if the stop is based largely on ethnicity, United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 562-563 (1976), and boats on inland waters with ready access to the sea may be hailed and boarded with no suspicion whatever. United States v. Villamonte-Marquez, supra. These cases reflect longstanding concern for the protection of the integrity of the border. This concern is, if anything, heightened by the veritable national crisis in law enforcement caused by smuggling of illicit narcotics, see United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544, 561 (1980) (Powell, J., concurring), and in particular by the increasing utilization of alimentary canal smuggling. This desperate practice appears to be a relatively recent addition to the smugglers’ repertoire of deceptive practices, and it also appears to be exceedingly difficult to detect. Congress had recognized these difficulties. Title 19 U. S. C. § 1582 provides that “all persons coming into the United States from foreign countries shall be liable to detention and search authorized . . . [by customs regulations].” Customs agents may “stop, search, and examine” any “vehicle, beast or person” upon which an officer suspects there is contraband or “merchandise which is subject to duty.” §482; see also §§ 1467, 1481; 19 CFR §§ 162.6, 162.7 (1984). Balanced against the sovereign’s interests at the border are the Fourth Amendment rights of respondent. Having presented herself at the border for admission, and having subjected herself to the criminal enforcement powers of the Federal Government, 19 U. S. C. § 482, respondent was entitled to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. But not only is the expectation of privacy less at the border than in the interior, see, e. g., Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 154 (1925); cf. Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491, 515 (1983) (Blackmun, J., dissenting), the Fourth Amendment balance between the interests of the Government and the privacy right of the individual is also struck much more favorably to the Government at the border. Supra, at 538. We have not previously decided what level of suspicion would justify a seizure of an incoming traveler for purposes other than a routine border search. Cf. Ramsey, 431 U. S., at 618, n. 13. The Court of Appeals held that the initial detention of respondent was permissible only if the inspectors possessed a “clear indication” of alimentary canal smuggling. 731 F. 2d, at 1372, citing United States v. Quintero-Castro, 705 F. 2d 1099 (CA9 1983); cf. United States v. Mendez-Jimenez, 709 F. 2d 1300 (CA9 1983). This “clear indication” language comes from our opinion in Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757 (1966), but we think that the Court of Appeals misapprehended the significance of that phrase in the context in which it was used in Schmerber. The Court of Appeals viewed “clear indication” as an intermediate standard between “reasonable suspicion” and “probable cause.” See Mendez-Jimenez, supra, at 1302. But we think that the words in Schmerber were used to indicate the necessity for particularized suspicion that the evidence sought might be found within the body of the individual, rather than as enunciating still a third Fourth Amendment threshold between “reasonable suspicion” and “probable cause.” No other court, including this one, has ever adopted Schmerber1 s “clear indication” language as a Fourth Amendment standard. See, e. g., Winston v. Lee, 470 U. S. 753, 759-763 (1985) (surgical removal of bullet for evidence). Indeed, another Court of Appeals, faced with facts almost identical to this case, has adopted a less strict standard based upon reasonable suspicion. See United States v. Mosquera-Ramirez, 729 F. 2d 1352, 1355 (CA11 1984). We do not think that the Fourth Amendment’s emphasis upon reasonableness is consistent with the creation of a third verbal standard in addition to “reasonable suspicion” and “probable cause”; we are dealing with a constitutional requirement of reasonableness, not mens rea, see United States v. Bailey, 444 U. S. 394, 403-406 (1980), and subtle verbal gradations may obscure rather than elucidate the meaning of the provision in question. We hold that the detention of a traveler at the border, beyond the scope of a routine customs search and inspection, is justified at its inception if customs agents, considering all the facts surrounding the traveler and her trip, reasonably suspect that the traveler is smuggling contraband in her alimentary canal. The “reasonable suspicion” standard has been applied in a number of contexts and effects a needed balance between private and public interests when law enforcement officials must make a limited intrusion on less than probable cause. It thus fits well into the situations involving alimentary canal smuggling at the border: this type of smuggling gives no external signs and inspectors will rarely possess probable cause to arrest or search, yet governmental interests in stopping smuggling at the border are high indeed. Under this standard officials at the border must have a “particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person” of alimentary canal smuggling. United States v. Cortez, 449 U. S. 411, 417 (1981); id., at 418, citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 21, n. 18 (1968). The facts, and their rational inferences, known to customs inspectors in this case clearly supported a reasonable suspicion that respondent was an alimentary canal smuggler. We need not belabor the facts, including respondent’s implausible story, that supported this suspicion, see supra, at 533-536. The trained customs inspectors had encountered many alimentary canal smugglers and certainly had more than an “inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or ‘hunch,’” Terry, supra, at 27, that respondent was smuggling narcotics in her alimentary canal. The inspectors’ suspicion was a “‘common-sense conclusio[n] about human behavior’ upon which ‘practical people,’ — including government officials, are entitled to rely.” T. L. O., 469 U. S., at 346, citing United States v. Cortez, supra. The final issue in this case is whether the detention of respondent was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified it initially. In this regard we have cautioned that courts should not indulge in “unrealistic second-guessing,” United States v. Sharpe, 470 U. S. 675, 686 (1985), and we have noted that “creative judge[s], engaged in post hoc evaluations of police conduct can almost always imagine some alternative means by which the objectives of the police might have been accomplished.” Id., at 686-687. But “[t]he fact that the protection of the public might, in the abstract, have been accomplished by ‘less intrusive’ means does not, in itself, render the search unreasonable.” Id., at 687, citing Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U. S. 433, 447 (1973). Authorities must be allowed “to graduate their response to the demands of any particular situation.” United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696, 709, n. 10 (1983). Here, respondent was detained incommunicado for almost 16 hours before inspectors sought a warrant; the warrant then took a number of hours to procure, through no apparent fault of the inspectors. This length of time undoubtedly exceeds any other detention we have approved under reasonable suspicion. But we have also consistently rejected hard-and-fast time limits, Sharpe, supra; Place, supra, at 709, n. 10. Instead, “common sense and ordinary human experience must govern over rigid criteria.” Sharpe, supra, at 685. The rudimentary knowledge of the human body which judges possess in common with the rest of humankind tells us that alimentary canal smuggling cannot be detected in the amount of time in which other illegal activity may be investigated through brief Terry-type stops. It presents few, if any external signs; a quick frisk will not do, nor will even a strip search. In the case of respondent the inspectors had available, as an alternative to simply awaiting her bowel movement, an x ray. They offered her the alternative of submitting herself to that procedure. But when she refused that alternative, the customs inspectors were left with only two practical alternatives: detain her for such time as necessary to confirm their suspicions, a detention which would last much longer than the typical Terry stop, or turn her loose into the interior carrying the reasonably suspected contraband drugs. The inspectors in this case followed this former procedure. They no doubt expected that respondent, having recently disembarked from a 10-hour direct flight with a full and stiff abdomen, would produce a bowel movement without extended delay. - But her visible efforts to resist the call of nature, which the court below labeled “heroic,” disappointed this expectation and in turn caused her humiliation and discomfort. Our prior cases have refused to charge police with delays in investigatory detention attributable to the suspect’s evasive actions, see Sharpe, 470 U. S., at 687-688; id., at 697 (Marshall, J., concurring in judgment), and that principle applies here as well. Respondent alone was responsible for much of the duration and discomfort of the seizure. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the detention in this case was not unreasonably long. It occurred at the international border, where the Fourth Amendment balance of interests leans heavily to the Government. At the border, customs officials have more than merely an investigative law enforcement role. They are also charged, along with immigration officials, with protecting this Nation from entrants who may bring anything harmful into this country, whether that be communicable diseases, narcotics, or explosives. See 8 U. S. C. §§ 1182(a)(23), 1182(a)(6), 1222; 19 CFR §§ 162.4-162.7 (1984). See also 19 U. S. C. §482; 8 U. S. C. § 1103(a). In this regard the detention of a suspected alimentary canal smuggler at the border is analogous to the detention of a suspected tuberculosis carrier at the border: both are detained until their bodily processes dispel the suspicion that they will introduce a harmful agent into this country. Cf. 8 U. S. C. § 1222; 42 CFR pt. 34 (1984); 19 U. S. C. §§482, 1582. Respondent’s detention was long, uncomfortable, indeed, humiliating; but both its length and its discomfort resulted solely from the method by which she chose to smuggle illicit drugs into this country. In Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143 (1972), another Terry-stop case, we said that “[t]he Fourth Amendment does not require a policeman who lacks the precise level of information necessary for probable cause to arrest to simply shrug his shoulders and allow a crime to occur or a criminal to escape.” Id., at 145. Here, by analogy, in the presence of articulable suspicion of smuggling in her alimentary canal, the customs officers were not required by the Fourth Amendment to pass respondent and her 88 cocaine-filled balloons into the interior. Her detention for the period of time necessary to either verify or dispel the suspicion was not unreasonable. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore Reversed. See United States v. Ramsey, 431 U. S., at 616-619; Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U. S. 266, 272-273 (1973); id., at 288 (White, J., dissenting). As the Court stated in Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 154 (1925): “Travellers may be so stopped in crossing an international boundary because of national self protection reasonably requiring one entering the country to identify himself as entitled to come in and his belongings as effects which may be lawfully brought in.” See United States v. DeMontoya, 729 F. 2d 1369 (CA11 1984) (required surgery; swallowed 100 cocaine-filled condoms); United States v. Pino, 729 F. 2d 1357 (CA11 1984) (required surgery; 120 cocaine-filled pellets); United States v. Mejia, 720 F. 2d 1378 (CA5 1983) (75 balloons); United States v. Couch, 688 F. 2d 599, 605 (CA9 1982) (36 capsules); United States v. Quintero-Castro, 705 F. 2d 1099 (CA9 1983) (120 balloons); United States v. Saldarriaga-Marin, 734 F. 2d 1425 (CA11 1984); United States v. Vega-Barvo, 729 F. 2d 1341 (CA11 1984) (135 condoms); United States v. Mendez-Jimenez, 709 F. 2d 1300 (CA9 1983) (102 balloons); United States v. Mosquera-Ramirez, 729 F. 2d 1352 (CA11 1984) (95 condoms); United States v. Castrillon, 716 F. 2d 1279 (CA9 1983) (83 balloons); United States v. Castaneda-Castaneda, 729 F. 2d 1360 (CA11 1984) (2 smugglers; 201 balloons); United States v. Caicedo-Guamizo, 723 F. 2d 1420 (CA9 1984) (85 balloons); United States v. Henao-Castano, 729 F. 2d 1364 (CA11 1984) (85 condoms); United States v. Ek, 676 F. 2d 379 (CA9 1982) (30 capsules); United States v. Padilla, 729 F. 2d 1367 (CA11 1984) (115 condoms); United States v. Gomez-Diaz, 712 F. 2d 949 (CA5 1983) (69 balloons); United States v. D’Allerman, 712 F. 2d 100 (CA5 1983) (80 balloons); United States v. Contento-Pachon, 723 F. 2d 691 (CA9 1984) (129 balloons). In that ease we stated: “The interests in human dignity and privacy which the Fourth Amendment protects forbid any such intrusion [beyond the body’s surface] on the mere chance that desired evidence might be obtained. In the absence of a clear indication that in fact such evidence will be found, these fundamental human interests require law officers to suffer the risk that such evidence may disappear unless there is an immediate search.” 384 U. S., at 769-770. It is also important to note what we do not hold. Because the issues are not presented today we suggest no view on what level of suspicion, if any, is required for nonroutine border searches such as strip, body-cavity, or involuntary x-ray searches. Both parties would have us decide the issue of whether aliens possess lesser Fourth Amendment rights at the border; that question was not raised in either court below and we do not consider it today. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 Stewart delivered the opinion of the Court. A group of labor union members who engaged in peaceful primary picketing within the confines of a privately owned shopping center were threatened by an agent of the owner with arrest for criminal trespass if they did not depart. The question presented is whether this threat violated the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, as amended, 61 Stat. 136, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. The National Labor Relations Board concluded that it did, 205 N. L. R. B. 628, and the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed. 501 F. 2d 161. We granted certiorari because of the seemingly important questions of federal law presented. 420 U. S. 971. t — H The petitioner, Scott Hudgens, is the owner of the North DeKalb Shopping Center, located in suburban Atlanta, Ga. The center consists of a single large building with an enclosed mall. Surrounding the building is a parking area which can accommodate 2,640 automobiles. The shopping center houses 60 retail stores leased to various businesses. One of the lessees is the Butler Shoe Co. Most of the stores, including Butler’s, can be entered only from the interior mall. In January 1971, warehouse employees of the Butler Shoe Co. went on strike to protest the company’s failure to agree to demands made by their union in contract negotiations. The strikers decided to picket not only Butler’s warehouse but its nine retail stores in the Atlanta area as well, including the store in the North DeKalb Shopping Center. On January 22, 1971, four of the striking warehouse employees entered the center’s enclosed mall carrying placards which read: “Butler Shoe Warehouse on Strike, AFL-CIO, Local 315.” The general manager of the shopping center informed the employees that they could not picket within the mall or on the parking lot and threatened them with arrest if they did not leave. The employees departed but returned a short time later and began picketing in an area of the mall immediately adjacent to the entrances of the Butler store. After the picketing had continued for approximately 30 minutes, the shopping center manager again informed the pickets that if they did not leave they would be arrested for trespassing. The pickets departed. The union subsequently filed with the Board an unfair labor practice charge against Hudgens, alleging interference. with rights protected by § 7 of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 157. Relying on this Court’s decision in Food Employees v. Logan Valley Plaza, 391 U. S. 308, the Board entered a cease-and-desist order against Hudgens, reasoning that because the warehouse employees enjoyed a First Amendment right to picket on the shopping center property, the owner’s threat of arrest violated § 8 (a)(1) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (a)(1). Hudgens filed a petition for review in the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Soon thereafter this Court decided Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U. S. 551, and Central Hardware Co. v. NLRB, 407 U. S. 539, and the Court of Appeals remanded the case to the Board for reconsideration in light of those two decisions. The Board, in turn, remanded to an Administrative Law Judge, who made findings of fact, recommendations, and conclusions to the effect that Hudgens had committed an unfair labor practice by excluding the pickets. This result was ostensibly reached under the statutory criteria set forth in NLRB v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U. S. 105, a case which held that union organizers who seek to solicit for union membership may intrude on an employer’s private property if no alternative means exist for communicating with the employees. But the Administrative Law Judge’s opinion also relied on this Court’s constitutional decision in Logan Valley for a “realistic view of the facts.” The Board agreed with the findings and recommendations of the Administrative Law Judge, but departed somewhat from his reasoning. It concluded that the pickets were within the scope of Hudgens’ invitation to members of the public to do business at the shopping center, and that it was, therefore, immaterial whether or not there existed an alternative means of communicating with the customers and employees of the Butler store. Hudgens again petitioned for review in the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and there the Board changed its tack and urged that the case was controlled not by Babcock & Wilcox, but by Republic Aviation Corp. v. NLRB, 324 U. S. 793, a case which held that an employer commits an unfair labor practice if he enforces a no-solicitation rule against employees on his premises who are also union organizers, unless he can prove that the rule is necessitated by special circumstances. The Court of Appeals enforced the Board’s cease-and-desist order but on the basis of yet another theory. While acknowledging that the source of the pickets’ rights was § 7 of the Act, the Court of Appeals held that the competing constitutional and property .right considerations discussed in Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, supra, “burde[n] the General Counsel with the duty to prove that other locations less intrusive upon Hudgens’ property rights than picketing inside the mall were either unavailable or ineffective,” 501 F. 2d, at 169, and that the Board’s General Counsel had met that burden in this case. In this Court the petitioner Hudgens continues to urge that Babcock & Wilcox Co. is the controlling precedent, and that under the criteria of that case the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be reversed. The respondent union agrees that a statutory standard governs, but insists that, since the § 7 activity here was not organizational as in Babcock but picketing in support of a lawful economic strike, an appropriate accommodation of the competing interests must lead to an affirmance of the Court of Appeals’ judgment. The respondent Board now contends that the conflict between employee picketing rights and employer property rights in a case like this must be measured in accord with the commands of the First Amendment, pursuant to the Board’s asserted understanding of Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, supra, and that the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be affirmed on the basis of that standard. II As the above recital discloses, the history of this litigation has been a history of shifting positions on the part of the litigants, the Board, and the Court of Appeals. It has been a history, in short, of considerable confusion, engendered at least in part by decisions of this Court that intervened during the course of the litigation. In the present posture of the case the most basic question is whether the respective rights and liabilities of the parties are to be decided under the criteria of the National Labor Relations Act alone, under a First Amendment standard, or under some combination of the two. It is to that question, accordingly, that we now turn. It is, of course, a commonplace that the constitutional guarantee of free speech is a guarantee only against abridgment by government, federal or state. See Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Democratic National Comm., 412 U. S. 94. Thus, while statutory or common law may in some situations extend protection or provide redress against a private corporation or person who seeks to abridge the free expression of others, no such protection or redress is provided by the Constitution itself. This elementary proposition is little more than a truism. But even truisms are not always unexceptionably true, and an exception to this one was recognized almost 30 years ago in Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501. In Marsh, a Jehovah’s Witness who had distributed literature without a license on a sidewalk in Chickasaw, Ala., was convicted of criminal trespass. Chickasaw was a so-called company town, wholly owned by the Gulf Shipbuilding Corp. It was described in the Court’s opinion as follows: “Except for [ownership by a private corporation] it has all the characteristics of any other American town. The property consists of residential buildings, streets, a system of sewers, a sewage disposal plant and a ‘business block’ on which business places are situated. A deputy of the Mobile County Sheriff, paid by the company, serves as the town’s policeman. Merchants and service establishments have rented the stores and business places on the business block and the United States uses one of the places as a post office from which six carriers deliver mail to the people of Chickasaw and the adjacent area. The town and the surrounding neighborhood, which can not be distinguished from the Gulf property by anyone not familiar with the property lines, are thickly settled, and according to all indications the residents use the business block as their regular shopping center. To do so, they now, as they have for many years, make use of a company-owned paved street and sidewalk located alongside the store fronts in order to enter and leave the stores and the post office. Intersecting company-owned roads at each end of the business block lead into a four-lane public highway which runs parallel to the business block at a distance of thirty feet. There is nothing to stop highway traffic from coming onto the business block and upon arrival a traveler may make free use of the facilities available there. In short the town and its shopping district are accessible to and freely used by the public in general and there is nothing to distinguish them from any other town and shopping center except the fact that the title to the property belongs to a private corporation.” Id,., at 502-503. The Court pointed out that if the “title” to Chickasaw had “belonged not to a private but to a municipal corporation and had appellant been arrested for violating a municipal ordinance rather than a ruling by those appointed by the corporation to manage a company town it would have been clear that appellant’s conviction must be reversed.” Id., at 504. Concluding that Gulfs “property interests” should not be allowed to lead to a different result in Chickasaw, which did “not function differently from any other town,” id., at 506-508, the Court invoked the First and Fourteenth Amendments to reverse the appellant’s conviction. It was the Marsh case that in 1968 provided the foundation for the Court’s decision in Amalgamated Food Employees Union v. Logan Valley Plaza, 391 U. S. 308. That case involved peaceful picketing within a large shopping center near Altoona, Pa. One of the tenants of the shopping center was a retail store that employed a wholly nonunion staff. Members of a local union picketed the store, carrying signs proclaiming that it was nonunion and that its employees were not receiving union wages or other union benefits. The picketing took place on the shopping center’s property in the immediate vicinity of the store. A Pennsylvania court issued an injunction that required all picketing to be confined to public areas outside the shopping center, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the issuance of this injunction. This Court held that the doctrine of the Marsh case required reversal of that judgment. The Court’s opinion pointed out that the First and Fourteenth Amendments would clearly have protected the picketing if it had taken place on a public sidewalk: “It is clear that if the shopping center premises were not privately owned but instead constituted the business area of a municipality, which they to a large extent resemble, petitioners could not be barred from exercising their First Amendment rights there on the sole ground that title to the property was in the municipality. Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444 (1938); Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496 (1939); Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147 (1939); Jamison v. Texas, 318 U. S. 413 (1943). The essence of those opinions is that streets, sidewalks, parks, and other similar public places are so historically associated with the exercise of First Amendment rights that access to them for the purpose of exercising such rights cannot constitutionally be denied broadly and absolutely.” 391 U. S., at 315. The Court’s opinion then reviewed the Marsh case in detail, emphasized the similarities between the business block in Chickasaw, Ala., and the Logan Valley shopping center, and unambiguously concluded: “The shopping center here is clearly the functional equivalent of the business district of Chickasaw involved in Marsh.” 391 U. S., at 318. Upon the basis of that conclusion, the Court held that the First and Fourteenth Amendments required reversal of the judgment of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. There were three dissenting opinions in the Logan Valley case, one of them by the author of the Court’s opinion in Marsh, Mr. Justice Black. His disagreement with the Court’s reasoning was total: “In affirming petitioners’ contentions the majority opinion relies on Marsh v. Alabama, supra, and holds that respondents’ property has been transformed to some type of public property. But Marsh was never intended to apply to this kind of situation. Marsh dealt with the very special situation of a company-owned town, complete with streets, alleys, sewers, stores, residences, and everything else that goes to make a town. ... I can find very little resemblance between the shopping center involved in this case and Chickasaw, Alabama. There are no homes, there is no sewage disposal plant, there is not even a post office on this private property which the Court now considers the equivalent of a ‘town.’ ” 391 U. S., at 330-331 (footnote omitted). “The question is, Under what circumstances can private property be treated as though it were public? The answer that Marsh gives is when that property has taken on all the attributes of a town, i. e., ‘residential buildings, streets, a system of sewers, a sewage disposal plant and a “business block” on which business places are situated.’ 326 U. S., at 502. I can find nothing in Marsh which indicates that if one of these features is present, e. g., a business district, this is sufficient for the Court to confiscate a part of an owner’s private property and give its use to people who want to picket on it.” Id., at 332. “To hold that store owners are compelled by law to supply picketing areas for pickets to drive store customers away is to create a court-made law wholly disregarding the constitutional basis on which private ownership of property rests in this country. . . .” Id., at 332-333. Four years later the Court had occasion to reconsider the Logan Valley doctrine in Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U. S. 551. That case involved a shopping center covering some 50 acres in downtown Portland, Ore. On a November day in 1968 five young people entered the mall of the shopping center and distributed handbills protesting the then ongoing American military operations in Vietnam. Security guards told them to leave, and they did so, “to avoid arrest.” Id., at 556. They subsequently brought suit in a Federal District Court, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The trial court ruled’ in their favor, holding that the distribution of handbills on the shopping center’s property was protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment, 446 F. 2d 545, expressly relying on this Court’s Marsh and Logan Valley decisions. This Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals. The Court in its Lloyd opinion did not say that it was overruling the Logan Valley decision. Indeed, a substantial portion of the Court’s opinion in Lloyd was devoted to pointing out the differences between the two cases, noting particularly that, in contrast to the hand-billing in Lloyd, the picketing in Logan Valley had been specifically directed to a store in the shopping center and the pickets had had no other reasonable opportunity to reach their intended audience. 407 U. S., at 561-567. But the fact is that the reasoning of the Court’s opinion in Lloyd cannot be squared with the reasoning of the Court’s opinion in Logan Valley. It matters not that some Members of the Court may continue to believe that the Logan Valley case was rightly decided. Our institutional duty is to follow until changed the law as it now is, not as some Members of the Court might wish it to be. And in the performance of that duty we make clear now, if it was not clear before, that the rationale of Logan Valley did not survive the Court’s decision in the Lloyd case. Not only did the Lloyd opinion incorporate lengthy excerpts from two of the dissenting opinions in Logan Valley, 407 U. S., at 562-563, 565; the ultimate holding in Lloyd amounted to a total rejection of the holding in Logan Valley: “The basic issue in this case is whether respondents, in the exercise of asserted First Amendment rights, may distribute handbills on Lloyd’s private property contrary to its wishes and contrary to a policy enforced against all handbilling. In addressing this issue, it must be remembered that the First and Fourteenth Amendments safeguard the rights of free speech and assembly by limitations on state action, not on action by the owner of private property used nondiscriminatorily for private purposes only....” 407 U. S., at 567. “Respondents contend . . . that the property of a large shopping center is ‘open to the public,’ serves the same purposes as a ‘business district’ of a municipality, and therefore has been dedicated to certain types of public use. The argument is that such a center has sidewalks, streets, and parking areas which are functionally similar to facilities customarily provided by municipalities. It is then asserted that all members of the public, whether invited as customers or not, have the same right of free speech as they would have on the similar public facilities in the streets of a city or town. “The argument reaches too far. The Constitution by no means requires such an attenuated doctrine of dedication of private property to public use. The closest decision in theory, Marsh v. Alabama, supra, involved the assumption by a private enterprise of all of the attributes of a state-created municipality and the exercise by that enterprise of semiofficial municipal functions as a delegate of the State. In effect, thé owner of the company town was performing the full spectrum of municipal powers and stood in the shoes of the State. In the instant case there is no comparable assumption or exercise of municipal functions or power.” Id., at 568-569 (footnote omitted). “We hold that there has been no such dedication of Lloyd’s privately owned and operated shopping center to public use as to entitle respondents to exercise therein the asserted First Amendment rights. . . Id., at 570. If a large self-contained shopping center is the functional equivalent of a municipality, as Logan Valley held, then the First and Fourteenth Amendments would not permit control of speech within such a center to depend upon the speech’s content. For while a municipality may constitutionally impose reasonable time, place, and manner regulations on the use of its streets and sidewalks for First Amendment purposes, see Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569; Poulos v. New Hampshire, 345 U. S. 395, and may even forbid altogether such use of some of its facilities, see Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S. 39; what a municipality may not do under the First and Fourteenth Amendments is to discriminate in the regulation of expression on the basis of the content of that expression, Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U. S. 205. “[A]bove all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92, 95. It conversely follows, therefore, that if the respondents in the Lloyd case did not have a First Amendment right to enter that shopping center to distribute handbills concerning Vietnam, then the pickets in the present case did not have a First Amendment right to enter this shopping center for the purpose of advertising their strike against the Butler Shoe Co. We conclude, in short, that under the present state of the law the constitutional guarantee of free expression has no part to play in a case such as this. Ill From what has been said it follows that the rights and liabilities of the parties in this case are dependent exclusively upon the National Labor Relations Act. Under the Act the task of the Board, subject to review by the courts, is to resolve conflicts between § 7 rights and private property rights, “and to seek a proper accommodation between the two.” Central Hardware Co. v. NLRB, 407 U. S., at 543. What is “a proper accommodation” in any situation may largely depend upon the content and the context of the § 7 rights being asserted. The task of the Board and the reviewing courts under the Act, therefore, stands in conspicuous contrast to the duty of a court in applying the standards of the First Amendment, which requires “above all else” that expression must not be restricted by government “because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” In the Central Hardware case, and earlier in the case of NLRB v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U. S. 105, the Court considered the nature of the Board's task in this area under the Act. Accommodation between employees’ § 7 rights and employers’ property rights, the Court said in Babcock & Wilcox, “must be obtained with as little destruction of one as is consistent with the maintenance of the other.” 351 U. S., at 112. Both Central Hardware and Babcock & Wilcox involved organizational activity carried on by nonemploy-ees on the employers’ property. The context of the § 7 activity in the present case was different in several respects which may or may not be relevant in striking the proper balance. First, it involved lawful economic strike activity rather than organizational activity. See Steelworkers v. NLRB, 376 U. S. 492, 499; Bus Employees v. Missouri, 374 U. S. 74, 82; NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U. S. 221, 234. Cf. Houston Insulation Contractors Assn. v. NLRB, 386 U. S. 664, 668-669. Second, the § 7 activity here was carried on by Butler’s employees (albeit not employees of its shopping center store), not by outsiders. See NLRB v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., supra, at 111-113. Third, the property interests impinged upon in this case were not those of the employer against whom the § 7 activity was directed, but of another. The Babcock & Wilcox opinion established the basic objective under the Act: accommodation of § 7 rights and private property rights “with as little destruction of one as is consistent with the maintenance of the other/’ The locus of that accommodation, however, may fall at differing points along the spectrum depending on the nature and strength of the respective § 7 rights and private property rights asserted in any given context. In each generic situation, the primary responsibility for making this accommodation must rest with the Board in the first instance. See NLRB v. Babcock & Wilcox, supra, at 112; cf. NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., supra, at 235-236; NLRB v. Truckdrivers Union, 353 U. S. 87, 97. “The responsibility to adapt the Act to changing patterns of industrial life is entrusted to the Board.” NLRB v. Weingarten, Inc., 420 U. S. 251, 266. For the reasons stated in this opinion, the judgment is vacated and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals with directions to remand to the National Labor Relations Board, so that the case may be there considered under the statutory criteria of the National Labor Relations Act alone. It is so ordered. Mr. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. The Butler warehouse was not located within the North DeKalb Shopping Center. Section 7, 29 U. S. C. § 157, provides: “Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 158 (a) (3) of this title.” Hudgens v. Local 315, Retail, Wholesale & Dept. Store Union, 192 N. L. R. B. 671. Section 8(a)(1) makes it an unfair labor practice for “an employer” to “restrain, or coerce employees” in the exercise of their § 7 rights. While Hudgens was not the employer of the employees involved in this case, it seems to be undisputed that he was an employer engaged in commerce within the meaning of §§ 2 (6) and (7) of the Act, 29 ü. S. C. §§ 152 (6) and (7). The Board has held that a statutory “employer” may violate § 8 (a) (1) with respect to employees other than his own. See Austin Co., 101 N. L. R. B. 1257, 1258-1259. See also § 2 (13) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. §152 (13). Hudgens v. Local 315, Retail, Wholesale & Dept. Store Union, 205 N. L. R. B. 628. Insofar as the two shopping centers differed as such, the one in Lloyd more closely resembled the business section in Chickasaw, Ala.: “The principal differences between the two centers are that the Lloyd Center is larger than Logan Valley, that Lloyd Center contains more commercial facilities, that Lloyd Center contains a range of professional and nonprofessional services that were not found in Logan Valley, and that Lloyd Center is much more intertwined with public streets than Logan Valley. Also, as in Marsh, supra, Lloyd’s private police are given full police power by the city of Portland, even though they are hired, fired, controlled, and paid by the owners of the Center. This was not true in Logan Valley.” 407 U. S., at 575 (Marshall, J., dissenting). See id., at 570 (Marshall, J., dissenting). This was the entire thrust of Mr. Justice Marshall’s dissenting opinion in the Lloyd case. See id., at 584. Mr. Justice White clearly recognized this principle in his Logan Valley dissenting opinion. 391 U. S., at 339. The Court has in the past held that some expression is not protected “speech” within the meaning of the First Amendment. Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476; Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568. A wholly different balance was struck when the organizational activity was carried on by employees already rightfully on the employer’s property, since the employer’s management interests rather than his property interests were there involved. Republic Aviation Corp. v. NLRB, 324 U. S. 793. This difference is “one of substance.” NLRB v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U. S., at 113. This is not to say that Hudgens was not a statutory “employer” under the Act. See n. 3, supra. 351 U. S., at 112. This language was explicitly reaffirmed as stating “the guiding principle” in Central Hardware Co. v. NLRB, 407 U. S. 539, 544. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

C

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court. In these cases, we address the question whether, under what are referred to in these cases as the Pelly and Packwood Amendments, 85 Stat. 786, as amended, 22 U. S. C. § 1978; 90 Stat. 337, as amended, 16 U. S. C. § 1821 (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill), the Secretary of Commerce is required to certify that Japan’s whaling practices “diminish the effectiveness” of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling because that country’s annual harvest exceeds quotas established under the Convention. I For centuries, men have hunted whales in order to obtain both food and oil, which, in turn, can be processed into a myriad of other products. Although at one time a harrowing and perilous profession, modern technological innovations have transformed whaling into a routine form of commercial fishing, and have allowed for a multifold increase in whale harvests worldwide. Based on concern over the effects of excessive whaling, 15 nations formed the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), Dec. 2, 1946, 62 Stat. 1716, T. I. A. S. No. 1849 (entered into force Nov. 10, 1948). The ICRW was designed to “provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry,” id., at 1717, and today serves as the principal international mechanism for promoting the conservation and development of whale populations. See generally Smith, The International Whaling Commission: An Analysis of the Past and Reflections on the Future, 16 Nat. Resources Law. 543 (1984). The United States was a founding member of the ICRW; Japan joined in 1951. To achieve its purposes, the ICRW included a Schedule which, inter alia, regulates harvesting practices and sets harvest limits for various whale species. Art. I, 62 Stat. 1717, 1723-1727. In addition, the ICRW established the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which implements portions of the Convention and is authorized to amend the Schedule and set new harvest quotas. See Art. Ill, 62 Stat. 1717-1718; Art. V, 62 Stat. 1718-1719. See generally Smith, supra, at 547-550. The quotas are binding on IWC members if accepted by a three-fourths’ majority vote. Art. Ill, 62 Stat. 1717. Under the terms of the Convention, however, the IWC has no power to impose sanctions for quota violations. See Art. IX, 62 Stat. 1720. Moreover, any member country may file a timely objection to an IWC amendment of the Schedule and thereby exempt itself from any obligation to comply with the limit unless and until the objection is withdrawn. Art. V, 62 Stat. 1718-1719. All nonobjecting countries remain bound by the amendment. Because of the IWC’s inability to enforce its own quota and in an effort to promote enforcement of quotas set by other international fishery conservation programs, Congress passed the Pelly Amendment to the Fishermen’s Protective Act of 1967. 22 U. S. C. § 1978. Principally intended to preserve and protect North American Atlantic salmon from depletion by Danish fishermen in violation of the ban imposed by the International Convention for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries, the Amendment protected whales as well. See 117 Cong. Rec. 34752 (1971) (remarks of Rep. Pelly); H. R. Rep. No. 92-468, p. 6 (1971). The Amendment directs the Secretary of Commerce to certify to the President if “nationals of a foreign country, directly or indirectly, are conducting fishing operations in a manner or under circumstances which diminish the effectiveness of an international fishery conservation program....” 22 U. S. C. § 1978(a)(1). Upon certification, the President, in his discretion, may then direct the Secretary of the Treasury to prohibit the importation of fish products from the certified nation. § 1978(a)(4). The President may also decline to impose any sanctions or import prohibitions. After enactment of the Pelly Amendment, the Secretary of Commerce five times certified different nations to the President as engaging in fishing operations which “diminish[ed] the effectiveness” of IWC quotas. H. R. Rep. No. 95-1029, p. 9 (1978); 125 Cong. Rec. 22084 (1979) (remarks of Rep. Oberstar). None of the certifications resulted in the imposition of sanctions by the President. After each certification, however, the President was able to use the threat of discretionary sanctions to obtain commitments of future compli- ’ anee from the offending nations. Although “the Pelly Amendment... served the useful function of quietly persuading nations to adhere to the decisions of international fishery conservation bodies,” H. R. Rep. No. 95-1029, supra, at 9, Congress grew impatient with the- Executive’s delay in making certification decisions and refusal to impose sanctions. See 125 Cong. Rec. 22083 (1979) (remarks of Rep. Murphy); id., at 22084 (remarks of Rep. Oberstar). As a result, Congress passed the Packwood Amendment to the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act, 16 U. S. C. § 1801 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. III). This Amendment requires the Secretary of Commerce to “periodically monitor the activities of foreign nationals that may affect [international fishery conservation programs],” 22 U. S. C. § 1978(a)(3)(A); “promptly investigate any activity by foreign nationals that, in the opinion of the Secretary, may be cause for certification...,” § 1978(a)(3)(B); and “promptly conclude; and reach a decision with respect to; [that] investigation.” § 1978(a)(3)(C). To rectify the past failure of the President to impose the sanctions authorized — but not required — under the Pelly Amendment, the Packwood Amendment removes this element of discretion and mandates the imposition of economic sanctions against offending nations. Under the Amendment, if the Secretary of Commerce certifies that “nationals of a foreign country, directly or indirectly, are conducting fishing operations or engaging in trade or taking which diminishes the effectiveness of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling,” 16 U. S. C. § 1821(e)(2)(A)(i), the Secretary of State must reduce, by at least 50%, the offending nation’s fishery allocation within the United States’ fishery conservation zone. § 1821(e)(2)(B). Although the Amendment requires the imposition of sanctions when the Secretary of Commerce certifies a nation, it did not alter the initial certification process, except for requiring expedition. It was also provided that a certificate under the Packwood Amendment also serves as a certification for the purposes of the Pelly Amendment. § 1821(e)(2)(A)(i). In 1981, the IWC established a zero quota for the Western Division stock of Northern Pacific sperm whales. The next year, the IWC ordered a 5-year moratorium on commercial whaling to begin with the 1985-1986 whaling season and last until 1990. In 1982, the IWC acted to grant Japan’s request for a 2-year respite — for the 1982-1983 and 1983-1984 seasons — from the IWC’s earlier decision banning sperm whaling. Because Japan filed timely objections to both the IWC’s 1981 zero quota for Northern Pacific sperm whales and 1982 commercial whaling moratorium, under the terms of the ICRW, it was not bound to comply with either limitation. Nonetheless, as the 1984-1985 whaling season grew near, it was apparently recognized that under either the Pelly or Packwood Amendment, the United States could impose economic sanctions if Japan continued to exceed these whaling quotas. Following extensive negotiations, on November 13, 1984, Japan and the United States concluded an executive agreement through an exchange of letters between the Chargé d’Affaires of Japan and the Secretary of Commerce. See App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 85-955, pp. 102A-109A. Subject to implementation requirements, Japan pledged to adhere to certain harvest limits and to cease commercial whaling by 1988. Id., at 104A-106A. In return and after consulting with the United States Commissioner to the IWC, the Secretary determined that the short-term continuance of a specified level of limited whaling by Japan, coupled with its promise to discontinue all commercial whaling by 1988, “would not diminish the effectiveness of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, 1946, or its conservation program.” Id., at 107A. Accordingly, the Secretary informed Japan that, so long as Japan complied with its pledges, the United States would not certify Japan under either Amendment. See id., at 104A. Several days before consummation of the executive agreement, several wildlife conservation groups filed suit in District Court seeking a writ of mandamus compelling the Secretary of Commerce to certify Japan. Because in its view any taking of whales in excess of the IWC quotas diminishes the effectiveness of the ICRW, the District Court granted summary judgment for respondents and ordered the Secretary of Commerce immediately to certify to the President that Japan was in violation of the IWC sperm whale quota. 604 F. Supp. 1398, 1411 (DC 1985). Thereafter, Japan’s Minister for Foreign Affairs informed the Secretary of Commerce that Japan would perform the second condition of the agreement-withdrawal of its objection to the IWC moratorium— provided that the United States obtained reversal of the District Court’s order. App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 85-955, pp. 116A-118A. A divided Court of Appeals affirmed. 247 U. S. App. D. C. 309, 768 F. 2d 426 (1985). Recognizing that the Pelly and Packwood-Magnuson Amendments did not define the specific activities which would “diminish the effectiveness” of the ICRW, the court looked to the Amendments’ legislative history and concluded, as had the District Court, that the taking by Japanese nationals of whales in excess of quota automatically called for certification by the Secretary. We granted certiorari, 474 U. S. 1053 (1986), and now reverse. rH i — j We address first the Japanese petitioners’ contention that the present actions are unsuitable for judicial review because they involve foreign relations and that a federal court, therefore, lacks the judicial power to command the Secretary of Commerce, an Executive Branch official, to dishonor and repudiate an international agreement. Relying on the political question doctrine, and quoting Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 217 (1969), the Japanese petitioners argue that the danger of “embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question” bars any judicial resolution of the instant controversy. We disagree. Baker carefully pointed out that not every matter touching on politics is a political question, id., at 209, and more specifically, that it is “error to suppose that every case or controversy which touches foreign relations lies beyond judicial cognizance.” Id., at 211. The political question doctrine excludes from judicial review those controversies which revolve around policy choices and value determinations constitutionally committed for resolution to the halls of Congress or the confines of the Executive Branch. The Judiciary is particularly ill suited to make such decisions, as “courts are fundamentally underequipped to formulate national policies or develop standards for matters not legal in nature.” United States ex rel. Joseph v. Cannon, 206 U. S. App. D. C. 405, 411, 642 F. 2d 1373, 1379 (1981) (footnote omitted), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 999 (1982). As Baker plainly held, however, the courts have the authority to construe treaties and executive agreements, and it goes without saying that interpreting congressional legislation is a recurring and accepted task for the federal courts. It is also evident that the challenge to the Secretary’s decision not to certify Japan for harvesting whales in excess of IWC quotas presents a purely legal question of statutory interpretation. The Court must first determine the nature and scope of the duty imposed upon the Secretary by the Amendments, a decision which calls for applying no more than the traditional rules of statutory construction, and then applying this analysis to the particular set of facts presented below. We are cognizant of the interplay between these Amendments and the conduct of this Nation’s foreign relations, and we recognize the premier role which both Congress and the Executive play in this field. But under the Constitution, one of the Judiciary’s characteristic roles is to interpret statutes, and we cannot shirk this responsibility merely because our decision may have significant political overtones. We conclude, therefore, that the present cases present a justiciable controversy, and turn to the merits of petitioners’ arguments. HH I — I I — I The issue before us is whether, in the circumstances of these cases, either the Pelly or Packwood Amendment required the Secretary to certify Japan for refusing to abide by the IWC whaling quotas. We have concluded that certification was not necessary and hence reject the Court of Appeals’ holding and respondents’ submission that certification is mandatory whenever a country exceeds its allowable take under the ICRW Schedule. Under the Packwood Amendment, certification is neither permitted nor required until the Secretary makes a determination that nationals of a foreign country “are conducting fishing operations or engaging in trade or taking which diminishes the effectiveness” of the ICRW. It is clear that the Secretary must promptly make the certification decision, but the statute does not define the words “diminish the effectiveness of” or specify the factors that the Secretary should consider in making the decision entrusted to him alone. Specifically, it does not state that certification must be forthcoming whenever a country does not abide by IWC Schedules, and the Secretary did not understand or interpret the language of the Amendment to require him to do so. Had Congress intended otherwise, it would have been a simple matter to say that the Secretary must certify deliberate taking of whales in excess of IWC limits. Here, as the Convention permitted it to do, Japan had filed its objection to the IWC harvest limits and to the moratorium to begin with the 1985-1986 season. It was accordingly not in breach of its obligations under the Convention in continuing to take whales, for it was part of the scheme of the Convention to permit nations to opt out of Schedules that were adopted over its objections. In these circumstances, the Secretary, after consultation with the United States Commissioner to the IWC and review of the IWC Scientific Committee opinions, determined that it would better serve the conservation ends of the Convention to accept Japan’s pledge to limit its harvest of sperm whales for four years and to cease all commerical whaling in 1988, rather than to impose sanctions and risk continued whaling by the Japanese. In any event, the Secretary made the determination assigned to him by the Packwood Amendment and concluded that the limited taking of whales in the 1984 and 1985 coastal seasons would not diminish the effectiveness of the ICRW or its conservation program, and that he would not make the certification that he would otherwise be empowered to make. The Secretary, of course, may not act contrary to the will of Congress when exercised within the bounds of the Constitution. If Congress has directly spoken to the precise issue in question, if the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter. Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843 (1984). But as the courts below and respondents concede, the statutory language itself contains no direction to the Secretary automatically and regardless of the circumstances to certify a nation that fails to conform to the IWC whaling Schedule. The language of the Pelly and Packwood Amendments might reasonably be construed in this manner, but the Secretary’s construction that there are circumstances in which certification may be withheld, despite departures from the Schedules and without violating his duty, is also a reasonable construction of the language used in both Amendments. We do not understand the Secretary to be urging that he has carte blanche discretion to ignore and do nothing about whaling in excess of IWC Schedules. He does not argue, for example, that he could refuse to certify for any reason not connected with the aims and conservation goals of the Convention, or refuse to certify deliberate flouting of schedules by members who have failed to object to a particular schedule. But insofar as the plain language of the Amendments is concerned, the Secretary is not forbidden to refuse to certify for the reasons given in these cases. Furthermore, if a statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the question at issue, our longstanding practice is to defer to the “executive department’s construction of a statutory scheme it is entrusted to administer,” Chevron, supra, at 844, unless the legislative history of the enactment shows with sufficient clarity that the agency construction is contrary to the will of Congress. United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc., 474 U. S. 121, 131 (1985). See Chemical Mfrs. Assn. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 470 U. S. 116, 125 (1985). » — I <! Contrary to the Court of Appeals’ and respondents views, we find nothing in the legislative history of either Amendment that addresses the nature of the Secretary’s duty and requires him to certify every departure from the IWC’s scheduled limits on whaling. The Pelly Amendment was introduced in 1971 to protect Atlantic salmon from possible extinction caused by overfishing in disregard of established salmon quotas. Under the International Convention for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries (ICNAF), zero harvest quotas had been established in 1969 to regulate and control high seas salmon fishing, 117 Cong. Rec. 34751 (1971) (remarks of Rep. Dingell). Denmark, Germany, and Norway, members of the ICNAF, exercised their right to file timely objections to the quotas, however, and thus were exempt from their limitations. Although respondents are correct that Congress enacted the Pelly Amendment primarily as a means to enforce those international fishing restrictions against these three countries, particularly Denmark, they fail to establish that the Amendment requires automatic certification of every nation whose fishing operations exceed international conservation quotas. Both the Senate and House Committee Reports detail the “conservation nightmare” resulting from Denmark’s failure to recognize the ICNAF quota; a position which “effectively nullified” the ban on high seas harvesting of Atlantic salmon. S. Rep. No. 92-582, pp. 4-5 (1971); H. R. Rep. No. 92-468, pp. 5-6 (1971). In addition, Danish operations were seen as leading to the “eventual destruction of this valuable sports fish,” a matter of “critical concern” to both the Senate and House Committees. S. Rep. No. 92-582, at 4; H. R. Rep. No. 92-468, at 5. There is no question but that both Corn-mittees viewed Denmark’s excessive fishing operations as “diminish[ing] the effectiveness” of the ICNAF quotas, and envisioned that the Secretary would certify that nation under the Pelly Amendment. The Committee Reports, however, do not support the view that the Secretary must certify every nation that exceeds every international conservation quota. The discussion on the floor of the House by Congressman Pelly and other supporters of the Amendment further demonstrates that Congress’ primary concern in enacting the Pelly Amendment was to stave off the possible extermination of both the Atlantic salmon as well as the extinction of other heavily fished species, such as whales, regulated by international fishery conservation programs. 117 Cong. Rec. 34752-34754 (1971) (remarks of Reps. Pelly, Wylie, Clausen, and Hogan). The comments of Senator Stevens, acting Chairman of the reporting Senate Committee and the only speaker on the bill during the Senate debate, were to the same effect. See id., at 47054 (if countries continue indiscriminately to fish on the high seas, salmon may become extinct). Testimony given during congressional hearings on the Pelly Amendment also supports the conclusion that Congress had no intention to require the Secretary to certify every departure from the limits set by an international conservation program. Subsequent amendment of the Pelly Amendment in 1978 further demonstrates that Congress used the phrase, “diminish the effectiveness,” to give the Secretary a range of certification discretion. The 1978 legislation expanded coverage of the Pelly Amendment “to authorize the President to embargo wildlife products from countries where nationals have acted in a manner which, directly or indirectly, diminishes the effectiveness of any international program for the conservation of endangered or threatened species.” H. R. Rep. No. 95-1029, p. 8 (1978). This extension was premised on the success realized by the United States in using the Amendment to convince other nations to adhere to IWC quotas, thus preserving the world’s whale stocks. Id., at 9. In the House Report for the 1978 amendment, the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee specifically addressed the “dimmish the effectiveness” standard and recognized the Secretary’s discretion in making the initial certification decision: “The nature of any trade or taking which qualifies as diminishing the effectiveness of any international program for endangered or threatened species will depend on the circumstances of each case. In general, however, the trade or taking must be serious enough to warrant the finding that the effectiveness of the international program in question has been diminished. An isolated, individual violation of a convention provision will not ordinarily warrant certification under this section.” Id., at 15. This statement makes clear that, under the Pelly Amendment as construed by Congress, the Secretary is to exercise his judgment in determining whether a particular fishing operation “diminishes the effectiveness” of an international fishery conservation program like the IWC. The Court of Appeals held that this definition applies only to the 1978 addition to the Pelly Amendment, designed to enforce the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), Mar. 3, 1973, 27 U. S. T. 1087, T. I. A. S. No. 8249, and not to the ICRW. We are unpersuaded. Congress perceived the two Conventions as seeking the same objectives. Both programs are designed to conserve endangered or threatened species, whether it be the sperm whale or the stumptail macaque. See H. R. Rep. No. 95-1029, pp. 9-10 (1978). This explains why the House Report noted that the purpose behind the 1978 extension of the Pelly Amendment was “to expand the success the United States has achieved in the conservation of whales to the conservation of endangered and threatened species.” Id., at 9. Both Conventions also operate in a similar, and often parallel, manner, and nothing in the legislative history of the 1978 amendment shows that Congress intended the phrase “diminish the effectiveness” to be applied inflexibly with respect to departures from fishing quotas, but to be applied flexibly vis-á-vis departures from endangered species quotas. Without strong evidence to the contrary, we doubt that Congress intended the same phrase to have significantly different meanings in two adjoining paragraphs of the same subsection. See Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479, 488-489 (1985); Morrison-Knudsen Constr. Co. v. Director, OWCP, 461 U. S. 624, 633 (1983). Congress’ explanation of the scope of the Secretary’s certification duty applies to both the original Pelly Amendment and the 1978 amendment: the Secretary is empowered to exercise his judgment in determining whether “the trade or taking [is] serious enough to warrant the finding that the effectiveness of the international program in question has been diminished.” H. R. Rep. No. 95-1029, supra, at 15. Enactment of the Packwood Amendment did not negate the Secretary’s view that he is not required to certify every failure to abide by ICW’s whaling limits. There were hearings on the proposal but no Committee Reports. It was enacted as a floor amendment. It is clear enough, however, that it was designed to remove executive discretion in imposing sanctions once certification had been made — as Senator Packwood put it, “to put real economic teeth into our whale conservation efforts,” by requiring the Secretary of State to impose severe economic sanctions until the transgression is rectified. 125 Cong. Rec. 21742 (1979). But Congress specifically retained the identical certification standard of the Pelly Amendment, which requires a determination by the Secretary that the whaling operations at issue diminish the effectiveness of the ICRW. 16 U. S. C. § 1821(e)(2)(A)(i). See 125 Cong. Rec. 21743 (1979) (remarks of Sen. Magnuson); id., at 22083 (remarks of Rep. Breaux); id., at 22084 (remarks of Rep. Oberstar). We find no specific indication in this history that henceforth the certification standard would require the Secretary to certify each and every departure from ICW’s whaling Schedules. It may be that in the legislative history of these Amendments there are scattered statements hinting at the per se rule advocated by respondents, but read as a whole, we are quite unconvinced that this history clearly indicates, contrary to what we and the Secretary have concluded is a permissible reading of the statute, that all departures from IWC Schedules, regardless of the circumstances, call for immediate certification. V We conclude that the Secretary’s construction of the statutes neither contradicted the language of either Amendment, nor frustrated congressional intent. See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S., at 842-843. In enacting these Amendments, Congress’ primary goal was to protect and conserve whales and other endangered species. The Secretary furthered this objective by entering into the agreement with Japan, calling for that nation’s acceptance of the worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling and the withdrawal of its objection to the IWC zero sperm whale quota, in exchange for a transition period of limited additional whaling. Given the lack of any express direction to the Secretary that he must certify a nation whose whale harvest exceeds an IWC quota, the Secretary reasonably could conclude, as he has, that, “a cessation of all Japanese commercial whaling activities would contribute more to the effectiveness of the IWC and its conservation program than any other single development.” Affidavit of Malcolm Baldrige, Brief for Petitioners in No. 85-955, Addendum III, pp. 6A-7A. We conclude, therefore, that the Secretary’s decision to secure the certainty of Japan’s future compliance with the IWC’s program through the 1984 executive agreement, rather than rely on the possibility that certification and imposition of economic sanctions would produce the same or better result, is a reasonable construction of the Pelly and Packwood Amendments. Congress granted the Secretary the authority to determine whether a foreign nation’s whaling in excess of quotas diminishes the effectiveness of the IWC, and we find no reason to impose a mandatory obligation upon the Secretary to certify that every quota violation necessarily fails that standard. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is Reversed. The details of the Japanese commitments were explained in a summary accompanying the letter from the Chargé d’Affaires to the Secretary. First, the countries agreed that if Japan would withdraw its objection to the IWC zero sperm whale quota, Japanese whalers could harvest up to 400 sperm whales in each of the 1984 and 1985 coastal seasons without triggering certification. Japan’s irrevocable withdrawal of that objection was to take place on or before December 13, 1984, effective April 1, 1988. App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 85-955, pp. 104A-105A. Japan fulfilled this portion of the agreement on December 11, 1984. Id., at 110A, 112A-114A. Second, the two nations agreed that if Japan would end all commercial whaling by April 1,1988, Japanese whalers could take additional whales in the interim without triggering certification. Japan agreed to harvest no more than 200 sperm whales in each of the 1986 and 1987 coastal seasons. In addition, it would restrict its harvest of other whale species — under limits acceptable to the United States after consultation with Japan — through the end of the 1986-1987 pelagic season and the end of the 1987 coastal season. The agreement called for Japan to announce its commitment to terminate commercial whaling operations by withdrawing its objection to the 1982 IWC moratorium on or before April 1, 1985, effective April 1, 1988. Id, at 105A-106A. The original plaintiffs to this action are: American Cetacean Society, Animal Protection Institute of America, Animal Welfare Institute, Center for Environmental Education, The Fund for Animals, Greenpeace U. S. A., The Humane Society of the United States, International Fund for Animal Welfare, The Whale Center, Connecticut Cetacean Society, Defenders of Wildlife, Friends of the Earth, and Thomas Garrett, former United States Representative to the IWC. In addition, plaintiffs also requested (1) a declaratory judgment that the Secretary’s failure to certify violated both the Pelly and Packwood Amendments, because any whaling activities in excess of IWC quotas necessarily “diminishes the effectiveness” of the ICRW; and (2) a permanent injunction prohibiting any executive agreement which would violate the certification and sanction requirements of the Amendments. 604 F. Supp. 1398, 1401 (DC 1985). The Japan Whaling Association and Japan Fishing Association (Japanese petitioners), trade groups representing private Japanese interests, were allowed to intervene. We also reject the Secretary’s suggestion that no private cause of action is available to respondents. Respondents brought suit against the Secretary of Commerce, the head of a federal agency, and the suit, in essence, is one to “compel agency action unlawfully withheld,” 5 U. S. C. § 706(1), or alternatively, to “hold unlawful and set aside agency action... found to be... arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” § 706(2)(A). The “right of action” in such cases is expressly created by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which states that “final agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy in a court [is] subject to judicial review,” § 704, at the behest of “[a] person... adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action.” § 702 (1982 ed., Supp. III). A separate indication of congressional intent to make agency action reviewable under the APA is not necessary; instead, the rule is that the cause of action for review of such action is available absent some clear and convincing evidence of legislative intention to preclude review. See, e. g., Block v. Community Nutrition Institute, 467 U. S. 340, 345 (1984); Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, 401 U. S. 402, 410 (1971); Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 141 (1967). It is clear that respondents may avail themselves of the right of action created by the APA. First, the Secretary’s actions constitute the actions of an agency. See 5 U. S. C. § 551(1); Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, supra, at 410. In addition, there has been “final agency action,” in that the Secretary formally has agreed with the Japanese that there will be no certification, and this appears to be an action “for which there is no other adequate remedy in a court,” as the issue whether the Secretary’s failure to certify was lawful will not otherwise arise in litigation. Next, it appears that respondents are sufficiently “aggrieved” by the agency’s action: under our decisions in Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727 (1972), and United States v. SCRAP, 412 U. S. 669 (1973), they undoubtedly have alleged a sufficient “injury in fact” in that the whale watching and studying of their members will be adversely affected by continued whale harvesting, and this type of injury is within the “zone of interests” protected by the Pelly and Packwood Amendments. See Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp, 397 U. S. 150 (1970). Finally, the Secretary has failed to point to any expressed intention on the part of Congress to foreclose APA review of actions under either Amendment. We find, therefore, that respondents are entitled to pursue their claims under the right of action created by the APA. The Court of Appeals relied upon the statement in S. Rep. No. 92-582 that the purpose of the Amendment was “ ‘to prohibit the importation of fishery products from nations that do not conduct their fishing operations in a manner that is consistent with international conservation programs. It would accomplish this by providing that whenever the Secretary of Commerce determines that a country’s nationals are fishing in such a manner, he must certify such fact to the President.’” 247 U. S. App. D. C. 309, 319, 768 F. 2d 426, 436 (1985) (emphasis omitted), quoting S. Rep. No. 92-582, at 2. This is indeed an explicit statement of purpose, but this is not the operative language in the statute chosen to effect that purpose. The seetion-by-section analysis contained in the same Report recites that the operative section directs the Secretary of Commerce to certify to the President the fact that nationals of a foreign country, directly or indirectly, are conducting fishing operations in a manner or under circumstances which diminish the effectiveness of an international conservation program whenever he determines the existence of such operations. Id., at 5. These are not the words of a ministerial duty, but the imposition of duty to make an informed judgment. Even respondents do not contend that every merely negligent or unintentional violation must be certified. It should be noted that the statement of purpose contained in the House Report tracks the language of the operative provisions of the Amendment. H. R. Rep. No. 92-468, p. 2 (1971). Representative Pelly testified at the Senate hearings that the sanctions authorized by the Amendment were to be applied “in the case of flagrant violation of any international fishery conservation program to which the United States has committed itself.” Hearings on S. 1242 et al. before the Subcommittee on Oceans and Atmosphere of the Senate Committee on Commerce, 92d Cong., 1st Sess., 47 (1971). Similarly, Donald McKernan, Special Assistant for Fisheries and Wildlife, and Coordinator of Ocean Affairs, United States Department of State, stated: “We do not anticipate that there would be any need to invoke the proposed legislation where conservation needs are effectively met by the agreement of all nations involved to an international conservation regime. “However, there are some situations where one or more nations have failed to agree to a program otherwise agreed among the involved nations, or having once agreed failed to abide by Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. On the afternoon of November 10,1961, the petitioner, William Beck, was driving his automobile in the vicinity of East 115th Street and Beulah Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland police officers accosted him, identified themselves, and ordered him to pull over to the curb. The officers possessed neither an arrest warrant nor a search warrant'. Placing him under arrest, they searched his car but found nothing of interest. They then took him to a nearby police station where they searched his person and found an envelope containing a number of clearing house slips “beneath the sock of his leg.” The petitioner was subsequently charged in the Cleveland Municipal Court with possession of clearing house slips in violation of a state criminal statute. He filed a motion to suppress as evidence the clearing house slips in question, upon the ground that the police had obtained them by means of an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. After a hearing the motion was overruled, the clearing house slips were admitted in evidence, and the petitioner was convicted. His conviction was affirmed by an Ohio Court of Appeals, and ultimately by the Supreme Court of Ohio, with two judges dissenting. 175 Ohio St. 73, 191 N. E. 2d 825. We granted certiorari to consider the petitioner’s claim that, under the rule of Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, the clearing house slips were wrongly admitted in evidence against him because they had been seized by the Cleveland police in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. 376 U. S. 905. Although the police officers did not obtain a warrant before arresting the petitioner and searching his automobile and his person, the Supreme Court of Ohio found the search nonetheless constitutionally valid as a search incident to a lawful arrest. And it is upon that basis that the Ohio decision has been supported by the respondent here. See Draper v. United States, 358 U. S. 307; Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23. Thére are limits to the permissible scope of a warrant-less search incident to a lawful arrest, but we proceed on the premise that, if the arrest itself was lawful, those limits were not exceeded here. See Harris v. United States, 331 U. S. 145; United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56; cf. Preston v. United States, 376 U. S. 364. The constitutional validity of the search in this case, then, must depend upon the constitutional validity of the petitioner’s arrest. Whether that arrest was constitutionally valid depends in turn upon whether, at the moment the arrest was made, the officers had probable cause to make it — whether at that moment the facts and circumstances1 within their knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information were sufficient to warrant a prudent man in believing that the petitioner had committed or was committing an offense. Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160, 175-176; Henry v. United States, 361 U. S. 98, 102. “The rule of probable cause is a practical, nontechnical conception affording the best compromise that has been found for accommodating . . . often opposing interests. Requiring more would unduly ham-' per law enforcement. To allow less would be to leave law-abiding citizens at the mercy of the.officers’ whim or caprice.” Brinegar v. United States, supra, at 176. In turning to the question of whether or not the record in the case before us can support a finding of probable cause for the petitioner's arrest, it may be well to repeat what wa% said by Mr. Justice Clark, speaking for eight members of the Court, in Ker v. California: “While this Court does not sit as in nisi pnus to appraise contradictory factual questions, it will, where necessary to the determination of constitutional rights, make an independent examination of the facts, the findings, and the record so that it can determine for itself whether in the decision as to reasonableness the fundamental — i. e., constitutional — criteria established by this Court have been respected. The States are not thereby precluded from developing workable rules governing arrests, searches and seizures to meet ‘the practical demands of effective'criminal investigation and law enforcement’ in the States, provided that those rules do not violate the constitutional proscription of unreasonable searches and seizures and the concomitant command that evidence so seized is inadmissible against one who has standing to complain. See Jones v. United States, 362 U. S. 257 (1960). Such a standard implies no derogation of uniformity in applying federal constitutional guarantees but is only a recognition that conditions and circumstances vary just as do investigative and enforcement techniques.” 374 U..S. 23, at 34. The trial court made no findings of fact in this case. The trial judge simply made a conclusory statement: “A lawful arrest has been made, and this was a search incidental to that lawful arrest.” The Court of Appeals merely found “no error prejudicial to the appellant.” In the Supreme Court of Ohio, Judge Zimmerman’s opinion contained a narrative recital which is accurately excerpted in the dissenting opinions filed today. But, putting aside the question of whether this opinion can fairly be called the opinion of the court, such a recital in an appellate opinion is hardly the equivalent of findings made by the trier of the facts. In any event, after giving full scope to the flexibility demanded by “a recognition that conditions and circumstances vary just as do investigative and enforcement techniques,” we hold that the arrest of the petitioner cannot on the record before us be squared with the demands of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, The record is meager, consisting only of the testimony of one of the arresting officers, given at the hearing on the motion to suppress. As to the officer’s own knowledge of the petitioner before the arrest, the record shows no more than that the officer “had a police picture of him and knew what he looked like,” and that the officer knew ■ that the petitioner had “a record in connection with clearing house and scheme of chance.” Beyond that, the officer testified only that he had “information” that he had “heard reports,” that “someone specifically did relate that information,” and that he “knew who that person was.” There is nowhere in the record any indication of what “information” or “reports” the officer had received, or, beyond what has been set out above, from what source the “information” and “reports” had come. The officer testified that when he left the station house, “I had in mind looking for [the’petitioner] in the area of East 115th Street and Beulah, stopping him if I did see him make a stop in that area.” But the'officer testified to nothing that would indicate that any informer had- said that the petitioner could be found at that time and place. Cf. Draper v. United States, 358 U. S. 307. And the record does not show that the officers saw the petitioner “stop” before they arrested him, or that they saw, heard, smelled, or otherwise perceived anything else to give them ground for belief that the petitioner had acted or was then acting unlawfully. No decision of this Court has upheld the constitutional validity of a warrantless arrest with support so scant as this record presents. The respondent relies upon Draper v. United States, 358 U. S. 307. But in that case the record showed that a named special employee of narcotics agents who had on numerous occasions given reliable information had told the arresting officer that the defendant, whom he described minutely, had taken up residence at a stated address and was selling narcotics to addicts in Denver. The informer further had told the officer that the defendant was going to Chicago to obtain narcotics and would be returning to Denver on one of two trains from Chicago, which event in fact took place. In complete contrast, the record in this, case does not contain a single objective fact to support a belief by the officers that the petitioner was engaged in criminal activity at the time they arrested him. An arrest without a warrant bypasses the safeguards provided by an objective predetermination of probable cause, and substitutes instead the far less reliable procedure of an after-the-event justification for the arrest or search, too likely to be subtly influenced by the familiar shortcomings of hindsight judgment. “Whether or not the requirements of reliability and particularity of the information on which, an officer may act are more stringent where an arrest warrant is absent, they surely cannot be less stringent than where an arrest warrant is obtained. Otherwise, a principal incentive now existing for the procurement of arrest warrants would be destroyed.” Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471, 479-480. Yet even in cases where warrants were obtained, the Court has held that the Constitution demands a greater showing of probable cause than can be found in the present record. Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U. S. 108; Giordenello v. United States, 357 U. S. 480; Nathanson v. United States, 290 U. S. 41. When the constitutional validity of an arrest is challenged, it is the function of a court to determine whether the facts available to the officers at the moment of the arrest would “warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief" that an offense has been committed. Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 162. If the court is not informed of the facts upon which the arresting officers acted, it cannot properly discharge that function. All that the trial court was told in this case was that the officers knew what the petitioner looked like and knew that he had a previous record of arrests or convictions for violations of the clearing house law. Beyond that, the arresting officer who testified said no more than that someone (he did not say who) had told him something (he did not say what) about the petitioner. We do not hold that the officer’s knowledge of the petitioner’s physical appearance and previous record was either inadmissible or entirely irrelevant upon the issue of probable cause. See Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160, 172-174. But to hold that knowledge of either or both of these facts constituted probable cause would be to hold that anyone with a previous criminal record could be arrested at will. It is possible that an informer did in fact relate information to the police officer in this case which constituted probable cause for the petitioner’s arrest. But when the constitutional validity of that arrest was challenged, it was incumbent upon the prosecution to show with considerably more specificity than was shown in this case what the informer actually said, and why the officer thought the information was credible. We may assume that the officers acted in good faith in arresting the petitioner. But “good faith on the part of the arresting officers is not enough.” Henry v. United States, 361 U. S. 98, 102. If subjective good faith alone were the test, the protections of the Fourth Amendment would evaporate, and the people would be “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,” only in the discretion of the police. Reversed. Ohio Revised Code, §2915.111. Possession of “numbers game” ticket. “No person shall own, possess, have on or about his person, have in his custody, or have under his control a ticket, order, dr device for or representing a number of shares or an interest in a scheme of chance known as ‘policy,’ ‘numbers game,’ ‘clearing house,’ or by words or terms of similar import, located in or to be drawn, paid, or carried on within or without this state. “Whoever violates this section shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars and imprisoned not more than six months for a first offense; for each subsequent offense, such person shall be fined not less than five hundred nor more than , one thousand dollars and imprisoned* not less than one nor more than three years.” For more than 100 years the rule in Ohio has been that its Supreme Court, except for per curiam opinions, speaks as a court only through the syllabi of its cases. See Rule VI, 94 Ohio St. ix; 6 Ohio St. viii; 5 Ohio St. vii. “Individual opinions speak the conclusions of their writer. What useful purpose they serve is an open question.” Thackery v. Helfrich, 123 Ohio St. 334, 336, 175 N. E. 449, 450. It is not entirely clear whether the petitioner had been previously convicted, or only arrested. At. one point the officer testified as follows: “I heard reports and found that he has a record in connection with clearing house and scheme of chance. Q. .Previous convictions? A. Yes.” Later he testified as follows: “Q. You indicated that you knew of Mr. Beck’s previous record? “A. Yes,. I did. “Q, What was that, sir? . “A. Three arrests for clearing house violations. “Q. When was this? “A. They were all during the year 1959, I believe. “Q. All during the year 1959? “A. Yes. “Q. Then you didn’t have any arrests that you knew of as far as 1960 was concerned? “A. Not to my knowledge.” “Q. About what time was it that you first saw Mr. Beck? “A. A few minutes before 1:00 p. m. that afternoon. “Q. And he was in his automobile? “A. He was driving his automobile. “Q. He was proceeding then lawfully down the street? “A. He was operating north on 115th Street. “Q. And you stopped him? “A. We stopped him going east on Beulah. “Q. You did not stop him for any traffic offense? “A. No; I did not stop him for that reason. “Q. You caused him to pull over to the curb? “A. I identified myself and requested him to pull over to the curb. “Q. Then you searched his automobile? “A. Yes, I did. “Q. Prior to that, did you indicate to' him that he was under arrest? “A. Not while searching the automobile. “Q. In other words, you searched the automobile before you placed him under arrest? “A. I placed him under arrest just as we were searching the automobile. “Q. Prior to that time, you had not discovered anything that was illegal? “A. Other than a hunting knife in the automobile, that was it. “Q. Why then did you place him under arrest? “A. I placed him under arrest for a clearing house operation, scheme of chance. “Q. At that time, you had discovered some evidence of a scheme of chance? “A. I did not. “Q. At the time you placed him under arrest, you did not have any evidence? “A. Other than information.” The Court has made clear that the Giordenello decision rested upon the Fourth Amendment, rather than upon Rule 4 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. See Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U. S. 108, at 112, n. 3. The Aguilar and Nathanson cases involved search warrants rather- than arrest warrants, but as the Court has said, “The language of the Fourth Amendment, that ‘. . . no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause . . .’ of course applies to arrest as well as search warrants.” Giordenello v. United States, 357 U. S. 480, at 485-486. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court. Section 30 of the National Bank Act of 1864, Rev. Stat. § 5197, as amended, 12 U. S. C. § 85, provides that a national bank may charge its loan customers “interest at the rate allowed by the laws of the State... where the bank is located.” In Marquette Nat. Bank of Minneapolis v. First of Omaha Service Corp., 439 U. S. 299 (1978), we held that this provision authorizes a national bank to charge out-of-state credit-card customers an interest rate allowed by the bank’s home State, even when that rate is higher than what is permitted by the States in which the cardholders reside. The question in this case is whether §85 also authorizes a national bank to charge late-payment fees that are lawful in the bank’s home State but prohibited in the States where the cardholders reside—in other words, whether the statutory term “interest” encompasses late-payment fees. I Petitioner, a resident of California, held two credit cards— a “Classic Card” and a “Preferred Card”—issued by respondent, a national bank located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The Classic Card agreement provided that respondent would charge petitioner a late fee of $15 for each monthly period in which she failed to make her minimum monthly payment within 25 days of the due date. Under the Preferred Card agreement, respondent would impose a late fee of $6 if the minimum monthly payment was not received within 15 days of its due date; and an additional charge of $15 or 0.65% of the outstanding balance on the Preferred Card, whichever was greater, if the minimum payment was not received by the next minimum monthly payment due date. Petitioner was charged late fees on both cards. These late fees are permitted by South Dakota law, see S. D. Codified Laws §§54-3-1, 54-3-1.1 (1990 and Supp. 1995). Petitioner, however, is of the view that exacting such “unconscionable” late charges from California residents violates California law, and in 1992 brought a class action against respondent on behalf of herself and other California holders of respondent’s credit cards, asserting various statutory and common-law claims. Respondent moved for judgment on the pleadings, contending that petitioner’s claims were pre-empted by §85. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County initially denied respondent’s motion, but the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, issued a writ of mandate directing the Superior Court to either grant the motion or show cause why it should not be required to do so. The Superior Court chose the former course, and the Court of Appeal affirmed its dismissal of the complaint, 26 Cal. App. 4th 1767, 32 Cal. Rptr. 2d 562 (1994). The Supreme Court of California granted review and affirmed, two justices dissenting. 11 Cal. 4th 138, 900 P. 2d 690 (1995). We granted certiorari. 516 U. S. 1087 (1996). II In light of the two dissents from the opinion of the Supreme Court of California, see 11 Cal. 4th, at 165, 177, 900 P. 2d, at 708, 716 (Arabian, J., dissenting, and George, J., dissenting), and in light of the opinion of the Supreme Court of New Jersey creating the conflict that has prompted us to take this case, it would be difficult indeed to contend that the word “interest” in the National Bank Act is unambiguous with regard to the point at issue here. It is our practice to defer to the reasonable judgments of agencies with regard to the meaning of ambiguous terms in statutes that they are charged with administering. See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842-845 (1984). As we observed only last Term, that practice extends to the judgments of the Comptroller of the Currency with regard to the meaning of the banking laws. “The Comptroller of the Currency,” we said, “is charged with the enforcement of banking laws to an extent that warrants the invocation of [the rule of deference] with respect to his deliberative conclusions as to the meaning of these laws.” NationsBank of N. C., N. A. v. Variable Annuity Life Ins. Co., 513 U. S. 251, 256-257 (1995) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). On March 3,1995, which was after the California Superior Court’s dismissal of petitioner’s complaint, the Comptroller of the Currency noticed for public comment a proposed regulation dealing with the subject before us, see 60 Fed. Reg. 11924, 11940, and on February 9, 1996, which was after the California Supreme Court’s decision, he adopted the following provision: “The term ‘interest’ as used in 12 U. S. C. § 85 includes any payment compensating a creditor or prospective creditor for an extension of credit, making available of a line of credit, or any default or breach by a borrower of a condition upon which credit was extended. It includes, among other things, the following fees connected with credit extension or availability: numerical periodic rates, late fees, not sufficient funds (NSF) fees, over limit fees, annual fees, cash advance fees, and membership fees. It does not ordinarily include appraisal fees, premiums and commissions attributable to insurance guaranteeing repayment of any extension of credit, finders’ fees, fees for document preparation or notarization, or fees incurred to obtain credit reports.” 61 Fed. Reg. 4869 (to be codified in 12 CFR § 7.4001(a)). Petitioner proposes several reasons why the ordinary rule of deference should not apply to this regulation. First, petitioner points to the fact that this regulation was issued more than 100 years after the enactment of § 85, and seemingly as a result of this and similar litigation in which the Comptroller has participated as amicus curia# on the side of the banks. The 100-year delay makes no difference. To be sure, agency interpretations that are of long standing come before us with a certain credential of reasonableness, since it is rare that error would long persist. But neither antiquity nor contemporaneity with the statute is a condition of validity. We accord deference to agencies under Chevron, not because of a presumption that they drafted the provisions in question, or were present at the hearings, or spoke to the principal sponsors; but rather because of a presumption that Congress, when it left ambiguity in a statute meant for implementation by an agency, understood that the ambiguity would be resolved, first and foremost, by the agency, and desired the agency (rather than the courts) to possess whatever degree of discretion the ambiguity allows. See Chevron, supra, at 843-844. Nor does it matter that the regulation was prompted by litigation, including this very suit. Of course we deny deference “to agency litigating positions that are wholly unsupported by regulations, rulings, or administrative practice,” Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital, 488 U. S. 204, 212 (1988). The deliberateness of such positions, if not indeed their authoritativeness, is suspect. But we have before us here a full-dress regulation, issued by the Comptroller himself and adopted pursuant to the notice-and-comment procedures of the Administrative Procedure Act designed to assure due deliberation, see 5 U. S. C. § 553; Thompson v. Clark, 741 F. 2d 401, 409 (CADC 1984). That it was litigation which disclosed the need for the regulation is irrelevant. Second, petitioner contends that the Comptroller’s regulation is not deserving of our deference because “there is no rational basis for distinguishing the various charges [it] has denominated interest. . . from those charges it has denominated ‘non-interest.’” Reply Brief for Petitioner 14. We disagree. As an analytical matter, it seems to us perfectly possible to draw a line, as the regulation does, between (1) “payment compensating a creditor or prospective creditor for an extension of credit, making available of a line of credit, or any default or breach by a borrower of a condition upon which credit was extended,” and (2) all other payments. To be sure, in the broadest sense all payments connected in any way with the loan — including reimbursement of the lender’s costs in processing the application, insuring the loan, and appraising the collateral — can be regarded as “compensating [the] creditor for [the] extension of credit.” But it seems to us quite possible and rational to distinguish, as the regulation does, between those charges that are specifically as signed, to such expenses and those that are assessed for simply making the loan, or for the borrower’s default. In its logic, at least, the line is not “arbitrary [or] capricious,” and thereby disentitled to deference under Chevron, see 467 U. S., at 844. Whether it is “arbitrary [or] capricious” as an interpretation of what the statute means — or perháps even (what Chevron also excludes from deference) “manifestly contrary to the statute” — we will discuss in the next Part of this opinion. Finally, petitioner argues that the regulation is not entitled to deference- because it is inconsistent with positions taken by the Comptroller in the past. Of course the mere fact that an agency interpretation contradicts a prior agency position is not fatal. Sudden and unexplained change, see, e. g., Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Assn. of United States, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co., 463 U. S. 29, 46-57 (1983), or change that does not take account of legitimate reliance on prior interpretation, see, e. g., United States v. Pennsylvania Industrial Chemical Corp., 411 U. S. 655, 670-675 (1973); NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U. S. 267, 295 (1974), may be “arbitrary, capricious [or] an abuse of discretion,” 5 U. S. C. § 706(2)(A). But if these pitfalls are avoided, change is not invalidating, since the whole point of Chevron is to leave the discretion provided by the ambiguities of a statute with the implementing agency. In any case, we do not think that anything which can accurately be described as a change of official agency position has occurred here. The agency’s Notice of Proposed Rule-making asserted that the new regulation “reflects] current law and [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)] interpretive letters,” 60 Fed. Reg. 11929 (1995), and the Statement of Basis and Purpose accompanying the final adoption stated that “[t]he final ruling is consistent with OCC interpretive letters in this area . . . and reflects the position the OCC has taken in amicus curiae briefs in litigation pending in many state and Federal courts,” 61 Fed. Reg. 4859 (1996) (citing OCC interpretive letters). Petitioner points only to (1) a June 1964 letter from the Comptroller to the President’s Committee on Consumer Interests, which states that “[c]harges for late payments, credit life insurance, recording fees, documentary stamp are illustrations of charges which are made by some banks which would not properly be characterized as interest,” see App. to Brief for Petitioner 5a; and (2) a 1988 opinion letter from the Deputy Chief Counsel of the OCC stating “it is my position that [under §85] the laws of the states where the banks are located . . . determine whether or not the banks can impose the foregoing fees and charges [including late fees] on Iowa residents,” OCC Interpretive Letter No. 452, reprinted in 1988-1989 Transfer Binder, CCH Fed. Banking L. Rep. ¶ 85,676, p. 78,064 (1988). We doubt whether either of these statements was sufficient in and of itself to establish a binding agency policy — the former, because it was too informal, and the latter because it only purported to represent the position of the Deputy Chief Counsel in response to an inquiry concerning particular banks. Nor can it even be argued that the two statements reflect a prior agency policy, since, in addition to contradicting the regulation before us here, they also contradict one another — the former asserting that “interest” is a nationally uniform concept, and the latter that it is to be determined by reference to state law. What these statements show, if anything, is that there was good reason for the Comptroller to promulgate the new regulation, in order to eliminate uncertainty and confusion. In addition to offering these reasons why 12 CFR § 7.4001(a) in particular is not entitled to deference, petitioner contends that no Comptroller interpretation of § 85 is entitled to deference, because §85 is a provision that preempts state law. She argues that the “presumption against . . . pre-emption” announced in Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U. S. 504, 518 (1992), in effect trumps Chevron, and requires a court to make its own interpretation of § 85 that will avoid (to the extent possible) pre-emption of state law. This argument confuses the question of the substantive (as opposed to pre-emptive) meaning of a statute with the question of whether a statute is pre-emptive. We may assume (without deciding) that the latter question must always be decided de novo by the courts. That is not the question at issue here; there is no doubt that §85 pre-empts state law. In Marquette Nat. Bank of Minneapolis v. First of Omaha Service Corp., 439 U. S. 299 (1978), we dismissed petitioners’ argument that the “exportation” of interest rates from the bank’s home State would “significantly impair the ability of States to enact effective usury laws” with the observation that “[t]his impairment . . . has always been implicit in the structure of the National Bank Act .... [T]he protection of state usury laws is an issue of legislative policy, and any plea to alter §85 to further that end is better addressed to the wisdom of Congress than to the judgment of this Court.” Id., at 318-319. What is at issue here is simply the meaning of a provision that does not (like the provision in Cipo llone) deal with pre-emption, and hence does not bring into play the considerations petitioner raises. HH HH HH Since we have concluded that the Comptrollers regulation deserves deference, the question before us is not whether it represents the best interpretation of the statute, but whether it represents a reasonable one. The answer is obviously yes. Petitioner argues that the late fees charged by respondent do. not constitute “interest” because they “do not vary based on the payment owed or the time period of delay.” Brief for Petitioner 32-33. We do not think that such a limitation must be read into the statutory term. Most legal dictionaries of the era of the National Bank Act did not place such a limitation upon “interest.” See, e. g., 1 J. Bouvier, A Law Dictionary 652 (6th ed. 1856) (“The compensation which is paid by the borrower to the lender or by the debtor to the creditor for... use [of money]”); 2 A. Burrill, A Law Dictionary and Glossary 90 (2d ed. 1860); 11 American and English Encyclopedia of Law 379 (J. Merrill ed. 1890). But see J. Wharton, Law Lexicon or Dictionary of Jurisprudence 391 (2d Am. ed. 1860). The definition of “interest” that we ourselves set out in Brown v. Hiatts, 15 Wall. 177, 185 (1873), decided shortly after the enactment of the National Bank Act, likewise contained no indication that it was limited to charges expressed as a function of time or of amount owing: “Interest is the compensation allowed by law, or fixed by the parties, for the use or forbearance of money or as damages for its detention.” See also Hollowell v. Southern Building & Loan Assn., 120 N. C. 286, 26 S. E. 781 (1897) (“[A]ny charges made against [the borrower] in excess of the lawful rate of interest, whether called ‘fines,’ ‘charges,’ ‘dues,’ or ‘interest,’ are in fact interest, and usurious”). Petitioner suggests another source for the asserted requirement that the charges be time- and rate-based: What is authorized by § 85, she notes, is the charging of interest “at the rate allowed” by the laws of the bank’s home State. This requires, in her view, that the interest charges be expressed as functions of time and amount owing. It would be surprising to find such a requirement in the Act, if only because it would be so pointless. Any flat charge may, of course, readily be converted to a percentage charge — which was indeed the basis for 19th-century decisions holding that flat charges violated state usury laws establishing maximum “rates.” See, e. g., Craig v. Pleiss, 26 Pa. 271, 272-273 (1856); Hollowell, supra, at 286, 26 S. E., at 781. And there is no apparent reason why home-state-approved percentage charges should be permissible but home-state-approved flat charges unlawful. In any event, common usage at the time of the National Bank Act prevents the conclusion that the Comptroller’s refusal to give the word “rate” the narrow meaning petitioner demands is unreasonable. The 1849 edition of Webster’s gives as one of the definitions of “rate” the “[p]rice or amount stated or fixed on any thing.” N. Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language 910. To illustrate this sense of the word, it provides the following examples: “A king may purchase territory at too dear a rate. The rate of interest is prescribed by law.” Ibid. Cf. 2 Bou-vier, supra, at 421 (defining “rate of exchange” as “the price at which a bill drawn in one country upon another, may be sold in the former”). Finally, petitioner contends that the late fees cannot be “interest” because they are “penalties.” To support that dichotomy, she points to our opinion in Meilink v. Unemployment Reserves Comm’n of Cal., 314 U. S. 564, 570 (1942). But Meilink involved a provision of the Bankruptcy Act that disallowed debts owing to governmental entities “as a penalty,” except for “the amount of the pecuniary loss sustained by the act. . . out of which the penalty . . . arose, with . . . such interest as may have accrued thereon according to law.” Id., at 566. Obviously, this provision uses “interest” to mean only that interest which is exacted as commercial compensation, and not that interest which is exacted as a penalty. A word often takes on a more narrow connotation when it is expressly opposed to another word: “car,” for example, has a broader meaning by itself than it does in a passage speaking of “cars and taxis.” In §85, the term “interest” is not used in contradistinction to “penalty,” and there is no reason why it cannot include interest charges imposed for that purpose. More relevant than Meilink, is our opinion in Citizens’ Nat. Bank of Kansas City v. Donnell, 195 U. S. 369 (1904), which did involve §85 (or, more precisely, its predecessor, Rev. Stat. § 5197). There, a bank argued that a 12% charge on overdrafts did not violate a state law setting an 8% ceiling on interest rates because, inter alia, the overdraft charge “was a penalty because of a failure to pay a debt when due.” Id., at 373-374. We dismissed the argument out of hand: “The suggestions as to the twelve per cent charge on overdrafts do not seem to us to need answer.” Id., at 374. * * * Petitioner devotes much of her brief to the question whether the meaning of “interest” in § 85 can constitutionally be left to be defined by the law of the bank’s home State — a question that is not implicated by the Comptroller’s regulation. Because the regulation is entitled to deference, and because the Comptroller’s interpretation of §85 is not an unreasonable one, the decision of the Supreme Court of California must be affirmed. It is so ordered. By way of common-law claims, petitioner’s complaint alleged breach of duty of good faith and fair dealing; unjust enrichment; fraud and deceit; negligent misrepresentation; and breach of contract. It also alleged violation of Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code Ann. § 17200 (West Supp. 1996) (prohibiting unlawful business practices) and Cal. Civ. Code Ann. §1671 (West 1985) (invalidating unreasonable liquidated damages). Sherman v. Citibank (South Dakota), N. A., 143 N. J. 35, 668 A. 2d 1036 (1995). The Supreme Court of Colorado and the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit have adopted the same interpretation as the Supreme Court of California. See Copeland v. MBNA America Bank, N. A., 907 P. 2d 87 (Colo. 1995); Greenwood Trust Co. v. Massachusetts, 971 F. 2d 818, 829-831 (CA1 1992) (dictum), cert. denied, 506 U. S. 1052 (1993). In a four-line footnote on the last page of her reply brief, and unpur-sued in oral argument, petitioner raised the point that deferring to the regulation in this case involving antecedent transactions would make the regulation retroactive, in violation of Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital, 488 U. S. 204, 208-209 (1988). Reply Brief for Petitioner 20, n. 17. There might be substance to this point if the regulation replaced a prior agency interpretation — which, as we have discussed, it did not. Where, however, a court is addressing transactions that occurred at a time when there was no clear agency guidance, it would be absurd to ignore the agency’s current authoritative pronouncement of what the statute means. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 Douglas delivered the opinion of the Court. The sole question in the case is whether the cause of action alleged comes within the admiralty jurisdiction of the District Court. The District Court held that this was an action on a maritime contract, within the admiralty jurisdiction, 129 F. Supp. 410. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the suit was in the nature of the old common law indebitatus assumpsit for money had and received, based upon the wrongful withholding of money. 223 F. 2d 406. The case is here on a petition for certiorari which we granted, 350 U. S. 872, because of the seeming conflict of that ruling with Krauss Bros. Co. v. Dimon S. S. Corp., 290 U. S. 117, 124. The libel alleges that respondent, doing business in his own and in various trade names, owned and controlled a passenger vessel, known as the City of Athens, and held out that vessel as a common carrier of passengers for hire, and that petitioners paid moneys for passage upon the vessel, scheduled for July 15,1947, to Europe. A contract for the transportation of passengers is a maritime contract within admiralty jurisdiction. The Moses Taylor, 4 Wall. 411. The allegations so far mentioned are plainly sufficient to establish such a contract. The libel goes on to allege a breach of that contract through an abandonment of the voyage. If this were all, it would be plain that petitioners stated a claim for breach of a maritime contract. But the libel further alleges that the sums paid by petitioners as passage money were “wrongfully and deliberately” applied by respondent to his own use and benefit “in reckless disregard of his obligations to refund the same” and that respondent “has secreted himself away and manipulated his assets ... for the purpose of defrauding” petitioners. Then follow allegations of certain fraudulent acts and transactions. The allegations of wrongfulness and fraud do not alter the essential character of the libel. For the ancient admiralty teaching is that, “The rules of pleading in the admiralty are exceedingly simple and free from technical requirements.” Dupont de Nemours & Co. v. Vance, 19 How. 162, 171-172. And see 2 Benedict, American Admiralty (6th ed. 1940), §§ 223, 237. Though these particular allegations of the libel sound in fraud or in the wrongful withholding of moneys, it is plain in the context that the obligation to pay the moneys arose because of a breach of the contract to transport passengers. Lawyers speak of the obligation in terms of indebitatus assumpsit, a concept whose tortuous development gave expression to “the ethical character of the law.” See Ames, The History of Assumpsit, 2 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 53, 58 (1888). As Mr. Justice Holmes once put it, “An obligation to pay money generally is enforced by an action of assumpsit and to that extent is referred to a contract even though it be one existing only by fiction of law.” Thomas v. Matthiessen, 232 U. S. 221, 235. The fiction sometimes distorted the law. A line of authorities emerged to the effect that admiralty had no jurisdiction to grant relief in such cases “because the implied promise to repay the moneys which cannot in good conscience be retained — necessary to support the action for money had and received — is not a maritime contract.” United Transp. & L. Co. v. New York & B. T. Line, 185 F. 386, 391. Yet that duty to pay is often referable, as here, to the breach of a maritime contract. As Mr. Justice Stone said in Krauss Bros. Co. v. Dimon S. S. Corp., supra, at 124: “. . . Even under the common law form of action for money had and received there could be no recovery without proof of the breach of the contract involved in demanding the payment, and the basis of recovery there, as in admiralty, is the violation of some term of the contract of affreightment, whether by failure to carry or by exaction of freight which the contract did not authorize.” The truth is that in a case such as the present one there is neither an actual promise to repay the passage moneys nor a second contract. The problem is to prevent unjust enrichment from a maritime contract. See Morrison, The Remedial Powers of the Admiralty, 43 Yale L. J. 1, 27 (1933). A court that prevents a maritime contract from being exploited in that way does not reach beyond the domain of maritime affairs. We conclude that, so long as the claim asserted arises out of a maritime contract, the admiralty court has jurisdiction over it. The philosophy of indebitatus assumpsit is, indeed, not wholly foreign to admiralty. Analogous conceptions of rights based on quasi-contract are found in admiralty. One who saves property at sea has(ihe right to an award of salvage, regardless of any agreement between him and the owner. See Mason v. Ship Blaireau, 2 Cranch 240, 266; The Sabine, 101 U. S. 384, 390; 1 Benedict, supra, § 117 et seq. Likewise, where cargo is jettisoned, the owner becomes entitled to a contribution in general average from the owners of other cargo which was saved without the aid of any agreement. See Barnard v. Adams, 10 How. 270, 303-304; Star of Hope, 9 Wall. 203, 228-230; 1 Benedict, supra, § 98. Other examples could be given. See Chandler, Quasi Contractual Relief in Admiralty, 27 Mich. L. Rev. 23 (1928). Rights which admiralty recognizes as serving the ends of justice are often indistinguishable from ordinary quasi-contractual rights created to prevent unjust enrichment. How far the concept of quasi-contracts may be applied in admiralty it is unnecessary to decide. It is sufficient this day to hold that admiralty has jurisdiction, even where the libel reads like indebitatus assumpsit at common law, provided that the unjust enrichment arose as a result of the breach of a maritime contract. Such is the case here. The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for proceedings in conformity with this opinion. Reversed and remanded There is also an apparent conflict with Sword Line v. United States, 228 F. 2d 344, 346, decided, after we granted certiorari, by a different panel of the Second Circuit from the one which sat in the instant case. The Court in New Jersey Steam Navigation Company v. Merchants’ Bank, 6 How. 344, 392, stated that in determining admiralty jurisdiction the inquiry is “into the nature and subject-matter of the contract, — whether it was a maritime contract, and the service a maritime service, to be performed upon the sea, or upon waters within the ebb and flow of the tide. And, again, whether the service was to be substantially performed upon the sea, or tide-waters, although it had commenced and had terminated beyond the reach of the tide; if it was, then jurisdiction has always been maintained.” And see Israel v. Moore & McCormack Co., 295 F. 919; Home Ins. Co. v. Merchants’ Transp. Co., 16 F. 2d 372; Silva v. Bankers Commercial Corp., 163f F. 2d 602. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

H

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Jackson delivered the opinion of the Court. Joseph Maggio, the petitioner, was president and manager of Luma Camera Service, Inc., which was adjudged bankrupt on April 23, 1942. In January of 1943 the trustee asked the court to direct Maggio to turn over a considerable amount of merchandise alleged to have been taken from the bankrupt concern in 1941, and still in Maggio’s possession or control. After hearing, the referee found that “the Trustee established by clear and convincing evidence that the merchandise hereinafter described, belonging to the estate of the bankrupt, was knowingly and fraudulently concealed by the respondent [Maggio] from the Trustee herein and that said merchandise is now in the possession or under the control of the respondent.” A turnover order issued and was affirmed by the District Court and then unanimously affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, without opinion other than citation of its own prior cases. Zeitz v. Maggio, 145 F. 2d 241. Petition for certiorari was denied by this Court. 324 U.S. 841. As Maggio failed to turn over the property or its proceeds, the Referee found him in contempt. After hearing, the District Court affirmed and ordered Maggio to be jailed until he complied or until further order of the court. Again the Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. 157 F. 2d 951. But in affirming the Court said: “Although we know that Maggio cannot comply with the order, we must keep a straight face and pretend that he can, and must thus affirm orders which first direct Maggio ‘to do an impossibility, and then punish him for refusal to perform it.’ ” Whether this is to be read literally as its deliberate judgment of the law of the case or is something of a decoy intended to attract our attention to the problem, the declaration is one which this Court, in view of its supervisory power over courts of bankruptcy, cannot ignore. Fraudulent bankruptcies probably present more difficulties to the courts in the Second Circuit than they do elsewhere. These conditions are reflected in conflicting views within the Court of Appeals, which we need not detail as they are already set out in the books: In re Schoenberg, 70 F. 2d 321; Danish v. Sofranski, 93 F. 2d 424; In re Pinsky-Lapin & Co., 98 F. 2d 776; Seligson v. Goldsmith, 128 F. 2d 977; Rosenblum v. Marinello, 133 F. 2d 674; Robbins v. Gottbetter, 134 F. 2d 843; Cohen v. Jeskowitz, 144 F. 2d 39; Zeitz v. Maggio, 145 F. 2d 241. The problem is illustrated by this ease. The court below says that in the turnover proceedings it was sufficiently established that, towards the end of 1941, a shortage occurred in this bankrupt’s stock of merchandise. It seems also to regard it as proved that Maggio personally took possession of the corporation’s vanishing assets. But this abstraction by Maggio occurred several months before bankruptcy and over a year before the turnover order was applied for. The only evidence that the goods then were in the possession or control of Maggio was the proof of his onetime possession supplemented by a “presumption” that, in the absence of a credible explanation by Maggio of his disposition of the goods, he continues in possession of them or their proceeds. Because the Court of Appeals felt constrained by its opinions to adhere to this “presumption” or “fiction” it affirmed the turnover order. Now it says it is convinced that in reality Maggio did not retain the goods or their proceeds up to the time of the turnover proceedings and that the turnover order was unjust. But it considers the turnover order res judicata and the injustice beyond reach on review of the contempt order. The proceeding which leads to commitment consists of two separate stages which easily become out-of-joint because the defense to the second often in substance is an effort to relitigate, perhaps before another judge, the issue supposed to have been settled in the first, and because while the burden of proof rests on the trustee, frequently evidence of the facts is entirely in possession of his adversary, the bankrupt, who is advantaged by nondisclosure. Because these separate but interdependent turnover and contempt procedures are important to successful bankruptcy administration, we restate some of the principles applicable to each, conscious however of the risk that we may do more to stir new than to settle old controversies. I. The turnover procedure is one not expressly created or regulated by the Bankruptcy Act. It is a judicial innovation by which the' court seeks efficiently and expeditiously to accomplish ends prescribed by the statute, which, however, left the means largely to judicial ingenuity. The courts of bankruptcy are invested “with such jurisdiction in law and in equity as will enable them” to “Cause the estates of bankrupts to be collected, reduced to money and distributed, and determine controversies in relation thereto....” 11 U. S. C. § 11 (a) (7). And the function to “collect and reduce to money the property of the estates” is also laid upon the trustee. 11 U. S. C. § 75 (a) (1). A correlative duty is imposed upon the bankrupt fully and effectually to turn over all of his property and interests, and in case of a corporation the duty rests upon its officers, directors or stockholders. 11 U. S. C. § 25. To compel these persons to discharge their duty, the statute imposes criminal sanctions. It denounces a comprehensive list of frauds, concealments, falsifications, mutilation of records and other acts that would defeat or obstruct collection of the assets of the estate, and prescribes heavy penalties of fine or imprisonment or both. 11 U. S. C. § 52 (b). It also confers on the courts power to arraign, try and punish persons for violations, but “in accordance with the laws of procedure” regulating trials of crimes. 11 U. S. C. § 11 (a) (4). And it specifically provides for jury trial of offenses against the Bankruptcy Act. 11 U. S. C. §42 (a), (c). Special provisions are also made to induce vigilance in prosecuting such offenses. It is the duty of the referee and trustee to report any probable grounds for believing such an offense has been committed to the United States Attorney, who thereupon is required to investigate and report to the referee. In a proper case he is directed to present the matter to the grand jury without delay, and if he thinks it not a proper case he must report the facts to the Attorney General and abide his instructions. 11 U. S. C. § 52 (e). Courts of bankruptcy have no authority to compensate for any neglect or lack of zeal in applying these prescribed criminal sanctions by perversion of civil remedies to ends of punishment, as some judges of the Court of Appeals suggest is being done. Unfortunately, criminal prosecutions do not recover concealed treasure. And the trustee, as well as the Court, is commanded to collect the property. The Act vests title to all property of the bankrupt, including any transferred in fraud of creditors, in the trustee, as of the date of filing the petition in bankruptcy, 11 U. S. C. § 110, which puts him in position to pursue all plenary or summary remedies to obtain possession. To entertain the petitions of the trustee the bankruptcy court not only is vested with “jurisdiction of all controversies at law and in equity” between trustees and adverse claimants concerning property acquired or claimed by the trustee, 11 U. S. C. § 46, but it also is given a wide discretionary jurisdiction to accomplish the ends of the Act, or in the words of the statute to “make such orders, issue such process, and enter such judgments, in addition to those specifically provided for, as may be necessary for the enforcement of the provisions of this title.” 11 U.S.C. § 11 (a) (15). In applying these grants of power, courts of bankruptcy have fashioned the summary turnover procedure as one necessary to accomplish their function of administration. It enables the court summarily to retrieve concealed and diverted assets or secreted books of account the withholding of which, pending the outcome of plenary suits, would intolerably obstruct and delay administration. When supported by “clear and convincing evidence,” the turnover order has been sustained as an appropriate and necessary step in enforcing the Bankruptcy Act. Oriel v. Russell, 278 U. S. 358; Cooper v. Dasher, 290 U. S. 106. See also Farmers & Mechanics National Bank v. Wilkinson, 266 U. S.503. But this procedure is one primarily to get at property rather than to get at a debtor. Without pushing the analogy too far, it may be said that the theoretical basis for this remedy is found in the common law actions to recover possession — detinue for unlawful detention of chattels and replevin for their unlawful taking — as distinguished from actions in trespass or trover to recover damages for the withholding or for the value of the property. Of course the modern remedy does not exactly follow any of these ancient and often overlapping procedures, but the object — possession of specific property — is the same. The order for possession may extend to proceeds of property that has been disposed of, if they are sufficiently identified as such. But it is essentially a proceeding for restitution rather than indemnification, with some characteristics of a proceeding in rem; the primary condition of relief is possession of existing chattels or their proceeds capable of being surrendered by the person ordered to do so. It is in no sense based on a cause of action for damages for tortious conduct such as embezzlement, misappropriation or improvident dissipation of assets. The nature and derivation of the remedy make clear that it is appropriate only when the evidence satisfactorily establishes the existence of the property or its proceeds, and possession thereof by the defendant at the time of the proceeding. While some courts have taken the date of bankruptcy as the time to which the inquiry is directed, we do not consider resort to this particular proceeding appropriate if, at the time it is instituted, the property and its proceeds have already been dissipated, no matter when that dissipation occurred. Conduct which has put property beyond the limited reach of the turnover proceeding may be a crime, or, if it violates an order of the referee, a criminal contempt, but no such acts, however reprehensible, warrant issuance of an order which creates a duty impossible of performance, so that punishment can follow. It should not be necessary to say that it would be a flagrant abuse of process to issue such an order to exert pressure on friends and relatives to ransom the accused party from being jailed. II. It is evident that the real issue as to turnover orders concerns the burden of proof that will be put on the trustee and how he can meet it. This Court has said that the turnover order must be supported by “clear and convincing evidence,” Oriel v. Russell, 278 U. S. 358, and that includes proof that the property has been abstracted from the bankrupt estate and is in the possession of the party proceeded against. It is the burden of the trustee to produce this evidence, however difficult his task may be. The trustee usually can show that the missing assets were in the possession or under the control of the bankrupt at the time of bankruptcy. To bring this past possession down to the date involved in the turnover proceedings, the trustee has been allowed the benefit of what is called a presumption that the possession continues until the possessor explains when and how it ceased. This inference, which might be entirely permissible in some cases, seems to have settled into a rigid presumption which it is said the lower courts apply without regard to its reasonableness in the particular case. However, no such presumption, and no such fiction, is created by the bankruptcy statute. None can be found in any decision of this Court dealing with this procedure. Language can, of course, be gleaned from judicial pronouncements and texts that conditions once existing may be presumed to continue until they are shown to have changed. But such generalizations, useful enough, perhaps, in solving some problem of a particular case, are not rules of law to be applied to all cases, with or without reason. Since no authority imposes upon either the Court of Appeals or the Bankruptcy Court any presumption of law, either conclusive or disputable, which would forbid or dispense with further inquiry or consideration of other evidence and testimony, turnover orders should not be issued, or approved on appeal, merely on proof that at some past time property was in possession or control of the accused party, unless the time element and other factors make that a fair and reasonable inference. Under some circumstances it may be permissible, in resolving the unknown from the known, to reach the conclusion of present control from proof of previous possession. Such a process, sometimes characterized as a “presumption of fact,” is, however, nothing more than a process of reasoning from one fact to another, an argument which infers a fact otherwise doubtful from a fact which is proved. Of course, the fact that a man at one time had a given item of property is a circumstance to be weighed in determining whether he may properly be found to have it at a later date. But the inference from yesterday’s possession is one thing, that permissible from possession twenty months ago quite another. With what kind of property do we deal? Was it salable or consumable? The inference of continued possession might be warranted when applied to books of account which are not consumable or marketable, but quite inappropriate under the same circumstances if applied to perishable merchandise or salable goods in considerable demand. Such an inference is one thing when applied to a thrifty person who withdraws his savings account after being involved in an accident, for no apparent purpose except to get it beyond the reach of a tort creditor, see Rosenblum v. Marinello, 133 F. 2d 674; it is very different when applied to a stock of wares being sold by a fast-living adventurer using the proceeds to make up the difference between income and outgo. Turnover orders should not be issued or affirmed on a presumption thought to arise from some isolated circumstance, such as onetime possession, when the reviewing court finds from the whole record that the order is unrealistic and unjust. No rule of law requires that judgment be thus fettered; nor has this Court ever so prescribed. Of course, deference is due to the trial court’s findings of fact, as prescribed by our rules, but even this presupposes that the trier of fact be actually exercising his judgment, not merely applying some supposed rule of law. In any event, rules of evidence as to inferences from facts are to aid reason, not to override it. And there does not appear to be any reason for allowing any such presumption to override reason when reviewing a turnover order. We are well aware that these generalities do little to solve concrete issues. The latter can be resolved only by the sound sense and good judgment of trial courts, mindful that the order should issue only as a responsible and final adjudication of possession and ability to deliver, not as a questionable experiment in coercion which will recoil to the discredit of the judicial process if time proves the adjudication to have been improvident and requires the courts to abandon its enforcement. III. Unlike the judicially developed turnover proceedings, contempt proceedings for disobedience of a lawful order are specifically authorized by two separate provisions of the Act and are of two distinct kinds. The court is authorized to “enforce obedience by persons to all lawful orders, by fine or imprisonment or fine and imprisonment.” 11 U. S. C. § 11 (a) (13). This creates the civil contempt proceeding to coerce obedience, now before us. There is also provision for a criminal contempt proceeding whose end is to penalize contumacy, the court also being authorized to “punish persons for contempts committed before referees.” 11 U. S. C. § 11 (a) (16). These con-tempts before referees are defined to include disobedience or resistance to a lawful order, and the statute provides for a summary proceeding before the District Judge who, if the evidence “is such as to warrant him in so doing,” may punish the accused or commit him upon conditions. 11U.S.C. § 69. The proceeding before us sought only a coercive or enforcement sanction. The petition asked commitment “until he shall have complied with the aforesaid turnover order.” The commitment was only until he “shall have purged himself of such contempt by complying with said turnover order, or until the further order of this Court.” Thus no punishment whatever was imposed for past disobedience, and every penalty was contingent upon failure to obey. This is a decisive characteristic of civil contempt and of the truly coercive commitment for enforcement purposes, which, as often is said, leaves the con-temnor to “carry the key of his prison in his own pocket.” Penfield Co. v. Securities & Exchange Commission, 330 U. S. 585. We thus have before us now a civil contempt of the same kind that was before the Court in Oriel v. Russell, 278 U. S. 358, 363. What we say, therefore, is not applicable to criminal contempt proceedings designed solely for punishment and vindication of the court’s flouted authority, such, for example, as a proceeding to sentence one for destroying or mutilating books of account or property in his possession which the court had ordered him to turn over. The question now arises as to whether, in this contempt proceeding, the Court may inquire into the justification for the turnover order itself. It is clear however that the turnover proceeding is a separate one and, when completed and terminated in a final order, it becomes res judicata and not subject to collateral attack in the contempt proceedings. This we long ago settled in Oriel v. Russell, 278 U. S. 358, and, we think, settled rightly. The court order is increasingly resorted to, especially by statute, to coerce performance of duties under sanction of contempt. It would be a disservice to the law if we were to depart from the long-standing rule that a contempt proceeding does not open to reconsideration the legal or factual basis of the order alleged to have been disobeyed and thus become a retrial of the original controversy. The procedure to enforce a court’s order commanding or forbidding an act should not be so inconclusive as to foster experimentation with disobedience. Every precaution should be taken that orders issue, in turnover as in other proceedings, only after legal grounds are shown and only when it appears that obedience is within the power of the party being coerced by the order. But when it has become final, disobedience cannot be justified by re-trying the issues as to whether the order should have issued in the first place. United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258; Oriel v. Russell, 278 U. S. 358. Counsel appears to recognize this rule, for the record in the case now before us does not include the evidence on which the turnover order was based. We could learn of it only by going outside of the present record to that in the former case, which would be available only because an application was made to this Court to review that earlier proceeding. We therefore think the Court of Appeals was right insofar as it concluded that the turnover order is subject only to direct attack, and that its alleged infirmities cannot be relitigated or corrected in a subsequent contempt proceeding. IY. But does this mean that the lower courts “must thus affirm orders which first direct a bankrupt ‘to do an impossibility, and then punish him for refusal to perform it’ ”? Whether the statement by the Court of Appeals that it knows Maggio cannot comply with the turnover order is justified by the evidence in this record, we do not stop to inquire. We have regarded turnover and contempt orders, and petitions for certiorari to review them, as usually raising only questions of fact to be solved by the careful analysis of evidence which we expect to take place in the two lower courts. The advantage of the referee and the District Court in having the parties and witnesses before them, instead of judging on a cold record, is considerable. The Court of Appeals for each circuit also has the advantage of closer familiarity with the capabilities, tendencies, and practices of the referee and District Judge. Both lower courts better know the fruits of their course of decision in actual practice than can we. Consequently, we have been loath to venture a review of particular cases, especially where the turnover order carries approval of the referee, the District Court and the Court of Appeals. However, the court below appears to have affirmed the order for commitment in this case by relying on the earlier finding of previous possession to raise a presumption of wilful disobedience continuing to the time of commitment, even though that conclusion is rejected by the court's good judgment. While the court protests that such a presumed continuance of possession from the time of bankruptcy to the time of the turnover order is unrealistic, it seems to have affirmed the contempt order by extending the presumption from the time of the turnover order to the time of the contempt proceedings, although persuaded that Maggio had overcome the presumption if it were rebuttable. The fact that the contempt proceeding must begin with acceptance of the turnover order does not mean that it must end with it. Maggio makes no explanation as to the whereabouts or disposition of the property which the order, earlier affirmed, declared him to possess. But time has elapsed between issuance of that order and initiation of the contempt proceedings in this case. He does tender evidence of his earnings after the turnover proceedings and up until November 1944; his unemployment after that time allegedly due to his failing health; and of his family obligations and manner of living during the intervening period. He has also sworn that neither he nor his family has at any time since the turnover proceedings possessed any real or personal property which could be used to satisfy the trustee’s demands. And he repeats his denial that he possesses the property in question. It is clear that the District Court in the contempt proceeding attached little or no significance to Maggio’s evidence or testimony, although the Court gave no indication that the evidence was incredible. The District Court in its opinion cites only In re Siegler, 31 F. 2d 972, in which the Court of Appeals reversed a District Judge who, because he believed the bankrupt’s testimony, had refused to commit him for contempt. The Siegler case and other cases decided by the Court of Appeals apparently led the District Judge to conclude that no decision other than commitment of Maggio would be approved by that court. Nor did the Court of Appeals reject this view. Indeed it affirmed the commitment for contempt because it considered either that present inability to comply is of no relevance or that there is an irrebuttable presumption of continuing ability to comply even if the record establishes present inability in fact. It seems to be of the view that this presumption stands indefinitely, if not permanently, and can be overcome by the accused only when he affirmatively shows some disposition of the property by him subsequent to the turnover proceedings. We do not believe these views are required by Oriel v. Russell, 278 U. S. 358, despite some conflicting statements in the opinion, which the Court of Appeals construed as compelling af-firmance of the contempt decree. This Court said in the Oriel case that “a motion to commit the bankrupt for failure to obey an order of the Court to turn over to the receiver in bankruptcy the property of the bankrupt is a civil contempt and is to be treated as a mere step in the proceedings to administer the assets of the bankrupt as provided by law, and in aid of the seizure of those assets and their proper distribution. While in a sense they are punitive, they are not mere punishment— they are administrative but coercive, and intended to compel, against the reluctance of the bankrupt, performance by him of his lawful duty.” 278 U. S. 358 at 363. Of course, to jail one for a contempt for omitting an act he is powerless to perform would reverse this principle and make the proceeding purely punitive, to describe it charitably. At the same time, it would add nothing to the bankrupt estate. That this Court in the Oriel case contemplated no such result appears from language which it borrowed from a Circuit Court of Appeals opinion which, after pointing out that confinement often failed to produce the money or goods, said, “ Where it has failed, and where a reasonable interval of time has supplied the previous defect in the evidence, and has made sufficiently certain what was doubtful before, namely, the bankrupt’s inability to obey the order, he has always been released, and I need hardly say that he would always have the right to be released, as soon as the fact becomes clear that he can not obey.’ ” Moreover, the authorities relied upon in Chief Justice Taft’s opinion make it clear that his decision did not contemplate that a coercive contempt order should issue when it appears that there is at that time no wilful disobedience but only an incapacity to comply. Indeed, the quotation from In re Epstein, cited supra (note 4), also stated at p. 569: “In the pending case, or in any other, the court may believe the bankrupt's assertion that he is not now in possession or control of the money or the goods, and in that event the civil inquiry is at an end. The source of difficulties in these cases has been that in the two successive proceedings the same question of possession and ability to produce the goods or their proceeds is at issue, but as of different points of time. The earlier order may not be impeached, avoided or attacked in the later proceedings and no relief can be sought against its command. But when the trustee institutes the later proceeding to commit, he tenders the issue as to present wilful disobedience, against which the court is asked to direct its sanctions. The latter issue must be tried just as any other issue, and the court is entitled to consider all evidence relevant to it. The turnover order adjudges the defendant to be in possession at the date of its inquiry, but does it also cut off evidence as to non-possession at the later time? Thus, the real problem concerns the evidence admissible in the contempt proceeding. Of course we do not attempt to lay down a comprehensive or detailed set of rules on this subject. They will have to be formulated as specific and concrete cases present different aspects of the problem. In Oriel’s case, this Court said: “... on the motion for commitment the only evidence that can be considered is the evidence of something that has happened since the turnover order was made showing that since that time there has newly arisen an inability on the part of the bankrupt to comply with the turnover order.” This language the Court of Appeals has construed to mean that the accused can offer no evidence to show that he does not now have the goods if that evidence, in the absence of an affirmative showing of when and how he disposed of the goods, might tend to indicate that he never had them and hence to contradict findings of the turnover order itself. We agree with the Court of Appeals that the turnover order may not be attacked in the contempt proceedings because it is res judicata on this issue of possession at the time as of which it speaks. But application of that rule in these civil contempt cases-means only that the bankrupt, confronted by the order establishing prior possession, at a time when continuance thereof is the reasonable inference, is thereby confronted by a prima jade case which he can successfully meet only with a showing of present inability to comply. He cannot challenge the previous adjudication of possession, but that does not prevent him from establishing lack of present possession. Of course, if he offers no evidence as to his inability to comply with the turnover order, or stands mute, he does not meet the issue. Nor does he do so by evidence or by his own denials which the court finds incredible in context. But the bankrupt may be permitted to deny his present possession and to give any evidence of present conditions or intervening events which corroborate him. The credibility of his denial is to be weighed in the light of his present circumstances. It is everywhere admitted that even if he is committed, he will not be held in jail forever if he does not comply. His denial of possession is given credit after demonstration that a period in prison does not produce the goods. The fact that he has been under the shadow of prison gates may be enough, coupled with his denial and the type of evidence mentioned above, to convince the court that his is not a wilful disobedience which will yield to coercion. The trial court is obliged to weigh not merely the two facts, that a turnover order has issued and that it has not been obeyed, but all the evidence properly before it in the contempt proceeding in determining whether or not there is actually a present ability to comply and whether failure so to do constitutes deliberate defiance which a jail term will break. This duty has nowhere been more clearly expressed than in the Oriel case:.. There is a possibility, of course, of error and hardship, but the conscience of judges in weighing the evidence under a clear perception of the consequences, together with the opportunity of appeal and review, if properly taken, will restrain the courts from recklessness of bankrupt’s rights on the one hand and prevent the bankrupt from flouting the law on the other....” Such a careful balancing was said to be required in turnover proceedings because “coercive methods by imprisonment are probable and are foreshadowed.” Certainly the same considerations require as careful and conscientious weighing of the evidence relevant in the contempt proceeding. At that stage, imprisonment is not only probable and foreshadowed — it is imminent. And, without such a weighing, it becomes inevitable. y. We deal here with a case in which the Court of Appeals was persuaded that the bankrupt’s disobedience was not wilful. It appears, however, that the District Court did not, in the contempt proceedings, weigh and evaluate the evidence before it but felt bound almost automatically to order Maggio’s commitment in deference to clear precedents established by the Court of Appeals. Moreover, the Court of Appeals affirmed the commitment order although it was convinced that Maggio was not deliberately disobeying but had established his contention that he was unable to comply. On such findings the Oriel case would require Maggio’s discharge even if he were already in jail. It is hardly consistent with that case, or with good judicial administration, to order his commitment on findings that require his immediate release. When such a misapprehension of the law has led both courts below to adjudicate rights without considering essential facts in the light of the controlling law, this Court will vacate the judgments and remand the case to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with the principles laid down in this Court’s opinion. Manu facturers’ Finance Co. v. McKey, 294 U. S. 442, 453, Gerdes v. Lustgarten, 266 U. S. 321, 327, and cases cited. That practice is appropriate in this case in view of what has been said herein concerning the judgments below. Vacated and remanded. The Court of Appeals itself said: “... the Supreme Court has never decided in favor of the fictitious 'presumption’ here invoked....” 157 F. 2d 951, 954. Other circuits have treated the presumption of continued possession as one which “grows weaker as time passes, until it finally ceases to exist” (C. C. A. 8th in Marin v. Ellis, 15 F. 2d 321) and as one “only as strong as the nature of the circumstances permits” and which “loses its force and effect as time intervenes and as circumstances indicate that the bankrupt is no longer in possession of the missing goods or their proceeds” (C. C. A. 4th in Brune v. Fraidin, 149 F. 2d 325). See also Comments in 95 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 789 (1947) and 42111. L. Rev. 396 (1947). For examples of statutory provisions, see Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U. S. C. § 12 (3); Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U. S. C. § 78 (u) (c); Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, 15 U. S. C. § 79 (r) (d); Communications Act of 1934, 47 U. S. C. § 409 (d); National Labor Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 161 (2); Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U. S. C. § 49; Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, 5 U. S. C. 1946 ed. § 1005 (c); and Atomic Energy Act of 1946, 42 U. S. C. A. (1947 Supp.) § 1816 (d). 278 U. S. 358, 366, quoting from In re Epstein (cited as Epstein v. Steinfeld), 206 F. 568, 570. 278 U. S. 358, 364. The late Chief Justice said “... the following seem to us to lay down more nearly the correct view,” and cited Toplitz v. Walser, 27 F. 2d 196, a contempt case in which it is said (at p. 197) “The sole question is whether the bankrupt is presently able to comply with the turnover order previously made and, accordingly, whether he is disobeying that order... Epstein v: Steinfeld, 210 F. 236, a turnover proceeding, in which the Court delineates both turnover and contempt procedures and states that a contempt order should not be issued unless there is present ability to comply; Schmid v. Rosenthal, 230 F. 818, a turnover case, citing Epstein v. Steinfeld, supra; Frederick v. Silverman, 250 F. 75, a contempt case, reciting the necessity for present ability to comply; Reardon v. Pensoneau, 18 F. 2d 244, a contempt case, holding the evidence there insufficient to establish present inability to comply; United States ex rel. Paleais v. Moore, 294 F. 852, involving a commitment for contempt, stating “... the court should be satisfied of the present ability of the bankrupt to comply....”; In re Frankel, 184 F. 539, a contempt case in which the evidence was held insufficient to show present inability to comply; Drakeford v. Adams, 98 Ga. 722, 25 S. E. 833, a State contempt case requiring present ability to comply to be “clearly and satisfactorily established”; and Collier, Bankruptcy (Gilbert’s ed., 1927) 652. The cumulative effect of these authorities seems clearly to be that, while a bankrupt’s denial of present possession, standing alone, may not be sufficient to establish his inability to produce the property or its proceeds, if the Court is satisfied, from all the evidence properly before it, that the bankrupt has not the present ability to comply, the commitment order should not issue. Other decisions are to the same effect. See, for example, American Trust Co. v. Wallis, 126 F. 464; Samel v. Dodd, 142 F. 68, cert. den. 201 U. S. 646; In re Nisenson, 182 F. 912; In re Holden, 203 F. 229, cert. den. 229 U. S. 621; In re McNaught, 225 F. 511; Dittmar v. Michelson, 281 F. 116; In re Davison, 143 F. 673; In re Marks, 176 F. 1018; In re Elias, 240 F. 448; Freed v. Central Trust Co. of Illinois, 215 F. 873; In re Nevin, 278 F. 601; Johnson v. Goldstein, 11 F. 2d 702; In re Magen, 14 F. 2d Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Black delivered the opinion of the Court. In response to a summons the petitioner Adams appeared to testify before a Senate Committee investigating crime. Answering questions he confessed to having run a gambling business in Maryland. That confession has been used in this case to convict Adams of conspiring to violate Maryland's antilottery laws. The trial court sentenced Adams to pay a fine of $2,000 and serve seven years in the state penitentiary. The Court of Appeals of Maryland affirmed, rejecting Adams’ contention that use of the committee testimony against him was forbidden by a provision in a federal statute. 202 Md. 455, 97 A. 2d 281. That provision, now 18 U. S. C. § 3486, set out in full below, provides that no testimony given by a witness in congressional inquiries “shall be used as evidence in any criminal proceeding against him in any court . . . .” The Maryland Court of Appeals held that Adams had testified before the Committee “voluntarily” and was therefore not protected by § 3486. We granted certiorari because a proper understanding of the scope of this Section is of importance to the national government, to the states and to witnesses summoned before congressional committees. 346 U. S. 864. In this Court Maryland contends that the Section does not bar use of Adams’ testimony because: (1) He waived the statutory “privilege” by testifying “voluntarily,” meaning that Adams failed to object to each committee question on the ground of its tendency to incriminate him; (2) the Section should be construed so as to apply to United States courts only. If these two statutory contentions are rejected, we are urged to hold that Congress is without constitutional power to bar the use of congressional committee testimony in state courts. (1) Circumstances may be conceivable under which statements made in the presence of a congressional committee might not be protected by § 3486. For example, a person might voluntarily appear and obtain permission to make a statement in a committee’s presence, wholly for his own advantage, and without ever being questioned by the committee at all. But Adams did not testify before the Senate Committee under añy such circumstances. He was not a volunteer. He was summoned. Had he not appeared he could have been fined and sent to jail. 2 U. S. C. § 192. Nor does the record show any spontaneous outpouring of testimony from him. The testimony Maryland used to convict him was brought out by repeated committee questions. It is true that Adams did not attempt to escape answering these questions by claiming a constitutional privilege to refuse to incriminate himself. But no language of the Act requires such a claim in order for a witness to feel secure that his testimony will not be used to convict him of crime. Indeed, a witness does not need any statute to protect him from the use of self-incriminating testimony he is compelled to give over his objection. The Fifth Amendment takes care of that without a statute. Consequently, the construction of § 3486 here urged would limit its protection to that already afforded by the Fifth Amendment, leaving the Section with no effect whatever. We reject the contention that Adams’ failure to claim a constitutional privilege deprived him of the statutory protection of § 3486. (2) Nor can we hold that the Act bars use of committee testimony in United States courts but not in state courts. The Act forbids use of such evidence “in any criminal proceeding ... in any court.” Language could be no plainer. Even if there could be legislative history sufficiently strong to make “any court” mean United States courts only, there is no such history. The few scraps of legislative history pointed out tend to indicate that Congress was well aware that an ordinary person would read the phrase “in any court” to include state courts. To construe this phrase as having any other meaning would make the Act a trap for the unwary. It is suggested, however, that regardless of the plain meaning of § 3486 as originally passed an event since its passage should cause us to give it an entirely different meaning. The Section stems from an 1857 Act of Congress designed to grant committee witnesses immunity from prosecution in order to compel them to give self-incriminating testimony despite the Fifth Amendment. Thirty-five years later in Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547, this Court held that an act not providing “complete” immunity from prosecution was not broad enough to permit a federal grand jury to compel witnesses to give incriminating testimony. Section 3486 does not provide “complete” immunity. The original purpose of Congress to compel incriminating testimony has thus been frustrated. It is argued that Congress could not have intended to afford any immunity to criminals unless it was thereby enabled to compel them to testify about their crimes. Therefore, it is said, § 3486 should now be given the narrowest possible construction — made effective only when the Fifth Amendment privilege is claimed, and held applicable only to United States courts. Because Congress did not get all it hoped, we are urged to deny witnesses the protection the statute promises. But a court decision subsequent to an act’s passage does not usually alter its original meaning. And we reject the implication that a general act of Congress is like a private contract which courts should nullify upon a showing of partial or total failure of consideration. Moreover, Congress has kept the statute in force more than sixty years since the Counselman decision. And in 1938 Congress reenacted the statute making changes deemed desirable to insure its continued usefulness. 52 Stat. 943. Our holding is that Counselman v. Hitchcock in no way impairs the protection afforded congressional witnesses by § 3486. (3) Little need be said about the contention that Congress lacks power to bar state courts from convicting a person for crime on the basis of evidence he has given to help the national legislative bodies carry on their governmental functions. Congress has power to summon witnesses before either House or before their committees. McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 U. S. 135. Article I of the Constitution permits Congress to pass laws “necessary and proper” to carry into effect its power to get testimony. We are unable to say that the means Congress has here adopted to induce witnesses to testify is not “appropriate” and “plainly adapted to that end.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421. And, since Congress in the legitimate exercise of its powers enacts “the supreme Law of the Land,” state courts are bound by § 3486, even though it affects their rules of practice. Brown v. Walker, 161 U. S. 591, 606-608. Cf. Testa v. Katt, 330 U. S. 386. The judgment of the Maryland Court of Appeals affirming this conviction is reversed and the cause is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Mr. Justice Frankfurter concurs in the result. “No testimony given by a witness before either House, or before any committee of either House, or before any joint committee established by a joint or concurrent resolution of the two Houses of Congress, shall be used as evidence in any criminal proceeding against him in any court, except in a prosecution for perjury committed in giving such testimony. But an official paper or record produced by him is not within the said privilege.” 11 Stat. 156, 12 Stat. 333, 52 Stat. 943, 62 Stat. 833, 18 U. S. C. § 3486. Act of Jan. 24, 1857, 11 Stat. 156. See United States v. Bryan. 339 U. S. 323, 335-337. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice Marshall delivered the opinion of the Court. In 1976, Congress amended §101 of the Federal Magistrates Act, 28 U. S. C. § 636, to provide that a United States district judge may refer dispositive pretrial motions, and petitions for writ of habeas corpus, to a magistrate, who shall conduct appropriate proceedings and recommend dispositions. Pub. L. 94-577, 90 Stat. 2729. The amendments also provide that any party that disagrees with the magistrate’s recommendations "may serve and file written objections” to the magistrate’s report, and thus obtain de novo review by the district judge. The question presented is whether a court of appeals may exercise its supervisory powers to establish a rule that the failure to file objections to the magistrate’s report waives the right to appeal the district court’s judgment. We hold that it may. b-i Petitioner was convicted by an Ohio court m 1978 of fatally shooting her common-law husband during an argument. The evidence at trial showed that the victim was a violent man who had beaten petitioner on a number of occasions during the previous three years. Petitioner raised the issue of self-defense at trial, and sought to call two witnesses who would present expert testimony concerning the Battered Wife Syndrome. After conducting a voir dire of these witnesses in chambers, the trial court refused to admit the testimony, on the grounds that the jury did not need the assistance of expert testimony to understand the case and that the witnesses, who had not personally examined petitioner, could not testify about her state of mind at the time of the shooting. The Court of Appeals of Cuyahoga County reversed. State v. Thomas, 64 Ohio App. 2d 141, 411 N. E. 2d 845 (1979). The court’s syllabus concluded that testimony concerning the Battered Wife Syndrome is admissible “to afford the jury an understanding of the defendant’s state of mind at the time she committed the homicide.” App. 9. The Ohio Supreme Court, on discretionary review, reversed. State v. Thomas, 66 Ohio St. 2d 518, 423 N. E. 2d 137 (1981). The court held that the testimony was irrelevant to the issue of self-defense, and that its prejudicial effect would outweigh its probative value. Having exhausted state remedies, petitioner sought habeas corpus relief in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. The petition raised, inter alia, the question whether petitioner was denied a fair trial by the trial court’s refusal to admit testimony concerning the Battered Wife Syndrome. Petitioner filed a memorandum of law in support of the petition. The District Judge, acting pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 636(b)(1)(B), referred the case, including petitioner’s memorandum of law, to a Magistrate. The Magistrate did not hold a hearing. On May 11, 1982, the Magistrate issued his report, containing proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law and recommending that the writ be denied. On the issue of the Battered Wife Syndrome testimony, the Magistrate concluded that the trial court’s failure to admit the proffered testimony had not impaired the fundamental fairness of the trial, and therefore was not an adequate ground for habeas corpus relief. The last page of the Magistrate’s report contained the prominent legend: “ANY OBJECTIONS to this Report and Recommendation must be filed with the Clerk of Courts within ten (10) days of receipt of this notice. Failure to file objections within the specified time waives the right to appeal the District Court’s order. See: United States v. Walters, 638 F. 2d 947 (6th Cir. 1981).” Despite this clear notice, petitioner failed to file objections at any time. She sought and received an extension of time to file objections through June 15, 1982, on the grounds that “this case entails many substantive issues and counsel needs more time to write his brief.” However, petitioner made no further submissions on the merits to the District Court. Notwithstanding petitioner’s failure to file objections, the District Judge sua sponte “review[ed] . . . the entire record de novo,” App. 59, and dismissed the petition on the merits. Petitioner sought and was granted leave to appeal. Petitioner’s brief on appeal raised only the issue of the Battered Wife Syndrome testimony. The brief provided no explanation for petitioner’s failure to object to the Magistrate’s report. Counsel for petitioner waived oral argument, and the case was decided on the briefs. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed. 728 F. 2d 813 (1984). Without reaching the merits, it held that petitioner had waived the right to appeal by failing to file objections to the Magistrate’s report. Id., at 815. The court relied upon its prior decision in United States v. Walters, 638 F. 2d 947 (1981), which established the prospective rule that failure to file timely objections with the district court waives subsequent review in the court of appeals. We granted the petition for a writ of cer-tiorari, 470 U. S. 1027 (1985), and we now affirm. I — 1 1 — I In United States v. Walters, supra, the appellant failed to object to the Magistrate’s report, and the District Court adopted that report as its disposition of the case. The appellant then brought an appeal. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit considered the threshold question whether the appellant’s failure to apprise the District Court of its disagreement with the Magistrate’s recommendation waived the right to appeal. The court held: “The permissive language of 28 U. S. C. §636 suggests that a party’s failure to file objections is not a waiver of appellate review. However, the fundamental congressional policy underlying the Magistrate’s Act — to improve access to the federal courts and aid the efficient administration of justice — is best served by our holding that a party shall file objections with the district court or else waive right to appeal. Additionally, through the exercise of our supervisory power, we hold that a party shall be informed by the magistrate that objections must be filed within ten days or further appeal is waived. “However, we give our ruling only prospective effect because rules of procedure should promote, not defeat the ends of justice . . . .” Id., at 949-950 (footnote and citations omitted). The nature of the rule and its prospective application demonstrate that the court intended to adopt a “rul[e] of procedure,” id., at 950, in the exercise of its supervisory powers. Later opinions of the Sixth Circuit make it clear that the court views Walters in this way. See Patterson v. Mintzes, 717 F. 2d 284, 286 (1983) (“In Walters . . . this Court promulgated [a] rule of waiver”); United States v. Martin, 704 F. 2d 267, 275 (1983) (Jones, J., concurring) (characterizing Wal ters as “[rjulemaking through the exercise of supervisory-powers”). Thus, petitioner’s first contention — that the Court of Appeals has refused to exercise the jurisdiction that Congress granted it — is simply inaccurate. The Court of Appeals expressly acknowledged that it had subject-matter jurisdiction over petitioner’s appeal. 728 F. 2d, at 814. The Sixth Circuit has also shown that its rule is not jurisdictional by excusing the procedural default in a recent case. See Patterson v. Mintzes, supra (considering appeal on merits despite pro se litigant’s late filing of objections). We therefore conclude that neither the intent nor the practical effect of the Sixth Circuit’s waiver rule is to restrict the court’s own jurisdiction. I — I HH hH It cannot be doubted that the courts of appeals have supervisory powers that permit, at the least, the promulgation of procedural rules governing the management of litigation. Cf. Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U. S. 335, 346, n. 10 (1980) (approving exercise of supervisory powers to require district court inquiry concerning joint representation of criminal defendants). Indeed, this Court has acknowledged the power of the courts of appeals to mandate “procedures deemed desirable from the viewpoint of sound judicial practice although in nowise commanded by statute or by the Constitution.” Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U. S. 141, 146 (1973); see also Barker v. Wingo, 407 U. S. 514, 530, n. 29 (1972). Had petitioner failed to comply with a scheduling order or pay a filing fee established by a court of appeals, that court could certainly dismiss the appeal. Cf. Link v. Wabash R. Co., 370 U. S. 626 (1962) (recognizing “inherent power” of court to dismiss case for want of prosecution). The fact that the Sixth Circuit has deemed petitioner to have forfeited her statutory right to an appeal is not enough, standing alone, to invalidate the court’s exercise of its supervisory power. The Sixth Circuit’s decision to require the filing of objections is supported by sound considerations of judicial economy. The filing of objections to a magistrate’s report enables the district judge to focus attention on those issues — factual and legal — that are at the heart of the parties’ dispute. The Sixth Circuit’s rule, by precluding appellate review of any issue not contained in objections, prevents a litigant from “sandbagging” the district judge by failing to object and then appealing. Absent such a rule, any issue before the magistrate would be a proper subject for appellate review. This would either force the court of appeals to consider claims that were never reviewed by the district court, or force the district court to review every issue in every case, no matter how thorough the magistrate’s analysis and even if both parties were satisfied with the magistrate’s report. Either result would be an inefficient use of judicial resources. In short, “[t]he same rationale that prevents a party from raising an issue before a circuit court of appeals that was not raised before the district court applies here.” United States v. Schronce, 727 F. 2d 91, 94 (CA4) (footnote omitted), cert. denied, 467 U. S. 1208 (1984). IV Even a sensible and efficient use of the supervisory power, however, is invalid if it conflicts with constitutional or statutory provisions. A contrary result “would confer on the judiciary discretionary power to disregard the considered limitations of the law it is charged with enforcing.” United States v. Payner, 447 U. S. 727, 737 (1980). Thus we now consider whether the Sixth Circuit’s waiver rule conflicts with statutory law or with the Constitution. A Petitioner argues that the Federal Magistrates Act precludes the waiver rule adopted by the Sixth Circuit. Her argument focuses on the permissive nature of the statutory language. The statute provides that a litigant “may” file objections, and nowhere states that the failure to do so will waive an appeal. Petitioner cites the Eighth Circuit’s conclusion that “[o]ne would think that if Congress had wished such a drastic consequence to follow from the missing of the ten-day time limit, it would have said so explicitly.” Lorin Corp. v. Goto & Co., 700 F. 2d 1202, 1206 (1983). However, we need not decide whether the Act mandates a waiver of appellate review absent objections. We hold only that it does not forbid such a rule. Section 636(b)(1)(C) provides that “[a] judge of the [district] court shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the report or specified proposed findings or recommendations to which objection is made.” The statute does not on its face require any review at all, by either the district court or the court of appeals, of any issue that is not the subject of-an objection. Petitioner argues, however, that the statutory language and purpose implicitly require the district court to review a magistrate’s report even if no party objects. If petitioner’s interpretation of the statute is correct, then the waiver of appellate review, as formulated by the Sixth and other Circuits, proceeds from an erroneous assumption— that the failure to object may constitute a procedural default waiving review even at the district court level. Moreover, were the district judge required to review the magistrate’s report in every case, the waiver of appellate review would not promote judicial economy as discussed in Part III, supra. Petitioner first argues that a failure to object waives only de novo review, and that the district judge must still review the magistrate’s report under some lesser standard. However, § 636(b)(1)(C) simply does not provide for such review. This omission does not seem to be inadvertent, because Congress provided for a “clearly erroneous or contrary to law” standard of review of a magistrate’s disposition of certain pretrial matters in § 636(b)(1)(A). See Park Motor Mart, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 616 F. 2d 603, 605 (CA1 1980). Nor does petitioner point to anything in the legislative history of the 1976 amendments mandating review under some lesser standard. We are therefore not persuaded that the statute positively requires some lesser review by the district court when no objections are filed. Petitioner also argues that, under the Act, the obligatory filing of objections extends only to findings of fact. She urges that Congress, in order to vest final authority over questions of law in an Article III judge, intended that the district judge would automatically review the magistrate’s conclusions of law. We reject, however, petitioner’s distinction between factual and legal issues. Once again, the plain language of the statute recognizes no such distinction. We also fail to find such a requirement in the legislative history. It does not appear that Congress intended to require district court review of a magistrate’s factual or legal conclusions, under a de novo or any other standard, when neither party objects to those findings. The House and Senate Reports accompanying the 1976 amendments do not expressly consider what sort of review the district court should perform when no party objects to the magistrate’s report. See S. Rep. No. 94-625, pp. 9-10 (1976) (hereafter Senate Report); H. R. Rep. No. 94-1609, p. 11 (1976) (hereafter House Report). There is nothing in those Reports, however, that demonstrates an intent to require the district court to give any more consideration to the magistrate’s report than the court considers appropriate. Moreover, the Subcommittee that drafted and held hearings on the 1976 amendments had before it the guidelines of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts concerning the efficient use of magistrates. Those guidelines recommended to the district courts that “[w]here a magistrate makes a finding or ruling on a motion or an issue, his determination should become that of the district court, unless specific objection is filed within a reasonable time.” See Jurisdiction of United States Magistrates, Hearings on S. 1283 before the Subcommittee on Improvements in Judicial Machinery of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., 24 (1975) (emphasis added) (hereafter Senate Hearings). The Committee also heard Judge Metzner of the Southern District of New York, the chairman of a Judicial Conference Committee on the administration of the magistrate system, testify that he personally followed that practice. See id., at 11 (“If any objections come in,... I review [the record] and decide it. If no objections come in, I merely sign the magistrate’s order”). The Judicial Conference of the United States, which supported the de novo standard of review eventually incorporated in § 636(b)(1)(C), opined that in most instances no party would object to the magistrate’s recommendation, and the litigation would terminate with the judge’s adoption of the magistrate’s report. See Senate Hearings, at 35, 37. Congress apparently assumed, therefore, that any party who was dissatisfied for any reason with the magistrate’s report would file objections, and those objections would trigger district court review. There is no indication that Congress, in enacting § 636(b)(1)(C), intended to require a district judge to review a magistrate’s report to which no objections are filed. It did not preclude treating the failure to object as a procedural default, waiving the right to further consideration of any sort. We thus find nothing in the statute or the legislative history that convinces us that Congress intended to forbid a rule such as the one adopted by the Sixth Circuit. Nor is the waiver of appellate review inconsistent with the purposes of the Act. The Act grew out of Congress’ desire to give district judges “additional assistance” in dealing with a caseload that was increasing far more rapidly than the number of judgeships. Mathews v. Weber, 423 U. S. 261, 268 (1976). Congress did not intend district judges “to devote a substantial portion of their available time to various procedural steps rather than to the trial itself.” House Report, at 7. Nor does the legislative history indicate that Congress intended this task merely to be transferred to the court of appeals. It seems clear that Congress would not have wanted district judges to devote time to reviewing magistrate’s reports except to the extent that such review is requested by the parties or otherwise necessitated by Article III of the Constitution. We now turn to the latter question. B Petitioner contends that the waiver of appellate review violates Article III and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Article III vests the judicial power of the United States in judges who have life tenure and protection from decreases in salary. Although a magistrate is not an Article III judge, this Court has held that a district court may refer dispositive motions to a magistrate for a recommendation so long as “the entire process takes place under the district court’s total control and jurisdiction,” United States v. Raddatz, 447 U. S. 667, 681 (1980), and the judge “‘exercisets] the ultimate authority to issue an appropriate order,”’ id., at 682, quoting Senate Report, at 3. The Sixth Circuit’s rule, as petitioner sees it, permits a magistrate to exercise the Article III judicial power, because the rule forecloses meaningful review of a magistrate’s report at both the district and appellate levels if no objections are filed. We find that argument untenable. The waiver of appellate review does not implicate Article III, because it is the district court, not the court of appeals, that must exercise supervision over the magistrate. Even assuming, however, that the effect of the Sixth Circuit’s rule is to permit both the district judge and the court of appeals to refuse to review a magistrate’s report absent timely objection, we do not believe that the rule elevates the magistrate from an adjunct to the functional equivalent of an Article III judge. The rule merely establishes a procedural default that has no effect on the magistrate’s or the court’s jurisdiction. The district judge has jurisdiction over the case at all times. He retains full authority to decide whether to refer a case to the magistrate, to review the magistrate’s report, and to enter judgment. Any party that desires plenary consideration by the Article III judge of any issue need only ask. Moreover, while the statute does not require the judge to review an issue de novo if no objections are filed, it does not preclude further review by the district judge, sua sponte or at the request of a party, under a de novo or any other standard. Indeed, in the present case, the District Judge made a de novo determination of the petition despite petitioner’s failure even to suggest that the Magistrate erred. The Sixth Circuit’s rule, therefore, has not removed “ ‘the essential attributes of the judicial power,’” Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U. S. 50, 77 (1982) (plurality opinion), quoting Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 51 (1932), from the Article III tribunal. Petitioner claims also that she was denied her statutory-right of appeal, in violation of the Due Process Clause. That right was not denied, however; it was merely conditioned upon the filing of a piece of paper. Petitioner was notified in unambiguous terms of the consequences of a failure to file, and deliberately failed to file nevertheless. We recently reiterated our longstanding maxim that “the State certainly accords due process when it terminates a claim for failure to comply with a reasonable procedural or evidentiary rule.” Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U. S. 422, 437 (1982). The same rationale applies to the forfeiture of an appeal, and we believe that the Sixth Circuit’s rule is reasonable. Litigants subject to the Sixth Circuit’s rule are afforded “‘an opportunity . . . granted at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner,’” ibid., quoting Armstrong v. Manzo, 380 U. S. 545, 552 (1965), to obtain a hearing by the Court of Appeals. We also emphasize that, because the rule is a nonjurisdictional waiver provision, the Court of Appeals may excuse the default in the interests of justice. V We hold that a court of appeals may adopt a rule conditioning appeal, when taken from a district court judgment that adopts a magistrate’s recommendation, upon the filing of objections with the district court identifying those issues on which further review is desired. Such a rule, at least when it incorporates clear notice to the litigants and an opportunity to seek an extension of time for filing objections, is a valid exercise of the supervisory power that does not violate either the Federal Magistrates Act or the Constitution. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is Affirmed. Title 28 U. S. C. § 636(b)(1)(B) provides: “[A] judge may also designate a magistrate to conduct hearings, including evidentiary hearings, and to submit to a judge of the court proposed findings of fact and recommendations for the disposition, by a judge of the court, of any motion excepted in subparagraph (A), of applications for posttrial relief made by individuals convicted of criminal offenses and of prisoner petitions challenging conditions of confinement.” The motions excepted in § 636(b)(1)(A), and included by reference in subparagraph (B), are motions “for injunctive relief, for judgment on the pleadings, for summary judgment, to dismiss or quash an indictment or information made by the defendant, to suppress evidence in a criminal case, to dismiss or to permit maintenance of a class action, to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, and to involuntarily dismiss an action.” Title 28 U. S. C. § 636(b)(1)(C) provides: “[T]he magistrate shall file his proposed findings and recommendations under subparagraph (B) with the court and a copy shall forthwith be mailed to all parties. “Within ten days after being served with a copy, any party may serve and file written objections to such proposed findings and recommendations as provided by rules of court. A judge of the court shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the report or specified proposed findings or recommendations to which objection is made. A judge of the court may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate. The judge may also receive further evidence or recommit the matter to the magistrate with instructions.” In Ohio, the court’s syllabus contains the controlling law. See Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 111, n. 3 (1982), citing Haas v. State, 103 Ohio St. 1, 7-8, 132 N. E. 158, 159-160 (1921). The First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth Circuits have adopted waiver rules similar to the Sixth Circuit rule at issue in the present case. See Park Motor Mart, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 616 F. 2d 603 (CA1 1980); McCarthy v. Manson, 714 F. 2d 234, 237 (CA2 1983); United States v. Schronce, 727 F. 2d 91 (CA4), cert. denied, 467 U. S. 1208 (1984); United States v. Lewis, 621 F. 2d 1382, 1386 (CA5 1980), cert. denied, 450 U. S. 935 (1981). The Ninth and Eleventh Circuits have concluded that the failure to file objections waives only factual issues on the appeal. See Britt v. Simi Valley Unified School District, 708 F. 2d 452, 454 (CA9 1983) (order denying petition for rehearing); Nettles v. Wainwright, 677 F. 2d 404 (CA5 1982) (en banc); but see Lorin Corp. v. Goto & Co., 700 F. 2d 1202, 1205-1207 (CA81983) (rejecting waiver rule, at least where parties had not been notified that failure to object would waive appeal). In none of these cases have the courts spoken in jurisdictional terms. This power rests on the firmest ground when used to establish rules of judicial procedure. See Beale, Reconsidering Supervisory Power in Criminal Cases: Constitutional and Statutory Limits on the Authority of the Federal Courts, 84 Colum. L. Rev. 1433, 1465 (1984) (federal courts have inherent authority to regulate “technical details and policies intrinsic to the litigation process”). The Courts of Appeals have often exercised that authority. See, e. g., Tingler v. Marshall, 716 F. 2d 1109, 1112 (CA6 1983) (establishing procedure for sua sponte dismissal of complaints); United States v. Florea, 541 F. 2d 568, 572 (CA6 1976) (prospective rule holding that contact between party’s agent and juror is per se prejudicial), cert. denied, 430 U. S. 945 (1977); United States v. Schiavo, 504 F. 2d 1, 7-8 (CA3) (en banc) (establishing procedures for enjoining publication of information concerning criminal trial), cert, denied sub nom. Ditter v. Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., 419 U. S. 1096 (1974). In the present case, the filing of objections could have resulted in a considerable saving of judicial time. The original petition contained several grounds for relief, but on appeal petitioner raised only the issue of the admissibility of expert testimony on the Battered Wife Syndrome. Had petitioner objected only to that aspect of the Magistrate’s report, the Magistrate’s review would have served to narrow the dispute for the District Judge, and petitioner would have preserved her right to appeal the exclusion of her expert testimony. The Sixth Circuit, in Walters, cited with approval the First Circuit’s decision in Park Motor Mart, which held that “a party ‘may’ file objections within ten days or he may not, as he chooses, but he ‘shall’ do so if he wishes further consideration.” 616 F. 2d, at 605; see Walters, 638 F. 2d, at 950. See also McCarthy v. Manson, 714 F. 2d, at 237 (“When a party fails to object timely to a magistrate’s recommended decision, it waives any right to further judicial review of that decision”) (footnote and citation omitted). This is so even though the category of dispositive matters subject to de novo review by the district judge as of right only upon filing of objections includes motions for judgment on the pleadings and dismissal for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted, which consist exclusively of issues of law. See n. 1, supra. Petitioner points to a passage in the House Report that quotes from Campbell v. United States District Court, 501 F. 2d 196, 206 (CA9), cert. denied, 419 U. S. 879 (1974). The Ninth Circuit concluded: “If neither party contests the magistrate’s proposed findings of fact, the court may assume their correctness and decide the motion on the applicable law.” See House Report, at 3. However, that statement was part of a longer quotation setting a de novo review standard when objections are filed. The House Report stated that a House amendment, which called for de novo review in the same circumstances, was “adopted” from the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Campbell. House Report, at 3. We believe, therefore, that the House Report used the language from Campbell only to support a de novo standard upon the filing of objections, and not for any other proposition. Indeed, Judge Metzner specifically addressed the difference between a magistrate’s ruling on a nondispositive motion, which Congress clearly “intended to be ‘final’ unless a judge of the court exercises his ultimate authority to reconsider the magistrate’s determination,” Senate Report, at 8, and a ruling on a dispositive motion. Judge Metzner concluded: “I think we are talking more about form, than we are of substance.” Senate Hearings, at 12. Moreover, both Judge Metzner and the Judicial Conference were of the opinion that Congress could probably vest magistrates with the authority to make a final decision on dispositive motions without violating Article III, and that the language of § 636(b)(1)(B), calling for the magistrate to make only recommendations on dispositive motions, was adopted out of an abundance of caution. See Senate Hearings, at 6 (statement of Judge Metzner); id., at 35 (report of Judicial Conference of the United States). While we express no view on the accuracy of those opinions, we think they are relevant to Congress’ intent. See also House Report, at 8 (“it is not feasible for every judicial act, at every stage of the proceeding, to be performed by ‘a judge of the court’ ”). See Senate Hearings, at 32 (statement of William P. Westphal, Chief Counsel) (filing objections as provided in the statute “is the procedure for them to follow, if they feel aggrieved by any of these motions”). The 1976 amendments were prompted by this Court’s decision in Wingo v. Wedding, 418 U. S. 461 (1974). That case held that Congress had not intended, in enacting the Federal Magistrates Act in 1968, to permit a magistrate to conduct an evidentiary hearing on a habeas corpus petition. Congress enacted the 1976 amendments to “restat[e] and clarif[y]” Congress’ intent to permit magistrates to hold evidentiary hearings and perform other judicial functions. See Senate Report, at 3. Article III, § 1, of the Constitution provides: “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.” The plurality in Northern Pipeline, and the concurrence in Raddatz, noted that the magistrate himself remains under the district court’s authority. The magistrate is appointed, and subject to removal, by the district court. See Northern Pipeline, 458 U. S., at 79, and n. 30; Raddatz, 447 U. S., at 685 (Blackmun, J., concurring) (“[T]he only conceivable danger of a ‘threat’ to the ‘independence’ of the magistrate comes from within, rather than without, the judicial department”). Those observations, of course, are also relevant here, and again weigh on the side of concluding that a magistrate remains an adjunct even though the district court and the court of appeals may refuse to entertain issues that are not raised in properly filed objections. Cf. Fed. Rule Crim. Proe. 520)) (court may correct plain error despite failure of party to object). We need not decide at this time what standards the courts of appeals must apply in considering exceptions to their waiver rules. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. Respondents, Maryland and Delaware corporations, are distributors of gin and whiskey. They sell their products to wholesalers in Louisiana, who in turn sell to retailers. Respondents have a price-fixing scheme whereby they try to maintain uniform retail prices for their products. They endeavor to make retailers sign price-fixing contracts under which the buyers promise to sell at not less than the prices stated in respondents’ schedules. They have indeed succeeded in getting over one hundred Louisiana retailers to sign these agreements. Petitioner, a retailer in New Orleans, refused to agree to the price-fixing scheme and sold respondents’ products at a cut-rate price. Respondents thereupon brought this suit in the District Court by reason of diversity of citizenship to enjoin petitioner from selling the products at less than the minimum prices fixed by their schedules. It is clear from our decisions under the Sherman Act (26 Stat. 209) that this interstate marketing arrangement would be illegal, that it would be enjoined, that it would draw civil and criminal penalties, and that no court would enforce it. Fixing minimum prices, like other types of price fixing, is illegal per se. United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150; Kiefer-Stewart Co. v. Seagram & Sons, 340 U. S. 211. Resale price maintenance was indeed struck down in Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. Park & Sons Co., 220 U. S. 373. The fact that a state authorizes the price fixing does not, of course, give immunity to the scheme, absent approval by Congress. Respondents, however, seek to find legality for this marketing arrangement in the Miller-Tydings Act enacted in 1937 as an amendment to § 1 of the Sherman Act. 50 Stat. 693, 15 U. S. C. § 1. That amendment provides in material part that “nothing herein contained shall render illegal, contracts or agreements prescribing minimum prices for the resale” of specified commodities when “contracts or agreements of that description are lawful as applied to intrastate transactions” under local law. (Italics added.) Louisiana has such a law. La. Gen. Stat., §§ 9809.1 et seq. It permits a “contract” for the sale or resale of a commodity to provide that the buyer will not resell “except at the price stipulated by the vendor.” The Louisiana statute goes further. It not only allows a distributor and retailer to make a “contract” fixing the resale price; but once there is a price-fixing “contract,” known to a seller, with any retailer in the state, it also condemns as unfair competition a sale at less than the price stipulated even though the seller is not a party to the “contract.” In other words, the Louisiana statute enforces price fixing not only against parties to a “contract” but also against nonsigners. So far as Louisiana law is concerned, price fixing can be enforced against all retailers once any single retailer agrees with a distributor on the resale price. And the argument is that the Miller-Tydings Act permits the same range of price fixing. The argument is phrased as follows: the present action is outlawed by the Sherman Act — the Miller-Tydings Act apart — only if it is a contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade. But if a contract or agreement is the vice, then by the terms of the Miller-Tydings Act that contract or agreement is immunized, provided it is immunized by state law. The same is true if the vice is a conspiracy, since a conspiracy presupposes an agreement. That was in essence the view of the Court of Appeals, which affirmed by a divided vote a judgment of a district court enjoining petitioner from price cutting. 184 F. 2d 11. The argument at first blush has appeal. But we think it offends the statutory scheme. We note to begin with that there are critical differences between Louisiana’s law and the Miller-Tydings Act. The latter exempts only “contracts or agreements prescribing minimum prices for the resale.” On the other hand, the Louisiana law sanctions the fixing of maximum as well as minimum prices, for it exempts any provision that the buyer will not resell “except at the price stipulated by the vendor.” We start then with a federal act which does not, as respondents suggest, turn over to the states the handling of the whole problem of resale price maintenance on this type of commodity. What is granted is a limited immunity — a limitation that is further emphasized by the inclusion in the state law and the exclusion from the federal law of the nonsigner provision. The omission of the nonsigner provision from the federal law is fatal to respondents’ position unless we are to perform a distinct legislative function by reading into the Act a provision that was meticulously omitted from it. A refusal to read the nonsigner provision into the Miller-Tydings Act makes sense if we are to take the words of the statute in their normal and customary meaning. The Act sanctions only “contracts or agreements.” If a distributor and one or more retailers want to agree, combine, or conspire to fix a minimum price, they can do so if state law permits. Their contract, combination, or conspiracy — hitherto illegal — is made lawful. They can fix minimum prices pursuant to their contract or agreement with impunity. When they seek, however, to impose price fixing on persons who have not contracted or agreed to the scheme, the situation is vastly different. That is not price fixing by contract or agreement; that is price fixing by compulsion. That is not following the path of consensual agreement; that is resort to coercion. Much argument is made to import into the contracts which respondents make with retailers a provision that the parties may force nonsigners into line. It is said that state law attaches that condition to every such contract and that therefore the Miller-Tydings Act exempts it from the Sherman Act. Such a condition, if implied, creates an agreement respecting not sales made under the contract but other sales. Yet all that are exempted by the Miller-Tydings Act are “contracts or agreements prescribing minimum prices for the resale” of the articles purchased, not “contracts or agreements” respecting the practices of noncontracting competitors of the contracting retailers. It should be noted in this connection that the Miller-Tydings Act expressly continues the prohibitions of the Sherman Act against “horizontal” price fixing by those in competition with each other at the same functional level. Therefore, when a state compels retailers to follow a parallel price policy, it demands private conduct which the Sherman Act forbids. See Parker v. Brown, 317 U. S. 341, 350. Elimination of price competition at the retail level may, of course, lawfully result if a distributor successfully negotiates individual “vertical” agreements with all his retailers. But when retailers are forced to abandon price competition, they are driven into a compact in violation of the spirit of the proviso which forbids “horizontal” price fixing. A real sanction can be given the prohibitions of the proviso only if the price maintenance power granted a distributor is limited to voluntary engagements. Otherwise, the exception swallows the proviso and destroys its practical effectiveness. The contrary conclusion would have a vast and devastating effect on Sherman Act policies. If it were adopted, once a distributor executed a contract with a single retailer setting the minimum resale price for a commodity in the state, all other retailers could be forced into line. Had Congress desired to eliminate the consensual element from the arrangement and to permit blanketing a state with resale price fixing if only one retailer wanted it, we feel that different measures would have been adopted — either a nonsigner provision would have been included or resale price fixing would have been authorized without more. Certainly the words used connote a voluntary scheme. Contracts or agreements convey the idea of a cooperative arrangement, not a program whereby recalcitrants are dragged in by the heels and compelled to submit to price fixing. The history of the Act supports this construction. The efforts to override the rule of Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. Park & Sons Co., supra, were long and persistent. Many bills had been introduced on this subject before Senator Tydings introduced his. Thus in 1929, in the Seventy-First Congress, the Capper-Kelly fair trade bill was offered. It had no nonsigner provision. It merely permitted resale price maintenance as respects specified classes of commodities by declaring that no such “contract relating to the sale or resale” shall be unlawful. As stated in the House Report, that bill merely legalized an agreement “that the vendee will not resell the commodity specified in the contract except at a stipulated price.” That bill became the model for the California act passed in 1931 — the first state act permitting resale price maintenance. The California act contained no non-signer clause. Neither did the Capper-Kelly bill that was introduced in the Seventy-Second Congress. So far as material here it was identical with its predecessor. The Capper-Kelly bill did not pass. And by the time the next bill was introduced — three years later — the California act had been changed by the addition of the non-signer provision. That was in 1933. Yet when in 1936 Senator Tydings introduced his first bill in the Seventy-Fourth Congress he followed substantially the Capper-Kelly bills and wrote no nonsigner provision into it. His bill merely legalized “contracts or agreements prescribing minimum prices or other conditions for the resale” of a commodity. By this date several additional states had resale price maintenance laws with nonsigner provisions. Even though the state laws were the models for the federal bills, the nonsigner provision was never added. That was true of the bill introduced in the Seventy-Fifth Congress as well as the subsequent one. They all followed in this respect the pattern of the Capper-Kelly bill as it appeared before the first nonsigner provision was written into state law. The “contract” concept utilized by Cap-per-Kelly before there was a nonsigner provision in state law was thus continued even after the nonsigner provision appeared. The inference, therefore, is strong that there was continuity between the first Tydings bill and the preceding Capper-Kelly bills. The Tydings bills built on the same foundation; they were no more concerned with nonsigner provisions than were their predecessors. In view of this history we can only conclude that, if the draftsman intended that the nonsigning retailer was to be coerced, it was strange indeed that he omitted the one clear provision that would have accomplished that result. An argument is made from the reports and debates to the effect that “contracts or agreements” nevertheless includes the nonsigner provisions of state law. The Senate Report on the first Tydings bill, after stating that the California law authorized a distributor “to make a contract that the purchaser will not resell” except at the stipulated price, said that the proposed federal law “does no more than to remove Federal obstacles to the enforcement of contracts which the States themselves have declared lawful.” The Senate Report on the second Tydings bill, which was introduced in the Seventy-fifth Congress, did little more than reprint the earlier report. The House Report, heavily relied on here, gave a more extended analysis. The House Report referred to the state fair trade acts as authorizing the maintenance of resale prices by contract and as providing that “third parties with notice are bound by the terms of such a contract regardless of whether they are parties to it”; and the Report also stated that the objective of the Act was to permit the public policy of the states having such acts to operate with respect to interstate contracts for the sale of goods. This Report is the strongest statement for respondents’ position which is found in the legislative history. The bill which that Report endorsed, however, did not pass. The bill which became the law was attached by the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia as a rider to the District of Columbia revenue bill. In that form it was debated and passed. It is true that the House Report quoted above was referred to when the Senate amendment to the revenue measure was before the House. And one Congressman in the debate said that the nonsigner provision of state laws was validated by the federal law. But we do not take these remarks at face value. In the first place, the House Report, while referring to the non-signer provision when describing a typical state fair trade act, is so drafted that the voluntary contract is the core of the argument for the bill. Hence, the General Statement in the Report states that the sole objective of the Act was “to permit the public policy of States having ‘fair trade acts’ to operate with respect to interstate contracts for the resale of goods”; and the fair trade acts are referred to as legalizing “the maintenance, by contract, of resale prices of branded or trade-marked goods.” (Italics added.) In the second place, the remarks relied on were not only about a bill on which no vote was taken; they were about a bill which sanctioned “contracts or agreements” prescribing not only “minimum prices” but “other conditions” as well. The words “other conditions” were dropped from the amendment that was made to the revenue bill. Why they were deleted does not appear. It is said that they have no relevance to the present problem, since we are dealing here with “minimum prices” not with “other conditions.” But that answer does not quite hold. The question is the amount of state law embraced in the words “contracts or agreements.” It might well be argued that one of the “conditions” attaching to a contract fixing a minimum price would be the liability of a nonsigner. We do no more than stir the doubt, for the doubt alone is enough to make us skeptical of the full implications of the old report as applied to a new and different bill. We look for more definite clues; and we find the following statement made on the floor by Senator Tydings: “What does the amendment do? It permits a man who manufactures an article to state the minimum resale price of the article in a contract with the man who buys it for ultimate resale to the public . . . .” Not once did Senator Tydings refer to the nonsigner provisions of state law. Not once did he suggest that the amendment would affect anyone but the retailer who signs the contract. We search the words of the sponsors for a clear indication that coercive as well as voluntary schemes or arrangements are permissible. We find none. What we do find is the expression of fear in the minority report of the Senate Committee that the nonsigner provisions of the state laws would be made effective if the law passed. These fears were presented in the Senate debate by Senator King in opposition to the amendment. But the Senate Report emphasizes the “permissive” nature of the state laws, not once pointing to their coercive features. The fears and doubts of the opposition are no authoritative guide to the construction of legislation. It is the sponsors that we look to when the meaning of the statutory words is in doubt. And when we read what the sponsors wrote and said about the amendment, we cannot find that the distributors were to have the right to use not only a contract to fix retail prices but a club as well. The words they used — “contracts or agreements” — suggest just the contrary. 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. In other words, since Congress was writing a law to meet the specifications of state law, it would seem that if the nonsigner provision as well as the “contract” provision of state law were to be written into federal law, the pattern of the legislation would have been different. We could conclude that Congress carved out the vast exception from the Sherman Act now claimed only if we were willing to assume that it took a devious route and yet failed to make its purpose plain. Reversed. Resale price maintenance is allowed only as respects commodities which bear, or the label or container of which bear, the trade mark, brand, or name of the producer or distributor and which are in free and open competition with commodities of the same general class produced or distributed by others. Excluded are agreements between manufacturers, between producers, between wholesalers, between brokers, between factors, between retailers or between persons, firms or corporations in competition with each other. The nonsigner clause in the Louisiana Act reads as follows: “Wil-fully and knowingly advertising, offering for sale or selling any commodity at less than the price stipulated in any contract entered into pursuant to the provision of section 1 [§ 9809.1] of this act, whether the person so advertising, offering jor sale or selling is or is not a party to such contract, is unfair competition and is actionable at the suit of any person damaged thereby.” “Provided further, That the preceding proviso shall not make lawful any contract or agreement, providing for the establishment or maintenance of minimum resale prices on any commodity herein involved, between manufacturers, or between producers, or between wholesalers, ... or between retailers, or between persons, firms, or corporations in competition with each other.” 15 U. S. C. § 1. S. 240, 71st Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. 11, 71st Cong., 1st Sess. See H. R. Rep. No. 536, 71st Cong., 2d Sess. H. R. Rep. No. 536,71st Cong., 2d Sess. 2. Cal. Stat., 1931, c. 278. The California Act was sometimes known as “the Junior Capper-Kelly.” See Grether, Price Control Under Fair Trade Legislation (1939), p. 54. S. 97, 72d Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. 11, 72d Cong., 1st Sess. Cal. Stat., 1933, c. 260: The California law is now found in Business & Professions Code, Pt. 2, c. 3, § 16904. S. 3822, 74th Cong., 2d Sess., 80 Cong. Rec. 1007. See Ill. Laws 1935, p. 1436; Iowa Laws 1935, c. 106; Md. Laws 1935, c. 212, §2; N. J. Laws 1935, c. 58, §2; N. Y. Laws 1935, c. 976, §2; Ore. Laws 1935, c. 295, §2; Pa. Laws 1935, No. 115, §2; Wash. Laws 1935, c. 177, § 4; Wis. Laws 1935, e. 52. S. Rep. No. 2053,74th Cong., 2d Sess. 2. S. Rep. No. 257,75th Cong., 1st Sess. H. R. Rep. No. 382,75th Cong., 1st Sess. M, p. 2. Id. See, e. g., the statement of Rep. Dirksen, a House conferee, in 81 Cong. Rec. 8138. H. R. Rep. No. 382,75th Cong., 1st Sess. 2. 81 Cong. Ree. 7495. H. R. Rep. No. 1413, 75th Cong., 1st Sess. 10 (the Conference Report of the House) merely stated: “This amendment provides for an amendment to the antitrust laws under which contracts and agreements stipulating minimum resale prices of certain commodities, and which are similar to contracts and agreements which are lawful as applied to intrastate commerce, are not to be regarded as being illegal under the antitrust laws.” S. Rep. No. 879, 75th Cong., 1st Sess. 81 Cong. Rec. 7491. And see S. Rep. No. 879, Part 2, 75th Cong., 1st Sess. S. Rep. No. 879,75th Cong., 1st Sess. 6. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. Before seeking a federal writ of habeas corpus, a state prisoner must exhaust available state remedies, 28 U. S. C. § 2254(b)(1), thereby giving the State the “ ‘ “opportunity to pass upon and correct” alleged violations of its prisoners’ federal rights.’ ” Duncan v. Henry, 513 U. S. 364, 365 (1995) (per curiam) (quoting Picard v. Connor, 404 U. S. 270, 275 (1971)). To provide the State with the necessary “opportunity,” the prisoner must “fairly present” his claim in each appropriate state court (including a state supreme court with powers of discretionary review), thereby alerting that court to the federal nature of the claim. Duncan, supra, at 365-366; O’Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U. S. 838, 845 (1999). This case focuses upon the requirement of “fair presentation.” I Michael Reese, the respondent, appealed his state-court kidnaping and attempted sodomy convictions and sentences through Oregon’s state court system. He then brought collateral relief proceedings in the state courts (where he was represented by appointed counsel). After the lower courts denied him collateral relief, Reese filed a petition for discretionary review in the Oregon Supreme Court. The petition made several different legal claims. In relevant part, the petition asserted that Reese had received “ineffective assistance of both trial court and appellate court counsel.” App. 47. The petition added that “his imprisonment is in violation of [Oregon state law].” Id., at 48. It said that his trial counsel’s conduct violated several provisions of the Federal Constitution. Ibid. But it did not say that his separate appellate “ineffective assistance” claim violated federal law. The Oregon Supreme Court denied review. Reese ultimately sought a federal writ of habeas corpus, raising, among other claims, a federal constitutional claim that his appellate counsel did not effectively represent him during one of his direct state-court appeals. The Federal District Court held that Reese had not “fairly presented” his federal “ineffective assistance of appellate counsel” claim to the higher state courts because his brief in the state appeals court had not indicated that he was complaining about a violation of federal law. A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court. 282 F. 3d 1184 (2002). Although the majority apparently believed that Reese’s petition itself did not alert the Oregon Supreme Court to the federal nature of the appellate “ineffective assistance” claim, it did not find that fact determinative. Id., at 1193-1194. Rather, it found that Reese had satisfied the “fair presentation” requirement because the justices of the Oregon Supreme Court had had “the opportunity to read ... the lower [Oregon] court decision claimed to be in error before deciding whether to grant discretionary review.” Id., at 1194 (emphasis added). Had they read the opinion of the lower state trial court, the majority added, the justices would have, or should have, realized that Reese’s claim rested upon federal law. Ibid. We granted certiorari to determine whether the Ninth Circuit has correctly interpreted the “fair presentation” requirement. II We begin by assuming that Reese’s petition by itself did not properly alert the Oregon Supreme Court to the federal nature of Reese’s claim. On that assumption, Reese failed to meet the “fair presentation” standard, and the Ninth Circuit was wrong to hold the contrary. We recognize that the justices of the Oregon Supreme Court did have an “opportunity” to read the lower court opinions in Reese’s case. That opportunity means that the judges could have read them. But to say that a petitioner “fairly presents” a federal claim when an appellate judge can discover that claim only by reading lower court opinions in the case is to say that those judges must read the lower court opinions — for otherwise they would forfeit the State’s opportunity to decide that federal claim in the first instance. In our view, federal habeas corpus law does not impose such a requirement. For one thing, the requirement would force state appellate judges to alter their ordinary review practices. Appellate judges, of course, will often read lower court opinions, but they do not necessarily do so in every case. Sometimes an appellate court can decide a legal question on the basis of the briefs alone. That is particularly so where the question at issue is whether to exercise a discretionary power of review, i. e., whether to review the merits of a lower court decision. In such instances, the nature of the issue may matter more than does the legal validity of the lower court decision. And the nature of the issue alone may lead the court to decide not to hear the case. Indeed, the Oregon Supreme Court is a court with a discretionary power of review. And Oregon Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.05(7) (2003) instructs litigants seeking discretionary review to identify clearly in the petition itself the legal questions presented, why those questions have special importance, a short statement of relevant facts, and the reasons for reversal, “including appropriate authorities.” For another thing, the opinion-reading requirement would impose a serious burden upon judges of state appellate courts, particularly those with discretionary review powers. Those courts have heavy workloads, which would be significantly increased if their judges had to read through lower court opinions or briefs in every instance. See National Center for State Courts, State Court Caseload Statistics 2002, pp. 106-110 (Table 2) (for example, in 2001, Oregon appellate courts received a total of 5,341 appeals, including 908 petitions for discretionary review to its Supreme Court; California appellate courts received 32,273, including 8,860 discretionary Supreme Court petitions; Louisiana appellate courts received 13,117, including 3,230 discretionary Supreme Court petitions; Illinois appellate courts received 12,411, including 2,325 discretionary Supreme Court petitions). Finally, we do not find such a requirement necessary to avoid imposing unreasonable procedural burdens upon state prisoners who may eventually seek habeas corpus. A litigant wishing to raise a federal issue can easily indicate the federal law basis for his claim in a state-court petition or brief, for example, by citing in conjunction with the claim the federal source of law on which he relies or a case deciding such a claim on federal grounds, or by simply labeling the claim “federal.” For these reasons, we believe, that the requirement imposed by the Ninth Circuit would unjustifiably undercut the considerations of federal-state comity that the exhaustion requirement seeks to promote. We consequently hold that ordinarily a state prisoner does not “fairly present” a claim to a state court if that court must read beyond a petition or a brief (or a similar document) that does not alert it to the presence of a federal claim in order to find material, such as a lower court opinion in the case, that does so. Ill Reese argues in the alternative that it is wrong to assume that his petition by itself failed to alert the Oregon Supreme Court to the federal nature of his “ineffective assistance of appellate counsel” claim. We do not agree. Reese must concede that his petition does not explicitly say that the words “ineffective assistance of appellate counsel” refer to a federal claim. The petition refers to provisions of the Federal Constitution in respect to other claims but not in respect to this one. The petition provides no citation of any case that might have alerted the court to the alleged federal nature of the claim. And the petition does not even contain a factual description supporting the claim. Cf. Gray v. Netherlands, 518 U. S. 152, 163 (1996); Duncan, 513 U. S., at 366. Reese asserts that the petition nonetheless “fairly presents” a federal “ineffective assistance of appellate counsel” claim for two reasons. First, he says that the word “ineffective” is a term of art in Oregon that refers only to federal-law claims and not to similar state-law claims, which, he adds, in Oregon are solely referred to as “inadequate assistance” claims. And thus the Oregon Supreme Court should have known, from his use of the word “ineffective,” that his claim was federal. Reese, however, has not demonstrated that Oregon law uses the words “ineffective assistance” in the manner he suggests, that is, as referring only to a federal-law claim. See, e. g., Lichau v. Baldwin, 166 Ore. App. 411, 415, 417, 999 P. 2d 1207, 1210, 1211 (2000) (using “ineffective assistance” to refer to violations of the Oregon Constitution), rev’d in part, 333 Ore. 350, 39 P. 3d 851 (2002). Indeed, Reese’s own petition uses both phrases — “ineffective assistance” and “inadequate assistance” — at different points to refer to what is apparently a single claim. Second, Reese says that in Oregon the standards for adjudicating state and federal “inadequate/ineffective appellate assistance” claims are identical. He adds that, where that identity exists, a petitioner need not indicate a claim’s federal nature, because, by raising a state-law claim, he would necessarily “fairly present” the corresponding federal claim. However, the Ninth Circuit did not address this argument, and our reading of the briefs filed in the Ninth Circuit leads us to conclude that Reese did not there seek consideration of the argument in that court. Indeed, the argument first made its appearance in this Court in Reese’s brief on the merits. Under this Court’s Rule 15.2, “a nonjurisdictional argument not raised in a respondent’s brief in opposition to a petition for a writ of certiorari may be deemed waived.” Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61, 75, n. 13 (1996) (internal quotation marks omitted). This argument falls squarely within the rule. The complex nature of Reese’s claim and its broad implications suggest that its consideration by the lower courts would help in its resolution. Hence, without expressing any view on the merits of the issue, we exercise our Rule 15.2 discretion and deem the argument waived in this Court. See, e.g., Roberts v. Galen of Va., Inc., 525 U. S. 249, 253-254 (1999) (per curiam); South Central Bell Telephone Co. v. Alabama, 526 U. S. 160, 171 (1999); cf. Sprietsma v. Mercury Marine, 537 U. S. 51, 56, n. 4 (2002). For these reasons, the judgment of the Ninth Circuit 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. Per Curiam. Certiorari is granted and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed for the reasons stated in this opinion. The petitioners, hereinafter referred to as the Organizations, are the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, and Switchmen’s Union of North America. The respondents, hereinafter referred to as the Carriers, are the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company and 15 other named railroad companies, as representatives of a class of more than 200 such companies. In February of 1959, the Association of American Railroads proposed the creation of a presidential commission to investigate and report on the possibility of a radical overhaul of working rules affecting the Organizations and their members in the light of substantial technological changes in the railroad industry. The basis for this proposal was that “. . . drawing up sound new work standards for the railroad industry has become so complex and challenging that the machinery provided for settling ordinary disputes appears hopelessly inadequate to cope with this task.” The Organizations opposed this proposal, and the President of the United States, in September of 1959, refused to appoint such a commission. On November 2 of that year, pursuant to § 6 of the Railway Labor Act, the Carriers served on the Organizations notices of intended changes in agreements affecting rates of pay, rules, and working conditions. After conferences both on individual railroads and on a national level had failed to produce agreement concerning the proposed changes, the Organizations and the Carriers in October of 1960, under the auspices of the Secretary of Labor, agreed to the creation of a Presidential Railroad Commission which was to investigate and report on the controversy, and was also authorized “to use its best efforts, by mediation, to bring about an amicable settlement . ...” The parties agreed that the proceedings of the Commission were to be accepted . . as in lieu of the mediation and emergency board procedures provided by Section [s] 5 and 10 of the Railway Labor Act.” The Commission was created by Executive Order 10891 in November of 1960, and its members were appointed in December of that year. The report and recommendations of the Commission were delivered to the President on February 28, 1962, and national conferences on the issues which remained in dispute resumed on April 2 and continued through May 17. No agreement having been reached, the Organizations on May 21 made application for the mediation services of the National Mediation Board pursuant to § 5 of the Railway Labor Act. Between May 25 and June 22, approximately 32 meetings were held by the Organizations and the Carriers under the auspices of the Chairman of that Board, but no agreement was reached. The Organizations having refused to submit the dispute to arbitration, the National Mediation Board on July 16 terminated its services under the provisions of the Railway Labor Act. On the following day, the Carriers served notice on the Organizations that, as of August 16, 1962, changes in rules, rates of pay, and working conditions would be placed in effect by the Carriers. On July 26, the Organizations brought the present suit seeking a judgment that the proposed rule changes would violate the Railway Labor Act. Subsequently, the Carriers, with leave of court and without objection from the Organizations, withdrew their July 17,1962, notices, and substituted therefor the notices which had been served on November 2, 1959, to become effective August 16,1962. The Organizations’ complaint was then amended to seek similar relief against those notices. The District Court found that both parties had exhausted all of the procedures available under the Railway Labor Act, and that they were therefore free to resort to self-help, restricted only by the possibility of the appointment of an Emergency Board by the President under the provisions of § 10 of the Railway Labor Act. It therefore dismissed the complaint for failure to state a cause of action. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 310 F. 2d 503. The petitioners insist that, because the Court of Appeals characterized the Organizations’ actions as reducing negotiations to “sterile discussion,” its opinion must be read as holding that the right of the Carriers to serve the § 6 notices here at issue somehow arose as a penalty for the Organizations’ failure to bargain in good faith. No evidence was introduced below as to the good faith of either of the parties during the lengthy bargaining proceedings prior to the institution of this suit, and there is nothing in the record before us to indicate that either party acted in bad faith. Any contrary implication in the opinion of the Court of Appeals is disapproved. The Court of Appeals concluded, as had the District Court, that the Railway Labor Act procedures had been exhausted, and that therefore the § 6 notices served by the Carriers were proper. The Court of Appeals correctly rejected the contention of the Organizations that the standards contained in the notices themselves violated the Railway Labor Act. As this Court has pointed out, “[t]he Railway Labor Act . . . does not undertake governmental regulation of wages, hours, or working conditions. Instead it seeks to provide a means by which agreement may be reached with respect to them. The national interest ... is not primarily in the working conditions as such. So far as the Act itself is concerned these conditions may be as bad as the employees will tolerate or be made as good as they can bargain for. The Act does not fix and does not authorize anyone to fix generally applicable standards for working conditions. The federal interest that is fostered is to see that disagreement about conditions does not reach the point of interfering with interstate commerce . . . Terminal Assn. v. Trainmen, 318 U. S. 1, 6. See also Labor Board v. American Ins. Co., 343 U. S. 395, 402. The only question presented, therefore, is whether the record before us sustains the finding of both lower courts that the parties have exhausted the procedures provided by the Railway Labor Act for major disputes such as that involved here. As this Court stated in Elgin, J. & E. R. Co. v. Burley, 325 U. S. 711, 725: “. . . [t]he 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.” The 1960 agreement establishing the Presidential Commission contained a provision purporting to accept the Commission’s proceedings as a replacement for the procedures required by the Railway Labor Act. Whether or not such a provision could effectively forestall either party from resorting to the procedures of § 5 of the Act is a question which we need not decide, because the services of the National Mediation Board were in fact specifically invoked by the Organizations, and the Board’s procedures were exhausted. Similarly, although arbitration pursuant to § 7 was refused by the Organizations, that section clearly provides that "the failure or refusal of either party to submit a controversy to arbitration shall not be construed as a violation of any legal obligation imposed upon such party by the terms of this chapter or otherwise.” There is, consequently, no question of bad faith or misconduct on the part of either party justifying the other side’s unilateral imposition of changes in working rules. What is clear, rather, is that both parties, having exhausted all of the statutory procedures, are relegated to self-help in adjusting this dispute, subject only to the invocation of the provisions of § 10 providing for the creation of an Emergency Board. And on this basis the judgment below must be, and is Affirmed. Mr. Justice Goldberg took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. Section 6 of the Railway Labor Act, as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 156, provides: “Carriers and representatives of the employees shall give at least thirty days’ written notice of an intended change in agreements affecting rates of pay, rules, or working conditions, and the time and place for the beginning of conference between the representatives of the parties interested in such intended changes shall be agreed upon within ten days after the receipt of said notice, and said time shall be within the thirty days provided in the notice. In every case where such notice of intended change has been given, or conferences are being held with reference thereto, or the services of the Mediation Board have been requested by either party, or said Board has proffered its services, rates of pay, rules, or working conditions shall not be altered by the carrier until the controversy has been finally acted upon, as required by section 155 of this title, by the Mediation Board, unless a period of ten days has elapsed after termination of conferences without request for or proffer of the services of the Mediation Board.” This authorization echoed the words of § 5 First of the Railway Labor Act, as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 155 First: “First. The parties, or either party, to a dispute between an employee or group of employees and a carrier may invoke the services of the Mediation Board in any of the following cases: “ (a) A dispute concerning changes in rates of pay, rules, or working conditions not adjusted by the parties in conference. “(b) Any other dispute not referable to the National Railroad Adjustment Board and not adjusted in conference between the parties or where conferences are refused. “The Mediation Board may proffer its services in case any labor emergency is found by it to exist at any time. “In either event the said Board shall promptly put itself in communication with the parties to such controversy, and shall use its best efforts, by mediation, to bring them to agreement. If such efforts to bring about an amicable settlement through mediation shall be unsuccessful, the said Board shall at once endeavor as its final required action (except as provided in paragraph third of this section and in section 160 of this title) to induce the parties to submit their controversy to arbitration, in accordance with the provisions of this chapter. “If arbitration at the request of the Board shall be refused by one or both parties, the Board shall at once notify both parties in writing that its mediatory efforts have failed and for thirty days thereafter, unless in the intervening period the parties agree to arbitration, or an emergency board shall be created under section 160 of this title, no change shall be made in the rates of pay, rules, or working conditions or established practices in effect prior to the time the dispute arose.” See note 2, supra. Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act, as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 160, provides: “If a dispute between a carrier and its employees be not adjusted under the foregoing provisions of this chapter and should, in the judgment of the Mediation Board, threaten 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 thereupon, in his discretion, create a board to investigate and report respecting such dispute. Such board shall be composed of such number of persons as to the President may seem desirable: Provided, however, That no member appointed shall be pecuniarily or otherwise interested in any organization of employees or any carrier. The compensation of the members of any such board shall be fixed by the President. Such board shall be created separately in each instance and it shall investigate promptly the facts as to the dispute and make a report thereon to the President within thirty days from the date of its creation. “After the creation of such board and for thirty days after such board has made its report to the President, no change, except by agreement, shall be made by the parties to the controversy in the conditions out of which the dispute arose.” Section 7 First of the Railway Labor Act, as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 157 First, provides: “First. Whenever a controversy shall arise between a carrier or carriers and its or their employees which is not settled either in conference between representatives of the parties or by the appropriate adjustment board or through mediation, in the manner provided in sections 151-156 of this title such controversy may, by agreement of the parties to such controversy, be submitted to the arbitration of a board of three (or, if the parties to the controversy so stipulate, of six) persons: Provided, however, That the failure or refusal of either party to submit a controversy to arbitration shall not be construed as a violation of any legal obligation imposed upon such party by the terms of this chapter or otherwise.” See note 4, supra. The 1960 agreement establishing the Presidential Commission was “approved” by Secretary of Labor Mitchell. It provided that the parties accepted its proceedings “. . . as in lieu of the mediation and emergency board procedures provided by Section [s] 5 and 10 of the Railway Labor Act.” In addition, the agreement somewhat inconsistently made provision for the invocation of the services of the National Mediation Board and for national bargaining conferences between the parties immediately following the report of the Commission. Finally, it provided that the agreement was not to be construed as a waiver of any legal right of any of the parties. We have already noted that the parties did in fact exhaust § 5 procedures. Neither party in this Court has contended that the 1960 agreement would affect the applicability of § 10. In any event, it is clear that no private agreement can interfere with the duty of the National Mediation Board or the power which § 10 confers upon the President of the United States. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 Stewart delivered the opinion of the Court. I In the late spring of 1975, after hearing evidence that the petitioner, Abby Gail Lassiter, had not provided her infant son William with proper medical care, the District Court of Durham County, N. C., adjudicated him a neglected child and transferred him to the custody of the Durham County Department of Social Services, the respondent here. A year later, Ms. Lassiter was charged with first-degree murder, was convicted of second-degree murder, and began a sentence of 25 to 40 years of imprisonment. In 1978 the Department petitioned the court to terminate Ms. Lassiter’s parental rights because, the Department alleged, she “has not had any contact with the child since December of 1975” and “has willfully left the child in foster care for more than two consecutive years without showing that substantial progress has been made in correcting the conditions which led to the removal of the child, or without showing a positive response to the diligent efforts of the Department of Social Services to strengthen her relationship to the child, or to make and follow through with constructive planning for the future of the child.” Ms. Lassiter was served with the petition and with notice that a hearing on it would be held. Although her mother had retained counsel for her in connection with an effort to invalidate the murder conviction, Ms. Lassiter never mentioned the forthcoming hearing to him (or, for that matter, to any other person except, she said, to “someone” in the prison). At the behest of the Department of Social Services’ attorney, she was brought from prison to the hearing, which was held August 31, 1978. The hearing opened, apparently at the judge’s instance, with a discussion of whether Ms. Lassiter should have more time in which to find legal assistance. Since the court concluded that she “has had ample opportunity to seek and obtain counsel prior to the hearing of this matter, and [that] her failure to do so is without just cause,” the court did not postpone the proceedings. Ms. Lassiter did not aver that she was indigent, and the court did not appoint counsel for her. A social worker from the respondent Department was the first witness. She testified that in 1975 the Department “received a complaint from Duke Pediatrics that William had not been followed in the pediatric clinic for medical problems and that they were having difficulty in locating Ms. Las-siter . . . .” She said that in May 1975 a social worker had taken William to the hospital, where doctors asked that he stay “because of breathing difficulties [and] malnutrition and [because] there was a great deal of scarring that indicated that he had a severe infection that had gone untreated.” The witness further testified that, except for one “prearranged” visit and a chance meeting on the street, Ms. Las-siter had not seen William after he had come into the State’s custody, and that neither Ms. Lassiter nor her mother had “made any contact with the Department of Social Services regarding that child.” When asked whether William should be placed in his grandmother’s custody, the social worker said he should not, since the grandmother “has indicated to me on a number of occasions that she was not able to take responsibility for the child” and since “I have checked with people in the community and from Ms. Lassiter’s church who also feel that this additional responsibility would be more than she can handle.” The social worker added that William “has not seen his grandmother since the chance meeting in July of ’76 and that was the only time.” After the direct examination of the social worker, the judge said: “I notice we made extensive findings in June of ’75 that you were served with papers and called the social services and told them you weren’t coming; and the serious lack of medical treatment. And, as I have said in my findings of the 16th day of June ’75, the Court finds that the grandmother, Ms. Lucille Lassiter, mother of Abby Gail Lassiter, filed a complaint on the 8th day of May, 1975, alleging that the daughter often left the children, Candina, Felicia and William L. with her for days without providing money or food while she was gone.” Ms. Lassiter conducted a cross-examination of the social worker, who firmly reiterated her earlier testimony. The judge explained several times, with varying degrees of clarity, that Ms. Lassiter should only ask questions at this stage; many of her questions were disallowed because they were not really questions, but arguments. Ms. Lassiter herself then testified, under the judge’s questioning, that she had properly cared for William. Under cross-examination, she said that she had seen William more than five or six times after he had been taken from her custody and that, if William could not be with her, she wanted him to be with her mother since, “He knows us. Children know they family. . . . They know they people, they know they family and that child knows us anywhere. ... I got four more other children. Three girls and a boy and they know they little brother when they see him.” Ms. Lassiter’s mother was then called as a witness. She denied, under the questioning of the judge, that she had filed the complaint against Ms. Lassiter, and on cross-examination she denied both having failed to visit William when he was in the State’s custody and having said that she could not care for him. The court found that Ms. Lassiter “has not contacted the Department of Social Services about her child since December, 1975, has not expressed any concern for his care and welfare, and has made no efforts to plan for his future.” Because Ms. Lassiter thus had “wilfully failed to maintain concern or responsibility for the welfare of the minor,” and because it was “in the best interests of the minor,” the court terminated Ms. Lassiter’s status as William’s parent. On appeal, Ms. Lassiter argued only that, because she was indigent, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment entitled her to the assistance of counsel, and that the trial court had therefore erred in not requiring the State to provide counsel for her. The North Carolina Court of Appeals decided that “[w]hile this State action does invade a protected area of individual privacy, the invasion is not so serious or unreasonable as to compel us to hold that appointment of counsel for indigent parents is constitutionally mandated.” In re Lassiter, 43 N. C. App. 525, 527, 259 S. E. 2d 336, 337. The Supreme Court of North Carolina summarily denied Ms. Lassiter’s application for discretionary review, 299 N. C. 120, 262 S. E. 2d 6, and we granted certiorari to consider the petitioner’s claim under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, 449 U. S. 819. II For all its consequence, “due process” has never been, and perhaps can never be, precisely defined. “ [U] nlike some legal rules,” this Court has said, due process “is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place and circumstances.” Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886, 895. Rather, the phrase expresses the requirement of “fundamental fairness,” a requirement whose meaning can be as opaque as its importance is lofty. Applying the Due Process Clause is therefore an uncertain enterprise which must discover what “fundamental fairness” consists of in a particular situation by first considering any relevant precedents and then by assessing the several interests that are at stake. A The pre-eminent generalization that emerges from this Court’s precedents on an indigent’s right to appointed counsel is that such a right has been recognized to exist only where the litigant may lose his physical liberty if he loses the litigation. Thus, when the Court overruled the principle of Betts v. Brady, 316 U. S. 455, that counsel in criminal trials need be appointed only where the circumstances in a given case demand it, the Court did so in the case of a man sentenced to prison for five years. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335. And thus Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25, established that counsel must be provided before any indigent may be sentenced to prison, even where the crime is petty and the prison term brief. That it is the defendant’s interest in personal freedom, and not simply the special Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments right to counsel in criminal cases, which triggers the right to appointed counsel is demonstrated by the Court’s announcement in In re Gault, 387 U. S. 1, that “the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that in respect of proceedings to determine delinquency which may result in commitment to an institution in which the juvenile’s freedom is curtailed,” the juvenile has a right to appointed counsel even though those proceedings may be styled “civil” and not “criminal.” Id., at 41 (emphasis added). Similarly, four of the five Justices who reached the merits in Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480, concluded that an indigent prisoner is entitled to appointed counsel before being involuntarily transferred for treatment to a state mental hospital. The fifth Justice differed from the other four only in declining to exclude the “possibility that the required assist-anee may be rendered by competent laymen in some cases.” Id., at 500 (separate opinion of Powell, J.). Significantly, as a litigant’s interest in personal liberty diminishes, so does his right to appointed counsel. In Gag-non v. Scarpelli, 411 U. S. 778, the Court gauged the due process rights of a previously sentenced probationer at a probation-revocation hearing. In Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 480, which involved an analogous hearing to revoke parole, the Court had said: “Revocation deprives an individual, not of the absolute liberty to which every citizen is entitled, but only of the conditional liberty properly dependent on observance of special parole restrictions.” Relying on that discussion, the Court in Scarpelli declined to hold that indigent probationers have, per se, a right to counsel at revocation hearings, and instead left the decision whether counsel should be appointed to be made on a case-by-case basis. Finally, the Court has refused to extend the right to appointed counsel to include prosecutions which, though criminal, do not result in the defendant’s loss of personal liberty. The Court in Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367, for instance, interpreted the “central premise of Argersinger” to be “that actual imprisonment is a penalty different in kind from fines or the mere threat of imprisonment,” and the Court endorsed that premise as “eminently sound and warrant [ing] adoption of actual imprisonment as the line defining the constitutional right to appointment of counsel.” Id., at 373. The Court thus held “that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution require only that no indigent criminal defendant be sentenced to a term of imprisonment unless the State has afforded him the right to assistance of appointed counsel in his defense.” Id., at 373-374. In sum, the Court’s precedents speak with one voice about what “fundamental fairness” has meant when the Court has considered the right to appointed counsel, and we thus draw from them the presumption that an indigent litigant has a right to appointed counsel only when, if he loses, he may be deprived of his physical liberty. It is against this presumption that all the other elements in the due process decision must be measured. B The case of Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 335, propounds three elements to be evaluated in deciding what due process requires, viz., the private interests at stake, the government’s interest, and the risk that the procedures used will lead to erroneous decisions. We must balance these elements against each other, and then set their net weight in the scales against the presumption that there is a right to appointed counsel only where the indigent, if he is unsuccessful, may lose his personal freedom. This Court’s decisions have by now made plain beyond the need for multiple citation that a parent’s desire for and right to “the companionship, care, custody, and management of his or her children” is an important interest that “undeniably warrants deference and, absent a powerful countervailing interest, protection.” Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 651. Here the State has sought not simply to infringe upon that interest, but to end it. If the State prevails, it will have worked a unique kind of deprivation. Cf. May v. Anderson, 345 U. S. 528, 533; Armstrong v. Manzo, 380 U. S. 545. A parent’s interest in the accuracy and justice of the decision to terminate his or her parental status is, therefore, a commanding one. Since the State has an urgent interest in the welfare of the child, it shares the parent’s interest in an accurate and just decision. For this reason, the State may share the indigent parent’s interest in the availability of appointed counsel. If, as our adversary system presupposes, accurate and just results are most likely to be obtained through the equal contest of opposed interests, the State’s interest in the child’s welfare may perhaps best be served by a hearing in which both the parent and the State acting for the child are represented by counsel, without whom the contest of interests may become unwholesomely unequal. North Carolina itself acknowledges as much by providing that where a parent files a written answer to a termination petition, the State must supply a lawyer to represent the child. N. C. Gen. Stat. § 7A-289.29 (Supp. 1979). The State’s interests, however, clearly diverge from the parent’s insofar as the State wishes the termination decision to be made as economically as possible and thus wants to avoid both the expense of appointed counsel and the cost of the lengthened proceedings his presence may cause. But though the State’s pecuniary interest is legitimate, it is hardly significant enough to overcome private interests as important as those here, particularly in light of the concession in the respondent’s brief that the “potential costs of appointed counsel in termination proceedings ... is [sic] admittedly de minimis compared to the costs in all criminal actions.” Finally, consideration must be given to the risk that a parent will be erroneously deprived of his or her child because the parent is not represented by counsel. North Carolina law now seeks to assure accurate decisions by establishing the following procedures: A petition to terminate parental rights may be filed only by a parent seeking the termination of the other parent’s rights, by a county department of social services or licensed child-placing agency with custody of the child, or by a person with whom the child has lived continuously for the two years preceding the petition. § 7A-289.24. A petition must describe facts sufficient to warrant a finding that one of the grounds for termination exists, § 7A-289.25 (6), and the parent must be notified of the petition and given 30 days in which to file a written answer to it, § 7A-289.27. If that answer denies a material allegation, the court must, as has been noted, appoint a lawyer as the child’s guardian ad litem and must conduct a special hearing to resolve the issues raised by the petition and the answer. § 7A-289.29. If the parent files no answer, “the court shall issue an order terminating all parental and custodial rights . . . ; provided the court shall order a hearing on the petition and may examine the petitioner or others on the facts alleged in the petition.” § 7A-289.28. Findings of fact are made by a court sitting without a jury and must “be based on clear, cogent, and convincing evidence.” § 7A-289.30. Any party may appeal who gives notice of appeal within 10 days after the hearing. § 7A-289.34. The respondent argues that the subject of a termination hearing — the parent’s relationship with her child — far from being abstruse, technical, or unfamiliar, is one as to which the parent must be uniquely well informed and to which the parent must have given prolonged thought. The respondent also contends that a termination hearing is not likely to produce difficult points of evidentiary law, or even of substantive law, since the evidentiary problems peculiar to criminal trials are not present and since the standards for termination are not complicated. In fact, the respondent reports, the North Carolina Departments of Social Services are themselves sometimes represented at termination hearings by social workers instead of by lawyers. Yet the ultimate issues with which a termination hearing deals are not always simple, however commonplace they may be. Expert medical and psychiatric testimony, which few parents are equipped to understand and fewer still to confute, is sometimes presented. The parents are likely to be people with little education, who have had uncommon difficulty in dealing with life, and who are, at the hearing, thrust into a distressing and disorienting situation. That these factors may combine to overwhelm an uncounseled parent is evident from the findings some courts have made. See, e. g., Davis v. Page, 442 F. Supp. 258, 261 (SD Fla. 1977); State v. Jamison, 251 Ore. 114, 117-118, 444 P. 2d 15, 17 (1968). Thus, courts have generally held that the State must appoint counsel for indigent parents at termination proceedings. State ex rel. Heller v. Miller, 61 Ohio St. 2d 6, 399 N. E. 2d 66 (1980); Department of Public Welfare v. J. K. B., 379 Mass. 1, 393 N. E. 2d 406 (1979); In re Chad S., 580 P. 2d 983 (Okla. 1978); In re Myricks, 85 Wash. 2d 252, 533 P. 2d 841 (1975); Crist v. Division of Youth and Family Services, 128 N. J. Super. 102, 320 A. 2d 203 (1974); Danforth v. Maine Dept. of Health and Welfare, 303 A. 2d 794 (Me. 1973); In re Friesz, 190 Neb. 347, 208 N. W. 2d 259 (1973). The respondent is able to point to no presently authoritative case, except for the North Carolina judgment now before us, holding that an indigent parent has no due process right to appointed counsel in termination proceedings. C The dispositive question, which must now be addressed, is whether the three Eldridge factors, when weighed against the presumption that there is no right to appointed counsel in the absence of at least a potential deprivation of physical liberty, suffice to rebut that presumption and thus to lead to the conclusion that the Due Process Clause requires the appointment of counsel when a State seeks to terminate an indigent’s parental status. To summarize the above discussion of the Eldridge factors: the parent’s interest is an extremely important one (and may be supplemented by the dangers of criminal liability inherent in some termination proceedings); the State shares with the parent an interest in a correct decision, has a relatively weak pecuniary interest, and, in some but not all cases, has a possibly stronger interest in informal procedures; and the complexity of the proceeding and the incapacity of the uncounseled parent could be, but would not always be, great enough to make the risk of an erroneous deprivation of the parent’s rights insupportably high. If, in a given case, the parent’s interests were at their strongest, the State’s interests were at their weakest, and the risks of error were at their peak, it could not be said that the Eldridge factors did not overcome the presumption against the right to appointed counsel, and that due process did not therefore require the appointment of counsel. But since the Eldridge factors will not always be so distributed, and since “due process is not so rigid as to require that the significant interests in informality, flexibility and economy must always be sacrificed,” Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U. S., at 788, neither can we say that the Constitution requires the appointment of counsel in every parental termination proceeding. We therefore adopt the standard found appropriate in Gagnon v. Scar- pelli, and leave the decision whether due process calls for the appointment of counsel for indigent parents in termination proceedings to be answered in the first instance by the trial court, subject, of course, to appellate review. See, e. g., Wood v. Georgia, 450 U. S. 261. Ill Here, as in Scarpelli, “[i]t is neither possible nor prudent to attempt to formulate a precise and detailed set of guidelines to be followed in determining when the providing of counsel is necessary to meet the applicable due process requirements,” since here, as in that case, “[t]he facts and circumstances . . . are susceptible of almost infinite variation . . . .” 411 U. S., at 790. Nevertheless, because child-custody litigation must be concluded as rapidly as is consistent with fairness, we decide today whether the trial judge denied Ms. Lassiter due process of law when he did not appoint counsel for her. The respondent represents that the petition to terminate Ms. Lassiter’s parental rights contained no allegations of neglect or abuse upon which criminal charges could be based, and hence Ms. Lassiter could not well have argued that she required counsel for that reason. The Department of Social Services was represented at the hearing by counsel, but no expert witnesses testified, and the case presented no specially troublesome points of law, either procedural or substantive. While hearsay evidence was no doubt admitted, and while Ms. Lassiter no doubt left incomplete her defense that the Department had not adequately assisted her in rekindling her interest in her son, the weight of the evidence that she had few sparks of such an interest was sufficiently great that the presence of counsel for Ms. Lassiter could not have made a determinative difference. True, a lawyer might have done more with the argument that William should live with Ms. Lassiter’s mother — but that argument was quite ex-plicity made by both Lassiters, and the evidence that the elder Ms. Lassiter had said she could not handle another child, that the social worker’s investigation had led to a similar conclusion, and that the grandmother had displayed scant interest in the child once he had been removed from her daughter’s custody was, though controverted, sufficiently substantial that the absence of counsel’s guidance on this point did not render the proceedings fundamentally unfair. Finally, a court deciding whether due process requires the appointment of counsel need not ignore a parent’s plain demonstration that she is not interested in attending a hearing. Here, the trial court had previously found that Ms. Las-siter had expressly declined to appear at the 1975 child custody hearing, Ms. Lassiter had not even bothered to speak to her retained lawyer after being notified of the termination hearing, and the court specifically found that Ms. Lassiter’s failure to make an effort to contest the termination proceeding was without cause. In view of all these circumstances, we hold that the trial court did not err in failing to appoint counsel for Ms. Lassiter. IV In its Fourteenth Amendment, our Constitution imposes on the States the standards necessary to ensure that judicial proceedings are fundamentally fair. A wise public policy, however, may require that higher standards be adopted than those minimally tolerable under the Constitution. Informed opinion has clearly come to hold that an indigent parent is entitled to the assistance of appointed counsel not only in parental termination proceedings, but in dependency and neglect proceedings as well. IJA-ARA Standards for Juvenile Justice, Counsel for Private Parties 2.3 (b) (1980); Uniform Juvenile Court Act § 26 (a), 9A U. L. A. 35 (1979); National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Model Rules for Juvenile Courts, Rule 39 (1969); U. S. Dept, of HEW, Children’s Bureau, Legislative Guide for Drafting Family and Juvenile Court Acts §25 (b) (1969); U. S. Dept, of HEW, Children’s Bureau, Legislative Guides for the Termination of Parental Rights and Responsibilities and the Adoption of Children, Pt. II, § 8 (1961); National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Standard Juvenile Court Act § 19 (1959). Most significantly, 33 States and the District of Columbia provide statutorily for the appointment of counsel in termination cases. The Court’s opinion today in no way implies that the standards increasingly urged by informed public opinion and now widely followed by the States are other than enlightened and wise. For the reasons stated in this opinion, the judgment is affirmed. It is so ordered. The North Carolina Court of Appeals, in reviewing the petitioner’s-conviction, indicated that the murder occurred during an altercation between Ms. Lassiter, her mother, and the deceased: “Defendant’s mother told [the deceased] to 'come on.’ They began to struggle and deceased fell or was knocked to the floor. Defendant’s mother was beating deceased with a broom. While deceased was still on the floor and being beaten with the broom, defendant entered the apartment. She went into the kitchen and got a butcher knife. She took the knife and began stabbing the deceased who was still prostrate. The body of deceased had seven stab wounds . . . .” State v. Lassiter, No. 7614SC1054 (June 1, 1977). After her conviction was affirmed on appeal, Ms. Lassiter sought to attack it collaterally. Among her arguments was that the assistance of her trial counsel had been ineffective because he had failed to “seek to elicit or introduce before the jury the statement made by [Ms. Lassiter’s mother,] ‘And I did it, I hope she dies.’ ” Ms. Lassiter’s mother had, like Ms. Lassiter, been indicted on a first-degree murder charge; however, the trial court granted the elder Ms. Lassiter’s motion for a nonsuit. The North Carolina General Court of Justice, Superior Court Division, denied Ms. Lassiter’s motion for collateral relief. File No. 76-CR-31Q2 (Mar. 20, 1979). The petition had also asked that the parental rights of the putative father, William Boykin, be terminated. Boykin was not married to Ms. Lassiter, he had never contributed to William’s financial support, and indeed he denied that he was William’s father. The court granted the petition to terminate his alleged parental status. Some parents will have an additional interest to protect. Petitions to terminate parental rights are not uncommonly based on alleged criminal activity. Parents so accused may need legal counsel to guide them in understanding the problems such petitions may create. The respondent also points out that parental termination hearings commonly occur only after a custody proceeding in which the child has judicially been found to be abused, neglected, or dependent, and that an indigent parent has a right to be represented by appointed counsel at the custody hearing. § 7A-587. Ms. Lassiter’s hearing occurred before some of these provisions were enacted. She did not, for instance, have the benefit of the “clear, cogent, and convincing” evidentiary standard, nor did she have counsel at the hearing in which William was taken from her custody. Both the respondent and the Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems, 4 Colum. J. L. & Soc. Prob. 230 (1968), have conducted surveys purporting to reveal whether the presence of counsel reduces the number of erroneous determinations in parental termination proceedings. Unfortunately, neither survey goes beyond presenting statistics which, standing alone, are unilluminating. The Journal note does, however, report that it questioned the New York Family Court judges who preside over parental termination hearings and found that 72.2% of them agreed that when a parent is unrepresented, it becomes more difficult to conduct a fair hearing (11.1% of the judges disagreed); 66.7% thought it became difficult to develop the facts (22.2% disagreed). A number of courts have held that indigent parents have a right to appointed counsel in child dependency or neglect hearings as well. E. g., Davis v. Page, 640 F. 2d 599 (CA5 1981) (en banc); Cleaver v. Wilcox, 499 F. 2d 940 (CA9 1974) (right to be decided case by case); Smith v. Edmiston, 431 F. Supp. 941 (WD Tenn. 1977). According to the respondent’s brief, William Lassiter is now living “in a pre-adoptive home with foster parents committed to formal adoption to become his legal parents.” He cannot be legally adopted, nor can his status otherwise be finally clarified, until this litigation ends. Ms. Lassiter’s argument here that her mother should have been given custody of William is hardly consistent with her argument in the collateral attack on her murder conviction that she was innocent because her mother was guilty. See n. 1, supra. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. CHIEF Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court. The State of Louisiana charged petitioner Juan Smith with killing five people during an armed robbery. At Smith’s trial a single witness, Larry Boatner, linked Smith to the crime. Boatner testified that he was socializing at a friend’s house when Smith and two other gunmen entered the home, demanded money and drugs, and shortly thereafter began shooting, resulting in the death of five of Boatner’s friends. In court Boatner identified Smith as the first gunman to come through the door. He claimed that he had been face to face with Smith during the initial moments of the robbery. No other witnesses and no physical evidence implicated Smith in the crime. The jury convicted Smith of five counts of first-degree murder. The Louisiana Court of Appeal affirmed Smith’s conviction. State v. Smith, 797 So. 2d 193 (2001). The Louisiana Supreme Court denied review, as did this Court. 2001-2416 (La. 9/13/02), 824 So. 2d 1189; 537 U. S. 1201 (2003). Smith then sought postconviction relief in the state courts. As part of his effort, Smith obtained files from the police investigation of his case, including those of the lead investigator, Detective John Ronquillo. Ronquillo’s notes contain statements by Boatner that conflict with his testimony identifying Smith as a perpetrator. The notes from the night of the murder state that Boatner “could not . . . supply a description of the perpetrators other then [sic] they were black males.” App. 252-253. Ronquillo also made a handwritten account of a conversation he had with Boatner five days after the crime, in which Boatner said he “could not ID anyone because [he] couldn’t see faces” and “would not know them if [he] saw them.” Id., at 308. And Ronquillo’s typewritten report of that conversation states that Boatner told Ron-quillo he “could not identify any of the perpetrators of the murder.” Id., at 259-260. Smith requested that his conviction be vacated, arguing, inter alia, that the prosecution’s failure to disclose Ronquil-lo’s notes violated this Court’s decision in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963). The state trial court rejected Smith’s Brady claim, and the Louisiana Court of Appeal and Louisiana Supreme Court denied review. We granted cer-tiorari, 564 U. S. 1004 (2011), and now reverse. Under Brady, the State violates a defendant’s right to due process if it withholds evidence that is favorable to the defense and material to the defendant’s guilt or punishment. See 373 U. S., at 87. The State does not dispute that Boat-ner’s statements in Ronquillo’s notes were favorable to Smith and that those statements were not disclosed to him. The sole question before us is thus whether Boatner’s statements were material to the determination of Smith’s guilt. We have explained that “evidence is ‘material’ within the meaning of Brady when there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Cone v. Bell, 556 U. S. 449, 469-470 (2009). A reasonable probability does not mean that the defendant “would more likely than not have received a different verdict with the evidence,” only that the likelihood of a different result is great enough to “undermine[] confidence in the outcome of the trial.” Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U. S. 419, 434 (1995) (internal quotation marks omitted). We have observed that evidence impeaching an eyewitness may not be material if the State’s other evidence is strong enough to sustain confidence in the verdict. See United States v. Agurs, 427 U. S. 97,112-113, and n. 21 (1976). That is not the case here. Boatner’s testimony was the only evidence linking Smith to the crime. And Boatner’s undisclosed statements directly contradict his testimony: Boatner told the jury that he had “[n]o doubt” that Smith was the gunman he stood “face to face” with on the night of the crime, but Ronquillo’s notes show Boatner saying that he “could not ID anyone because [he] couldn’t see faces” and “would not know them if [he] saw them.” App. 196,200, 308. Boatner’s undisclosed statements were plainly material. The State and the dissent advance various reasons why the jury might have discounted Boatner’s undisclosed statements. They stress, for example, that Boatner made other remarks on the night of the murder indicating that he could identify the first gunman to enter the house, but not the others. That merely leaves us to speculate about which of Boatner’s contradictory declarations the jury would have believed. The State also contends that Boatner’s statements made five days after the crime can be explained by fear of retaliation. Smith responds that the record contains no evidence of any such fear. Again, the State’s argument offers a reason that the jury could have disbelieved Boat-ner’s undisclosed statements, but gives us no confidence that it would have done so. The police files that Smith obtained in state postconviction proceedings contain other evidence that Smith contends is both favorable to him and material to the verdict. Because we hold that Boatner’s undisclosed statements alone suffice to undermine confidence in Smith’s conviction, we have no need to consider his arguments that the other undisclosed evidence also requires reversal under Brady. The judgment of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court of Louisiana is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court. Under Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424 (1971), a prima facie violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000e et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. IV), “may be established by policies or practices that are neutral on their face and in intent but that nonetheless discriminate in effect against a particular group.” Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324, 349 (1977). A seniority system “would seem to fall under the Griggs rationale” if it were not for § 703(h) of the Civil Rights Act. Ibid. That section, as set forth in 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2(h), provides in pertinent part: “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 or merit system, . . . provided that such differences are not the result of an intention to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, nor shall it be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to give and to act upon the results of any professionally developed ability test provided that such test, its administration or action upon the results is not designed, intended or used to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. ...” Under § 703(h), 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. The Court of Appeals in this case, however, held that § 703(h) does not apply to seniority systems adopted after the effective date of the Civil Rights Act. We granted the petition for certiorari to address the validity of this construction of the section. 452 U. S. 937 (1982). H-I Petitioner American Tobacco Co. operates two plants m Richmond, Va., one which manufactures cigarettes and one which manufactures pipe tobacco. Each plant is divided into a prefabrication department, which blends and prepares tobacco for further processing, and a fabrication department, which manufactures the final product. Petitioner Bakery, Confectionery & Tobacco Workers’ International Union and its affiliate Local 182 are the exclusive collective-bargaining agents for hourly paid production workers at both plants. It is uncontested that prior to 1963 the company and the union engaged in overt race discrimination. The union maintained two segregated locals, and black employees were assigned to jobs in the lower paying prefabrication departments. Higher paying jobs in the fabrication departments were largely reserved for white employees. An employee could transfer from one of the predominately black prefabrication departments to one of the predominately white fabrication departments only by forfeiting his seniority. In 1963, under pressure from Government procurement agencies enforcing the antidiscrimination obligations of Government contractors, the company abolished departmental seniority in favor of plantwide seniority and the black union local was merged into the white local. However, promotions were no longer based solely on seniority but rather on seniority plus certain qualifications, and employees lost accumulated seniority in the event of a transfer between plants. Between 1963 and 1968, when this promotions policy was in force, virtually all vacancies in the fabrication departments were filled by white employees due to the discretion vested in supervisors to determine who was qualified. In November 1968, the company proposed the establishment of nine lines of progression, six of which are at issue in this case. The union accepted and ratified the lines of progression in 1969. Each line of progression generally consisted of two jobs. An employee was not eligible for the top job in the line until he had worked in a bottom job. Four of the six lines of progression at issue here consisted of nearly all-white top jobs from the fabrication departments linked with nearly all-white bottom jobs from the fabrication departments; the other two consisted of all-black top jobs from the prefabrication departments linked with all-black bottom jobs from the prefabrication departments. The top jobs in the white lines of progression were among the best paying jobs in the plants. On January 3, 1969, respondent Patterson and two other black employees filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that petitioners had discriminated against them on the basis of race. The EEOC found reasonable cause to believe that petitioners’ seniority, wage, and job classification practices violated Title VII. After conciliation efforts failed, the employees filed a class action in District Court in 1973 charging petitioners with racial discrimination in violation of Title VII and 42 U. S. C. § 1981. Their suit was consolidated for trial with a subsequent Title VII action filed by the EEOC alleging both race and sex discrimination. Following trial, the District Court held that petitioners’ seniority, promotion, and job classification practices violated Title VII. The court found that six of the nine lines of progression were not justified by business necessity and “perpetuated past discrimination on the basis of sex and race.” App. 32. The court enjoined the company and the union from further use of the six lines of progression. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed and remanded for further proceedings with respect to remedy, Patterson v. American Tobacco Co., 535 F. 2d 257 (1976), and we denied a petition for certiorari. 429 U. S. 920 (1976). On remand petitioners moved to vacate the District Court’s 1974 orders and to dismiss the complaints on the basis of this Court’s decision in Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324 (1977), which held that § 703(h) insulates bona fide seniority systems from attack even though they may have discriminatory impact on minorities. The District Court denied the motions, holding that petitioners’ seniority system “is not a bona fide system under Teamsters . . . because this system operated right up to the day of trial in a discriminatory manner.” App. 110. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals agreed that “Teamsters requires no modification of the relief we approved with regard to . . . lines of progression . . . ,” because they were not part of a seniority system within the meaning of § 703(h). 586 F. 2d 300, 303 (1978). The Court of Appeals reheard the case en banc. It did not decide whether the lines of progression were part of a seniority system. Instead, it held that even if the lines of progression were considered part of a seniority system, “Congress intended the immunity accorded seniority systems by § 703(h) to run only to those systems in existence at the time of Title VIPs effective date, and of course to routine post-Act applications of such systems.” 634 F. 2d 744, 749 (1980). We reverse. II Petitioners argue that the plain language of § 703(h) applies to post-Act as well as pre-Act seniority systems. The respondent employees claim that the provision “provides a narrow exemption [from the ordinary discriminatory impact test] which was specifically designed to protect bona fide seniority systems which were in existence before the effective date of Title VII.” Brief for Respondent Patterson et al. 29. Respondent EEOC supports the judgment below, but urges us to interpret § 703(h) so as to protect the post-Act application of a bona fide seniority system but not the post-Act adoption of a seniority system or an aspect of a seniority system. As in all cases involving statutory construction, “our starting point must be the language employed by Congress,” Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 337 (1979), and we assume “that the legislative purpose is expressed by the ordinary meaning of the words used.” Richards v. United States, 369 U. S. 1, 9 (1962). Thus “[a]bsent a clearly expressed legislative intention to the contrary, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.” Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S. 102, 108 (1980). The plain language of § 703(h) is particularly cogent in light of the circumstances of its drafting. It was part of the Dirksen-Mansfield compromise bill which represented “not merely weeks, but months of labor.” 110 Cong.Rec. 11935 (1964) (remarks of Sen. Dirksen). As Senator Dirksen explained: “I doubt very much whether in my whole legislative lifetime any measure has received so much meticulous attention. We have tried to be mindful of every word, of every comma, and of the shading of every phrase.” Ibid. On its face § 703(h) makes no distinction between pre- and post-Act seniority systems, just as it does not distinguish between pre- and post-Act merit systems or pre- and post-Act ability tests. The section does not take the form of a saving clause or a grandfather clause designed to exclude existing practices from the operation of a new rule. Other sections of Title VII enacted by the same Congress contain grandfather clauses, see § 701(b), 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-(b), a difference which increases our reluctance to transform a provision that we have previously described as “defining what is and what is not an illegal discriminatory practice . . . ,” Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U. S. 747, 761 (1976), from a definitional clause into a grandfather clause. The EEOC’s position, which is urged by Justice Brennan’s dissent, is no more supportable. In permitting an employer to “apply” different terms of employment pursuant to a seniority system, § 703(h) does not distinguish between seniority systems adopted before and those adopted after the effective date of the Act. That distinction would require reading § 703(h) as though the reference to a seniority system were followed by the words “adopted prior to the effective date of this section.” But the section contains no such limitation. To be cognizable, a claim that a seniority system has a discriminatory impact must be accompanied by proof of a discriminatory purpose. Furthermore, for the purpose of construing § 703(h), the proposed distinction between application and adoption on its face makes little sense. The adoption of a seniority system which has not been applied would not give rise to a cause of action. A discriminatory effect would arise only when the system is put into operation and the employer “applies” the system. Such application is not infirm under § 703(h) unless it is accompanied by a discriminatory purpose. An adequate remedy for adopting a discriminatory seniority system would very likely include an injunction against the future application of the system and backpay awards for those harmed by its application. Such an injunction, however, would lie only if the requirement of § 703(h) — that such application be intentionally discriminatory — were satisfied. Under the EEOC’s interpretation of the statute, plaintiffs who file a timely challenge to the adoption of a seniority system arguably would prevail in a Title VII action if they could prove that the system would have a discriminatory impact even if it was not purposefully discriminatory. Post, at 86. See Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424 (1971). On the other hand, employees who seek redress under Title VII more than 180 days after the adoption of a seniority system — for example, all persons whose employment begins more than 180 days after an employer adopts a seniority system — would have to prove the system was intentionally discriminatory. Yet employees who prevailed by showing that a bona fide seniority system had a discriminatory impact although not adopted with discriminatory intent would not be entitled to an injunction forbidding the application of the system: § 703(h) plainly allows the application of such a seniority system. A further result of the EEOC’s theory would be to discourage unions and employers from modifying pre-Act seniority systems or post-Act systems whose adoption was not timely challenged. Any modification, if timely challenged, would be subject to the Griggs standard — even if it benefited persons covered by Title VII — thereby creating an incentive to retain existing systems which enjoy the protection of § 703(h). Statutes should be interpreted to avoid untenable distinctions and unreasonable results whenever possible. The EEOC’s reading of § 703(h) would make it illegal to adopt, and in practice to apply, seniority systems that fall within the class of systems protected by the provision. We must, therefore, reject such a reading. Ill Although the plain language of § 703(h) makes no distinction between pre-Act and post-Act seniority systems, the court below found support for its distinction between the two in the legislative history. Such an intepretation misreads the legislative history. We have not been informed of and have not found a single statement anywhere in the legislative history saying that § 703(h) does not protect seniority systems adopted or modified after the effective date of Title VII. Nor does the legislative history reveal that Congress intended to distinguish between adoption and application of a bona fide seniority system. The most which can be said for the legislative history of § 703(h) is that it is inconclusive with respect to the issue presented in this case. As we have previously described, see Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U. S., at 759-761, the initial bill passed by the House of Representatives on February 10, 1964, did not contain § 703(h) and neither the bill nor the majority Judiciary Committee Report even mentioned seniority. However, the House Minority Report warned that the bill, if enacted, would destroy seniority. H. R. Rep. No. 914, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 64-65 (1963). Following a 17-day debate over whether the bill should be referred to committee, the Senate voted to reject the motion to refer it to committee and began to formally consider the merits of the bill on March 30, 1964. Meanwhile, a bipartisan group led by Senators Dirksen, Mansfield, Humphrey, and Kuchel worked to reach agreement on amendments to the House bill which would ensure its passage. Vaas, Title VII: Legislative History, 7 B. C. Ind. & Com. L. Rev. 431, 445 (1966). The Mansfield-Dirksen compromise, which contained § 703(h), was introduced on the Senate floor in the form of a substitute bill on May 26, 1964. Prior to the introduction of the Mansfield-Dirksen substitute, supporters of the House bill responded to charges that it would destroy existing seniority rights. On April 8, 1964, Senator Clark made a speech in which he stated that “it is clear that the bill would not affect seniority at all.” 110 Cong. Rec. 7207 (1964). In support of his conclusion, he inserted three documents into the Congressional Record which this Court has characterized as “authoritative indicators” of the purpose of § 703(h), Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S., at 352, and which the court below relied upon for its conclusion that post-Act seniority systems were not intended to be protected by § 703(h). See 634 F. 2d, at 749-750, n. 5. The first document was a Justice Department memorandum which stated, in part, that “Title VII would have no effect on seniority rights existing at the time it takes effect.” The second document was an interpretive memorandum which had been prepared by Senator Clark and Senator Case, and it also said Title VII would “have no effect on established seniority rights.” Senator Clark also introduced written answers to questions propounded by Senator Dirksen which included the statement, “Seniority rights are in no way affected by the bill.” On the basis of the statements that Title VII would not affect “existing” and “established” seniority rights, respondents infer that Title VII would affect seniority rights which were not “established” or “existing” when the Act became effective. Such an inference is unjustified. While the materials which Senator Clark inserted into the Congressional Record did speak in terms of Title VII not affecting “vested,” “existing,” or “established” seniority rights, they did so because they were responding to a specific charge made by the bill’s opponents, namely, that the bill would destroy existing seniority rights. Had Senator Clark intended that the bill not protect post-Act seniority systems, it is highly unlikely he would have stated on the floor of the Senate that “the bill would not affect seniority at all,” 110 Cong. Rec. 7207 (1964), or introduced a written response to a question posed by Senator Dirksen which said: “Seniority rights are in no way affected by the bill. If under a ‘last hired, first fired’ agreement a Negro happens to be the “last hired,’ he can still be ‘first fired’ so long as it is done because of his status as ‘last hired’ and not because of his race.” Id., at 7217. Respondents’ argument also ignores numerous other references to seniority by proponents of Title VII which were couched in terms of “seniority” rather than “existing seniority rights.” See, e. g., id., at 5423 (remarks of Sen. Humphrey); id., at 6564 (remarks of Sen. Kuchel); id., at 6565-6566 (memorandum prepared by House Republican sponsors); id., at 11768 (remarks of Sen. McGovern). In addition, the few references to seniority after § 703(h) was added to the bill are to the effect that “the Senate substitute bill expressly protects valid seniority systems.” Id., at 14329 (letter from Sen. Dirksen to Sen. Williams). See also id., at 14331 (remarks of Sen. Williams). Going behind the plain language of a statute in search of a possibly contrary congressional intent is “a step to be taken cautiously” even under the best of circumstances. Piper v. Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., 430 U. S. 1, 26 (1977). “[I]n light of its unusual legislative history and the absence of the usual legislative materials,” Franks v. Bowman Construction Co., 424 U. S., at 761, we would in any event hesitate to give dispositive weight to the legislative history of § 703(h). More importantly, however, the history of § 703(h) does not support the far-reaching limitation on the terms of § 703(h) announced by the court below and urged by respondents. The fragments of legislative history cited by respondents, regardless of how liberally they are construed, do not amount to a clearly expressed legislative intent contrary to the plain language of the statute. Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S., at 108. > ) — I Our prior decisions have emphasized that “seniority systems are afforded special treatment under Title VII itself,” Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, 432 U. S. 63, 81 (1977), and have refused to narrow § 703(h) by reading into it limitations not contained in the statutory language. In Teamsters v. United States, supra, we held that § 703(h) exempts from Title VII the disparate impact of a bona fide seniority system even if the differential treatment is the result of pre-Act racially discriminatory employment practices. Similarly, by holding that “[a] discriminatory act which is not made the basis for a timely charge is the legal equivalent of a discriminatory act which occurred before the statute was passed,” United Air Lines, Inc. v. Evans, 431 U. S. 553, 558 (1977), the Court interpreted § 703(h) to immunize seniority systems which perpetuate post-Act discrimination. Thus taken together, Teamsters and Evans stand for the proposition stated in Teamsters that “[s]ection 703(h) on its face immunizes all bona fide seniority systems, and does not distinguish between the perpetuation of pre- and post-Act” discriminatory impact. Teamsters, 431 U. S., at 348, n. 30 (emphasis added). Section 703(h) makes no distinction between seniority systems adopted before its effective date and those adopted after its effective date. Consistent with our prior decisions, we decline respondents' invitation to read such a distinction into the statute. Seniority provisions are of “overriding importance” in collective bargaining, Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U. S. 335, 346 (1964), and they “are universally included in these contracts.” Trans World, Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, supra, at 79. See also Aaron, Reflections on the Legal Nature and Enforceability of Seniority Rights, 75 Harv. L. Rev. 1532, 1534 (1962). The collective-bargaining process “lies at the core of our national labor policy . . . .” Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, supra, at 79. See, e. g., 29 U. S. C. § 151. Congress was well aware in 1964 that the overall purpose of Title VII, to eliminate discrimination in employment, inevitably would, on occasion, conflict with the policy favoring minimal supervision by courts and other governmental agencies over the substantive terms of collective-bargaining agreements. California Brewers Assn. v. Bryant, 444 U. S. 598, 608 (1980). Section 703(h) represents the balance Congress struck between the two policies, and it is not this Court’s function to upset that balance. Because a construction of § 703(h) limiting its application to seniority systems in place prior to the effective date of the statute would be contrary to its plain language, inconsistent with our prior cases, and would run counter to the national labor policy, we vacate the judgment below and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. So ordered. . Title VII became effective July 2, 1965, one year after its enactment. The en banc court remanded the case to the District Court for additional proceedings to determine whether the plantwide seniority system in effect since 1963 is a bona fide seniority system within the contemplation of § 703(h). See 634 F. 2d, at 750. This issue is not before the Court. Prior to 1972, Title VII generally required charges to be filed within 90 days of an alleged discriminatory practice. Section 706(e), 78 Stat. 260, was amended in 1972. It now requires aggrieved persons to file a charge “within one hundred and eighty days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred . . . .” 42 U. S. C. §2000e-5(e). The facts of this case give rise to just such an anomaly under the EEOC theory. The respondent employees filed race discrimination charges within 90 days of the adoption of the lines of progression but sex discrimination charges were filed more than 90 days after the adoption. Under the EEOC theory, the lines of progression would be analyzed under two different tests: the Griggs impact test and the § 703(h) intentional discrimination test. "Significant freedom must be afforded employers and unions to create differing seniority systems.” California Brewers Assn. v. Bryant, 444 U. S. 598, 608 (1980). Respondents’ interpretation of § 703(h) would impinge on that freedom by discouraging modification of existing seniority systems or adoption of new systems. Justice Brennan’s dissent admits that the legislative history “does not contain any explicit reference to the distinction between adoption and application.” Post, at 83. Nor is there explicit basis for the proposition that § 703(h) applies only to those plans “adopted” prior to the effective date of the Act. It is nevertheless claimed that the legislative history supports reading this distinction into the statute. Post, at 83, n. 8. Had Congress intended so fundamental a distinction, it would have expressed that intent clearly in the statutory language or the legislative history. It did not do so, however, and it is not this Court’s function “to sit as a super-legislature,” Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 482 (1965), and create statutory distinctions where none were intended. H. R. 7152, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963). H. R. Rep. No. 914, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963). 110 Cong. Rec. 11926 (1964). For examples of charges that the bill would destroy existing seniority rights see, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 914, supra, at 64-66 (Minority Report); 110 Cong. Rec. 486-489 (1964) (remarks of Sen. Hill); id., at 11471 (remarks of Sen. Javits discussing charges made by Governor Wallace). Senator Humphrey, one of the drafters of the Mansfield-Dirksen substitute, explained that § 703(h) did not alter the meaning of Title VII but “merely clarifie[d] its present intent and effect.” Id., at 12723. Therefore statements made prior to the introduction of § 703(h) by proponents of Title VII are evidence of the meaning of § 703(h). Id., at 7207. The full text of the statement with respect to seniority may be found in Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U. S. 747, 760, n. 16 (1976). 110 Cong. Rec. 7213 (1964). The full text of the statement with respect to seniority may be found in Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., supra, at 759, n. 15. 110 Cong. Rec. 7217 (1964). The questions and answers with respect to seniority may be found in Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., supra, at 760-761, n. 16. Strictly speaking, Senator Clark’s statement that Title VII would not affect seniority is incorrect. Title VII does affect seniority rights, for Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., supra, allows awards of retroactive seniority to victims of unlawful discrimination. However, Senator Clark’s technical error does not alter our conclusion that he and other key proponents of the bill intended that it have minimal impact on seniority systems. Nowhere in Teamsters v. United States does the Court indicate when the seniority system at issue there was adopted, and examination of the record illustrates the difficulty of fixing an adoption date. Article V of the National Motor Freight Agreement of 1964 contains a seniority provision subject to modification by area agreements and local union riders. See Brief for Petitioner Teamsters, O. T. 1976, No. 75-636, pp. 24-25. However, National Motor Freight Agreements are of 3-year duration, and the 1970 Agreement was in effect when the complaint was filed. If a seniority system ceases to exist when the collective-bargaining agreement which creates it lapses, then the seniority system in Teamsters was adopted post-Title VII. On the other hand, if in practice the seniority system was continuously in effect from 1964, it can be argued that its adoption predates Title VII. However, Teamsters places no importance on the date the seniority system was adopted, and we follow Teamsters by refusing to distinguish among seniority systems based on date of adoption. Given the difficulty of determining when one seniority system ends and another begins and the lack of legislative guidance, we think it highly unlikely Congress intended for courts to distinguish between pre-Act and post-Act seniority systems. Justice Brennan’s dissent makes no mention of the importance which Congress and this Court have accorded to seniority systems and collective bargaining. It reads the legislative history as showing that Congress’ basic purpose in enacting § 703(h) was to protect employee expectations. Post, at 81-84. In doing so, it ignores the policy favoring minimal governmental intervention in collective bargaining. All parties agree that on remand the court should decide whether the lines of progression are part of a seniority system, and if so, whether they are bona fide within the meaning of § 703(h). We decline to reach those issues because, as the court below noted, their resolution requires additional factual development. See 634 F. 2d, at 749, n. 3. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

B

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court. This case requires us to examine once again the procedures for selection of jurors in criminal trials involving the possible imposition of capital punishment, see Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510 (1968), and to consider standards for federal courts reviewing those procedures upon petition for a writ of habeas corpus. I Respondent Johnny Paul Witt was convicted of first-degree murder in Florida and sentenced to death. The murder was committed while respondent and a friend were bow- and-arrow hunting. The evidence at trial showed that the two had spoken together on other occasions about killing a human, and had even stalked persons as they would stalk animal prey. On the day in question, respondent, then aged 30, and his younger accomplice were hunting in a wooded area near a trail often used by children. When the victim, an 11-year-old boy, rode by on his bicycle, respondent’s accomplice hit the child on the head with a star bit from a drill. Respondent and his accomplice then gagged the stunned victim, placed him in the trunk of respondent’s car, and drove to a deserted grove. Upon opening the trunk, the conspirators discovered that the victim had died by suffocating from the gag. The two committed various sexual and violent acts on the body, then dug a grave and buried it. Respondent was tried by a jury and convicted of first-degree murder. In accordance with the recommendation of the jury, the trial judge sentenced him to death. On appeal to the Florida Supreme Court respondent raised a number of claims, one of which was that several prospective jurors had been improperly excluded for cause because of their opposition to capital punishment, in violation of this Court’s decision in Witherspoon v. Illinois, supra. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence, and this Court denied certiorari. Witt v. State, 342 So. 2d 497, cert. denied, 434 U. S. 935 (1977). After unsuccessfully petitioning for postconviction review in the state courts, see Witt v. State, 387 So. 2d 922 (Fla.), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 1067 (1980), respondent filed this petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, raising numerous constitutional claims. That court denied the petition. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed and granted the writ. 714 F. 2d 1069 (1983), modified, 723 F. 2d 769 (1984). The only claim the Eleventh Circuit found meritorious was respondent’s Witherspoon claim. The court found the following exchange during voir dire, between the prosecutor and venireman Colby, to be insufficient to justify Colby’s excusal for cause: “[Q. Prosecutor:] Now, let me ask you a question, ma’am. Do you have any religious beliefs or personal beliefs against the death penalty? “[A. Colby:] I am afraid personally but not— “[Q]: Speak up, please. “[A]: I am afraid of being a little personal, but definitely not religious. “[Q]: Now, would that interfere with.you sitting as a juror in this case? “[A]: I am afraid it would. “[Q]: You are afraid it would? “[A]: Yes, Sir. “[Q]: Would it interfere with judging the guilt or innocence of the Defendant in this case? “[A]: I think so. “[Q]: You think it would. “[A]: I think it would. “[Q]: Your honor, I would move for cause at this point. “THE COURT: All right. Step down.” Tr. 266-267. Defense counsel did not object or attempt rehabilitation. In Witherspoon, this Court held that the State infringes a capital defendant’s right under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to trial by an impartial jury when it excuses for cause all those members of the venire who express conscientious objections to capital punishment. As the Court of Appeals in this ease noted, however, the Witherspoon Court also recognized the State’s legitimate interest in excluding those jurors whose opposition to capital punishment would not allow them to view the proceedings impartially, and who therefore might frustrate administration of a State’s death penalty scheme. The Court of Appeals drew the standard for determining when a juror may properly be excluded from Witherspoon’s footnote 21; jurors may be excluded for cause if they make it “unmistakably clear (1) 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, or (2) that their attitude toward the death penalty would prevent them from making an impartial decision as to the defendant’s guilt.” 391 U. S., at 522, n. 21 (emphasis in original). The Court of Appeals construed our decisions to require that jurors expressing objections to the death penalty be given “great leeway” before their expressions justify dismissal for cause. “A prospective juror may even concede that his or her feelings about the death penalty would possibly color an objective determination of the facts of a case without admitting of the necessary partiality to justify excusal.” 714 F. 2d, at 1076-1080. The court concluded that the colloquy with venireman Colby reprinted above did not satisfy the Witherspoon standard. Colby’s limited expressions of “feelings and thoughts” failed to “unequivocally state that she would automatically be unable to apply the death penalty....” Id., at 1082. In part, the court found the ambiguity in the record was caused by the lack of clarity of the prosecutor’s questions. The prosecutor’s question whether Colby’s feelings about the death penalty would “interfere” with her sitting was ambiguous, because the fact of such “interference” failed to satisfy Witherspoon’s requirement that she be unable to apply the death sentence under any circumstances. The court found its holding consistent with Circuit precedent applying the Witherspoon standard. See Granviel v. Estelle, 655 F. 2d 673 (CA5 1981); Burns v. Estelle, 626 F. 2d 396 (CA5 1980). In a footnote, the Court of Appeals noted its uncertainty over whether a state trial court’s finding of bias should be accorded a presumption of correctness under the federal statute governing habeas corpus proceedings, 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d). The court stated, however, that under the circumstances it would reach the same result regardless of the standard of review. 714 F. 2d, at 1083, n. 10. Because this case raises questions on which there is considerable confusion in the lower courts, concerning the degree of deference that a federal habeas court should pay to a state trial judge’s determination that a juror may be excused for cause under Witherspoon, see Darden v. Wainwright, 725 F. 2d 1526, 1528-1530 (CA11 1984); O’Bryan v. Estelle, 714 F. 2d 365 (CA5 1983), cert. denied, 465 U. S. 1013 (1984); Texas v. Mead, 465 U. S. 1041, 1043 (1984) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari), and because of what seemed to us as more general confusion surrounding the application of Witherspoon, we granted certiorari. 466 U. S. 957. We reverse. II Witherspoon is best understood in the context of its facts. The case involved the capital sentencing procedures for the State of Illinois. Under the Illinois death sentencing statute, the jury was asked to decide only whether death was “the proper penalty” in a given case. Another Illinois statute provided: “In trials for murder it shall be a cause for challenge of any juror who shall, on being examined, state that he has conscientious scruples against capital punishment, or that he is opposed to the same.” Witherspoon, 391 U. S., at 512. Pursuant to this statute, nearly half the veniremen at Witherspoon’s trial were excused for cause because they “expressed qualms about capital punishment.” Id., at 513. This Court held that under this procedure the jury obtained would not be the impartial jury required by the Sixth Amendment, but rather a jury “uncommonly willing to condemn a man to die.” Id., at 521. It concluded 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.” Id., at 522. Despite Witherspoon’s limited holding, later opinions in this Court and the lower courts have referred to the language in footnote 21, or similar language in Witherspoon’s footnote 9, as setting the standard for judging the proper exclusion of a juror opposed to capital punishment. See, e. g., Maxwell v. Bishop, 398 U. S. 262, 265 (1970); Boulden v. Holman, 394 U. S. 478, 482 (1969); Hackathorn v. Decker, 438 F. 2d 1363, 1366 (CA5 1971); People v. Washington, 71 Cal. 2d 1061, 1091-1092, 458 P. 2d 479, 496-497 (1969). Later cases in the lower courts state that a venireman may be excluded only if he or she would “automatically” vote against the death penalty, and even then this state of mind must be “unambiguous,” or “unmistakably clear.” See, e. g., Burns v. Estelle, supra, at 398. But more recent opinions of this Court demonstrate no ritualistic adherence to a requirement that a prospective juror make it “unmistakably clear... that [she] would automatically vote against the imposition of capital punishment....” In Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586, 595-596 (1978), prospective capital jurors were asked: “ ‘[D]o you feel that you could take an oath to well and truely [sic] try this case... and follow the-law, or is your conviction so strong that you cannot take an oath, knowing that a possibility exists in regard to capital punishment?’ ” We held that the veniremen who answered that they could not “take the oath” were properly excluded. Although the Lockett opinion alluded to the second half of the footnote 21 standard, dealing with a juror’s inability to decide impartially a defendant’s guilt, the Court did not refer to the “automatically” language. Instead, it simply determined that each of the excluded veniremen had made it “‘unmistakably clear’ that they could not be trusted to ‘abide by existing law’ and ‘to follow conscientiously the instructions’ of the trial judge.” Id., at 596. This Court again examined the Witherspoon standard in Adams v. Texas, 448 U. S. 38 (1980). Adams involved the Texas capital sentencing scheme, wherein jurors were asked to answer three specific questions put by the trial judge. The court was required to impose the death sentence if each question was answered affirmatively. A Texas statute provided that a prospective capital juror “ ‘shall be disqualified... unless he states under oath that the mandatory penalty of death or imprisonment for life will not affect his deliberations on any issue of fact.’” Id., at 42. Before deciding whether certain jurors had been properly excluded pursuant to this statute, this Court attempted to discern the proper standard for making such a determination. The Court discussed its prior opinions, noting the Witherspoon Court’s recognition, in footnote 21, that States retained a “legitimate interest in obtaining jurors who could follow their instructions and obey their oaths.” 448 U. S., at 44. The Court concluded: “This line of cases establishes the general proposition that a juror may not be challenged for cause based on his views about capital punishment unless those views would prevent or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and his oath. The State may insist, however, that jurors will consider and decide the facts impartially and conscientiously apply the law as charged by the court.” Id., at 45 (emphasis added). The Court went on to hold that as applied in that case certain veniremen had been improperly excluded under the Texas statute, because their acknowledgment that the possible imposition of the death penalty would or might “affect” their deliberations was meant only to indicate that they would be more emotionally involved or would view their task “with greater seriousness and gravity.” Id., at 49. The Court reasoned that such an “effect” did not demonstrate that the prospective jurors were unwilling or unable to follow the law or obey their oaths. The state of this case law leaves trial courts with the difficult task of distinguishing between prospective jurors whose opposition to capital punishment will not allow them to apply the law or view the facts impartially and jurors who, though opposed to capital punishment, will nevertheless conscientiously apply the law to the facts adduced at trial. Although this task may be difficult in any event, it is obviously made more difficult by the fact that the standard applied in Adams differs markedly from the language of footnote 21. The tests with respect to sentencing and guilt, originally in two prongs, have been merged; the requirement that a juror may be excluded only if he would never vote for the death penalty is now missing; gone too is the extremely high burden of proof. In general, the standard has been simplified. There is good reason why the Adams test is preferable for determining juror exclusion. First, although given Wither-spoon’s facts a court applying the general principles of Adams could have arrived at the “automatically” language of Witherspoon’s footnote 21, we do not believe that language can be squared with the duties of present-day capital sentencing juries. In Witherspoon the jury was vested with unlimited discretion in choice of sentence. Given this discretion, a juror willing to consider the death penalty arguably was able to “follow the law and abide by his oath” in choosing the “proper” sentence. Nothing more was required. Under this understanding the only veniremen who could be deemed excludable were those who would never vote for the death sentence or who could not impartially judge guilt. After our decisions in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238 (1972), and Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153 (1976), however, sentencing juries could no longer be invested with such discretion. As in the State of Texas, many capital sentencing juries are now asked specific questions, often factual, the answers to which will determine whether death is the appropriate penalty. In such circumstances it does not make sense to require simply that a juror not “automatically” vote against the death penalty; whether or not a venireman might vote for death under certain personal standards, the State still may properly challenge that venireman if he refuses to follow the statutory scheme and truthfully answer the questions put by the trial judge. To hold that Witherspoon requires anything more would be to hold, in the name of the Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury, that a State must allow a venireman to sit despite the fact that he will be unable to view the case impartially. Second, the statements in the Witherspoon footnotes are in any event dicta. The Court’s holding focused only on circumstances under which prospective jurors could not be excluded; under Witherspoon’s facts it was unnecessary to decide when they could be. This Court has on other occasions similarly rejected language from a footnote as “not controlling.” See McDaniel v. Sanchez, 452 U. S. 130, 141 (1981). Finally, the Adams standard is proper because it is in accord with traditional reasons for excluding jurors and with the circumstances under which such determinations are made. We begin by reiterating Adams’ acknowledgment that “Witherspoon is not a ground for challenging any prospective juror. It is rather a limitation on the State’s power to exclude....” Adams v. Texas, 448 U. S., at 47-48. Exclusion of jurors opposed to capital punishment began with a recognition that certain of those jurors might frustrate the State’s legitimate interest in administering constitutional capital sentencing schemes by not following their oaths. Witherspoon simply held that the State’s power to exclude did not extend beyond its interest in removing those particular jurors. But there is nothing talismanic about juror exclusion under Witherspoon merely because it involves capital sentencing juries. Witherspoon is not grounded in the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, but in the Sixth Amendment. Here, as elsewhere, the quest is for jurors who will conscientiously apply the law and find the facts. That is what an “impartial” jury consists of, and we do not think, simply because a defendant is being tried for a capital crime, that he is entitled to a legal presumption or standard that allows jurors to be seated who quite likely will be biased in his favor. 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. See Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 157 (1879). It is then the trial judge’s duty to determine whether the challenge is proper. This is, of course, the standard and procedure outlined in Adams, but it is equally true of any situation where a party seeks to exclude a biased juror. See, e. g., Patton v. Yount, 467 U. S. 1025, 1036 (1984) (where a criminal defendant sought to excuse a juror for cause and the trial judge refused, the question was simply “did [the] juror swear that he could set aside any opinion he might hold and decide the case on the evidence, and should the juror’s protestations of impartiality have been believed”). We therefore take this opportunity to clarify our decision in Witherspoon, and to reaffirm the above-quoted standard from Adams as the proper standard for determining when a prospective juror may be excluded for cause because of his or her views on capital punishment. That standard 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.” We note that, in addition to dispensing with Witherspoon’s reference to “automatic” decisionmaking, this standard likewise does not require that a juror’s bias be proved with “unmistakable clarity.” This is because determinations of juror bias cannot be reduced to question-and-answer sessions which obtain results in the manner of a catechism. What common sense should have realized experience has proved: many veniremen simply cannot be asked enough questions to reach the point where their bias has been made “unmistakably clear”; these veniremen may not know how they will react when faced with imposing the death sentence, or may be unable to articulate, or may wish to hide their true feelings. Despite this lack of clarity in the printed record, however, there will be situations where the trial judge is left with the definite impression that a prospective juror would be unable to faithfully and impartially apply the law. For reasons that will be developed more fully infra, this is why deference must be paid to the trial judge who sees and hears the juror. Given this standard, it is clear that the Court of Appeals below erred at least in part; the court focused unduly on the lack of clarity of the questioning of venireman Colby, and on whether her answers indicated that she would “automatically” vote against the death penalty. Since there are portions of the Court of Appeals’ opinion that suggest that its result could be squared with Adams, however, we proceed to discuss another very important question in the administration of Witherspoon challenges — the degree of deference that a federal habeas court must pay to a state trial judge’s determination of bias. Ill This case arises from respondent’s petition for habeas corpus under 28 U. S. C. §2254, and therefore a federal reviewing court is required to accord any findings of the state courts on “factual issues” a “presumption of correctness” under 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d). Although the District Court relied on this section and accorded deference to the state trial judge’s finding of bias, Witt v. Wainwright, No. 80-545-CIV-T-GC (MD Fla., May 14, 1981), the Court of Appeals did not decide whether this finding was subject to the presumption because in its opinion the facts of the case required reversal of the sentence “under even the least rigorous standard of appellate review.” 714 F. 2d, at 1083, n. 10. The court did note confusion over whether § 2254(d) applies to a Witherspoon finding, however, and subsequently the Eleventh Circuit adopted the position that such a finding was a “mixed question of law and fact” not subject to the section. See Darden v. Wainwright, 725 F. 2d, at 1528-1530. This Court has recently decided several cases dealing with the scope of the § 2254(d) presumption. See, e. g., Patton v. Yount, 467 U. S. 1025 (1984); Rushen v. Spain, 464 U. S. 114 (1983); Marshall v. Lonberger, 459 U. S. 422 (1983); Sumner v. Mata, 455 U. S. 591 (1982) (Sumner II); Sumner v. Mata, 449 U. S. 539 (1981) (Sumner I). These cases have emphasized that state-court findings of fact are to be accorded the presumption of correctness. See Sumner II, supra, at 597, n. 10; Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U. S. 335, 342 (1980). Last Term, in Patton, supra, we held that a trial judge’s finding that a particular venireman was not biased and therefore was properly seated was a finding of fact subject to § 2254(d). We noted that the question whether a venireman is biased has traditionally been determined through voir dire culminating in a finding by the trial judge concerning the venireman’s state of mind. We also noted that such a finding is based upon determinations of demeanor and credibility that are peculiarly within a trial judge’s province. Such determinations were entitled to deference even on direct review; “[t]he respect paid such findings in a habeas proceeding certainly should be no less.” Id., at 1038. Patton’s holding applies equally well to a trial court’s determination that a prospective capital sentencing juror was properly excluded for cause. In Darden v. Wainwright, supra, at 1529, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reached a contrary conclusion because it viewed the exclusion of jurors under Witherspoon as a “mixed question of law and fact.” But the Darden court reached its conclusion because it labored under the misapprehension that the standard for determining exclusion was that found in Witherspoon’s footnote 21 — which imposed “a strict legal standard” and “a very high standard of proof.” 725 F. 2d, at 1528. Given this rather complex law, the court reasoned, a prospective juror’s answers would not alone decide the issues; the trial judge must still interpret them in light of the legal standard. Since the trial court’s function was application of law to fact, the determination was subject to independent review. It will not always be easy to separate questions of “fact” from “mixed questions of law and fact” for § 2254(d) purposes, cf. Patton, supra, at 1037, n. 12. But it is nevertheless clear, based on the foregoing discussion concerning the standard for exclusion, that reasoning such as that found in Darden is destined for the same end as the footnote upon which it is based. Once it is recognized that excluding prospective capital sentencing jurors because of their opposition to capital punishment is no different from excluding jurors for innumerable other reasons which result in bias, Patton must control. The trial judge is of course applying some kind of legal standard to what he sees and hears, but his predominant function in determining juror bias involves credibility findings whose basis cannot be easily discerned from an appellate record. These are the “factual issues” that are subject to § 2254(d). In so holding, we in no way denigrate the importance of an impartial jury. We reiterate what this Court stressed in Dennis v. United States, 339 U. S. 162, 168 (1950): “[T]he trial court has a serious duty to determine the question of actual bias, and a broad discretion in its rulings on challenges therefor.... In exercising its discretion, the trial court must be zealous to protect the rights of an accused.” IV Turning to the facts, we conclude that juror Colby was properly excused for cause. Applying the analysis required by § 2254(d), we have already determined that the question of challenge for bias is a “factual issue” covered by the section. Nor does respondent seriously urge that the trial court’s decision to excuse juror Colby for bias was not a “determination after a hearing on the merits.” Respondent does argue, however, that this conclusion was not “evidenced by a written finding, written opinion, or other reliable and adequate written indicia....” We disagree. The transcript of the voir dire reprinted above shows that juror Colby was questioned in the presence of both counsel and the judge; at the end of the colloquy the prosecution challenged for cause; and the challenge was sustained when the judge asked juror Colby to “step down.” Nothing more was required under the circumstances to satisfy the statute. Anyone familiar with trial court practice knows that the court reporter is relied upon to furnish an accurate account of what is said in the courtroom. The trial judge regularly relies upon this transcript as written indicia of various findings and rulings; it is not uncommon for a trial judge to merely make extemporaneous statements of findings from the bench. Our conclusion is strengthened by a review of available alternatives. We decline to require the judge to write out in a separate memorandum his specific findings on each juror excused. A trial judge’s job is difficult enough without senseless make-work. Nor do we think under the circumstances that the judge was required to announce for the record his conclusion that juror Colby was biased, or his reasoning. The finding is evident from the record. See Marshall v. Lonberger, 459 U. S., at 433. In this regard it is noteworthy that in this case the court was given no reason to think that elaboration was necessary; defense counsel did not see fit to object to juror Colby’s recusal, or to attempt rehabilitation. The finding of the trial judge is therefore “presumed correct” unless one of the enumerated reasons for avoiding the presumption is present here. Respondent does not suggest that paragraphs 1 through 7 are applicable; he must therefore rest his case on the exception in paragraph 8 — that the finding of bias is “not fairly supported” by the record viewed “as a whole.” Respondent attacks the record in two ways. First, he notes that venireman Colby was the first juror questioned, and claims that from the record there is no way to determine whether the trial judge applied the correct standard. As we have stated on other occasions, however, where the record does not indicate the standard applied by a state trial judge, he is presumed to have applied the correct one. See Marshall v. Lonberger, supra, at 433; LaVallee v. Delle Rose, 410 U. S. 690, 694-695 (1973); Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293, 314-315 (1963). Here, in addition, there is every indication that the judge indeed applied the correct standard. Although the judge did not participate in questioning venireman Colby, the record shows that on several subsequent occasions during voir dire he did participate in questioning. On each of those occasions the judge asked questions entirely consistent with the Adams standard. There is no reason to believe, as respondent seems to suggest, that the judge’s understanding of the standard changed between the time of the questioning of Colby and the questioning of the later veniremen. Respondent’s second contention is that the colloquy between the prosecutor and Colby is simply too ambiguous to support the trial court’s decision to excuse her. Respondent claims that the ambiguity he sees is due to the prosecutor’s use of the word “interfere” in his questioning of Colby; merely because juror Colby affirmed that her views would “interfere” with her sitting does not necessarily indicate whether she could in any event have applied the law impartially. Respondent agrees that some jurors might interpret “interfere” to mean “prevent” (the word which is used in the key passage in our Adams opinion), but claims that other equally reasonable jurors could understand it to mean “make difficult,” “create emotional turmoil,” or “impair, but not substantially.” As a corollary, respondent suggests that because the posited ambiguity was caused by the question, rather than the answer, there is no reason to defer to the trial judge’s finding, since a finding based upon Colby’s demeanor would be worthless without a finding that she had a particular understanding of the question. The Court of Appeals agreed with respondent that “[t]he word ‘interfere’ admits of a great variety of interpretations,” and that the colloquy between the prosecutor and Colby did not indicate the extent of the “interference.” 714 F. 2d, at 1082. If we were so brash as to undertake a treatise on synonyms and antonyms, we would agree that the dictionary definitions of “interfere” are not identical with the dictionary definitions of “prevent.” But that, of course, is not the question. The fact that a particular verb is used in a key passage of an appellate opinion stating the standard for excusing jurors for cause does not mean that that word, and no other, must be used in all the thousands of subsequent proceedings in which the prosecution challenges jurors for cause. The law is stated in an opinion such as Adams; but the question in subsequent cases is whether a trial court finding that the standard was met is “fairly supported” by the “record... considered as a whole....” The standard in this case is the easily understood one enunciated in Adams; 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.” 448 U. S., at 45. Relevant voir dire questions addressed to this issue need not be framed exclusively in the language of the controlling appellate opinion; the opinion is, after all, an opinion and not an intricate devise in a will. As we emphasized in Marshall v. Lonberger, 459 U. S., at 432, the question is not whether a reviewing court might disagree with the trial court’s findings, but whether those findings are fairly supported by the record. Here we think there is ample support for the trial court’s finding that Colby’s views would have prevented or substantially impaired the performance of her duties as a juror. On four separate occasions she affirmed that her beliefs would interfere with her sitting as a juror. One common meaning of “interfere” is to “create an obstacle.” Respondent argues that in Colby’s case, the obstacle was not insurmountable; but the trial court found to the contrary. As we stated in Marshall v. Lonberger, supra, at 434: “As was aptly stated by the New York Court of Appeals, although in a case of rather different substantive nature: ‘Face to face with living witnesses the original trier of the facts holds a position of advantage from which appellate judges are excluded. In doubtful cases the exercise of his power of observation often proves the most accurate method of ascertaining the truth.,.. How can we say the judge is wrong? We never saw the witnesses.... To the sophistication and sagacity of the trial judge the law confides the duty of appraisal.’ Boyd v. Boyd, 252 N. Y. 422, 429, 169 N. E. 632, 634.” Thus, whatever ambiguity respondent may find in this record, we think that the trial court, aided as it undoubtedly was by its assessment of Colby’s demeanor, was entitled to resolve it in favor of the State. We note in addition that respondent’s counsel chose not to question Colby himself, or to object to the trial court’s excusing her for cause. This questioning might have resolved any perceived ambiguities in the questions; its absence is all the more conspicuous because counsel did object to the trial court’s excusing other veniremen later on during the voir dire. Indeed, from what appears on the record it seems that at the time Colby was excused no one in the courtroom questioned the fact that her beliefs prevented her from sitting. The reasons for this, although not crystal clear from the printed record, may well have been readily apparent to those viewing Colby as she answered the questions. Respondent’s attempt to separate the answers from the questions misses the mark; the trial court, hopefully imbued with a fair amount of common sense as well as an understanding of the applicable law, views the questioning as a whole. It is free to interrupt questioning to clarify any particular statement. There is nothing in this record which indicates that anybody had trouble understanding the meaning of the questions and answers with respect to Colby. One of the purposes of § 2254(d) was to prevent precisely this kind of parsing of trial court transcripts to create problems on collateral review where none were seen at trial. The trial court’s finding of bias was made under the proper standard, was subject to § 2254(d), and was fairly supported by the record. Since respondent has not adduced “clear and convincing evidence that the factual determination by the State court was erroneous,” we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. It is so ordered. Respondent argued in the Court of Appeals that 3 of the 11 prospective jurors excused for cause — veniremen Colby, Gehm, and Miller — were improperly excused. The court considered Mrs. Colby’s colloquy the “least certain statement of inability to follow the law as instructed,” and limited its discussion to her questioning. See 714 F. 2d, at 1081 (emphasis in original). We agree that Mrs. Colby provided the least clear example of a biased venireman, and we therefore need not discuss the voir dire of veniremen Gehm and Miller. Maxwell and Boulden cited the following language from footnote 9: “Unless a venireman states unambiguously that he would automatically vote against the imposition of capital punishment no matter what the trial might reveal, it simply cannot be assumed that that is his position.” Maxwell, 398 U. S., at 265; Boulden, 394 U. S., at 482 (emphasis added). The Court cited the following answer of venireman Jenson, whom the Court found was improperly excluded: “ ‘Well, I think it probably would [affect my deliberations] because afterall Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. This case was argued with No. 695, Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, ante, p. 430, and No. 805, Raney v. Board of Education of the Gould School District, ante, p. 443. The question for decision is similar to the question decided in those cases. Here, however, the principal feature of a desegregation plan— which calls in question its adequacy to effectuate a transition to a racially nondiscriminatory system in compliance with Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294 (Brown II) — is not “freedom of choice” but a variant commonly referred to as “free transfer.” The respondent Board of Commissioners is the School Board for the City of Jackson, located in midwestern Tennessee. The school district coincides with the city limits. Some one-third of the city’s population of 40,000 are Negroes, the great majority of whom live in the city’s central area. The school system has eight elementary schools, three junior high schools, and two senior high schools. There are 7,650 children enrolled in the system’s schools, about 40% of whom, over 3,200, are Negroes. In 1954 Tennessee by law required racial segregation in its public schools. Accordingly, five elementary schools, two junior high schools, and one senior high school were operated as “white” schools, and three elementary schools, one junior high school, and one senior high school were operated as “Negro” schools. Racial segregation extended to all aspects of school life including faculties and staffs. After Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 {Brown I), declared such state-imposed dual systems unconstitutional, Tennessee enacted a pupil placement law, Tenn. Code §49-1741 et seq. (1966). That law continued previously enrolled pupils in their assigned schools and vested local school boards with the exclusive authority to approve assignment and transfer requests. No white children enrolled in any “Negro” school under the statute and the respondent Board granted only seven applications of Negro children to enroll in “white” schools, three in 1961 and four in 1962. In March 1962 the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the pupil placement law was inadequate “as a plan to convert a biracial system into a nonracial one.” Northcross v. Board of Education of City of Memphis, 302 F. 2d 818, 821. In January 1963 petitioners brought this action in the District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. The complaint sought a declaratory judgment that respondent was operating a compulsory racially segregated school system, injunctive relief against the continued maintenance of that system, an order directing the admission to named “white” schools of the plaintiff Negro school children, and an order requiring respondent Board to formulate a desegregation plan. The District Court ordered the Board to enroll the children in the schools in question and directed the Board to formulate and file a desegregation plan. A plan was duly filed and, after modifications directed by the court were incorporated, the plan was approved in August 1963 to be effective immediately in the elementary schools and to be gradually extended over a four-year period to the junior high schools and senior high schools. 221 F. Supp. 968. The modified plan provides for the automatic assignment of pupils living within attendance zones drawn by the Board or school officials along geographic or “natural” boundaries and “according to the capacity and facilities of the [school] buildings . . within the zones. Id., at 974. However, the plan also has the “free-transfer” provision which was ultimately to bring this case to this Court: Any child, after he has complied with the requirement that he register annually in his assigned school in his attendance zone, may freely transfer to another school of his choice if space is available, zone residents having priority in cases of overcrowding. Students must provide their own transportation; the school system does not operate school buses. By its terms the “free-transfer” plan was first applied in the elementary schools. After one year of operation petitioners, joined by 27 other Negro school children, moved in September 1964 for further relief in the District Court, alleging respondent had administered the plan in a racially discriminatory manner. At that time, the three Negro elementary schools remained all Negro; and 118 Negro pupils were scattered among four of the five formerly all-white elementary schools. After hearing evidence, the District Court found that in two respects the Board had indeed administered the plan in a discriminatory fashion. First, it had systematically denied Negro children — specifically the 27 intervenors — the right to transfer from their all-Negro zone schools to schools where white students were in the majority, although white students seeking transfers from Negro schools, to white schools had been allowed to transfer. The court held this to be a constitutional violation, see Goss v. Board of Education, 373 U. S. 683, as well as a violation of the terms of the plan itself. 244 F. Supp. 353, 359. Second, the court found that the Board, in drawing the lines of the geographic attendance zones, had gerrymandered three elementary school zones to exclude Negro residential areas from white school zones and to include those areas in zones of Negro schools located farther away. Id., at 361-362. In the same 1964 proceeding the Board filed with the court its proposed zones for the three junior high schools, Jackson and Tigrett, the “white” junior high schools, and Merry, the “Negro” junior high school. As of the 1964 school year the three schools retained their racial identities, although Jackson did have one Negro child among its otherwise all-white student body. The faculties and staffs of the respective schools were also segregated. Petitioners objected to the proposed zones on two grounds, arguing first that they were racially gerrymandered because so drawn as to assign Negro children to the “Negro” Merry school and white children to the “white” Jackson and Tigrett schools, and alternatively that the plan was in any event inadequate to reorganize the system on a nonracial basis. Petitioners, through expert witnesses, urged that the Board be required to adopt a “feeder system,” a commonly used method of assigning students whereby each junior high school would draw its students from specified elementary schools. The groupings could be made so as to assure racially integrated student bodies in all three junior high schools, with due regard for educational and administrative considerations such as building capacity and proximity of students to the schools. The District Court held that petitioners had not sustained their allegations that the proposed junior high school attendance zones were gerrymandered, saying “Tigrett [white] is located in the western section, Merry [Negro] is located in the central section and Jackson [white] is located in the eastern section. The zones proposed by the defendants would, generally, allocate the western section to Tigrett, the central section to Merry, and the eastern section to Jackson. The boundaries follow major streets or highways and railroads. According to the school population maps, there are a considerable number of Negro pupils in the southern part of the Tigrett zone, a considerable number of white pupils in the middle and northern parts of the Merry zone, and a considerable number of Negro pupils in the southern part of the Jackson zone. The location of the three schools in an approximate east-west line makes it inevitable that the three zones divide the city in three parts from north to south. While it appears that proximity of pupils and natural boundaries are not as important in zoning for junior highs as in' zoning for elementary schools, it does not appear that Negro pupils will be discriminated against.” 244 F. Supp., at 362. As for the recommended “feeder system,” the District Court concluded simply that “there is no constitutional requirement that this particular system be adopted.” Ibid. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed except on an issue of faculty desegregation, as to which the case was remanded for further proceedings. 380 F. 2d 955. We granted certiorari, 389 U. S. 1033, and set the case for oral argument immediately following Green v. County School Board, supra. Although the case presented by the petition for certiorari concerns only the junior high schools, the plan in its application to elementary and senior high schools is also necessarily implicated since the right of “free transfer” extends to pupils at all levels. The principles governing determination of the adequacy of the plan as compliance with the Board’s responsibility to effectuate a transition to a racially nondiscriminatory system are those announced today in Green v. County School Board, supra. Tested by those principles the plan is clearly inadequate. Three school years have followed the District Court’s approval of the attendance zones for the junior high schools. Yet Merry Junior High School was still completely a “Negro” school in the 1967-1968 school year, enrolling some 640 Negro pupils, or over 80% of the system’s Negro junior high school students. Not one of the “considerable number of white pupils in the middle and northern parts of the Merry zone” assigned there under the attendance zone aspect of the plan chose to stay at Merry. Every one exercised his option to transfer out of the “Negro” school. The “white” Tigrett school seemingly had the same experience in reverse. Of the “considerable number of Negro pupils in the southern part of the Tigrett zone” mentioned by the District Court, only seven are enrolled in the student body of 819; apparently all other Negro children assigned to Tigrett chose to go elsewhere. Only the “white” Jackson school presents a different picture; there, 349 white children and 135 Negro children compose the student body. How many of the Negro children transferred in from the “white” Tigrett school does not appear. The experience in the junior high schools mirrors that of the elementary schools. Thus the three elementary schools that were operated as Negro schools in 1954 and continued as such until 1963 are still attended only by Negroes. The five “white” schools all have some Negro children enrolled, from as few as three (in a student body of 781) to as many as 160 (in a student body of 682). This experience with “free transfer” was accurately predicted by the District Court as early as 1963: “In terms of numbers . . . the ratio of Negro to white pupils is approximately 40-60. This figure is, however, somewhat misleading as a measure of the extent to which integration will actually occur under the proposed plan. Because the homes of Negro children are concentrated in certain areas of the city, a plan of unitary zoning, even if prepared without consideration of race, will result in a concentration of Negro children in the zones of heretofore ‘Negro’ schools and white children in the zones of heretofore ‘white’ schools. Moreover, this tendency of concentration in schools will be further accentuated by the exercise of choice of schools ... .” 221 F. Supp., at 971. (Emphasis supplied.) Plainly, the plan does not meet respondent’s “affirmative duty to take whatever steps might be necessary to convert to a unitary system in which racial discrimination would be eliminated root and branch.” Green v. County School Board, supra, at 437-438. Only by dismantling the state-imposed dual system can that end be achieved. And manifestly, that end has not been achieved here nor does the plan approved by the lower courts for the junior high schools promise meaningful progress toward doing so. “Rather than further the dismantling of the dual system, the [“free transfer”] plan has operated simply to burden children and their parents with a responsibility which Brown II placed squarely on the School Board.” Green v. County School Board, supra, at 441-442. That the Board has chosen to adopt a method achieving minimal disruption of the old pattern is evident from its long delay in making any effort whatsoever to desegregate, and the deliberately discriminatory manner in which the Board administered the plan until checked by the District Court. The District Court approved the junior high school attendance-zone lines in the view that as drawn they assigned students to the three schools in a way that was capable of producing meaningful desegregation of all three schools. But the “free-transfer” option has permitted the “considerable number” of white or Negro students in at least two of the zones to return, at the implicit invitation of the Board, to the comfortable security of the old, established discriminatory pattern. Like the transfer provisions held invalid in Goss v. Board of Education, 373 U. S. 683, 686, “[i]t is readily apparent that the transfer [provision] lends itself to perpetuation of segregation.” While we there indicated that “free-transfer” plans under some circumstances might be valid, we explicitly stated that “no official transfer plan or provision of which racial segregation is the inevitable consequence may stand under the Fourteenth Amendment.” Id., at 689. So it is here; no attempt has been made to justify the transfer provision as a device designed to meet “legitimate local problems,” ibid.; rather it patently operates as a device to allow resegregation of the races to the extent desegregation would be achieved by geographically drawn zones. Respondent’s argument in this Court reveals its purpose. We are frankly told in the Brief that without the transfer option it is apprehended that white students will flee the school system altogether. “But it should go without saying that the vitality of these constitutional principles cannot be allowed to yield simply because of disagreement with them.” Brown II, at 300. We do not hold that “free transfer” can have no place in a desegregation plan. But like “freedom of choice,” if it cannot be shown that such a plan will further rather than delay conversion to a unitary, nonracial, nondiscriminatory school system, it must be held unacceptable. See Green v. County School Board, supra, at 439-441. We conclude, therefore, that the Board “must be required to formulate a new plan and, in light of other courses which appear open to the Board, . . . fashion steps which promise realistically to convert promptly to a system without a ‘white’ school and a ‘Negro’ school, but just schools.” Id., at 442. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated insofar as it affirmed the District Court’s approval of the plan in its application to the junior high schools, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion and with our opinion in Green v. County School Board, supra. It is so ordered. We imply no agreement with the District Court’s conclusion that under the proposed attendance zones for junior high schools “it does not appear that Negro pupils will be discriminated against.” We note also that on the record as it now stands, it appears that petitioners’ recommended “feeder system,” the feasibility of which respondent did not challenge in the District Court, is an effective alternative reasonably available to respondent to abolish the dual system in the junior high schools. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 District Court, having held that the Georgia Legislature was malapportioned (Toombs v. Fortson, 205 F. Supp. 248), enjoined appellants, election officials, “from placing on the ballot to be used in the General Election to be held on November 3, 1964, pr at any subsequent election until the General Assembly is reapportioned in accordance with constitutional standards, the question whether a constitutional amendment purporting to amend the present state constitution by substituting an entirely new constitution therefor shall be adopted.” Appellants challenge that provision on the merits. Appellees, while defending it on the merits, suggest alternatively that the issue has become moot. The situation has changed somewhat since the 1964 election, as both the Senate and the House have new members, and appellees, for whose benefit the challenged provision was added, say it is now highly speculative as to what the 1965 legislature will do and suggest the paragraph in question be vacated as moot. We vacate this part of the decree and remand to the District Court, to whom we give a wide range in mould-ing a decree (United States v. Crescent Amusement Co., 323 U. S. 173, 185; International Boxing Club v. United States, 358 U. S. 242, 253), for reconsideration of the desirability and need for the on-going injunction in light of the results of the 1964 election and the representations of appellees. It is so ordered. The entire paragraph reads as follows: “The defendants are hereby enjoined from placing on the ballot to be used in the General Election to be held on November 3, 1984, or at any subsequent election until the General Assembly is reapportioned in accordance with constitutional standards, the question whether a constitutional amendment purporting to amend the present state constitution by substituting an entirely new constitution therefor shall be adopted; provided, however, nothing in this order shall prevent the submission of amendments to the Constitution of the State of Georgia which are separate as to subject matter, in accordance with Article XIII, Section I, Article 1, of the Constitution of the State of Georgia, 1945. (See Hammond v. Clarke, 136 Ga. 313, for a discussion by the Georgia Supreme Court of what constitutes separate amendments). Nor shall anything in this order prevent the calling by the General Assembly of a ‘convention of the people to revise, amend or change the constitution’ if the representation ‘in the convention is based on population as near as practicable’ with the members being elected by the people (see Article XIII, Section I, Article 2). Constitution of the State of Georgia, 1945.” Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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

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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. SECOND SUPPLEMENTAL DECREE For the purpose of identifying with greater particularity parts of the boundary line, as defined by the Supplemental Decree of January 31, 1966, 382 U. S. 448, between the submerged lands of the United States and the submerged lands of the State of California, it is ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that this Court's Supplemental Decree of January 31, 1966, be, and the same is hereby, further supplemented as follows: 1.Closing Lines Across Entrances to Bodies of Inland Waters a. The inland waters of the following bodies of water are enclosed by straight lines between the mean lower low-water lines at the seaward ends of the jetties located at their mouths: 1. Humboldt Bay 2. Port Hueneme 3. Santa Ana River 4. Agua Hedionda Lagoon b. The inland waters of San Francisco Bay are those enclosed by a series of straight lines from the southwestern head of Point Bonita (37°48'56"N, 122°31' 44"W); thence to the western edge of an unnamed island immediately to the south (37°48/55"N, 122°31/44.2//W); thence southward to the western edge of a second unnamed island (37°48/53"N,- 122°31'44"W); thence southward to the western edge of a third unnamed island (37°46'57"N, 122°30'52"W); thence to a western head of Point Lobos (37°46'53"N, 122°30'49"W). The length of this closing line is 2.18 nautical miles. c. The inland waters of Bodega-Tomales Bay are those enclosed by a straight line drawn from Bodega Head (38° 17'53.8"N, 123°03/25.3"W); thence to the western edge of an unnamed island northwest of Tómales Point (38° 14'28.4"N, 122°59'41.5"W); thence southward to Tómales Point (38°14/26.5"N, 122°59'39"W). d. The closing lines delineated in the foregoing paragraph are part of the coastline of California; The foregoing is without prejudice to the right of either party to assert or deny that other closing lines are part of the coastline of California for purposes of establishing the Federal-State boundary line under the Submerged Lands Act, 67 Stat. 29, as amended. 2. Artificial Extensions of the Coastline The mean lower low-water line along each of the following structures is part of the coastline of California for purposes of establishing the Federal-State boundary line under the Submerged Lands Act: a. The Morro Bay breakwater b. The Port San Luis breakwater c. The Santa Barbara breakwater d. The Ventura Marina breakwater e. The Channel Islands Harbor breakwater f. Three rubble groins at Point Mugu g. The Santa Monica breakwater h. The Venice Beach groin i. The Marina del Rey breakwater j. Three rubble groins along Dockweiler Beach k. The Redondo Beach breakwater l. Two harbor jetties at Newport Bay m. The Dana Point breakwater n. The Oceanside breakwater o. Two harbor jetties at entrance to Mission Bay p. The Zuniga jetty at San Diego (including the southern seaward end of this entire structure) The foregoing is without prejudice to the right of either party to assert or deny that other artificial structures are part of the coastline of California for purposes of establishing the Federal-State boundary line under the Submerged Lands Act. 3. The Court retains jurisdiction to entertain such further proceedings, enter such orders, and issue such writs as may from time to time be deemed necessary or advisable to give proper force and effect to this decree or to effectuate the rights of the parties in the premises. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

J

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Black delivered the opinion of the Court. This case raises questions concerning the power of a Court of Appeals to render judgment for a defendant instead of merely ordering a new trial after it has set aside a jury verdict and trial court judgment for a plaintiff. The petitioner sued the respondent railroad under the Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. § 688, for wrongful death of her husband. When the evidence was all in, the railroad moved to dismiss the complaint and also asked for a directed verdict in its favor on the grounds that no negligence had been proven and that the deceased had been responsible for his own death. The trial court reserved decision on the motion, submitted the case to the jury, a verdict of $20,000 was returned for petitioner, and judgment was entered on the verdict. Within ten days after reception of the verdict the railroad moved to have the verdict set aside on the ground that it was excessive, contrary to the law, to the evidence, to the weight of the evidence. More than two months later this motion was denied; in the same order denying that motion the court also denied the pre-verdict motions for dismissal and for a directed verdict on which action had been reserved prior to verdict. Holding that the motion for a directed verdict should have been granted, the Court of Appeals reversed. 194 F. 2d 194. Both parties agree that this reversal requires the District Court to enter judgment for the railroad notwithstanding the verdict, thereby depriving petitioner of another trial. Whether the Court of Appeals could direct such a judgment consistently with Rule 50 (b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is the single question we granted certiorari to review. 343 U. S. 975. On several recent occasions we have considered Rule 50 (b). We have said that in the absence of a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict made in the trial court within ten days after reception of a verdict the rule forbids the trial judge or an appellate court to enter such a judgment. Cone v. West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., 330 U. S. 212. We repeated that construction of the rule in Globe Liquor Co. v. San Roman, 332 U. S. 571, and reemphasized it in Fountain v. Filson, 336 U. S. 681. Although this respondent made several motions it did not as the rule requires move within ten days after verdict “to have judgment entered in accordance with his [its] motion for a directed verdict.” We are told, however, in respondent’s brief that its motion to set aside the verdict “was intended to be a motion for judgment in its favor or for a new trial” and that “[o]bviously respondent did not merely want the verdict to be set aside but wanted the relief that invariably follows such a setting aside on the grounds urged: a judgment in its favor or a new trial.” The defect in this argument is that respondent’s motions cannot be measured by its unexpressed intention or wants. Neither the trial judge nor the Court of Appeals appears'to have treated the motion to set aside the verdict as asking for anything but that. And surely petitioner is not to have her opportunity to remedy any shortcomings in her case jeopardized by a failure to fathom the unspoken hopes of respondent’s counsel. Respondent’s motion should be treated as nothing but what it actually was, one to set aside the verdict — not one to enter judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Respondent separately argues that a trial judge’s express reservation of decision on motion for a directed verdict relieves a party from any duty whatever under 50 (b) to make a motion for judgment after verdict. This contention not only flies in the teeth of the rule’s unambiguous language but if sustained would undermine safeguards for litigants some of which have been pointed out in prior cases. The rule carefully sets out the steps and procedures to be followed by the parties as a prerequisite to entry of judgments notwithstanding an adverse jury verdict. Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Duncan, 311 U. S. 243, 250. It was adopted following confusion in this field brought about in part by three cases decided by this Court, Slocum v. New York Life Ins. Co., 228 U. S. 364; Baltimore & Carolina Line, Inc. v. Redman, 295 U. S. 654; and Aetna Ins. Co. v. Kennedy, 301 U. S. 389. The Slocum case was understood to hold that the Seventh Amendment forbade United States courts to enter judgments in favor of one party after jury verdict in favor of the other. The Redman case tried in New York held that the Seventh Amendment did not forbid entry of judgment notwithstanding a verdict where, prior to the verdict, the trial judge, following New York procedure, had expressly reserved his decision on a motion for a directed verdict. The New York District Court was authorized to follow this state practice because of the Conformity Act, R. S. (1878) § 914. Thus the Redman case did not purport to adopt New York procedure for the general guidance of federal courts. Later the Kennedy case cast doubt on the Redman holding, at least as to its scope. In the Kennedy case plaintiff’s request for directed verdict had not been followed by a timely motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict as required by Pennsylvania law. Failure to conform to this Pennsylvania practice was a reason given by this Court for finding lack of power in the District Court to enter judgment contrary to the verdict. Rule 50 (b) was designed to provide a precise plan to end the prevailing confusion about directed verdicts and motions for judgments notwithstanding verdicts. State procedure was no longer to control federal courts as it had in the Redman and Kennedy cases. Federal courts were to be guided by this new rule, which provided its own exclusive procedural program. It rejected the New York procedure applied in the Redman case, which permitted judgment to be set aside even though no motion to do so had been filed after verdict. Instead it approached more closely the Pennsylvania rule, relied on in the Kennedy case, under which judgments contrary to verdicts would not be awarded in the absence of specific timely motions for them. But Rule 50 (b) departed from the New York and Pennsylvania procedures by making it wholly unnecessary for a judge to make an express reservation of his decision on a motion for directed verdict. The rule itself made the reservation automatic. A court is always “deemed to have submitted the action to the jury subject to a later determination” of the right to a directed verdict if a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict is made “within 10 days after the reception of a verdict . . . .” This requirement of a timely application for judgment after verdict is not an idle motion. This verdict solves factual questions against the post-verdict movant and thus emphasizes the importance of the legal issues. The movant can also ask for a new trial either for errors of law or on discretionary grounds. The requirement for timely motion after verdict is thus an essential part of the rule, firmly grounded in principles of fairness. See Cone v. West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., supra, at 217-218. Poor support for its abandonment would be afforded by the mere fact that a judge makes an express reservation of a decision which the rule reserves regardless of what the judge does. Rule 50 (b) as written and as construed by us is not difficult to understand or to observe. Rewriting the rule to fit counsel’s unexpressed wants and intentions would make it easy to reintroduce the same type of confusion and uncertainty the rule was adopted to end. In 1946 this Court was asked to adopt an amendment to the rule which would have given appellate courts power to enter judgments for parties who, like this respondent, had made no timely motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. We did not adopt the amendment then. 5 Moore, Federal Practice (2d ed. 1951), ¶¶ 50.01 [7], 50.01 [9], 50.11. No sufficiently persuasive reasons are presented why we should do so now under the guise of interpretation. Respondent made a motion to set aside the verdict and for new trial within the time required by Rule 50 (b). It failed to comply with permission given by 50 (b) to move for judgment n. o. v. after the verdict. In this situation respondent is entitled only to a new trial, not to a judgment in its favor. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated and the cause is remanded to it for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. “Whenever a motion for a directed verdict made at the close of all the evidence is denied or for any reason is not granted, the court is deemed to have submitted the action to the jury subject to a later determination of the legal questions raised by the motion. Within 10 days after the reception of a verdict, a party who has moved for a directed verdict may move to have the verdict and any judgment entered thereon set aside and to have judgment entered in accordance with his motion for a directed verdict; or if a verdict was not returned such party, within 10 days after the jury has been discharged, may move for judgment in accordance with his motion for a directed verdict. A motion for a new trial may be joined with this motion, or a new trial may be prayed for in the alternative. . . .” The controlling Pennsylvania statute then was Pa. Laws 1905, No. 198. Like Rule 50 (b) it provided for a timely motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. The binding duty to do this was explained by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania as follows, in a case relied on by this Court in the Kennedy case: “To secure the benefit of that act its terms must be complied with, that is, the refusal of the request for binding instructions must be followed by a proper motion made in due time: Pyle v. Finnessy, 275 Pa. 54, 57. Here the record as duly certified discloses no such motion nor any evidence that one was made. True, the question of the absence of such motion was not raised in the lower court but, being one of jurisdiction, it cannot be ignored. It follows that as the record stands the judgment cannot be sustained.” West v. Manatawny Mut. F. & S. Ins. Co., 277 Pa. 102, 104, 120 A. 763, 764. The writer of this opinion and The Chief Justice are not convinced that the Court of Appeals attempted to direct a verdict for the railroad. What the court said was: “In our opinion the motion for a directed verdict should have been granted. Accordingly the judgment is reversed.” But holding that a directed verdict should have been given cannot be the equivalent of a court’s entry of judgment for defendant notwithstanding a jury verdict for plaintiff. For after setting aside a verdict as authorized by Rule 50 (b), a trial judge may “either” enter a judgment contrary to the verdict “or” order a new trial. The rule thereby requires the exercise of an informed judicial discretion as a condition precedent to a choice between these two alternatives. Cone v. West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., supra, at 215. And this discretion must be exercised by the court, not by its clerk. The Court was told during oral argument that it is the practice in the Second Circuit for the clerk to include in his mandate a direction to the district court to have a judgment entered in favor of a party notwithstanding the verdict where the court reverses a district court’s refusal to direct a verdict. A rule of practice of this kind under which a court clerk’s mandate would automatically direct entry of a judgment for defendant after court reversal of a plaintiff’s judgment could not possibly be the result of the kind of judicial discretion directed by Rule 50 (b). We are not willing to attribute such a practice to the Second Circuit. The Second Circuit’s Rules of Practice do not prescribe a practice of that kind. See F. C. A., Rules, c. 5, pp. 96-103, 16 S. Ct. Dig. 143-169, U. S. Dig., Court Rules (L. Ed.), pp. 573-589. Nor do the rules of any other circuit. See F. C. A., Rules, cc. 4-13, pp. 84-194, 16 S. Ct. Dig. 107-523, U. S. Dig., Court Rules (L. Ed.), pp. 545-827. No case has been found that indicates such a practice by the Second or any other Circuit. Since adoption of Rule 50 (b) in 1938, courts of appeals wishing to enter or direct judgment have said so in clear, simple and mandatory language. As to the Second Circuit, see e. g., Venides v. United Greek Shipowners Corp., 168 F. 2d 681; Brennan v. B. & O. R. Co., 115 F. 2d 555; Williams v. New Jersey-N. Y. Transit Co., 113 F. 2d 649; Conway v. O’Brien, 111 F. 2d 611. The Fifth Circuit emphatically pointed out that mere reversal and remand for proceedings consistent with the opinion did not authorize a trial court to enter judgment notwithstanding the verdict; entry of such a judgment was only to be granted as of discretion and after a hearing. Fleniken v. Great American Indemnity Co., 142 F. 2d 938; see also In re Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York, 188 F. 2d 424, 425-426. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

I

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court. These cases require us to decide whether a trustee appointed to liquidate and distribute property as part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan must file income tax returns and pay income tax under the Internal Revenue Code. HH Miami Center Limited Partnership borrowed money from the Bank of New York (Bank) to develop “Miami Center,” a hotel and office building complex in Miami, Florida. In August 1984, after it defaulted on the loan, MCLP and four affiliated debtors — Holywell Corporation, Chopin Associates, Miami Center Corporation, and Theodore B. Gould — each filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy petitions. The Bankruptcy Court consolidated the five cases. Prior to confirmation of a Chapter 11 plan, the debtors represented their own bankruptcy estates as debtors in possession. See 11 U. S. C. § 1101(1). The estates of Gould and Holywell contained two principal assets: equity in Miami Center and cash proceeds from the postbankruptcy sale of certain real estate in Washington, D. C., known as the Washington Properties. In August 1985, the Bank and other creditors approved a “Consolidated Plan of Reorganization.” The plan required the debtors to give up their interests in Miami Center and the proceeds from the sale of the Washington Properties, but otherwise permitted them to remain in business. Part V of the plan provided:, “1. A Trust is hereby declared and established on behalf of the Debtors ... and an individual to be appointed by the Court... is designated as Trustee of all property of the estates of the Debtors . . . , including but not limited to, Miami Center [and] the Washington Proceeds ... , to hold, liquidate, and distribute such Trust Property according to the terms of this Plan. The Trust shall be known as the ‘Miami Center Liquidating Trust.' “2. . . . [A]ll right, title and interest of the Debtors in and to the Trust Property, including Miami Center, shall vest in the Trustee, without further act or deed by the Debtors . .. App. 41. The plan required the trustee to liquidate and distribute all of the trust property to the creditors of the various bankruptcy estates. It empowered the trustee to “[m]anage, operate, improve, and protect the Trust Property”; to “[pe-lease, convey, or assign any right, title or interest in or about the Trust Property”; and to perform other, similar actions. Id., at 42. The plan said nothing about whether the trustee had to file income tax returns or pay any income tax due. The United States did not object to its confirmation. The plan took effect on October 10,1985. The trustee appointed by the court, respondent Fred Stanton Smith, immediately sold Miami Center to the Bank in consideration for cash and cancellation of the Bank’s claim. The trustee then distributed these and other assets to third-party creditors. Holywell Corporation filed' a tax return for the fiscal year ending July 31, 1985. The income for this fiscal year included capital gains earned in the sale of the Washington Properties. Holywell asked the trustee to pay the taxes owed. Neither the corporate debtors nor the trustee filed federal income tax returns for any fiscal year ending after July 31,1985. The income for these years included the capital gains earned in the sale of Miami Center and interest earned by reinvesting the proceeds. In December 1987, the trustee sought a declaratory judgment from the Bankruptcy Court that he had no duty to file income tax returns or pay income tax under the federal income tax laws. The United States and the debtors opposed the action. The Bankruptcy Court declared that the trustee did not have to make any federal tax returns or pay any taxes. 85 B. R. 898 (SD Fla. 1988). The District Court, in an unreported opinion, and the Court of Appeals, 911 F. 2d 1539 (CA11 1990), both affirmed. The United States, in No. 90-1484, and the debtors, in No. 90-1361, each petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari. We granted review. 500 U. S. 941 (1991). II The Internal Revenue Code ties the duty to pay federal income taxes to the duty to make an income tax return. See 26 U. S. C. § 6151(a) (“[W]hen a return of a tax is required . . . the person required to make such return shall . . . pay such tax”). We conclude in this case that the trustee must pay the tax due on the income attributable to the corporate debtors’ property because § 6012(b)(3) requires him to make a return as the “assignee” of the “property ... of a corporation.” We further hold that the trustee must pay the tax due on the income attributable to the individual debtor’s property because § 6012(b)(4) requires him to make a return as the “fiduciary” of a “trust.” Finally, we decide that the United States did not excuse the trustee from these duties by failing to object to the plan. A We first consider the trustee’s duties with respect to the corporate debtors. Section 6012(b)(3) provides: “(3) Receivers, trustees and assignees for corporations “In a case where a receiver, trustee in a case under title 11 of the United States Code, or assignee, by order of a court of competent jurisdiction, by operation of law or otherwise, has possession of or holds title to all or substantially all the property or business of a corporation, whether or not such property or business is being operated, such receiver, trustee, or assignee shall make the return of income for such corporation in the same manner and form as corporations are required to make such returns.” The parties disagree about whether the trustee in this case is a “receiver,” a “trustee in a case under title 11 of the United States Code [i. e., the Bankruptcy Code],” or an “assignee.” We hold that the trustee is an “assignee” of the corporate debtors under § 6012(b)(3). Because the parties do not argue that the trustee’s duties would differ under another characterization, we decline to consider whether the trustee would qualify as a receiver or bankruptcy trustee. The plan, as noted above, transferred the corporate debtors’ estates to respondent Smith as trustee for the Miami Center Liquidating Trust. The respondents do not dispute that the trustee meets the usual definition of the word “as-signee” in both ordinary and legal usage. See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 132 (1986) (defining an “assignee” as “one to whom a right or property is legally transferred”); Black’s Law Dictionary 118-119 (6th ed. 1990) (defining an “assignee” as “[a] person to whom an assignment is made” and an “assignment” as “[tjhe act of transferring to another all or part of one’s property, interest, or rights”); cf. 26 CFR § 301.6036-1(a)(3) (1991) (defining an “as-signee for the benefit of . . . creditors” as any person who takes possession of and liquidates property of a debtor for distribution to creditors). They argue, however, that courts have applied § 6012(b)(3) only in situations in which a person winds up the business of a dissolving corporation, see, e. g., First Nat. Bank of Greeley, Colo. v. United States, 86 F. 2d 938, 942 (CA10 1936), or a person stands in the place of management in operating the day-to-day business of a distressed corporation, see, e. g., Louisville Property Co. v. Commissioner, 140 F. 2d 547, 548 (CA6 1944). They conclude that § 6012(b)(3) cannot apply to the trustee in this case because he did neither. We find this argument unpersuasive. Nothing in § 6012(b)(3) suggests that the word “assignee” is limited in the manner proposed by the respondents. The statute does not make dissolution necessary; it applies whether the corporation transfers “all” or “substantially all” of its property. It does not require the assignee to manage the corporation’s business after the transfer of property; it expressly requires the assignee to make a return “whether or not [the assigned] property or business is being operated.” Ibid. We therefore conclude that § 6012(b)(3) applies to the trustee in this case. As the assignee of “all” or “substantially all” of the property of the corporate debtors, the trustee must file the returns that the corporate debtors would have filed had the plan not assigned their property to the trustee. B We next consider the trustee’s duties with respect to the individual debtor, Theodore B. Gould. The parties agree that § 6012(b)(3) does not require the trustee to file a return as the “assignee” of Gould’s estate because the section applies only to the assignee of the property of a corporation. Section § 6012(b)(4), however, provides: “(4) Returns of estates and trusts “Returns of an estate, a trust, or an estate of an individual under chapter 7 or 11 of title 11 of the United States Code shall be made by the fiduciary thereof.” The United States argues that the trustee must file under § 6012(b)(4) as the fiduciary of Gould’s Chapter 11 “estate.” The debtors join the United States’ argument and also contend in the alternative that the trustee must file under the section as the fiduciary of a “trust.” The respondents insist that the trustee is not acting as the fiduciary of either a bankruptcy estate or a trust within the meaning of § 6012(b)(4). Accordingly, they assert, the section does not require the trustee to file a return on behalf of Gould. We agree with the debtors that the trustee must file a return because he is the fiduciary of a trust of an individual. The parties agree that Gould originally served as the fiduciary of his own bankruptcy estate when he became debtor in possession. See 11 U. S. C. § 1107(a). At confirmation, according to the United States, the bankruptcy plan substituted the trustee for Gould but did not alter the bankruptcy estate. In other words, the United States argues, the trustee took Gould’s place as the fiduciary of “an estate of an individual under chapter ... 11.” The United States points out that the Bankruptcy Code explicitly provides that a fiduciary may hold and administer property of the estate after confirmation of the plan, see 11 U. S. C/§ 1123(b)(3), and that nothing prohibits the substitution of a third-party trustee for the debtor in possession. The United States, therefore, maintains that the trustee must file a return under § 6012(b)(4). Whether or not the Bankruptcy Code permits a plan to place a new fiduciary in charge of an estate after confirmation, as the United States contends, we do not believe that a mere substitution occurred in this case. The plan, as quoted above, “declared and established” the new Miami Center Liquidating Trust. It then vested all of the assets of Gould’s estate to respondent Smith as trustee. The plan did not simply substitute the trustee for Gould as the fiduciary of the estate. Rather, it created a separate and distinct trust holding the property of the estate and gave the trustee control of this property. The Bankruptcy Code expressly permits this arrangement. See § 1123(a)(5)(B) (authorizing a plan to transfer “all or any part of the property of the estate to one or more entities, whether organized before or after the confirmation of such plan”). The trustee, therefore, is not acting as the fiduciary of Gould’s bankruptcy estate. The trustee, nonetheless, must make a return. Section 6012(b)(4), as the debtors assert, applies to the fiduciary of a trust as well as the fiduciary of a bankruptcy estate. We see no way for the respondents to deny that the Miami Center Liquidating Trust is a “trust” and that respondent Smith is its “fiduciary.” A Treasury Regulation states: “Certain organizations which are commonly known as liquidating trusts are treated as trusts for purposes of the Internal Revenue Code. An organization will be considered a liquidating trust if it is organized for the primary purpose of liquidating and distributing the assets transferred to it, and if its activities are all reasonably necessary to, and consistent with, the accomplishment of that purpose.” 26 CFR §301.7701-4(d) (1991). The Miami Center Liquidating Trust clearly fits this description. The plan not only describes the entity as a trust, but also created it for the express purpose of liquidating Gould’s estate and distributing it to creditors. Respondent Smith, moreover, acted as the fiduciary of this trust. The Internal Revenue Code defines “fiduciary” as a “guardian, trustee, executor, administrator, receiver, conservator, or any person acting in any fiduciary capacity for any person.” 26 U. S. C. § 7701(a)(6). A Treasury Regulation further specifies: “‘Fiduciary’ is a term which applies to persons who occupy positions of peculiar confidence toward others, such as trustees, executors, and administrators. A fiduciary is a person who holds in trust an estate to which another has the beneficial title or in which another has a beneficial interest, or receives and controls income of another, as in the case of receivers.” 26 CFR §301.7701-6 (1991). The bankruptcy plan, as noted above, assigned the property of Gould’s estate to the trustee and gave him powers consistent with this definition. Smith therefore acted as the fiduciary of a trust within the meaning of § 6012(b)(4). The respondents raise two principal objections to this conclusion. First, they argue that Gould must pay the Miami Center Liquidating Trust’s income taxes under the so-called “grantor trust” rules in the Internal Revenue Code. See 26 U. S. C. §§671-677. They note, in particular, that Treasury Regulation § 1.677(a)-l(d) specifies that “a grantor is, in general, treated as the owner of a portion of a trust whose income is . . . applied in discharge of a legal obligation of the grantor.” 26 CFR § 1.667(a)-l(d) (1991). They assert that Gould is the grantor of the liquidating trust and that, under this regulation, he owns the trust’s income and must pay taxes on it. To support this position, the respondents cite In re Sonner, 53 B. R. 859 (ED Va. 1985), which applied the grantor trust provisions to a postconfirmation liquidating trust. While we express no opinion on the results in Sonner, the facts are distinguishable. In Sonner, the property of the bankruptcy estate by the terms of the plan appears to have revested in the debtor upon confirmation. The debtor pursuant to a plan then placed some of this property in a trust created to pay his creditors. Under these circumstances, the Bankruptcy Court concluded, the debtor had created a grantor trust under Treasury Regulation § 1.677(a)-l(d). See Sonner, supra, at 860, 864. In this case, however, the property of Gould’s bankruptcy estate did not revest in Gould. The plan, instead, placed all of the estate’s property directly in the Miami Center Liquidating Trust. Gould himself did not contribute anything to the trust, and we thus fail to see how the respondents can characterize him as the grantor. Second, the respondents argue that the trustee did not act as a fiduciary because he had almost no discretion in performing his duties under the plan. They assert that the trustee merely acted as a “disbursing agent” who distributed liquidated funds to the creditors. As the dissenting judge noted below, labels and characterizations cannot alter the trustee’s status for the purpose of the tax law. 911 F. 2d, at 1547. Because the liquidating trust is a trust under the Internal Revenue Code and because respondent Smith’s duties under the plan satisfy the description of a fiduciary in the regulations, the restrictions on the trustee’s discretion do not remove him from coverage under § 6012(b)(4). C The respondents finally assert that the trustee may ignore the duties imposed by §§ 6012 and 6151 because the Chapter .11 plan does not require him to pay taxes. They note that § 1141(a) of the Bankruptcy Code states that “the provisions of a confirmed plan bind ... any creditor” whether or not the creditor has accepted the plan. They conclude that § 1141(a) precludes the United States, as a creditor, from seeking payment of any taxes. They add that the United States should have objected to the plan if it had wanted a different result. We disagree. The United States is not seeking from the trustee any taxes that became due prior to his appointment. See Reply Brief for United States 13, n. 16. It simply asserts that the trustee, after his appointment, must make tax returns under § 6012(b) in the same manner as the assignee of the property of any corporation or the trustee of any trust. No tax liability becomes due under § 6151 until the time required for making those returns. See Hartman v. Lauchli, 238 F. 2d 881, 887 (CA8 1956); Pan American Van Lines v. United States, 607 F. 2d 1299, 1301 (CA9 1979). Even if § 1141(a) binds creditors of the corporate and individual debtors with respect to claims that arose before confirmation, we do not see how it can bind the United States or any other creditor with respect to postconfirmation claims. Cf. 11 U. S. C. § 101(10) (1988 ed., Supp. II) (defining “creditor” as used in § 1141(a) as an entity with various kinds of preconfirmation claims). For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is Reversed. The respondents also argue that the trustee does not have to pay taxes because the petitioners conceded in the Bankruptcy Court that “the trust is not a separate taxable entity.” 85 B. R. 898, 900 (SD Fla. 1988). This “concession” cannot help the respondents. The petitioners asserted that the trust was not a separate taxable entity when they argued that the plan did not create a new trust but instead simply substituted the trustee for Gould as the fiduciary of the bankruptcy estate. If the respondents accept this position, which we reject above, then they would have to agree that respondent Smith has to make a return as the fiduciary of an estate. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. Justice Stewart delivered the opinion of the Court. On the afternoon of March 14, 1957, the S. S. Grel-rnarion was berthed at Galveston, Texas, taking on a cargo of wheat from a pierside grain elevator owned and operated by the city. The wheat was being loaded directly from the elevator into the ship by means of a spout. The petitioners were longshoremen engaged in “trimming” the wheat as it was received in the offshore bin of the vessel’s No. 2 hold, which was then about three-quarters full. A last “shot” of grain was. called for and was released into the bin. The grain in this last shot had been treated with a chemical insecticide, and the petitioners were injured by fumes from the chemical, made noxious by concentration in the closely confined area where they were working. The petitioners brought the present suit against the City of Galveston and the owner of the vessel to recover for their injuries. Their claim was predicated upon the negligence of the City and the shipowner, and upon the unseaworthiness of the ship. After an extended trial, the District Court entered judgment for the respondents, based upon detailed findings of fact, 181 F. Supp. 202, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, 275 F. 2d 191. On certio-rari (364 U. S. 295) we vacated the judgment and remanded the case to the Court of Appeals for consideration in the light of Mitchell v. Trawler Racer, Inc., 362 U. S. 539, which had been decided in the interim. That court, one judge dissenting, was of the view that Mitchell was inapplicable to the facts of the present case, and again affirmed the District Court’s judgment, 291 F. 2d 97. We granted certiorari to consider a seemingly significant question of admiralty law. 36S U. S. 816. The factual issues bearing upon the alleged negligence of the City and shipowner were determined in their favor by the District Court. Specifically, the court found that the City had not itself applied the fumigant to the grain in question, and that neither of the respondents knew, or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known, that the grain had been improperly fumigated at an inland point by someone else. Even a cursory examination of the lengthy record shows that these findings were based upon substantial evidence. They were re-examined and affirmed on appeal. We cannot say that they were clearly erroneous. McAllister v. United States, 348 U. S. 19, 20-21. Of greater significance in this litigation is the issue which prompted our remand to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration. Briefly stated, the question is whether, upon the facts as found by the District Court, it was error to hold that the Orelmarion was seaworthy at the time the petitioners were injured. In the Mitchell case, supra, we reversed a judgment for the defendant, because the District Court and the Court of Appeals had mistakenly imported concepts of common-law negligence into an action for unseaworthiness. There the jury had erroneously been instructed that liability for unseaworthiness could attach only if the alleged unseaworthy condition was “there for a reasonably long period of time so that a shipowner ought to have seen that it was removed.” The Court of Appeals had affirmed on the theory that, at least as to an unsea-worthy condition that arises during the progress of the voyage, the shipowner’s obligation “is merely to see that reasonable care is used under the circumstances . . . incident to the correction of the newly arisen defect.” It was alleged in that case that a ship’s rail which was habitually used as a means of egress to the dock was rendered unseaworthy by the presence of slime and gurry. We did not decide the issue, but reversed for a new trial under proper criteria, holding that the shipowner’s actual or constructive knowledge of the unseaworthy condition is not essential to his liability, and that he has an absolute duty “to furnish a vessel and appurtenances reasonably fit for their intended use.” 362 U. S., at 550. In the present case the Court of Appeals was of the view that the trial judge’s determination of the Grel-marion’s seaworthiness at the time the petitioners were injured was in no way inconsistent with our decision in the Mitchell case. We agree. The District Judge did not, as in Mitchell, hold that unseaworthiness liability depends upon the shipowner’s actual or constructive knowledge. He did not, as in Mitchell, indicate that liability may be excused if an unseaworthy condition is merely temporary. Rather, as the Court of Appeals pointed out, the trier of the facts found, upon substantial evidence, that “the cause of the injury was not any defect in the ship but the fact that the last shot of grain which was being loaded was contaminated . . . .” 291 F. 2d, at 98. The trial court found, upon substantial evidence, that what happened was an unexpected, isolated occurrence. Several years before there had been three, or perhaps four, incidents involving injury to longshoremen from grain which had been -fumigated by the city itself. But at the time the present case arose the city had adopted a series of safety and inspection measures which made completely innocuous the grain which it fumigated, and “vast quantities of wheat and other grains had been loaded through the elevator, some eight to ten percent of which had been fumigated by the city, without similar incident in recent years.” The court found that the fumes in the present case came from “chloropicrin, an insecticide which had never been used by the respondent city.” The petitioners question none of these findings here. Under these circumstances we cannot say that it was error for the court to rule that the absence of a forced ventilation system in the hold did not constitute unseaworthiness. A vessel’s unseaworthiness might arise from any number of individualized circumstances. Her gear might be defective, her appurtenances in disrepair, her crew unfit. The method of loading her cargo, or the manner of its stowage, might be improper. Mahnich v. Southern S. S. Co., 321 U. S. 96; Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85; Pope & Talbot, Inc., v. Hawn, 346 U. S. 406; Alaska Steamship Co. v. Petterson, 347 U. S. 396; Rogers v. United States Lines, 347 U. S. 984; Boudoin v. Lykes Bros. S. S. Co., 348 U. S. 336; Crumady v. The J. H. Fisser, 358 U. S. 423; Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc., v. Ellerman Lines, Ltd., 369 U. S. 355. For any or all of these reasons, or others, a vessel might not be reasonably fit for her intended service. What caused injury in the present case, however, was not the ship, its appurtenances, or its crew, but the isolated and completely unforeseeable introduction of a noxious agent from without. The trier of the facts ruled, under proper criteria, that the Grel-marion was not in any manner unfit for the service to which she was to be put, and we cannot say that his determination was wrong. Affirmed. MR. Justice Frankfurter took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. Petitioners of course received compensation and medical treatment under the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U. S. C. § 901 et seq. 181 F. Supp., at 207. “14. I find that neither of the respondents knew, or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known, that this quantity of grain, which had been improperly treated with an excessive amount of fumigant, was in the elevator or loaded aboard the Grelmarion; and that (for all the evidence shows here) the respondent city, in the operation of its elevator, had never received knowledge of a prior instance where chloropicrin- or other fumigants applied at inland elevators had adhered to the grain sufficiently long as to present danger after receipt by the elevator. “15. I find that the respondent city was not negligent in failing to know or learn of the presence of this quantity of grain within its elevator, in failing to make some additional inspection therefor, or in any other particular. The record shows without dispute that careful and painstaking inspections and examinations were made under governmental authority when the grain was received, and 'again as it was disbursed by the elevator, which in the present instance failed to detect the presence of the remaining traces of fumigant in this quantity of grain. I find that had additional inspections been made by the respondent city, there is no reason to believe that such inspections would have been more successful. “17. I find that the Grelmarion’s cargo spaces were of customary design and construction; that they were clean, and in all respects ready to receive the wheat; and had been surveyed and approved prior to loading. No fumigation for weevils was made aboard the vessel, and none was necessary. ... I find . . . that her Captain, crew, agent, or other representatives were not negligent in any particular.” 181 F. Supp. 202, at 205-207. “Careful consideration of, and reflection on, the claims and arguments of the opposing parties, in the light of the record and the controlling authorities, leaves us in no doubt that, as to the charges of negligence, there is no basis whatever for the attack here upon the findings as deary erroneous. Indeed, we are convinced that, under an impartial and disinterested view of the evidence as a whole, the findings are well supported and wholly reasonable.” 275 F. 2d, at 193. The District Court and the Court of Appeals, without discussion, proceeded upon the assumption that the petitioners belonged to the class to whom the respondent shipowner owed the duty of providing a seaworthy vessel. This was correct. Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85; Pope & Talbot, Inc., v. Hawn, 346 U. S. 406. 362 U. S., at 540-541, n. 2. 265 F. 2d 426, 432. 181 F. Supp., at 205. Ibid. “. . . While the Grelmarion’s cargo spaces were not equipped with forced ventilation systems, I find that only very rarely is this the case on grain vessels, and that it is not necessary or customary. . . .” “The finding heretofore has been made that the noxious gases and fumes were introduced into the bin with the last ‘shot’ of grain, and resulted from a fumigant that had been improperly applied, and that had adhered to the grain an unusually long period of time. Under these circumstances, I find that the admission thereof into the bin of the vessel did not cause the Grelmarion to become unseaworthy, the vessel and all its appurtenances being entirely adequate and suitable in every respect.” 181 F. Supp., at 206-207. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. Mb. Chief Justice Burger delivered the opinion of the Court. The respondent State District Judge entered an order restraining the petitioners from publishing or broadcasting accounts of confessions or admissions made by the accused or facts “strongly implicative” of the accused in a widely reported murder of six persons. We granted cer-tiorari to decide whether the entry of such an order on the showing made before the state court violated the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press. I On the evening of October 18, 1975, local police found the six members of the Henry Kellie family murdered in their home in Sutherland, Neb., a town of about 850 people. Police released the description of a suspect, Erwin Charles Simants, to the reporters who had hastened to the scene of the crime. Simants was arrested and arraigned in Lincoln County Court the following morning, ending a tense night for this small rural community. The crime immediately attracted widespread news coverage, by local, regional, and national newspapers, radio and television stations. Three days after the crime, the County Attorney and Simants’ attorney joined in asking the County Court to enter a restrictive order relating to “matters that may or may not be publicly reported or disclosed to the public,” because of the “mass coverage by news media” and the “reasonable likelihood of prejudicial news which would make difficult, if not impossible, the impaneling of an impartial jury and tend to prevent a fair trial.” The County Court heard oral argument but took no evidence; no attorney for members of the press appeared at this stage. The County Court granted the prosecutor’s motion for a restrictive order and entered it the next day, October 22. The order prohibited everyone in attendance from “releasing] or authoriz [ing] the release for public dissemination in any form or manner whatsoever any testimony given or evidence adduced”; the order also required members of the press to observe the Nebraska Bar-Press Guidelines. Simants’ preliminary hearing was held the same day, open to the public but subject to the order. The County Court bound over the defendant for trial to the State District Court. The charges, as amended to reflect the autopsy findings, were that Simants had committed the murders in the course of a sexual assault. Petitioners — several press and broadcast associations, publishers, and individual reporters — moved on October 23 for leave to intervene in the District Court, asking that the restrictive order imposed by the County Court be vacated. The District Court conducted a hearing, at which the County Judge testified and newspaper articles about the Simants case were admitted in evidence. The District Judge granted petitioners’ motion to intervene and, on October 27, entered his own restrictive order. The judge found “because of the nature of the crimes charged in the complaint that there is a clear and present danger that pre-trial publicity could impinge upon the defendant’s right to a fair trial.” The order applied only until the jury was impaneled, and specifically prohibited petitioners from reporting five subjects: (1) the existence or contents of a confession Simants had made to law enforcement officers, which had been introduced in open court at arraignment; (2) the fact or nature of statements Simants had made to other persons; (3) the contents of a note he had written the night of the crime; (4) certain aspects of the medical testimony at the preliminary hearing; and (5) the identity of the victims of the alleged sexual assault and the nature of the assault. It also prohibited reporting the exact nature of the restrictive order itself. Like the County Court’s order, this order incorporated the Nebraska Bar-Press Guidelines. Finally, the order set out a plan for attendance, seating, and courthouse traffic control during the trial. Four days later, on October 31, petitioners asked the District Court to stay its order. At the same time, they applied to the Nebraska Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus, a stay, and an expedited appeal from the order. The State of Nebraska and the defendant Simants intervened in these actions. The Nebraska Supreme Court heard oral argument on November 25, and issued its per curiam opinion December 1. State v. Simants, 194 Neb. 783, 236 N. W. 2d 794 (1975). The Nebraska Supreme Court balanced the “heavy-presumption against... constitutional validity” that an order restraining publication bears, New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U. S. 713, 714 (1971), against the importance of the defendant’s right to trial by an impartial jury. Both society and the individual defendant, the court held, had a vital interest in assuring that Simants be tried by an impartial jury. Because of the publicity surrounding the crime, the court determined that this right was in jeopardy. The court noted that Nebraska statutes required the District Court to try Simants within six months of his arrest, and that a change of venue could move the trial only to adjoining counties, which had been subject to essentially the same publicity as Lincoln County. The Nebraska Supreme Court held that “[ujnless the absolutist position of the relators was constitutionally correct, it would appear that the District Court acted properly.” 194 Neb., at 797, 236 N. W. 2d, at 803. The Nebraska Supreme Court rejected that “absolutist position,” but modified the District Court’s order to accommodate the defendant’s right to a fair trial and the petitioners’ interest in reporting pretrial events. The order as modified prohibited reporting of only three matters: (a) the existence and nature of any confessions or admissions made by the defendant to law enforcement officers, (b) any confessions or admissions made to any third parties, except members of the press, and (c) other facts “strongly implicative” of the accused. The Nebraska Supreme Court did not rely on the Nebraska Bar-Press Guidelines. See n. 1, supra. After construing Nebraska law to permit closure in certain circumstances, the court remanded the case to the District Judge for reconsideration of the issue whether pretrial hearings should be closed to the press and public. We granted certiorari to address the important issues raised by the District Court order as modified by the Nebraska Supreme Court, but we denied the motion to expedite review or to stay entirely the order of the State District Court pending Simants’ trial. 423 U. S. 1027 (1975). We are informed by the parties that since we granted certiorari, Simants has been convicted of murder and sentenced to death. His appeal is pending in the Nebraska Supreme Court. II The order at issue in this case expired by its own terms when the jury was impaneled on January 7, 1976. There were no restraints on publication once the jury was selected, and there are now no restrictions on what may be spoken or written about the Simants case. Intervenor Simants argues that for this reason the case is moot. Our jurisdiction under Art. Ill, § 2, of the Constitution extends only to actual cases and controversies. Indianapolis School Comm’rs v. Jacobs, 420 U. S. 128 (1975); Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393, 397-403 (1975). The Court has recognized, however, that jurisdiction is not necessarily defeated simply because the order attacked has expired, if the underlying dispute between the parties is one “capable of repetition, yet evading review.” Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U. S. 498, 515 (1911). The controversy between the parties to this case is “capable of repetition” in two senses. First, if Simants’’ conviction is reversed by the Nebraska Supreme Court and a new trial ordered, the District Court may enter another restrictive order to prevent a resurgence of prejudicial publicity before Simants’ retrial. Second, the State of Nebraska is a party to this case; the Nebraska Supreme Court’s decision authorizes state prosecutors to seek restrictive orders in appropriate cases. The dispute between the State and the petitioners who cover events throughout the State is thus “capable of repetition.” Yet, if we decline to address the issues in this case on grounds of mootness, the dispute will evade review, or at least considered plenary review in this Court, since these orders are by nature short-lived. See, e. g., Weinstein v. Bradford, 423 U. S. 147 (1975); Sosna v. Iowa, supra; Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 125 (1973); Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U. S. 814, 816 (1969); Carroll v. Princess Anne, 393 U. S. 175, 178-179 (1968). We therefore conclude that this case is not moot, and proceed to the merits. Ill The problems presented by this case are almost as old as the Republic. Neither in the Constitution nor in contemporaneous writings do we find that the conflict between these two important rights was anticipated, yet it is inconceivable that the authors of the Constitution were unaware of the potential conflicts between the right to an unbiased jury and the guarantee of freedom of the press. The unusually able lawyers who helped write the Constitution and later drafted the Bill of Rights were familiar with the historic episode in which John Adams defended British soldiers charged with homicide for firing into a crowd of Boston demonstrators; they were intimately familiar with the clash of the adversary system and the part that passions of the populace sometimes play in influencing potential jurors. They did not address themselves directly to the situation presented by this case; their chief concern was the need for freedom of expression in the political arena and the dialogue in ideas. But they recognized that there were risks to private rights from an unfettered press. Jefferson, for example, writing from Paris in 1786 concerning press attacks on John Jay, stated: “In truth it is afflicting that a man who has past his life in serving the public... should yet be liable to have his peace of mind so much disturbed by any individual who shall think proper to arraign him in a newspaper. It is however an evil for which there is no remedy. Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost....” 9 Papers of Thomas Jefferson 239 (J. Boyd ed. 1954). See also F. Mott, Jefferson and the Press 21, 38-46 (1943). The trial of Aaron Burr in 1807 presented Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, presiding as a trial judge, with acute problems in selecting an unbiased jury. Few people in the area of Virginia from which jurors were drawn had not formed some opinions concerning Mr. Burr or the case, from newspaper accounts and heightened discussion both private and public. The Chief Justice conducted a searching voir dire of the two panels eventually called, and rendered a substantial opinion on the purposes of voir dire and the standards to be applied. See 1 Causes Celebres, Trial of Aaron Burr for Treason 404-427, 473-481 (1879); United States v. Burr, 25 F. Cas. 49 (No. 14,692g) (CC Va. 1807). Burr was acquitted, so there was no occasion for appellate review to examine the problem of prejudicial pretrial publicity. Mr. Chief Justice Marshall’s careful voir dire inquiry into the matter of possible bias makes clear that the problem is not a new one. The speed of communication and the pervasiveness of the modern news media have exacerbated these problems, however, as numerous appeals demonstrate. The trial of Bruno Hauptmann in a small New Jersey community for the abduction and murder of the Charles Lindberghs’ infant child probably was the most widely covered trial up to that time, and the nature of the coverage produced widespread public reaction. Criticism was directed at the “carnival” atmosphere that pervaded the community and the courtroom itself. Responsible leaders of press and the legal profession — including other judges — pointed out that much of this sorry performance could have been controlled by a vigilant trial judge and by other public officers subject to the control of the court. See generally Hudon, Freedom of the Press Versus Fair Trial: The Remedy Lies With the Courts, 1 Val. U. L. Rev. 8, 12-14 (1966); Hallam, Some Object Lessons on Publicity in Criminal Trials, 24 Minn. L. Rev. 453 (1940); Lippmann, The Lindbergh Case in Its Relation to American Newspapers, in Problems of Journalism 15A-156 (1936). The excesses of press and radio and lack of responsibility of those in authority in the Hauptmann case and others of that era led to efforts to develop voluntary guidelines for courts, lawyers, press, and broadcasters. See generally J. Lofton, Justice and the Press 117-130 (1966). The effort was renewed in 1965 when the American Bar Association embarked on a project to develop standards for all aspects of criminal justice, including guidelines to accommodate the right to a fair trial and the rights of a free press. See Powell, The Right to a Fair Trial, 51 A. B. A. J. 534 (1965). The resulting standards, approved by the Association in 1968, received support from most of the legal profession. American Bar Association Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Fair Trial and Free Press (Approved Draft 1968). Other groups have undertaken similar studies. See Report of the Judicial Conference Committee on the Operation of the Jury System, “Free Press-Fair Trial” Issue, 45 F. R. D. 391 (1968); Special Committee on Radio, Television, and the Administration of Justice of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Freedom of the Press and Fair Trial (1967). In the wake of these efforts, the cooperation between bar associations and members of the press led to the adoption of voluntary guidelines like Nebraska’s. See n. 1, supra; American Bar Association Legal Advisory Committee on Fair Trial and Free Press, The Rights of Fair Trial and Free Press 1-6 (1969). In practice, of course, even the most ideal guidelines are subjected to powerful strains when a case such as Simants’ arises, with reporters from many parts of the country on the scene. Reporters from distant places are unlikely to consider themselves bound by local standards. They report to editors outside the area covered by the guidelines, and their editors are likely to be guided only by their own standards. To contemplate how a state court can control acts of a newspaper or broadcaster outside its jurisdiction, even though the newspapers and broadcasts reach the very community from which jurors are to be selected, suggests something of the practical difficulties of managing such guidelines. The problems presented in this case have a substantial history outside the reported decisions of courts, in the efforts of many responsible people to accommodate the competing interests. We cannot resolve all of them, for it is not the function of this Court to write a code. We look instead to this particular case and the legal context in which it arises. IV The Sixth Amendment in terms guarantees “trial, by an impartial jury...” in federal criminal prosecutions. Because “trial by jury in criminal cases is fundamental to the American scheme of justice,” the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the same right in state criminal prosecutions. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 149 (1968). “In essence, the right to jury trial guarantees to the criminally accused a fair trial by a panel of impartial, 'indifferent’ jurors.... 'A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process/ In re Murchison, 349 U. S. 133, 136. 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.” Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717, 722 (1961). In the overwhelming majority of criminal trials, pretrial publicity presents few unmanageable threats to this important right. But when the case is a “sensational” one tensions develop between the right of the accused to trial by an impartial jury and the rights guaranteed others by the First Amendment. The relevant decisions of this Court, even if not dispositive, are instructive by way of background. In Irvin v. Dowd, supra, for example, the defendant was convicted of murder following intensive and hostile news coverage. The trial judge had granted a defense motion for a change of venue, but only to an adjacent county, which had been exposed to essentially the same news coverage. At trial, 430 persons were called for jury service; 268 were excused because they had fixed opinions as to guilt. Eight of the 12 who served as jurors thought the defendant guilty, but said they could nevertheless render an impartial verdict. On review the Court vacated the conviction and death sentence and remanded to allow a new trial for, “[w]ith his life at stake, it is not requiring too much that petitioner be tried in an atmosphere undisturbed by so huge a wave of public passion....” 366 U. S., at 728. Similarly, in Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 723 (1963), the Court reversed the conviction of a defendant whose staged, highly emotional confession had been filmed with the cooperation of local police and later broadcast on television for three days while he was awaiting trial, saying “[a]ny subsequent court proceedings in a community so pervasively exposed to such a spectacle could be but a hollow formality.” Id., at 726. And in Estes v. Texas, 381 U. S. 532 (1965), the Court held that the defendant had not been afforded due process where the volume of trial publicity, the judge’s failure to control the proceedings, and the telecast of a hearing and of the trial itself “inherently prevented a sober search for the truth.” Id., at 551. See also Marshall v. United States, 360 U. S. 310 (1959). In Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U. S. 333 (1966), the Court focused sharply on the impact of pretrial publicity and a trial court’s duty to protect the defendant’s constitutional right to a fair trial. With only Mr. Justice Black dissenting, and he without opinion, the Court ordered a new trial for the petitioner, even though the first trial had occurred 12 years before. Beyond doubt the press had shown no responsible concern for the constitutional guarantee of a fair trial; the community from which the jury was drawn had been inundated by publicity hostile to the defendant. But the trial judge “did not fulfill his duty to protect [the defendant] from the inherently prejudicial publicity which saturated the community and to control disruptive influences in the courtroom.” Id., at 363. The Court noted that “unfair and prejudicial news comment on pending trials has become increasingly prevalent,” id., at 362, and issued a strong warning: “Due process requires that the accused receive a trial by an impartial jury free from outside influences. Given the pervasiveness of modern communications and the difficulty of effacing prejudicial publicity from the minds of the jurors, the trial courts must take strong measures to ensure that the balance is never weighed against the accused.... Of course, there is nothing that proscribes the press from reporting events that transpire in the courtroom. But where there is a reasonable likelihood that prejudicial news prior to trial will prevent a fair trial, the judge should continue the case until the threat abates, or transfer it to another county not so permeated with publicity. In addition, sequestration of the jury was something the judge should have raised sua sponte with counsel. If publicity during the proceedings threatens the fairness of the trial, a new trial should be ordered. But we must remember that reversals are but palliatives; the cure lies in those remedial measures that will prevent the prejudice at its inception. The courts must take such steps by rule and regulation that will protect their processes from prejudicial outside interferences. Neither prosecutors, counsel for defense, the accused, witnesses, court staff nor enforcement officers coming under the jurisdiction of the court should he permitted to frustrate its function. Collaboration between counsel and the press as to information affecting the fairness of a criminal trial is not only subject to regulation, but is highly censurable arid worthy of disciplinary measures.” Id., at 362-363 (emphasis added). Because the trial court had failed to use even minimal efforts to insulate the trial and the jurors from the “deluge of publicity,” id., at 357, the Court vacated the judgment of conviction and a new trial followed, in which the accused was acquitted. Cases such as these are relatively rare, and we have held in other cases that trials have been fair in spite of widespread publicity. In Stroble v. California, 343 U. S. 181 (1952), for example, the Court affirmed a conviction and death sentence challenged on the ground that pretrial news accounts, including the prosecutor's release of the defendant’s recorded confession, were allegedly so inflammatory as to amount to a denial of due process. The Court disapproved of the prosecutor’s conduct, but noted that the publicity had receded some six weeks before trial, that the defendant had not moved for a change of venue, and that the confession had'been found voluntary and admitted in evidence at trial. The Court also noted the thorough examination of jurors on voir dire and the careful review of the facts by the state courts, and held that petitioner had failed to demonstrate a denial of due process. See also Murphy v. Florida, 421 U. S. 794 (1975); Beck v. Washington, 369 U. S. 541 (1962). Taken together, these cases demonstrate that pretrial publicity — even pervasive, adverse publicity — does not inevitably lead to an unfair trial. The capacity of the jury eventually impaneled to decide the case fairly is influenced by the tone and extent of the publicity, which is in part, and often in large part, shaped by what attorneys, police, and other officials do to precipitate news coverage. The trial judge has a major responsibility. What the judge says about a case, in or out of the courtroom, is likely to appear in newspapers and broadcasts. More important, the measures a judge takes or fails to take to mitigate the effects of pretrial publicity — the measures described in Sheppard — may well determine whether the defendant receives a trial consistent with the requirements of due process. That this responsibility has not always been properly discharged is apparent from the decisions just reviewed. The costs of failure to afford a fair trial are high. In the most extreme cases, like Sheppard and Estes, the risk of injustice was avoided when the convictions were reversed. But a reversal means that justice has been delayed for both the defendant and the State; in some cases, because of lapse of time retrial is impossible or further prosecution is gravely handicapped. Moreover, in borderline cases in which the conviction is not reversed, there is some possibility of an injustice unredressed. The “strong measures” outlined in Sheppard v. Maxwell are means by which a trial judge can try to avoid exacting these costs from society or from the accused. The state trial judge in the case before us acted responsibly, out of a legitimate concern, in an effort topro-tect the defendant's right to a fair trial. What we must decide is not simply whether the Nebraska courts erred in seeing the possibility of real danger to the defendant’s rights, but whether in the circumstances of this case the means employed were foreclosed by another provision of the Constitution. Y The First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom... of the press,” and it is “no longer open to doubt that the liberty of the press, and of speech, is within the liberty safeguarded by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from invasion by state action.” Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U. S. 697, 707 (1931). See also Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U. S. 233, 244 (1936). The Court has interpreted these guarantees to afford special protection against orders that prohibit the publication or broadcast of particular information or commentary — orders that impose a “previous” or “prior” restraint on speech. None of our decided cases on prior restraint involved restrictive orders entered to protect a defendant’s right to a fair and impartial jury, but the opinions on prior restraint have a common thread relevant to this case. In Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, supra, the Court held invalid a Minnesota statute providing for the abatement as a public nuisance of any “malicious, scandalous and defamatory newspaper, magazine or other periodical.” Near had published an occasional weekly newspaper described by the County Attorney’s complaint as “largely devoted to malicious, scandalous and defamatory articles” concerning political and other public figures. 283 U. S., at 703. Publication was enjoined pursuant to the statute. Excerpts from Near’s paper, set out in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Butler, show beyond question that one of its principal characteristics was blatant anti-Semitism. See id., at 723, 724-727, n. 1. Mr. Chief Justice Hughes, writing for the Court, noted that freedom of the press is not an absolute right, and the State may punish its abuses. He observed that the statute was “not aimed at the redress of individual or private wrongs.” Id., at 708, 709. He then focused on the statute: “[T]he operation and effect of the statute in substance is that public authorities may bring the owner or publisher of a newspaper or periodical before a judge upon a charge of conducting a business of publishing scandalous and defamatory matter... and unless the owner or publisher is able... to satisfy the judge that the [matter is] true and... published with good motives... his newspaper or periodical is suppressed.... This is of the essence of censorship.” Id., at 713. The Court relied on Patterson v. Colorado ex rel. Attorney General, 205 U. S. 454, 462 (1907): “[T]he main purpose of [the First Amendment] is ‘to prevent all such previous restraints upon publications as had been practiced by other governments.’ ” The principles enunciated in Near were so universally accepted that the precise issue did not come before us again until Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U. S. 415 (1971). There the state courts had enjoined the petitioners from picketing or passing out literature of any kind in a specified area. Noting the similarity to Near v. Minnesota, a unanimous Court held: “Here, as in that case, the injunction operates, not to redress alleged private wrongs, but to suppress, on the basis of previous publications, distribution of literature 'of any kind’ in a city of 18,000. “Any prior restraint on expression comes to this Court with a 'heavy presumption’ against its constitutional validity. Carroll v. Princess Anne, 393 U. S. 175, 181 (1968); Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58, 70 (1963). Respondent thus carries a heavy burden of showing justification for the imposition of such a restraint. He has not met that burden.... Designating the conduct as an invasion of privacy, the apparent basis for the injunction here, is not sufficient to support an injunction against peaceful distribution of informational literature of the nature revealed by this record.” 402 U. S., at 418-420. More recently in New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U. S. 713 (1971), the Government sought to enjoin the publication of excerpts from a massive, classified study of this Nation’s involvement in the Vietnam conflict, going back to the end of the Second World War. The dispositive opinion of the Court simply concluded that the Government had not met its heavy burden of showing justification for the prior restraint. Each of the six concurring Justices and the three dissenting Justices expressed his views separately, but “every member of the Court, tacitly or explicitly, accepted the Near and Keefe condemnation of prior restraint as presumptively unconstitutional.” Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Rel. Comm’n, 413 U. S. 376, 396 (1973) (Burger, C. J., dissenting). The Court’s conclusion in New York Times suggests that the burden on the Government is not reduced by the temporary nature of a restraint; in that case the Government asked for a temporary restraint solely to permit it to study and assess the impact on national security of the lengthy documents at issue. The thread running through all these cases is that prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights. A criminal penalty or a judgment in a defamation case is subject to the whole panoply of protections afforded by deferring the impact of the judgment until all avenues of appellate review have been exhausted. Only after judgment has become final, correct or otherwise, does the law’s sanction become fully operative. A prior restraint, by contrast and by definition, has an immediate and irreversible sanction. If it can be said that a threat of criminal or civil sanctions after publication “chills” speech, prior restraint “freezes” it at least for the time. The damage can be particularly great when the prior restraint falls upon the communication of news and commentary on current events. Truthful reports of public judicial proceedings have been afforded special protection against subsequent punishment. See Cox Broadcasting Corp v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469, 492-493(1975); see also, Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S. 367, 374 (1947). For the same reasons the protection against prior restraint should have particular force as applied to reporting of criminal proceedings, whether the crime in question is a single isolated act or a pattern of criminal conduct. “A responsible press has always been regarded as the handmaiden of effective judicial administration, especially in the criminal field. Its function in this regard is documented by an impressive record of service over several centuries. The press does not simply publish information about trials but guards against the miscarriage of justice by subjecting the police, prosecutors, and judicial processes to extensive public scrutiny and criticism.” Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U. S., at 350. The extraordinary protections afforded by the First Amendment carry with them something in the nature of a fiduciary duty to exercise the protected rights responsibly — a duty widely acknowledged but not always observed by editors and publishers. It is not asking too much to suggest that those who exercise First Amendment rights in newspapers or broadcasting enterprises direct some effort to protect the rights of an accused to a fair trial by unbiased jurors. Of course, the order at issue — like the order requested in New York Times — does not prohibit but only postpones publication. Some news can be delayed and most commentary can even more readily be delayed without serious injury, and there often is a self-imposed delay when responsible editors call for verification of information. But such delays are normally slight and they are self-imposed. Delays imposed by governmental authority are a different matter. “We have learned, and continue to learn, from what we view as the unhappy experiences of other nations where government has been allowed to meddle in the internal editorial affairs of newspapers. Regardless of how beneficent-sounding the purposes of controlling the press might be, we... remain intensely skeptical about those measures that would allow government to insinuate itself into the editorial rooms of this Nation’s press.” Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U. S. 241, 259 (1974) (White, J., concurring). See also Columbia Broadcasting v. Democratic Comm., 412 U. S. 94 (1973). As a practical matter, moreover, the element of time is not unimportant if press coverage is to fulfill its traditional function of bringing news to the public promptly. The authors of the Bill of Rights did not undertake to assign priorities as between First Amendment and Sixth Amendment rights, ranking one as superior to the other. In this ease, the petitioners would have us declare the right of an accused subordinate to their right to publish in all circumstances. But if the authors of these guarantees, fully aware of the potential conflicts between them, were unwilling or unable to resolve the issue by assigning to one priority over the other, it is not for us to rewrite the Constitution by undertaking what they declined to do. It is unnecessary, after nearly two centuries, to establish a priority applicable in all circumstances. Yet it is nonetheless clear that the barriers to prior restraint remain high unless we are to abandon what the Court has said for nearly a quarter of our national existence and implied throughout all of it. The history of even wartime suspension of categorical guarantees, such as habeas corpus or the right to trial by civilian courts, see Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wall. 2 (1867), cautions against suspending explicit guarantees. The Nebraska courts in this case enjoined the publication of certain kinds of information about the Simants case. There are, as we suggested earlier, marked differences in setting and purpose between the order entered here and the orders in Near, Keefe, and New York Times, but as to the underlying issue — the right of the press to be free from prior restraints on publication — those cases form the backdrop against which we must decide this case. VI We turn now to the record in this case to determine whether, as Learned Hand put it, “the gravity of the 'evil/ discounted by its improbability, justifies such invasion of free speech as is necessary to avoid the danger.” United States v. Dennis, 183 F. 2d 201, 212 (CA2 1950), aff’d, 341 U. S. 494 (1951); see also L. Hand, The Bill of Rights 58-61 (1958). To do so, we must examine the evidence before the trial judge when the order was entered to determine (a) the nature and extent of pretrial news coverage; (b) whether other measures would be likely to mitigate the effects of unrestrained pretrial publicity; and (c) how effectively a restraining order would operate to prevent the threatened danger. The precise terms of the restraining order are also important. We must then consider whether the record supports the entry of a prior restraint on publication, one of the most extraordinary remedies known to our jurisprudence. A In assessing the probable extent of publicity, the trial judge had before him newspapers demonstrating that the crime had already drawn intensive news coverage, and the testimony of the County Judge, who had entered the initial restraining order based on the local and national attention the case had attracted. The District Judge was required to assess the probable publicity that would be given these shocking crimes prior to the time a jury was selected and sequestered. He then had to examine the probable nature of the publicity and determine how it would affect prospective jurors. Our review of the pretrial record persuades us that the trial judge was justified in concluding that there would be intense and pervasive pretrial publicity concerning this case. He could also reasonably conclude, based on common human experience, that publicity might impair the defendant’s right to a fair trial. He did not purport to say more, for he found only “a clear and present danger that pre-trial publicity could impinge upon the defendant’s right to a fair trial.” (Emphasis added.) His conclusion as to the impact of such publicity on prospective jurors was of necessity speculative, dealing as he was with factors unknown and unknowable. B We find little in the record that goes to another aspect of our task, determining whether measures short of an order restraining all publication would have insured the defendant a fair trial. Although the entry of the order might be read as a judicial determination that other measures would not suffice, the trial court made no express findings to that effect; the Nebraska Supreme Court referred to the issue only by implication. See 194 Neb., at 797-798, 236 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:

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. In the fire department of New Haven, Connecticut — as in emergency-service agencies throughout the Nation — firefighters prize their promotion to and within the officer ranks. An agency’s officers command respect within the department and in the whole community; and, of course, added responsibilities command increased salary and benefits. Aware of the intense competition for promotions, New Haven, like many cities, relies on objective examinations to identify the best qualified candidates. In 2003, 118 New Haven firefighters took examinations to qualify for promotion to the rank of lieutenant or captain. Promotion examinations in New Haven (or City) were infrequent, so the stakes were high. The results would determine which firefighters would be considered for promotions during the next two years, and the order in which they would be considered. Many firefighters studied for months, at considerable personal and financial cost. When the examination results showed that white candidates had outperformed minority candidates, the mayor and other local politicians opened a public debate that turned rancorous. Some firefighters argued the tests should be discarded because the results showed the tests to be discriminatory. They threatened a discrimination lawsuit if the City made promotions based on the tests. Other firefighters said the exams were neutral and fair. And they, in' turn, threatened a discrimination lawsuit if the City, relying on the statistical racial disparity, ignored the test results and denied promotions to the candidates who had performed well. In the end the City took the side of those who protested the test results. It threw out the examinations. Certain white and Hispanic firefighters who likely would have been promoted based on their good test performance sued the City and some of its officials. Theirs is the suit now before us. The suit alleges that, by discarding the test results, the City and the named officials discriminated against the plaintiffs based on their race, in violation of both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 258, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq., and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The City and the officials defended their actions, arguing that if they had certified the results, they could have faced liability under Title VII for adopting a practice that had a disparate impact on the minority firefighters. The District Court granted summary judgment for the defendants, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. We conclude that race-based action like the City’s in this case is impermissible under Title VII unless the employer can demonstrate a strong basis in evidence that, had it not taken the action, it would have been liable under the disparate-impact statute. Respondents, we further determine, cannot meet that threshold standard. As a result, the City’s action in discarding the tests was a violation of Title VII. In light of our ruling under the statutes, we need not reach the question whether respondents’ actions may have violated the Equal Protection Clause. I This litigation comes to us after the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment, so we set out the facts in some detail. As the District Court noted, although “the parties strenuously dispute the relevance and legal import of, and inferences to be drawn from, many aspects of this case, the underlying facts are largely undisputed.” 554 F. Supp. 2d 142, 145 (Conn. 2006). A When the City of New Haven undertook to fill vacant lieutenant and captain positions in its fire department (Department), the promotion and hiring process was governed by the City charter, in addition to federal and state law. The charter establishes a merit system. That system requires the City to fill vacancies in the classified civil-service ranks with the most qualified individuals, as determined by job-related examinations. After each examination, the New Haven Civil Service Board (CSB) certifies a ranked list of applicants who passed the test. Under the charter’s “rule of three," the relevant hiring authority must fill each vacancy by choosing one candidate from the top three scorers on the list. Certified promotional lists remain valid for two years. The City’s contract with the New Haven firefighters’ union specifies additional requirements for the promotion process. Under the contract, applicants for lieutenant and captain positions were to be screened using written and oral examinations, with the written exam accounting for 60 percent and the oral exam 40 percent of an applicant’s total score. To sit for the examinations, candidates for lieutenant needed 30 months’ experience in the Department, a high school diploma, and certain vocational training courses. Candidates for captain needed one year’s service as a lieutenant in the Department, a high school diploma, and certain vocational training courses. After reviewing bids from various consultants, the City hired Industrial/Organizational Solutions, Inc. (IOS), to develop and administer the examinations, at a cost to the City of $100,000. IOS is an Illinois company that specializes in designing entry-level and promotional examinations for fire and police departments. In order to fit the examinations to the New Haven Department, IOS began the test-design process by performing job analyses to identify the tasks, knowledge, skills, and abilities that are essential for the lieutenant and captain positions. IOS representatives interviewed incumbent captains and lieutenants and their supervisors. They rode with and observed other on-duty officers. Using information from those interviews and ride-alongs, IOS wrote job-analysis questionnaires and administered them to most of the incumbent battalion chiefs, captains, and lieutenants in the Department. At every stage of the job analyses, IOS, by deliberate choice, oversampled minority firefighters to ensure that the results — which IOS would use to develop the examinations — would not unintentionally favor white candidates. With the job-analysis information in hand, IOS developed the written examinations to measure the candidates’ job-related knowledge. For each test, IOS compiled a list of training manuals, Department procedures, and other materials to use as sources for the test questions. IOS presented the proposed sources to the New Haven fire chief and assistant fire chief for their approval. Then, using the approved sources, IOS drafted a multiple-choice test for each position. Each test had 100 questions, as required by CSB rules, and was written below a 10th-grade reading level. After IOS prepared the tests, the City opened a 3-month study period. It gave candidates a list that identified the source material for the questions, including the specific chapters from which the questions were taken. IOS developed the oral examinations as well. These concentrated on job skills and abilities. Using the job-analysis information, IOS wrote hypothetical situations to test incident-command skills, firefighting tactics, interpersonal skills, leadership, and management ability, among other things. Candidates would be presented with these hypothetical and asked to respond before a panel of three assessors. IOS assembled a pool of 30 assessors who were superior in rank to the positions being tested. At the City’s insistence (because of controversy surrounding previous examinations), all the assessors came from outside Connecticut. IOS submitted the assessors’ resumes to City officials for approval. They were battalion chiefs, assistant chiefs, and chiefs from departments of similar sizes to New Haven’s throughout the country. Sixty-six percent of the panelists were minorities, and each of the nine three-member assessment panels contained two minority members. IOS trained the panelists for several hours on the day before it administered the examinations, teaching them how to score the candidates’ responses consistently using checklists of desired criteria. Candidates took the examinations in November and December 2003. Seventy-seven candidates completed the lieutenant examination — 43 whites, 19 blacks, and 15 Hispanics. Of those, 34 candidates passed — 25 whites, 6 blacks, and 3 Hispanics. 554 F. Supp. 2d, at 145. Eight lieutenant positions were vacant at the time of the examination. As the rule of three operated, this meant that the top 10 candidates were eligible for an immediate promotion to lieutenant. All 10 were white. Ibid. Subsequent vacancies would have allowed at least 3 black candidates to be considered for promotion to lieutenant. Forty-one candidates completed the captain examination— 25 whites, 8 blacks, and 8 Hispanics. Of those, 22 candidates passed — 16 whites, 3 blacks, and 3 Hispanics. Ibid. Seven captain positions were vacant at the time of the examination. Under the rule of three, 9 candidates were eligible for an immediate promotion to captain — 7 whites and 2 Hispanics. Ibid. The City’s contract with IOS contemplated that, after the examinations, IOS would prepare a technical report that described the examination processes and methodologies and analyzed the results. But in January 2004, rather than requesting the technical report, City officials, including the City’s counsel, Thomas Ude, convened a meeting with IOS Vice President Chad Legel. (Legel was the leader of the IOS team that developed and administered the tests.) Based on the test results, the City officials expressed concern that the tests had discriminated against minority candidates. Legel defended the examinations’ validity, stating that any numerical disparity between white and minority candidates was likely due to various external factors and was in line with results of the Department’s previous promotional examinations. Several days after the meeting, Ude sent a letter to the CSB purporting to outline its duties with respect to the examination results. Ude stated that under federal law, “a statistical demonstration of disparate impact,” standing alone, “constitutes a sufficiently serious claim of racial discrimination to serve as a predicate for employer-initiated, voluntar[y] remedies — even... race-conscious remedies.” App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 07-1428, p. 443a; see also 554 F. Supp. 2d, at 145 (issue of disparate impact “appears to have been raised by... Ude”). 1 The CSB first met to consider certifying the results on January 22, 2004. Tina Burgett, director of the City’s Department of Human Resources, opened the meeting by telling the CSB that “there is a significant disparate impact on these two exams.” App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 07-1428, at 466a. She distributed lists showing the candidates’ races and scores (written, oral, and composite) but not their names. Ude also described the test results as reflecting “a very significant disparate impact,” id., at 477a, and he outlined possible grounds for the CSB’s refusing to certify the results. Although they did not know whether they had passed or failed, some firefighter-candidates spoke at the first CSB meeting in favor of certifying the test results. Michael Blatchley stated that “[e]very one” of the questions on the written examination “came from the [study] material.... [I]f you read the materials and you studied the material, you would have done well on the test.” App. in No. 06-4996-cv (CA2), pp. A772-A773 (hereinafter CA2 App.). Frank Ricci stated that the test questions were based on the Department’s own rules and procedures and on “nationally recognized” materials that represented the “accepted standard[s]” for firefighting. Id., at A785-A786. Ricci stated that he had “several learning disabilities,” including dyslexia; that he had spent more than $1,000 to purchase the materials and pay his neighbor to read them on tape so he could “give it [his] best shot”; and that he had studied “8 to 13 hours a day to prepare” for the test. Id., at A786, A789. “I don’t even know if I made it,” Ricci told the CSB, “[b]ut the people who passed should be promoted. When your life’s on the line, second best may not be good enough.” Id., at A787-A788. Other firefighters spoke against certifying the test results. They described the test questions as outdated or not relevant to firefighting practices in New Haven. Gary Tinney stated that source materials “came out of New York.... Their makeup of their city and everything is totally different than ours.” Id., at A774-A775; see also id., at A779, A780-A781. And they criticized the test materials, a full set of which cost about $500, for being too expensive and too long. 2 At a second CSB meeting, on February 5, the president of the New Haven firefighters’ union asked the CSB to perform a validation study to determine whether the tests were job related. Petitioners’ counsel in this action argued that the CSB should certify the results. A representative of the International Association of Black Professional Firefighters, Donald Day from neighboring Bridgeport, Connecticut, “beseech[ed]” the CSB “to throw away that test,” which he described as “inherently unfair” because of the racial distribution of the results. Id., at A830-A831. Another Bridgeport-based representative of the association, Ronald Mackey, stated that a validation study was necessary. He suggested that the City could “adjust” the test results to “meet the criteria of having a certain amount of minorities get elevated to the rank of Lieutenant and Captain.” Id., at A838. At the end of this meeting, the CSB members agreed to ask IOS to send a representative to explain how it had developed and administered the examinations. They also discussed asking a panel of experts to review the examinations and advise the CSB whether to certify the results. 3 At a third meeting, on February 11, Legel addressed the CSB on behalf of IOS. Legel stated that IOS had previously prepared entry-level firefighter examinations for the City but not a promotional examination. He explained that IOS had developed examinations for departments in communities with demographics similar to New Haven’s, including Orange County, Florida; Lansing, Michigan; and San Jose, California. Legel explained the exam-development process to the CSB. He began by describing the job analyses IOS performed of the captain and lieutenant positions — the interviews, ride-alongs, and questionnaires IOS designed to “generate a list of tasks, knowledge, skills and abilities that are considered essential to performance” of the jobs. Id., at A931-A932. He outlined how IOS prepared the written and oral examinations, based on the job-analysis results, to test most heavily those qualities that the results indicated were “eritica[l]” or “essential[l].” Id., at A931. And he noted that IOS took the material for each test question directly from the approved source materials. Legel told the CSB that third-party reviewers had scrutinized the examinations to ensure that the written test was drawn from the source material and that the oral test accurately tested real-world situations that captains and lieutenants would face. Legel confirmed that IOS had selected oral-examination panelists so that each three-member assessment panel included one white, one black, and one Hispanic member. Near the end of his remarks, Legel “implor[ed] anyone that had... concerns to review the content of the exam. In my professional opinion, it’s facially neutral. There’s nothing in those examinations... that should cause somebody to think that one group would perform differently than another group.” Id., at A961. 4 At the next meeting, on March 11, the CSB heard from three witnesses it had selected to “tell us a little bit about their views of the testing, the process, [and] the methodology.” Id., at A1020. The first, Christopher Hornick, spoke to the CSB by telephone. Hornick is an industrial/organizational psychologist from Texas who operates a consulting business that “direct[ly]” competes with IOS. Id., at A1029. Hornick, who had not “studied] the test at length or in detail” and had not “seen the job analysis data,” told the CSB that the scores indicated a “relatively high adverse impact.” Id., at A1028, A1030, A1043. He stated that “[n]ormally, whites outperform ethnic minorities on the majority of standardized testing procedures,” but that he was “a little surprised” by the disparity in the candidates’ scores— although “[s]ome of it is fairly typical of what we’ve seen in other areas of the countrfy] and other tests.” Id., at A1028-A1029. Hornick stated that the “adverse impact on the written exam was somewhat higher but generally in the range that we’ve seen professionally.” Id., at A1030-A1031. When asked to explain the New Haven test results, Hornick opined in the telephone conversation that the collective-bargaining agreement’s requirement of using written and oral examinations with a 60/40 composite score might account for the statistical disparity. He also stated that “[b]y not having anyone from within the [D]epartment review” the tests before they were administered — a limitation the City had imposed to protect the security of the exam questions — “you inevitably get things in there” that are based on the source materials but are not relevant to New Haven. Id., at A1034-A1035. Hornick suggested that testing candidates at an “assessment center” rather than using written and oral examinations “might serve [the City’s] needs better.” Id., at A1039-A1040. Hornick stated that assessment centers, where candidates face real-world situations and respond just as they would in the field, allow candidates “to demonstrate how they would address a particular problem as opposed to just verbally saying it or identifying the correct option on a written test.” Ibid. Hornick made clear that he was “not suggesting that [IOS] somehow created a test that had adverse impacts that it should not have had.” Id., at A1038. He described the IOS examinations as “reasonably good test[s].” Id., at A1041. He stated that the CSB’s best option might be to “certify the list as it exists” and work to change the process for future tests, including by “[r]ewriting the Civil Service Rules.” Ibid. Hornick concluded his telephonic remarks by telling the CSB that “for the future,” his company “certainly would like to help you if we can.” Id., at A1046. The second witness was Vincent Lewis, a fire program specialist for the Department of Homeland Security and a retired fire captain from Michigan. Lewis, who is black, had looked “extensively” at the lieutenant exam and “a little less extensively” at the captain exam. He stated that the candidates “should know that material.” Id., at A1048, A1052. In Lewis’ view, the “questions were relevant for both exams,” and the New Haven candidates had an advantage because the study materials identified the particular book chapters from which the questions were taken. In other departments, by contrast, “you had to know basically the... entire book.” Id., at A1053. Lewis concluded that any disparate impact likely was due to a pattern that “usually whites outperform some of the minorities on testing,” or that “more whites... take the exam.” Id., at A1054. The final witness was Janet Helms, a professor at Boston College whose “primary area of expertise” is “not with firefighters per se” but in “race and culture as they influence performance on tests and other assessment procedures.” Id., at A1060. Helms expressly declined the CSB’s offer to review the examinations. At the outset, she noted that “regardless of what kind of written test we give in this country... we can just about predict how many people will pass who are members of under-represented, groups. And your data are not that inconsistent with what predictions would say were the case.” Id., at A1061. Helms nevertheless offered several “ideas about what might be possible factors” to explain statistical differences in the results. Id., at A1062. She concluded that because 67 percent of the respondents to the job-analysis questionnaires were white, the test questions might have favored white candidates, because “most of the literature on firefighters shows that the different groups perform the job differently.” Id., at A1063. Helms closed by stating that no matter what test the City had administered, it would have revealed “a disparity between blacks and whites, Hispanics and whites,” particularly on a written test. Id., at A1072. 5 At the final CSB meeting, on March 18, Ude (the City’s counsel) argued against certifying the examination results. Discussing the City’s obligations under federal law, Ude advised the CSB that a finding of adverse impact “is the beginning, not the end, of a review of testing procedures” to determine whether they violated the disparate-impact provision of Title VII. Ude focused the CSB on determining “whether there are other ways to test for... those positions that are equally valid with less adverse impact.” Id., at A1101. Ude described Hornick as having said that the written examination “had one of the most severe adverse impacts that he had seen” and that “there are much better alternatives to identifying [firefighting] skills.” Ibid. Ude offered his “opinion that promotions... as a result of these tests would not be consistent with federal law, would not be consistent with the purposes of our Civil Service Rules or our Charter[,] nor is it in the best interests of the firefighters... who took the exams.” Id., at A1103-A1104. He stated that previous Department exams “have not had this kind of result,” and that previous results had not been “challenged as having adverse impact, whereas we are assured that these will be.” Id., at A1107, A1108. CSB Chairman Segaloff asked Ude several questions about the Title VII disparate-impact standard. “CHAIRPERSON SEGALOFF: [M]y understanding is the group... that is making to throw the exam out has the burden of showing that there is out there an exam that is reasonably probable or likely to have less of an adverse impact. It’s not our burden to show that there’s an exam out there that can be better. We’ve got an exam. We’ve got a result.... “MR. UDE: Mr. Chair, I point out that Dr. Hornick said that. He said that there are other tests out there that would have less adverse impact and that [would] be more valid. “CHAIRPERSON SEGALOFF: You think that’s enough for us to throw this test upside-down... because Dr. Hornick said it? “MR. UDE: I think that by itself would be sufficient. Yes. I also would point out that... it is the employer’s burden to justify the use of the examination.” Id., at A1108-A1109. Karen DuBois-Walton, the City’s chief administrative officer, spoke on behalf of Mayor John DeStefano and argued against certifying the results. DuBois-Walton stated that the results, when considered under the rule of three and applied to then-existing captain and lieutenant vacancies, created a situation in which black and Hispanic candidates were disproportionately excluded from opportunity. DuBoisWalton also relied on Hornick’s testimony, asserting that Hornick “made it extremely clear that... there are more appropriate ways to assess one’s ability to serve” as a captain or lieutenant. Id., at A1120. Burgett (the human resources director) asked the CSB to discard the examination results. She, too, relied on Hornick’s statement to show the existence of alternative testing methods, describing Hornick as having “started to point out that alternative testing does exist” and as having “begun to suggest that there are some different ways of doing written examinations.” Id., at A1125, A1128. Other witnesses addressed the CSB. They included the president of the New Haven firefighters’ union, who supported certification. He reminded the CSB that Hornick “also concluded that the tests were reasonable and fair and under the current structure to certify them.” Id., at A1137. Firefighter Frank Ricci again argued for certification; he stated that although “assessment centers in some cases show less adverse impact,” id., at A1140, they were not available alternatives for the current round of promotions. It would take several years, Ricci explained, for the Department to develop an assessment-center protocol and the accompanying training materials. Id., at A1141. Lieutenant Matthew Marcarelli, who had taken the captain’s exam, spoke in favor of certification. At the close of witness testimony, the CSB voted on a motion to certify the examinations. With one member recused, the CSB deadlocked 2 to 2, resulting in a decision not to certify the results. Explaining his vote to certify the results, Chairman Segaloff stated that “nobody convinced me that we can feel comfortable that, in fact, there’s some likelihood that there’s going to be an exam designed that’s going to be less discriminatory.” Id., at A1159-A1160. C The CSB’s decision not to certify the examination results led to this lawsuit. The plaintiffs — who are the petitioners here — are 17 white firefighters and 1 Hispanic firefighter who passed the examinations but were denied a chance at promotions when the CSB refused to certify the test results. They include the named plaintiff, Frank Ricci, who addressed the CSB at multiple meetings. Petitioners sued the City, Mayor DeStefano, DuBoisWalton, Ude, Burgett, and the two CSB members who voted against certification. Petitioners also named as a defendant Boise Kimber, a New Haven resident who voiced strong opposition to certifying the results. Those individuals are respondents in this Court. Petitioners filed suit under Rev. Stat. §§ 1979 and 1980, 42 U. S. C. §§ 1983 and 1985, alleging that respondents, by arguing or voting against certifying the results, violated and conspired to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Petitioners also filed timely charges of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC); upon the EEOC’s issuing right-to-sue letters, petitioners amended their complaint to assert that the City violated the disparate-treatment prohibition contained in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended. See 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2(a). The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. Respondents asserted they had a good-faith belief that they would have violated the disparate-impact prohibition in Title VII, § 2000e-2(k), had they certified the examination results. It follows, they maintained, that they cannot be held liable under Title VII’s disparate-treatment provision for attempting to comply with Title VIPs disparate-impact bar. Petitioners countered that respondents’ good-faith belief was not a valid defense to allegations of disparate treatment and unconstitutional discrimination. The District Court granted summary judgment for respondents. 554 F. Supp. 2d 142. It described petitioners’ argument as “boil[ing] down to the assertion that if [respondents] cannot prove that the disparities on the Lieutenant and Captain exams were due to a particular flaw inherent in those exams, then they should have certified the results because there was no other alternative in place.” Id., at 156. The District Court concluded that, “ [notwithstanding the shortcomings in the evidence on existing, effective alternatives, it is not the case that [respondents] must certify a test where they cannot pinpoint its deficiency explaining its disparate impact... simply because they have not yet formulated a better selection method.” Ibid. It also ruled that respondents’ “motivation to avoid making promotions based on a test with a racially disparate impact... does not, as a matter of law, constitute discriminatory intent” under Title VII. Id., at 160. The District Court rejected petitioners’ equal protection claim on the theory that respondents had not acted because of “discriminatory animus” toward petitioners. Id., at 162. It concluded that respondents’ actions were not “based on race” because “all applicants took the same test, and the result was the same for all because the test results were discarded and nobody was promoted.” Id., at 161. After full briefing and argument by the parties, the Court of Appeals affirmed in a one-paragraph, unpublished summary order; it later withdrew that order, issuing in its place a nearly identical, one-paragraph per curiam opinion adopting the District Court’s reasoning. 580 F. 3d 87 (CA2 2008). Three days later, the Court of Appeals voted 7 to 6 to deny rehearing en bane, over written dissents by Chief Judge Jacobs and Judge Cabranes. 530 F. 3d 88. This action presents two provisions of Title VII to be interpreted and reconciled, with few, if any, precedents in the courts of appeals discussing the issue. Depending on the resolution of the statutory claim, a fundamental constitutional question could also arise. We found it prudent and appropriate to grant certiorari. 555 U. S. 1091 (2009). We now reverse. II Petitioners raise a statutory claim, under the disparate-treatment prohibition of Title VII, and a constitutional claim, under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. A decision for petitioners on their statutory claim would provide the relief sought, so we consider it first. See Atkins v. Parker, 472 U. S. 115, 123 (1985); Escambia County v. McMillan, 466 U. S. 48, 51 (1984) (per curiam) (“[N]ormally the Court will not decide a constitutional question if there is some other ground upon which to dispose of the case”). A Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq., as amended, prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Title VII prohibits both intentional discrimination (known as “disparate treatment”) as well as, in some cases, practices that are not intended to discriminate but in fact have a disproportionately adverse effect on minorities (known as “disparate impact”). As enacted in 1964, Title VII’s principal nondiscrimination provision held employers liable only for disparate treatment. That section retains its original wording today. It 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 race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” §2000e-2(a)(1); see also 78 Stat. 255. Disparate-treatment cases present “the most easily understood type of discrimination,” Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324, 335, n. 15 (1977), and occur where an employer has “treated [a] particular person less favorably than others because of” a protected trait, Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U. S. 977, 985-986 (1988). A disparate-treatment plaintiff must establish “that the defendant had a discriminatory intent or motive” for taking a job-related action. Id., at 986. The Civil Rights. Act of 1964 did not include an express prohibition on policies or practices that produce a disparate impact. But in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424 (1971), the Court interpreted the Act to prohibit, in some cases, employers’ facially neutral practices that, in fact, are “discriminatory in operation.” Id., at 431. The Griggs Court stated that the “touchstone” for disparate-impact liability is the lack of “business necessity”: “If an employment practice which operates to exclude [minorities] cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited.” Ibid.; see also id., at 432 (employer’s burden to demonstrate that practice has “a manifest relationship to the employment in question”); Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 425 (1975). Under those precedents, if an employer met its burden by showing that its practice was job related, the plaintiff was required to show a legitimate alternative that would have resulted in less discrimination. Ibid. (allowing complaining party to show “that other tests or selection devices, without a similarly undesirable racial effect, would also serve the employer’s legitimate interest”). Twenty years after Griggs, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, 105 Stat. 1071, was enacted. The Act included a provision codifying the prohibition on disparate-impact discrimination. That provision is now in force along with the disparate-treatment section already noted. Under the disparate-impact statute, a plaintiff establishes a prima facie violation by showing that an employer uses “a particular employment practice that causes a disparate impact on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(k)(l)(A)(i). An employer may defend against liability by demonstrating that the practice is “job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity.” Ibid. Even if the employer meets that burden, however, a plaintiff may still succeed by showing that the employer refuses to adopt an available alternative employment practice that has less disparate impact and serves the employer’s legitimate needs. §§ 2000e-2(k)(l)(A)(ii) and (C). B Petitioners allege that when the CSB refused to certify the captain and lieutenant exam results based on the race of the successful candidates, it discriminated against them in violation of Title VIPs disparate-treatment provision. The City counters that its decision was permissible because the tests “appeared] to violate Title VIPs disparate-impact provisions.” Brief for Respondents 12. Our analysis begins with this premise: The City’s actions would violate the disparate-treatment prohibition of Title VII absent some valid defense. All the evidence demonstrates that the City chose not to certify the examination results because of the statistical disparity based on race— i. e., how minority candidates had performed when compared to white candidates. As the District Court put it, the City rejected the test results because “too many whites and not enough minorities would be promoted were the lists to be certified.” 554 F. Supp. 2d, at 152; see also ibid, (respondents’ “own arguments... show that the City’s reasons for advocating non-certification were related to the racial distribution of the results”). Without some other justification, this express, race-based decisionmaking violates Title VIPs command that employers cannot take adverse employment actions because of an individual’s race. See § 2000e-2(a)(l). The District Court did not adhere to this principle, however. It held that respondents’ “motivation to avoid making promotions based on a test with a racially disparate impact... does not, as a matter of law, constitute discriminatory intent.” Id., at 160. And the Government makes a similar argument in this Court. It contends that the “structure of Title VII belies any claim that an employer’s intent to comply with Title VIPs disparate-impact provisions constitutes prohibited discrimination on the basis of race.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 11. But both of those statements turn upon the City’s objective — avoiding disparate-impact liability — while ignoring the City’s conduct in the name of reaching that objective. Whatever the City’s ultimate aim — however well intentioned or benevolent it might have seemed — the City made its employment decision because of race. The City rejected the test results solely because the higher scoring candidates were white. The question is not whether that conduct was discriminatory but whether the City had a lawful justification for its race-based action. We consider, therefore, whether the purpose to avoid disparate-impact liability excuses what otherwise would be prohibited disparate-treatment discrimination. Courts often confront cases in which statutes and principles point in different directions. Our task is to provide guidance to employers and courts for situations when these two prohibitions could be in conflict absent a rule to reconcile them. In providing this guidance our decision must be consistent with the important purpose of Title VII — that the workplace be an environment free of discrimination, where race is not Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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

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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Per Curiam. I Federal law opens two main avenues to relief on complaints related to imprisonment: a petition for habeas corpus, 28 U. S. C. § 2254, and a complaint under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, Rev. Stat. § 1979, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1983. Challenges to the validity of any confinement or to particulars affecting its duration are the province of habeas corpus, Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 500 (1973); requests for relief turning on circumstances of confinement may be presented in a § 1983 action. Some cases are hybrids, with a prisoner seeking relief unavailable in habeas, notably damages, but on allegations that not only support a claim for recompense, but imply the invalidity either of an underlying conviction or of a particular ground for denying release short of serving the maximum term of confinement. In Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477 (1994), we held that where success in a prisoner’s § 1983 damages action would implicitly question the validity of conviction or duration of sentence, the litigant must first achieve favorable termination of his available state, or federal habeas, opportunities to challenge the underlying conviction or sentence. Accordingly, in Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U. S. 641 (1997), we applied Heck in the circumstances of a § 1983 action claiming damages and equitable relief for a procedural defect in a prison’s administrative process, where the administrative, action taken against the plaintiff could affect credits toward release based on good time served. In each instance, conditioning the right to bring a §1983 action on a favorable result in state litigation or federal habeas served the practical objective of preserving limitations on the availability of habeas remedies. Federal petitions for habeas corpus may be granted only after other avenues of relief have been exhausted. 28 U. S. C. § 2254(b)(1)(A). See Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509 (1982). Prisoners suing under § 1983, in contrast, generally face a substantially lower gate, even with the requirement of the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that administrative opportunities be exhausted first. 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(a). Heck's requirement to resort to state litigation and federal habeas before § 1983 is not, however, implicated by a prisoner’s challenge that threatens no consequence for his conviction or the duration of his sentence. There is no need to preserve the habeas exhaustion rule and no impediment - under Heck in such a case, of which this is an example. II A This suit grew out of a confrontation between petitioner, Muhammad, an inmate, and the respondent Michigan prison official, Close. App. 70. According to his amended complaint, Muhammad was eating breakfast when he saw Close . “staring at him through the hallway window.” Id., at 71. Eventually Muhammad stared back, provoking Close to assume “a fighting stance” and “com[e] into the dining area at a fast pace with his face contorted.” Ibid. Muhammad stood up and faced him, and when the two were within a foot of one another, Close asked, “whats [sic] up,” all the while “staring angerly [sic].” In the aftermath of the confrontation, Muhammad was handcuffed, taken to a detention cell, and charged with violating the prison rule prohibiting “Threatening Behavior.” (Emphasis deleted.) Under the rules, special detention was required prior to a hearing on the charge, which occurred six days later. Muhammad was acquitted of threatening behavior, but found guilty of the lesser infraction of insolence, for which prehearing detention would not have been mandatory. Ibid. Muhammad was required to serve an additional 7 days of detention and deprived of privileges for 30 days as penalties for insolence. Ibid. Muhammad then brought this § 1983 action, alleging that Close had charged him with threatening behavior (and subjected him to mandatory prehearing lockup) in retaliation for prior lawsuits and grievance proceedings against Close. Id., at 72. He amended his original complaint after obtaining counsel, and neither in his amended complaint nor at any subsequent juncture did Muhammad challenge his conviction for insolence, or the subsequent disciplinary action. See Brief for Petitioner 42. The amended complaint sought no expungement of the misconduct finding, and in fact Muhammad conceded that the insolence determination was justified. The only relief sought was $10,000 in compensatory and punitive damages “for the physical, mental and emotional injuries sustained” during the six days of prehearing detention mandated by the charge of threatening behavior attributable to Close’s retaliatory motive. App. 72. Following discovery, the Magistrate Judge recommended summary judgment for Close on the ground that Muhammad had failed to come forward with sufficient evidence of retaliation to raise a genuine issue of material fact .as to that element. Id., at 63. The District Court adopted the recommendation. Id., at 70. B Muhammad then appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which, by an opinion designated not for publication, affirmed the summary judgment for Close, though not on the basis recommended by the Magistrate Judge and adopted by the District Court. 47 Fed. Appx. 738 (2002). Instead of considering the conclusion that Muhammad had produced inadequate evidence of retaliation, a ground that would have been dispositive if sustained, the Court of Appeals held the action barred by Heck because Muhammad had sought, among other relief, the expungement. of the misconduct charge from the prison record. Relying upon Circuit precedent, see Huey v. Stine, 230 F. 3d 226 (2000), the Court of Appeals held that an action under § 1983 to expunge his misconduct charge and for other relief occasioned by the misconduct proceedings could be brought only after satisfying Heck’s favorable termination requirement. The Circuit thus maintained a split on the applicability of Heck to prison disciplinary proceedings in the absence of any implication going to the fact or duration of underlying sentence, four Circuits having taken the contrary view. See Leamer v. Fauver, 288 F. 3d 532, 542-544 (CA3 2002); DeWalt v. Carter, 224 F. 3d 607, 613 (CA7 2000); Jenkins v. Haubert, 179 F. 3d 19, 27 (CA2 1999); Brown v. Plaut, 131 F. 3d 163, 167-169 (CADC 1997). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 539 U. S. 925 (2003), and now reverse. III The decision of the Court of Appeals was flawed as a matter of fact and as a matter of law. Its factual error was the assumption that Muhammad sought to expunge the misconduct charge from his prison record. The court simply overlooked the amended complaint that sought no such relief. ' The factual error was compounded by following the mistaken view expressed in Circuit precedent that Heck applies categorically to all suits challenging prison disciplinary proceedings. But these administrative determinations do not as such raise any implication about the validity of the underlying conviction, and although they may affect the duration of time to be served (by bearing on the award or revocation of good-time credits) that is not necessarily so. The effect of disciplinary proceedings on good-time credits is a matter of state law or regulation, and in this case, the Magistrate Judge expressly found or assumed that no good-time credits were eliminated by the prehearing action Muhammad called in question. His § 1983 suit challenging this action could not therefore be construed as seeking a judgment at odds with his conviction or with the State’s calculation of time to be served in accordance with the underlying sentence. That is, he raised no claim on which habeas relief could have been granted on any recognized theory, with the consequence that Heck’s favorable termination requirement was inapplicable. > Close tries to salvage the appellate court’s judgment by arguing for the first time here that Heck is squarely on point because, if the § 1983 suit succeeded, Muhammad would be entitled to restoration of some good-time credits with the result of less time to be spent in prison. Brief for Respondent 17-18. But this eleventh-hour contention was waived. The Magistrate Judge’s report stated that good-time credits were not affected by the allegedly retaliatory overcharge of threatening behavior and the consequential prehearing detention Muhammad complained of, and Close had every opportunity to challenge the Magistrate Judge’s position in the District Court and in the Court of Appeals. Having failed to raise the claim when its legal and factual premises could have been litigated, Close cannot raise it now. See Auer v. Robbins, 519 U. S. 452, 464 (1997). The judgment of the Court of Appeals, accordingly, is reversed, and the case is remanded for consideration of summary judgment on the ground adopted by the District Court, and for any further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. The assumption is that the incarceration that matters under Heck is the incarceration ordered by the original judgment of conviction, not special disciplinary confinement for infraction of prison rules. This Court has never followed the speculation in Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 499 (1973), that such a prisoner subject to “additional and unconstitutional restraints” might have a habeas claim independent of §1983, and the contention is not raised by the State here. Members of the Court have habeas for other reasons may also dispense with the Heck requirement. See Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477, 491 (1994) (Souter, J., concurring in judgment); Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U. S. 1, 21-22 (1998) (Ginsburg, J., concurring). This case is no occasion to settle the issue. The Michigan Department No. 03.03.105 (June 6, 1994) (Directive), defines “Threatening Behavior” as “Words, actions or other behavior which expresses a[n] intent to injure or physically abuse another person.” App. 40 (emphasis deleted). The Directive defines “Insolence” as which is intended to harass, or cause alarm in an employee.” Id., at 44 (emphasis deleted). Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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

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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court. We consider whether a California law imposing restrictions on violent video games comports with the First Amendment. California Assembly Bill 1179 (2005), Cal. Civ. Code Ann. §§ 1746-1746.5 (West 2009) (Act), prohibits the sale or rental of “violent video games” to minors, and requires their packaging to be labeled “18.” The Act covers games “in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being, if those acts are depicted” in a manner that “[a] reasonable person, considering the game as a whole, would find appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors,” that is “patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community as to what is suitable for minors,” and that “causes the game, as a whole, to lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.” § 1746(d)(1)(A). Violation of the Act is punishable by a civil fine of up to $1,000. §1746.3. Respondents, representing the video-game and software industries, brought a preenforcement challenge to the Act in the United States District Court for the Northern District H-1 of California. That court concluded that the Act violated the First Amendment and permanently enjoined its enforcement. Video Software Dealers Assn. v. Schwarzenegger, No. C-05-04188 RMW (2007), App. to Pet. for Cert. 39a. The Court of Appeals affirmed, Video Software Dealers Assn. v. Schwarzenegger, 556 F. 3d 950 (CA9 2009), and we granted certiorari, 559 U. S. 1092 (2010). II California correctly acknowledges that video games qualify for First Amendment protection. The Free Speech Clause exists principally to protect discourse on public matters, but we have long recognized that it is difficult to distinguish politics from entertainment, and dangerous to try. “Everyone is familiar with instances of propaganda through fiction. What is one man’s amusement, teaches another’s doctrine.” Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 510 (1948). Like the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas — and even social messages — through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with -the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection. Under our Constitution, “esthetic and moral judgments about art and literature... are for the individual to make, not for the Government to decree, even with the mandate or approval of a majority.” United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U. S. 803, 818 (2000). And whatever the challenges of applying the Constitution to ever-advancing technology, “the basic principles of freedom of speech and the press, like the First Amendment’s command, do not vary” when a new and different medium for communication appears. Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495, 503 (1952). The most basic of those principles is this: “[A]s a general matter,... government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 535 U. S. 564, 573 (2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). There are of course exceptions. “‘From 1791 to the present/... the First Amendment has ‘permitted restrictions upon the content of speech in a few limited areas/ and has never ‘include[d] a freedom to disregard these traditional limitations.’ ” United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 468 (2010) (quoting R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 382-383 (1992)). These limited areas — such as obscenity, Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 483 (1957), incitement, Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444, 447-449 (1969) (per curiam), and fighting words, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572 (1942)—represent “well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem,” id., at 571-572. Last Term, in Stevens, we held that new categories of unprotected speech may not be added to the list by a legislature that concludes certain speech is too harmful to be tolerated. Stevens concerned a federal statute purporting to criminalize the creation, sale, or possession of certain depictions of animal cruelty. See 18 U. S. C. § 48 (amended 2010). The statute covered depictions “in which a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded, or killed” if that harm to the animal was illegal where “the creation, sale, or possession t[ook] place,” § 48(e)(1). A saving clause largely borrowed from our obscenity jurisprudence, see Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15, 24 (1973), exempted depictions with “serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value,” § 48(b). We held that statute to be an impermissible content-based restriction on speech. There was no American tradition of forbidding the depiction of animal cruelty — though States have long had laws against committing it. The Government argued in Stevens that lack of a historical warrant did not matter; that it could create new categories of unprotected speech by applying a “simple balancing test” that weighs the value of a particular category of speech against its social costs and then punishes that category of speech if it fails the test. Stevens, 559 U. S., at 470. We emphatically rejected that “startling and dangerous” proposition. Ibid. “Maybe there are some categories of speech that have been historically unprotected, but have not yet been specifically identified or discussed as such in our case law.” Id., at 472. But without persuasive evidence that a novel restriction on content is part of a long (if heretofore unrecognized) tradition of proscription, a legislature may not revise the “judgment [of] the American people,” embodied in the First Amendment, “that the benefits of its restrictions on the Government outweigh the costs.” Id., at 470. That holding controls this case. As in Stevens, California has tried to make violent-speech regulation look like obscenity regulation by appending a saving clause required for the latter. That does not suffice. Our cases have been clear that the obscenity exception to the First Amendment does not cover whatever a legislature finds shocking, but only depictions of “sexual conduct,” Miller, supra, at 24. See also Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15, 20 (1971); Roth, supra, at 487, and n. 20. Stevens was not the first time we have encountered and rejected a State’s attempt to shoehorn speech about violence into obscenity. In Winters, we considered a New York criminal statute “forbid[ding] the massing of stories of bloodshed and lust in such a way as to incite to crime against the person,” 333 U. S., at 514. The New York Court of Appeals upheld the provision as a law against obscenity. “[T]here can be no more precise test of written indecency or obscenity,” it said, “than the continuing and changeable experience of the community as to what types of books are likely to bring about the corruption of public morals or other analogous injury to the public order. ” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted). That is of course the same expansive view of governmental power to abridge the freedom of speech based on interest balancing that we rejected in Stevens. Our opinion in Winters, which concluded that the New York statute failed a heightened vagueness standard applicable to restrictions upon speech entitled to First Amendment protection, 333 U. S., at 517-519, made clear that violence is not part of the obscenity that the Constitution permits to be regulated. The speech reached by the statute contained “no indecency or obscenity in any sense heretofore known to the law.” Id., at 519. Because speech about violence is not obscene, it is of no consequence that California’s statute mimics the New York statute regulating obscenity for minors that we upheld in Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S. 629 (1968). That case approved a prohibition on the sale to minors of sexual material that would be obscene from the perspective of a child. We held that the legislature could “adjus[t] the definition of obscenity 'to social realities by permitting the appeal of this type of material to be assessed in terms of the sexual interests... ’ of... minors.” Id., at 638 (quoting Mishkin v. New York, 383 U. S. 502, 509 (1966)). And because “obscenity is not protected expression,” the New York statute could be sustained so long as the legislature’s judgment that the proscribed materials were harmful to children “was not irrational.” 390 U. S., at 641. The California Act is something else entirely. It does not adjust the boundaries of an existing category of unprotected speech to ensure that a definition designed for adults is not uncritically applied to children. California does not argue that it is empowered to prohibit selling offensively violent works to adults — and it is wise not to, since that is but a hair’s breadth from the argument rejected in Stevens. Instead, it wishes to create a wholly new category of content-based regulation that is permissible only for speech directed at children. That is unprecedented and mistaken. “[Mjinors are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment protection, and only in relatively narrow and well-defined circumstances may government bar public dissemination of protected materials to them.” Erznoznik v. Jacksonville, 422 U. S. 205, 212-213 (1975) (citation omitted). No doubt a State possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm, Ginsberg, supra, at 640-641; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 165 (1944), but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed. “Speech that is neither obscene as to youths nor subject to some other legitimate proscription cannot be suppressed solely to protect the young from ideas or images that a legislative body thinks unsuitable for them.” Erznoznik, supra, at 213-214. California’s argument would fare better if there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence, but there is none. Certainly the books we give children to read — or read to them when they are younger — contain no shortage of gore. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed. As her just deserts for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers “till she fell dead on the floor, a sad example of envy and jealousy.” The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales 198 (2006 ed.). Cinderella’s evil stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by doves. Id., at 95. And Hansel and Gretel (children!) kill their captor by baking her in an oven. Id., at 54. High-school reading lists are full of similar fare. Homer’s Odysseus blinds Polyphemus the Cyclops by grinding out his eye with a heated stake. 22 The Odyssey of Homer, Book IX, p. 125 (S. Butcher & A. Lang transis. 1909) (“Even so did we seize the fiery-pointed brand and whirled it round in his eye, and the blood flowed about the heated bar. And the breath of the flame singed his eyelids and brows all about, as the ball of the eye burnt away, and the roots thereof crackled in the flame”). In the Inferno, Dante and Virgil watch corrupt politicians struggle to stay submerged beneath a lake of boiling pitch, lest they be skewered by devils above the surface. Canto XXI, pp. 187-189 (A. Mandelbaum transl. Bantam Classic ed. 1982). And Golding’s Lord of the-Flies recounts how a schoolboy called Piggy is savagely murdered by other children while marooned on an island. W. Golding, Lord of the Flies 208-209 (1997 ed.). This is not to say that minors’ consumption of violent entertainment has never encountered resistance. In the 1800’s, dime novels depicting crime and “penny dreadfuls” (named for their price and content) were blamed in some quarters for juvenile delinquency. See Brief for Cato Institute as Amicus Curiae 6-7. When motion pictures came along, they became the villains instead. “The days when the police looked upon dime novels as the most dangerous of textbooks in the school for crime are drawing to a close.... They say that the moving picture machine... tends even more than did the dime novel to turn the thoughts of the easily influenced to paths which sometimes lead to prison.” Moving Pictures as Helps to Crime, N. Y. Times, Feb. 21, 1909, quoted in Brief for Cato Institute 8. For a time, our Court did permit broad censorship of movies because of their capacity to be “used for evil,” see Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Comm’n of Ohio, 236 U. S. 230, 242 (1915), but we eventually reversed course, Joseph Burstyn, Inc., 343 U. S., at 502; see also Erznoznik, supra, at 212-214 (invalidating a drive-in movies restriction designed to protect children). Radio dramas were next, and then came comic books. Brief for Cato Institute 10-11. Many in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s blamed comic books for fostering a “preoccupation with violence and horror” among the young, leading to a rising juvenile crime rate. See Note, Regulation of Comic Books, 68 Harv. L. Rev. 489, 490 (1955). But efforts to convince Congress to restrict comic books failed. Brief for Comic Book Legal Defense Fund as Amicus Curiae 11-15. And, of course, after comic books came television and music lyrics. California claims that video games present special problems because they are “interactive,” in that the player participates in the violent action on screen and determines its outcome. The latter feature is nothing new: Since at least the publication of The Adventures of You: Sugarcane Island in 1969, young readers of choose-your-own-adventure stories have been able to make decisions that determine the plot by following instructions about which page to turn to. Cf. Interactive Digital Software Assn. v. St. Louis County, 329 F. 3d 954, 957-958 (CA8 2003). As for the argument that video games enable participation in the violent action, that seems to us more a matter of degree than of kind. As Judge Posner has observed, all literature is interactive. “[T]he better it is, the more interactive. Literature when it is successful draws the reader into the story, makes him identify with the characters, invites him to judge them and quarrel with them, to experience their joys and sufferings as the reader’s own.” American Amusement Machine Assn. v. Kendrick, 244 F. 3d 572, 577 (CA7 2001) (striking down a similar restriction on violent video games). Justice Alito has done considerable independent research to identify, see post, at 818-819, nn. 13-18, video games in which “the violence is astounding,” post, at 818. “Victims are dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled, set on fire, and chopped into little pieces_Blood gushes, splatters, and pools.” Ibid. Justice Alito recounts all these disgusting video games in order to disgust us — but disgust is not a valid basis for restricting expression. And the same is true of Justice Alito’s description, post, at 819, of those Because the Act imposes a restriction on the content of protected speech, it is invalid unless California can demonstrate that it passes strict scrutiny — that is, unless it is justified by a compelling government interest and is narrowly drawn to serve that interest. R. A. V., 505 U. S., at 395. The State must specifically identify an “actual problem” in need of solving, Playboy, 529 U. S., at 822-823, and the curtailment of free speech must be actually necessary to the solution, see R. A. V, supra, at 395. That is a demanding standard. “It is rare that a regulation restricting speech because of its content will ever be permissible.” Playboy, supra, at 818. California cannot meet that standard. At the outset, it acknowledges that it cannot show a direct causal link between violent video games and harm to minors. Rather, relying upon our decision in Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U. S. 622 (1994), the State claims that it need not produce such proof because the legislature can make a predictive judgment that such a link exists, based on competing psychological studies. But reliance on Turner Broadcasting is misplaced. That decision applied intermediate scrutiny to a content-neutral regulation. Id., at 661-662. California’s burden is much higher, and because it bears the video games he has discovered that have a racial or ethnic motive for their violence — “‘ethnic cleansing’ [of]... African-Americans, Latinos, or Jews.” To what end does he relate this? Does it somehow increase the “aggressiveness” that- California wishes to suppress? Who knows? But it does arouse the reader’s ire, and the reader’s desire to put an end to this horrible message. Thus, ironically, Justice Alito’s argument highlights the precise danger posed by the California Act: that the ideas expressed by speech — whether it be violence, or' gore, or racism — and not its objective effects, may be the real reason for governmental proscription. III risk of uncertainty, see Playboy, supra, at 816-817, ambiguous proof will not suffice. The State’s evidence is not compelling. California relies primarily on the research of Dr. Craig Anderson and a few other research psychologists whose studies purport to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children. These studies have been rejected by every court to consider them, and with good reason: They do not prove that violent video games cause minors to act aggressively (which would at least be a beginning). Instead, “[njearly all of the research is based on correlation, not evidence of causation, and most of the studies suffer from significant, admitted flaws in methodology.” 556 F. 3d, at 964. They show at best some correlation between exposure to violent entertainment and minuscule real-world effects, such as children’s feeling more aggressive or making louder noises in the few minutes after playing a violent game than after playing a nonviolent game. Even taking for granted Dr. Anderson’s conclusions that violent video games produce some effect on children’s feelings of aggression, those effects are both small and indistinguishable from effects produced by other media. In his testimony in a similar lawsuit, Dr. Anderson admitted that the “effect sizes” of children’s exposure to violent video games are “about the same” as that produced by their exposure to violence on television. App. 1263. And he admits that the same effects have been found when children watch cartoons starring Bugs Bunny or the Road Runner, id., at 1304, or when they play video games like Sonic the Hedgehog that are rated “E” (appropriate for all ages), id., at 1270, or even when they “vie[w] a picture of a gun,” id., at 1315-1316. Of course, California has (wisely) declined to restrict Saturday morning cartoons, the sale of games rated for young children, or the distribution of pictures of guns. The consequence is that its regulation is wildly underinclusive when judged against its asserted justification, which in our view is alone enough to defeat it. Underinclusiveness raises serious doubts about whether the government is in fact pursuing the interest it invokes, rather than disfavoring a particular speaker or viewpoint. See City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U. S. 43, 51 (1994); Florida Star v. B. J. F., 491 U. S. 524, 540 (1989). Here, California has singled out the purveyors of video games for disfavored treatment — at least when compared to booksellers, cartoonists, and movie producers — and has given no persuasive reason why. The Act is also seriously underinclusive in another respect — and a respect that renders irrelevant the contentions of the concurrence and the dissents that video games are qualitatively different from other portrayals of violence. The California Legislature is perfectly willing to leave this dangerous, mind-altering material in the hands of children so long as one parent (or even an aunt or uncle) says it’s OK. And there are not even any requirements as to how this parental or avuncular relationship is to be verified; apparently the child’s or putative parent’s, aunt’s, or uncle’s say-so suffices. That is not how one addresses a serious social problem. California claims that the Act is justified in aid of parental authority: By requiring that the purchase of violent video games can be made only by adults, the Act ensures that parents can decide what games are appropriate. At the outset, we note our doubts that punishing third parties for conveying protected speech to children just in case their parents disapprove of that speech is a proper governmental means of aiding parental authority. Accepting that position would largely vitiate the rule that “only in relatively narrow and well-defined circumstances may government bar public dissemination of protected materials to [minors].” Erznoznik, 422 U. S., at 212-213. But leaving that aside, California cannot show that the Act’s restrictions meet a substantial need of parents who wish to restrict their children’s access to violent video games biit cannot do so. The video-game industry has in place a voluntary rating system designed to inform consumers about the content of games. The system, implemented by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), assigns age-specific ratings to each video game submitted: EC (Early Childhood); E (Everyone); E10+ (Everyone 10 and older); T (Teens); M (17 and older); and AO (Adults Only — 18 and older). App. 86. The Video Software Dealers Association encourages retailers to prominently display information about the ESRB system in their stores; to refrain from renting or selling adults-only games to minors; and to rent or sell “M” rated games to minors only with parental consent. Id., at 47. In 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found that, as a result of this system, “the video game industry outpaces the movie and music industries” in “(1) restricting target-marketing of mature-rated products to children; (2) clearly and prominently disclosing rating information; and (3) restricting children’s access to mature-rated products at retail.” FTC, Report to Congress, Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children 30 (Dec. 2009), online at http:// www.ftc.gov/os/2009/12/P994511violententertainment.pdf (as visited June 24, 2011, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file) (FTC Report). This system does much to ensure that minors cannot purchase seriously violent games on their own, and that parents who care about the matter can readily evaluate the games their children bring home. Filling the remaining modest gap in concerned parents’ control can hardly be a compelling state interest. And finally, the Act’s purported aid to parental authority is vastly overinclusive. Not all of the children who are forbidden to purchase violent video games on their own have parents who care whether they purchase violent video games. While some of the legislation’s effect may indeed be in support of what some parents of the restricted children actually want, its entire effect is only in support of what the State thinks parents ought to want. This is not the narrow tailoring to “assisting parents” that restriction of First Amendment rights requires. * * * California’s effort to regulate violent video games is the latest episode in a long series of failed attempts to censor violent entertainment for minors. While we have pointed out above that some of the evidence brought forward to support the harmfulness of video games is unpersuasive, we do not mean to demean or disparage the concerns that underlie the attempt to regulate them — concerns that may and doubtless do prompt a good deal of parental oversight. We have no business passing judgment on the view of the California Legislature that violent video games (or, for that matter, any other forms of speech) corrupt the young or harm their moral development. Our task is only to say whether or not such works constitute a “well-defined and narrowly limited clas[s] of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem,” Chaplinsky, 315 U. S., at 571-572 (the answer plainly is no); and if not, whether the regulation of such works is justified by that high degree of necessity we have described as a compelling state interest (it is not). Even where the protection of children is the object, the constitutional limits on governmental action apply. California’s legislation straddles the fence between (1). addressing a serious social problem and (2) helping concerned parents control their children. Both ends are legitimate, but when they affect First Amendment rights they must be pursued by means that are neither seriously under-inclusive nor seriously overinclusive. See Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520, 546 (1993). As a means of protecting children from portrayals of violence, the legislation is seriously underinclusive, not only because it excludes portrayals other than video games, but also because it permits a parental or avuncular veto. And as a means of assisting concerned parents it is seriously overinclusive because it abridges the First Amendment rights of young people whose parents (and aunts and uncles) think violent video games are a harmless pastime. And the overbreadth in achieving one goal is not cured by the underbreadth in achieving the other. Legislation such as this, which is neither fish nor fowl, cannot survive strict scrutiny. We affirm the judgment below. It is so ordered. Justice Alito distinguishes Stevens on several grounds that seem to us ill founded. He suggests, post, at 814 (opinion concurring in judgment), that Stevens did not apply strict scrutiny. If that is so (and we doubt it), it would make this an a fortiori case. He says, post, at 814, that the California Act punishes the sale or rental rather than the “creation” or “possession” of violent depictions. That distinction appears nowhere in Stevens itself, and for good reason: It would make permissible the prohibition of printing or selling books — though not the writing of them. "Whether government regulation applies to creating, distributing, or consuming speech makes no difference. And finally, Justice Alito points out, post, at 814, that Stevens “left open the possibility that a more narrowly drawn statute” would be constitutional. True, but entirely irrelevant. Stevens said, 559 U. S., at 482, that the “crush-video” statute at issue there might pass muster if it were limited to videos of acts of animal cruelty that violated the law where the acts were performed. There is no contention that any of the virtual characters depicted in the imaginative videos at issue here are criminally liable. The statute in Ginsberg restricted-the sale of certain depictions of ‘“nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sado-masochistic abuse’” that were ‘“[h]armful to minors.’” A depiction was harmful to minors if it: “(i) predominantly appeals to the prurient, shameful or morbid interest of minors, and “(ü) is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material for minors, and “(iii) is utterly without redeeming social importance for minors.” 390 U. S., at 646 (Appendix A to opinion of the Court) (quoting N. Y. Penal Law § 484-h(1)(f)). Justice Thomas ignores the holding of Erznoznik, and denies that persons under 18 have any constitutional right to Gpoalc or bo spoken to without their parents’ consent. He cites no case, state or federal, supporting this view, and to our knowledge there is none. Most of his dissent is devoted to the proposition that parents have traditionally had the power to control what their children hear and say. This is true enough. And it perhaps follows from this that the state has the power to enforce parental prohibitions — to require, for example, that the promoters of a rock eoncort exclude those minors whose parents have advised the promoters that their children are forbidden to attend. But it does not follow that the state has the power to prevent children from hearing or saying anything without their parents’ prior consent. The latter would mean, for example, that it could be made criminal to admit persons under 18 to a political rally without their parents’ prior written consent — even a political rally in support of laws against corporal punishment of children, or laws in favor of greater rights for minors. And what is good for First Amendment rights of speech must be good for First Amendment rights of religion as well: It could be made criminal to admit a person under 18 to church, or to give a person under 18 a religious tract, without his parents’ prior consent. Our point is not, as Justice Thomas believes, post, at 836, n. 2, merely that such laws are “undesirable.” They are obviously an infringement upon the religious freedom of young people and thooo who wish to proselytizo young people. Such laws do not enforce parental authority over children’s speech and religion; they impose governmental authority, subject only to a parental veto. In the absence of any precedent for state control, uninvited by the parents, over a child’s speech and religion (Justice Thomas cites none), and in the absence of any justification for such control that would satisfy strict scrutiny, those laws must be unconstitutional. This argument is not, as Justice Thomas asserts, “circular,” ibid. It is the absence of any historical warrant or compelling justification for such restrictions, not our ipse dixit, that renders them invalid. Justice Auto accuses us of pronouncing that playing violent video games “is not different in ‘kind’ ” from reading violent literature. Post, at 806. Well of course it is different in kind, but not in a way that causes the provision and viewing of violent video games, unlike the provision and reading of books, not to be expressive activity and hence not to enjoy First Amendment protection. Reading Dante is unquestionably more cultured and intellectually edifying than playing Mortal Kombat. But these cultural and intellectual differences are not constitutional ones. Crudely violont video games, tawdry TV shows, and cheap novels and magazines are no less forms of speech than The Divine Comedy, and restrictions upon them must survive strict scrutiny — a question to which we devote our attention in Part III, infra. Even if we can see in them “nothing of any possible value to society..., they are as much entitled to the protection of free speech as the best of literature.” Winters v. New York, 338 U. S. 507, 510 (1948). The crusade against comic books was led by a psychiatrist, Frederic Wertham, who told the Senate Judiciary Committee that “as long as the crime comic books industry exists in its present forms there are no secure homes.” Juvenile Delinquency (Comic Books): Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 84 (1954). Wertham’s objections extended even to Superman comics, which he described as “particularly injurious to the ethical development of children.” Id., at 86. Wertham’s crusade did convince the New York Legislature to pass a ban on the sale of certain comic books to minors, but it was vetoed by Governor Thomas Dewey on the ground that it was unconstitutional given our opinion in Winters, supra. See People v. Bookcase, Inc., 14 N. Y. 2d 409, 412-413, 201 N. E. 2d 14, 15-16 (1964). See Video Software Dealers Assn. v. Schwarzenegger, 556 F. 3d 950, 963-964 (CA9 2009); Interactive Digital Software Assn. v. St. Louis County, 329 F. 3d 954 (CA8 2003); American Amusement Machine Assn. v. Kendrick, 244 F. 3d 572, 578-579 (CA7 2001); Entertainment Software Assn. v. Foti, 451 F. Supp. 2d 823, 832-833 (MD La, 2006); Entertainment Software Assn. v. Hatch, 443 F. Supp. 2d 1065, 1070 (Minn. 2006), aff’d, 519 F. 3d 768 (CA8 2008); Entertainment Software Assn. v. Granholm, 426 F. Supp. 2d 646, 653 (ED Mich. 2006); Entertainment Software Assn. v. Blagojevich, 404 F. Supp. 2d 1051, 1063 (ND Ill. 2005), aff’d, 469 F. 3d 641 (CA7 2006). One study, for example, found that children who had just finished playing violent video games were more likely to fill in the blank letter in “explo_e” with a “d” (so that it reads “explode”) than with an “r” (“explore”). App. 496, 506 (internal quotation marks omitted). The prevention of this phenomenon, which might have been anticipated with common sense, is not a compelling state interest. Justice Auto is mistaken in thinking that we fail to take account of “new and rapidly evolving technology,” post, at 806. The studies in question pertain to that new and rapidly evolving technology, and fail to show, with the degree of certitude that strict scrutiny requires, that this subject-matter restriction on speech is justified. Nor is Justice Alito correct in attributing to us the view that “violent video games really present no serious problem.” Ibid. Perhaps they do present a problem, and perhaps none of us would allow our own children to play them. But there are all sorts of “problems” — some of them surely more serious than this one — that cannot be addressed by governmental restriction of free expression: for example, the problem of encouraging anti-Semitism (National Socialist Party of America v. Skokie, 432 U. S. 43 (1977) (per curiam)), the problem of spreading a political philosophy hostile to the Constitution (Noto v. United States, 367 U. S. 290 (1961)), or the problem of encouraging disrespect for the Nation’s flag (Texas v. Johnson, 491 U. S. 397 Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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

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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Per Curiam. Applicant asks that we vacate a stay of execution granted Tuggle by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Because we agree with applicant that the stay was improvidently entered, we grant his application to vacate, provided that the stay shall remain in effect until September 20,1995, to allow Tuggle’s counsel opportunity to seek a further stay in this Court. On June 29, 1995, the Court of Appeals issued an opinion vacating the District Court’s grant- of habeas relief, finding all of Tuggle’s constitutional claims to be without merit. Tuggle v. Thompson, 57 F. 3d 1356. The court stayed the issuance of its mandate on August 2, however, and granted Tuggle a 30-day stay of execution pending the filing of a timely petition for certiorari in this Court; then on August 25 it extended the stay of execution for the full 90 days allowed to file a certiorari petition in this Court. Both actions of the court were taken by summary order without opinion or discussion. Nothing indicates that the Court of Appeals even attempted to undertake the three-part inquiry required by our decision in Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U. S. 880, 895-896 (1983). See also Maggio v. Williams, 464 U. S. 46, 48 (1983) (per curiam); Autry v. Estelle, 464 U. S. 1, 2-3 (1983) (per curiam). There is no hint that the court found that “four Members of th[is] Court would consider the underlying issue sufficiently meritorious for the grant of certiorari” or that “a significant possibility of reversal” existed. Barefoot, supra, at 895. We think the inescapable conclusion is that the Court of Appeals mistakenly believed that a capital defendant as a matter of right was entitled to a stay of execution until he has filed a petition for certiorari in due course. But this view was rejected in Autry, supra, at 2, and Maggio, supra, at 48. Accordingly, the application to vacate the stay of execution is 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:

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 Minton delivered the opinion of the Court. The Court of Claims awarded judgment to respondent, a per diem employee of the Government Printing Office, for premium pay and gratuity pay for work performed by him on certain holidays during World War II. 119 Ct. Cl. 197, 96 F. Supp. 611. Thus, respondent was held entitled to the aggregate of: 1. His regular compensation for the days worked; 2. Fifty per cent of his regular compensation as premium pay; 3. A full day’s compensation as gratuity pay. The.Government sought review of that part of the judgment which awarded gratuity pay to respondent and others like him, and we granted certiorari, 342 U. S. 808. Respondent’s compensation was fixed by a wage agreement which provides in pertinent part: “Holiday Rate. Employees required to work on a legal holiday or a special holiday declared by Executive Order shall be paid at the day rate plus 50 per cent for all the time actually employed in addition to their gratuity pay for the holiday as provided by ' law . . . .” By a 1938 Resolution, the applicable law during the period in question, Congress provided that whenever per diem employees were “relieved or prevented from working solely because of the occurrence of” holidays declared by statute or executive order, “they shall receive the same pay for such days as for other days on which an ordinary day’s work is performed.” The question thus presented is whether the Resolution somehow precludes the awarding of the gratuity pay which the agreement seems to grant. The 1938 Resolution amended the Act of 1895 which had been consistently administered ag providing for gratuity pay in addition to regular compensation'if.tibe employee worked on a holiday. The Government contends that Congress intended to repeal the earlier statute in this respect, and that the Resolution provided gratuity pay only for holidays on which an employee is “relieved' or prevented from working.” We think this argument misses the point. The 1938 Resolution established the holidays for which gratuity pay v/as to be allowed. It was silent on the subject of gratuity pay for holidays on which work was performed, and we may even assume that it did not provide gratuity pay for those days. But the wage agreement is not silent on the subject. It provides that when an employee works on a holiday he is to receive regular compensation, premium pay, and gratuity pay “for the holiday a# provided by law.” The holidays “as provided by law” are the days provided for in the 1938 Resolution. Nothing in the Resolution prohibits such a wage agreement, and, indeed, the Government concedes this fact. Merely because the'Resolution itself may not award gratuity pay for holidays worked is no ground for vitiating a wage agreement which does. The Government points to the 1943 Presidential Directive to federal agencies, under which all holidays except Christmas were to be considered as regular workdays for the duration of the war, and urges that the Directive indicated a policy against the payment of gratuity pay for holidays worked. Clearly, the Presidential Directive was not intended to abrogate the wage agreement. We need not stop to consider the anomalous results which would stem from the Government’s position. Since the agreement provided for gratuity pay for holidays worked, respondent was entitled to such pay. Accordingly, the judgment below is Affirmed. The parties have stipulated that - the' disposition of the claim of -respondent K.elly will be determinative of claims filed by 613 other employees of the Printing Office. 52 Stat. 1246, 5 U. S. C. § 86a. 28 Stat. 601, 607, § 46. 8 Comp. Dec. 322 (1901); 13 Comp. Dec. 40 (1906); 3 Comp. Gen. 411 (1924). See Digest of Provisions of Law Fixing Pay for Employees in the Executive Branch of die Federal Government (U. S. Civil Service Commission, 1945), at p. 94, note 2; H. R. Rep. No. 514, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., Appendix, p. 94, note 2. Thus, under the Government’s view an employee who worked five hours on a- holiday would receive his regular compensation plus premium pay, or seven and one-half hours’ pay; if he stayed home all day, he would receive eight hours’ pay. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

H

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Opinion PER CURIAM. When a state prisoner seeks federal habeas relief on the ground that a state court, in adjudicating a claim on the merits, misapplied federal law, a federal court may grant relief only if the state court's decision was "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). We have emphasized, time and again, that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 110 Stat. 1214, prohibits the federal courts of appeals from relying on their own precedent to conclude that a particular constitutional principle is "clearly established." See, e.g.,Marshall v. Rodgers,569 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 1446, 1450-1451, 185 L.Ed.2d 540 (2013)(per curiam). Because the Ninth Circuit failed to comply with this rule, we reverse its decision granting habeas relief to respondent Marvin Smith. I Respondent was arrested for the murder of his wife, Minnie Smith. On December 15, 2005, Mrs. Smith was found dead in the home she shared with respondent, and it was determined that she was killed by a massive blow to the head from a fireplace log roller. The home appeared to have been ransacked, and valuable jewelry was missing. The State charged respondent with first-degree murder and offered substantial incriminating evidence at trial. The prosecution presented evidence that respondent "was unfaithful to his wife for many years, that his wife was threatening to divorce him, and that he told one of his former employees ... that the 'only way' he or his wife would get out of their marriage was 'to die,' because he was 'not going to give [Mrs. Smith] half of what [he] got so some other man can live off of it.' " 731 F.3d 859, 862-863 (C.A.9 2013)(second alteration in original). Respondent's DNA was also found on the murder weapon, pieces of duct tape found near the body, and a burned matchstick that was found in the bedroom and that may have been used to inflict burns on the body. See id.,at 863; see also People v. Smith,2010 WL 4975500, *1-*2 (Cal.App., Dec. 8, 2010). The missing jewelry was discovered in the trunk of respondent's car, wrapped in duct tape from the same roll that had provided the pieces found near the body. See 731 F.3d, at 863. Respondent's DNA was found on the duct tape in his trunk. See Smith,2010 WL 4975500, at *2. In addition, a criminologist testified that the ransacking of the Smiths' home appeared to have been staged. See 731 F.3d, at 863. Respondent defended in part on the basis that he could not have delivered the fatal blow due to rotator cuff surgery several weeks before the murder. See ibid. (He mounted this defense despite the fact that police had observed him wielding a 6-foot-long 2 by 4 to pry something out of a concrete slab at a construction site the week after the murder. See Smith,2010 WL 4975500, at *1.) The defense also suggested that one of respondent's former employees had committed the crime to obtain money to pay a debt he owed respondent. See 731 F.3d, at 863. At the close of evidence, the prosecution requested an aiding-and-abetting instruction, and the trial court agreed to give such an instruction. During closing argument, the prosecutor contended that respondent was physically able to wield the log roller that had killed Mrs. Smith, but he also informed the jury that, even if respondent had not delivered the fatal blow, he could still be convicted on an aiding-and-abetting theory. See id.,at 864. The jury convicted respondent of first-degree murder without specifying which theory of guilt it adopted. After a series of state-court proceedings not relevant here, the California Court of Appeal affirmed respondent's conviction. The state court rejected respondent's assertion that he had inadequate notice of the possibility of conviction on an aiding-and-abetting theory. The court explained that " 'an accusatory pleading charging a defendant with murder need not specify the theory of murder on which the prosecution intends to rely,' " and noted that the "information charged defendant with murder in compliance with the governing statutes." Smith,2010 WL 4975500, at *6-*7. Furthermore, the court held that "even if this case required greater specificity concerning the basis of defendant's liability, the evidence presented at his preliminary examination provided it." Id.,at *7. The upshot was that "the information and preliminary examination testimony adequately notified defendant he could be prosecuted for murder as an aider and abettor." Id.,at *8. The California Supreme Court denied respondent's petition for review. Respondent filed a petition for habeas relief with the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The Magistrate Judge recommended granting relief, and the District Court summarily adopted the Magistrate Judge's recommendation. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The court acknowledged that the "information charging [respondent] with first-degree murder was initially sufficient to put him on notice that he could be convicted either as a principal or as an aider-and-abettor," because under California law "aiding and abetting a crime is the same substantive offense as perpetrating the crime." 731 F.3d, at 868. But the Ninth Circuit nevertheless concluded that respondent's Sixth Amendment and due process right to notice had been violated because it believed the prosecution (until it requested the aiding-and-abetting jury instruction) had tried the case only on the theory that respondent himself had delivered the fatal blow. See id.,at 869. The Ninth Circuit did not purport to identify any case in which we have found notice constitutionally inadequate because, although the defendant was initially adequately apprised of the offense against him, the prosecutor focused at trial on one potential theory of liability at the expense of another. Rather, it found the instant case to be "indistinguishable from" the Ninth Circuit's own decision in Sheppard v. Rees,909 F.2d 1234 (1989), which the court thought "faithfully applied the principles enunciated by the Supreme Court." 731 F.3d, at 868. The court also rejected, as an "unreasonable determination of the facts," 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2), the California Court of Appeal's conclusion that preliminary examination testimony and the jury instructions conference put respondent on notice of the possibility of conviction on an aiding-and-abetting theory. See id.,at 871-872. II A The Ninth Circuit held, and respondent does not dispute, that respondent initially received adequate notice of the possibility of conviction on an aiding-and-abetting theory. The question is therefore whether habeas relief is warranted because the State principally relied at trial on the theory that respondent himself delivered the fatal blow. Assuming, arguendo,that a defendant is entitled to notice of the possibility of conviction on an aiding-and-abetting theory, the Ninth Circuit's grant of habeas relief may be affirmed only if this Court's cases clearly establish that a defendant, once adequately apprised of such a possibility, can nevertheless be deprived of adequate notice by a prosecutorial decision to focus on another theory of liability at trial. The Ninth Circuit pointed to no case of ours holding as much. Instead, the Court of Appeals cited three older cases that stand for nothing more than the general proposition that a defendant must have adequate notice of the charges against him. See 731 F.3d, at 866-867(citing Russell v. United States,369 U.S. 749, 763-764, 82 S.Ct. 1038, 8 L.Ed.2d 240 (1962); In re Oliver,333 U.S. 257, 273-274, 68 S.Ct. 499, 92 L.Ed. 682 (1948); Cole v. Arkansas,333 U.S. 196, 201, 68 S.Ct. 514, 92 L.Ed. 644 (1948)). This proposition is far too abstract to establish clearly the specific rule respondent needs. We have before cautioned the lower courts-and the Ninth Circuit in particular-against "framing our precedents at such a high level of generality." Nevada v. Jackson,569 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 1990, 1994, 186 L.Ed.2d 62 (2013)(per curiam). None of our decisions that the Ninth Circuit cited addresses, even remotely, the specific question presented by this case. See Russell, supra,at 752, 82 S.Ct. 1038(indictment for "refus[ing] to answer any question pertinent to [a] question under [congressional] inquiry," 2 U.S.C. § 192, failed to "identify the subject under congressional subcommittee inquiry"); In re Oliver,supra,at 259, 68 S.Ct. 499(instantaneous indictment, conviction, and sentence by judge acting as grand jury with no prior notice of charge to defendant); Cole, supra,at 197, 68 S.Ct. 514(affirmance of criminal convictions "under a ... statute for violation of which [defendants] had not been charged"). Because our case law does not clearly establish the legal proposition needed to grant respondent habeas relief, the Ninth Circuit was forced to rely heavily on its own decision in Sheppard, supra. Of course, AEDPA permits habeas relief only if a state court's decision is "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law" as determined by this Court, not by the courts of appeals. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). The Ninth Circuit attempted to evade this barrier by holding that Sheppard"faithfully applied the principles enunciated by the Supreme Court in Cole, Oliver,and Russell." 731 F.3d, at 868. But Circuit precedent cannot "refine or sharpen a general principle of Supreme Court jurisprudence into a specific legal rule that this Court has not announced." Marshall,569 U.S., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 1451. Sheppardis irrelevant to the question presented by this case: whether our case law clearly establishes that a prosecutor's focus on one theory of liability at trial can render earlier notice of another theory of liability inadequate. B The Ninth Circuit also disagreed with what it termed the state court's "determination of the facts"-principally, the state court's holding that preliminary examination testimony and the prosecutors' request for an aiding-and-abetting jury instruction shortly before closing arguments adequately put respondent on notice of the prosecution's aiding-and-abetting theory. 731 F.3d, at 871(internal quotation marks omitted). The Ninth Circuit therefore granted relief under § 2254(d)(2), which permits habeas relief where the state-court "decision ... was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." That holding cannot be sustained. In purporting to reject the state court's "determination of the facts," the Ninth Circuit focused on preliminary examination testimony by an investigator about conversations between respondent and his cellmate. According to the investigator, the cellmate stated that respondent told him that respondent "had to get rid of his wife because she was standing in the way of his future plans; that she was threatening to divorce him and he wasn't going to give up half of his property"; that respondent made his house look like the site of a home invasion robbery; and that, when he left for work the morning of the murder, he left the window open and did not set the alarm. Smith,2010 WL 4975500, at *7. The investigator also testified that the cellmate did not " 'know any of the details of the homicide itself and how it was carried out,' " and that respondent " 'never told [the cellmate] specifically who' " committed the homicide. Ibid.The California Court of Appeal held that these statements, taken together, suggested that respondent was involved in planning and facilitating the crime but that the fatal blow might have been delivered by an accomplice. Ibid.Thus, the California court believed that even assuming that the information by itself was not sufficient, this testimony naturally lent itself to conviction on an aiding-and-abetting theory and so gave respondent even greater notice of such a possibility. Ibid. The Ninth Circuit also focused on the jury instructions conference, which occurred after the defense rested but before the parties' closing arguments. During that conference, prosecutors requested an aiding-and-abetting instruction, which further provided notice to respondent. The California Court of Appeal concluded that this case is distinguishable from Sheppard v. Rees,909 F.2d 1234, because, unlike that case, the conference here did not occur immediately before closing arguments. The Ninth Circuit disagreed, holding that because "defense counsel had only the lunch recess to formulate a response" to the aiding-and-abetting instruction, this case "is indistinguishable from Sheppard," where the prosecution also "requested the new instruction the same day as closing." 731 F.3d, at 868, 870. Although the Ninth Circuit claimed its disagreement with the state court was factual in nature, in reality its grant of relief was based on a legal conclusion about the adequacy of the notice provided. The Ninth Circuit believed that the events detailed above, even when taken together with the information filed against respondent, failed to measure up to the standard of notice applicable in cases like this. That ranked as a legal determination governed by § 2254(d)(1), not one of fact governed by § 2254(d)(2). But, as we have explained, the Ninth Circuit cited only its own precedent for establishing the appropriate standard. Absent a decision of ours clearly establishing the relevant standard, the Ninth Circuit had nothing against which it could assess, and deem lacking, the notice afforded respondent by the information and proceedings. It therefore had no basis to reject the state court's assessment that respondent was adequately apprised of the possibility of conviction on an aiding-and-abetting theory. The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. 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. Respondent claims that our decision in Lankford v. Idaho,500 U.S. 110, 111 S.Ct. 1723, 114 L.Ed.2d 173 (1991), although not cited by the Ninth Circuit, clearly establishes the legal principle he needs. But Lankfordis of no help to respondent. That case addressed whether a defendant had adequate notice of the possibility of imposition of the death penalty-a far different question from whether respondent had adequate notice of the particular theory of liability. See id.,at 111, 111 S.Ct. 1723. In Lankford,moreover, the trial court itself made specific statements that encouraged the defendant to believe that the death penalty was off the table. See id.,at 116-117, 111 S.Ct. 1723. Because we reverse the Ninth Circuit's decision on the foregoing grounds, we need not opine on the correctness of that court's discussion of Griffin v. United States,502 U.S. 46, 112 S.Ct. 466, 116 L.Ed.2d 371 (1991), or Brecht v. Abrahamson,507 U.S. 619, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993). Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Per Curiam. We granted the State’s petition for certiorari to decide whether respondent retained an expectation of privacy in a bag that he placed in the communal trash bin of a multi-unit apartment building. After briefing and oral argument on that issue, it has now become clear that the question is not properly presented in this case. I Based upon an informant’s tip that respondent was accepting wagers on professional football games at a specified telephone number, police began an investigation which eventually led to an application for a search warrant for 1120 North Flores Street, Apartment No. 8, West Hollywood, California. In conjunction with the application, a police officer submitted an affidavit including at least five details in support of the warrant: (1) that the informant had named Rooney and had correctly specified when Rooney would be at the apartment; (2) that the telephone number and utilities were listed to one Peter Ryan, and that use of a pseudonym is common among bookmakers; (3) that Rooney had previously been arrested for bookmaking at the apartment; (4) that through a search of the communal trash bin in the apartment building’s basement the police had retrieved a bag containing mail addressed to Rooney at Apartment No. 8, and containing evidence of gambling activity; and (5) that the police had dialed the telephone number the informant had given them and had overheard a conversation involving point spreads on professional football games. See App. 19-28. The Magistrate found probable cause for a search of Apartment No. 8, and issued a warrant. Incriminating evidence was found during the search, and respondent was arrested. After he was charged with a number of felony offenses, respondent brought a motion to quash the search warrant and to dismiss the felony charges against him. He argued that there was no probable cause to support the warrant because the earlier warrantless search of the communal trash bin had violated his Fourth Amendment rights under a number of California Supreme Court precedents, and that, without the incriminating evidence found in the trash, there was insufficient evidence to support the warrant. A Magistrate granted respondent’s motion, agreeing that the evidence obtained from the trash bin could not be used to support the search warrant for the apartment, and ruling that the other evidence offered in support of the search warrant was insufficient to establish probable cause. The Superior Court reached the same conclusion. Pursuant to California procedural rules, the State then informed the court that it could not prosecute the case without the evidence seized in the search of the apartment, and the case was dismissed, thus allowing the State to appeal the order quashing the warrant. The Court of Appeal reversed on the only issue before it— to use the State’s words, “the sufficiency of the affidavit in support of the search warrant.” 175 Cal. App. 3d 634, 221 Cal. Rptr. 49 (1985). Although it concluded that the evidence found in the trash bin could not be used to support the search warrant, the Court of Appeal examined the other evidence offered in support of the warrant under the standards set forth in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213 (1983), and held that there was sufficient other evidence to establish probable cause in support of the warrant. The Superior Court’s order dismissing the case was therefore reversed, allowing the prosecution to proceed. The California Supreme Court denied both petitioner’s and respondent’s petitions for review. The State then sought review in this Court, arguing that the California courts had erred in stating that the search of the trash was unconstitutional. We granted certiorari. 479 U. S. 881 (1986). II This Court “reviews judgments, not statements in opinions.” Black v. Cutter Laboratories, 351 U. S. 292, 297 (1956); see also Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842 (1984); Williams v. Norris, 12 Wheat. 117, 120 (1827). Here, the judgment of the Court of Appeal was entirely in the State’s favor — the search warrant which was the sole focus of the litigation was deemed valid. The fact that the Court of Appeal reached its decision through analysis different than this Court might have used does not make it appropriate for this Court to rewrite the California court’s decision, or for the prevailing party to request us to review it. That the Court of Appeal even addressed the trash bin issue is mere fortuity; it could as easily have held that since there was sufficient evidence to support the search even without the trash evidence, it would not discuss the constitutionality of the trash search. The Court of Appeal’s use of analysis that may have been adverse to the State’s long-term interests does not allow the State to claim status as a losing party for purposes of this Court’s review. But, the State argues, if the case does come to trial, and if the State does wish to introduce the evidence, it will be barred from doing so because the reasoning in the Court of Appeal’s decision will constitute the law of the case. There are two too many “ifs” in that proposition to make our review appropriate at this stage. Even if everything the prosecution fears comes to bear, the State will still have the opportunity to appeal such an order, and this Court will have the chance to review it, with the knowledge that we are reviewing a state-court judgment on the issue, and that the State Supreme Court has passed upon or declined review in a case squarely presenting the issue. As it stands, we have no way of knowing what the California Supreme Court’s position on the issue of trash searches currently is. It is no answer to say that the California Supreme Court already had its chance to review the matter and declined to do so when it denied the State’s petition for review in this case. The denial of review may well have been based on that court’s recognizing, as we now do, that the prosecution won below, and was therefore not in a position to appeal. Giving the California Supreme Court an opportunity to consider the issue in a case that properly raises it is a compelling reason for us to dismiss this petition. Under these circumstances, our review of the trash-search issue, which has never been the subject of an actual judgment, would be most premature. The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted. Justice Marshall concurs in the judgment. Opening Brief for Appellant in No. B006936, Cal. 2d App. Dist. Throughout the proceedings it was clear that the courts were passing only upon Rooney’s motion to quash the search warrant and suppress the evidence found in the apartment; there was no motion to suppress the evidence found in the trash. For example, the first thing the Magistrate said after calling Rooney’s case was: “This is before the Court on the notice of motion to quash the search warrant pursuant to Penal Code Section 1538.5.” Clerk’s Transcript 2-3. After hearing argument involving the different parts of the affidavit supporting the search warrant, the Magistrate announced: “It is going to be the ruling of this Court that although this is a relatively close matter, but I feel that the notice of motion to quash the search warrant pursuant to Penal Code Section 1538.5 should be granted.” Id., at 21. Again, when the ease came before the Superior Court, the first thing the judge stated was: “The matter pending, motion to suppress evidence pursuant to Section 1538.5. At this point, to classify the issue, is directed at the sufficiency of the affidavit in support of the search warrant and challenges that affidavit on its face.” App. 50. A careful and adequate reading of the record, cf. post, at 318 (White, J., dissenting), reveals that the State itself has never believed that the Court of Appeal’s judgment incorporated any motion to suppress the evidence found in the trash. For example, as Justice White notes, the State sought rehearing in the Court of Appeal, but as part of that petition it stated that the Court of Appeal’s “opinion should be appropriately modified to delete its discussion of the issue since its determination that the search warrant was based upon probable cause was made notwithstanding its conclusion that the Krivda rule [People v. Krivda, 5 Cal. 3d 357, 486 P. 2d 1262 (1971)] applies to communal trash bins.” Petition for Rehearing or Modification of Opinion in No. B006936 (Cal. 2d App. Dist.), p. 4. If the Court of Appeal had actually issued a judgment on the issue, the State would have sought a modification of the judgment — not a mere modification of the opinion. That the State does not believe that the Court of Appeal issued a judgment excluding the evidence from the trash search is further corroborated by the State’s own arguments before this Court. In its petition for certiorari, the State explained: “At first blush, it might be urged that a petition for writ of certiorari should not be granted because the Court of Appeal’s conclusion that the search of the apartment building communal trash bin was unreasonable constitutes obiter dicta. However, the Court of Appeal’s determination that the search of the trash bin was unreasonable cannot be deemed to merely constitute obiter dicta. . . . Unless overturned on this point, the Court of Appeal’s conclusion constitutes the law of the case. . . . Hence at the trial, the People would be precluded from introducing evidence as to what the police officers had found in the trash bin.” Pet. for Cert. 14-15 (emphasis added, citations omitted). Similarly, the Deputy District Attorney arguing the case before this Court candidly described the State’s reasons for seeking certiorari in this case: “Q. So that everything you found under the search warrant is admissible. “Mr. Guminski: That is correct, Your Honor. But the ruling ... is a ruling that forecloses the use of what was discovered as far as the trash bag; that would be the rule of the case. “Q. And you think you’re really going to use that at this trial, or you think that you would really need to? “A. Well, Your Honor, I think what we really want would be to . . . overrule People v. Krivda, which was here before this Court in 1972, and which was remanded then because there were independent state grounds. “I mean, I wish to answer candidly to your question, Justice; there is an intention to use it, of course. “But it is a vehicle of review.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 26-27. Of course, as we explain, see text this page and infra, at 313-314, the law-of-the-case doctrine provides no justification for our granting review at this stage. See Barclay v. Florida, 463 U. S. 939, 946 (1983); Hathorn v. Lovorn, 457 U. S. 255, 261-262 (1982); see generally R. Stern, E. Gressman, & S. Shapiro, Supreme Court Practice 132 (6th ed. 1986). Assuming that respondent’s motion to suppress the trash evidence will be granted, the prosecution will then have to decide whether it can prosecute without the evidence. If it cannot, then an order of dismissal will be entered, and the prosecution may immediately appeal. See Cal. Penal Code Ann. §§ 1238, 1538.5 (West 1982). Even if the prosecution can proceed without the evidence, however, it may still obtain immediate review through a writ of mandate or prohibition. § 1538.5(o). A writ of mandate could compel the Superior Court to admit the evidence and “must be issued where there is not a plain, speedy, and adequate remedy, in the ordinary course of law.” Cal. Civ. Proe. Code Ann. § 1086 (West 1982). See generally B. Witkin, California Criminal Procedure §§ 869, 870 (1985 Supp., pt. 2). The California rule regarding trash searches is derived from the California Supreme Court’s decision in People v. Krivda, 5 Cal. 3d 357, 486 P. 2d 1262 (1971) (en banc). We granted certiorari to review that decision but we were unable to determine whether the California Supreme Court had rested its decision on state or federal grounds. 409 U. S. 33 (1972). On remand, the court announced that it had rested on both state and federal constitutional grounds, 8 Cal. 3d 623, 504 P. 2d 457, cert. denied, 412 U. S. 919 (1973), which prevented us from reviewing the case. In 1985, however, the people of California amended their Constitution to bar the suppression of evidence seized in violation of the California, but not the Federal, Constitution. Cal. Const., Art. I, § 28(d); see generally In re Lance W., 37 Cal. 3d 873, 694 P. 2d 744 (1985). Thus, the Court of Appeal was forced to rest its discussion of the trash-search issue in this case on the Federal Constitution. While we express no view on the merits of the issue, we note that the arguments that the State now makes rely, in large part, on post-Krivda developments, including the state constitutional amendment discussed above, this Court’s intervening decisions, and decisions of the United States Courts of Appeals dealing with trash searches. The California Supreme Court should be afforded the opportunity to consider these factors before we intervene. Moreover, because of the unusual posture of the case, we cannot know whether the prosecution will even seek to introduce the trash evidence at trial. If the evidence found in the apartment pursuant to the valid warrant is strong enough, the prosecution might not even be interested in presenting the more attenuated evidence found'in the trash. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Black delivered the opinion of the Court. This case involves the power of District Courts to review Interstate Commerce Commission orders determining the reasonableness of rates. In 1941 and 1942 the United States made 75 shipments of iron and steel over the Pennsylvania Railroad intended for export from the port of New York to Great Britain. War conditions prevented exportation from New York. This caused a dispute about applicable transportation charges since the Pennsylvania had in effect tariffs for “domestic rates” that were higher than “export rates.” Since the goods were not exported as planned the Railroad billed the United States for the higher domestic rates which the Government paid because required to do so by § 322 of the Transportation Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 955, 49 U. S. C. § 66. Later, under authority of the same section, the General Accounting Office deducted from other bills due the Railroad the difference between the higher and lower rates, claiming that the higher domestic rates were inapplicable, unreasonable and unlawful. The Railroad then brought this action in the Court of Claims to recover the amount deducted. Properly relying on our holding in United States v. Western Pacific R. Co., 352 U. S. 59, 62-70, the Court of Claims suspended proceedings to enable the parties to have the Interstate Commerce Commission pass on the reasonableness of the rates. After hearings the Commission found and reported that the domestic rates were “unjust and unreasonable” as to 62 of the shipments but “just and reasonable” as to 13. 305 I. C. C. 259, 265. The Railroad then took two steps to challenge that part of the order adverse to it: (1) it invoked the jurisdiction of a United States District Court in Pennsylvania under 28 U. S. C. §§ 1336, 1398, and 49 U. S. C. § 17 (9) to enjoin and set aside the order; and (2) it moved that the Court of Claims stay its proceedings until the District Court could pass upon the validity of the order. The United States objected to further stay in the Court of Claims and asked for dismissal of the case or judgment in its favor. It urged in support of dismissal that the Railroad had deprived the Court of Claims of jurisdiction when it filed the .District Court action to enjoin the Commission. order because 28 U. S. C. § 1500 declares that “The Court of Claims shall not have jurisdiction of any claim for or in respect to which the plaintiff . . . has pending in any other court any suit or process against the United States . . . The Court of Claims rejected this contention and its action in this respect is not challenged here. The United States argued in support of its motion for judgment that the order of the Commission did not require anything to be done or not done, that it was therefore an advisory opinion only, and consequently not the kind of “order” subject to review by 28 U. S. C. § 1336, 49 U. S. C. § 17 (9), or any other provision of law. The contention of the United States was that although the Court of Claims was compelled to submit the question of the reasonableness of the rates to the Commission, neither that court nor any other court had power to review the Commission’s determination. The Court of Claims agreed with this contention of the United States, accordingly refused to stay the case for the District Court to pass on the validity of the order, and entered judgment for the Railroad for only $1,663.39, which the Commission had held to be recoverable, instead of the $7,237.87 which the Railroad claimed. The result is that the Railroad has been held bound by the Commission’s order although completely denied any judicial review of that order. We granted certiorari to consider this denial. 361 U. S. 922. The Railroad contends that it was error for the Court of Claims to refuse to stay its proceedings while the District Court reviewed the Commission’s order. The Solicitor General concedes here that this was error. We reach the same conclusion on the basis of our independent consideration of the record. We decided some years ago that while a mere “abstract declaration” on some issue by the Commission may not be judicially reviewable, an order that determines a “right or obligation” so that “legal consequences” will flow from it is reviewable. Rochester Telephone Corp. v. United States, 307 U. S. 125, 131, 132, 143. The record shows that the Commission order here meets this standard. The Commission found that the Railroad’s domestic rates were “unreasonable” as to 62 shipments. This order is by no means a mere “advisory opinion,” its “legal consequences” are obvious, for if valid it forecloses the “right” of the Railroad to recover its domestic rates on those shipments. We have held that judicial review is equally available whether a Commission order-relates to past or future rates, or whether its proceeding follows referral by a court or originates with the Commission. El Dorado Oil Works v. United States, 328 U. S. 12. For these reasons we conclude that the Railroad was entitled to have this Commission order judicially reviewed. We have already determined, however, that the power to review such an order cannot be exercised by the Court of Claims. United States v. Jones, 336 U. S. 641, 651-653, 670-671. That jurisdiction is vested exclusively in the District Courts. 28 U. S. C. § 1336, 49 U. S. C. § 17 (9). See Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Daniel, 333 U. S. 118, 122. Moreover, this order is properly reviewable by a one-judge rather than a three-judge District Court because it is essentially one “for the payment of money” within the terms of 28 U. S. C. §§ 2321 and 2325, which exempt such orders from the three-judge procedure of 28 U. S. C. § 2284. United States v. Interstate Commerce Comm’n, 337 U. S. 426, 441, 443. It necessarily follows, of course, that since the Railroad had a right to have the Commission’s order reviewed, and only the District Court had the jurisdiction to review it, the Court of Claims was under a duty to stay its proceedings pending this review. Other questions argued by the Government are not properly presented by this record. It was error for the Court of Claims to render judgment on the basis of the Commission's order without suspending its proceedings to await determination of the validity of that order by the Pennsylvania District Court. 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. Justice Breyer announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II-A, and II-B-1, and an opinion with respect to Part II-B-2, in which Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Ginsburg join. The Constitution forbids a “State ... without the Consent of Congress, [to] lay any Duty of Tonnage.” Art. I, § 10, cl. 3. The city of Valdez, Alaska, has enacted an ordinance that imposes a personal property tax upon the value of large ships that travel to and from that city. We hold that the ordinance violates the Clause. I In 1999, the city of Valdez, Alaska (City or Valdez), adopted an ordinance imposing a personal property tax upon “[bjoats and vessels of at least 95 feet in length” that regularly travel to the City, are kept or used within the City, or which annually take on at least $1 million worth of cargo or engage in other business transactions of comparable value in the City. Valdez Ordinance No. 99-17 (1999) (codified as Valdez Municipal Code §3.12.020 (2008)). The ordinance contains exceptions that, in effect, limit .the tax’s applicability primarily to large oil tankers. Ibid. And the City applies the tax in accordance with a value-allocation system that adjusts the amount owed downwards insofar as the tankers spend time in other ports. Valdez, Alaska, Resolution No. 00-15, App. to Pet. for Cert. 53a-56a. Polar Tankers, Inc., a subsidiary of ConocoPhillips, owns vessels that transport crude oil from a terminal in the Port of Valdez (located at the southern end of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System) to refineries in California, Hawaii, and Washington. In August 2000, Polar Tankers filed a lawsuit in Alaska Superior Court challenging the tax as unconstitutional. Polar Tankers argued that the tax effectively imposed a fee on certain vessels for the privilege of entering the port; hence it amounted to a constitutionally forbidden “Duty of Tonnage.” It also argued that the tax calculation method (as applied to vessels with a tax situs elsewhere) violated the Commerce and Due Process Clauses by failing to take account of the time a ship spent at sea or being serviced or repaired. Polar Tankers said that the method thereby overstated the percentage of the ship’s total earning capacity reasonably allocated to time spent in the Port of Valdez. The Alaska Superior Court rejected the Tonnage Clause claim, but it accepted the Commerce Clause and Due Process Clause claim. And, for that reason, it held the tax unconstitutional. On appeal, the Alaska Supreme Court, rejecting both claims, upheld the tax. In respect to the Tonnage Clause claim, the Supreme Court noted that Valdez’s tax was a value-based property tax designed to pay for “services available to all taxpayers in the city,” including Polar Tankers; and it concluded that “a charge based on the value of property is not a duty of tonnage.” 182 P. 3d 614, 623 (2008) (citing Transportation Co. v. Wheeling, 99 U. S. 273 (1879)). In respect to the Commerce Clause and Due Process Clause claim, the Supreme Court held that Valdez’s allocation method was fair, hence constitutional. 182 P. 3d, at 617-622. Polar Tankers asked us to review the Alaska Supreme Court’s determination. And we granted its petition in order to do so. II A We begin, and end, with Polar Tankers’ Tonnage Clause claim. We hold that Valdez’s tax is unconstitutional because it violates that Clause. And we consequently need not consider Polar Tankers’ alternative Commerce Clause and Due Process Clause argument. When the Framers originally wrote the Tonnage Clause, the words it uses, “Duty of Tonnage,” referred in commercial parlance to “a duty” imposed upon a ship, which duty varies according to “the internal cubic capacity of a vessel,” i. e., its tons of carrying capacity. Clyde Mallory Lines v. Alabama ex rel. State Docks Comm’n, 296 U. S. 261, 265 (1935) (citing Inman S. S. Co. v. Tinker, 94 U. S. 238, 243 (1877)); see also T. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 596 (6th ed. 1890). Over a century ago, however, this Court found that the Framers intended those words to refer to more than “a duty” that sets a “certain rate on each ton” of capacity. Steamship Co. v. Portwardens, 6 Wall. 31, 34 (1867). The Court over the course of many years has consistently interpreted the language of the Clause in light of its purpose, a purpose that mirrors the intent of other constitutional provisions which, like the Tonnage Clause itself, seek to “restrain the states themselves from the exercise” of the taxing power “injuriously to the interests of each other.” J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 497, p. 354 (1833) (abridged version). Article I, § 10, cl. 2, for example, forbids States to “lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports.” It thereby seeks to prevent States with “convenient ports” from placing other States at an economic disadvantage by laying levies that would “ta[x] the consumption of their neighbours.” 3 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, pp. 542, 519 (M. Farrand ed. 1966) (reprinting James Madison, Preface to Debates in the Convention of 1787 and letter from James Madison to Professor Davis, 1832). The coastal States were not to “take advantage of their favorable geographical position in order to exact a price for the use of their ports from the consumers dwelling in less advantageously situated parts of the country.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Bowers, 358 U. S. 534, 556-557 (1959) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting in part). In writing the Tonnage Clause, the Framers recognized that, if “the states had been left free to tax the privilege of access by vessels to their harbors the prohibition against duties on imports and exports could have been nullified by taxing the vessels transporting the merchandise.” Clyde Mallory Lines, supra, at 265. And the Court has understood the Tonnage Clause as seeking to prevent that nullification. See Steamship Co., supra, at 34-35; see also Packet Co. v. Keokuk, 95 U. S. 80, 87 (1877); Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 202 (1824). It has also understood the Clause as reflecting an effort to diminish a State’s ability to obtain certain geographical vessel-related tax advantages whether the vessel in question transports goods between States and foreign nations or, as here, only between the States. Compare Inman, supra (invalidating a fee applied to ships engaged in foreign commerce), with Steamship Co., supra (invalidating a tax applied to ships engaged in interstate commerce). Interpreting the Clause in light of its “intent,” id., at 34, we have read its language as forbidding a State to “do that indirectly which she is forbidden ... to do directly,” Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283, 458 (1849) (opinion of Grier, J.). Thus, we have said that the Clause, which literally forbids a State to “levy a duty or tax . . . graduated on the tonnage,” must also forbid a State to “effect the same purpose by merely changing the ratio, and graduating it on the number of masts, or of mariners, the size and power of the steam-engine, or the number of passengers which she carries.” Id., at 458-459. A State cannot take what would otherwise amount to a tax on the ship’s capacity and evade the Clause by calling that tax “a charge on the owner or supercargo,” thereby “justifying] this evasion of a great principle by producing a dictionary or a dictum to prove that a ship-captain is not a vessel, nor a supercargo an import.” Id., at 459. The Court has consequently stated that the Tonnage Clause prohibits, “not only a pro rata tax . . . , but any duty on the ship, whether a fixed sum upon its whole tonnage, or a sum to be ascertained by comparing the amount of tonnage with the rate of duty.” Steamship Co., supra, at 35. And, summarizing earlier cases while speaking for a unanimous Court, Justice Stone concluded that the “prohibition against tonnage duties has been deemed to embrace all taxes and duties regardless of their name or form, and even though not measured by the tonnage of the vessel, which operate to impose a charge for the privilege of entering, trading in, or lying in a port.” Clyde Mallory Lines, supra, at 265-266. Cf. Cannon v. New Orleans, 20 Wall. 577 (1874) (invalidating a tax imposed on ships entering a port, which tax was graduated based on the ships’ capacity and length of stay); Inman, supra (invalidating a fee imposed on ships of a certain capacity that entered a port); Steamship Co., supra (invalidating a flat tax imposed on every ship that entered a port, regardless of the ship’s capacity). Although the Clause forbids all charges, whatever their form, that impose “a charge for the privilege of entering, trading in, or lying in a port,” nothing in the history of the adoption of the Clause, the purpose of the Clause, or this Court’s interpretation of the Clause suggests that it operates as a ban on any and all taxes which fall on vessels that use a State’s port, harbor, or other waterways. See post, at 17 (Roberts, C. J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Such a radical proposition would transform the Tonnage Clause from one that protects vessels, and their owners, from discrimination by seaboard States, to one that gives vessels preferential treatment vis-a-vis all other property, and its owners, in a seaboard State. The Tonnage Clause cannot be read to give vessels such “preferential treatment.” Cf. Michelin Tire Corp. v. Wages, 423 U. S. 276, 287 (1976) (noting, in a related context, that the Import-Export Clause “cannot be read to accord imported goods preferential treatment that permits escape from uniform taxes imposed without regard to foreign origin for services which the State supplies”). See also infra this page and 10-16. B 1 Does the tax before us impose “a charge for the privilege of entering, trading in, or lying in a port”? Certainly, the ordinance that imposes the tax would seem designed to do so. It says that the tax applies to ships that travel to (and leave) the City’s port regularly for business purposes, that are kept in the City’s port, that take on more than $1 million in cargo in that port, or that are involved in business transactions in that amount there. In practice, the tax applied in its first year to 28 vessels, of which 24 were oil tankers, 3 were tugboats, and 1 was a passenger cruise ship. App. 53. The ordinance applies the tax to no other form of personal property. See Valdez Municipal Code §3.12.030(A)(2) (2008). Moreover, the tax’s application and its amount depend upon the ship’s capacity. That is to say, the tax applies only to large ships (those at least 95 feet in length), while exempting small ones. See § 3.12.020(A)(1). Nor can Valdez escape application of the Clause by claiming that the ordinance imposes, not a duty or a tax, but a fee or a charge for “services rendered” to a “vessel,” such as “pilotage,” “wharfage,” “medical inspection,” the “use of locks,” or the like. Clyde Mallory Lines, 296 U. S., at 266; see also Inman, 94 U. S., at 243. To the contrary, the ordinance creates a tax designed to raise revenue used for general municipal services. See 182 P. 3d, at 623; Valdez, Alaska, Resolution No. 00-15, App. to Pet. for Cert. 53a-56a. Tonnage Clause precedent makes clear that, where a tax otherwise qualifies as a duty of tonnage, a general, revenue-raising purpose argues in favor of, not against, application of. the Clause. See Steamship Co., 6 Wall., at 34. This case lies at the heart of what the Tonnage Clause forbids. The ordinance applies almost exclusively to oil tankers. And a tax on the value of such vessels is closely correlated with cargo capacity. Because the imposition of the tax depends on a factor related to tonnage and that tonnage-based tax is not for services provided to the vessel, it is unconstitutional. The dissent contends that the tax does not operate as “a charge for the privilege of entering, trading in, or lying in a port,” Clyde Mallory Lines, supra, at 265-266 — that is, as an impermissible tonnage duty — because Valdez levies its tax only upon vessels that meet a “tax situs” requirement. See post, at 24-25 (opinion of Stevens, J.). But in this case, the distinction the dissent draws between tonnage duties and property taxes is a distinction without a difference. That is because to establish a tax situs under the tax challenged here, an oil tanker needs only to enter the port and load oil worth more than $1 million. And, as Polar Tankers notes, oil tankers routinely carry millions of barrels of oil at a time worth well in excess of $1 million. Reply Brief for Petitioner 6. Thus, by virtue of a single entry into the port, “trading” once in that port, or “lying” once in that port, a tanker automatically establishes a tax situs in Valdez. No one claims that this basis for establishing a tax situs is insufficient under the Constitution. After all, a nondomiciliary jurisdiction may constitutionally tax property when that property has a “substantial nexus” with that jurisdiction, and such a nexus is established when the taxpayer “avails itself of the substantial privilege of carrying on business” in that jurisdiction. Mobil Oil Corp. v. Commissioner of Taxes of Vt., 445 U. S. 425, 443, 437 (1980) (internal quotation marks omitted). See also Japan Line, Ltd. v. County of Los Angeles, 441 U. S. 434, 441-445 (1979); Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U. S. 298, 312 (1992). Here, the City identified the 28 vessels that were subject to the tax in the year 2000. But the City fails to point to a single oil tanker, or any vessel greater than 95 feet in length, that both entered the port and failed to establish a tax situs. See App. 53. What else is needed to show that a tax characterized as one on property may nevertheless function as a “charge for the privilege of entering ... a port”? 2 Valdez does not deny that its tax operates much like a duty applied exclusively to ships. But, like the Alaska Supreme Court, it points to language in an earlier Court opinion explicitly stating that “[tjaxes levied . . . upon ships ... as property, based on a valuation of the same as property, are not within the prohibition of the Constitution.” State Tonnage Tax Cases, 12 Wall. 204, 213 (1871) (emphasis deleted); cf. 182 P. 3d, at 622, and n. 43. Valdez says that its tax is just such a value-related tax on personal property and consequently falls outside the scope of the Clause. Brief for Respondent 16-23. Our problem with this argument, however, is that the Court later made clear that the Clause does not apply to “taxation” of vessels “as property in the same manner as other personal property owned by citizens of the State.” “[W]here” vessels “are not taxed in the same manner as the other property of the citizens,” however, the “prohibition . . . comes into play.” Wheeling, 99 U. S., at 284 (emphasis added). Viewed in terms of the purpose of the Clause, this qualification is important. It means that, in order to fund services by taxing ships, a State must also impose similar taxes upon other businesses. And that fact may well operate as a cheek upon a State’s ability to impose a tax on ships at rates that reflect an effort to take economic advantage of the port’s geographically based position. After all, the presence of other businesses subject to the tax, particularly businesses owned and operated by state residents, threatens political concern and a potential ballot-box issue, were rates, say, to get out of hand. See Cooley v. Board of Wardens of Port of Philadelphia ex rel. Soc. for Relief of Distressed Pilots, 12 How. 299, 315 (1852); cf. South Carolina Highway Dept. v. Barnwell Brothers, Inc., 303 U. S. 177, 185, n. 2 (1938) (when state action affecting interstate commerce “is of such a character that its burden falls principally upon those without the state, legislative action is not likely to be subjected to those political restraints which are normally exerted on legislation where it affects adversely some interests within the state”). Moreover, and at the very least, a “same manner” requirement helps to ensure that a value-related property tax differs significantly from a graduated tax on a ship’s capacity and that the former is not simply a redesignation of the latter. See Packet Co., 95 U. S., at 88 (“ ‘It is the thing and not the name that is to be considered’” (quoting Cooley, supra, at 314)). In our view, Valdez fails to satisfy this requirement. It does not tax vessels “in the same manner as other personal property” of those who do business in Valdez. Wheeling, supra, at 284. We can find little, if any, other personal property that it taxes. According to the State of Alaska, Valdez specifically exempts from property taxation motor vehicles, aircraft, and other vehicles, as well as business machinery. See Dept, of Community and Economic Development, Division of Community and Business Development, Office of the State Assessor, Alaska Taxable 2001, p. 20 (Jan. 2002) (Table 4), online at http://www.commerce.state.ak.us/dca/ Taxable/AKTaxable2001.pdf (as visited June 10, 2009, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file). We concede, as Valdez points out, that a different Valdez ordinance imposes what it characterizes as a value-based property tax on mobile homes, trailers, and recreational vehicles. Valdez Municipal Code §3.12.022 (2008); Brief for-Respondent 24-25. But that same ordinance exempts those vehicles from its property tax unless they are “affixed” to a particular site. Hence, whatever words the City uses to describe the tax imposed on mobile homes, trailers, and recreational vehicles, Valdez in fact taxes those vehicles only when they constitute a form, not of personal property, but of real property (like a home). See §3.12.022 (providing that “trailers and mobile homes” are “subject to taxation” when they are classified as “real property”). Valdez also points to a separate city ordinance that imposes a tax “on all taxable property taxable under Alaska Statutes Chapter 43.56.” §3.28.010 (2008). The Alaska Statutes Chapter identifies as taxable “aircraft and motor vehicles” the operation of which “relates to” the “exploration for, production of, or pipeline transportation of gas or unrefined oil.” Alaska Stat. §43.56.210 (2008). Valdez claims that its tax on ships is simply another form of this value-related tax on oil-related property. Valdez did not make this claim in the lower courts, however. Nor does the State of Alaska (which has filed a brief in support of Valdez) support this particular claim. Brief for State of Alaska et al. as Amici Curiae 82-33. Thus, we lack the State’s explanation of just how the tax on oil-related vehicles works. And, lacking precise information, we might ordinarily decline to consider this claim. See, e. g., Clingman v. Beaver, 544 U. S. 581, 597-598 (2005). Nonetheless, the parties have argued the matter in their briefs here; and our deciding the matter now will reduce the likelihood of further litigation. We may make exceptions to our general approach to claims not raised below; and for these reasons we shall do so. See Granfinanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 492 U. S. 33, 39 (1989). Addressing the claim on the basis of the briefs and what we have gleaned from publicly available sources, we note that Valdez’s ship tax differs from the tax on other oil-related property in several ways. The former is a purely municipal tax. The City imposes it; the City alone determines what property is subject to the tax; the City establishes the rate of taxation; the City values the property; the City resolves evaluation disputes; the City issues assessment notices; the City collects the tax; and the City (as far as we can tell) keeps the revenue without any restrictions. See Valdez Municipal Code § 3.12.020(A)(1) (2008); §3.12.060; § 3.12.020(B); §§3.12.090-3.12.100; § 3.12.210(A) (2001); Valdez, Alaska, Resolution No. 00-15, App. to Pet. for Cert. 53a-56a. The latter is primarily a state-level tax. The State imposes it. In fact, Valdez’s city manager characterized the oil-property tax as involving “property taxed by the State ... and [raising revenue] subsequently shared with the City.” App. 46 (affidavit of Dave Dengel). In addition, the State determines the type of property subject to the tax; the State forbids the municipality to exempt any property it designates as taxable; the State regulates the rate of taxation that may be applied to property it designates as taxable; the State issues assessment notices; the State resolves evaluation disputes; and the State, while permitting the municipality to set the precise tax rate and to collect the tax, imposes certain kinds of limits upon the amount of the resulting revenue that the municipality may raise that, in effect, provide a check against excessive rates. See Alaska Stat. § 43.56.010(b) (2008); §43.56.210(5)(A); 15 Alaska Admin. Code §56.010 (2009); §§56.015-56.040; Alaska Stat. §§ 29.45.080(b), (c) (2008); § 43.56.010(c). These differences matter. For one thing, they mean that any ordinary oil-related business, other than ships, that finds the tax imposed upon its movable property too burdensome must complain to the State, not to the City, for it is the State that is in charge of .setting the manner of assessment and valuation. At the same time, an oil tanker that finds the vessel tax too burdensome must complain to the City, not to the State, for the State has nothing to do with the rate, valuation, or assessment of that particular tax. For another thing, they mean that there is no effective electorate-related check (comparable to the check available where a property tax is more broadly imposed) upon the City’s vessel-taxing power. The City’s property tax hits ships and only ships; it is not constrained by any need to treat ships and other business property alike. Taken together, these two considerations mean that Valdez’s property tax lacks the safeguards implied by this Court’s statements that a property tax on ships escapes the scope of the Tonnage Clause only when that tax is imposed upon ships “in the same manner” as it is imposed on other forms of property. The Chief Justice contends that a State may never impose a property tax on a vessel belonging to a citizen of another State, even if that vessel is taxed in the “same manner” as other personal property in the taxing State. See post, at 17-18 (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment). But, as The Chief Justice concedes, this Court held in the State Tonnage Tax Cases and Wheeling that vessels belonging to a State’s own citizens may be subject to a property tax when the vessels are taxed in the same manner as other personal property owned by citizens of that State. At the time those cases were decided, the home port doctrine was still in effect, which meant that vessels were taxable solely by the owner’s domicil State. Since the State Tonnage Tax Cases and Wheeling, the home port doctrine has been abandoned, and States are now permitted to tax vessels belonging to citizens of other States that develop a tax situs in the nondomiciliary State, provided the tax is fairly apportioned. See, e.g., Ott v. Mississippi Valley Barge Line Co., 336 U. S. 169, 172-174 (1949); Japan Line, 441 U. S., at 442-443. Given this evolution in the law governing interstate taxation since our decisions in the State Tonnage Tax Cases and Wheeling, there is little reason to think that the ability of a State to tax vessels in the “same manner” as other personal property applies only to vessels owned by citizens of the taxing State. In any event, we need not decide this issue because it is clear that the vessels subject to the City’s ordinance are not taxed in the same manner as other personal property. As far as we can tell, then, Valdez applies a value-based personal property tax to ships and to no other property at all. It does so in order to obtain revenue for general city purposes. The tax, no less than a similar duty, may (depending upon rates) “ta[x] the consumption” of those in other States. See 3 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, at 519 (reprinting letter from James Madison to Professor Davis, 1832). It is consequently the kind of tax that the Tonnage Clause forbids Valdez to impose without the consent of Congress, consent that Valdez lacks. * * * We conclude that the tax is unconstitutional. We reverse the contrary judgment of the Supreme Court of Alaska. And we remand the case for further proceedings. 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:

H

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Justice Brennan delivered the opinion of the Court. Respondent petitioned the Tax Court for redetermination of the liability assessed against her for her deceased husband’s unpaid income tax deficiencies. The Tax Court held that, as beneficiary of proceeds of her husband’s life insurance exceeding the amount of the deficiencies, the respondent was liable for the full amount of the deficiencies. The Court of Appeals reversed, 242 F. 2d 322, holding that the respondent was not liable even to the extent of the amount of the cash surrender values of the policies, which was less than the amount of the deficiencies. We granted certiorari. 355 U. S. 810. Dr. Milton J. Stern died a resident of Lexington, Kentucky, on June 12, 1949. Nearly six.years later the Tax Court held that Dr. Stern had been deficient in his income taxes for the years 1944 through 1947 and was liable for the amount, including interest and penalties, of $32,777.51. Because the assets of the estate were insufficient to meet this liability, the Commissioner proceeded under § 311 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939 against respondent, Dr. Stern’s widow, as the beneficiary of life insurance policies held by him. The proceeds and the cash surrender value of these policies at Dr. Stern’s death totaled $47,282.02 and $27,259.68 respectively.' The right to change the beneficiary and to draw down the cash surrender value of each policy had been retained until death by Dr. Stern. There were no findings that Dr. Stern paid any premiums with intent to defraud his creditors or that he was insolvent at any time prior to this death. The Court of Appeals rested its decision upon two grounds: (1) that the respondent beneficiary was not a transferee within the meaning of § 311, Tyson v. Commissioner, 212 F. 2d 16; and (2) that in any event Kentucky statutes, Ky. R. S., 1948, §§ 297.140, 297.150, limit the beneficiary’s liability to creditors of the deceased insured to the amount of the premiums paid by the insured in fraud of creditors, and consequently there was no liability since there was no evidence that Dr. Stern paid any premium in fraud of his creditors. Without intimating any view as to the correctness of the first holding of the Court of Appeals we find it unnecessary to decide whether the respondent was a transferee within the meaning of § 311 because we hold that the Kentucky statutes govern the question of the beneficiary's liability and create no liability of the respondent to the Government in the circumstances of this case. First. Section 311 (a) provides that “The liability, at law or in equity, of a transferee of property of a taxpayer, in respect of the tax . . . imposed upon the taxpayer by this chapter” shall be “assessed, collected, and paid in the same manner and subject to the same provisions and limitations as in the case of a deficiency in a tax imposed by this chapter . . . The decisions of the Court of Appeals and the Tax Court have been in conflict on the question whether the substantive liability enforced under § 311 is to be determined by state or federal law. Compare, e. g., Rowen v. Commissioner, 215 F. 2d 641, and Botz v. Helvering, 134 F. 2d 538, with United States v. Bess, 243 F. 2d 675, and Stoumen v. Commissioner, 27 T. C. 1014. This Court has expressly left the question open. Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U. S. 589, 602. The courts have repeatedly recognized that § 311 neither creates nor defines a substantive liability but provides merely a new procedure by which the Government may collect taxes. Phillips v. Commissioner, supra; Hatch v. Morosco Holding Co., 50 F. 2d 138; Liquidators of Exchange National Bank v. United States, 65 F. 2d 316; Harwood v. Eaton, 68 F. 2d 12; Weil v. Commissioner, 91 F. 2d 944; Tooley v. Commissioner, 121 F. 2d 350. Prior to the enactment of § 280 of the Revenue Act of 1926, 44 Stat. 9, 61, the predecessor of § 311, the rights of the Government as creditor, enforceable only by bringing a bill in equity or an action at law, depended upon state statutes or legal theories developed by the courts for the protection of private creditors, as in cases where the debtor had transferred his property to another. Phillips v. Commissioner, supra, at 592, n. 2; cf. Pierce v. United States, 255 U. S. 398; Hospes v. Northwestern Mfg. & Car Co., 48 Minn. 174, 50 N. W. 1117. This procedure proved unduly cumbersome, however, in comparison with the summary administrative remedy allowed against the taxpayer himself, Rev. Stat. § 3187, as amended by the Revenue Act of 1924, 43 Stat. 343. The predecessor section of § 311 was designed “to provide for the enforcement of such liability to the Government by the procedure provided in the act for the enforcement of tax deficiencies.” S. Rep. No. 52, 69th Cong., 1st Sess. 30. “Without in any way changing the extent of such liability of the transferee under existing law, . . . [this section] enforces such liability ... in the same manner as liability for a tax deficiency is enforced; that is, notice by the commissioner to the transferee and opportunity either to pay and sue for refund or else to proceed before the Board of Tax Appeals, with review by the courts. Such a proceeding is in lieu of the present equity proceeding . . . .” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 356, 69th Cong., 1st Sess. 43-44. Therefore, since § 311 is purely a procedural statute we must look to other sources for definition of the substantive liability. Since no federal statute defines such liability, we are left with a choice between federal decisional law and state law for its definition. Second. The Government urges that, to further “uniformity of liability,” we reject the applicability of Kentucky law in favor of having the federal courts fashion governing rules. Cf. Clearfield Trust Co. v. United States, 318 U. S. 363. But a federal decisional law in this field displacing state statutes as determinative of liability would be a sharp break with the past. Federal courts, in cases where the Government seeks to collect unpaid taxes from persons other than the defaulting taxpayer, have applied state statutes, Hutton v. Commissioner, 59 F. 2d 66; Weil v. Commissioner, supra; United States v. Goldblatt, 128 F. 2d 576; Botz v. Helvering, supra, and the Government itself has urged reliance upon such statutes in similar cases, G. C. M. 2514, VI-2 Cum. Bull. 99; G. C. M. 3491, VII-1 Cum. Bull. 147. The Congress was aware of the use of state statutes when the enactment of the predecessor section to § 311 was under consideration, for the Congress in disclaiming any intention “to define or change existing liability,” S. Rep. No. 52, 69th Cong., 1st Sess. 30, identified “existing liability” as liability ensuing “[b]y reason of the trust fund doctrine and various State statutory provisions . . . .” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 356, supra, at 43. It is true that, in addition to reliance upon state statutes, the Government invoked principles judicially developed for the protection of private creditors, in cases where the debtor had transferred his property to another and been left insolvent. Cf. Pierce v. United States, supra; Hospes v. Northwestern Mfg. & Car Co., supra. In such cases the federal courts applied a “general law” which did not distinguish between federal and state deci-sional law. But the fact remains that the varying definitions of liability under state statutes resulted in an absence of uniformity of liability. Yet Congress, with knowledge that this was “existing law” at the time the predecessor section to § 311 was enacted, has refrained from disturbing the prevailing practice. Uniformity is not always the federal policy. Under § 70 of the Bankruptcy Act, for instance, state law is applied to determine what property of the bankrupt has been transferred in fraud of creditors. 30 Stat. 565, as amended, 11 U. S. C. § 110. What is a good transfer in one jurisdiction might not be so in another. Since Congress has not manifested a desire for uniformity of liability, we think that the creation of a federal decisional law would be inappropriate in these cases. In diversity cases, the federal courts must now apply state decisional law in defining state-created rights, obligations, and liabilities. Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64. They would, of course, do so in diversity actions brought by private creditors. Since the federal courts no longer formulate a body of federal decisional law for the larger field of creditors’ rights in diversity cases, any such effort for the small field of actions by the Government as a creditor would be necessarily episodic. That effort is plainly not justified when there exists a flexible body of pertinent state law continuously being adapted to changing circumstances affecting all creditors. Accordingly we hold that, until Congress speaks to the contrary, the existence and extent of liability should be determined by state law. Third. The Court of Appeals held in this case that under the applicable Kentucky law the beneficiary of a life insurance policy is not liable to the insured’s creditors, at least where, as here, the premiums have not been paid in fraud of creditors, Ky. R. S., 1948, §§ 297.140, 297.150, and that therefore no liability of the respondent exists under state law to any creditor, including the Government. The parties do not contest this construction of local law. The Government, however, argues in its brief, “Just as in the situation where a tax lien has attached it is held that state law may not destroy that lien, so here, where a tax liability is imposed by'Congress, the state may not provide exemptions.” We agree that state law may not destroy a tax lien which has attached in the insured’s lifetime. We held today in United States v. Bess, post, p. 51, that a New Jersey statute, similar to the Kentucky statutes, could not defeat the attachment in the insured’s lifetime of a federal tax lien under § 3670 against the cash surrender value of the policy, or prevent enforcement of the lien out of the proceeds received by the beneficiary on the insured’s death. We might also agree that a State may not provide exemptions from a tax liability imposed by Congress. The fallacy in the Government’s argument is in the premise that Congress has imposed a tax liability against the beneficiary. We have concluded that Congress has not seen fit to define that liability and that none exists except such as is imposed by state law. Thus there is no problem here of giving effect to state exemption provisions when federal law imposes such liability. The Government’s substantive rights in this case are precisely those which other creditors would have under Kentucky law. The respondent is not liable to the Government because Kentucky law imposes no liability against respondent in favor of Dr. Stem’s other creditors. Affirmed. Section 311 provides: “(a) Method of CollectioN. — The amounts of the following liabilities shall, except as hereinafter in this section provided, be assessed, collected, and paid in the same manner and subject to the same provisions and limitations as in the case of a deficiency in a tax imposed by this chapter (including the provisions in case of delinquency in payment after notice and demand, the provisions authorizing distraint and proceedings in court for collection, and the provisions prohibiting claims and suits for refunds): “(1) Transferees. — The liability, at law or in equity, of a transferee of property of a taxpayer, in respect of the tax (including interest, additional amounts, and additions to the tax provided by law) imposed upon the taxpayer by this chapter. “(f) Definition of 'Transferee’. — As used in this section, the term ‘transferee’ includes heir, legatee, devisee, and distributee.” 53 Stat. 90, 91. The Court of Appeals in this case followed its own prior decision in Tyson v. Commissioner, 212 F. 2d 16, in holding that Mrs. Stern as beneficiary was not a “transferee” of any part of the proceeds within the meaning of § 311. Other Courts of Appeals have held that the beneficiary is a transferee only to the extent of the cash surrender value existing at the time of the insured’s death. Rowen v. Commissioner, 215 F. 2d 641; United States v. Bess, 243 F. 2d 675. The Tax Court, on the other hand, has held that the beneficiary is the transferee of the entire proceeds. Stoumen v. Commissioner, 27 T. C. 1014. The Government argues that since § 311 and § 900 were originally enacted as correlative provisions of the Revenue Act of 1926 a substantive liability is imposed upon the beneficiary for both unpaid income and estate taxes of the decedent. But the 1939 Code “contains no provision in respect to income tax collection comparable to Section 827 (b) of the Code which expressly imposes liability for the estate tax on a 'beneficiary, who receives . . . property included in the gross estate under section [811 (f)].’ ” Rowen v. Commissioner, 215 F. 2d 641, 646. Kentucky Revised Statutes provided: “297.140 Lije insurance for benefit of a married woman; premiums paid in fraud of creditors. (1) A policy of insurance on the life of any person expressed to be for the benefit of, or duly assigned, transferred or made payable to, any married woman, or to any person in trust for her, or for her benefit, by whomsoever such transfer may be made, shall inure to her separate use and benefit and that of her children, independently of her husband or his creditors or any other person effecting or transferring the policy or his creditors. “(2) A married woman may, without consent of her husband, contract, pay for, take out and hold a policy of insurance upon the life or health of her husband or children, or against loss by his or their disablement by accident. The premiums paid on the policy shall be held to have been her separate estate, and the policy shall inure to her separate use and benefit and that of her children, free from any claim of her husband or others. “(3) If the premium on any policy mentioned in this section is paid by any person with intent to defraud his creditors, an amount equal to the premium so paid, with interest thereon, shall inure to the benefit of the creditors, subject to the statute of limitations. “297.150 Life insurance for benefit of another; premiums paid in fraud of creditors. (1) When a policy of insurance is effected by any person on his own life or on another life in favor of some person other than himself having an insurable interest therein, the lawful beneficiary thereof, other than the person effecting the insurance or his legal representatives, shall be entitled to its proceeds against the creditors and representatives of the person effecting the same. “(2) Subject to the statute of limitations, the amount of any premiums for such insurance paid in fraud of creditors, with interest thereon, shall inure to their benefit from the proceeds of the policy, but the company issuing the policy shall be discharged of all liability thereon by payment of its proceeds in accordance with its terms, unless, before such payment, the company received written notice by or in behalf of some creditor, with specification of the amount claimed, claiming to recover for certain premiums paid in fraud of creditors.” Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

L

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court. The issue here is whether the Fourth Amendment prohibits the warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside the curtilage of a home. We conclude, in accordance with the vast majority of lower courts that have addressed the issue, that it does not. h — 1 In early 1984, Investigator Jenny Stracner of the Laguna Beach Police Department received information indicating that respondent Greenwood might be engaged in narcotics trafficking. Stracner learned that a criminal suspect had informed a federal drug enforcement agent in February 1984 that a truck filled with illegal drugs was en route to the Laguna Beach address at which Greenwood resided. In addition, a neighbor complained of heavy vehicular traffic late at night in front of Greenwood’s single-family home. The neighbor reported that the vehicles remained at Greenwood’s house for only a few minutes. Stracner sought to investigate this information by conducting a surveillance of Greenwood’s home. She observed several vehicles make brief stops at the house during the late-night and early morning hours, and she followed a truck from the house to a residence that had previously been under investigation as a narcotics-trafficking location. On April 6, 1984, Stracner asked the neighborhood’s regular trash collector to pick up the plastic garbage bags that Greenwood had left on the curb in front of his house and to turn the bags over to her without mixing their contents with garbage from other houses. The trash collector cleaned his truck bin of other refuse, collected the garbage bags from the street in front of Greenwood’s house, and turned the bags over to Stracner. The officer searched through the rubbish and found items indicative of narcotics use. She recited the information that she had gleaned from the trash search in an affidavit in support of a warrant to search Greenwood’s home. Police officers encountered both respondents at the house later that day when they arrived to execute the warrant. The police discovered quantities of cocaine and hashish during their search of the house. Respondents were arrested on felony narcotics charges. They subsequently posted bail. The police continued to receive reports of many late-night visitors to the Greenwood house. On May 4, Investigator Robert Rahaeuser obtained Greenwood’s garbage from the regular trash collector in the same manner as had Stracner. The garbage again contained evidence of narcotics use. Rahaeuser secured another search warrant for Greenwood’s home based on the information from the second trash search. The police found more narcotics and evidence of narcotics trafficking when they executed the warrant. Greenwood was again arrested. The Superior Court dismissed the charges against respondents on the authority of People v. Krivda, 5 Cal. 3d 357, 486 P. 2d 1262 (1971), which held that warrantless trash searches violate the Fourth Amendment and the California Constitution. The court found that the police would not have had probable cause to search the Greenwood home without the evidence obtained from the trash searches. The Court of Appeal affirmed. 182 Cal. App. 3d 729, 227 Cal. Rptr. 539 (1986). The court noted at the outset that the fruits of warrantless trash searches could no longer be suppressed if Krivda were based only on the California Constitution, because since 1982 the State has barred the suppression of evidence seized in violation of California law but not federal law. See Cal. Const., Art. I, § 28(d); In re Lance W., 37 Cal. 3d 873, 694 P. 2d 744 (1985). But Krivda, a decision binding on the Court of Appeal, also held that the fruits of warrantless trash searches were to be excluded under federal law. Hence, the Superior Court was correct in dismissing the charges against respondents. 182 Cal. App. 3d, at 735, 227 Cal. Rptr, at 542. The California Supreme Court denied the State’s petition for review of the Court of Appeal’s decision. We granted certiorari, 483 U. S. 1019, and now reverse. ) — I I — C The warrantless search and seizure of the garbage bags left at the curb outside the Greenwood house would violate the Fourth Amendment only if respondents manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in their garbage that society accepts as objectively reasonable. O’Connor v. Ortega, 480 U. S. 709, 715 (1987); California v. Ciraolo, 476 U. S. 207, 211 (1986); Oliver v. United States, 466 U. S. 170, 177 (1984); Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 361 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). Respondents do not disagree with this standard. They assert, however, that they had, and exhibited, an expectation of privacy with respect to the trash that was searched by the police: The trash, which was placed on the street for collection at a fixed time, was contained in opaque plastic bags, which the garbage collector was expected to pick up, mingle with the trash of others, and deposit at the garbage dump. The trash was only temporarily on the street, and there was little likelihood that it would be inspected by anyone. It may well be that respondents did not expect that the contents of their garbage bags would become known to the police or other members of the public. An expectation of privacy does not give rise to Fourth Amendment protection, however, unless society is prepared to accept that expectation as objectively reasonable. Here, we conclude that respondents exposed their garbage to the public sufficiently to defeat their claim to Fourth Amendment protection. It is common knowledge that plastic garbage bags left on or at the side of a public street are readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public. See Krivda, supra, at 367, 486 P. 2d, at 1269. Moreover, respondents placed their refuse at the curb for the express purpose of conveying it to a third party, the trash collector, who might himself have sorted through respondents’ trash or permitted others, such as the police, to do so. Accordingly, having deposited their garbage “in an area particularly suited for public inspection and, in a manner of speaking, public consumption, for the express purpose of having strangers take it,” United States v. Reicherter, 647 F. 2d 397, 399 (CA3 1981), respondents could have had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the inculpatory items that they discarded. Furthermore, as we have held, the police cannot reasonably be expected to avert their eyes from evidence of criminal activity that could have been observed by any member of the public. Hence, “[w]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.” Katz v. United States, supra, at 351. We held in Smith v. Maryland, 442 U. S. 735 (1979), for example, that the police did not violate the Fourth Amendment by causing a pen register to be installed at the telephone company’s offices to record the telephone numbers dialed by a criminal suspect. An individual has no legitimate expectation of privacy in the numbers dialed on his telephone, we reasoned, because he voluntarily conveys those numbers to the telephone company when he uses the telephone. Again, we observed that “a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.” Id., at 743-744. Similarly, we held in California v. Ciraolo, supra, that the police were not required by the Fourth Amendment to obtain a warrant before conducting surveillance of the respondent’s fenced backyard from a private plane flying at an altitude of 1,000 feet. We concluded that the respondent’s expectation that his yard was protected from such surveillance was unreasonable because “[a]ny member of the public flying in this airspace who glanced down could have seen everything that these officers observed.” Id., at 213-214. Our conclusion that society would not accept as reasonable respondents’ claim to an expectation of privacy in trash left for collection in an area accessible to the public is reinforced by the unanimous rejection of similar claims by the Federal Courts of Appeals. See United States v. Dela Espriella, 781 F. 2d 1432, 1437 (CA9 1986); United States v. O’Bryant, 775 F. 2d 1528, 1533-1534 (CA11 1985); United States v. Michaels, 726 F. 2d 1307, 1312-1313 (CA8), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 820 (1984); United States v. Kramer, 711 F. 2d 789, 791-794 (CA7), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 962 (1983); United States v. Terry, 702 F. 2d 299, 308-309 (CA2), cert. denied sub nom. Williams v. United States, 461 U. S. 931 (1983); United States v. Reicherter, supra, at 399; United States v. Vahalik, 606 F. 2d 99, 100-101 (CA5 1979) (per curiam), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 1081 (1980); United States v. Crowell, 586 F. 2d 1020, 1025 (CA4 1978), cert. denied, 440 U. S. 959 (1979); Magda v. Benson, 536 F. 2d 111, 112-113 (CA6 1976) (per curiam); United States v. Mustone, 469 F. 2d 970, 972-974 (CA1 1972). In United States v. Thornton, 241 U. S. App. D. C. 46, 56, and n. 11, 746 F. 2d 39, 49, and n. 11 (1984), the court observed that “the overwhelming weight of authority rejects the proposition that a reasonable expectation of privacy exists with respect to trash discarded outside the home and the curtilege [sic] thereof.” In addition, of those state appellate courts that have considered the issue, the vast majority have held that the police may conduct war-rantless searches and seizures of garbage discarded in public areas. See Commonwealth v. Chappee, 397 Mass. 508, 512-513, 492 N. E. 2d 719, 721-722 (1986); Cooks v. State, 699 P. 2d 653, 656 (Okla. Crim.), cert, denied, 474 U. S. 935 (1985); State v. Stevens, 123 Wis. 2d 303, 314-317, 367 N. W. 2d 788, 794-797, cert. denied, 474 U. S. 852 (1985); State v. Ronngren, 361 N. W. 2d 224, 228-230 (N. D. 1985); State v. Brown, 20 Ohio App. 3d 36, 37-38, 484 N. E. 2d 215, 217-218 (1984); State v. Oquist, 327 N. W. 2d 587 (Minn. 1982); People v. Whotte, 113 Mich. App. 12, 317 N. W. 2d 266 (1982); Commonwealth v. Minton, 288 Pa. Super. 381, 391, 432 A. 2d 212, 217 (1981); State v. Schultz, 388 So. 2d 1326 (Fla. App. 1980); People v. Huddleston, 38 Ill. App. 3d 277, 347 N. E. 2d 76 (1976); Willis v. State, 518 S. W. 2d 247, 249 (Tex. Crim. App. 1975); Smith v. State, 510 P. 2d 793 (Alaska), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 1086 (1973); State v. Fassler, 108 Ariz. 586, 592-593, 503 P. 2d 807, 813-814 (1972); Croker v. State, 477 P. 2d 122, 125-126 (Wyo. 1970); State v. Purvis, 249 Ore. 404, 411, 438 P. 2d 1002, 1005 (1968). But see State v. Tanaka, 67 Haw. 658, 701 P. 2d 1274 (1985); People v. Krivda, 5 Cal. 3d 357, 486 P. 2d 1262 (1971). Ill We reject respondent Greenwood’s alternative argument for affirmance: that his expectation of privacy in his garbage should be deemed reasonable as a matter of federal constitutional law because the warrantless search and seizure of his garbage was impermissible as a matter of California law. He urges that the state-law right of Californians to privacy in their garbage, announced by the California Supreme Court in Krivda, supra, survived the subsequent state constitutional amendment eliminating the suppression remedy as a means of enforcing that right. See In re Lance W., 37 Cal. 3d, at 886-887, 694 P. 2d, at 752-753. Hence, he argues that the Fourth Amendment should itself vindicate that right. Individual States may surely construe their own constitutions as imposing more stringent constraints on police conduct than does the Federal Constitution. We have never intimated, however, that whether or not a search is reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment depends on the law of the particular State in which the search occurs. We have emphasized instead that the Fourth Amendment analysis must turn on such factors as “our societal understanding that certain areas deserve the most scrupulous protection from government invasion.” Oliver v. United States, 466 U. S., at 178 (emphasis added). See also Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U. S. 128, 143-144, n. 12 (1978). We have already concluded that society as a whole possesses no such understanding with regard to garbage left for collection at the side of a public street. Respondent’s argument is no less than a suggestion that concepts of privacy under the laws of each State are to determine the reach of the Fourth Amendment. We do not accept this submission. > h — I Greenwood finally urges as an additional ground for affirmance that the California constitutional amendment eliminating the exclusionary rule for evidence seized in violation of state but not federal law violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In his view, having recognized a state-law right to be free from warrantless searches of garbage, California may not under the Due Process Clause deprive its citizens of what he describes as “the only effective deterrent” to violations of this right. Greenwood concedes that no direct support for his position can be found in the decisions of this Court. He relies instead on cases holding that individuals are entitled to certain procedural protections before they can be deprived of a liberty or property interest created by state law. See Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460 (1983); Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480 (1980). We see no merit in Greenwood’s position. California could amend its Constitution to negate the holding in Krivda that state law forbids warrantless searches of trash. We are convinced that the State may likewise eliminate the exclusionary rule as a remedy for violations of that right. At the federal level, we have not required that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment be suppressed in all circumstances. See, e. g., United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897 (1984); United States v. Janis, 428 U. S. 433 (1976); United States v. Calandra, 414 U. S. 338 (1974). Rather, our decisions concerning the scope of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule have balanced the benefits of détérring police misconduct against the costs of excluding reliable evidence of criminal activity. See Leon, 468 U. S., at 908-913. We have declined to apply the exclusionary rule indiscriminately “when law enforcement officers have acted in objective good faith or their transgressions have been minor,” because “the magnitude of the benefit conferred on . . . guilty defendants [in such circumstances] offends basic concepts of the criminal justice system.” Id., at 908 (citing Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465, 490 (1976)). The States are not foreclosed by the Due Process Clause from using a similar balancing approach to delineate the scope of their own exclusionary rules. Hence, the people of California could permissibly conclude that the benefits of excluding relevant evidence of criminal activity do not outweigh the costs when the police conduct at issue does not violate federal law. V The judgment of the California Court of Appeal is therefore reversed, and this case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Justice Kennedy took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. The Court of Appeal also held that respondent Van Houten had standing to seek the suppression of evidence discovered during the April 4 search of Greenwood’s home. 182 Cal. App. 3d, at 735, 227 Cal. Rptr., at 542-543. For example, State v. Ronngren, 361 N. W. 2d 224 (N. D. 1985), involved the search of a garbage bag that a dog, acting “at the behest of no one,” id., at 228, had dragged from the defendants’ yard into the yard of a neighbor. The neighbor deposited the bag in his own trash can, which he later permitted the police to search. The North Dakota Supreme Court held that the search of the garbage bag did not violate the defendants’ Fourth Amendment rights. It is not only the homeless of the Nation’s cities^ who make use of others’ refuse. For example, a nationally syndicated consumer columnist has suggested that apartment dwellers obtain cents-off coupons by “mak[ing] friends with the fellow who handles the trash” in their buildings, and has recounted the tale of “the ‘Rich lady’ from Westmont who once a week puts on rubber gloves and hip boots and wades into the town garbage dump looking for labels and other proofs of purchase” needed to obtain manufacturers’ refunds. M. Sloane, “The Supermarket Shopper’s” 1980 Guide to Coupons and Refunds 74, 161 (1980). Even the refuse of prominent Americans has not been invulnerable. In 1975, for example, a reporter for a weekly tabloid seized five bags of garbage from the sidewalk outside the home of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Washington Post, July 9, 1975, p. Al, col. 8. A newspaper editorial criticizing this journalistic “trash-picking” observed that “[e]vi-dently . . . ‘everybody does it.’” Washington Post, July 10, 1975, p. A18, col. 1. We of course do not, as the dissent implies, “bas[e] [our] conclusion” that individuals have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their garbage on this “sole incident.” Post, at 51. Given that the dissenters are among the tiny minority of judges whose views are contrary to ours, we are distinctly unimpressed with the dissent’s prediction that “society will be shocked to learn” of today’s decision. Post, at 46. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Per Curiam. The appeal is dismissed. The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Douglas, and Mr. Justice Fortas would reverse the judgment of the court below for the reasons stated in the opinion of The Chief Justice in Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554, 569. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. A Texas jury convicted petitioner Duane Buck of capital murder. Under state law, the jury could impose a death sentence only if it found that Buck was likely to commit acts of violence in the future. Buck's attorney called a psychologist to offer his opinion on that issue. The psychologist testified that Buck probably would not engage in violent conduct. But he also stated that one of the factors pertinent in assessing a person's propensity for violence was his race, and that Buck was statistically more likely to act violently because he is black. The jury sentenced Buck to death. Buck contends that his attorney's introduction of this evidence violated his Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel. This claim has never been heard on the merits in any court, because the attorney who represented Buck in his first state postconviction proceeding failed to raise it. In 2006, a Federal District Court relied on that failure-properly, under then-governing law-to hold that Buck's claim was procedurally defaulted and unreviewable. In 2014, Buck sought to reopen that 2006 judgment by filing a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6). He argued that this Court's decisions in Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1, 132 S.Ct. 1309, 182 L.Ed.2d 272 (2012), and Trevino v. Thaler, 569 U.S. ----, 133 S.Ct. 1911, 185 L.Ed.2d 1044 (2013), had changed the law in a way that provided an excuse for his procedural default, permitting him to litigate his claim on the merits. In addition to this change in the law, Buck's motion identified ten other factors that, he said, constituted the "extraordinary circumstances" required to justify reopening the 2006 judgment under the Rule. See Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524, 535, 125 S.Ct. 2641, 162 L.Ed.2d 480 (2005). The District Court below denied the motion, and the Fifth Circuit declined to issue the certificate of appealability (COA) requested by Buck to appeal that decision. We granted certiorari, and now reverse. I A On the morning of July 30, 1995, Duane Buck arrived at the home of his former girlfriend, Debra Gardner. He was carrying a rifle and a shotgun. Buck entered the home, shot Phyllis Taylor, his stepsister, and then shot Gardner's friend Kenneth Butler. Gardner fled the house, and Buck followed. So did Gardner's young children. While Gardner's son and daughter begged for their mother's life, Buck shot Gardner in the chest. Gardner and Butler died of their wounds. Taylor survived. Police officers arrived soon after the shooting and placed Buck under arrest. An officer would later testify that Buck was laughing at the scene. He remained "happy" and "upbeat" as he was driven to the police station, "[s]miling and laughing" in the back of the patrol car. App. 134a-135a, 252a. Buck was tried for capital murder, and the jury convicted. During the penalty phase of the trial, the jury was charged with deciding two issues. The first was what the parties term the "future dangerousness" question. At the time of Buck's trial, a Texas jury could impose the death penalty only if it found-unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt-"a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society." Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 37.071, § 2(b)(1) (Vernon 1998). The second issue, to be reached only if the jury found Buck likely to be a future danger, was whether mitigating circumstances nevertheless warranted a sentence of life imprisonment instead of death. See § 2(e). The parties focused principally on the first question. The State called witnesses who emphasized the brutality of Buck's crime and his evident lack of remorse in its aftermath. The State also called another former girlfriend, Vivian Jackson. She testified that, during their relationship, Buck had routinely hit her and had twice pointed a gun at her. Finally, the State introduced evidence of Buck's criminal history, including convictions for delivery of cocaine and unlawfully carrying a weapon. App. 125a-127a, 185a. Defense counsel answered with a series of lay witnesses, including Buck's father and stepmother, who testified that they had never known him to be violent. Counsel also called two psychologists to testify as experts. The first, Dr. Patrick Lawrence, observed that Buck had previously served time in prison and had been held in minimum custody. From this he concluded that Buck "did not present any problems in the prison setting." Record in No. 4:04-cv-03965 (SD Tex.), Doc. 5-116, pp. 12-13. Dr. Lawrence further testified that murders within the Texas penal system tend to be gang related (there was no evidence Buck had ever been a member of a gang) and that Buck's offense had been a "crime of passion" occurring within the context of a romantic relationship. Id., at 4, 19, 21. Based on these considerations, Dr. Lawrence determined that Buck was unlikely to be a danger if he were sentenced to life in prison. Id., at 20-21. Buck's second expert, Dr. Walter Quijano, had been appointed by the presiding judge to conduct a psychological evaluation. Dr. Quijano had met with Buck in prison prior to trial and shared a report of his findings with defense counsel. Like Dr. Lawrence, Dr. Quijano thought it significant that Buck's prior acts of violence had arisen from romantic relationships with women; Buck, of course, would not form any such relationships while incarcerated. And Dr. Quijano likewise considered Buck's behavioral record in prison a good indicator that future violence was unlikely. App. 36a, 39a-40a. But there was more to the report. In determining whether Buck was likely to pose a danger in the future, Dr. Quijano considered seven "statistical factors." The fourth factor was "race." His report read, in relevant part: "4. Race. Black: Increased probability. There is an over-representation of Blacks among the violent offenders." Id., at 19a. Despite knowing Dr. Quijano's view that Buck's race was competent evidence of an increased probability of future violence, defense counsel called Dr. Quijano to the stand and asked him to discuss the "statistical factors" he had "looked at in regard to this case." Id., at 145a-146a. Dr. Quijano responded that certain factors were "know[n] to predict future dangerousness" and, consistent with his report, identified race as one of them. Id., at 146a. "It's a sad commentary," he testified, "that minorities, Hispanics and black people, are over represented in the Criminal Justice System." Ibid. Through further questioning, counsel elicited testimony concerning factors Dr. Quijano thought favorable to Buck, as well as his ultimate opinion that Buck was unlikely to pose a danger in the future. At the close of Dr. Quijano's testimony, his report was admitted into evidence. Id., at 150a-152a. After opening cross-examination with a series of general questions, the prosecutor likewise turned to the report. She asked first about the statistical factors of past crimes and age, then questioned Dr. Quijano about the roles of sex and race: "You have determined that the sex factor, that a male is more violent than a female because that's just the way it is, and that the race factor, black, increases the future dangerousness for various complicated reasons; is that correct?" Id., at 170a. Dr. Quijano replied, "Yes." Ibid. During closing arguments, defense counsel emphasized that Buck had proved to be "controllable in the prison population," and that his crime was one of "jealousy,... passion and emotion" unlikely to be repeated in jail. Id., at 189a-191a. The State stressed the crime's brutal nature and Buck's lack of remorse, along with the inability of Buck's own experts to guarantee that he would not act violently in the future-a point it supported by reference to Dr. Quijano's testimony. See id., at 198a-199a ("You heard from Dr. Quijano,... who told you that... the probability did exist that [Buck] would be a continuing threat to society."). The jury deliberated over the course of two days. During that time it sent out four notes, one of which requested the "psychology reports" that had been admitted into evidence. Id., at 209a. These reports-including Dr. Quijano's-were provided. The jury returned a sentence of death. B Buck's conviction and sentence were affirmed on direct appeal. Buck v. State, No. 72,810 (Tex.Crim.App., Apr. 28, 1999). His case then entered a labyrinth of state and federal collateral review, where it has wandered for the better part of two decades. Buck filed his first petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Texas state court in 1999. The four claims advanced in his petition, however, were all frivolous or noncognizable. See Ex parte Buck, No. 699684-A (Dist. Ct. Harris Cty., Tex., July 11, 2003), pp. 6-7. The petition failed to mention defense counsel's introduction of expert testimony that Buck's race increased his propensity for violence. But Dr. Quijano had testified in other cases, too, and in 1999, while Buck's first habeas petition was pending, one of those cases reached this Court. The petitioner, Victor Hugo Saldano, argued that his death sentence had been tainted by Dr. Quijano's testimony that Saldano's Hispanic heritage "was a factor weighing in the favor of future dangerousness." App. 302a. Texas confessed error on that ground and asked this Court to grant Saldano's petition for certiorari, vacate the state court judgment, and remand the case. In June 2000, the Court did so. Saldano v. Texas, 530 U.S. 1212, 120 S.Ct. 2214, 147 L.Ed.2d 246. Within days, the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, issued a public statement concerning the cases in which Dr. Quijano had testified. The statement affirmed that "it is inappropriate to allow race to be considered as a factor in our criminal justice system." App. 213a. In keeping with that principle, the Attorney General explained that his office had conducted a "thorough audit" and "identified eight more cases in which testimony was offered by Dr. Quijano that race should be a factor for the jury to consider in making its determination about the sentence in a capital murder trial." Ibid. Six of those cases were "similar to that of Victor Hugo Saldano"; in those cases, letters had been sent to counsel apprising them of the Attorney General's findings. Id., at 213a-214a. The statement closed by identifying the defendants in those six cases. Buck was one of them. Id., at 215a-217a. By the close of 2002, the Attorney General had confessed error, waived any available procedural defenses, and consented to resentencing in the cases of five of those six defendants. See Alba v. Johnson, 232 F.3d 208 (C.A.5 2000) (Table); Memorandum and Order in Blue v. Johnson, No. 4:99-cv-00350 (SD Tex.), pp. 15-17; Order in Garcia v. Johnson, No. 1:99-cv-00134 (ED Tex.), p. 1; Order in Broxton v. Johnson, No. 4:00-cv-01034 (SD Tex.), pp. 10-11; Final Judgment in Gonzales v. Cockrell, No. 7:99-cv-00072 (WD Tex.), p. 1. Not, however, in Buck's. In 2002, Buck's attorney filed a new state habeas petition alleging that trial counsel had rendered ineffective assistance by introducing Dr. Quijano's testimony. The State was not represented by the Attorney General in this proceeding-the Texas Attorney General represents state respondents in federal habeas cases, but not state habeas cases-and it did not confess error. Because Buck's petition was successive, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed it as an abuse of the writ. Ex parte Buck, Nos. 57,004-01, 57,004-02 (Tex.Crim.App., Oct. 15, 2003) (per curiam ). Buck turned to the federal courts. He filed a petition for habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in October 2004, by which time Attorney General Cornyn had left office. See Buck v. Dretke, 2006 WL 8411481, *2 (S.D.Tex., July 24, 2006). Buck sought relief on the ground that trial counsel's introduction of Dr. Quijano's testimony was constitutionally ineffective. The State responded that the state court had dismissed Buck's ineffective assistance claim because Buck had failed to press it in his first petition, raising it for the first time in a procedurally improper second petition. The State argued that such reliance on an established state rule of procedure was an adequate and independent state ground precluding federal review. Texas acknowledged that it had waived similar procedural defenses in Saldano's case. But it argued that Buck's case was different because "[i]n Saldano's case Dr. Quijano testified for the State "; in Buck's, "it was Buck who called Dr. Quijano to testify." Answer and Motion for Summary Judgment in No. 4:04-cv-03965 (SD Tex.), p. 20. Buck countered that, notwithstanding his procedural default, the District Court should reach the merits of his claim because a failure to do so would result in a miscarriage of justice. Buck did not argue that his default should be excused on a showing of "cause" and "prejudice"-that is, cause for the default, and prejudice from the denial of a federal right. And for good reason: At the time Buck filed his § 2254 petition, our decision in Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 752-753, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991), made clear that an attorney's failure to raise an ineffective assistance claim during state postconviction review could not constitute cause. The District Court rejected Buck's miscarriage of justice argument and held that, because of his procedural default, his ineffective assistance claim was unreviewable. Buck v. Dretke, 2006 WL 8411481, at *8. Buck unsuccessfully sought review of the District Court's ruling. See Buck v. Thaler, 345 Fed.Appx. 923 (C.A.5 2009) (per curiam ) (denying application for a COA), cert. denied, 559 U.S. 1072, 130 S.Ct. 2096, 176 L.Ed.2d 730 (2010). In 2011, Buck sought to reopen his case, arguing that the prosecution had violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses by asking Dr. Quijano about the relationship between race and future violence on cross-examination and referring to his testimony during summation. Buck also argued that the State's decision to treat him differently from the other defendants affected by Dr. Quijano's testimony justified relieving him of the District Court's adverse judgment. The Fifth Circuit disagreed, see Buck v. Thaler, 452 Fed.Appx. 423, 427-428 (C.A.5 2011) (per curiam ), and we denied certiorari, Buck v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 1022, 132 S.Ct. 32, 181 L.Ed.2d 411 (2011). Buck, still barred by Coleman from avoiding the consequences of his procedural default, did not pursue his ineffective assistance claim. C In 2012, this Court "modif[ied] the unqualified statement in Coleman that an attorney's ignorance or inadvertence in a postconviction proceeding does not qualify as cause to excuse a procedural default." Martinez, 566 U.S., at 9, 132 S.Ct. 1309. We held that when a state formally limits the adjudication of claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel to collateral review, a prisoner may establish cause for procedural default if (1) "the state courts did not appoint counsel in the initial-review collateral proceeding," or "appointed counsel in [that] proceeding... was ineffective under the standards of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 [104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674] (1984)"; and (2) "the underlying... claim is a substantial one, which is to say that... the claim has some merit." Id., at 14, 132 S.Ct. 1309. By its terms, Martinez did not bear on Buck's ineffective assistance claim. At the time of Buck's conviction and appeal, Texas did not formally require criminal defendants to reserve such claims for collateral review. In Trevino, however, the Court concluded that the exception announced in Martinez extended to state systems that, as a practical matter, deny criminal defendants "a meaningful opportunity" to press ineffective assistance claims on direct appeal. 569 U.S., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 1921. The Court further concluded that the system in Texas, where petitioner had been convicted, was such a system. Ibid. The upshot: Had Martinez and Trevino been decided before Buck filed his § 2254 petition, a federal court could have reviewed Buck's ineffective assistance claim if he demonstrated that (1) state postconviction counsel had been constitutionally ineffective in failing to raise it, and (2) the claim had "some merit." Martinez, 566 U.S., at 14, 132 S.Ct. 1309. D When Trevino was decided, Buck's third state habeas petition was pending in Texas court. That petition was denied in November 2013. Ex parte Buck, 418 S.W.3d 98 (Tex.Crim.App.2013) (per curiam ). Two months later, Buck returned to federal court, where he filed a motion to reopen his § 2254 case under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6). Rule 60(b) enumerates specific circumstances in which a party may be relieved of the effect of a judgment, such as mistake, newly discovered evidence, fraud, and the like. The Rule concludes with a catchall category-subdivision (b)(6)-providing that a court may lift a judgment for "any other reason that justifies relief." Relief is available under subdivision (b)(6), however, only in "extraordinary circumstances," and the Court has explained that "[s]uch circumstances will rarely occur in the habeas context." Gonzalez, 545 U.S., at 535, 125 S.Ct. 2641. In his motion, Buck identified 11 factors that, in his view, justified reopening the judgment. These included his attorney's introduction of expert testimony linking Buck's race to violence, the central issue at sentencing; the prosecution's questions about race and violence on cross-examination and reliance on Dr. Quijano's testimony in summation; the State's confession of error in other cases in which Dr. Quijano testified, but its refusal to concede error in Buck's case; and the change in law effected by Martinez and Trevino, which, if they had been decided earlier, would have permitted federal review of Buck's defaulted claim. App. 283a-285a. The District Court denied relief on two grounds. First, the court concluded that Buck had failed to demonstrate extraordinary circumstances. To that end, the court observed that a change in decisional law is rarely extraordinary by itself. Buck v. Stephens, 2014 WL 11310152, *4 (S.D.Tex., Aug. 29, 2014). It further determined that the State's "promise" not to oppose resentencing did not count for much, reasoning that "Buck's case is different in critical respects from the cases in which Texas confessed error" in that Buck's lawyer, not the prosecutor, had first elicited the objectionable testimony. Id., at *4-*5. The court also dismissed the contention that the nature of Dr. Quijano's testimony argued for reopening the case. Although "the introduction of any mention of race was," in the court's view, "ill[ ]advised at best and repugnant at worst," it was also "de minimis ": Dr. Quijano had discussed the connection between race and violence only twice. Id., at *5. The court accordingly concluded that Buck had failed to make out the predicate for Rule 60(b)(6) relief. Second, the court determined that-even if the circumstances were extraordinary-Buck's claim would fail on the merits. The court noted that under Strickland, Buck was obliged to show that counsel's performance was both deficient and prejudicial. The court held that Buck's lawyer had indeed performed deficiently in calling Dr. Quijano to give testimony that "len[t] credence to any potential latent racial prejudice held by the jury." 2014 WL 11310152, at *6. But, the court concluded, Buck had failed to demonstrate prejudice. It observed that Buck's crime had been "horrific." Ibid. And the court had already concluded that "the introduction of any mention of race was... de minimis." Id., at *5. For those reasons, it held, Buck had failed to show a reasonable probability that he would not have been sentenced to death but for Dr. Quijano's testimony about race and violence. Buck sought to appeal the denial of his Rule 60(b)(6) motion. He accordingly filed an application for a COA with the Fifth Circuit. To obtain a COA, Buck was required to make "a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right." 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). The Fifth Circuit denied a COA, concluding that Buck's case was "not extraordinary at all in the habeas context." Buck v. Stephens, 623 Fed.Appx. 668, 673 (2015). The panel agreed with the District Court that Martinez and Trevino were not significant factors in the analysis. It characterized most of the other factors Buck had identified as "variations on the merits" of his claim, which was "at least unremarkable as far as [ineffective assistance] claims go." 623 Fed.Appx., at 673. The panel likewise rejected Buck's argument that he was entitled to relief because the State had issued a press release indicating that his case would be treated like Saldano's, and then had confessed error in the other cases identified as similar in the statement, but not in Buck's. Id., at 674. Because Buck had "not shown extraordinary circumstances that would permit relief under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6)," the panel "den[ied] the application for a COA." Id., at 669. Buck's motion for rehearing en banc was denied over two dissenting votes. Buck v. Stephens, 630 Fed.Appx. 251 (C.A.5 2015) (per curiam ). We granted certiorari. Buck v. Stephens, 578 U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 2409, 195 L.Ed.2d 779 (2016). II A state prisoner whose petition for a writ of habeas corpus is denied by a federal district court does not enjoy an absolute right to appeal. Federal law requires that he first obtain a COA from a circuit justice or judge. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1). A COA may issue "only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right." § 2253(c)(2). Until the prisoner secures a COA, the Court of Appeals may not rule on the merits of his case. Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336, 123 S.Ct. 1029, 154 L.Ed.2d 931 (2003). The COA inquiry, we have emphasized, is not coextensive with a merits analysis. At the COA stage, the only question is whether the applicant has shown that "jurists of reason could disagree with the district court's resolution of his constitutional claims or that jurists could conclude the issues presented are adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further." Id., at 327, 123 S.Ct. 1029. This threshold question should be decided without "full consideration of the factual or legal bases adduced in support of the claims." Id., at 336, 123 S.Ct. 1029. "When a court of appeals sidesteps [the COA] process by first deciding the merits of an appeal, and then justifying its denial of a COA based on its adjudication of the actual merits, it is in essence deciding an appeal without jurisdiction." Id., at 336-337, 123 S.Ct. 1029. The court below phrased its determination in proper terms-that jurists of reason would not debate that Buck should be denied relief, 623 Fed.Appx., at 674 -but it reached that conclusion only after essentially deciding the case on the merits. As the court put it in the second sentence of its opinion: "Because [Buck] has not shown extraordinary circumstances that would permit relief under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6), we deny the application for a COA." Id., at 669. The balance of the Fifth Circuit's opinion reflects the same approach. The change in law effected by Martinez and Trevino, the panel wrote, was "not an extraordinary circumstance." 623 Fed.Appx., at 674. Even if Texas initially indicated to Buck that he would be resentenced, its "decision not to follow through" was "not extraordinary." Ibid. Buck "ha[d] not shown why" the State's alleged broken promise "would justify relief from the judgment." Ibid. But the question for the Fifth Circuit was not whether Buck had "shown extraordinary circumstances" or "shown why [Texas's broken promise] would justify relief from the judgment." Id., at 669, 674. Those are ultimate merits determinations the panel should not have reached. We reiterate what we have said before: A "court of appeals should limit its examination [at the COA stage] to a threshold inquiry into the underlying merit of [the] claims," and ask "only if the District Court's decision was debatable." Miller-El, 537 U.S., at 327, 348, 123 S.Ct. 1029. The dissent does not accept this established rule, arguing that a reviewing court that deems a claim nondebatable "must necessarily conclude that the claim is meritless." Post, at 781 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). Of course when a court of appeals properly applies the COA standard and determines that a prisoner's claim is not even debatable, that necessarily means the prisoner has failed to show that his claim is meritorious. But the converse is not true. That a prisoner has failed to make the ultimate showing that his claim is meritorious does not logically mean he failed to make a preliminary showing that his claim was debatable. Thus, when a reviewing court (like the Fifth Circuit here) inverts the statutory order of operations and "first decid[es] the merits of an appeal,... then justif[ies] its denial of a COA based on its adjudication of the actual merits," it has placed too heavy a burden on the prisoner at the COA stage. Miller-El, 537 U.S., at 336-337, 123 S.Ct. 1029. Miller-El flatly prohibits such a departure from the procedure prescribed by § 2253. Ibid. The State defends the Fifth Circuit's approach by arguing that the court's consideration of an application for a COA is often quite thorough. The court "occasionally hears oral argument when considering whether to grant a COA in a capital case." Brief for Respondent 50. Indeed, in one recent case, it "received nearly 200 pages of initial briefing, permitted a reply brief, considered the parties' supplemental authorities, invited supplemental letter briefs from both sides, and heard oral argument before denying the request for a COA." Id., at 50-51. But this hurts rather than helps the State's case. "[A] claim can be debatable even though every jurist of reason might agree, after the COA has been granted and the case has received full consideration, that petitioner will not prevail." Miller-El, 537 U.S., at 338, 123 S.Ct. 1029. The statute sets forth a two-step process: an initial determination whether a claim is reasonably debatable, and then-if it is-an appeal in the normal course. We do not mean to specify what procedures may be appropriate in every case. But whatever procedures are employed at the COA stage should be consonant with the limited nature of the inquiry. Given the approach of the court below, it is perhaps understandable that the parties have essentially briefed and argued the underlying merits at length. See, e.g., Brief for Petitioner 32 ("[T]rial counsel rendered deficient performance under Strickland."); id., at 39 ("[T]here is a reasonable probability that Dr. Quijano's race-as-dangerousness opinion swayed the judgment of jurors in favor of death." (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted)); id., at 59 (Buck "has demonstrated his entitlement to relief under Rule 60(b)(6)"); Brief for Respondent 40 ("The particular facts of petitioner's case do not establish extraordinary circumstances justifying relief from the judgment." (boldface type deleted)). With respect to this Court's review, § 2253 does not limit the scope of our consideration of the underlying merits, and at this juncture we think it proper to meet the decision below and the arguments of the parties on their own terms. III Buck's request for a COA raised two separate questions for the Fifth Circuit, one substantive and one procedural: first, whether reasonable jurists could debate the District Court's conclusion that Buck was not denied his right to effective assistance of counsel under Strickland ; and second, whether reasonable jurists could debate the District Court's procedural holding that Buck had not made the necessary showing to reopen his case under Rule 60(b)(6). A We begin with the District Court's determination (not specifically addressed by the Fifth Circuit) that Buck's constitutional claim failed on the merits. The Sixth Amendment right to counsel "is the right to the effective assistance of counsel." Strickland, 466 U.S., at 686, 104 S.Ct. 2052 (quoting McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 771, n. 14, 90 S.Ct. 1441, 25 L.Ed.2d 763 (1970) ). A defendant who claims to have been denied effective assistance must show both that counsel performed deficiently and that counsel's deficient performance caused him prejudice. 466 U.S., at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. 1 Strickland's first prong sets a high bar. A defense lawyer navigating a criminal proceeding faces any number of choices about how best to make a client's case. The lawyer has discharged his constitutional responsibility so long as his decisions fall within the "wide range of professionally competent assistance." Id., at 690, 104 S.Ct. 2052. It is only when the lawyer's errors were "so serious that counsel was not functioning as the 'counsel' guaranteed... by the Sixth Amendment" that Strickland's first prong is satisfied. Id., at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. The District Court determined that, in this case, counsel's performance fell outside the bounds of competent representation. We agree. Counsel knew that Dr. Quijano's report reflected the view that Buck's race disproportionately predisposed him to violent conduct; he also knew that the principal point of dispute during the trial's penalty phase was whether Buck was likely to act violently in the future. Counsel nevertheless (1) called Dr. Quijano to the stand; (2) specifically elicited testimony about the connection between Buck's race and the likelihood of future violence; and (3) put into evidence Dr. Quijano's expert report that stated, in reference to factors bearing on future dangerousness, "Race. Black: Increased probability." App. 19a, 145a-146a. Given that the jury had to make a finding of future dangerousness before it could impose a death sentence, Dr. Quijano's report said, in effect, that the color of Buck's skin made him more deserving of execution. It would be patently unconstitutional for a state to argue that a defendant is liable to be a future danger because of his race. See Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 885, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 77 L.Ed.2d 235 (1983) (identifying race among factors that are "constitutionally impermissible or totally irrelevant to the sentencing process"). No competent defense attorney would introduce such evidence about his own client. See Buck v. Thaler, 565 U.S., at 1022, 132 S.Ct. 32 (statement of ALITO, J., joined by Scalia and BREYER, JJ., respecting denial of certiorari) (Buck's case "concerns bizarre and objectionable testimony"). 2 To satisfy Strickland, a litigant must also demonstrate prejudice-"a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." 466 U.S., at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Accordingly, the question before the District Court was whether Buck had demonstrated a reasonable probability that, without Dr. Quijano's testimony on race, at least one juror would have harbored a reasonable doubt about whether Buck was likely to be violent in the future. The District Court concluded that Buck had not made such a showing. We disagree. In arguing that the jury would have imposed a death sentence even if Dr. Quijano had not offered race-based testimony, the State primarily emphasizes the brutality of Buck's crime and his lack of remorse. A jury may conclude that a crime's vicious nature calls for a sentence of death. See Wong v. Belmontes, 558 U.S. 15, 130 S.Ct. 383, 175 L.Ed.2d 328 (2009) (per curiam ). In this case, however, several considerations convince us that it is reasonably probable-notwithstanding the nature of Buck's crime and his behavior in its aftermath-that the proceeding would have ended differently had counsel rendered competent representation. Dr. Quijano testified on the key point at issue in Buck's sentencing. True, the jury was asked to decide two issues-whether Buck was likely to be a future danger, and, if so, whether mitigating circumstances nevertheless justified a sentence of life imprisonment. But the focus of the proceeding was on the first question. Much of the penalty phase testimony was directed to future dangerousness, as were the summations for both sides. The jury, consistent with the focus of the parties, asked Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents important questions concerning claims of workplace “sexual harassment” brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq. I In 1974, respondent Mechelle Vinson met Sidney Taylor, a vice president of what is now petitioner Meritor Savings Bank (bank) and manager of one of its branch offices. When respondent asked whether she might obtain employment at the bank, Taylor gave her an application, which she completed and returned the next day; later that same day Taylor called her to say that she had been hired. With Taylor as her supervisor, respondent started as a teller-trainee, and thereafter was promoted to teller, head teller, and assistant branch manager. She worked at the same branch for four years, and it is undisputed that her advancement there was based on merit alone. In September 1978, respondent notified Taylor that she was taking sick leave for an indefinite period. On November 1, 1978, the bank discharged her for excessive use of that leave. Respondent brought this action against Taylor and the bank, claiming that during her four years at the bank she had “constantly been subjected to sexual harassment” by Taylor in violation of Title VII. She sought injunctive relief, compensatory and punitive damages against Taylor and the bank, and attorney’s fees. At the 11-day bench trial, the parties presented conflicting testimony about Taylor’s behavior during respondent’s employment. Respondent testified that during her probationary period as a teller-trainee, Taylor treated her in a fatherly way and made no sexual advances. Shortly thereafter, however, he invited her out to dinner and, during the course of the meal, suggested that they go to a motel to have sexual relations. At first she refused, but out of what she described as fear of losing her job she eventually agreed. According to respondent, Taylor thereafter made repeated demands upon her for sexual favors, usually at the branch, both during and after business hours; she estimated that over the next several years she had intercourse with him some 40 or 50 times. In addition, respondent testified that Taylor fondled her in front of other employees, followed her into the women’s restroom when she went there alone, exposed himself to her, and even forcibly raped her on several occasions. These activities ceased after 1977, respondent stated, when she started going with a steady boyfriend. Respondent also testified that Taylor touched and fondled other women employees of the bank, and she attempted to call witnesses to support this charge. But while some supporting testimony apparently was admitted without objection, the District Court did not allow her “to present wholesale evidence of a pattern and practice relating to sexual advances to other female employees in her case in chief, but advised her that she might well be able to present such evidence in rebuttal to the defendants’ cases.” Vinson v. Taylor, 22 EPD ¶ 30,708, p. 14,693, n. 1, 23 FEP Cases 37, 38-39, n. 1 (DC 1980). Respondent did not offer such evidence in rebuttal. Finally, respondent testified that because she was afraid of Taylor she never reported his harassment to any of his supervisors and never attempted to use the bank’s complaint procedure. Taylor denied respondent’s allegations of sexual activity, testifying that he never fondled her, never made suggestive remarks to her, never engaged in sexual intercourse with her, and never asked her to do so. He contended instead that respondent made her accusations in response to a business-related dispute. The bank also denied respondent’s allegations and asserted that any sexual harassment by Taylor was unknown to the bank and engaged in without its consent or approval. The District Court denied relief, but did not resolve the conflicting testimony about the existence of a sexual relationship between respondent and Taylor. It found instead that “[i]f [respondent] and Taylor did engage in an intimate or sexual relationship during the time of [respondent’s] employment with [the bank], that relationship was a voluntary one having nothing to do with her continued employment at [the bank] or her advancement or promotions at that institution.” Id., at 14,692, 23 FEP Cases, at 42 (footnote omitted). The court ultimately found that respondent “was not the victim of sexual harassment and was not the victim of sexual discrimination” while employed at the bank. Ibid., 23 FEP Cases, at 43. Although it concluded that respondent had not proved a violation of Title VII, the District Court nevertheless went on to address the bank’s liability. After noting the bank’s express policy against discrimination, and finding that neither respondent nor any other employee had ever lodged a complaint about sexual harassment by Taylor, the court ultimately concluded that “the bank was without notice and cannot be held liable for the alleged actions of Taylor.” Id., at 14,691, 23 FEP Cases, at 42. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed. 243 U. S. App. D. C. 323, 753 F. 2d 141 (1985). Relying on its earlier holding in Bundy v. Jackson, 205 U. S. App. D. C. 444, 641 F. 2d 934 (1981), decided after the trial in this case, the court stated that a violation of Title VII may be predicated on either of two types of sexual harassment: harassment that involves the conditioning of concrete employment benefits on sexual favors, and harassment that, while not affecting economic benefits, creates a hostile or offensive working environment. The court drew additional support for this position from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Guidelines on Discrimination Because of Sex, 29 CFR § 1604.11(a) (1985), which set out these two types of sexual harassment claims. Believing that “Vinson’s grievance was clearly of the [hostile environment] type,” 243 U. S. App. D. C., at 327, 753 F. 2d, at 145, and that the District Court had not considered whether a violation of this type had occurred, the court concluded that a remand was necessary. The court further concluded that the District Court’s finding that any sexual relationship between respondent and Taylor “was a voluntary one” did not obviate the need for a remand. “[U]ncertain as to precisely what the [district] court meant” by this finding, the Court of Appeals held that if the evidence otherwise showed that “Taylor made Vinson’s toleration of sexual harassment a condition of her employment,” her voluntariness “had no materiality whatsoever.” Id., at 328, 753 F. 2d, at 146. The court then surmised that the District Court’s finding of voluntariness might have been based on “the voluminous testimony regarding respondent’s dress and personal fantasies,” testimony that the Court of Appeals believed “had no place in this litigation.” Id., at 328, n. 36, 753 F. 2d, at 146, n. 36. As to the bank’s liability, the Court of Appeals held that an employer is absolutely liable for sexual harassment practiced by supervisory personnel, whether or not the employer knew or should have known about the misconduct. The court relied chiefly on Title VII’s definition of “employer” to include “any agent of such a person,” 42 U. S. C. §2000e(b), as well as on the EEOC Guidelines. The court held that a supervisor is an “agent” of his employer for Title VII purposes, even if he lacks authority to hire, fire, or promote, since “the mere existence — or even the appearance — of a significant degree of influence in vital job decisions gives any supervisor the opportunity to impose on employees.” 243 U. S. App. D. C., at 332, 753 F. 2d, at 150. In accordance with the foregoing, the Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the District Court and remanded the case for further proceedings. A subsequent suggestion for rehearing en banc was denied, with three judges dissenting. 245 U. S. App. D. C. 306, 760 F. 2d 1330 (1985). We granted certiorari, 474 U. S. 1047 (1985), and now affirm but for different reasons. II Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 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 race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U. S. C. § 200Óe-2(a)(l). The prohibition against discrimination based on sex was added to Title VII at the last minute on the floor of the House of Representatives. 110 Cong. Rec. 2577-2584 (1964). The principal argument in opposition to the amendment was that “sex discrimination” was sufficiently different from other types of discrimination that it ought to receive separate legislative treatment. See id., at 2577 (statement of Rep. Celler quoting letter from United States Department of Labor); id., at 2584 (statement of Rep. Green). This argument was defeated, the bill quickly passed as amended, and we are left with little legislative history to guide us in interpreting the Act’s prohibition against discrimination based on “sex.” Respondent argues, and the Court of Appeals held, that unwelcome sexual advances that create an offensive or hostile working environment violate Title VII. Without question, when a supervisor sexually harasses a subordinate because of the subordinate’s sex, that supervisor “discriminate[s]” on the basis of sex. Petitioner apparently does not challenge this proposition. It contends instead that in prohibiting discrimination with respect to “compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges” of employment, Congress was concerned with what petitioner describes as “tangible loss” of “an economic character,” not “purely psychological aspects of the workplace environment.” Brief for Petitioner 30-31, 34. In support of this claim petitioner observes that in both the legislative history of Title VII and this Court’s Title VII decisions, the focus has been on tangible, economic barriers erected by discrimination. We reject petitioner’s view. First, the language of Title VII is not limited to “economic” or “tangible” discrimination. The phrase “terms, conditions, or privileges of employment” evinces a congressional intent “ ‘to strike at the entire spectrum of disparate treatment of men and women’ ” in employment. Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power v. Manhart, 435 U. S. 702, 707, n. 13 (1978), quoting Sprogis v. United Air Lines, Inc., 444 F. 2d 1194, 1198 (CA7 1971). Petitioner has pointed to nothing in the Act to suggest that Congress contemplated the limitation urged here. Second, in 1980 the EEOC issued Guidelines specifying that “sexual harassment,” as there defined, is a form of sex discrimination prohibited by Title VII. As an “administrative interpretation of the Act by the enforcing agency,” Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424, 433-434 (1971), these Guidelines, “ ‘while not controlling upon the courts by reason of their authority, do constitute a body of experience and informed judgment to which courts and litigants may properly resort for guidance,’” General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125, 141-142 (1976), quoting Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134, 140 (1944). The EEOC Guidelines fully support the view that harassment leading to noneconomic injury can violate Title VII. In defining “sexual harassment,” the Guidelines first describe the kinds of workplace conduct that may be actionable under Title VII. These include “[ujnwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.” 29 CFR § 1604.11(a) (1985). Relevant to the charges at issue in this case, the Guidelines provide that such sexual misconduct constitutes prohibited “sexual harassment,” whether or not it is directly linked to the grant or denial of an economic quid pro quo, where “such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.” § 1604.11(a)(3). In concluding that so-called “hostile environment” (i. e., non quid pro quo) harassment violates Title VII, the EEOC drew upon a substantial body of judicial decisions and EEOC precedent holding that Title VII affords employees the right to work in an environment free from discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult. See generally 45 Fed. Reg. 74676 (1980). Rogers v. EEOC, 454 F. 2d 234 (CA5 1971), cert. denied, 406 U. S. 957 (1972), was apparently the first case to recognize a cause of action based upon a discriminatory work environment. In Rogers, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that a Hispanic complainant could establish a Title VII violation by demonstrating that her employer created an offensive work environment for employees by giving discriminatory service to its Hispanic clientele. The court explained that an employee’s protections under Title VII extend beyond the economic aspects of employment: “[T]he phrase ‘terms, conditions or privileges of employment’ in [Title VII] is an expansive concept which sweeps within its protective ambit the practice of creating a working environment heavily charged with ethnic or racial discrimination. . . . One can readily envision working environments so heavily polluted with discrimination as to destroy completely the emotional and psychological stability of minority group workers . . . .” 454 F. 2d, at 238. Courts applied this principle to harassment based on race, e. g., Firefighters Institute for Racial Equality v. St. Louis, 549 F. 2d 506, 514-515 (CA8), cert. denied sub nom. Banta v. United States, 434 U. S. 819 (1977); Gray v. Greyhound Lines, East, 178 U. S. App. D. C. 91, 98, 545 F. 2d 169, 176 (1976), religion, e. g., Compston v. Borden, Inc., 424 F. Supp. 157 (SD Ohio 1976), and national origin, e. g., Cariddi v. Kansas City Chiefs Football Club, 568 F. 2d 87, 88 (CA8 1977). Nothing in Title VII suggests that a hostile environment based on discriminatory sexual harassment should not be likewise prohibited. The Guidelines thus appropriately drew from, and were fully consistent with, the existing case law. Since the Guidelines were issued, courts have uniformly held, and we agree, that a plaintiff may establish a violation of Title VII by proving that discrimination based on sex has created a hostile or abusive work environment. As the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit wrote in Henson v. Dundee, 682 F. 2d 897, 902 (1982): “Sexual harassment which creates a hostile or offensive environment for members of one sex is every bit the arbitrary barrier to sexual equality at the workplace that racial harassment is to racial equality. Surely, a requirement that a man or woman run a gauntlet of sexual abuse in return for the privilege of being allowed to work and make a living can be as demeaning and disconcerting as the harshest of racial epithets.” Accord, Katz v. Dole, 709 F. 2d 251, 254-255 (CA4 1983); Bundy v. Jackson, 205 U. S. App. D. C., at 444-454, 641 F. 2d, at 934-944; Zabkowicz v. West Bend Co., 589 F. Supp. 780 (ED Wis. 1984). Of course, as the courts in both Rogers and Henson recognized, not all workplace conduct that may be described as “harassment” affects a “term, condition, or privilege” of employment within the meaning of Title VII. See Rogers v. EEOC, supra, at 238 (“mere utterance of an ethnic or racial epithet which engenders offensive feelings in an employee” would not affect the conditions of employment to sufficiently significant degree to violate Title VII); Henson, 682 F. 2d, at 904 (quoting same). For sexual harassment to be actionable, it must be sufficiently severe or pervasive “to alter the conditions of [the victim’s] employment and create an abusive working environment.” Ibid. Respondent’s allegations in this case — which include not only pervasive harassment but also criminal conduct of the most serious nature — are plainly sufficient to state a claim for “hostile environment” sexual harassment. The question remains, however, whether the District Court’s ultimate finding that respondent “was not the victim of sexual harassment,” 22 EPD ¶30,708, at 14,692-14,693, 23 FEP Cases, at 43, effectively disposed of respondent’s claim. The Court of Appeals recognized, we think correctly, that this ultimate finding was likely based on one or both of two erroneous views of the law. First, the District Court apparently believed that a claim for sexual harassment will not lie absent an economic effect on the complainant’s employment. See ibid. (“It is without question that sexual harassment of female employees in which they are asked or required to submit to sexual demands as a condition to obtain employment or to maintain employment or to obtain promotions falls within protection of Title VII”) (emphasis added). Since it ■ appears that the District Court made its findings without ever considering the “hostile environment” theory of sexual harassment, the Court of Appeals’ decision to remand was correct. Second, the District Court’s conclusion that no actionable harassment occurred might have rested on its earlier “finding” that “[i]f [respondent] and Taylor did engage in an intimate or sexual relationship . . . , that relationship was a voluntary one.” Id., at 14,692, 23 FEP Cases, at 42. But the fact that sex-related conduct was “voluntary,” in the sense that the complainant was not forced to participate against her will, is not a defense to a sexual harassment suit brought under Title VII. The gravamen of any sexual harassment claim is that the alleged sexual advances were “unwelcome.” 29 CFR § 1604.11(a) (1985). While the question whether particular conduct was indeed unwelcome presents difficult problems of proof and turns largely on credibility determinations committed to the trier of fact, the District Court in this case erroneously focused on the “voluntariness” of respondent’s participation in the claimed sexual episodes. The correct inquiry is whether respondent by her conduct indicated that the alleged sexual advances were unwelcome, not whether her actual participation in sexual intercourse was voluntary. Petitioner contends that even if this case must be remanded to the District Court, the Court of Appeals erred in one of the terms of its remand. Specifically, the Court of Appeals stated that testimony about respondent’s “dress and personal fantasies,” 243 U. S. App. D. C., at 328, n. 36, 753 F. 2d, at 146, n. 36, which the District Court apparently admitted into evidence, “had no place in this litigation.” Ibid. The apparent ground for this conclusion was that respondent’s voluntariness vel non in submitting to Taylor’s advances was immaterial to her sexual harassment claim. While “vol-untariness” in the sense of consent is not a defense to such a claim, it does not follow that a complainant’s sexually provocative speech or dress is irrelevant as a matter of law in determining whether he or she found particular sexual advances unwelcome. To the contrary, such evidence is obviously relevant. The EEOC Guidelines emphasize that the trier of fact must determine the existence of sexual harassment in light of “the record as a whole” and “the totality of circumstances, such as the nature of the sexual advances and the context in which the alleged incidents occurred.” 29 CFR § 1604.11(b) (1985). Respondent’s claim that any marginal relevance of the evidence in question was outweighed by the potential for unfair prejudice is the sort of argument properly addressed to the District Court. In this case the District Court concluded that the evidence should be admitted, and the Court of Appeals’ contrary conclusion was based upon the erroneous, categorical view that testimony about provocative dress and publicly expressed sexual fantasies “had no place in this litigation.” 243 U. S. App. D. C., at 328, n. 36, 753 F. 2d, at 146, n. 36. While the District Court must carefully weigh the applicable considerations in deciding whether to admit evidence of this kind, there is no per se rule against its admissibility. Ill Although the District Court concluded that respondent had not proved a violation of Title VII, it nevertheless went on to consider the question of the bank’s liability. Finding that “the bank was without notice” of Taylor’s alleged conduct, and that notice to Taylor was not the equivalent of notice to the bank, the court concluded that the bank therefore could not be held hable for Taylor’s alleged actions. The Court of Appeals took the opposite view, holding that an employer is strictly liable for a hostile environment created by a supervisor’s sexual advances, even though the employer neither knew nor reasonably could have known of the alleged misconduct. The court held that a supervisor, whether or not he possesses the authority to hire, fire, or promote, is necessarily an “agent” of his employer for all Title VII purposes, since “even the appearance” of such authority may enable him to impose himself on his subordinates. The parties and amici suggest several different standards for employer liability. Respondent, not surprisingly, defends the position of the Court of Appeals. Noting that Title VII’s definition of “employer” includes any “agent” of the employer, she also argues that “so long as the circumstance is work-related, the supervisor is the employer and the employer is the supervisor.” Brief for Respondent 27. Notice to Taylor that the advances were unwelcome, therefore, was notice to the bank. Petitioner argues that respondent’s failure to use its established grievance procedure, or to otherwise put it on notice of the alleged misconduct, insulates petitioner from liability for Taylor’s wrongdoing. A contrary rule would be unfair, petitioner argues, since in a hostile environment harassment case the employer often will have no reason to know about, or opportunity to cure, the alleged wrongdoing. The EEOC, in its brief as’ amicus curiae, contends that courts formulating employer liability rules should draw from traditional agency principles. Examination of those principles has led the EEOC to the view that where a supervisor exercises the authority actually delegated to him by his employer, by making or threatening to make decisions affecting the employment status of his subordinates, such actions are properly imputed to the employer whose delegation of authority empowered the supervisor to undertake them. Brief for United States and EEOC as Amici Curiae 22. Thus, the courts have consistently held employers liable for the discriminatory discharges of employees by supervisory personnel, whether or not the employer knew, should have known, or approved of the supervisor’s actions. E. g., Anderson v. Methodist Evangelical Hospital, Inc., 464 F. 2d 723, 725 (CA6 1972). The EEOC suggests that when a sexual harassment claim rests exclusively on a “hostile environment” theory, however, the usual basis for a finding of agency will often disappear. In that case, the EEOC believes, agency principles lead to “a rule that asks whether a victim of sexual harassment had reasonably available an avenue of complaint regarding such harassment, and, if available and utilized, whether that procedure was reasonably responsive to the employee’s complaint. If the employer has an expressed policy against sexual harassment and has implemented a procedure specifically designed to resolve sexual harassment claims, and if the victim does not take advantage of that procedure, the employer should be shielded from liability absent actual knowledge of the sexually hostile environment (obtained, e. g., by the filing of a charge with the EEOC or a comparable state agency). In all other cases, the employer will be liable if it has actual knowledge of the harassment or if, considering all the facts of the case, the victim in question had no reasonably available avenue for making his or her complaint known to appropriate management officials.” Brief for United States and EEOC as Amici Curiae 26. As respondent points out, this suggested rule is in some tension with the EEOC Guidelines, which hold an employer liable for the acts of its agents without regard to notice. 29 CFR § 1604.11(c) (1985). The Guidelines do require, however, an “examin[ation of] the circumstances of the particular employment relationship and the job [f Junctions performed by the individual in determining whether an individual acts in either a supervisory or agency capacity.” Ibid. This debate over the appropriate standard for employer liability has a rather abstract quality about it given the state of the record in this case. We do not know at this stage whether Taylor made any sexual advances toward respondent at all, let alone whether those advances were unwelcome, whether they were sufficiently pervasive to constitute a condition of employment, or whether they were “so pervasive and so long continuing . . . that the employer must have become conscious of [them],” Taylor v. Jones, 653 F. 2d 1193, 1197-1199 (CA8 1981) (holding employer liable for racially hostile working environment based on constructive knowledge). We therefore decline the parties’ invitation to issue a definitive rule on employer liability, but we do agree with the EEOC that Congress wanted courts to look to agency principles for guidance in this area. While such common-law principles may not be transferable in all their particulars to Title VII, Congress’ decision to define “employer” to include any “agent” of an employer, 42 U. S. C. §2000e(b), surely evinces an intent to place some limits on the acts of employees for which employers under Title VII are to be held responsible. For this reason, we hold that the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that employers are always automatically liable for sexual harassment by their supervisors. See generally Restatement (Second) of Agency §§219-237 (1958). For the same reason, absence of notice to an employer does not necessarily insulate that employer from liability. Ibid. Finally, we reject petitioner’s view that the mere existence of a grievance procedure and a policy against discrimination, coupled with respondent’s failure to invoke that procedure, must insulate petitioner from liability. While those facts are plainly relevant, the situation before us demonstrates why they are not necessarily dispositive. Petitioner’s general nondiscrimination policy did not address sexual harassment in particular, and thus did not alert employees to their employer’s interest in correcting that form of discrimination. App. 25. Moreover, the bank’s grievance procedure apparently required an employee to complain first to her supervisor, in this case Taylor. Since Taylor was the alleged perpetrator, it is not altogether surprising that respondent failed to invoke the procedure and report her grievance to him. Petitioner’s contention that respondent’s failure should insulate it from liability might be substantially stronger if its procedures were better calculated to encourage victims of harassment to come forward. IV In sum, we hold that a claim of “hostile environment” sex discrimination is actionable under Title VII, that the District Court’s findings were insufficient to dispose of respondent’s hostile environment claim, and that the District Court did not err in admitting testimony about respondent’s sexually provocative speech and dress. As to employer liability, we conclude that the Court of Appeals was wrong to entirely disregard agency principles and impose absolute liability on employers for the acts of their supervisors, regardless of the circumstances of a particular case. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals reversing the judgment of the District Court is affirmed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Like the Court of Appeals, this Court was not provided a complete transcript of the trial. We therefore rely largely on the District Court’s opinion for the summary of the relevant testimony. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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 ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. We consider in this case whether to overrule a longstanding interpretation of the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. That Clause provides that no person may be "twice put in jeopardy" "for the same offence." Our double jeopardy case law is complex, but at its core, the Clause means that those acquitted or convicted of a particular "offence" cannot be tried a second time for the same "offence." But what does the Clause mean by an "offence"? We have long held that a crime under one sovereign's laws is not "the same offence" as a crime under the laws of another sovereign. Under this "dual-sovereignty" doctrine, a State may prosecute a defendant under state law even if the Federal Government has prosecuted him for the same conduct under a federal statute. Or the reverse may happen, as it did here. Terance Gamble, convicted by Alabama for possessing a firearm as a felon, now faces prosecution by the United States under its own felon-in-possession law. Attacking this second prosecution on double jeopardy grounds, Gamble asks us to overrule the dual-sovereignty doctrine. He contends that it departs from the founding-era understanding of the right enshrined by the Double Jeopardy Clause. But the historical evidence assembled by Gamble is feeble; pointing the other way are the Clause's text, other historical evidence, and 170 years of precedent. Today we affirm that precedent, and with it the decision below. I In November 2015, a local police officer in Mobile, Alabama, pulled Gamble over for a damaged headlight. Smelling marijuana, the officer searched Gamble's car, where he found a loaded 9-mm handgun. Since Gamble had been convicted of second-degree robbery, his possession of the handgun violated an Alabama law providing that no one convicted of "a crime of violence" "shall own a firearm or have one in his or her possession." Ala. Code § 13A-11-72(a) (2015) ; see § 13A-11-70(2) (defining "crime of violence" to include robbery). After Gamble pleaded guilty to this state offense, federal prosecutors indicted him for the same instance of possession under a federal law-one forbidding those convicted of "a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year... to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition." 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Gamble moved to dismiss on one ground: The federal indictment was for "the same offence" as the one at issue in his state conviction and thus exposed him to double jeopardy. But because this Court has long held that two offenses "are not the'same offence' " for double jeopardy purposes if "prosecuted by different sovereigns," Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82, 92, 106 S.Ct. 433, 88 L.Ed.2d 387 (1985), the District Court denied Gamble's motion to dismiss. Gamble then pleaded guilty to the federal offense while preserving his right to challenge the denial of his motion to dismiss on double jeopardy grounds. But on appeal the Eleventh Circuit affirmed, citing the dual-sovereignty doctrine. 694 Fed. Appx. 750 (2017). We granted certiorari to determine whether to overturn that doctrine. 585 U.S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 2707, 201 L.Ed.2d 1095 (2018). II Gamble contends that the Double Jeopardy Clause must forbid successive prosecutions by different sovereigns because that is what the founding-era common law did. But before turning to that historical claim, see Part III infra, we review the Clause's text and some of the cases Gamble asks us to overturn. A We start with the text of the Fifth Amendment. Although the dual-sovereignty rule is often dubbed an "exception" to the double jeopardy right, it is not an exception at all. On the contrary, it follows from the text that defines that right in the first place. "[T]he language of the Clause... protects individuals from being twice put in jeopardy 'for the same offence,' not for the same conduct or actions," Grady v. Corbin, 495 U.S. 508, 529, 110 S.Ct. 2084, 109 L.Ed.2d 548 (1990), as Justice Scalia wrote in a soon-vindicated dissent, see United States v. Dixon, 509 U.S. 688, 113 S.Ct. 2849, 125 L.Ed.2d 556 (1993) (overruling Grady ). And the term " '[o]ffence' was commonly understood in 1791 to mean 'transgression,' that is, 'the Violation or Breaking of a Law.' " Grady, 495 U.S. at 529, 110 S.Ct. 2084 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (quoting Dictionarium Britannicum (Bailey ed. 1730)). See also 2 R. Burn & J. Burn, A New Law Dictionary 167 (1792) ("OFFENCE, is an act committed against law, or omitted where the law requires it"). As originally understood, then, an "offence" is defined by a law, and each law is defined by a sovereign. So where there are two sovereigns, there are two laws, and two "offences." See Grady, 495 U.S. at 529, 110 S.Ct. 2084 (Scalia, J., dissenting) ("If the same conduct violates two (or more) laws, then each offense may be separately prosecuted"); Moore v. Illinois, 14 How. 13, 17, 14 L.Ed. 306 (1852) ("The constitutional provision is not, that no person shall be subject, for the same act, to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; but for the same offence, the same violation of law, no person's life or limb shall be twice put in jeopardy" (emphasis added)). Faced with this reading, Gamble falls back on an episode from the Double Jeopardy Clause's drafting history. The first Congress, working on an earlier draft that would have banned "'more than one trial or one punishment for the same offence,' " voted down a proposal to add " 'by any law of the United States.' " 1 Annals of Cong. 753 (1789). In rejecting this addition, Gamble surmises, Congress must have intended to bar successive prosecutions regardless of the sovereign bringing the charge. Even if that inference were justified-something that the Government disputes-it would count for little. The private intent behind a drafter's rejection of one version of a text is shoddy evidence of the public meaning of an altogether different text. Cf. United States v. Craft, 535 U.S. 274, 287, 122 S.Ct. 1414, 152 L.Ed.2d 437 (2002) ("[F]ailed legislative proposals are a particularly dangerous ground on which to rest an interpretation of a prior statute" (internal quotation marks omitted)). Besides, if we allowed conjectures about purpose to inform our reading of the text, the Government's conjecture would prevail. The Government notes that the Declaration of Independence denounced King George III for "protecting [British troops] by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States." ¶ 17. The Declaration was alluding to "the so-called Murderers' Act, passed by Parliament after the Boston Massacre," Amar, Sixth Amendment First Principles, 84 Geo. L. J. 641, 687, n. 181 (1996), a law that allowed British officials indicted for murder in America to be " 'tried in England, beyond the control of local juries.' " Ibid. (quoting J. Blum et al., The National Experience 95 (3d ed. 1973)). "During the late colonial period, Americans strongly objected to... [t]his circumvention of the judgment of the victimized community." Amar, 84 Geo. L. Rev., at 687, n. 181. Yet on Gamble's reading, the same Founders who quite literally revolted against the use of acquittals abroad to bar criminal prosecutions here would soon give us an Amendment allowing foreign acquittals to spare domestic criminals. We doubt it. We see no reason to abandon the sovereign-specific reading of the phrase "same offence," from which the dual-sovereignty rule immediately follows. B Our cases reflect the same reading. A close look at them reveals how fidelity to the Double Jeopardy Clause's text does more than honor the formal difference between two distinct criminal codes. It honors the substantive differences between the interests that two sovereigns can have in punishing the same act. The question of successive federal and state prosecutions arose in three antebellum cases implying and then spelling out the dual-sovereignty doctrine. The first, Fox v. Ohio, 5 How. 410, 12 L.Ed. 213 (1847), involved an Ohio prosecution for the passing of counterfeit coins. The defendant argued that since Congress can punish counterfeiting, the States must be barred from doing so, or else a person could face two trials for the same offense, contrary to the Fifth Amendment. We rejected the defendant's premise that under the Double Jeopardy Clause "offences falling within the competency of different authorities to restrain or punish them would not properly be subjected to the consequences which those authorities might ordain and affix to their perpetration." Id., at 435. Indeed, we observed, the nature of the crime or its effects on "public safety" might well "deman[d]" separate prosecutions. Ibid. Generalizing from this point, we declared in a second case that "the same act might, as to its character and tendencies, and the consequences it involved, constitute an offence against both the State and Federal governments, and might draw to its commission the penalties denounced by either, as appropriate to its character in reference to each." United States v. Marigold, 9 How. 560, 569, 13 L.Ed. 257 (1850). A third antebellum case, Moore v. Illinois, 14 How. 13, 55 U.S. 13, 14 L.Ed. 306, expanded on this concern for the different interests of separate sovereigns, after tracing it to the text in the manner set forth above. Recalling that the Fifth Amendment prohibits double jeopardy not "for the same ac[t]" but "for the same offence," and that "[a]n offence, in its legal signification, means the transgression of a law," id., at 19, we drew the now-familiar inference: A single act "may be an offence or transgression of the laws of" two sovereigns, and hence punishable by both, id., at 20. Then we gave color to this abstract principle-and to the diverse interests it might vindicate-with an example. An assault on a United States marshal, we said, would offend against the Nation and a State: the first by "hindering" the "execution of legal process," and the second by "breach[ing]" the "peace of the State." Ibid. That duality of harm explains how "one act" could constitute "two offences, for each of which [the offender] is justly punishable." Ibid. This principle comes into still sharper relief when we consider a prosecution in this country for crimes committed abroad. If, as Gamble suggests, only one sovereign may prosecute for a single act, no American court-state or federal-could prosecute conduct already tried in a foreign court. Imagine, for example, that a U.S. national has been murdered in another country. That country could rightfully seek to punish the killer for committing an act of violence within its territory. The foreign country's interest lies in protecting the peace in that territory rather than protecting the American specifically. But the United States looks at the same conduct and sees an act of violence against one of its nationals, a person under the particular protection of its laws. The murder of a U.S. national is an offense to the United States as much as it is to the country where the murder occurred and to which the victim is a stranger. That is why the killing of an American abroad is a federal offense that can be prosecuted in our courts, see 18 U.S.C. § 2332(a)(1), and why customary international law allows this exercise of jurisdiction. There are other reasons not to offload all prosecutions for crimes involving Americans abroad. We may lack confidence in the competence or honesty of the other country's legal system. Less cynically, we may think that special protection for U.S. nationals serves key national interests related to security, trade, commerce, or scholarship. Such interests might also give us a stake in punishing crimes committed by U.S. nationals abroad-especially crimes that might do harm to our national security or foreign relations. See, e.g., § 2332a(b) (bombings). These examples reinforce the foundation laid in our antebellum cases: that a crime against two sovereigns constitutes two offenses because each sovereign has an interest to vindicate. We cemented that foundation 70 years after the last of those antebellum cases, in a decision upholding a federal prosecution that followed one by a State. See United States v. Lanza, 260 U.S. 377, 382, 43 S.Ct. 141, 67 L.Ed. 314 (1922) ("[A]n act denounced as a crime by both national and state sovereignties is an offense against the peace and dignity of both and may be punished by each"). And for decades more, we applied our precedent without qualm or quibble. See, e.g., Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 65 S.Ct. 1031, 89 L.Ed. 1495 (1945) ; Jerome v. United States, 318 U.S. 101, 63 S.Ct. 483, 87 L.Ed. 640 (1943) ; Puerto Rico v. Shell Co. (P. R.), Ltd., 302 U.S. 253, 58 S.Ct. 167, 82 L.Ed. 235 (1937) ; Westfall v. United States, 274 U.S. 256, 47 S.Ct. 629, 71 L.Ed. 1036 (1927) ; Hebert v. Louisiana, 272 U.S. 312, 47 S.Ct. 103, 71 L.Ed. 270 (1926). When petitioners in 1959 asked us twice to reverse course, we twice refused, finding "[n]o consideration or persuasive reason not presented to the Court in the prior cases" for disturbing our "firmly established" doctrine. Abbate v. United States, 359 U.S. 187, 195, 79 S.Ct. 666, 3 L.Ed.2d 729 ; see also Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U.S. 121, 79 S.Ct. 676, 3 L.Ed.2d 684. And then we went on enforcing it, adding another six decades of cases to the doctrine's history. See, e.g., Puerto Ricov.Sánchez Valle, 579 U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 1863, 195 L.Ed.2d 179 (2016) ; Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82, 106 S.Ct. 433, 88 L.Ed.2d 387 (1985) ; United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313, 98 S.Ct. 1079, 55 L.Ed.2d 303 (1978) ; Rinaldi v. United States, 434 U.S. 22, 98 S.Ct. 81, 54 L.Ed.2d 207 (1977) ( per curiam ). C We briefly address two objections to this analysis. First, the dissents contend that our dual-sovereignty rule errs in treating the Federal and State Governments as two separate sovereigns when in fact sovereignty belongs to the people. See post, at 1990 (opinion of GINSBURG, J.); post, at 1999 (opinion of GORSUCH, J.). This argument is based on a non sequitur. Yes, our Constitution rests on the principle that the people are sovereign, but that does not mean that they have conferred all the attributes of sovereignty on a single government. Instead, the people, by adopting the Constitution, "'split the atom of sovereignty.' " Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 751, 119 S.Ct. 2240, 144 L.Ed.2d 636 (1999) (alteration omitted) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). As we explained last Term: "When the original States declared their independence, they claimed the powers inherent in sovereignty.... The Constitution limited but did not abolish the sovereign powers of the States, which retained 'a residuary and inviolable sovereignty.' The Federalist No. 39, p. 245 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961). Thus, both the Federal Government and the States wield sovereign powers, and that is why our system of government is said to be one of 'dual sovereignty.' Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452, 457 [111 S.Ct. 2395, 115 L.Ed.2d 410] (1991)." Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn., 584 U.S. ----, ----, 138 S.Ct. 1461, 1475, 200 L.Ed.2d 854 (2018). It is true that the Republic is " 'ONE WHOLE,' " post, at 1990 (opinion of GINSBURG, J.) (quoting The Federalist No. 82, p. 493 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton)); accord, post, at 1999 (opinion of GORSUCH, J.). But there is a difference between the whole and a single part, and that difference underlies decisions as foundational to our legal system as McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819). There, in terms so directly relevant as to seem presciently tailored to answer this very objection, Chief Justice Marshall distinguished precisely between "the people of a State" and "[t]he people of all the States," id., at 428, 435 ; between the "sovereignty which the people of a single state possess" and the sovereign powers "conferred by the people of the United States on the government of the Union," id., at 429-430 ; and thus between "the action of a part" and "the action of the whole," id., at 435-436. In short, McCulloch's famous holding that a State may not tax the national bank rested on a recognition that the States and the Nation have different "interests" and "right[s]." Id., 431, 436. One strains to imagine a clearer statement of the premises of our dual-sovereignty rule, or a more authoritative source. The United States is a federal republic; it is not, contrary to Justice GORSUCH's suggestion, post, at 2001 - 2002, a unitary state like the United Kingdom. Gamble and the dissents lodge a second objection to this line of reasoning. They suggest that because the division of federal and state power was meant to promote liberty, it cannot support a rule that exposes Gamble to a second sentence. See post, at 1990 - 1991 (opinion of GINSBURG, J.); post, at 1999 - 2000 (opinion of GORSUCH, J.). This argument fundamentally misunderstands the governmental structure established by our Constitution. Our federal system advances individual liberty in many ways. Among other things, it limits the powers of the Federal Government and protects certain basic liberties from infringement. But because the powers of the Federal Government and the States often overlap, allowing both to regulate often results in two layers of regulation. Taxation is an example that comes immediately to mind. It is also not at all uncommon for the Federal Government to permit activities that a State chooses to forbid or heavily restrict-for example, gambling and the sale of alcohol. And a State may choose to legalize an activity that federal law prohibits, such as the sale of marijuana. So while our system of federalism is fundamental to the protection of liberty, it does not always maximize individual liberty at the expense of other interests. And it is thus quite extraordinary to say that the venerable dual-sovereignty doctrine represents a " 'desecrat[ion]' " of federalism. Post, at 2000 (opinion of GORSUCH, J.). III Gamble claims that our precedent contradicts the common-law rights that the Double Jeopardy Clause was originally understood to engraft onto the Constitution-rights stemming from the "common-law pleas of auterfoits acquit [former acquittal] and auterfoits convict [former conviction]." Grady, 495 U.S. at 530, 110 S.Ct. 2084 (Scalia, J., dissenting). These pleas were treated as "reason[s] why the prisoner ought not to answer [an indictment] at all, nor put himself upon his trial for the crime alleged." 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 335 (1773) (Blackstone). Gamble argues that those who ratified the Fifth Amendment understood these common-law principles (which the Amendment constitutionalized) to bar a domestic prosecution following one by a foreign nation. For support, he appeals to early English and American cases and treatises. We have highlighted one hurdle to Gamble's reading: the sovereign-specific original meaning of "offence." But the doctrine of stare decisis is another obstacle. Stare decisis "promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process." Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 827, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991). Of course, it is also important to be right, especially on constitutional matters, where Congress cannot override our errors by ordinary legislation. But even in constitutional cases, a departure from precedent "demands special justification." Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U.S. 203, 212, 104 S.Ct. 2305, 81 L.Ed.2d 164 (1984). This means that something more than "ambiguous historical evidence" is required before we will "flatly overrule a number of major decisions of this Court." Welch v. Texas Dept. of Highways and Public Transp., 483 U.S. 468, 479, 107 S.Ct. 2941, 97 L.Ed.2d 389 (1987). And the strength of the case for adhering to such decisions grows in proportion to their "antiquity." Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U.S. 778, 792, 129 S.Ct. 2079, 173 L.Ed.2d 955 (2009). Here, as noted, Gamble's historical arguments must overcome numerous "major decisions of this Court" spanning 170 years. In light of these factors, Gamble's historical evidence must, at a minimum, be better than middling. And it is not. The English cases are a muddle. Treatises offer spotty support. And early state and federal cases are by turns equivocal and downright harmful to Gamble's position. All told, this evidence does not establish that those who ratified the Fifth Amendment took it to bar successive prosecutions under different sovereigns' laws-much less do so with enough force to break a chain of precedent linking dozens of cases over 170 years. A Gamble's core claim is that early English cases reflect an established common-law rule barring domestic prosecution following a prosecution for the same act under a different sovereign's laws. But from the very dawn of the common law in medieval England until the adoption of the Fifth Amendment in 1791, there is not one reported decision barring a prosecution based on a prior trial under foreign law. We repeat: Gamble has not cited and we have not found a single pre-Fifth Amendment case in which a foreign acquittal or conviction barred a second trial in a British or American court. Given this void, Gamble faces a considerable challenge in convincing us that the Fifth Amendment was originally understood to establish such a bar. Attempting to show that such a bar was available, Gamble points to five early English decisions for which we have case reports. We will examine these in some detail, but we note at the outset that they play only a secondary role for Gamble. The foundation of his argument is a decision for which we have no case report: the prosecution in England in 1677 of a man named Hutchinson. (We have a report of a decision denying Hutchinson bail but no report of his trial.) As told by Gamble, Hutchinson, having been tried and acquitted in a foreign court for a murder committed abroad, was accused of the same homicide in an English tribunal, but the English court held that the foreign prosecution barred retrial. Everything for Gamble stems from this one unreported decision. To the extent that the cases he cites provide any support for his argument-and for the most part, they do not-those cases purport to take their cue from the Hutchinson episode; the same is true of the treatises on which Gamble relies. So what evidence do we have about what actually happened to Hutchinson? The most direct evidence is a report of his application for bail before the Court of King's Bench. The report spans all of one sentence: "On Habeas Corpus it appeared the Defendant was committed to Newgate on suspicion of Murder in Portugal, which by Mr. Attorny being a Fact out of the Kings Dominions, is not triable by Commission, upon 35 H. 8. Cap. 2. §. I. N. 2. but by a Constable and Marshal, and the Court refused to Bail him, & c." Rex v. Hutchinson, 3 Keb. 785, 84 Eng. Rep. 1011 (1677). From this report, all that we can tell about the court's thinking is that it found no convincing reason to grant bail, as was typical in murder cases. The rest of the report concerns claims by an attorney. We are told that he contested the jurisdiction of the commission before which Hutchinson was to be tried, apparently a special commission that would have issued pursuant to a statute enacted under Henry VIII. The commission lacked jurisdiction, the attorney seemed to suggest, because the crime had occurred in Portugal and thus "out of the Kings Dominions." The attorney claimed that jurisdiction lay instead with "a Constable and Marshal"-an apparent reference to the High Court of Chivalry, which dealt with treason and murder committed abroad. But what, if anything, did the King's Bench make of the attorney's jurisdictional claims? And more to the point, what happened after bail was denied? The bail report does not say. If Hutchinson did ultimately appear before the Court of Chivalry-and if that court accepted a plea of prior acquittal in Portugal-this would be paltry evidence of any common-law principle, which is what Gamble cites Hutchinson to establish. After all, the High Court of Chivalry was a civil-law court prohibited from proceeding under the common law (unlike every other English court of the time save Admiralty). 8 Ric. 2 ch. 5; see also Squibb 162; id., at xxv-xxvi ("The essential distinction between the Court of Chivalry and other courts is... that it administers justice in relation to those military matters which are not governed by the common law"). Nor would it be any surprise that we have no report of the proceeding; in fact, "[t]here is no report of a case in which a judge of the Court [of Chivalry] has set out the reasons for his decision earlier than the [20th] century." Id., at 162. In the end, we have only two early accounts from judges of what finally became of Hutchinson, and both are indirect and shaky. First, they appear in the reports of cases decided in the Court of Chancery more than a half century after Hutchinson. Second, both judges cite only one source, and it is of lower authority than their own: namely, an account of Hutchinson given by an interested party (a defendant) in a previous, non -criminal case-an account on which the court in that case did not rely or even comment. Insofar as our two judges seem to add their own details to the Hutchinson saga, we are not told where they obtained this information or whether it reflects mere guesses as to how gaps in the story should be filled in, decades after the fact. Finally, the two judges' accounts are not entirely consistent. Still, they are the only early judicial glosses on Hutchinson that we have, so we will work with them. The more extensive account appears in the case of Gage v. Bulkeley, Ridg. T. H. 263, 27 Eng. Rep. 824 (Ch. 1744), and what the court said there-far from supporting Gamble's argument-cuts against it. Gage involved a bill in chancery for an account of money deposited with a banker in Paris. The defendants pleaded, as a bar to this lawsuit, "a sentence" "given upon" the same demand in a French court. Ibid. In addressing this plea, Lord Chancellor Hardwicke first determined that foreign judgments are not binding in an English court of law. Here his reasoning was very similar to that found in our dual-sovereignty decisions. Because each judgment rests on the authority of a particular sovereign, the Chancellor thought, it cannot bind foreign courts, which operate by the power of a different sovereign. Id., at 263-264, 27 Eng. Rep., at 824. Turning next to courts of equity, the Lord Chancellor saw no reason that the rule should be any different; there too, he thought, a foreign judgment is not binding. Id., at 273, 27 Eng. Rep., at 827. But he did allow that in equity a foreign judgment could serve as "evidence, which may affect the right of [a plaintiff] when the cause comes to be heard." Ibid. Elaborating on why foreign judgments did not bind English courts, whether of law or equity, the Lord Chancellor explained why Hutchinson was "no proof" to the contrary. In the Chancellor's telling, Hutchinson was not indicted by the Court of King's Bench, which could have tried a murder committed in England, because that court had no jurisdiction over a homicide committed in Portugal. Gage, Ridge. T. H., at 271, 27 Eng. Rep., at 826-827. Instead, Hutchinson was (as the bail decision indicates) before that court on a writ of habeas corpus, and his case "was referred to the judges to know whether a commission should issue" under a statute similar to the one mentioned in the bail decision. Ibid., 27 Eng. Rep., at 827; see 33 Hen. 8 ch. 28 (1541-1542). "And," he explained, "the judges very rightly and mercifully thought not, because he had undergone one trial already." Gage, Ridg. T. H., at 271-272, 27 Eng. Rep., at 827 (emphasis added). This suggests that Hutchinson was spared retrial as a matter of discretion ("merc[y]")-which must be true if the Chancellor was right that foreign judgments were not binding. Indeed, at least one modern scholar agrees (on other grounds as well) that the result in Hutchinson may have been based on "expediency rather than law." M. Friedland, Double Jeopardy 362-363 (1969). In the end, then, Gage is doubly damaging to Gamble. First, it squarely rejects the proposition that a litigant in an English court-even a civil litigant in equity-had a right to the benefit of a foreign judgment, a right that the Fifth Amendment might have codified. And second, Gage undermines Gamble's chief historical example, Hutchinson, by giving a contrary reading of that case-and doing so, no less, in one of the only two judicial accounts of Hutchinson that we have from before the Fifth Amendment. The other account appears in Burrows v. Jemino, 2 Str. 733, 93 Eng. Rep. 815 (K. B. 1726). In Burrows, a party that was sued in England on a bill of exchange sought an injunction against this suit in the Court of Chancery, contending that the suit was barred by the judgment of a court in Italy. In explaining why he would grant the injunction, Lord Chancellor King cited Hutchinson, which he thought had involved an acquittal in Spanish court that was "allowed to be a good bar to any proceedings here." 2 Str. at 733, 93 Eng. Rep., at 815. This remark, showing that at least one English judge before the founding saw Hutchinson as Gamble does, provides a modicum of support for Gamble's argument. But that support softens just a few lines down in the report, where the Chancellor discusses the status of foreign judgments in courts of law in particular (as distinct from courts of equity like his own)-i.e., the courts that actually applied the common-law rules later codified by the Fifth Amendment. Here the Chancellor explained that while he personally would have accepted an Italian judgment as barring any suit at law, "other Judges might be of a different opinion." Ibid. As a whole, then, the Chancellor's comments in Burrows can hardly be cited to prove that the common law had made up its mind on this matter; just the opposite. Gamble's other cases have even less force. The "most instructive" case, he claims, see Brief for Petitioner 13, is the 1775 case of King v. Roche, 1 Leach 134, 168 Eng. Rep. 169 (K.B.), but that is a curious choice since the Roche court does not so much as mention Hutchinson or even tacitly affirm its supposed holding. The defendant in Roche entered two pleas: prior acquittal abroad and not guilty of the charged crime. All that the Roche court held was that, as a procedural matter, it made no sense to charge the jury with both pleas at once, because a finding for Roche on the first (prior acquittal) would, if successful, bar consideration of the second (not guilty). Roche, 1 Leach, at 135, 168 Eng. Rep., at 169. But on our key question-whether a plea based on a foreign acquittal could be successful-the Roche court said absolutely nothing; it had no occasion to do so. Before the prosecution could reply to Roche's plea of prior acquittal, he withdrew it, opting for a full trial. The name Hutchinson does not appear even in the marginalia of the 1789 edition of Roche, which existed in 1791. See Captain Roche's Case, 1 Leach at 138-139. Hutchinson is mentioned in connection with Roche only after the Fifth Amendment's ratification, and only in a compiler's annotation to the 1800 edition of the Roche case report. See 168 Eng. Rep., at 169, n. (a). That annotation in turn cites one case as support for its reading of Hutchinson : Beak v. Thyrwhit, 3 Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy F. Attorneys G. Unions H. Economic Activity I. Judicial Power J. Federalism K. Interstate Relations L. Federal Taxation M. Miscellaneous N. Private Action Answer:

A

sc_issuearea

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Per Curiam. We brought this case here to consider whether cumulative sentences can validly be imposed upon conviction under the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act for transporting a stolen automobile in interstate commerce and for receiving, concealing, and storing the same automobile, in a continuing criminal transaction. After oral argument and a more thorough consideration of the record than was afforded when the petition for certiorari was granted, we have concluded that this question is not presented with sufficient clarity in this case. Accordingly, the writ is dismissed. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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. In this suit for refund of federal income taxes the petitioner, American Automobile Association, seeks determination of its tax liability for the years 1952 and 1953. Returns filed for its taxable calendar years were prepared on the basis of the same accrual method of accounting as was used in keeping its books. The Association reported as gross income only that portion of the total prepaid annual membership dues, actually received or collected in the calendar year, which ratably corresponded with the number of membership months covered by those dues and occurring within the same taxable calendar year. The balance was reserved for ratable monthly accrual over the remaining membership period in the following calendar year as deferred or unearned income reflecting an estimated future service expense to members. The Commissioner contends that petitioner should have reported in its gross income for each year the entire amount of membership dues actually received in the taxable calendar year without regard to expected future service expense in the subsequent year. The sole point at issue, therefore, is in what year the prepaid dues are taxable as income. In auditing the Association’s returns for the years 1952 through 1954, the Commissioner, in the exercise of his discretion under § 41 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, determined not to accept the taxpayer’s accounting system. As a result, adjustments were made for those years principally by adding to gross income for each taxable year the amount of prepaid dues which the Association had received but not recognized as income, and subtracting from gross income amounts recognized in the year although actually received in the prior year. A net operating loss claimed for 1954 and corresponding carry-back deductions were greatly reduced, and tax deficiencies were assessed for 1952 and 1953. Petitioner paid the deficiencies and its timely claim for refund was denied. Suit to recover was instituted in the Court of Claims, but the court sustained the Commissioner,-Ct. Cl.-, 181 F. Supp. 255. Recognizing a conflict between the decision below and that in Bressner Radio, Inc., v. Commissioner, 267 F. 2d 520, we granted certiorari. 364 U. S. 813. We have concluded that for tax purposes the dues must be included as income in the calendar year of their actual receipt. The Association is a national automobile club organized as a nonstock membership corporation with its principal office in Washington, D. C. It provides a variety of services to the members of affiliated local automobile clubs and those of ten clubs which taxpayer itself directly operates as divisions, but such services are rendered solely upon a member's demand. Its income is derived primarily from dues paid one year in advance by members of the clubs. Memberships may commence or be renewed in any month of the year. For many years, the association has employed an accrual method of accounting and the calendar year as its taxable year. It is admitted that for its purposes the method used is in accord with generally accepted commercial accounting principles. The membership dues, as received, were deposited in the Association’s bank accounts without restriction as to their use for any of its corporate purposes. However, for the Association’s own accounting purposes, the dues were treated •in its books as income received ratably over the 12-month membership period. The portions thereof ratably attributable to membership months occurring beyond the year of receipt, i. e., in a second calendar year, were reflected in the Association’s books at the close of the first year as unearned or deferred income. Certain operating expenses were chargeable as prepaid membership cost and deducted ratably over the same periods of time as those over which dues were recognized as income. The Court of Claims bottomed its opinion on Automobile Club of Michigan v. Commissioner, 353 U. S. 180 (1957), finding that “the method of treatment of prepaid automobile club membership dues employed [by the Association here was,] ... for Federal income tax purposes, ‘purely artificial.’ ” 181 F. Supp. 255, 258. It accepted that case as “a rejection by the Supreme Court of the accounting method advanced by plaintiff in the case at bar.” Ibid. The Association does not deny that its accounting system is substantially identical to that used by the petitioner in Michigan. It maintains, however, that Michigan does not control this case because of a difference in proof, i. e., that in this case the record contains expert accounting testimony indicating that the system used was in accord with generally accepted accounting principles; that its proof of cost of member service was detailed; and that the correlation between that cost and the period of time over which the dues were credited as income was shown and justified by proof of experience. The holding of Michigan, however, that the system of accounting was “purely artificial” was based upon the finding that “substantially all services are performed only upon a member’s demand and the taxpayer’s performance was not related to fixed dates after the tax year.” 353 U. S. 180, 189, note 20. That is also true here. As the Association’s own accounting expert testified: “You are dealing with a group or pool. Any pooling or risk situation, particular members may in a particular year require very little of a specific service that is rendered to certain other members. I wouldn’t know what the experience on that would be, but I would think it would be rather irregular between individual members. ... I am buying the availability of services, the protection .... Frankly, the irregularity of the actual furnishing of the maps and helping you out when you run out of gasoline and so on, I frankly don’t think that has a blessed thing to do with the over-all accounting.” It may be true that to the accountant the actual incidence of cost in serving an individual member in exchange for his individual dues is inconsequential, or, from the viewpoint of commercial accounting, unessential to determination and disclosure of the overall financial condition of the Association. That “irregularity,” however, is highly relevant to the clarity of an accounting system which defers receipt, as earned income, of dues to a taxable period in which no, some, or all the services paid for by those dues may or may not be rendered. The Code exacts its revenue from the individual member’s dues which, no one disputes, constitute income. When their receipt as earned income is recognized ratably over two calendar years, without regard to correspondingly fixed individual expense or performance justification, but consistently with overall experience, their accounting doubtless presents a rather accurate image of the total financial structure, but fails to respect the criteria of annual tax accounting and may be rejected by the Commissioner. The Association further contends that the findings of the court below support its position. We think not. The Court of Claims’ only finding as to the accounting system itself is as follows: “22. The method of accounting employed by plaintiff during the years in issue has been used regularly by plaintiff since 1931 and is in accord with generally accepted commercial accounting principles and practices and was, prior to the adverse determination by the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue, customarily and generally employed in the motor club field.” This is only to say that in performing the function of business accounting the method employed by the Association “is in accord with generally accepted commercial accounting principles and practices.” It is not to hold that for income tax purposes it so clearly reflects income as to be binding on the Treasury. Likewise, other findings merely reflecting statistical computations of average monthly cost per member on a group or pool basis are without determinate significance to our decision that the federal revenue cannot, without legislative consent and over objection of the Commissioner, be made to depend upon average experience in rendering performance and turning a profit. Indeed, such tabulations themselves demonstrate the inadequacy from an income tax standpoint of the pro rata method of allocating each year’s membership dues in equal monthly installments not in fact related to the expenses incurred. Not only did individually incurred expenses actually vary from month to month, but even the average expense varied — recognition of income nonetheless remaining ratably constant. Although the findings below seem to indicate that it would produce substantially the same result as that of the system of ratable monthly recognition actually employed, we consider similarly unsatisfactory, from an income tax standpoint, allocation of monthly dues to gross monthly income to the extent of actual service expenditures for the same month computed on a group or pool basis. In addition, the Association’s election in 1954 to change its monthly recognition formula to one which treats one-half of the dues as income in the year of receipt and the other half as income received in the subsequent year, without regard to month of payment, only more clearly indicates the artificiality of its method, at least so far as controlling tax purposes are concerned. Moreover, the Association realized that the findings of the Court of Claims were not alone sufficient for its purposes. In its petition for rehearing below, petitioner specifically asked that they be amended and enlarged, especially as to No. 22 set out above. Rehearing and amendment were denied. Whether or not the Court’s judgment in Michigan controls our disposition of this case, there are other considerations requiring our affirmance. They concern the action of the Congress with respect to its own positive and express statutory authorization of employment of such sound commercial accounting practices in reporting taxable income. In 1954 the Congress found dissatisfaction in the fact that “as a result of court decisions and rulings, there have developed many divergencies between the computation of income for tax purposes and income for business purposes as computed under generally accepted accounting principles. The areas of difference are confined almost entirely to questions of when certain types of revenue and expenses should be taken into account in arriving at net income.” House Ways and Means Committee Report, H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess. 48. As a result, it introduced into the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 § 452 and § 462, which specifically permitted essentially the same practice as was employed by the Association here. Only one year later, however, in June 1955, the Congress repealed these sections retroactively. It appears that in this action Congress first overruled the long administrative practice of the Commissioner and holdings of the courts in disallowing such deferral of income for tax purposes and then within a year reversed its own action. This repeal, we believe, confirms our view that the method used by the Association could be rejected by the Commissioner. While the claim is made that Congress did not “intend to disturb prior law as it affected permissible accrual accounting provisions for tax purposes,” H. R. Rep. No. 293, 84th Cong., 1st Sess. 4-5, the cold fact is that it repealed the only law incontestably permitting the practice upon which the Association depends. To say that, as to taxpayers using such systems, Congress was merely declaring existing law when it adopted § 452 in 1954, and that it was merely restoring unaffected the same prior law when it repealed the new section in 1955 for good reason, is a contradiction in itself, “varnishing nonsense with the charm of sound.” Instead of constituting a merely dupli-cative creation, the fact is that § 452 for the first time specifically declared petitioner’s system of accounting to be acceptable for income tax purposes, and overruled the long-standing position of the Commissioner and courts to the contrary. And the repeal of the section the following year, upon insistence by the Treasury that the proposed endorsement of such tax accounting would have a disastrous impact on the Government’s revenue, was just as clearly a mandate from the Congress that petitioner’s system was not acceptable for tax purposes. To interpret its careful consideration of the problem otherwise is to accuse the Congress of engaging in sciamachy. We are further confirmed in this view by consideration of the even more recent action of the Congress in 1958, subsequent to the decision in Michigan, supra. In that year § 455 was added to the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. It permits publishers to defer receipt as income of prepaid subscriptions of newspapers, magazines and periodicals. An effort was made in the Senate to add a provision in § 455 which would extend its coverage to prepaid automobile club membership dues. However, in conference the House Conferees refused to accept this amendment. Senator Byrd explained the rejection of the amendment to the Senate (104 Cong. Rec., Part 14, p. 17744): “It was the position of the House conferees that this matter of prepaid dues and fees received by nonprofit service organizations was a part of the entire subject dealing with the treatment of prepaid income and that such subject should be left for study of this entire problem. . . It appears, therefore, that, pending its own further study, Congress has given publishers but denied automobile clubs the very relief that the Association seeks in this Court. To recapitulate, it appears that Congress has long been aware of the problem this case presents. In 1954 it enacted § 452 and § 462, but quickly repealed them. Since that time Congress has authorized the desired accounting only in the instance of prepaid subscription income, which, as was pointed out in Michigan, is ratably earned by performance on “publication dates after the tax year.” 353 U. S. 180, 189, note 20. It has refused to enlarge § 455 to include prepaid membership dues. At the very least, this background indicates congressional recognition of the complications inherent in the problem and its seriousness to the general revenue. We must leave to the Congress the fashioning of a rule which, in any event, must have wide ramifications. The Committees of the Congress have standing committees expertly grounded in tax problems, with jurisdiction covering the whole field of taxation and facilities for studying considerations of policy as between the various taxpayers and the necessities of the general revenues. The validity of the long-established policy of the Court in deferring, where possible, to congressional procedures in the tax field is clearly indicated in this case. Finding only that, in light of existing provisions not specifically authorizing it, the exercise of the Commissioner’s discretion in rejecting the Association’s accounting system was not unsound, we need not anticipate what will be the product of further “study of this entire problem.” Affirmed. A taxpayer’s “net income shall be computed ... in accordance with the method of accounting regularly employed in keeping the books . . . but ... if the method employed does not clearly reflect the income, the computation shall be made in accordance with such method as in the opinion of the Commissioner does clearly reflect the income. . . .” 63 Stat. 24, 26 U. S. C. (1952 ed.) § 41. See also the similar provision in the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U. S. C. (1958 ed.) § 446. These generally include furnishing road maps, routing, tour books, etc.; emergency road service through contracts with local garages; bail bond protection; personal automobile accident insurance and theft protection; and, in some of its divisions, motor license procurement, brake and headlight adjustment service, notarial duties and advice in the prosecution of small claims. In 1952 and 1953 dues collected in any month were accounted as income to the extent of one-twenty-fourth for that month (on the assumption that the mean date of receipt was the middle of the month), one-twelfth for each of the next eleven months, and again one-twenty-fourth in the anniversary month. In 1954, however, guided by its own statistical average experience, the Association changed its system so as to more simply reach almost the same result by charging to year of receipt, without regard to month of receipt, one-half of the entire dues payment and deferring the balance to the following year. Beacon Publishing Co. v. Commissioner, 218 F. 2d 697, and Schuessler v. Commissioner, 230 F. 2d 722, may be distinguished from the present case on the same grounds which made them distinguishable in Automobile Club of Michigan v. Commissioner, 353 U. S. 180, 189, note 20. The Hearing Commissioner of the Court of Claims had specifically found as fact that petitioner's “method of accounting . . . clearly reflected its net income for such years.” The court, however, did not adopt that finding. See note 2, supra. 26 U. S. C. (1952 ed., Supp. II) §§452, 462, repealed, 69 Stat. 134 (1955). The Senate Report included this language: “Under the 1939 Code, regardless of the method of accounting . . . amounts are includible in gross income by the recipient not later than the time of receipt if they are subject to free and unrestricted use by the taxpayer even though the payments are for goods or services to be provided by the taxpayer at a future time.” S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess. 301. 26 U. S. C. (1958 ed.) §455. An unsuccessful attempt to induce congressional action on this problem was made last year, see H. R. 11266, 86th Cong., 2d Sess., which passed the House August 24, 1960, 106 Cong. Rec. 17482, but failed to draw any action by the Senate before adjournment. An identical bill is currently pending, see H. R. 929, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., and H. R. Rep. No. 381 accompanying the bill and recommending its passage. Under that measure the taxpayer’s liability to its members “shall be deemed to exist ratably over the period . . . that such services are required to be rendered, or . . . privileges . . . made available.” (Emphasis added.) The Eighty-fourth Congress started the study of “legislation dealing with prepaid income and reserves for estimated expenses . . . .” S. Rep. No. 372, 84th Cong., 1st Sess. 6. In 1955 it was estimated that transitional loss of revenue under § 452 and § 462, repealed that year, would total in excess of a billion dollars. H. R. Rep. No. 293, 84th Cong., 1st Sess. 3. That this impact on the revenue continues to be an important factor in congressional consideration of the problem is indicated by the observation of the House Committee on Ways and Means that a “transitional rule” is necessary “to minimize the initial revenue impact” of the measure currently pending. H. R. Rep. No. 381, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. 4. That the system used by petitioner here is, perhaps, presently not uncommon may be indicated by the fact that during this Term alone several cases involving similar systems have reached 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:

L

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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Per Curiam. The judgment is affirmed on the authority of Schwartz v. Texas, 344 U. S. 199, and Stefanelli v. Minard, 342 U. S. 117. Mr. Justice Brennan would also affirm but solely on the authority of Stefanelli v. Minard, 342 U. S. 117. Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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

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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states. Mr. Chief Justice Vinson delivered the opinion of the Court. An asserted conflict between the decision below and that of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Commissioner v. Moore, Inc., 151 F. 2d 527, made this an appropriate case for our review on writ of certiorari. A recital of the facts must precede definition of the issue. Petitioner is a Michigan corporation engaged in the manufacture of motor vehicles. On February 1, 1941, Reo Sales Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary, was dissolved and all of its assets, subject to all its liabilities, were transferred to petitioner. At the date of dissolution, Reo Sales was indebted to petitioner in an amount greater than the value of its net assets. Consequently, its stock, which had an adjusted basis in petitioner’s hands of $1,551,902.79, was worthless. This loss was a long-term capital loss under the law applicable in 1941. It was so claimed by petitioner and allowed by the Commissioner. Petitioner realized no gains from the sale or exchange of capital assets in 1941. Its gross income amounted to $2,573,259.89, while allowable deductions under Chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code, exclusive of the capital loss on Reo Sales stock, amounted to $2,215,727.08. With the Reo Sales stock loss included, petitioner’s allowable deductions exceeded its gross income by $1,194,369.98. Under the tax laws applicable in 1941, petitioner’s capital loss on Reo Sales stock could not have been utilized as a net operating loss to be carried over to subsequent years. Section 122 (a) of the Code defines “net operating loss” as “the excess of the deductions allowed by this chapter over the gross income, with the exceptions and limitations provided in subsection (d).” The exceptions outlined in § 122 (d) included the following, which is pertinent here: “(4) Long-term capital gains and long-term capital losses shall be taken into account without regard to the provisions of section 117 (b). As so computed the amount deductible on account of long-term capital losses shall not exceed the amount includible on account of the long-term capital gains, and the amount deductible on account of short-term capital losses shall not exceed the amount includible on account of the short-term capital gains; . ...” Since petitioner realized no long-term capital gains in 1941, its long-term capital loss on the Reo Sales stock could not enter into the computation of net operating loss. In the Revenue Act of 1942, § 23 (g) of the Code, which defines capital losses, was amended by adding subsection (4). This amendment had the practical effect of making losses such as that suffered by petitioner in the dissolution of Reo Sales Corp. ordinary rather than capital losses. Under 1942 law, therefore, the exception set out in § 122 (d) (4) is inapplicable, and a loss of this kind may enter into the computation of net operating loss. It is petitioner’s contention, reflected in its 1942 income tax returns, that although its loss in the liquidation of Reo Sales Corp. was incurred in 1941, determination of the amount of net operating loss was postponed until 1942, when it sought to carry over and deduct such net operating loss, and that the 1942 statutes therefore govern that determination. Since, under the 1942 statutes, its loss on Reo Sales stock was an ordinary loss, it claims the right to include that loss in the computation of net operating loss for carry-over and deduction from gross income in 1942. While § 101 of the Revenue Act of 1942 provides that “Except as otherwise expressly provided, the amendments made by this title shall be applicable only with respect to taxable years beginning after December 31, 1941,” petitioner contends that this simply means that such amendments shall be applicable only in computing tax liability for tax years after December 31, 1941. The issue is, therefore, whether, in the computation of net operating loss, the governing statutes are those in effect during the year when the transaction occurred (1941), or whether the statutes in effect during the year when the net operating loss deduction is taken (1942) are controlling. The Commissioner’s disallowance of petitioner’s net operating loss deduction in 1942 was upheld by the Tax Court, 9 T. C. 314, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, 170 F. 2d 1001. We think that a net operating loss must be computed on the basis of the tax laws applicable to the year in which the loss was suffered. What petitioner seeks here is not the kind of relief which the statute was designed to grant. It asks that the carry-over section be used as a vehicle by which it may take advantage of changes in the tax laws in years after the taxable event has occurred. We find nothing in the language or legislative history of the statutes to justify such an interpretation. The scheme of the statute is this: Section 23 (s) of the Code permits as a deduction from gross income “the net operating loss deduction computed under section 122.” The amount of that deduction is determined in three separate steps. First, the net operating loss is determined. Section 122 (a) provides the definition and method of computation of net operating loss, specifically providing that the exceptions and limitations of § 122 (d) are applicable in its computation. Second, net operating loss having been determined, the amount and extent to which it may be utilized as a carry-over is set out in § 122 (b) (2), and as a carry-back in § 122 (b) (1). Finally, the amount which may actually be deducted from gross income under § 23 (s) is computed under the terms of § 122 (c). That section provides for the aggregation of permissible carry-overs and carry-backs and the application of certain adjustments thereto. The starting point is thus the determination of net operating loss under § 122 (a). We may point briefly to several circumstances which, we think, require a holding that net operating loss must be computed solely with reference to the statutes in effect during the year when the loss occurred. First, under petitioner’s theory, the net operating loss sustained in any given year would not be a fixed amount but would vary from year to year depending upon changes in the tax laws. But § 122 (a) defines net operating loss as “the excess of the deductions allowed by this chapter over the gross income.” Clearly, determination of the amount of gross income and of allowable deductions for any given year must depend upon the tax statutes in effect during that year. If, as petitioner contends, 1942 law governs although the loss occurred in 1941, it is difficult to see why the whole of its 1941 operations, and not merely the Reo Sales liquidation, should not be recomputed on the basis of the income and deduction provisions applicable in 1942. Petitioner does not suggest such a recomputation, in spite of the fact that the terms in which net operating loss is defined — “gross income” and “deductions allowed by this chapter” — are equally applicable in the computation of income taxes generally. And even if a distinction could be drawn, so far as applicable law is concerned, between computation of net operating loss and computation of ordinary tax liability, we should think it strained and anomalous to read § 122 (a) as defining net operating loss in this case as “the excess of the deductions allowed for 1942 incomes over the gross income earned in 1941 but computed according to 1942 law.” Furthermore, the language of § 122 (b) negatives the contention that net operating loss for any given year is not a fixed amount but varies depending upon the law in effect during the year when the deduction is taken. Section 122 (b) (2), for example, states that “if for any taxable year the taxpayer has a net operating loss, such net operating loss” shall be a carry-over for the two succeeding years. Under petitioner’s interpretation, “such net operating loss” “for any taxable year” may be different amounts at different times. And, as in this case, what was no net operating loss at all for the year when the event occurred becomes a loss for that year through subsequent changes in the statutes. Similarly, in some cases in which the taxpayer had net income for the year under controlling law, subsequent changes in the law might produce a net operating loss for that year if petitioner’s construction of the statute prevailed. We find no warrant for the view that Congress intended that a statute designed to equalize tax burdens should be used to produce net losses where none had previously existed. We also agree with the court below that the words of § 101 of the Revenue Act of 1942, which states that the amendments enacted therein “shall be applicable only with respect to taxable years beginning after December 31, 1941,” cannot be read to mean “shall be applicable only in computing tax liability for taxable years beginning after December 31, 1941.” To apply § 23 (g) (4) to establish a net operating loss is clearly to apply the 1942 amendment “with respect to” 1941, contrary to the statute. Petitioner finds comfort in the fact that the 1924, 1926, 1928, and 1932 Revenue Acts, which permitted the carryover of net loss from an earlier year, expressly provided that such net loss should be computed under the law in effect during the earlier period, while the present Code contains no such provision. Two observations may be made: first, that in reviving carry-overs in 1939 after a seven year lapse, Congress patterned the new statute generally on the prior practice without any suggestion of change in this particular; and second, that while such express provisions were appropriate in Revenue Acts prior to the Code, when the law of a prior year was of no effect when superseded by a new Act unless specifically made applicable, the present Code has continuous application, and incorporation of previous statutes is unnecessary. Instead, the old provisions remain in effect for prior years, and general provisions, such as § 101 of the 1942 Act, give amendments prospective application only, unless otherwise specifically provided. The result is that net operating loss must be computed solely on the basis of the statutes in effect during the taxable year when the loss was incurred. Only if such a loss exists under those statutes will a taxpayer have anything that may be carried over or back. § 122 (a) and (d). The amount of net operating loss which may be utilized as a carry-over or carry-back and the extent to which it may be used as an offset to net income in another year depend upon the law of the year in which the “carry” is effective, § 122 (b), while the net operating loss deduction which may be taken in any one year depends upon the law in effect during that year. §§23 (s) and 122 (c). With respect to petitioner's other contentions, it is sufficient to say that they ignore the trichotomy plainly established with respect to § 122: determination of net operating loss; determination of the amount and extent of carry-over and carry-back; and determination of net operating loss deduction. The decision of the Court of Appeals is Affirmed. Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. 337 U. S. 923. Section 23 (g) of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U. S. C. (1940 ed.) § 23 (g). Section 122 (a) was amended by § 105 (e) (3) of the Revenue Act of 1942 to read . . with the exceptions, additions, and limitations provided in subsection (d).” (Italics added.) Section 122 (d) (4) was amended by § 150 (e) of the Revenue Act of 1942 to read as follows: “(4) Gains and losses from sales or exchanges of capital assets shall be taken into account without regard to the provisions of section 117 (b). As so computed the amount deductible on account of such losses shall not exceed the amount includible on account of such gains.” It was this amendment that was involved in Commissioner v. Moore, Inc., 151 F. 2d 527. In 1941 Moore had a long-term capital loss of $17,025 and short-term capital gains of $2,844. Under § 122 (d) (4) as it stood in 1941 (see text, supra), long-term capital losses could not be deducted from short-term capital gains in computing net operating losses, while under the 1942 amendment the distinction between long and short-term capital losses was withdrawn. Taxpayer therefore had no net operating loss in 1941, but under the 1942 statute he would have had such a loss to the extent of his short-term capital gain of $2,844. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit approved such an offset in the computation of net operating loss to be carried over to 1942 and deducted in that year. That decision is obviously inconsistent with the view we take of the statute and must be disapproved. Subsection (4), which was added by § 123 (a) (1) of the Revenue Act of 1942, provides that, for the purpose of determining capital losses, stock in a corporation affiliated with the taxpayer shall not be deemed a capital asset. “Affiliation” is defined in terms that clearly comprehend petitioner’s ownership of Reo Sales Corp. See H. R. Rep. No. 855, 76th Cong., 1st Sess. (1939); S. Rep. No. 1631, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. (1942). “ (a) Definition of net operating loss. — As usual in this section, the term 'net operating loss’ means the excess of the deductions allowed by this chapter over the gross income, with the exceptions and limitations provided in subsection (d).” See note 3, supra. “(2) Net operating loss carry-over. — If for any taxable year the taxpayer has a net operating loss, such net operating loss shall be a net operating loss carry-over for each of the two succeeding taxable years, except that the carry-over in the case of the second succeeding taxable year shall be the excess, if any, of the amount of such net operating loss over the net income for the intervening taxable year . . .” computed in such a way that the carry-over must be used to offset certain nontaxable, as well as taxable, income. Section 122 (b) (1) is similar in language and theory. “(c) Amount of net operating loss deduction. — The amount of the net operating loss deduction shall be the aggregate of the net operating loss carry-overs and of the net operating loss carry-backs to the taxable year reduced by the amount, if any, by which the net income (computed with the exceptions and limitations provided in subsection (d) (1), (2), (3), and (4)) exceeds, ... in the case of a corporation, the normal-tax net income (computed without such deduction and without the credit provided in section 26 (e)); ... .” Italics added. In commenting upon a similar possibility in connection with the net loss provisions of the Revenue Act of 1924, the House Committee on Ways and Means stated: “If capital losses were allowed as a deduction in computing the net loss, it would result in the anomalous situation of a taxpayer paying a tax in one year but at the same time having a net loss which he could carry over as a deduction in computing the tax for the subsequent year.” H. R. Rep. No. 179, 68th Cong., 1st Sess. 19 (1924). Petitioner relies, inter alia, upon some language in the Report of the Senate Finance Committee on the Revenue Act of 1942, S. Rep. No. 1631, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 122, 123. But that portion of the Report is not concerned with computation of net operating loss but with establishment of carry-back provisions and amendment of the carry-over section. Its references are to the law applicable in determining the amount and extent of the carry-over and carry-back (§ 122 (b)), not to that applicable in determining net operating loss (§ 122 (a) and (d)). Question: What is the issue area of the decision? A. Criminal Procedure B. Civil Rights C. First Amendment D. Due Process E. Privacy 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

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