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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Ronald Skipper was convicted in a South Carolina trial court of capital murder and rape. The State sought the death penalty, and a separate sentencing hearing was held before the trial jury under S. C. Code § 16-3-20 (1985), which provides for a bifurcated trial and jury sentencing in capital cases. Following introduction by the State of evidence in aggravation of the offense (principally evidence of petitioner’s history of sexually assaultive behavior), petitioner presented as mitigating evidence his own testimony and that of his former wife, his mother, his sister, and his grandmother. This testimony, for the most part, concerned the difficult circumstances of his upbringing. Petitioner and his former wife, however, both testified briefly that petitioner had conducted himself well during the Tk months he spent in jail between his arrest and trial. Petitioner also testified that during a prior period of incarceration he had earned the equivalent of a high school diploma and that, if sentenced to life imprisonment rather than to death, he would behave himself in prison and would attempt to work so that he could contribute money to the support of his family.
Petitioner also sought to introduce testimony of two jailers and one “regular visitor” to the jail to the effect that petitioner had “made a good adjustment” during his time spent in jail. The trial court, however, ruled that under the South Carolina Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Koon, 278 S. C. 528, 298 S. E. 2d 769 (1982) (Koon I), such evidence would be irrelevant and hence inadmissible. The decision in Koon I, the judge stated, stood for the rule that “whether [petitioner] can adjust or not adjust” was “not an issue in this case.” App. 11.
After hearing closing arguments — during the course of which the prosecutor contended that petitioner would pose disciplinary problems if sentenced to prison and would likely rape other prisoners, id., at 13-14 — the jury sentenced petitioner to death. On appeal, petitioner contended that the trial court had committed constitutional error in excluding the testimony of the jailers and the visitor: the testimony of these witnesses, petitioner argued, would have constituted relevant mitigating evidence, and exclusion of such evidence was improper under this Court’s decisions in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586 (1978), and Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U. S. 104 (1982). The Supreme Court of South Carolina rejected petitioner’s contention, stating:
“The trial judge properly refused to admit evidence of [petitioner’s] future adaptability to prison life. State v. Koon, supra. However, evidence of his past adaptability was admitted through testimony of his former wife, his mother and his own testimony. This contention is without merit.” 285 S. C. 42, 48, 328 S. E. 2d 58, 61-62 (1985).
We granted certiorari, 474 U. S. 900 (1985), to consider petitioner’s claim that the South Carolina Supreme Court’s decision is inconsistent with this Court’s decisions in Lockett and Eddings, and we now reverse.
There is no disputing that this Court’s decision in Eddings requires that in capital cases “ ‘the sentencer . . . not be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant’s character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death.’” Eddings, supra, at 110 (quoting Lockett, supra, at 604 (plurality opinion of Burger, C. J.)) (emphasis in original). Equally clear is the corollary rule that the sentencer may not refuse to consider or be precluded from considering “any relevant mitigating evidence.” 455 U. S., at 114. These rules are now well established, and the State does not question them.
Accordingly, the only question before us is whether the exclusion from the sentencing hearing of the testimony petitioner proffered regarding his good behavior during the over seven months he spent in jail awaiting trial deprived petitioner of his right to place before the sentencer relevant evidence in mitigation of punishment. It can hardly be disputed that it did. The State does not contest that the witnesses petitioner attempted to place on the stand would have testified that petitioner had been a well-behaved and well-adjusted prisoner, nor does the State dispute that the jury could have drawn favorable inferences from this testimony regarding petitioner’s character and his probable future conduct if sentenced to life in prison. Although it is true that any such inferences would not relate specifically to petitioner’s culpability for the crime he committed, see Koon I, supra, at 536, 298 S. E. 2d, at 774, there is no question but that such inferences would be “mitigating” in the sense that they might serve “as a basis for a sentence less than death.” Lockett, swpra, at 604. Consideration of a defendant’s past conduct as indicative of his probable future behavior is an inevitable and not undesirable element of criminal sentencing: “any sentencing authority must predict a convicted person’s probable future conduct when it engages in the process of determining what punishment to impose.” Jurek v. Texas, 428 U. S. 262, 275 (1976) (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.). The Court has therefore held that evidence that a defendant would in the future pose a danger to the community if he were not executed may be treated as establishing an “aggravating factor” for purposes of capital sentencing, Jurek v. Texas, supra; see also Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U. S. 880 (1983). Likewise, evidence that the defendant would not pose a danger if spared (but incarcerated) must be considered potentially mitigating. Under Eddings, such evidence may not be excluded from the sentencer’s consideration.
The State advances several arguments as to why the exclusion of petitioner’s proffered evidence was, nonetheless, not erroneous. First, the State contends that the trial court ruled only that petitioner’s witnesses could not offer incompetent lay opinion testimony regarding petitioner’s ability to adjust to prison life in the future. Eddings, the State argues, does not displace reasonable state-law rules regarding the competency of testimony. The record does not, however, support the State’s contention that the trial court’s ruling was no more than an evenhanded application of rules restricting the use of opinion testimony. It is true that petitioner’s request for a ruling on the admissibility of the testimony of the two jailers and the “regular visitor” was immediately preceded by an attempt to introduce his former wife’s opinion (ruled inadmissible by the trial judge, App. 10) regarding his prospects for adjustment to prison life. In seeking a ruling on the testimony of the three witnesses at issue here, however, petitioner made it clear that he expected them “to testify that [petitioner] has made a good adjustment” to jail. Id., at 11 (emphasis added). Defense counsel was not offering opinion testimony regarding future events. Under these circumstances, any ruling premised on the assumption that petitioner planned to present incompetent opinion testimony would have been — as the State conceded at oral argument — a “mistake.” Such a misunderstanding could by no means justify the exclusion of nonopinion evidence bearing on the defendant’s ability to adjust to prison life.
Second, the State echoes the South Carolina Supreme Court in arguing that the trial court’s ruling was not improper because it did not prevent petitioner from introducing evidence of past good conduct in jail for purposes of establishing his good character, but only foreclosed the introduction of “irrelevant” evidence of his future adaptability to prison life. There is no clear support for this contention in the record of this case, as the trial court did not explicitly rely on any such distinction and appears to have excluded petitioner’s evidence of good conduct for any purpose whatsoever. The State’s proposed distinction between use of evidence of past good conduct to prove good character and use of the same evidence to establish future good conduct in prison seems to be drawn from the decision of the South Carolina Supreme Court in another case altogether, State v. Koon, 285 S. C. 1, 328 S. E. 2d 625 (Koon II), cert. denied, 471 U. S. 1036 (1985). There, the court stated that although “future adaptability to prison [is] irrelevant evidence because it does not bear on a defendant’s character, prior record, or the circumstances of his offense[,] . . . [p]ast behavior in prison does bear on a defendant’s character and, therefore, is relevant.” 285 S. C., at 3, 328 S. E. 2d, at 626. This distinction is elusive. As we have explained above, a defendant’s disposition to make a well-behaved and peaceful adjustment to life in prison is itself an aspect of his character that is by its nature relevant to the sentencing determination. Accordingly, the precise meaning and practical significance of the decision in Koon II and of the State’s argument is difficult to assess. Assuming, however, that the rule would in any case have the effect of precluding the defendant from introducing otherwise admissible evidence for the explicit purpose of convincing the jury that he should be spared the death penalty because he would pose no undue danger to his jailers or fellow prisoners and could lead a useful life behind bars if sentenced to fife imprisonment, the rule would not pass muster under Eddings. Since the trial court’s ruling in this case — whether or not it can credibly be said to be consistent with Koon II — sX least had this effect, it cannot stand under Eddings.
Finally, the State seems to suggest that exclusion of the proffered testimony was proper because the testimony was merely cumulative of the testimony of petitioner and his former wife that petitioner’s behavior in jail awaiting trial was satisfactory, and of petitioner’s testimony that, if sentenced to prison rather than to death, he would attempt to use his time productively and would not cause trouble. We think, however, that characterizing the excluded evidence as cumulative and its exclusion as harmless is implausible on the facts before us. The evidence petitioner was allowed to present on the issue of his conduct in jail was the sort of evidence that a jury naturally would tend to discount as self-serving. The testimony of more disinterested witnesses — and, in particular, of jailers who would have had no particular reason to be favorably predisposed toward one of their charges— would quite naturally be given much greater weight by the jury. Nor can we confidently conclude that credible evidence that petitioner was a good prisoner would have had no effect upon the jury’s deliberations. The prosecutor himself, in closing argument, made much of the dangers petitioner would pose if sentenced to prison, and went so far as to assert that petitioner could be expected to rape other inmates. Under these circumstances, it appears reasonably likely that the exclusion of evidence bearing upon petitioner’s behavior in jail (and hence, upon his likely future behavior in prison) may have affected the jury’s decision to impose the death sentence. Thus, under any standard, the exclusion of the evidence was sufficiently prejudicial to constitute reversible error.
The exclusion by the state trial court of relevant mitigating evidence impeded the sentencing jury’s ability to carry out its task of considering all relevant facets of the character and record of the individual offender. The resulting death sentence cannot stand, although the State is of course not precluded from again seeking to impose the death sentence, provided that it does so through a new sentencing hearing at which petitioner is permitted to present any and all relevant mitigating evidence that is available. Eddings, 455 U. S., at 117. The judgment of the Supreme Court of South Carolina is therefore reversed insofar as it affirms the death sentence, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The relevance of evidence of probable future conduct in prison as a factor in aggravation or mitigation of an offense is underscored in this particular case by the prosecutor’s closing argument, which urged the jury to return a sentence of death in part because petitioner could not be trusted to behave if he were simply returned to prison. Where the prosecution specifically relies on a prediction of future dangerousness in asking for the death penalty, it is not only the rule of Lockett and Eddings that requires that the defendant be afforded an opportunity to introduce evidence on this point; it is also the elemental due process requirement that a defendant not be sentenced to death “on the basis of information which he had no opportunity to deny or explain.” Gardner v. Florida, 430 U. S. 349, 362 (1977).
We do not hold that all facets of the defendant’s ability to adjust to prison life must be treated as relevant and potentially mitigating. For example, we have no quarrel with the statement of the Supreme Court of South Carolina that “how often [the defendant] will take a shower” is irrelevant to the sentencing determination. State v. Plath, 281 S. C. 1, 15, 313 S. E. 2d 619, 627, cert. denied, 467 U. S. 1265 (1984). In the case before us, there is no credible suggestion that petitioner sought to introduce evidence of his personal hygiene practices. Rather, petitioner apparently attempted to introduce evidence suggesting that he had been a well-behaved and disciplined prisoner. Such evidence of adjustability to life in prison unquestionably goes to a feature of the defendant’s character that is highly relevant to a jury’s sentencing determination.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
The judgment of the District Court is reversed and the case is remanded for consideration by that court of the only claim that was left open at this Court’s prior disposition of this litigation, to wit, whether “the preferred stock issue as approved by the [Interstate Commerce] Commission was in violation of the Interstate Commerce Act.” Alleghany Cory. v. Breswick & Co., 353 U. S. 151, 175.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases, here on appeal from the Wisconsin Supreme Court, 28 U. S. C. § 344 (a), 43 Stat. 937, 45 Stat. 54, present the question whether a certification of a union by the Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, Wis. Stats. 1947, ch. Ill, as the collective bargaining representative of the employees of appellant company, conflicts with the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, 29 U. S. C. §§ 151 et seq.
Prior to 1945 the appellant company recognized the appellant union as the collective bargaining representative of its plant and traffic department employees. The company and the union entered into a collective bargaining agreement which by its terms was to continue from year to year unless terminated by either party on a specified notice. At a time when certain provisions of that agreement were being renegotiated a rival union, the Telephone Guild, filed a petition with the National Board asking that it certify the collective bargaining representative of these employees. Before the National Board acted, the Guild withdrew its petition and filed a petition with the Wisconsin Board seeking the same relief.
The Wisconsin Board held a hearing and directed that separate elections be held among the employees in the plant, traffic, and office departments of the company to determine whether they desired to be grouped in a single unit or in departmental units and what representative, if any, they desired to elect. After the election the Wisconsin Board certified that the employees in the plant and traffic departments had elected to combine in a single bargaining unit and had chosen the Guild as their collective bargaining representative, and that the employees in the office department had elected to constitute themselves as a separate unit and had chosen not to have any collective bargaining representative.
Each appellant brought an action in the Wisconsin courts to have the certification set aside. The Circuit Court, relying on Bethlehem Steel Co. v. New York Labor Relations Board, 330 U. S. 767, held that the Wisconsin Board was without jurisdiction to issue the certification. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin reversed. 251 Wis. 583, 30 N. W. 2d 241.
First. We are met at the outset with a contention that the certification of the Wisconsin Board which has been sustained by the Wisconsin Supreme Court is not a “final judgment” within the meaning of § 237 (a) of the Judicial Code, 28 U. S. C. § 344. The argument is that under Wisconsin law the certification is no more than a report on the results of an investigation made known to the parties for such use as they may desire, that nothing can be done by any state agency to enforce observance of the certification, that the company cannot be required to bargain with the certified union until and unless an unfair practice charge is lodged against it, and that in such proceeding all the issues involved in the certification proceeding can be relitigated. If that contention is correct, the case is of course not ripe for the intervention of the federal judicial power. See Rochester Telephone Corp. v. United States, 307 U. S. 125, 130-131 and cases cited.
But it has not been shown that the Wisconsin law gives such slight force to the certification. The statute provides that the representative chosen by the employees shall be the exclusive one for purposes of collective bargaining. § 111.05 (1). Provision is made for the board to take a secret ballot of the employees and to certify the results thereof, whenever a question arises concerning the representation of employees in a collective bargaining unit. § 111.05 (3). And the statute contains the following direction: “The board’s certification of the results of any election shall be conclusive as to the findings in-eluded therein unless reviewed in the same manner as provided by subsection (8) of section 111.07 for review of orders of the board.” § 111.05 (3). The certification in these cases has been reviewed and sustained by the highest court of Wisconsin. While that certification is not irrevocable for all time, it fixes a status to which Wisconsin provides a sanction. Eor it is an unfair labor practice for an employer to refuse to bargain with the representative of a majority of the employees. § 111.06 (d). And since § 111.05 (3) makes the certification, subject to judicial review, “conclusive as to the findings included therein,” it would seem that the certification cannot be collaterally attacked in that proceeding or heard de novo. We are pointed to no Wisconsin authority to the effect that it can be.
On this phase of the case we are, indeed, referred to only one Wisconsin authority and that is United R. & W. D. S. E. v. Wisconsin Board, 245 Wis. 636, 15 N. W. 2d 844. But that case merely held that an order of the Wisconsin Board that a referendum of employees by secret ballot be held to determine whether an “all union” agreement was desired was not reviewable. It did not deal with a certificate which was in fact reviewed and sustained by the same court as in the present cases. It is true that in the opinion below, the Wisconsin Supreme Court said that the “mere fact-finding procedure” of the Wisconsin Board in ascertaining the facts, in ordering an election, and in certifying the result “constitutes action in merely its ministerial capacity.” 251 Wis. at 592, 30 N. W. 2d at 245. But that comment was directed to the lack of discretion which the state statute had left the Wisconsin Board. It had no relevance to the effect of the certification under Wisconsin law.
While the Wisconsin Employment Relations Board seems readier than some to reexamine the status of a bargaining representative on the ground that it has lost the support of a majority, it nevertheless appears to be Wisconsin law that a certification is binding upon an employer so long as it stands.
We assumed in Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp. v. Kelley, 330 U. S. 767, that the certification of a collective bargaining representative, sustained by the highest court of the state, was a final judgment, although it did not of itself command action but like the certification here was enforcible in law only by another proceeding.
We think that is the correct view. The fact that Wisconsin’s certification was not in the form of a command is immaterial. See American Federation of Labor v. Labor Board, 308 U. S. 401, 408. It was not an abstract determination of status. Nor was it merely an interim adjudication in an uncompleted administrative process. It established legal rights and relationships. It told the employer, subject to judicial review, with whom he could not refuse to negotiate without risk of sanctions. The character of the certification was therefore such as to make it reviewable under the appropriate standards for exercise of the federal judicial power.
Second. The Wisconsin Supreme Court concluded that the Wisconsin Board could exercise jurisdiction here until and unless the National Board undertook to determine the appropriate bargaining representative or unit of representation of these employees. That view was urged on us in the like cases coming here under a New York statute. In Bethlehem Steel Co. v. New York Labor Relations Board, supra, at 776, we rejected that argument, saying:
“The State argues for a rule that would enable it to act until the federal board had acted in the same case. But we do not think that a case by case test of federal supremacy is permissible here.”
We went on to point out that the National Board had jurisdiction of the industry in which those particular employers were engaged and had asserted control of their labor relations in general. Both the state and the federal statutes had laid hold of the same relationship and had provided different standards for its regulation. Since the employers in question were subject to regulation by the National Board, we thought the situation too fraught with potential conflict to permit the intrusion of the state agency, even though the National Board had not acted in the particular cases before us.
Those considerations control the present cases. This employer is concededly engaged in interstate commerce; and the industry is one over which the National Board has consistently exercised jurisdiction. The Wisconsin Act provides that a majority of employees in a single craft, division, department or plant of an employer may elect to constitute that group a separate bargaining unit. § 111.02 (6). The federal act leaves that matter to the discretion of the board. When under those circumstances the state board puts its imprimatur on a particular group as the collective bargaining agent of employees, it freezes into a pattern that which the federal act has left fluid. In practical effect the true measure of conflict between the state and federal scheme of regulation may not be found only in the collision between the formal orders that the two boards may issue. We know that administrative practice also disposes of cases in which, no order has been entered. Disposition of controversies on an administrative as distinguished from a formal basis will often reflect the attitudes of the National Board which have not been reduced to orders in those specific cases. A certification by a state board under a different or conflicting theory of representation may therefore be as readily disruptive of the practice under the federal act as if the orders of the two boards made a head-on collision. These are the very real potentials of conflict which lead us to allow supremacy to the federal scheme even though it has not yet been applied in any formal way to this particular employer. The problem of employee representation is a sensitive and delicate one in industrial relations. The uncertainty as to which board is master and how long it will remain such can be as disruptive of peace between various industrial factions as actual competition between two boards for supremacy. We are satisfied with the wisdom of the policy underlying the Bethlehem case and adhere to it.
The result we have reached is not changed by the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 61 Stat. 136, 29 U. S. C. Supp. I, §§ 141 et seq. That Act grants the National Board authority under specified conditions to cede its jurisdiction to a state agency. But it does not appear that there has been any cession of jurisdiction to Wisconsin by the National Board in representation proceedings.
Reversed.
That review extends to administrative decisions affecting legal rights, duties, and privileges whether affirmative or negative in form, § 227.15, and is allowed any person aggrieved and directly affected by the administrative decision. § 227.16.
Section 111.05 (4) provides “The fact that one election has been held shall not prevent the holding of another election among the same group of employes, provided that it appears to the board that sufficient reason therefor exists.”
Section 111.06(d) also provides that where an employer files with the board a petition requesting a determination as to majority representation “he shall not be deemed to have refused to bargain until an election has been held and the result thereof has been certified to him by the board.” But we are pointed to no authority holding that where a certification has already been made, a recertification can be demanded. Section 111.05 (3), indeed, makes the certification “conclusive.”
See § 111.05 (4), supra, note 2; Rydahl’s Launderers & Cleaners, Wis. E. R. B. Decision No. 677 (1944); UAW-CIO and Four Wheel Drive Auto Co., Wis. E. R. B. Decision No. 687 (1944); cf. AUA and Garton Toy Co., Wis. E. R. B. Decision No. 1238 (1947); Killingsworth, State Labor Relations Acts 161-62 (1948).
See In re United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners, 2 L. R. R. M. 894 (Wis. County Cir. Ct., 1938); In re Charles Abresch Co., 3 L. R. R. M. 639 (Wis. E. R. B. Decision No. 744, 1938); cf. Wisconsin Board v. Hall Garage Corp., 18 L. R. R. M. 2419 (Wis. County Cir. Ct., 1946).
In Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp. v. Kelley, supra, suit had been brought in the state court for a declaratory judgment to restrain the state labor board from determining a representative of plaintiff’s supervisory employees to bargain collectively with the plaintiff. Under New York law the labor board had authority to hold elections to determine employee representation and to certify the results. 30 McKinney’s Cons. Laws § 705. Certification in itself, as in the instant case, did not impose a legal penalty. Suit had to be brought in an unfair labor practice proceeding to accomplish such result. 30 Ibid. § 706. Refusal to bargain with the representative of the employees was an unfair labor practice. 30 Ibid. §704 (6). Even though the New York law did not state, as does the Wisconsin law, that certification by the board was conclusive, we considered a decision of the New York court approving the jurisdiction of the state board to conduct a representative proceeding a final judgment ripe for our consideration.
See Elyria Telephone Co., 58 N. L. R. B. 402; Newark Telephone Co., 59 N. L. R. B. 1408; People’s Telephone Corp., 69 N. L. R. B. 540; Ohio Telephone Service Co., 72 N. L. R. B. 488.
The appellant company operates a telephone business in La Crosse County, Wisconsin. It is a subsidiary of the Central Telephone Co., whose subsidiaries operate telephone businesses in many states. The concession that the company is engaged in interstate commerce is based on the interstate telephone calls which it handles.
“The Board shall decide in each case whether, in order to insure to employees the full benefit of their right to self-organization and to collective bargaining, and otherwise to effectuate the policies of this Act, the unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining shall be the employer unit, craft unit, plant unit, or subdivision thereof.”
Moreover, the Wisconsin Act excludes from the definition of employee those working in a supervisory capacity. §111.02(3). They were, however, included under the protection of the federal act as then written. Packard Motor Co. v. Labor Board, 330 U. S. 485. The definition of employee under the Wisconsin Act also excludes certain strikers and others who have not been at work for certain periods. §111.02(3). These latter exceptions likewise do not in the main square with the definition of employee contained in § 2 (3) of the federal act.
U. S. Const. Art. VI.
Section 10 (a) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, now provides in part: “the Board is empowered by agreement with any agency of any State or Territory to cede to such agency jurisdiction over any cases in any industry (other than mining, manufacturing, communications, and transportation except where predominantly local in character) even though such cases may involve labor disputes affecting commerce, unless the provision of the State or Territorial statute applicable to the determination of such cases by such agency is inconsistent with the corresponding provision of this Act or has received a construction inconsistent therewith.”
The agreement of August 27, 1948, between the National Board and the Wisconsin Board is restricted to the implementation of § 14 (b) of the federal act. See 22 L. R. R. 268.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case calls for specific application of the standard of reasonable competence required on the part of defense counsel by the Sixth Amendment. We hold that even when a capital defendant’s family members and the defendant himself have suggested that no mitigating evidence is available, his lawyer is bound to make reasonable efforts to obtain and review material that counsel knows the prosecution will probably rely on as evidence of aggravation at the sentencing phase of trial.
I
On the morning of January 14, 1988, James Scanlon was discovered dead in a bar he ran in Allentown, Pennsylvania, his body having been stabbed repeatedly and set on fire. Ronald Rompilla was indicted for the murder and related offenses, and the Commonwealth gave notice of intent to ask for the death penalty. Two public defenders were assigned to the case.
The jury at the guilt phase of trial found Rompilla guilty on all counts, and during the ensuing penalty phase, the prosecutor sought to prove three aggravating factors to justify a death sentence: that the murder was committed in the course of another felony; that the murder was committed by torture; and that Rompilla had a significant history of felony convictions indicating the use or threat of violence. See 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§ 9711(d)(6), (8), (9) (2002). The Commonwealth presented evidence on all three aggravators, and the jury found all proven. Rompilla’s evidence in mitigation consisted of relatively brief testimony: five of his family members argued in effect for residual doubt, and beseeched the jury for mercy, saying that they believed Rompilla was innocent and a good man. Rompilla’s 14-year-old son testified that he loved his father and would visit him in prison. The jury acknowledged this evidence to the point of finding, as two factors in mitigation, that Rompilla’s son had testified on his behalf and that rehabilitation was possible. But the jurors assigned the greater weight to the aggravating factors, and sentenced Rompilla to death. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed both conviction and sentence. Commonwealth v. Rompilla, 539 Pa. 499, 653 A. 2d 626 (1995).
In December 1995, with new lawyers, Rompilla filed claims under the Pennsylvania Post Conviction Relief Act, 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 9541 et seq. (2004), including ineffective assistance by trial counsel in failing to present significant mitigating evidence about Rompilla’s childhood, mental capacity and health, and alcoholism. The postconviction court found that trial counsel had done enough to investigate the possibilities of a mitigation case, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the denial of relief. Commonwealth v. Rompilla, 554 Pa. 378, 721 A. 2d 786 (1998).
Rompilla then petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U. S. C. §2254 in Federal District Court, raising claims that included inadequate representation. The District Court found that the State Supreme Court had unreasonably applied Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), as to the penalty phase of the trial, and granted relief for ineffective assistance of counsel. The court found that in preparing the mitigation case the defense lawyers had failed to investigate “pretty obvious signs” that Rompilla had a troubled childhood and suffered from mental illness and alcoholism, and instead had relied unjustifiably on Rompilla’s own description of an unexceptional background. Rompilla v. Horn, No. CIV.A.99-737 (ED Pa., July 11, 2000), App. 1307-1308.
A divided Third Circuit panel reversed. Rompilla v. Horn, 355 F. 3d 233 (2004). The majority found nothing unreasonable in the state court’s application of Strickland, given defense counsel’s efforts to uncover mitigation material, which included interviewing Rompilla and certain family members, as well as consultation with three mental health experts. Although the majority noted that the lawyers did not unearth the “useful information” to be found in Rompilla’s “school, medical, police, and prison records,” it thought the lawyers were justified in failing to hunt through these records when their other efforts gave no reason to believe the search would yield anything helpful. 355 F. 3d, at 252. The panel thus distinguished Rompilla’s case from Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S. 510 (2003). Whereas Wiggins’s counsel failed to investigate adequately, to the point even of ignoring the leads their limited enquiry yielded, the Court of Appeals saw the Rompilla investigation as going far enough to leave counsel with reason for thinking further efforts would not be a wise use of the limited resources they had. But Judge Sloviter’s dissent stressed that trial counsel’s failure to obtain relevant records on Rompilla’s background was owing to the lawyers’ unreasonable reliance on family members and medical experts to tell them what records might be useful. The Third Circuit denied rehearing en banc by a vote of 6 to 5. Rompilla v. Horn, 359 F. 3d 310 (2004).
We granted certiorari, 542 U. S. 966 (2004), and now reverse.
II
Under 28 U. S. C. § 2254, Rompilla’s entitlement to federal habeas relief turns on showing that the state court’s resolution of his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington, supra, “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” § 2254(d)(1). An “unreasonable application” occurs when a state court “‘identifies the correct governing legal principle from this Court’s decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts’ of petitioner’s case.” Wiggins v. Smith, supra, at 520 (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 413 (2000) (opinion of O’Connor, J.)). That is, “the state court’s decision must have been [not only] incorrect or erroneous [but] objectively unreasonable.” Wiggins v. Smith, supra, at 520-521 (quoting Williams v. Taylor, supra, at 409 (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Ineffective assistance under Strickland is deficient performance by counsel resulting in prejudice, 466 U. S., at 687, with performance being measured against an “objective standard of reasonableness,” id., at 688, “under prevailing professional norms,” ibid.; Wiggins v. Smith, supra, at 521. This case, like some others recently, looks to norms of adequate investigation in preparing for the sentencing phase of a capital trial, when defense counsel’s job is to counter the State’s evidence of aggravated culpability with evidence in mitigation. In judging the defense’s investigation, as in applying Strickland generally, hindsight is discounted by pegging adequacy to “counsel’s perspective at the time” investigative decisions are made, 466 U. S., at 689, and by giving a “heavy measure of deference to counsel’s judgments,” id., at 691.
A
A standard of reasonableness applied as if one stood in counsel’s shoes spawns few hard-edged rules, and the merits of a number of counsel’s choices in this case are subject to fair debate. This is not a case in which defense counsel simply ignored their obligation to find mitigating evidence, and their workload as busy public defenders did not keep them from making a number of efforts, including interviews with Rompilla and some members of his family, and examinations of reports by three mental health experts who gave opinions at the guilt phase. None of the sources proved particularly helpful.
Rompilla’s own contributions to any mitigation case were minimal. Counsel found him uninterested in helping, as on their visit to his prison to go over a proposed mitigation strategy, when Rompilla told them he was “bored being here listening” and returned to his cell. App. 668. To questions about childhood and schooling, his answers indicated they had been normal, ibid., save for quitting school in the ninth grade, id., at 677. There were times when Rompilla was even actively obstructive by sending counsel off on false leads. Id., at 663-664.
The lawyers also spoke with five members of Rompilla’s family (his former wife, two brothers, a sister-in-law, and his son), id., at 494, and counsel testified that they developed a good relationship with the family in the course of their representation, id., at 669, 729. The state postconvietion court found that counsel spoke to the relatives in a “detailed manner,” attempting to unearth mitigating information, id., at 264, although the weight of this finding is qualified by the lawyers’ concession that “the overwhelming response from the family was that they didn’t really feel as though they knew him all that well since he had spent the majority of his adult years and some of his childhood years in custody,” id., at 495; see also id., at 669. Defense counsel also said that because the family was “coming from the position that [Rom-pilla] was innocent. . . they weren’t looking for reasons for why he might have done this.” Id., at 494.
The third and final source tapped for mitigating material was the cadre of three mental health witnesses who were asked to look into Rompilla’s mental state as of the time of the offense and his competency to stand trial. Id., at 473-474, 476. But their reports revealed “nothing useful” to Rompilla’s ease, id., at 1358, and the lawyers consequently did not go to any other historical source that might have cast light on Rompilla’s mental condition.
When new counsel entered the case to raise Rompilla’s postconviction claims, however, they identified a number of likely avenues the trial lawyers could fruitfully have followed in building a mitigation case. School records are one example, which trial counsel never examined in spite of the professed unfamiliarity of the several family members with Rompilla’s childhood, and despite counsel’s knowledge that Rompilla left school after the ninth grade. Id., at 677. Other examples are records of Rompilla’s juvenile and adult incarcerations, which counsel did not consult, although they were aware of their client’s criminal record. And while counsel knew from police reports provided in pretrial discovery that Rompilla had been drinking heavily at the time of his offense, Lodging to App. 111-120 (hereinafter Lodging), and although one of the mental health experts reported that Rompilla’s troubles with alcohol merited further investigation, App. 723-724, counsel did not look for evidence of a history of dependence on alcohol that might have extenuating significance.
Before us, trial counsel and the Commonwealth respond to these unexplored possibilities by emphasizing this Court’s recognition that the duty to investigate does not force defense lawyers to scour the globe on the off chance something will turn up; reasonably diligent counsel may draw a line when they have good reason to think further investigation would be a waste. See Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S., at 525 (further investigation excusable where counsel has evidence suggesting it would be fruitless); Strickland v. Washington, supra, at 699 (counsel could “reasonably surmise . . . that character and psychological evidence would be of little help”); Burger v. Kemp, 483 U. S. 776, 794 (1987) (limited investigation reasonable because all witnesses brought to counsel’s attention provided predominantly harmful information). The Commonwealth argues that the information trial counsel gathered from Rompilla and the other sources gave them sound reason to think it would have been pointless to spend time and money on the additional investigation espoused by postconviction counsel, and we can say that there is room for debate about trial counsel’s obligation to follow at least some of those potential lines of enquiry. There is no need to say more, however, for a further point is clear and dispositive: the lawyers were deficient in failing to examine the court file on Rompilla’s prior conviction.
B
There is an obvious reason that the failure to examine Rompilla’s prior conviction file fell below the level of reasonable performance. Counsel knew that the Commonwealth intended to seek the death penalty by proving Rompilla had a significant history of felony convictions indicating the use or threat of violence, an aggravator under state law. Counsel further knew that the Commonwealth would attempt to establish this history by proving Rompilla’s prior conviction for rape and assault, and would emphasize his violent character by introducing a transcript of the rape victim’s testimony given in that earlier trial. App. 665-666. There is no question that defense counsel were on notice, since they acknowledge that a “plea letter,” written by one of them four days prior to trial, mentioned the prosecutor’s plans. Ibid. It is also undisputed that the prior conviction file was a public document, readily available for the asking at the very courthouse where Rompilla was to be tried.
It is clear, however, that defense counsel did not look at any part of that file, including the transcript, until warned by the prosecution a second time. In a colloquy the day before the evidentiary sentencing phase began, the prosecutor again said he would present the transcript of the victim’s testimony to establish the prior conviction.
“[DEFENSE]: I would also like to review whatever he’s going to read from.
“[PROSECUTOR]: Well, I told you that I was going to do this a long time ago. You certainly had the opportunity to review the Transcript.
“[DEFENSE]: Well, I would like a copy of this.
“[PROSECUTOR]: I don’t think that’s my duty to provide you with a copy. That’s a public record, and you could have gotten that Transcript at any time prior to this Trial. I made one copy for myself, and I’d like to have it now.
“[DEFENSE]: Well, Judge, then I’m going to need to get a copy of it. I’m going to need to get a copy of it.” Id., at 32, 36.
At the postconviction evidentiary hearing, Rompilla’s lawyer confirmed that she had not seen the transcript before the hearing in which this exchange took place, id., at 506-507, and crucially, even after obtaining the transcript of the victim’s testimony on the eve of the sentencing hearing, counsel apparently examined none of the other material in the file.
With every effort to view the facts as a defense lawyer would have done at the time, it is difficult to see how counsel could have failed to realize that without examining the readily available file they were seriously compromising their opportunity to respond to a case for aggravation. The prosecution was going to use the dramatic facts of a similar prior offense, and Rompilla’s counsel had a duty to make all reasonable efforts to learn what they could about the offense. Reasonable efforts certainly included obtaining the Commonwealth’s own readily available file on the prior conviction to learn what the Commonwealth knew about the crime, to discover any mitigating evidence the Commonwealth would downplay, and to anticipate the details of the aggravating evidence the Commonwealth would emphasize. Without making reasonable efforts to review the file, defense counsel could have had no hope of knowing whether the prosecution was quoting selectively from the transcript, or whether there were circumstances extenuating the behavior described by the victim. The obligation to get the file was particularly pressing here owing to the similarity of the violent prior offense to the crime charged and Rompilla’s sentencing strategy stressing residual doubt. Without making efforts to learn the details and rebut the relevance of the earlier crime, a convincing argument for residual doubt was certainly beyond any hope.
The notion that defense counsel must obtain information that the State has and will use against the defendant is not simply a matter of common sense. As the District Court points out, the American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice in circulation at the time of Rompilla’s trial describes the obligation in terms no one could misunderstand in the circumstances of a case like this one:
“It is the duty of the lawyer to conduct a prompt investigation of the circumstances of the case and to explore all avenues leading to facts relevant to the merits of the case and the penalty in the event of conviction. The investigation should always include efforts to secure information in the possession of the prosecution and law enforcement authorities. The duty to investigate exists regardless of the accused’s admissions or statements to the lawyer of facts constituting guilt or the accused’s stated desire to plead guilty.” 1 ABA Standards for Criminal Justice 4-4.1 (2d ed. 1982 Supp.).
“[W]e long have referred [to these ABA Standards] as ‘guides to determining what is reasonable.’” Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S., at 524 (quoting Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S., at 688), and the Commonwealth has come up with no reason to think the quoted standard impertinent here.
At argument the most that Pennsylvania (and the United States as amicus) could say was that defense counsel’s efforts to find mitigating evidence by other means excused them from looking at the prior conviction file. Tr. of Oral Arg. 37-39, 45-46. And that, of course, is the position taken by the state postconviction courts. Without specifically discussing the prior case file, they too found that defense eoun-sel’s efforts were enough to free them from any obligation to enquire further. Commonwealth v. Rompilla, No. 682/ 1988 (Pa. Ct. Common Pleas, Aug. 28, 1996), App. 263-264, 272-273.
We think this conclusion of the state court fails to answer the considerations we have set out, to the point of being an objectively unreasonable conclusion. It flouts prudence to deny that a defense lawyer should try to look at a file he knows the prosecution will cull for aggravating evidence, let alone when the file is sitting in the trial courthouse, open for the asking. No reasonable lawyer would forgo examination of the file thinking he could do as well by asking the defendant or family relations whether they recalled anything helpful or damaging in the prior victim’s testimony. Nor would a reasonable lawyer compare possible searches for school reports, juvenile records, and evidence of drinking habits to the opportunity to take a look at a file disclosing what the prosecutor knows and even plans to read from in his case. Questioning a few more family members and searching for old records can promise less than looking for a needle in a haystack, when a lawyer truly has reason to doubt there is any needle there. E.g., Strickland, supra, at 699. But looking at a file the prosecution says it will use is a sure bet: whatever may be in that file is going to tell defense counsel something about what the prosecution can produce.
The dissent thinks this analysis creates a “rigid, per se” rule that requires defense counsel to do a complete review of the file on any prior conviction introduced, post, at 404 (opinion of Kennedy, J.), but that is a mistake. Counsel fell short here because they failed to make reasonable efforts to review the prior conviction file, despite knowing that the prosecution intended to introduce Rompilla’s prior conviction not merely by entering a notice of conviction into evidence but by quoting damaging testimony of the rape victim in that case. The unreasonableness of attempting no more than they did was heightened by the easy availability of the file at the trial courthouse, and the great risk that testimony about a similar violent crime would hamstring counsel’s chosen defense of residual doubt. It is owing to these circumstances that the state courts were objectively unreasonable in concluding that counsel could reasonably decline to make any effort to review the file. Other situations, where a defense lawyer is not charged with knowledge that the prosecutor intends to use a prior conviction in this way, might well warrant a different assessment.
C
Since counsel’s failure to look at the file fell below the line of reasonable practice, there is a further question about prejudice, that is, whether “there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” 466 U. S., at 694. Because the state courts found the representation adequate, they never reached the issue of prejudice, App. 265, 272-273, and so we examine this element of the Strickland claim de novo, Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S., at 534, and agree with the dissent in the Court of Appeals. We think Rompilla has shown beyond any doubt that counsel’s lapse was prejudicial; Pennsylvania, indeed, does not even contest the claim of prejudice.
If the defense lawyers had looked in the file on Rompilla’s prior conviction, it is uncontested they would have found a range of mitigation leads that no other source had opened up. In the same file with the transcript of the prior trial were the records of Rompilla’s imprisonment on the earlier conviction, App. 508, 571, 631, which defense counsel testified she had never seen, id., at 508. The prison files pictured Rompilla’s childhood and mental health very differently from anything defense counsel had seen or heard. An evaluation by a corrections counselor states that Rompilla was “reared in the slum environment of Allentown, Pa. vicinity. He early came to [the] attention of juvenile authorities, quit school at 16, [and] started a series of incarcerations in and out Penna. often of assaultive nature and commonly related to over-indulgence in alcoholic beverages.” Lodging 40. The same file discloses test results that the defense’s mental health experts would have viewed as pointing to schizophrenia and other disorders, and test scores showing a third grade level of cognition after nine years of schooling. Id., at 32-35.
The accumulated entries would have destroyed the benign conception of Rompilla’s upbringing and mental capacity defense counsel had formed from talking with Rompilla himself and some of his family members, and from the reports of the mental health experts. With this information, counsel would have become skeptical of the impression given by the five family members and would unquestionably have gone further to build a mitigation case. Further effort would presumably have unearthed much of the material postconviction counsel found, including testimony from several members of Rompilla’s family, whom trial counsel did not interview. Judge Sloviter summarized this evidence:
“Rompilla’s parents were both severe alcoholics who drank constantly. His mother drank during her pregnancy with Rompilla, and he and his brothers eventually developed serious drinking problems. His father, who had a vicious temper, frequently beat Rompilla’s mother, leaving her bruised and black-eyed, and bragged about his cheating on her. His parents fought violently, and on at least one occasion his mother stabbed his father. He was abused by his father who beat him when he was young with his hands, fists, leather straps, belts and sticks. All of the children lived in terror. There were no expressions of parental love, affection or approval. Instead, he was subjected to yelling and verbal abuse. His father locked Rompilla and his brother Richard in a small wire mesh dog pen that was filthy and excrement filled. He had an isolated background, and was not allowed to visit other children or to speak to anyone on the phone. They had no indoor plumbing in the house, he slept in the attic with no heat, and the children were not given clothes and attended school in rags.” 355 F. 3d, at 279 (dissenting opinion) (citations omitted).
The jury never heard any of this and neither did the mental health experts who examined Rompilla before trial. While they found “nothing helpful to [Rompilla’s] case,” Rompilla, 554 Pa., at 385, 721 A. 2d, at 790, their postconviction counterparts, alerted by information from school, medical, and prison records that trial counsel never saw, found plenty of “‘red flags’” pointing up a need to test further. 355 F. 3d, at 279 (Sloviter, J., dissenting). When they tested, they found that Rompilla “suffers from organic brain damage, an extreme mental disturbance significantly impairing several of his cognitive functions.” Ibid. They also said that “Rompilla’s problems relate back to his childhood, and were likely caused by fetal alcohol syndrome [and that] Rom-pilla’s capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the law was substantially impaired at the time of the offense.” Id., at 280 (Sloviter, J., dissenting).
These findings in turn would probably have prompted a look at school and juvénile records, all of them easy to get, showing, for example, that when Rompilla was 16 his mother “was missing from home frequently for a period of one or several weeks at a time.” Lodging 44. The same report noted that his mother “has been reported . . . frequently under the influence of alcoholic beverages, with the result that the children have always been poorly kept and on the filthy side which was also the condition of the home at all times.” Ibid. School records showed Rompilla’s IQ was in the mentally retarded range. Id., at 11, 13, 15.
This evidence adds up to a mitigation case that bears no relation to the few naked pleas for mercy actually put before the jury, and although we suppose it is possible that a jury could have heard it all and still have decided on the death penalty, that is not the test. It goes without saying that the undiscovered “mitigating evidence, taken as a whole, ‘might well have influenced the jury’s appraisal’ of [Rompilla’s] culpability,” Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S., at 538 (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S., at 398), and the likelihood of a different result if the evidence had gone in is “sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome” actually reached at sentencing, Strickland, 466 U. S., at 694.
The judgment of the Third Circuit is reversed, and Pennsylvania must either retry the case on penalty or stipulate to a life sentence.
It is so ordered.
Because we reverse on ineffective-assistance grounds, we have no occasion to consider Rompilla’s other claim, under Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U. S. 154 (1994). It is enough to say that any retrial of Rompilla’s sentence will be governed by the Simmons line of cases.
A similar exchange took place at the same hearing about the indictment in the record of Rompilla’s prior conviction.
“[DEFENSE]: Well, I think we need to look at the Indictment then. If he’s charged with committing the Burglary-
“[PROSECUTOR]: I had a copy, and I forgot to bring it up with me.
“[COURT]: All right.
“[DEFENSE]: Can we see it, Judge?
“[COURT]: Sime, he’s going to get it.
“[PROSECUTOR]: It’s a public record . . . you could have gone over [sic] lunch and looked at it just like I did.” App. 28.
Defense counsel also stated at the postconviction hearing that she believed at some point she had looked at some files regarding that prior conviction and that she was familiar with the particulars of the case. But she could not recall what the files were or how she obtained them. Id., at 507-508. In addition, counsel apparently obtained Rompilla’s rap sheet, which showed that he had prior convictions, including the one for rape. Id., at 664. At oral argument, the United States, arguing as an amicus in support of Pennsylvania, maintained that counsel had fulfilled their obligations to investigate the prior conviction by obtaining the rap sheet. Tr. of Oral Arg. 44-45. But this cannot be so. The rap sheet would reveal only the charges and dispositions, being no reasonable substitute for the prior conviction file. The dissent nonetheless concludes on this evidence that counsel knew all they needed to know about the prior conviction. Post, at 401 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). Given counsel’s limited investigation into the prior conviction, the dissent’s parsing of the record seems generous to a fault.
The ease with which counsel could examine the entire file makes application of this standard correspondingly easy. Suffice it to say that when the State has warehouses of records available in a particular case, review of counsel’s performance will call for greater subtlety.
This requirement answers the dissent’s and the United States’s contention that defense counsel provided effective assistance with regard to the prior conviction file because it argued that it would be prejudicial to allow the introduction of the transcript. Post, at 402; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 29. Counsel’s obligation to rebut aggravating evidence extended beyond arguing it ought to be kept out. As noted above, supra this page, counsel had no way of knowing the context of the transcript and the details of the prior conviction without looking at the file as a whole. Counsel could not effectively rebut the aggravation case or build their own case in mitigation.
Nor is there any merit to the United States’s contention that further enquiry into the prior conviction file would have been fruitless because the sole reason the transcript was being introduced was to establish the aggravator that Rompilla had committed prior violent felonies. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 30. The Government maintains that because the transcript would incontrovertibly establish the fact that Rom-pilla had committed a violent felony, the defense could not have expected to rebut that aggravator through further investigation of the file. That analysis ignores the fact that the sentencing jury was required to weigh aggravating factors against mitigating factors. We may reasonably assume that the jury could give more relative weight to a prior violent felony aggravator where defense counsel missed an opportunity to argue that circumstances of the prior conviction were less damning than the prosecution’s characterization of the conviction would suggest.
The new version of the Standards now reads that any “investigation should include efforts to secure information in the possession of the prosecution and law enforcement authorities” whereas the version in effect at the time of Rompilla’s trial provided that the “investigation” should always include such efforts. ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, Prosecution Function and Defense Function 4-4.1 (3d ed. 1993). We see no material difference between these two phrasings, and in any case cannot think of any situation in which defense counsel should not make some effort to learn the information in the possession of the prosecution and law enforcement authorities.
In 1989, shortly after Rompilla’s trial, the ABA promulgated a set of guidelines specifically devoted to setting forth the obligations of defense counsel in death penalty cases. ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Counsel in Death Penalty Cases (1989) (hereinafter 1989 ABA Guidelines or Guideline). Those Guidelines applied the dear requirements for investigation set forth in the earlier Standards to death penalty cases and imposed a similarly forceful directive: “Counsel should make efforts to secure information in the possession of the prosecution or law enforcement authorities, including police reports.” Guideline 11.4.1.D.4. When the United States argues that Rompilla’s defense counsel complied with these Guidelines, it focuses its attentions on a different Guideline, 11.4.1.D.2. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 20-21. Guideline 11.4.1.D.2 concerns practices for working with the defendant and potential witnesses, and the United States contends that it imposes no requirement to obtain any one particular type of record or information. Ibid. But this argument ignores the subsequent Guideline quoted above, which is in fact reprinted in the appendix to the United States’s brief, that requires counsel to “‘make efforts to secure information in the possession of the prosecution or law enforcement authorities.’” App. to id., at 4a.
Later, and current, ABA Guidelines relating to death penalty defense are even more explicit:
“Counsel must. . . investigate prior convictions ... that could be used as aggravating circumstances or otherwise come into evidence. If a prior conviction is legally flawed, counsel should seek to have it set aside. Counsel may also find extenuating circumstances that can be offered to lessen the weight of a conviction.” ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases 10.7, comment. (rev. ed. 2003), reprinted in 31 Hofstra L. Rev. 913, 1027 (2003) (footnotes omitted).
Our decision in Wiggins made precisely the same point in citing the earlier 1989 ABA Guidelines. 539 U. S., at 524 (“The ABA Guidelines provide that investigations into mitigating evidence ‘should comprise efforts to discover all reasonably available mitigating evidence and evidence to rebut any aggravating evidence that may be introduced by the prosecutor’” (quoting 1989 ABA Guideline 11.4.1.C; emphasis in original)). For reasons given in the text, no such further investigation was needed to point to the reasonable duty to look in the file in question here.
The dissent would ignore the opportunity to find this evidence on the ground that its discovery (and the consequent analysis of prejudice) “rests on serendipity,” post, at 405. But once counsel had an obligation to examine the file, counsel had to make reasonable efforts to learn its contents; and once having done so, they could not reasonably have ignored mitigation evidence or red flags simply because they were unexpected. The dissent, however, assumes that counsel could reasonably decline even to read what was in the file, see post, at 406 (if counsel had reviewed the case file for mitigating evidence, “[t]here would have been no reason for counsel to read, or even to skim, this obscure document”). While that could well have been true if counsel had been faced with a large amount of possible evidence, see n. 4, supra, there is no indication that examining the case file in question here would have required significant labor. Indeed, Pennsylvania has conspicuously failed to contest Rompilla’s claim that because the information was located in the prior conviction file, reasonable efforts would have led counsel to this information.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
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 ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an admiralty case in which the plaintiff’s loss was primarily attributable to its own negligence. The question presented is whether that fact, together with the existence of a genuine dispute over liability, justified the District Court’s departure from the general rule that prejudgment interest should be awarded in maritime collision cases.
f —
Respondents are the owner and the insurers of the E. M. Ford, a ship that sank in Milwaukee’s outer harbor on Christmas Eve 1979. At the time of this disaster, the Ford was berthed in a slip owned by the city of Milwaukee (City). In the course of a severe storm, she broke loose from her moorings, battered against the headwall of the slip, took on water, and sank. She was subsequently raised and repaired.
In 1980 the Ford’s owner, the Cement Division of National Gypsum Co. (National Gypsum), brought suit against the City, invoking the District Court’s admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. The complaint alleged that the City had breached its duty as a wharfinger by assigning the vessel to a berthing slip known to be unsafe in heavy winds and by failing to give adequate warning of hidden dangers in the slip. The plaintiff sought damages of $4.5 million, later increased to $6.5 million. The City denied fault and filed a $250,000 counterclaim for damage to its dock. The City alleged that National Gypsum was negligent in leaving the ship virtually unmanned in winter, with no means aboard for monitoring weather conditions or summoning help.
In 1986 the District Court conducted a 3-week trial on the issue of liability. Finding that both National Gypsum and the City had been negligent, the court determined that the owner bore 96% of the responsibility for the disaster, while the City bore 4% of the fault. Given the disparity in the parties’ damages, a final judgment giving effect to that allocation (and awarding the damages sought in the pleadings) would have essentially left each party to bear its own losses.
Respondents took an interlocutory appeal from the District Court’s ruling. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit agreed with the District Court’s conclusion that both parties were at fault, and that the owner’s negligence was “more egregious” than the City’s, but it rejected the allocation of 96% of the responsibility to the owner as clearly erroneous. Cement Div., National Gypsum Co. v. Milwaukee, 915 F. 2d 1154, 1159 (1990), cert. denied, 499 U. S. 960 (1991). After making its own analysis of the record, the Court of Appeals apportioned liability two-thirds to National Gypsum and one-third to the City. 915 F. 2d, at 1160.
Thereafter the parties entered into a partial settlement fixing respondents’ damages, excluding prejudgment interest, at $1,677,541.86. The parties agreed that any claim for interest would be submitted to the District Court for decision. A partial judgment for the stipulated amount was entered and satisfied.
Respondents then sought an award of over $5.3 million in prejudgment interest. The District Court denied respondents’ request. It noted that “an award of pre judgment interest calculated from the date of the loss is the rule rather than the exception in cases brought under a district court’s admiralty jurisdiction,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 21a, but held that special circumstances justified a departure from that rule in this case. The court explained:
“In the instant case the record shows that from the outset there has been a genuine dispute over [respondents’] good faith claim that the City of Milwaukee was negligent for failing to warn the agents of [National Gypsum] (who were planning to leave the FORD unmanned during the Christmas holidays) that a winter storm could create conditions in the outer harbor at Milwaukee which could damage the ship. The trial court and the court of appeals both found mutual fault for the damage which ensued to the ship and to the [City’s] dock. The court of appeals ascribed two-thirds of the negligence to [National Gypsum]. Thus, in this situation the court concludes that [National Gypsum’s] contributory negligence was of such magnitude that an award of prejudgment interest would be inequitable.” Id., at 22a.
The Court of Appeals reversed. 31 F. 3d 581 (1994). It noted that prior to this Court’s announcement of the comparative fault rule in United States v. Reliable Transfer Co., 421 U. S. 397 (1975), some courts had denied prejudgment interest in order to mitigate the harsh effects of the earlier rule commanding an equal division of damages whenever a collision resulted from the fault of both parties, even though one party was only slightly negligent. In the court’s view, however, after the divided damages rule was “thrown overboard” and replaced with comparative fault, mutual fault could no longer provide a basis for denying prejudgment interest. 31 F. 3d, at 584-585. The Court of Appeals also read our decision in West Virginia v. United States, 479 U. S. 305, 311, n. 3 (1987), as disapproving of a “balancing of the equities” as a method of deciding whether to allow prejudgment interest. 31 F. 3d, at 585.
The Court of Appeals’ decision deepened an existing Circuit split regarding the criteria for denying prejudgment interest, in maritime collision cases. Compare, e.g., Inland Oil & Transport Co. v. Ark-White Towing Co., 696 F. 2d 321 (CA5 1983) (genuine dispute over good-faith claim in mutual fault setting justifies denial of prejudgment interest), with Alkmeon Naviera, S. A. v. M/V Marina L, 633 F. 2d 789 (CA9 1980) (contrary rule). We granted certiorari, 513 U. S. 1072 (1995), and now affirm.
II
Although Congress has enacted a statute governing the award of postjudgment interest in federal court litigation, see 28 U. S. C. § 1961, there is no comparable legislation regarding prejudgment interest. Far from indicating a legislative determination that prejudgment interest should not be awarded, however, the absence of a statute merely indicates that the question is governed by traditional judge-made principles. Monessen Southwestern R. Co. v. Morgan, 486 U. S. 330, 336-337 (1988); Rodgers v. United States, 332 U. S. 371, 373 (1947). Those principles are well developed in admiralty, where “the Judiciary has traditionally taken the lead in formulating flexible and fair remedies.” Reliable Transfer, 421 U. S., at 409.
Throughout our history, admiralty decrees have included provisions for prejudgment interest. In Del Col v. Arnold, 3 Dall. 333, a prize case decided in 1796, we affirmed a decree awarding the libellant interest from “the day of capture.” Id., at 334. In The Amiable Nancy, 3 Wheat. 546 (1818), we considered a similar decree. In augmenting the damages awarded by the lower court, we directed that the additional funds should bear prejudgment interest, as had the damages already awarded by the lower court. Id., at 562-563. The Amiable Nancy arose out of the “gross and wanton” seizure of a Haitian vessel near the island of Antigua by the Scourge, an American privateer. Id., at 546-547, 558. In his opinion for the Court, Justice Story explained that even though the “loss of the supposed profits” of the Amiable Nancy’s voyage was not recoverable, “the prime cost, or value of the property lost, at the time of the loss, and in ease of injury, the diminution in value, by reason of the injury, with interest upon such valuation, afforded the true measure for assessing damages.” Id., at 560 (emphasis added). We applied the same rule in The Umbria, 166 U. S. 404, 421 (1897), explaining that “in cases of total loss by collision damages are limited to the value of the vessel, with interest thereon, and the net freight pending at the time of the collision.” (Emphasis added.)
The Courts of Appeals have consistently and correctly construed decisions such as these as establishing a general rule that prejudgment interest should be awarded in maritime collision cases, subject to a limited exception for “peculiar” or “exceptional” circumstances. See, e. g., Inland Oil & Transport Co., 696 F. 2d, at 327; Central Rivers Towing, Inc. v. Beardstown, 750 F. 2d 565, 574 (CA7 1984); Ohio River Co. v. Peavey Co., 731 F. 2d 547, 549 (CA8 1984); Alkmeon Naviera, 633 F. 2d, at 797; Parker Towing Co. v. Yazoo River Towing, Inc., 794 F. 2d 591, 594 (CA11 1986).
The essential rationale for awarding prejudgment interest is to ensure that an injured party is fully compensated for its loss. Full compensation has long been recognized as a basic principle of admiralty law, where “[rjestitutio in inte-grum is the leading maxim applied by admiralty courts to ascertain damages resulting from a collision.” Standard Oil Co. of N. J. v. Southern Pacific Co., 268 U. S. 146, 158 (1925) (citing The Baltimore, 8 Wall. 377, 885 (1869)). By compensating “for the loss of use of money due as damages from the time the claim accrues until judgment is entered,” West Virginia, 479 U. S., at 310-311, n. 2, an award of prejudgment interest helps achieve the goal of restoring a party to the condition it enjoyed before the injury occurred, The President Madison, 91 F. 2d 835, 845-846 (CA9 1937).
Despite admiralty’s traditional hospitality to prejudgment interest, however, such an award has never been automatic. In The Scotland, 118 U. S. 507, 518-519 (1886), we stated that the “allowance of interest on damages is not an absolute right. Whether it ought or ought not to be allowed depends upon the circumstances of each case, and rests very much in the discretion of the tribunal which has to pass upon the subject, whether it be a court or a jury.” See also The Maggie J. Smith, 123 U. S. 349, 356 (1887). Although we have never attempted to exhaustively catalog the circumstances that will justify the denial of interest, and do not do so today, the most obvious example is the plaintiff’s responsibility for “undue delay in prosecuting the lawsuit.” General Motors Corf. v. Devex Corp., 461 U. S. 648, 657 (1983). Other circumstances may appropriately be invoked as warranted by the facts of particular cases.
In this case, the City asks us to characterize two features of the instant litigation as sufficiently unusual to justify a departure from the general rule that prejudgment interest should be awarded to make the injured party whole. First, the City stresses the fact that there was a good-faith dispute over its liability for respondents’ loss. In our view, however, this fact carries little weight. If interest were awarded as a penalty for bad-faith conduct of the litigation, the City’s argument would be well taken. But prejudgment interest is not awarded as a penalty; it is merely an element of just compensation.
The City’s “good-faith” argument has some resonance with the venerable common-law rule that prejudgment interest is not awarded on unliquidated claims (those where the precise amount of damages at issue cannot be computed). If a party contests liability in good faith, it will usually be the case that the party’s ultimate exposure is uncertain. But the liquidated/unliquidated distinction has faced trenchant criticism for a number of years. Moreover, that distinction “has never become so firmly entrenched in admiralty as it has been at law.” Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc. v. Richardson, 295 F. 2d 583, 592 (CA2 1961). Any fixed rule allowing prejudgment interest only on liquidated claims would be difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with admiralty’s traditional presumption. Yet unless we were willing to adopt such a rule — which we are not — uncertainty about the outcome of a case should not preclude an award of interest.
In sum, the existence of a legitimate difference of opinion on the issue of liability is merely a characteristic of most ordinary lawsuits. It is not an extraordinary circumstance that can justify denying prejudgment interest. See Alkmeon Naviera, 633 F. 2d, at 798.
The second purportedly “peculiar” feature of this case is the magnitude of the plaintiff’s fault. Leaving aside the empirical question whether such a division of fault is in fact an aberration, it is true in this case that the owner of the E. M. Ford was primarily responsible for the vessel’s loss. As a result, it might appear somewhat inequitable to award a large sum in prejudgment interest against a relatively innocent party. But any unfairness is illusory, because the relative fault of the parties has already been taken into consideration in calculating the amount of the loss for which the City is responsible.
In United States v. Reliable Transfer Co., 421 U. S. 397 (1975), we “replaced the divided damages rule, which required an equal division of property damage whatever the relative degree of fault may have been, with a rule requiring that damages be assessed on the basis of proportionate fault when such an allocation can reasonably be made.” McDermott, Inc. v. AmClyde, 511 U. S. 202, 207 (1994). Thus, in this case, before prejudgment interest even entered the picture, the total amount of respondents’ recovery had already been reduced by two-thirds because of National Gypsum’s own negligence. The City’s responsibility for the remaining one-third is no different than if it had performed the same negligent acts and the owner, instead of also being negligent, had engaged in heroic maneuvers that avoided two-thirds of the damages. The City is merely required to compensate the owner for the loss for which the City is responsible.
In light of Reliable Transfer, we are unmoved by the City’s contention that an award of prejudgment interest is inequitable in a mutual fault situation. Indeed, the converse is true: a denial of prejudgment interest would be unfair. As Justice Kennedy noted while he was sitting on the Ninth Circuit, “under any rule allowing apportionment of liability, denying prejudgment interest on the basis of mutual fault would seem to penalize a party twice for the same mistake.” Alkmeon Naviera, 633 F. 2d, at 798, n. 12. Such a double penalty is commended neither by logic nor by fairness; the rule giving rise to it is a relic of history that has ceased to serve any purpose in the wake of Reliable Transfer.
Accordingly, we hold that neither a good-faith dispute over liability nor the existence of mutual fault justifies the denial of pre judgment interest in an admiralty collision case. Questions related to the calculation of the prejudgment interest award, including the rate to be applied, have not been raised in this Court and remain open for consideration, in the first instance, by the District Court.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Justice Breyer took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction, exclusive of the courts of the States, of: (1) Any civil case of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction, saving to suitors in all cases all other remedies to which they are otherwise entitled.” 28 U. S. C. § 1333(1).
Such appeals are authorized by 28 U. S. C. § 1292(a)(3), which states:
“(a) Except as provided in subsections (c) and (d) of this section, the courts of appeals shall have jurisdiction of appeals from: ... (3) Interlocutory decrees of... district courts or the judges thereof determining the rights and liabilities of the parties to admiralty cases in which appeals from final decrees are allowed.”
In arriving at this sum, the parties agreed that respondents’ damages were slightly more than $5.4 million, while the City’s damages were just over $192,000. The parties multiplied respondents’ damages by one-third, resulting in a subtotal of $1,805,829.98 for which the City was responsible. From this subtotal, the parties subtracted two-thirds of the City’s damages, or $128,288.12, as an offset because that was the amount of National Gypsum’s responsibility. The difference was the City’s obligation to respondents. App. 40-45.
This figure was based on respondents’ assertion that pre judgment interest should be compounded continuously, from the time of the sinking of the Ford, at the commercial prime rate of interest averaged over the period of assessment. Plaintiff’s Brief on Issue of Prejudgment Interest in No. 80-C-1001 (ED Wis.), pp. 24-26. The District Court did not express any view on the correctness of this analysis, nor do we. We merely note in passing that the discrepancy between the damages award and the interest sought by National Gypsum is in some measure attributable to the delays that have plagued this litigation — a factor that does not appear to be traceable to the fault of any party.
The District Court also relied on the City’s status as a municipality as an alternative ground for denying prejudgment interest. App. to Pet. for Cert. 22a-23a. The Court of Appeals rejected this portion of the District Court’s analysis as inconsistent with Circuit precedent, and the City did not pursue the argument in this Court.
See also The Anna Maria, 2 Wheat. 327, 335 (1817) (Marshall, C. J.) (remanding with instructions to ascertain damages suffered by the libel-lants, “in doing which, the value of the vessel, and the prime cost of the cargo, with all charges, and the premium of insurance, where it has been paid, with interest, are to be allowed”) (emphasis added); The Manitoba, 122 U. S. 97, 101 (1887) (approving, in dicta, allowance of “interest on the damages from the date of the collision to the date of the decree”).
We have recognized the compensatory nature of prejudgment interest in a number of cases decided outside the admiralty context. E. g., West Virginia v. United States, 479 U. S. 305, 310-311, n. 2 (1987); Funkhouser v. J. B. Preston Co., 290 U. S. 163, 168 (1933); Miller v. Robertson, 266 U. S. 243, 257-258 (1924). But cf. Blau v. Lehman, 368 U. S. 403, 414 (1962) (“ ‘interest is not recovered according to a rigid theory of compensation for money withheld, but is given in response to considerations of fairness’ ”) (quoting Board of Comm’rs of Jackson Cty. v. United States, 308 U. S. 343, 352 (1939)).
We do note that, as is always the case when an issue is committed to judicial discretion, the judge’s decision must be supported by a circumstance that has relevance to the issue at hand. See generally Friendly, Indiscretion About Discretion, 31 Emory L. J. 747 (1982).
“It has been recognized that a distinction, in this respect, simply as between cases of liquidated and unliquidated damages, is not a sound one.” Funkhouser, 290 U. S., at 168 (citing Bernhard v. Rochester German Ins. Co., 79 Conn. 388, 398, 65 A. 134, 137-138 (1906); 1 T. Sedgwick, Measure of Damages § 315 (9th ed. 1912)). See also General Motors Corp. v. Devex Corp., 461 U. S. 648, 665-656, n. 10 (1983); D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies § 3.6(3) (2d ed. 1993); C. McCormick, Law of Damages §§ 51, 54-56 (1935); Rothschild, Prejudgment Interest: Survey and Suggestion, 77 Nw. U. L. Rev. 192 (1982).
A number of Circuits have rejected its applicability, at least as an absolute bar. E. g., Borges v. Our Lady of the Sea Corp., 935 F. 2d 436, 444 (CA1 1991); Hillier v. Southern Towing Co., 740 F. 2d 683, 586 (CA7 1984), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 1190 (1985); Norfolk Shipbuilding & Drydock Corp. v. M/Y La Belle Simone, 537 F. 2d 1201, 1204-1206, and n. 1 (CA4 1976); Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc. v. Richardson, 295 F 2d, at 594.
Indeed, although the amount is relatively small in this case, the City’s counterclaim was resolved under the same principle. Notwithstanding its contributory negligence, the City has been compensated for two-thirds of its cost of repairing the dock and headwall. See n. 3, supra.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
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 ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
Petitioners are a union and six of its members employed by the respondent interstate motor freight common carrier. The present action was brought in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, and jurisdiction was predicated on § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 29 U. S. C. § 185. In their complaint, petitioners alleged that the respondent had refused to comply with a ruling of the Joint Area Cartage Committee, directing that the individual petitioners be reinstated with full seniority and back pay. The Committee’s ruling was asserted to have been handed down in accordance with the grievance procedures established in the collective bargaining agreement between the union and the employer. The relief demanded in the complaint included the reinstatement of the individual petitioners, with full back pay and fringe benefits to the time of reinstatement.
Respondent, after filing its answer, moved to dismiss the complaint. The District Court granted the motion on the pleadings as supplemented at pretrial conference by excerpts from the Local Cartage Agreement between the union and the employer. The District Court’s ground for dismissing the complaint was want of federal jurisdiction, a result deemed compelled by our decision in Association of Westinghouse Salaried Employees v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 348 U. S. 437. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, 298 F. 2d 341, but added two more grounds in support of the order of dismissal: (1) That the determination of the Joint Area Cartage Committee was not an arbitration award and so not enforceable under § 301; (2) That on the merits petitioners were not entitled to the relief ordered by the Joint Area Cartage Committee. We granted certiorari, 371 U. S. 810. We reverse and remand to the District Court for trial.
According to the allegations of the complaint, the six individual petitioners were discharged because they chose to respect and did respect a picket line established by another union at a place of business of respondent. Contending that such discharge violated Article IX of the Local Cartage Agreement, which provides in part that “it shall not be cause for discharge if any employee or employees refuse to go through the picket line of a union . . . ,” petitioners invoked the grievance machinery set up by the Agreement, and processed their grievances through the provided channels culminating in the Joint Area Cartage Committee’s determination. Article VIII, § 1 (e), of the Agreement provides: “It is agreed that all matters pertaining to the interpretation of any provisions of this contract shall be referred, at the request of any party at any time, for final decision to the Joint Area Cartage Committee . . . .”
If, as petitioners allege, the award of the Joint Area Cartage Committee is under the collective bargaining agreement final and binding, the District Court has jurisdiction under § 301 to enforce it, notwithstanding our Westinghouse decision. See Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448,456, n. 6; United Steelworkers v. Pullman-Standard Car Mfg. Co., 241 F. 2d 547, 551-552 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1957). Plainly, this allegation cannot be rejected on the basis merely of what the present record shows. It is not enough that the word “arbitration” does not appear in the collective bargaining agreement, for we have held that the policy of the Labor Act “can be effectuated only if the means chosen by the parties for settlement of their differences under a collective bargaining agreement is given full play.” United Steelworkers v. American Mfg. Co., 363 U. S. 564, 566; cf. Retail Clerks v. Lion Dry Goods, Inc., 369 U. S. 17. Thus, if the award at bar is the parties’ chosen instrument for the definitive settlement of grievances under the Agreement, it is enforceable under § 301. And if the Joint Area Cartage Committee’s award is thus enforceable, it is of course not open to the courts to reweigh the merits of the grievance. American Mfg. Co., supra, at 567-568.
Of course, if it should be decided after trial that the grievance award involved here is not final and binding under the collective bargaining agreement, no action under § 301 to enforce it will lie. Then, should petitioners seek to pursue the action as a § 301 suit for breach of contract, there may have to be considered questions unresolved by our prior decisions. We need not reach those questions here. But since the courts below placed so much reliance on the Westinghouse decision, we deem it appropriate to repeat our conclusion in Smith v. Evening News Assn., 371 U. S. 195,199, that “subsequent decisions . . . have removed the underpinnings of Westinghouse and its holding is no longer authoritative as a precedent.”
Reversed and remanded.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case tests by habeas corpus the validity of Article 2 (11) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U. S. C. § 802, as applied to á civilian tried by court-martial for a capital offense while employed overseas by the United States Army. It is a companion case to No. 22, Kinsella v. Singleton, ante, p. 234, which involves the application of the same Article to noncapital offenses committed by dependents accompanying soldiers stationed outside the United States, and to No. 21, McElroy v. Guagliardo, and No. 37, Wilson v. Bohlender, post, p. 281, involving noncapital offenses committed by armed-services employees while stationed overseas — all of which cases are decided today.
Petitioner, a civilian employee of the United States Army attached to an Army installation in France, was tried by a general court-martial for the capital offense of premeditated murder as defined in Article 118 (1) of thé Uniform Code of Military Justice. He was 'found guilty of the lesser and included offense of unpremeditated, murder, and sentenced to confinement at hard labor for the term of-his natural life. The'sentence was subsequently reduced to 35 years. While serving this sentence at the United States Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, he filed this petition for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that Article 2 (11) was unconstitutional as applied to him, for the reason that Congress lacked the power to deprive him of a civil trial affording all of the protections of Article III and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution. • The writ was dismissed, 161 F. Supp. 112, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, 261 F. 2d 204. In the light of the opinion of this Court on the rehearing in Reid v. Covert, 354 U. S. 1 (1957), as well as that of the Court of Appeals on the issue of the severability, of Article 2 (11) in Guagliardo v. McElroy, 259 F. 2d 927, we granted certiorari. 359 U. S. 978 (1959).
We are of the opinion that this case is controlled by Reid v. Covert, supra. It decided that the application of the Article to civilian dependents charged with capital offenses while accompanying servicemen outside the United States was unconstitutional as violative of Article III and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.- We have carefully considered the Government’s position as to the distinctions between civilian dependents and civilian employees, especially its voluminous historical materials relating to court-martial jurisdiction. However, the considerations pointed out in Covert have equal applicability here. Those who controlled the majority there held that the death penalty is so irreversible that a dependent charged with a capital crime' must have the benefit of a jury. The awesomeness of the death penalty has no-less impact when applied to civilian employees. Continued adherence to Covert requires civilian employees to be afforded the same right of trial by jury. Furthermore, the number of civilian employees is much smaller than the number of dependents, and the alternative procedures available for controlling discipline as to the former more' effective. See McElroy v. Guagliardo, post, p. 281. For the purposes of this decision, we cannot say that there are any valid distinctions between the two classes of persons. The judgment is therefore reversed.
It is so ordered.
[For opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan, joined by Mr. Justice Frankfurter, see ante, p. 249.]
[For opinion of Mr. Justice Whittaker, joined by Mr. Justice Stewart, see ante, p. 259.]
Art. 2. “The following persons are subject to this chapter:
“(11) Subject to any treaty or agreement to which the United States is or may be a party or to any accepted rule of international law, persons serving with, employed by, or accompanying the armed forces outside the United States and outside the following: that part of Alaska east of longitude 172 degrees west, the Canal Zone, the main group of the Hawaiian Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.”
In the light of our opinion in No. 21, McElroy v. Guagliardo, handed down today, post, p. 281, we deny the contention that the article is honseverable.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in this case is whether the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, deprives a state court of the power to entertain, an action by an employer to enforce state trespass laws against picketing which is arguably — but not definitely — prohibited or protected by federal law.
I
On October 24, 1973, two business representatives of respondent Union visited the department store operated by petitioner (Sears) in Chula Vista, Cal., and determined that certain carpentry work was being performed by men who had not been dispatched from the Union hiring hall. Later that day, the Union agents met with the store manager and requested that Sears either arrange to have the work performed by a contractor who employed dispatched carpenters or agree in writing to abide by the terms of the Union's master labor agreement with respect to the dispatch and use of carpenters. The Sears manager stated that he would consider the request, but he never accepted or rejected it.
Two days later the Union established picket lines on Sears' property. The store is located in the center of a large rectangular lot. The building is surrounded by walkways and a large parking area. A concrete wall at one end separates the lot from residential property; the other three sides adjoin public sidewalks which are adjacent to the public streets. The pickets patrolled either on the privately owned walkways next to the building or in the parking area a few feet away. They carried signs indicating that they were sanctioned by the “Carpenters Trade Union." The picketing was peaceful and orderly.
Sears' security manager demanded that the Union remove the pickets from Sears’ property. The Union refused, stating that the pickets would not leave unless forced to do so by legal action. On October 29, Sears filed a verified complaint in the Superior Court of California seeking an injunction against the continuing trespass; the court entered a temporary restraining order enjoining the Union from picketing on Sears’ property. The Union promptly removed the pickets to the public sidewalks. On November 21, 1973, after hearing argument on the question whether the Union’s picketing on Sears’ property was protected by state or federal law, the court entered a preliminary injunction. The California Court of Appeal affirmed. While acknowledging the pre-emption guidelines set forth in San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, the court held that the Union’s continuing trespass fell within the longstanding exception for conduct which touched interests so deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility that pre-emption could not be inferred in the absence of clear evidence of congressional intent.
The Supreme Court of California reversed. 17 Cal. 3d 893, 553 P. 2d 603. It concluded that the picketing was arguably protected by § 7 of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 157, because it was intended to secure work for Union members and to publicize Sears’ undercutting of the prevailing area standards for the. employment of carpenters. The court reasoned that the trespassory character of the picketing did not disqualify it from arguable protection, but was merely a factor which the National Labor Relations Board would consider in determining whether or not it was in fact protected. The court also considered it “arguable” that the Union had engaged in recog-nitional picketing subject to §8 (b)(7)(C) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b)(7)(C), which could not continue for more than 30 days without petitioning for a representation election. Because the picketing was both arguably protected by § 7 and arguably prohibited by § 8, the court held that state jurisdiction was pre-empted under the Garmon guidelines.
Since the Wagner Act was passed in 1935, this Court has not decided whether, or under what circumstances, a state court has power to enforce local trespass laws against a union’s peaceful picketing. The obvious importance of this problem led us to grant certiorari in this case. 430 U. S. 905.
II
We start from the premise that the Union’s picketing on Sears’ property after the request to leave was a continuing trespass in violation of state law. We note, however, that the scope of the controversy in the state court was limited. Sears asserted no claim that the picketing itself violated any state or federal law. It sought simply to remove the pickets from its property to the public walkways, and the injunction issued by the state court was strictly confined to the relief sought. Thus, as a matter of state law, the location of the picketing was illegal but the picketing itself was unobjectionable.
As a matter of federal law, the legality of the picketing was unclear. Two separate theories would support an argument by Sears that the picketing was prohibited by § 8 of the NURA, and a third theory would support an argument by the Union that the picketing was protected by § 7. Under each of these theories the Union’s purpose would be of critical importance.
If an object of the picketing was to force Sears into assigning the carpentry work aw’ay from its employees to Union members dispatched from the hiring hall, the picketing may have been prohibited by § 8 (b)(4)(D). Alternatively, if an object of the picketing was to coerce Sears into signing a prehire or members-only type agreement with the Union, the picketing was at least arguably subject to the prohibition on recognitional picketing contained in §8 (b)(7)(C). Hence, if Sears had filed an unfair labor practice charge against the Union, the Board’s concern would have been limited to the question whether the Union’s picketing had an objective proscribed by the Act; the location of the picketing would have been irrelevant.
On the other hand, the Union contends that the sole objective of its action was to secure compliance by Sears with area standards, and therefore the picketing was protected by § 7. Longshoremen v. Ariadne Shipping Co., 397 U. S. 195. Thus, if the Union had filed an unfair labor practice charge under § 8 (a) (1) when Sears made a demand that the pickets leave its property, it is at least arguable that the Board would have found Sears guilty of an unfair labor practice.
Our second premise, therefore, is that the picketing was both arguably prohibited and arguably protected by federal law. The case is not, however, one in which “it is clear or may fairly be assumed” that the subject matter which the state court sought to regulate — that is, the location of the picketing — is either prohibited or protected by the Federal Act.
Ill
In San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, the Court made two statements which have come to be accepted as the general guidelines for deciphering the unexpressed intent of Congress regarding the permissible scope of state regulation of activity touching upon labor-management relations. The first related to activity which is clearly protected or prohibited by the federal statute. The second articulated a more sweeping prophylactic rule:
“When an activity is arguably subject to § 7 or § 8 of the Act, the States as well as the federal courts must defer to the exclusive competence of the National Labor Relations Board if the danger of state interference with national policy is to be averted.” Id., at 245.
While the Garmon formulation accurately reflects the basic federal concern with potential state interference with national labor policy, the history of the labor pre-emption doctrine in this Court does not support an approach which sweeps away state-court jurisdiction over conduct traditionally subject to state regulation without careful consideration of the relative impact of such a jurisdictional bar on the various interests affected. As the Court noted last Term:
“Our cases indicate... that inflexible application of the doctrine is to be avoided, especially where the State has a substantial interest in regulation of the conduct at issue and the State’s interest is one that does not threaten undue interference with the federal regulatory scheme.” Farmer v. Carpenters, 430 U. S. 290, 302.
Thus the Court has refused to apply the Garmon guidelines in a literal, mechanical fashion. This refusal demonstrates that “the decision to pre-empt... state court jurisdiction over a given class of cases must depend upon the nature of the particular interests being asserted and the effect upon the administration of national labor policies” of permitting the state court to proceed. Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 180.
With this limitation in mind, we turn to the question whether pre-emption is justified in a case of this kind under either the arguably protected or the arguably prohibited branch of the Garmon doctrine. While the considerations underlying the two categories overlap, they differ in significant respects and therefore it is useful to review them separately. We therefore first consider whether the arguable illegality of the picketing as a matter of federal law should oust the state court of jurisdiction to enjoin its trespassory aspects. Thereafter, we consider whether the arguably protected character of the picketing should have that effect.
IV
The enactment of the NLRA in 1935 marked a fundamental change in the Nation’s labor policies. Congress expressly recognized that collective organization of segments of the labor force into bargaining units capable of exercising economic power comparable to that possessed by employers may produce benefits for the entire economy in the form of higher wages, job security, and improved working conditions. Congress decided that in the long run those benefits would outweigh the occasional costs of industrial strife associated with the organization of unions and the negotiation and enforcement of collective-bargaining agreements. The earlier notion that union activity was a species of “conspiracy” and that strikes and picketing were examples of unreasonable restraints of trade was replaced by an unequivocal national declaration of policy establishing the legitimacy of labor unionization and encouraging the practice of collective bargaining.
The new federal statute protected the collective-bargaining activities of employees and their representatives and created a regulatory scheme to be administered by an independent agency which would develop experience and expertise in the labor relations area. The Court promptly decided that the federal agency’s power to implement the policies of the new legislation was exclusive and the States were without power to enforce overlapping rules. Accordingly, attempts to apply provisions of the “Little Wagner Acts” enacted by New York and Wisconsin were held to be pre-empted by the potential conflict with the federal regulatory scheme. Consistently with these holdings, the Court also decided that a State’s employment relations board had no power to grant relief for violation of the federal statute. The interest in uniform development of the new national labor policy required that matters which fell squarely within the regulatory jurisdiction of the federal Board be evaluated in the first instance by that agency.
The leading case holding that when an employer grievance against a union may be presented to the National Labor Relations Board it is not subject to litigation in a state tribunal is Garner v. Teamsters, 346 U. S. 485. Garner involved peaceful organizational picketing which arguably violated § 8 (b) (2) of the federal Act. A Pennsylvania equity court held that the picketing violated the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act and therefore should be enjoined. The State Supreme Court reversed because the union conduct fell within the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board to prevent unfair labor practices.
This Court affirmed because Congress had “taken in hand this particular type of controversy... [i]n language almost identical to parts of the Pennsylvania statute,” 346 U. S., at 488. Accordingly, the State, through its courts, was without power to “adjudge the same controversy and extend its own form of relief.” Id., at 489. This conclusion did not depend on any surmise as to “how the National Labor Relations Board might have decided this controversy had petitioners presented it to that body.” Ibid. The precise conduct in controversy was arguably prohibited by federal law and therefore state jurisdiction was pre-empted. The reason for pre-emption was clearly articulated:
“Congress evidently considered that centralized administration of specially designed procedures was necessary to obtain uniform application of its substantive rules and to avoid these diversities and conflicts likely to result from a variety of local procedures and attitudes toward labor controversies. Indeed, Pennsylvania passed a statute the same year as its labor relations Act reciting abuses of the injunction in labor litigations attributable more to procedure and usage than to substantive rules. A multiplicity of tribunals and a diversity of procedures are quite as apt to produce incompatible or conflicting adjudications as are different rules of substantive law. The same reasoning which prohibits federal courts from intervening in such cases, except by way of review or on application of the federal Board, precludes state courts from doing so. Cf. Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U. S. 41; Amalgamated Utility Workers v. Consolidated Edison Co., 309 U. S. 261.” Id., at 490-491 (footnote omitted). “The conflict lies in remedies.... [W]hen two separate remedies are brought to bear on the same activity, a conflict is imminent.” Id., at 498-499.
This reasoning has its greatest force when applied to state laws regulating the relations between employees, their union, and their employer. It may also apply' to certain laws of general applicability which are occasionally invoked in connection with a labor dispute. Thus, a State’s antitrust law may not be invoked to enjoin collective activity which is also arguably prohibited by the federal Act. Capital Service, Inc. v. NLRB, 347 U. S. 501; Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 348 U. S. 468. In each case, the pertinent inquiry is whether the two potentially conflicting statutes were “brought to bear on precisely the same conduct.” Id., at 479.
On the other hand, the Court has allowed a State to enforce certain laws of general applicability even though aspects of the challenged conduct were arguably prohibited by § 8 of the NLRA. Thus, for example, the Court has upheld state-court jurisdiction over conduct that touches “interests so deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility that, in the absence of compelling congressional direction, we could not infer that Congress had deprived the States of the power to act.” San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S., at 244. See Construction Workers v. Laburnum Constr. Corp., 347 U. S. 656 (threats of violence); Youngdahl v. Rainfair, Inc., 355 U. S. 131 (violence); Automobile Workers v. Russell, 356 U. S. 634 (violence); Linn v. Plant Guard Workers, 383 U. S. 53 (libel); Farmer v. Carpenters, 430 U. S. 290 (intentional infliction of mental distress).
In Farmer, the Court held that a union member, who alleged that his union had engaged in a campaign of personal abuse and harassment against him, could maintain an action for damages against the union and its officers for the intentional infliction of emotional distress. One aspect of the alleged campaign was discrimination by the union in hiring hall referrals. Although such discrimination was arguably prohibited by § § 8 (b)(1)(A) and 8 (b)(2) of the NLRA and therefore an unfair labor practice charge could have been filed with the Board, the Court permitted the state action to proceed.
The Court identified those factors which warranted a departure from the general pre-emption guidelines in the “local interest” cases. Two are relevant to the arguably prohibited branch of the Garmon doctrine. First, there existed a significant state interest in protecting the citizen from the challenged conduct. Second, although the challenged conduct occurred in the course of a labor dispute and an unfair labor practice charge could have been filed, the exercise of state jurisdiction over the tort claim entailed little risk of interference with the regulatory jurisdiction of the Labor Board. Although the arguable federal violation and the state tort arose in the same factual setting, the respective controversies presented to the state and federal forums would not have been the same.
The critical inquiry, therefore, is not whether the State is enforcing a law relating specifically to labor relations or one of general application but whether the controversy presented to the state court is identical to (as in Garner) or different from (as in Farmer) that which could have been, but was not, presented to the Labor Board. For it is only in the former situation that a state court’s exercise of jurisdiction necessarily involves a risk of interference with the unfair labor practice jurisdiction of the Board which the arguably prohibited branch of the Garmon doctrine was designed to avoid.
In the present case, the controversy which Sears might have presented to the Labor Board is not the same as the controversy presented to the state court. If Sears had filed a charge,, the federal issue would have been whether the picketing had a recognitional or work-reassignment objective; decision of that issue would have entailed relatively complex factual and legal determinations completely unrelated to the simple question whether a trespass had occurred. Conversely, in the state action, Sears only challenged the location of the picketing; whether the picketing had an objective proscribed by federal law was irrelevant to the state claim. Accordingly, permitting the state court to adjudicate Sears’ trespass claim would create no realistic risk of interference with the Labor Board’s primary jurisdiction to enforce the statutory prohibition against unfair labor practices.
The reasons why pre-emption of state jurisdiction is normally appropriate when union activity is arguably prohibited by federal law plainly do not apply to this situation; they therefore are insufficient to preclude a State from exercising jurisdiction limited to the trespassory aspects of that activity.
V
The question whether the arguably protected character of the Union’s trespassory picketing provides a sufficient justification for pre-emption of the state court’s jurisdiction over Sears’ trespass claim involves somewhat different considerations.
Apart from notions of “primary jurisdiction,” there would be no objection to state courts’ and the NLRB’s exercising concurrent jurisdiction over conduct prohibited by the federal Act. But there is a constitutional objection to state-court interference with conduct actually protected by the Act. Considerations of federal supremacy, therefore, are implicated to a greater extent when labor-related activity is protected than when it is prohibited. Nevertheless, several considerations persuade us that the mere fact that the Union’s trespass was arguably protected is insufficient to deprive the state court of jurisdiction in this case.
The first is the relative unimportance in this context of the “primary jurisdiction” rationale articulated in Garmon. In theory, of course, that rationale supports pre-emption regardless of which section of the NLRA is critical to resolving a controversy which may be subject to the regulatory jurisdiction of the NLRB.. Indeed, at first blush, the primary-jurisdiction rationale provides stronger support for pre-emption in this case when the analysis is focused upon the arguably protected, rather than the arguably prohibited, character of the Union’s conduct. For to the extent that the Union’s picketing was arguably protected, there existed a potential overlap between the controversy presented to the state court and that which the Union might have brought before the NLRB. Prior to granting any relief from the Union's continuing trespass, the state court was obligated to decide that the trespass was not actually protected by federal law, a determination which might entail an accommodation of Sears’ property rights and the Union’s § 7 rights. In an unfair labor practice proceeding initiated by the Union, the Board might have been required to make the same accommodation.
Although it was theoretically possible for the accommodation issue to be decided either by the state court or by the Labor Board, there was in fact no risk of overlapping jurisdiction in this case. The primary-jurisdiction rationale justifies pre-emption only in situations in which an aggrieved party has a reasonable opportunity either to invoke the Board’s jurisdiction himself or else to induce his adversary to do so. In this case, Sears could not directly obtain a Board ruling on the question whether the Union’s trespass was federally protected. Such a Board determination could have been obtained only if the Union had filed an unfair labor practice charge alleging that Sears had interfered with the Union’s § 7 right to engage in peaceful picketing on Sears’ property. By demanding that the Union remove its pickets from the store’s property, Sears in fact pursued a course of action which gave the Union the opportunity to file such a charge. But the Union’s response to Sears’ demand foreclosed the possibility of having the accommodation of § 7 and property rights made by the Labor Board; instead of filing a charge with the Board, the Union advised Sears that the pickets would only depart under compulsion of legal process.
In the face of the Union’s intransigence, Sears had only three options: permit the pickets to remain on its property; forcefully evict the pickets; or seek the protection of the State’s trespass laws. Since the Union’s conduct violated state law, Sears legitimately rejected the first option. Since the second option involved a risk of violence, Sears surely had the right — perhaps even the duty — to reject it. Only by proceeding in state court, therefore, could Sears obtain an orderly resolution of the question whether the Union had a federal right to remain on its property.
The primary-jurisdiction rationale unquestionably requires that when the same controversy may be presented to the state court or the NLRB, it must be presented to the Board. But that rationale does not extend to cases in which an employer has no acceptable method of invoking, or inducing the Union to invoke, the jurisdiction of the Board. We are therefore persuaded that the primary-jurisdiction rationale does not provide a sufficient justification for pre-empting state jurisdiction over arguably protected conduct when the party who could have presented the protection issue to the Board has not done so and the other party to the dispute has no acceptable means of doing so.
This conclusion does not, however, necessarily foreclose the possibility that pre-emption may be appropriate. The danger of state interference with federally protected conduct is the principal concern of the second branch of the Garmon doctrine. To allow the exercise of state jurisdiction in certain contexts might create a significant risk of misinterpretation of federal law and the consequent prohibition of protected conduct. In those circumstances, it might be reasonable to infer that Congress preferred the costs inherent in a jurisdictional hiatus to the frustration of national labor policy which might accompany the exercise of state jurisdiction. Thus, the acceptability of “arguable protection” as a justification for pre-emption in a given class of cases is, at least in part, a function of the strength of the argument that § 7 does in fact protect the disputed conduct.
The Court has held that state jurisdiction to enforce its laws prohibiting violence, defamation, the intentional infliction of emotional distress, or obstruction of access to property is not pre-empted by the NLRA. But none of those violations of state law involves protected conduct. In contrast, some violations of state trespass laws may be actually protected by § 7 of the federal Act.
In NLRB v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 351 U. S. 105, for example, the Court recognized that in certain circumstances non-employee union organizers may have a limited right of access to an employer’s premises for the purpose of engaging in organization solicitation. And the Court has indicated that Babcock extends to § 7 rights other than organizational activity, though the “locus” of the “accommodation of § 7 rights and private property rights... 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.” Hudgens v. NLRB, 424 U. S. 507, 522.
For purpose of analysis we must assume that the Union could have proved that its picketing was, at least in the absence of a trespass, protected by § 7. The remaining question is whether under Babcock the trespassory nature of the picketing caused it to forfeit its protected status. Since it cannot be said with certainty that, if the Union had filed an unfair labor practice charge against Sears, the Board would have fixed the locus of the accommodation at the unprotected end of the spectrum, it is indeed “arguable” that the Union's peaceful picketing, though trespassory, was protected. Nevertheless, permitting state courts to evaluate the merits of an argument that certain trespassory activity is protected does not create an unacceptable risk of interference with conduct which the Board, and a court reviewing the Board's decision, would find protected. For while there are unquestionably examples of trespassory union activity in which the question whether it is protected is fairly debatable, experience under the Act teaches that such situations are rare and that a trespass is far more likely to be unprotected than protected.
Experience with trespassory organizational solicitation by nonemployees is instructive in this regard. While Babcock indicates that an employer may not always bar nonemployee union organizers from his property, his right to do so remains the general rule. To gain access, the union has the burden of showing that no other reasonable means of communicating its organizational message to the employees exists or that the employer’s access rules discriminate against union solicitation. That the burden imposed on the union is a heavy one is evidenced by the fact that the balance struck by the Board and the courts under the Babcock accommodation principle has rarely been in favor of trespassory organizational activity.
Even on the assumption that picketing to enforce area standards is entitled to the same deference in the Babcock accommodation analysis as organizational solicitation, it would be unprotected in most instances. While there does exist some risk that state courts will on occasion enjoin a trespass that the Board would have protected, the significance of this risk is minimized by the fact that in the cases in which the argument in favor of protection is the strongest, the union is likely to invoke the Board's jurisdiction and thereby avoid the state forum. Whatever risk of an erroneous state-court adjudication does exist is outweighed by the anomalous consequence of a rule which would deny the employer access to any forum in which to litigate either the trespass issue or the protection issue in those cases in which the disputed conduct is least likely to be protected by § 7.
If there is a strong argument that the trespass is protected in a particular case, a union can be expected to respond to an employer demand to depart by filing an unfair labor practice charge; the protection question would then be decided by the agency experienced in accommodating the § 7 rights of unions and the property rights of employers in the context of a labor dispute. But if the argument for protection is so weak that it has virtually no chance of prevailing, a trespassing union would be well advised to avoid the jurisdiction of the Board and to argue that the protected character of its conduct deprives the state court of jurisdiction.
As long as the union has a fair opportunity to present the protection issue to the Labor Board, it retains meaningful protection against the risk of error in a state tribunal. In this case the Union failed to invoke the jurisdiction of the Labor Board, and Sears had no right to invoke that jurisdiction and could not even precipitate its exercise without resort to self-help. Because the assertion of state jurisdiction in a case of this kind does not create a significant risk of prohibition of protected conduct, we are unwilling to presume that Congress intended the arguably protected character of the Union’s conduct to deprive the California courts of jurisdiction to entertain Sears’ trespass action.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of California is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
49 Stat. 449, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §§ 151-169 (1970 ed. and Supp. V). Hereinafter, the National Labor Relations Act will be referred to as the Act or the NLRA.
Although Sears claimed that some deliverymen and repairmen refused to cross the picket lines on the public sidewalks, the Union ultimately concluded that the picketing was then too far removed from the store to be effective. The picketing was discontinued on November 12.
The Superior Court apparently rested its decision on two grounds: (1) that the injunction was not prohibited by state law, and (2) that the picketing was not protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Federal Constitution. Transcript of Preliminary Injunction Hearing, App. 32. Thus, the precise issue presently before the Court was not decided until the case reached the Court of Appeal.
The court was referring to this statement in the Garmon opinion:
“When an activity is arguably subject to § 7, or § 8 of the Act, the States as well as the federal courts must defer to the exclusive competence of the National Labor Relations Board if the danger of state interference with national policy is to be averted.” 359 U. S., at 245.
The court also reaffirmed the conclusion of the Superior Court that the injunction was not prohibited by either state law or the Federal Constitution.
In concluding that the state courts were “not preempted from exercising their general jurisdiction in matters of trespass related to labor disputes,” App. to Pet. for Cert. A-10, the Court of Appeal noted that the right to peaceful possession of property was regarded as basic in California and that the assumption of state jurisdiction would not directly infringe on the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board, since no attempt had been made to invoke that jurisdiction. In a subsequent amended opinion, the Court of Appeal also emphasized the fact that the trial court injunction was narrowly confined to the “ ‘location' of the controversy as opposed to the purpose of the acts... and did not deny the Union effective communication with all persons going to Sears.” 125 Cal. Rptr. 245, 252 (1975).
The issue was left open by the Court in Meat Cutters v. Fairlawn Meats, Inc., 353 U. S. 20, 24-25. Cf. Taggart v. Weinacker’s, Inc., 283 Ala. 171, 214 So. 2d 913 (1968), cert. dismissed, 397 U. S. 223.
The state courts have divided on the question of state-court jurisdiction over peaceful trespassory activity. For cases in addition to this one in which pre-emption was found, see, e. g., Reece Shirley & Ron’s, Inc. v. Retail Store Employees, 222 Kan. 373, 565 P. 2d 585 (1977); Freeman v. Retail Clerks, 58 Wash. 2d 426, 363 P. 2d 803 (1961). For cases reaching a contrary conclusion, see, e. g., May Department Stores Co. v. Teamsters, 64 Ill. 2d 153, 355 N. E. 2d 7 (1976); People v. Bush, 39 N. Y. 2d 529, 349 N. E. 2d 832 (1976); Hood v. Stafford, 213 Tenn. 684, 378 S. W. 2d 766 (1964).
The State Superior Court and the Court of Appeal concluded that the Union’s activity violated state law. Because it concluded that the state courts lacked jurisdiction to entertain the state trespass claim, the California Supreme Court did not address the merits of the lower court rulings. The Union contends that those rulings were incorrect. Though we regard the state-law issue as foreclosed in this Court, there is of course nothing in our decision on the pre-emption issue which bars consideration of the Union’s arguments by the California Supreme Court on remand.
Section 8 (b) (4) (D) provides in part that it shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents—
“to threaten, coerce, or restrain any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce, where... an object thereof is—
“forcing or requiring any employer to' assign particular work to employees in a particular labor organization or in a particular trade, craft, or class rather than to employees in another labor organization or in another trade, craft, or class, unless such employer is failing to conform to an order or certification of the Board determining the bargaining representative for employees performing such work.” 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b) (4) (D).
There are two provisos to § 8 (b) (4) which exempt certain conduct from its prohibitions, but they appear to have no application in this case.
Section 8 (b) (7) (C) provides in part that “[i]t shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents—
“to picket... any employer where an object thereof is forcing or requiring an employer to recognize or bargain with a labor organization as the representative of his employees... unless such labor organization is currently certified as the representative of such employees:
“where such picketing has been conducted without a petition... [for a representation election] being filed within a reasonable period of time not to exceed thirty days from the commencement of such picketing....” 29 U. S. C. §158 (b)(7)(C).
As to conduct clearly protected or prohibited by the federal statute, the Court stated:
“When it is clear or may fairly be assumed that the activities which a State purports to regulate are protected by § 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, or constitute an unfair labor practice under § 8, due regard for the federal enactment requires that state jurisdiction must yield. To leave the States free to regulate conduct so plainly within the central aim of federal regulation involves too great a danger of conflict between power asserted by Congress and requirements imposed by state law.” 359 U. S., at 244.
This sensitivity to the consequences of pre-emption is undoubtedly attributable, at least in part, to the way in which the labor pre-emption doctrine has evolved. The doctrine is to a great extent the result of this Court's ongoing effort to decipher the presumed intent of Congress in the face of that body’s steadfast silence. Mr. Justice Frankfurter aptly described the difficulty of this never-completed task: “The statutory implications concerning what has been taken from the States and what has been left to them are of a Delphic nature, to be translated into concreteness by the process of litigating elucidation.” Machinists v. Gonzales, 356 U. S. 617, 619. And it is “because Congress has refrained from providing specific directions with respect to the scope of pre-empted state regulation, [that] the Court has been unwilling to 'declare pre-empted all local regulation that touches or concerns in any way the complex interrelationships between employees, employers, and unions Farmer v. Carpenters, 430 U. S. 290, 295-296 (citation omitted).
“We have refused to apply the pre-emption doctrine to activity that otherwise would fall within the scope of Garmon if that activity 'was a merely peripheral concern of the Labor Management Relations Act... [or] touched interests so deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility that, in the absence of compelling congressional direction, we could not infer that Congress had deprived the States of the power to act.'... We also have refused to apply the pre-emption doctrine ‘where the particular rule of law sought to be invoked before another tribunal is so structured and administered that, in virtually all instances, it is safe to presume that judicial supervision will not disserve the interests promoted by the federal labor statutes.’ ” Id., at 296-297.
The Court’s rejection of an inflexible pre-emption approach is reflected in other situations as well. Where only a minor aspect of the controversy presented to the state court is arguably within the regulatory jurisdiction of the Labor Board, the Court has indicated that the Garmon rule should not be read to require pre-emption of state jurisdiction. Hanna Mining Co. v. Marine Engineers, 382 U. S. 181. The Court has also indicated that if the state court can ascertain the actual legal significance of particular conduct under federal law by reference to “compelling precedent applied to
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
The motion by Vermont for leave to file a bill oí complaint invoking our original jurisdiction against New York and against International Paper Co., a New York corporation doing business in New York, is granted. New York and International Paper Co. are given until June 19, 1972, to answer the bill of complaint.
So ordered.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
Appellant Daniel was tried before a jury of the Twenty-second Judicial District Court of Louisiana and convicted of armed robbery on November 20, 1973. The jury that tried appellant was selected from a venire chosen in accordance with the procedures then provided for in La. Const., Art. VII, § 41, and La. Code Crim. Proc., Art. 402. Appellant raised a timely motion to quash the petit jury venire, contending that these procedures violated the Fourteenth Amendment because they resulted in the systematic exclusion of women from the petit jury venire from which his jury was chosen. His motion to quash was denied and this denial was affirmed on appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court. 297 So. 2d 417 (1974).
In Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U. S. 522 (1975), we held that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments command that petit juries must be selected from a source fairly representative of the community. In this case, it is not disputed that the jury venire from which appellant's petit jury was chosen did not constitute a fair cross section of the community. The question is whether our decision in Taylor v. Louisiana is to be applied retroactively to other defendants whose opportunity to raise a timely objection to the jury-selection procedures had passed as of the date of our decision in Taylor. We hold that Taylor is not to be applied retroactively, as a matter of federal law, to convictions obtained by juries empaneled prior to the date of that decision.
As we stated in Taylor v. Louisiana, supra, at 535-536, “until today no case had squarely held that the exclusion of women from jury venires deprives a criminal defendant of his Sixth Amendment right to trial by an impartial jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community.” Given this statement, as well as the doctrinal underpinnings of the decision in Taylor, the question of the retroactive application of Taylor is clearly controlled by our decision in DeStefano v. Woods, 392 U. S. 631 (1968), where we held Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968), to be applicable only prospectively. The three relevant factors, as identified in Stovall v. Denno, 388 U. S. 293, 297 (1967), are
“(a) the purpose to be served by the new standards, (b) the extent of the reliance by law enforcement authorities on the old standards, and (c) the effect on the administration of justice of a retroactive application of the new standards.”
In Taylor, as in Duncan, we were concerned generally with the function played by the jury in our system of criminal justice, more specifically the function of preventing arbitrariness and repression. In Taylor, as in Duncan, our decision did not rest on the premise that every criminal trial, or any particular trial, was necessarily unfair because it was not conducted in accordance with what we determined to be the requirements of the Sixth Amendment. In Taylor, as in Duncan, the reli-anee of law enforcement officials and state legislatures on prior decisions of this Court, such as Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U. S. 57 (1961), in structuring their criminal justice systems is clear. Here, as in Duncan, the requirement of retrying a significant number of persons were Taylor to be held retroactive would do little, if anything, to vindicate the Sixth Amendment interest at stake and would have a substantial impact on the administration of criminal justice in Louisiana and in other States whose past procedures have not produced jury venires that comport with the requirement enunciated in Taylor.
The judgment is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court,
This case, arising out of a denial by a state college of official recognition to a group of students who desired to form a local chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), presents this Court with questions requiring the application of well-established First Amendment principles. While the factual background of this particular case raises these constitutional issues in a manner not heretofore passed on by the Court, and only infrequently presented to lower federal courts, our decision today is governed by existing precedent.
As the case involves delicate issues concerning the academic community, we approach our task with special caution, recognizing the mutual interest of students, faculty members, and administrators in an environment free from disruptive interference with the educational process. We also are mindful of the equally significant interest in the widest latitude for free expression and debate consonant with the maintenance of order. Where these interests appear to compete the First Amendment, made binding on the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, strikes the required balance.
I
We mention briefly at the outset the setting in 1969-1970. A climate of unrest prevailed on many college campuses in this country. There had been widespread civil disobedience on some campuses, accompanied by the seizure of buildings, vandalism, and arson. Some colleges had been shut down altogether, while at others files were looted and manuscripts destroyed. SDS chapters on some of those campuses had been a catalytic force during this period. Although the causes of campus disruption were many and complex, one of the prime consequences of such activities was the denial of the lawful exercise of First Amendment rights to the majority of students by the few. Indeed, many of the most cherished characteristics long associated with institutions of higher learning appeared to be endangered. Fortunately, with the passage of time, a calmer atmosphere and greater maturity now pervade our campuses. Yet, it was in this climate of earlier unrest that this case arose.
Petitioners are students attending Central Connecticut State College (CCSC), a state-supported institution of higher learning. In September 1969 they undertook to organize what they then referred to as a “local chapter” of SDS. Pursuant to procedures established by the College, petitioners filed a request for official recognition as a campus organization with the Student Affairs Committee, a committee composed of four students, three faculty members, and the Dean of Student Affairs. The request specified three purposes for the proposed organization’s existence. It would provide “a forum of discussion and self-education for students developing an analysis of American society”; it would serve as “an agency for integrating thought with action so as to bring about constructive changes”; and it would endeavor to provide “a coordinating body for relating the problems of leftist students” with other interested groups on campus and in the community. The Committee, while satisfied that the statement of purposes was clear and unobjectionable on its face, exhibited concern over the relationship between the proposed local group and the National SDS organization. In response to inquiries, representatives of the proposed organization stated that they would not affiliate with any national organization and that their group would remain “completely independent.”
In response to other questions asked by Committee members concerning SDS’ reputation for campus disruption, the applicants made the following statements, which proved significant during the later stages of these proceedings:
“Q. How would you respond to issues of violence as other S. D. S. chapters have?
“A. Our action would have to be dependent upon each issue.
“Q. Would you use any means possible?
“A. No I can’t say that; would not know until we know what the issues are.
“Q. Could you envision the S. D. S. interrupting a class?
“A. Impossible for me to say.”
With this information before it, the Committee requested an additional filing by the applicants, including a formal statement regarding affiliations. The amended application filed in response stated flatly that “CCSC Students for a Democratic Society are not under the dictates of any National organization.” At a second hearing before the Student Affairs Committee, the question of relationship with the National organization was raised again. One of the organizers explained that the National SDS was divided into several “factional groups,” that the national-local relationship was a loose one, and that the local organization accepted only “certain ideas” but not all of the National organization’s aims and philosophies.
By a vote of six to two the Committee ultimately approved the application and recommended to the President of the College, Dr. James, that the organization be accorded official recognition. In approving the application, the majority indicated that its decision was premised on the belief that varying viewpoints should be represented on campus and that since the Young Americans for Freedom, the Young Democrats, the Young Republicans, and the Liberal Party all enjoyed recognized status, a group should be available with which “left wing” students might identify. The majority also noted and relied on the organization’s claim of independence. Finally, it admonished the organization that immediate suspension would be considered if the group’s activities proved incompatible with the school’s policies against interference with the privacy of other students or destruction of property. The two dissenting members based their reservation primarily on the lack of clarity regarding the organization’s independence.
Several days later, the President rejected the Committee’s recommendation, and issued a statement indicating that petitioners’ organization was not to be accorded the benefits of official campus recognition. His accompanying remarks, which are set out in full in the margin, indicate several reasons for his action. He found that the organization’s philosophy was antithetical to the school’s policies, and that the group’s independence was doubtful. He concluded that approval should not be granted to any group that “openly repudiates” the College’s dedication to academic freedom.
Denial of official recognition posed serious problems for the organization’s existence and growth. Its members were deprived of the opportunity to place announcements regarding meetings, rallies, or other activities in the student newspaper; they were precluded from using various campus bulletin boards; and — most importantly — nonrecognition barred them from using campus facilities for holding meetings. This latter disability was brought home to petitioners shortly after the President’s announcement. Petitioners circulated a notice calling a meeting to discuss what further action should be taken in light of the group’s official rejection. The members met at the coffee shop in the Student Center (“Devils’ Den”) but were disbanded on the President’s order since nonrecognized groups were not entitled to use such facilities.
Their efforts to gain recognition having proved ultimately unsuccessful, and having been made to feel the burden of nonrecognition, petitioners resorted t-o the courts. They filed a suit in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the President of the College, other administrators, and the State Board of Trustees. Petitioners’ primary complaint centered on the denial of First Amendment rights of expression and association arising from denial of campus recognition. The cause was submitted initially on stipulated facts, and, after a short hearing, the judge ruled that petitioners had been denied procedural due process because the President had based his decision on conclusions regarding the applicant’s affiliation which were outside the record before him. The court concluded that if the President wished to act on the basis of material outside the application he must at least provide petitioners a hearing and opportunity to introduce evidence as to their affiliations. 311 F. Supp. 1275, 1279, 1281. While retaining jurisdiction over the case, the District Court ordered respondents to hold a hearing in order to clarify the several ambiguities surrounding the President’s decision. One of the matters to be explored was whether the local organization, true to its repeated affirmations, was in fact independent of the National SDS. Id., at 1282. And if the hearing demonstrated that the two were not separable, the respondents were instructed that they might then review the “aims and philosophy” of the National organization. Ibid.
Pursuant to the court’s order, the President designated Dean Judd, the Dean of Student Affairs, to serve as hearing officer and a hearing was scheduled. The hearing, which spanned two dates and lasted approximately two hours, added little in terms of objective substantive evidence to the record in this case. Petitioners introduced a statement offering to change the organization’s name from “CCSC local chapter of SDS” to “Students for a Democratic Society of Central Connecticut State College.” They further reaffirmed that they would “have no connection whatsoever to the structure of an existing national organization.” Petitioners also introduced the testimony of their faculty adviser to the effect that some local SDS organizations elsewhere were unafSliated with any national organization. The hearing officer, in addition to introducing the minutes from the two pertinent Student Affairs Committee meetings, also introduced, sua sponte, portions of a transcript of hearings before the United States House of Representatives Internal Security Committee investigating the activities of SDS. Excerpts were offered both to prove that violent and disruptive activities had been attributed to SDS elsewhere and to demonstrate that there existed a national organization that recognized and cooperated with regional and local college campus affiliates. Petitioners did not challenge the asserted existence of a National SDS, nor did they question that it did have a system of affiliations of some sort. Their contention was simply that their organization would not associate with that network. Throughout the hearing the parties were acting at cross purposes. What seemed relevant to one appeared completely immaterial to the other. This failure of the hearing to advance the litigation was, at bottom, the consequence of a more basic failure to join issue on the considerations that should control the President’s ultimate decision, a problem to which we will return in the ensuing section.
Upon reviewing the hearing transcript and exhibits, the President reaffirmed his prior decision to deny petitioners recognition as a campus organization. The reasons stated, closely paralleling his initial reasons, were that the group would be a “disruptive influence” at CCSC and that recognition would be “contrary to the orderly process of change” on the campus.
After the President’s second statement issued, the case then returned to the District Court, where it was ordered dismissed. The court concluded, first, that the formal requisites of procedural due process had been complied with, second, that petitioners had failed to meet their burden of showing that they could function free from the National organization, and, third, that the College’s refusal to place its stamp of approval on an organization whose conduct it found “likely to cause violent acts of disruption” did not violate petitioners’ associational rights. 319 F. Supp. 113, 116.
Petitioners appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit where, by a two-to-one vote, the District Court’s judgment was affirmed. The majority purported not to reach the substantive First Amendment issues on the theory that petitioners had failed to avail themselves of the due process accorded them and had failed to meet their burden of complying with the prevailing standards for recognition. 445 F. 2d 1122, 1131-1132. Judge Smith dissented, disagreeing with the majority’s refusal to address the merits and finding that petitioners had been deprived of basic First Amendment rights. Id., at 1136. This Court granted certiorari and, for the reasons that follow, we conclude that the judgments of the courts below must be reversed and the case remanded for reconsideration.
II
At the outset we note that state colleges and universities are not enclaves immune from the sweep of the First Amendment. “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, 393 U. S. 503, 506 (1969). Of course, as Mr. Justice Fortas made clear in Tinker, First Amendment rights must always be applied “in light of the special characteristics of the... environment” in the particular case. Ibid. And, where state-operated educational institutions are involved, this Court has long recognized “the need for affirming the comprehensive authority of the States and of school officials, consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in the schools.” Id., at 507. Yet, the precedents of this Court leave no room for the view that, because of the acknowledged need for order, First Amendment protections should apply with less force on college campuses than in the community at large. Quite to the contrary, “[t]he vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools.” Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, 487 (1960). The college classroom with its surrounding environs is peculiarly the “ ‘marketplace of ideas,’ ” and we break no new constitutional ground in reaffirming this Nation’s dedication to safeguarding academic freedom. Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U. S. 589, 603 (1967); Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U. S. 234, 249-250 (1957) (plurality opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Warren), 262 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in result).
Among the rights protected by the First Amendment is the right of individuals to associate to further their personal beliefs. While the freedom of association is not explicitly set out in the Amendment, it has long been held to be implicit in the freedoms of speech, assembly, and petition. See, e. g., Baird v. State Bar of Arizona, 401 U. S. 1, 6 (1971); NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 430 (1963); Louisiana ex rel. Gremillion v. NAACP, 366 U. S. 293, 296 (1961); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449 (1958) (Harlan, J., for a unanimous Court). There can be no doubt that denial of official recognition, without justification, to college organizations burdens or abridges that associational right. The primary impediment to free association flowing from nonrecognition is the denial of use of campus facilities for meetings and other appropriate purposes. The practical effect of nonrecognition was demonstrated in this case when, several days after the President’s decision was announced, petitioners were not allowed to hold a meeting in the campus coffee shop because they were not an approved group.
Petitioners’ associational interests also were circumscribed by the denial of the use of campus bulletin boards and the school newspaper. If an organization is to remain a viable entity in a campus community in which new students enter on a regular basis, it must possess the means of communicating with these students. Moreover, the organization’s ability to participate in the intellectual give and take of campus debate, and to pursue its stated purposes, is limited by denial of access to the customary media for communicating with the administration, faculty members, and other students. Such impediments cannot be viewed as insubstantial.
Respondents and the courts below appear to have taken the view that denial of official recognition in this case abridged no constitutional rights. The District Court concluded that
“President James’ discretionary action in denying this application cannot be legitimately magnified and distorted into a constitutionally cognizable interference with the personal ideas or beliefs of any segment of the college students; neither does his action deter in any material way the individual advocacy of their personal beliefs; nor can his action be reasonably construed to be an invasion of, or having a chilling effect on academic freedom.” 319 F. Supp., at 116.
In that court’s view all that was denied petitioners was the “administrative seal of official college respectability.” Ibid. A majority of the Court of Appeals agreed that petitioners had been denied only the “college’s stamp of approval.” 445 F. 2d, at 1131. Respondents take that same position here, arguing that petitioners still may meet as a group off campus, that they still may distribute written material off campus, and that they still may meet together informally on campus — as individuals, but not as CCSC-SDS.
We do not agree with the characterization by the courts below of the consequences of nonrecognition. We may concede, as did Mr. Justice Harlan in his opinion for a unanimous Court in NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S., at 461, that the administration “has taken no direct action... to restrict the rights of [petitioners] to associate freely... But the Constitution’s protection is not limited to direct interference with fundamental rights. The requirement in Patterson that the NAACP disclose its membership lists was found to be an impermissible, though indirect, infringement of the members’ associational rights. Likewise, in this case, the group’s possible ability to exist outside the campus community does not ameliorate significantly the disabilities imposed by the President’s action. We are not free to disregard the practical realities. Me. Justice Stewart has made the salient point: “Freedoms such as these are protected not only against heavy-handed frontal attack, but also from being stifled by more subtle governmental interference.” Bates v. City of Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516, 523 (1960). See also Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U. S., at 263 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in result); Watkins v. United States, 354 U. S. 178, 197 (1957).
The opinions below also assumed that petitioners had the burden of showing entitlement to recognition by the College. While petitioners have not challenged the procedural requirement that they file an application in conformity with the rules of the College, they do question the view of the courts below that final rejection could rest on their failure to convince the administration that their organization was unaffiliated with the National SDS. For reasons to be stated later in this opinion, we do not consider the issue of affiliation to be a controlling one. But, apart from any particular issue, once petitioners had filed an application in conformity with the requirements, the burden was upon the College administration to justify its decision of rejection. See, e. g., Law Students Civil Rights Research Council v. Wadmond, 401 U. S. 154, 162-163 (1971); United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 376-377 (1968); Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513 (1958). It is to be remembered that the effect of the College’s denial of recognition was a form of prior restraint, denying to petitioners’ organization the range of associational activities described above. While a college has a legitimate interest in preventing disruption on the campus, which under circumstances requiring the safeguarding of that interest may justify such restraint, a “heavy burden” rests on the college to demonstrate the appropriateness of that action. See Near v. Minnesota, 283 U. S. 697, 713-716 (1931); Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U. S. 415, 418 (1971); Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51, 57 (1965).
Ill
These fundamental errors — discounting the existence of a cognizable First Amendment interest and misplacing the burden of proof — require that the judgments below be reversed. But we are unable to conclude that no basis exists upon which nonrecognition might be appropriate. Indeed, based on a reasonable reading of the ambiguous facts of this case, there appears to be at least one potentially acceptable ground for a denial of recognition. Because of this ambiguous state of the record we conclude that the case should be remanded, and, in an effort to provide guidance to the lower courts upon reconsideration, it is appropriate to discuss the several bases of President James’ decision. Pour possible justifications for nonrecognition, all closely related, might be derived from the record and his statements. Three of those grounds are inadequate to substantiate his decision: a fourth, however, has merit.
A
From the outset the controversy in this case has centered in large measure around the relationship, if any, between petitioners’ group and the National SDS. The Student Affairs Committee meetings, as reflected in its minutes, focused considerable attention on this issue; the court-ordered hearing also was directed primarily to this question. Despite assurances from petitioners and their counsel that the local group was in fact independent of the National organization, it is evident that President James was significantly influenced by his apprehension that there was a connection. Aware of the fact that some SDS chapters had been associated with disruptive and violent campus activity, he apparently considered that affiliation itself was sufficient justification for denying recognition.
Although this precise issue has not come before the Court heretofore, the Court has consistently disapproved governmental action imposing criminal sanctions or denying rights and privileges solely because of a citizen’s association with an unpopular organization. See, e. g., United States v. Robel, 389 U. S. 258 (1967); Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U. S., at 605-610; Elfbrandt v. Russell, 384 U. S. 11 (1966); Scales v. United States, 367 U. S. 203 (1961). In these cases it has been established that “guilt by association alone, without [establishing] that an individual’s association poses the threat feared by the Government,” is an impermissible basis upon which to deny First Amendment rights. United States v. Robel, supra, at 265. The government has the burden of establishing a knowing affiliation with an organization possessing unlawful aims and goals, and a specific intent to further those illegal aims.
Students for a Democratic Society, as conceded by the College and the lower courts, is loosely organized, having various factions and promoting a number of diverse social and political views, only some of which call for unlawful action. Not only did petitioners proclaim their complete independence from this organization, but they also indicated that they shared only some of the beliefs its leaders have expressed. On this record it is clear that the relationship was not an adequate ground for the denial of recognition.
B
Having concluded that petitioners were affiliated with, or at least retained an affinity for, National SDS, President James attributed what he believed to be the philosophy of that organization to the local group. He characterized the petitioning group as adhering to “some of the major tenets of the national organization,” including a philosophy of violence and disruption. Understandably, he found that philosophy abhorrent. In an article signed by President James in an alumni periodical, and made a part of the record below, he announced his unwillingness to “sanction an organization that openly advocates the destruction of the very ideals and freedoms upon which the academic life is founded.” He further emphasized that the petitioners’ “philosophies” were “counter to the official policy of the college.”
The mere disagreement of the President with the group’s philosophy affords no reason to deny it recognition. As repugnant as these views may have been, especially to one with President James’ responsibility, the mere expression of them would not justify the denial of First Amendment rights. Whether petitioners did in fact advocate a philosophy of “destruction” thus becomes immaterial. The College, acting here as the instrumentality of the State, may not restrict speech or association simply because it finds the views expressed by any group to be abhorrent. As Mr. Justice Black put it most simply and clearly:
“I do not believe that it can be too often repeated that the freedoms of speech, press, petition and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish.” Communist Party v. SACB, 367 U. S. 1, 137 (dissenting opinion) (1961).
C
As the litigation progressed in the District Court, a third rationale for President James’ decision — beyond the questions of affiliation and philosophy — began to emerge. His second statement, issued after the court-ordered hearing, indicates that he based rejection on a conclusion that this particular group would be a “disruptive influence at CCSC.” This language was underscored in the second District Court opinion. In fact, the court concluded that the President had determined that CCSC-SDS’ “prospective campus activities were likely to cause a disruptive influence at CCSC.” 319 F. Supp., at 116.
If this reason, directed at the organization’s activities rather than its philosophy, were factually supported by the record, this Court’s prior decisions would provide a basis for considering the propriety of nonrecognition. The critical line heretofore drawn for determining the permissibility of regulation is the line between mere advocacy and advocacy “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and... likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444, 447 (1969) (unanimous per curiam opinion). See also Scales v. United States, 367 U. S., at 230-232; Noto v. United States, 367 U. S. 290, 298 (1961); Yates v. United States, 354 U. S. 298 (1957). In the context of the “special characteristics of the school environment,” the power of the government to prohibit “lawless action” is not limited to acts of a criminal nature. Also prohibitable are actions which “materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school.” Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, 393 U. S., at 513. Associational activities need not be tolerated where they infringe reasonable campus rules, interrupt classes, or substantially interfere with the opportunity of other students to obtain an education.
The “Student Bill of Rights” at CCSC, upon which great emphasis was placed by the President, draws precisely this distinction between advocacy and action. It purports to impose no limitations on the right of college student organizations “to examine and discuss all questions of interest to them.” (Emphasis supplied.) But it also states that students have no right (1) “to deprive others of the opportunity to speak or be heard,” (2) “to invade the privacy of others,” (3) “to damage the property of others,” (4) “to disrupt the regular and essential operation of the college,” or (5) “to interfere with the rights of others.” The line between permissible speech and impermissible conduct tracks the constitutional requirement, and if there were an evidential basis to support the conclusion that CCSC-SDS posed a substantial threat of material disruption in violation of that command the President’s decision should be affirmed.
The record, however, offers no substantial basis for that conclusion. The only support for the view expressed by the President, other than the reputed affiliation with National SDS, is to be found in the ambivalent responses offered by the group’s representatives at the Student Affairs Committee hearing, during which they stated that they did not know whether they might respond to “issues of violence” in the same manner that other SDS chapters had on other campuses. Nor would they state unequivocally that they could never “envision... interrupting a class.” Whatever force these statements might be thought to have is largely dissipated by the following exchange between petitioners’ counsel and the Dean of Student Affairs during the court-ordered hearing:
Counsel: “... I just read the document that you’re offering [minutes from Student Affairs Committee meeting] and I can’t see that there’s anything in it that intimates that these students contemplate any illegal or disruptive practice.”
Dean: “No. There’s no question raised to that, counselor....” App. 73-74.
Dean Judd’s remark reaffirms, in accord with the full record, that there was no substantial evidence that these particular individuals acting together would constitute a disruptive force on campus. Therefore, insofar as nonrecognition flowed from such fears, it constituted little more than the sort of “undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance [which] is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression.” Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, 393 U. S., at 508.
D
These same references in the record to the group’s equivocation regarding how it might respond to “issues of violence” and whether it could ever “envision... interrupting a class,” suggest a fourth possible reason why recognition might have been denied to these petitioners. These remarks might well have been read as announcing petitioners’ unwillingness to be bound by reasonable school rules governing conduct. The College’s Statement of Rights, Freedoms, and Responsibilities of Students contains, as we have seen, an explicit statement with respect to campus disruption. The regulation, carefully differentiating between advocacy and action, is a reasonable one, and petitioners have not questioned it directly. Yet their statements raise considerable question whether they intend to abide by the prohibitions contained therein.
As we have already stated in Parts B and C, the critical line for First Amendment purposes must be drawn, between advocacy, which is entitled to full protection, and action, which is not. Petitioners may, if they so choose, preach the propriety of amending or even doing away with any or all campus regulations. They may not, however, undertake to flout these rules. Mr. Justice Blackmun, at the time he was a circuit judge on the Eighth Circuit, stated:
“We... hold that a college has the inherent power to promulgate rules and regulations; that it has the inherent power properly to discipline; that it has power appropriately to protect itself and its property; that it may expect that its students adhere to generally accepted standards of conduct.” Esteban v. Central Missouri State College, 415 F. 2d 1077, 1089 (CA8 1969), cert. denied, 398 U. S. 965 (1970).
Just as in the community at large, reasonable regulations with respect to the time, the place, and the manner in which student groups conduct their speech-related activities must be respected. A college administration may impose a requirement, such as may have been imposed in this case, that a group seeking official recognition affirm in advance its willingness to adhere to reasonable campus law. Such a requirement does not impose an impermissible condition on the students’ associational rights. Their freedom to speak out, to assemble, or to petition for changes in school rules is in no sense infringed. It merely constitutes an agreement to conform with reasonable standards respecting conduct. This is a minimal requirement, in the interest of the entire academic community, of any group seeking the privilege of official recognition.
Petitioners have not challenged in this litigation the procedural or substantive aspects of the College’s requirements governing applications for official recognition. Although the record is unclear on this point, CCSC may have, among its requirements' for recognition, a rule that prospective groups affirm that they intend to comply with reasonable campus regulations. Upon remand it should first be determined whether the College recognition procedures contemplate any such requirement. If so, it should then be ascertained whether petitioners intend to comply. Since we do not have the terms of a specific prior affirmation rule before us, we are not called on to decide whether any particular formulation would or would not prove constitutionally acceptable. Assuming the existence of a valid rule, however, we do conclude that the benefits of participation in the internal life of the college community may be denied to any group that reserves the right to violate any valid campus rules with which it disagrees.
IY
We think the above discussion establishes the appropriate framework for consideration of petitioners’ request for campus recognition. Because respondents failed to accord due recognition to First Amendment principles, the judgments below approving respondents’ denial of recognition must be reversed. Since we cannot conclude from this record that petitioners were willing to abide by reasonable campus rules and regulations, we order the case remanded for reconsideration. We note, in so holding, that the wide latitude accorded by the Constitution to the freedoms of expression and association is not without its costs in terms of the risk to the maintenance of civility and an ordered society. Indeed, this latitude often has resulted, on the campus and elsewhere, in the infringement of the rights of others. Though we deplore the tendency of some to abuse the very constitutional privileges they invoke, and although the infringement of rights of others certainly should not be tolerated, we reaffirm this Court’s dedication to the principles of the Bill of Rights upon which our vigorous and free society is founded.
Reversed and remanded.
See Report of the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest (1970); Report of the American Bar Association Commission on Campus Government and Student Dissent (1970).
The statement of purposes is set out as an Appendix to the Second Circuit’s opinion and appears following the dissent thereto. 445 F. 2d 1122, 1135-1139 (1971).
445 F. 2d, at 1133. During the Committee’s consideration of petitioners’ application, one of the group’s representatives was asked why, if it indeed desired to remain independent, it chose to use a nationally known name. The witness’ response was that “the name brings to mind the type of organization we wish to bring across, that is, a left-wing organization which will allow students interested in such to express themselves.”
The President stated:
“Though I have full appreciation for the action of the Student Affairs Committee and the reasons stated in their minutes for the majority vote recommending approval of a local chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, it is my judgment that the statement of purpose to form a local chapter of Students for a Democratic Society carries full and unmistakable adherence to at least some of the major tenets of the national organization, loose and divided though that organization may be. The published aims and philosophy of the Students for a Democratic Society, which include disruption and violence, are contrary to the approved policy (by faculty, students, and administration) of Central Connecticut State College which states:
“ ‘Students do not have the right to invade the privacy of others, to damage the property of others, to disrupt the regular and essential operation of the college, or to interfere with the' rights of others.’
“The further statement on the request for recognition that 'CCSC Students for a Democratic Society are not under the dictates of any National organization’ in no way clarifies why if a group intends to follow the established policy of the college, they wish to become a local chapter of an organization which openly repudiates such a policy.
“Freedom of speech, academic freedom on the campus, the freedom of establishing an open forum for the exchange of ideas, the freedoms outlined in the Statement on Rights, Freedoms, and Responsibilities of Students that ‘college students and student organizations shall have the right to examine and discuss all questions of interest to them, to express opinion publicly and privately, and to support causes by orderly means. They may organize public demonstrations and protest gatherings and utilize the right of petition’ — these are all precious freedoms that we cherish and are freedoms on which we stand. To approve any organization or individual who joins with an organization which openly repudiates those principles is contrary to those freedoms and to the approved ‘Statement on the Rights, Freedoms, and Responsibilities of Students’ at Central.” App. 15-16.
In 1969, CCSC adopted, as have many other colleges and universities, a Statement on Rights, Freedoms and Responsibilities of Students. This statement, commonly referred to as the “Student Bill of Rights,” is printed as an Appendix to the Second Circuit’s majority opinion in this case, 445 F. 2d, at 1135-1139, see n. 2, supra. Part V of that statement establishes the standards for approval of campus organizations and imposes several basic limitations on their campus activities:
“A. Care shall be taken in the establishment and organization of campus groups so that the basic rights, freedoms and responsibilities of students will be preserved.
“B. Student organizations shall submit a clear statement of purpose, criteria for membership, rules of
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Certiorari, 348 U. S. 813, to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Per Curiam:
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed. Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U. S. 517; Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 317 U. S. 564; Phillips Co. v. Walling, 324 U. S. 490. The judgment of the District Court is affirmed, and the case is remanded to the District Court. The motion of the petitioner to make Goldblatt Bros., Inc., a party in this Court is denied without prejudice to the right of the petitioner to renew said motion in the District Court, or to take such other proceedings for enforcement of the judgment as the petitioner may deem advisable and proper in the circumstances. See Walling v. Reuter, Inc., 321 U. S. 671.
With her on the brief were Solicitor General Sobeloff, Sylvia S. Ellison and Harold S. Saxe. Stanford Clinton argued the cause for respondent.
With him on the brief was Robert A. Sprecher.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case raises the question of whether benefits paid by the United States Veterans’ Administration retain their exempt status under 38 U. S. C. § 3101 (a) after being deposited in an account in a federal savings and loan association. Petitioner, an incompetent Air Force veteran, had suffered a judgment at the hands of respondent. The latter in an effort to satisfy its judgment attached a checking account and two accounts in local federal savings and loan associations, all of which had been established by petitioner's Committee with funds received from the Veterans’ Administration as disability compensation due the petitioner. The District Court, on motion, held all three of the accounts exempt under the statute. 185 F. Supp. 302. Respondent appealed as to the savings and loan association accounts, and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed in a divided opinion. 111 U. S. App. D. C. 267, 296 F. 2d 389. Certiorari was granted in view of the importance of the question in the administration of the Act. 368 U. S. 937. We agree with the District Court that the funds involved here are exempt under the statute; therefore we reverse the judgment below.
Since 1873 it has been the policy of the Congress to exempt veterans’ benefits from creditor actions as well as from taxation. In 1933 in Trotter v. Tennessee, 290 U. S. 354, the Court had occasion to pass upon the exemp-tive provision of the World War Veterans’ Act of 1924, 43 Stat. 6.07, 613. It held that the exemption spent its force when the benefit funds "lost the quality of moneys” and were converted into “permanent investments.” This distinction was adopted by the Congress when the Act was amended in 1935, 49 Stat. 607, 609, to provide, inter alia, that such payments shall be exempt “either before or after receipt by the beneficiary” but that the exemption shall not “extend to any property purchased in part or wholly out of such payments.” Thereafter in Lawrence v. Shaw, 300 U. S. 245 (1937), the Court held that bank credits derived from veterans’ benefits were within the exemption, the test being whether as so deposited the benefits remained subject to demand and use as the needs of the veteran for support and maintenance required. It was noted that the allowance of interest on such deposits would not destroy the exemption. Two years later the Court held that negotiable notes and United States bonds purchased with veterans’ benefits and “held as investments” had no federal statutory immunity. Carrier v. Bryant, 306 U. S. 545 (1939). The Act was again amended in 1958, but no significant changes were made in the exemption provision. As so written it is here at issue.
It appears that the practices and procedures vary as to withdrawal of funds from federal savings and loan associations. Under the law the depositor is a shareholder rather than a creditor, and his deposits are subject to withdrawal only after a 30-day demand. However, the District Court found that a withdrawal from the accounts here involved could be made “as quickly as a withdrawal from a checking account . . . .” In addition, the integrity of the deposits was assured by federal supervision of the associations plus federal insurance of the accounts. Under such conditions the funds were subject to immediate and certain access and thus plainly had “the quality of moneys.” As to whether the deposits were “permanent investments,” we note they were not of a speculative character nor were they time deposits at interest. Moreover, it affirmatively appears that at times petitioner drew moneys from the savings and loan fund for his support and maintenance requirements and that no other funds whatever are now available to him, his disability payments having been cut off. It therefore appears clear to us that the savings and loan deposits here, rather than being investments, are the only funds presently available to meet petitioner’s needs.
Since legislation of this type should be liberally construed, see Trotter v. Tennessee, supra, at 356, to protect funds granted by the Congress for the maintenance and support of the beneficiaries thereof, Lawrence v. Shaw, supra, at 250, we feel that deposits such as are involved here should remain inviolate. The Congress, we believe, intended that veterans in the safekeeping of their benefits should be able to utilize those normal modes adopted by the community for that purpose — provided the benefit funds, regardless of the technicalities of title and other formalities, are readily available as needed for support and maintenance, actually retain the qualities of moneys, and have not been converted into permanent investments.
Reversed.
The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Frankfurter took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Mr. Justice Douglas.
Heretofore the test of exemption under this Act has been whether the funds had taken the form of “permanent investments,” on the one hand (Trotter v. Tennessee, 290 U. S. 354, 357), or on the other were “subject to draft upon demand,” as in the case of checking accounts. Lawrence v. Shaw, 300 U. S. 245, 250. Negotiable notes and United States bonds were held to be nonexempt in Carrier v. Bryant, 306 U. S. 545. Yet so far as we know, those notes and bonds may have had the same or a comparable degree of liquidity as the present share account in the federal savings and loan association enjoys. Today, however, we hold these accounts exempt. Stocks and bonds cannot, of course, be fractionalized and converted into cash in small amounts, such as may be done with savings accounts and checking accounts. But stocks and bonds may be so liquid as to be tantamount to cash in hand and therefore serve, as well as any bank deposit, the needs of the veteran.
By the standards announced in the earlier decisions share accounts in federal savings and loan associations are “investments.” See Wisconsin Bankers Assn. v. Robertson, 111 U. S. App. D. C. 85, 294 F. 2d 714. They can be withdrawn only after 30 days’ notice. The owner of a share account is a voting member of the association which, as the Court of Appeals noted, makes him “more nearly comparable to a stockholder of a bank than one of its depositors.” 111 U. S. App. D. C. 267, 270, 296 F. 2d 389, 392. Moreover, the Home Owners’ Loan Act, under which this federal association was created, makes clear that its purpose is “to provide local mutual thrift institutions in which people may invest their funds.” 12 U. S. C. § 1464 (a). (Italics added.) Its capital is in “shares” (12 U. S. C. § 1464 (b)) such as are involved here. The holders of savings accounts who apply for a withdrawal of funds do not thereby become “creditors.”
In some States these share accounts may not be as liquid as checking accounts or even as liquid as stocks and bonds listed on an exchange or actively traded over-the-counter. The true test seems to me to be liquidity— that is to say, whether or not the moneys are kept in a form in which they are usable, if need be, “for the maintenance and support of the veteran,” as Chief Justice Hughes said in Lawrence v. Shaw, supra, at 250.
“(a) Payments of benefits due or to become due under any law administered by the Veterans’ Administration shall not be assignable except to the extent specifically authorized by law, and such payments made to, or on account of, a beneficiary shall be exempt from taxation, shall be exempt from the claim of creditors, and shall not be liable to attachment, levy, or seizure by or under any legal or equitable process whatever, either before or after receipt by the beneficiary. The preceding sentence shall not apply to claims of the United States arising under such laws nor shall the exemption therein contained as to taxation extend to any property purchased in part or wholly out of such payments. The provisions of this section shall not be construed to prohibit the assignment of insurance otherwise authorized under chapter 19 of this title, or of servicemen’s indemnity.”
Act of Mar. 3, 1873, R. S. §4747 (1878); World War Veterans’ Act of 1924, c. 320, § 22, 43 Stat. 607, 613; Act of Aug. 12, 1935, c. 510, §3, 49 Stat. .607, 609.
The statutory language reads only that the exemption "as to taxation” shall not extend to property purchased with benefits. However, in Carrier v. Bryant, 306 U. S. 545 (1939), the Court held that benefits invested in property were also nonexempt from creditor actions, since they were not “payments of benefits due or to become due” and thus did not fall within the initial immunizing language.
“Capital” means “the aggregate of the payments on savings accounts,” plus earnings, less deductions. See 12 CFR § 541.3. “Savings account,” such as we have here, is “the monetary interest of the holder” in the “capital” of the association. Id., § 541.4. The account book evidences “the ownership of the account and the interest of the holder thereof in the capital” of the association. 12 CFR § 545.2 (b).
“Holders of savings accounts for which application for withdrawal has been made shall remain holders of savings accounts until paid and shall not become creditors.” 12 CFR § 544.1 (a) par. 6.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part IV-C.
Ordinarily, the Government must assess a deficiency against a taxpayer within “3 years after the return was filed.” 26 U. S. C. § 6501(a) (2000 ed.). The 3-year period is extended to 6 years, however, when a taxpayer “omits from gross income an amount properly includible therein which is in excess of 25 percent of the amount of gross income stated in the return.” § 6501(e)(1)(A) (emphasis added). The question before us is whether this latter provision applies (and extends the ordinary 3-year limitations period) when the taxpayer overstates his basis in property that he has sold, thereby understating the gain that he received from its sale. Following Colony, Inc. v. Commissioner, 357 U. S. 28 (1958), we hold that the provision does not apply to an overstatement of basis. Hence the 6-year period does not apply.
I
For present purposes the relevant underlying circumstances are not in dispute. We consequently assume that (1) the respondent taxpayers filed their relevant tax returns in April 2000; (2) the returns overstated the basis of certain property that the taxpayers had sold; (3) as a result the returns understated the gross' income that the taxpayers received from the sale of the property; and (4) the understatement exceeded the statute’s 25% threshold. We also take as undisputed that the Commissioner asserted the relevant deficiency within the extended 6-year limitations period, but outside the default 3-year period. Thus, unless the 6-year statute of limitations applies, the Government’s efforts to assert a tax deficiency came too late. Our conclusion — that the extended limitations period does not apply — follows directly from this Court’s earlier decision in Colony.
II
In Colony this Court interpreted a provision of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, the operative language of which is identical to the language now before us. The Commissioner there had determined
“that the taxpayer had understated the gross profits on the sales of certain lots of land for residential purposes as a result of having overstated the ‘basis’ of such lots by erroneously including in their cost certain unallowable items of development expense.” Id., at 30.
The Commissioner’s assessment came after the ordinary 3-year limitations period had run. And, it was consequently timely only if the taxpayer, in the words of the 1939 Code, had “omit[ted] from gross income an amount properly includible therein which is in excess of 25 per centum of the amount of gross income stated in the return . . . .” 26 U. S. C. § 275(c) (1940 ed.). The Code provision applicable to this case, adopted in 1954, contains materially indistinguishable language. See § 6501(e)(1)(A) (2000 ed.) (same, but replacing “per centum” with “percent”). See also Appendix, infra.
In Colony this Court held that taxpayer misstatements, overstating the basis in property, do not fall within the scope of the statute. But the Court recognized the Commissioner’s contrary argument for inclusion. 357 U. S., at 32. Then as now, the Code itself defined “gross income” in this context as the difference between gross revenue (often the amount the taxpayer received upon selling the property) and basis (often the amount the taxpayer paid for the property). Compare 26 U. S. C. §§22, 111 (1940 ed.) with §§ 61(a)(3), 1001(a) (2000 ed.)- And, the Commissioner pointed out, an overstatement of basis can diminish the “amount” of the gain just as leaving the item entirely off the return might do. 357 U. S., at 32. Either way, the error wrongly understates the taxpayer’s income.
But, the Court added, the Commissioner’s argument did not fully account for the provision’s language, in particular the word “omit.” The key phrase says “omits ... an amount.” The word “omits” (unlike, say, “reduces” or “understates”) means “ ‘[t]o leave out or unmentioned; not to insert, include, or name.’ ” Ibid, (quoting Webster’s New International Dictionary (2d ed. 1939)). Thus, taken literally, “omit” limits the statute’s scope to situations in which specific receipts or accruals of income are left out of the computation of gross income; to inflate the basis, however,, is not to “omit” a specific item, not even of profit.
While finding this latter interpretation of the language the “more plausiblfe],” the Court also noted that the language was not “unambiguous.” Colony, 357 U. S., at 33. It then examined various congressional Reports discussing the relevant statutory language. It found in those Reports
“persuasive indications that Congress merely had in mind failures to report particular income receipts and accruals, and did not intend the [extended] limitation to apply whenever gross income was understated . . . .” Id., at 35.
This “history,” the Court said, “shows ... that the Congress intended an exception to the usual three-year statute of limitations only in the restricted type of situation already described,” a situation that did not include overstatements of basis. Id., at 36.
The Court wrote that Congress, in enacting the provision,
“manifested no broader purpose than to give the Commissioner an additional two [now three] years to investigate tax returns in cases where, because of a taxpayer’s omission to report some taxable item, the Commissioner is at a special disadvantage .. . [because] the return on its face provides no clue to the existence of the omitted item.... [W]hen, as here [i. e., where the overstatement of basis is at issue], the understatement of a tax arises from an error in reporting an item disclosed on the face of the return the Commissioner is at no such disadvantage . . . whether the error be one affecting ‘gross income’ or one, such as overstated deductions, affecting other parts of the return.” Ibid, (emphasis added).
Finally, the Court noted that Congress had recently enacted the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. And the Court observed that “the conclusion we reach is in harmony with the unambiguous language of § 6501(e)(1)(A),” id., at 37, i. e., the provision relevant in this present case.
III
In our view, Colony determines the outcome in this case. The provision before us is a 1954 reenactment of the 1939 provision that Colony interpreted. The operative language is identical. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to give the same language here a different interpretation without effectively overruling Colony, a course of action that basic principles of stare decisis wisely counsel us not to take. John R. Sand & Gravel Co. v. United States, 552 U. S. 130, 139 (2008) (“[SJtare decisis in respect to statutory interpretation has special force, for Congress remains free to alter what we have done” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164, 172-173 (1989).
The Government, in an effort to convince us to interpret the operative language before us differently, points to differences in other nearby parts of the 1954 Code. It suggests that these differences counsel in favor of a different interpretation than the one adopted in Colony. For example, the Government points to a new provision, § 6501(e)(l)(A)(i), which says:
“In the case of a trade or business, the term ‘gross income’ means the total of the amounts received or accrued from the sale of goods or services (if such amounts are required to be shown on the return) prior to the diminution by the cost of such sales or services.”
If the section’s basic phrase “omi[ssion] from gross income” does not apply to overstatements of basis (which is what Colony held), then what need would there be for clause (i), which leads to the same result in a specific subset of cases?
And why, the Government adds, does a later paragraph, referring to gifts and estates, speak of a taxpayer who “omits . . . items includible in [the] gross estate”? See § 6501(e)(2) (emphasis added). By speaking of “items” there does it not imply that omission of an “amount” covers more than omission of individual items — indeed that it includes overstatements of basis, which, after all, diminish the amount of the profit that should have been reported as gross income?
In our view, these points are too fragile to bear the significant argumentative weight the Government seeks to place upon them. For example, at least one plausible reason why Congress might have added clause (i) has nothing to do with any desire to change the meaning of the general rule. Rather when Congress wrote the 1954 Code (prior to Colony), it did not yet know how the Court would interpret the provision’s operative language. At least one lower court had decided that the' provision did not apply to overstatements about the cost of goods that a business later sold. See Uptegrove Lumber Co. v. Commissioner, 204 F. 2d 570 (CA3 1953). But see Reis v. Commissioner, 142 F. 2d 900, 902-903 (CA6 1944). And Congress could well have wanted to ensure that, come what may in the Supreme Court, Upte-grove’s interpretation would remain the law where a “trade or business” was at issue.
Nor does our interpretation leave clause (i) without work to do. TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U. S. 19, 31 (2001) (noting canon that statutes should be read to avoid making any provision “superfluous, void, or insignificant” (internal quotation marks omitted)). That provision also explains how to calculate the denominator for purposes of determining whether a conceded omission amounts to 25% of “gross income.” For example, it tells us that a merchant who fails to include $10,000 of revenue from sold goods has not met the 25% test if total revenue is more than $40,000, regardless of the cost paid by the merchant to acquire those goods. But without clause (i), the general statutory definition of “gross income” requires subtracting the cost from the sales price. See 26 U. S. C. §§ 61(a)(3), 1012. Under such a definition of “gross income,” the calculation would take (1) total revenue from sales, $40,000, minus (2) “the cost of such sales,” say, $25,000. The $10,000 of revenue would thus amount to 67% of the “gross income” of $15,000. And the clause does this work in respect to omissions from gross income irrespective of our interpretation regarding overstatements of basis.
The Government’s argument about subsection (e)(2)’s use of the word “item” instead of “amount” is yet weaker. The Court in Colony addressed a similar argument about the word “amount.” It wrote:
“The Commissioner states that the draftsman’s use of the word ‘amount’ (instead of, for example, ‘item’) suggests a concentration on the quantitative aspect of the error — that is whether or not gross income was understated by as much as 25%.” 357 U. S., at 32.
But the Court, while recognizing the Commissioner’s logic, rejected the argument (and the significance of the word “amount”) as insufficient to prove the Commissioner’s conclusion. And the addition of the word “item” in a different subsection similarly fails to exert an interpretive force sufficiently strong to affect our conclusion. The word’s appear-anee in subsection (e)(2), we concede, is new. But to rely in the case before us on this solitary word change in a different subsection is like hoping that a new batboy will change the outcome of the World Series.
IV
A
Finally, the Government points to Treasury Regulation § 301.6501(e)-l, which was promulgated in final form in December 2010. See 26 CFR §801.6501(e)-l (2011). The regulation, as relevant here, departs from Colony and interprets the operative language of the statute in the Government’s favor. The regulation says that “an understated amount of gross income resulting from an overstatement of unre-covered cost or other basis constitutes an omission from gross income.” § 301.6501(e)-l(a)(l)(iii). In the Government’s view this new regulation in effect overturns Colony’s interpretation of this statute.
The Government points out that the Treasury Regulation constitutes “an agency’s construction of a statute which it administers.” Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842 (1984). See also Mayo Foundation for Medical Ed. and Research v. United States, 562 U. S. 44 (2011) (applying Chevron in the tax context). The Court has written that a “court’s prior judicial construction of a statute trumps an agency construction otherwise entitled to Chevron deference only if the prior court decision holds that its construction follows from the unambiguous terms of the statute . . ..” National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. v. Brand X Internet Services, 545 U. S. 967, 982 (2005) (emphasis added). And, as the Government notes, in Colony itself the Court wrote that “it cannot be said that the language is unambiguous.” 357 U. S., at 33. Hence, the Government concludes, Colony cannot govern the outcome in this case. The question, rather, is whether the agency’s construction is a “permissible construction of the statute.” Chevron, supra, at 843. And, since the Government argues that the regulation embodies a reasonable, hence permissible, construction of the statute, the Government believes it must win.
B
We do not accept this argument. In our view, Colony has already interpreted the statute, and there is no longer any different construction that is consistent with Colony and available for adoption by the agency.
C
The fatal flaw in the Government’s contrary argument is that it overlooks the reason why Brand X held that a “prior judicial construction,” unless reflecting an “unambiguous” statute, does not trump a different agency construction of that statute. 545 U. S., at 982. The Court reveals that reason when it points out that “it is for agencies, not courts, to fill statutory gaps.” Ibid. The fact that a statute is unambiguous means that there is “no gap for the agency to fill” and thus “no room for agency discretion.” Id., at 982-983.
In so stating, the Court sought to encapsulate what earlier opinions, including Chevron, made clear. Those opinions identify the underlying interpretive problem as that of deciding whether, or when, a particular statute in effect delegates to an agency the power to fill a gap, thereby implicitly taking from a court the power to void a reasonable gap-filling interpretation. Thus, in Chevron the Court said that, when See also United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 229 (2001); Smiley v. Citibank (South Dakota), N. A., 517 U. S. 735, 741 (1996); INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U. S. 421, 448 (1987); Morton v. Ruiz, 415 U. S. 199, 231 (1974).
“Congress has explicitly left a gap for the agency to fill, there is an express delegation of authority to the agency to elucidate a specific provision of the statute by regulation. . . . Sometimes the legislative delegation to an agency on a particular question is implicit rather than explicit. [But in either instance], a court may not substitute its own construction of a statutory provision for a reasonable interpretation made by the administrator of an agency.” 467 U. S., at 843-844.
Chevron and later cases find in unambiguous language a clear sign that Congress did not delegate gap-filling authority to an agency; and they find in ambiguous language at least a presumptive indication that Congress did delegate that gap-filling authority. Thus, in Chevron the Court wrote that a statute’s silence or ambiguity as to a particular issue means that Congress has not “directly addressed the precise question at issue” (thus likely delegating gap-filling power to the agency). 467 U. S., at 843. In Mead the Court, describing Chevron, explained:
“Congress ... may not have expressly delegated authority or responsibility to implement a particular provision or fill a particular gap. Yet it can still be apparent from the agency’s generally- conferred authority and other statutory circumstances that Congress would expect the agency to be able to speak with the force of law when it addresses ambiguity in the statute or fills a space in the enacted law, even one about which Congress did not actually have an intent as to a particular result.” 533 U. S., at 229 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Chevron added that “[i]f a court, employing traditional tools of statutory construction, ascertains that Congress had an intention on the precise question at issue, that intention is the law and must be given effect.” 467 U. S., at 843, n. 9 (emphasis added).
As the Government points out, the Court in Colony stated that the statutory language at issue is not “unambiguous.” 357 U. S., at 33. But the Court decided that case nearly 30 years before it decided Chevron. There is no reason to believe that the linguistic ambiguity noted by Colony reflects a post-Chevron conclusion that Congress had delegated gap-filling power to the agency. At the same time, there is every reason to believe that the Court thought that Congress had “directly spoken to the precise question at issue,” and thus left “[no] gap for the agency to fill.” Chevron, supra, at 842-843. . -,
For one thing, the Court said that the taxpayer had the better side of the textual argument. Colony, 357 U. S., at 33. For another, its examination of legislative history led it to believe that Congress had decided the question definitively, leaving no room for the agency to reach a contrary result. It found in that history “persuasive indications” that Congress intended overstatements of basis to fall outside the statute’s scope, and it said that it was satisfied that Congress “intended an exception . . . only in the restricted type of situation” it had already described. Id., at 35-36. Further, it thought that the Commissioner’s interpretation (the interpretation once again advanced here) would “create a patent incongruity in the tax law.” Id., at 36-37. And it reached this conclusion despite the fact that, in the years leading up to Colony, the Commissioner had consistently advocated the opposite in the circuit courts. See, e. g., Uptegrove, 204 F. 2d 570; Reis, 142 F. 2d 900; Goodenow v. Commissioner, 238 F. 2d 20 (CA8 1956); American Liberty Oil Co. v. Commissioner, 1 T. C. 386 (1942). Cf. Staff v. Commissioner, 220 F. 2d 65 (CA9 1955); Davis v. Hightower, 230 F. 2d 549 (CA5 1956). Thus, the Court was aware it was rejecting the expert opinion of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. And finally, after completing its analysis, Colony found its interpretation of the 1939 Code “in harmony with the [now] unambiguous language” of the 1954 Code, which at a minimum suggests that the Court saw nothing in the 1954 Code as inconsistent with its conclusion. 357 U. S., at 37.
It may be that judges today would use other methods to determine whether Congress left a gap to fill. But that is beside the point. The question is whether the Court in Colony concluded that the statute left such a gap. And, in our view, the opinion (written by Justice Harlan for the Court) makes clear that it did not.
Given principles of stare decisis, we roust follow that interpretation. And there being no gap to fill, the Government’s gap-filling regulation cannot change Colony’s interpretation of the statute. We agree with the taxpayers that overstatements of basis, and the resulting understatements of gross income, do not trigger the extended limitations period of § 6501(e)(1)(A). The Court of Appeals reached the same conclusion. See 634 F. 3d 249 (CA4 2011). And its judgment is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
APPENDIX
We reproduce the applicable sections of the two relevant versions of the U. S. Code below. Section 6501 was amended and reorganized in 2010. See Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act, § 513,124 Stat. 111. But the parties agree that the amendments do not affect this case. We therefore have referred to, and reproduce here, the section as it appears in the 2000 edition of the U. S. Code.
Title 26 U. S. C. §275 (1940 ed.)
“Period of limitation upon assessment and collection,
“(a) General rule.
“The amount of income taxes imposed by this chapter shall be assessed within three years after the return was filed, and no proceeding in court without assessment for the collection of such taxes shall be begun after the expiration of such period.
“(c) Omission from gross income.
“If the taxpayer omits from gross income an amount properly includible therein which is in excess of 25 per centum of the amount of gross income stated in the return, the tax may be assessed, or a proceeding in court for the collection of such tax may be begun without assessment, at any time within 5 years after the return was filed.”
Title 26 U. S. C. §6501 (2000 ed.)
“Limitations on assessment and collection.
“(a) General rule
“Except as otherwise provided in this section, the amount of any tax imposed by this title shall be assessed within 3 years after the return was filed (whether or not such return was filed on or after the date prescribed) or, if the tax is payable by stamp, at any time after such tax became due and before the expiration of 3 years after the date on which any part of such tax was paid, and no proceeding in court without assessment for the collection of such tax shall be begun after the expiration of such period. . . .
“(e) Substantial omission of items
“Except as otherwise provided in subsection (c)—
“(1) Income taxes
“In the case of any tax imposed by subtitle A—
“(A) General rule
“If the taxpayer omits from gross income an amount properly includible therein which is in excess of 25 percent of the amount of gross income stated in the return, the tax may be assessed, or a proceeding in court for the collection of such tax may be begun without assessment, at any time within 6 years after the return was filed. For purposes of this subparagraph—
“(i) In the case of a trade or business, the term ‘gross income’ means the total of the amounts received or accrued from the sale of goods or services (if such amounts are required to be shown on the return) prior to diminution by the cost of such sales or services; and
“(ii) In determining the amount omitted from gross income, there shall not be taken into account any amount which is omitted from gross income stated in the return if such amount is disclosed in the return, or in a statement attached to the return, in a manner adequate to apprise the Secretary of the nature and amount of such item.
“(2) Estate and gift taxes
“In the case of a return of estate tax under chapter 11 or a return of gift tax under chapter 12, if the taxpayer omits from the gross estate or from the total amount of the gifts made during the period for which the return was filed items includible in such gross estate or such total gifts, as the case may be, as exceed in amount 25 percent of the gross estate stated in the return or the total amount of gifts stated in the return, the tax may be assessed, or a proceeding in court for the collection of such tax may be begun without assessment, at any time within 6 years after the return was filed. ...”
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case arises on an information under §§15 and 16 (a) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 52 Stat. 1060, 1068-1069, as amended, 63 Stat. 910, 919, 29 U. S. C. §§ 215, 216 (a), charging the defendant corporation, its division operations manager and two successive branch managers with violations of the minimum wage, overtime, and record-keeping provisions of the Act. Thirty-two counts were laid: six for failure under § 6 of the Act to pay minimum wages, twenty for violation of the overtime provisions of § 7, and six for failure to comply with the requirements for record-keeping under § 11. Counts 1-6 charge minimum wage violations in six separate weeks, one per week, but only as to one employee in any one week and only as to three employees in all. Counts 7-26 charge overtime violations in twenty separate weeks, one per week. A total of eleven employees are involved, two violations having been charged as to each of nine employees. Counts 27-32 charge record-keeping violations as to four employees, two violations as to each of two employees being charged. Section 16 of the Act subjects an employer, offending for the first time, to a maximum fine of $10,000 for violation of any provision of § 15, and would, the District Court assumed, authorize a fine of $320,000 upon conviction under this information.
Rejecting a reading of § 15 whereby the prosecutor could treat as a separate offense each breach of the statutory duty owed to a single employee during any single workweek, the District Court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss all but three counts of the information. The court held that it is a course of conduct rather than the separate items in such course that constitutes the punishable offense and ordered consolidation of the separate acts set forth in the information into three counts, charging one violation each of §§ 6, 7 and ll. To review this decision, the Government brought the case here under the Criminal Appeals Act, 34 Stat. 1246, 18 U. S. C. § 3731.
The problem of construction of the criminal provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act is not easy of solution. What Congress has made the allowable unit of prosecution — the only issue before us — cannot be answered merely by a literal reading of the penalizing sections. Generalities about statutory construction help us little. They are not rules of law but merely axioms of experience. Boston Sand Co. v. United States, 278 U. S. 41, 48. They do not solve the special difficulties in construing a particular statute. The variables render every problem of statutory construction unique. See United States v. Jin Fuey Moy, 241 U. S. 394, 402. For that reason we may utilize, in construing a statute not unambiguous, all the light relevantly shed upon the words and the clause and the statute that express the purpose of Congress. Very early Mr. Chief Justice Marshall told us, “Where the mind labours to discover the design of the legislature, it seizes every thing from which aid can be derived . . . .” United States v. Fisher, 2 Cranch 358, 386. Particularly is this so when we construe statutes defining conduct which entail stigma and penalties and prison. Not that penal statutes are not subject to the basic consideration that legislation like all other writings should be given, insofar as the language permits, a commonsensical meaning. But when choice has to be made between two readings of what conduct Congress has made a crime, it is appropriate, before we choose the harsher alternative, to require that Congress should have spoken in language that is clear and definite. We should not derive criminal outlawry from some ambiguous implication.
The penal provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act is only part of a scheme available to the Government and to the employee for enforcing the Act. The preventive remedy of an injunction and individual or class actions for restitution and damages in § 16 (b) are not only also available. They are the remedies more frequently invoked and more effective in achieving the purposes of the Act. Of course the various remedies must be read in relation to each other. But we are asked here in addition to infer that an employer’s failure to perform his obligations as to each employee creates a separate criminal offense because the provisions for civil liability in § 16 (b) expressly recognize a right in the individual employee to maintain a separate action against his employer for restitution and damages. The argument cuts both ways. If Congress had wanted to attach criminal consequences to each separate civil liability it could easily have said so, just as it had no difficulty in stating explicitly that the unit for civil liability was what was owing to each employee. Instead of balancing the various generalized axioms of experience in construing legislation, regard for the specific history of the legislative process that culminated in the Act now before us affords more solid ground for giving it appropriate meaning.
When originally introduced in Congress, the bill out of which the Fair Labor Standards Act evolved had two separate penalty provisions, one for underpayments in violation of § 6 or § 7 and one for failure to comply with the record-keeping provisions of § 11. Each provision set the maximum fine at $500 and explicitly defined what constituted a separate offense. As to §§ 6 and 7 the employee was the unit of criminal offense and as to § 11 each week of violation was a separate offense. After the measure wound its way through a long legislative process there resulted consolidation of the two penalty provisions, elimination of the separate offense clauses, and substitution of $10,000 for $500 as the maximum fine. These rather striking changes would in themselves afford justifiable ground for giving the less harsh and therefore more reasonable construction to the offense-creating portions of the legislation. In addition, we have illuminating statements in both houses concerning the separation of offenses. Although the separate offense clause for record-keeping violations was deleted early in the legislative process, the other separate offense clause was attacked in debate precisely because it would authorize the sort of multiplication of offenses by the number of employees that the information before us represents. Indeed, multiplication in this information goes beyond what even the original bills would have authorized. Underpayments of the same employees are split into separate counts of the information, and record-keeping violations during the same week are split to serve as the basis of separate counts.
It would be self-deceptive to claim that only one answer is possible to our problem. But the history of this legislation and the inexplicitness of its language weigh against the Government’s construction of a statute that cannot be said to be decisively clear on its face one way or the other. Because of the history and language of this legislation, the case is not attracted by the respective authority of two cases pressed upon us. In re Snow, 120 U. S. 274, and Blockburger v. United States, 284 U. S. 299.
The district judge was therefore correct in rejecting the Government’s construction of the statute. The offense made punishable under the Fair Labor Standards Act is a course of conduct. Such a reading of the statute compendiously treats as one offense all violations that arise from that singleness of thought, purpose or action, which may be deemed a single “impulse,” a conception recognized by this Court in the Blockburger case, supra, at 302, quoting Wharton’s Criminal Law (11th ed.) § 34. Merely to illustrate, without attempting to rule on specific situations: a wholly unjustifiable managerial decision that a certain activity was not work and therefore did not require compensation under F. L. S. A. standards cannot be turned into a multiplicity of offenses by considering each underpayment in a single week or to a single employee as a separate offense.
However, a wholly distinct managerial decision that piece workers should be paid less than the statutory requirement in terms of hourly rates, see United States v. Bosenwasser, 323 U. S. 360, involves a different course of conduct, and so would constitute a different offense. Thus, underpayments based on violations of the statute as to these piece workers could not be compounded into a single offense with unrelated underpayments which resulted from the decision that a certain activity was not work, merely because the two kinds of underpayments occurred in the same workweek or involved the same employee. Whether an aggregate of acts constitute a single course of conduct and therefore a single offense, or more than one, may not be capable of ascertainment merely from the bare allegations of an information and may have to await the trial on the facts.
This information is based on what we find to be an improper theory. But a draftsman of an indictment may charge crime in a variety of forms to avoid fatal variance of the evidence. He may cast the indictment in several counts whether the body of facts upon which the indictment is based gives rise to only one criminal offense or to more than one. To be sure, the defendant may call upon the prosecutor to elect or, by asking for a bill of particulars, to render the various counts more specific. In any event, by an indictment of multiple counts the prosecutor gives the necessary notice and does not do the less so because at the conclusion of the Government’s case the defendant may insist that all the counts are merely variants of a single offense.
By affirming this order without prejudice to amendment of the information, we do not mean to suggest that amendment to increase the number of offenses may be made after trial has begun. But the Government is not precluded from now amending the information either to meet the exigencies of the evidence or to charge as separate offenses separate courses of conduct as to each substantive provision. All we now decide is that the district judge correctly held that a single course of conduct does not constitute more than one offense under § 15 of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Without prejudice to amendment of the information before trial if the evidence to be offered warrants it, the order below is
Affirmed.
The criminal enforcement provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act are §§ 15 and 16. Section 16 provides a maximum fine of $10,000 for “[a]ny person who willfully violates any of the provisions of section 15 . . . .” Section 15 makes it “unlawful for any person ... (2) to violate any of the provisions of section 6 or section 7 ... (5) to violate any of the provisions of section 11 (c) . . . .” Section 6 provides, “Every employer shall pay to each of his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce . . . not less than 75 cents an hour; . . . .” Section 7 provides “. . .no employer shall employ any of his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce for a workweek longer than forty hours, unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed.” Section 11 (c) requires the employer to “make, keep, and preserve such records of the persons employed by him and of the wages, hours, and other conditions and practices of employment maintained by him, and shall preserve such records for such periods of time, and shall make such reports therefrom to the Administrator as he shall prescribe by regulation or order . . . .”
102 F. Supp. 179, 186, modified by Order dated March 10, 1952, R. 20.
The Government urges that the Act be construed “to punish each failure to comply with each duty imposed by the Act as to each employee in each workweek and as to each record required to be kept.” Brief for United States, p. 10. However, in none of the first 26 counts, charging minimum wage or overtime underpayments, were similar violations charged as to two employees in the same week, so that it would be sufficient in this case to urge that the violations may be split according to the workweek, rather than also according to the employee. As to the last six counts, charging record-keeping violations, it might have been possible for the Government to urge less than that each record required to be kept is a separate offense. With one minor exception, violations were alleged as to at least two employees in every workweek for which record-keeping violations were charged. The workweek was not the unit of prosecution, since the periods of time in these six counts range from about seven weeks to over six months. But the employee was also not the unit, since although violations as to each employee were made into separate charges, two employees are the subject of two charges apiece.
Whatever differences exist between the minimum necessary to sustain this particular information and the claim made by the Government are immaterial, in view of our disposition of the case.
Appellee does not urge in this case that § 15 prescribes only-one offense even if there are three kinds of violations. Such an argument seems to have been made and was rejected, as to distinct requirements under two different sections of the act there involved, in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U. S. 299, 305, where the penal provision applied to “any person who violates or fails to comply with any of the requirements of this act.”
See §§ 27 (a) and 27 (b) in S. 2475 and H. R. 7200, 75th Cong., 1st Sess.
In §27 (a), the clause read: “Where the employment of an employee in violation of any provision of this Act or of a labor-standard order is unlawful, each employee so employed in violation of such provision shall constitute a separate offense.” In §27 (b), the clause was: “. . .' and each week of such failure to keep the records required under this Act or to furnish same to the Board or any authorized representative of the Board shall constitute a separate offense.”
See 81 Cong. Rec. 7792; 81 Cong. Rec. 9507; 82 Cong. Rec. 1828. Force is added to these statements by the fact that one was made by a member of the House who proposed the amendment which was adopted, by vote on division, specifically to delete the separate offense clause of §27 (a) (then §22 (a)). 82 Cong. Rec. 1828-1839. The bill thus came to the Conference from the House with both separate offense clauses deleted, but from the Senate with only the clause of § 27 (b) deleted. Both versions still provided a maximum fine of $500. The Conference accepted the House version, with neither separate offense clause, but raised the maximum fine to $10,000. See S. 2475, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., §§ 23 (a), 23 (b), as reported from Committee, July 8, 1937; 81 Cong. Rec. 7957; H. R. Rep. No. 2182, 75th Cong., 3d Sess. 5; 83 Cong. Rec. 7450; Conference Report, § 16 (a), 83 Cong. Rec. 9249.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Chief Justice Roberts
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Since 1790, the patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor. The question here is whether the University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act of 1980 — commonly referred to as the Bayh-Dole Act — displaces that norm and automatically vests title to federally funded inventions in federal contractors. We hold that it does not.
I
A
In 1985, a small California research company called Cetus began to develop methods for quantifying blood-borne levels of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS. A Nobel Prize winning technique developed at Cetus — polymerase chain reaction, or PCR — was an integral part of these efforts. PCR allows billions of copies of DNA sequences to be made from a small initial blood sample.
In 1988, Cetus began to collaborate with scientists at Stanford University’s Department of Infectious Diseases to test the efficacy of new AIDS drugs. Dr. Mark Holodniy joined Stanford as a research fellow in the department around that time. When he did so, he signed a Copyright and Patent Agreement (CPA) stating that he “agree[d] to assign” to Stanford his “right, title and interest in” inventions resulting from his employment at the University. App. to Pet. for Cert. 118a-119a.
At Stanford Holodniy undertook to develop an improved method for quantifying HIV levels in patient blood samples, using PCR. Because Holodniy was largely unfamiliar with PCR, his supervisor arranged for him to conduct research at Cetus. As a condition of gaining access to Cetus, Holodniy signed a Visitor’s Confidentiality Agreement (VCA). That agreement stated that Holodniy “will assign and do[es] hereby assign” to Cetus his “right, title, and interest in each of the ideas, inventions and improvements” made “as a consequence of [his] access” to Cetus. Id., at 122a-124a.
For the next nine months, Holodniy conducted research at Cetus. Working with Cetus employees, Holodniy devised a PCR-based procedure for calculating the amount of HIV in a patient’s blood. That technique allowed doctors to determine whether a patient was benefiting from HIV therapy.
Holodniy then returned to Stanford where he and other University employees tested the HIV measurement technique. Over the next few years, Stanford obtained written assignments of rights from the Stanford employees involved in refinement of the technique, including Holodniy, and filed several patent applications related to the procedure. Stanford secured three patents to the HIV measurement process.
In 1991, Roche Molecular Systems, a company that specializes in diagnostic blood screening, acquired Cetus’s PCR-related assets, including all rights Cetus had obtained through agreements like the VC A signed by Holodniy. After conducting clinical trials on the HIV quantification method developed at Cetus, Roche commercialized the procedure. Today, Roche’s HIV test “kits are used in hospitals and AIDS clinics worldwide.” Brief for Respondents 10-11.
B
In 1980, Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act to “promote the utilization of inventions arising from federally supported research,” “promote collaboration between commercial concerns and nonprofit organizations,” and “ensure that the Government obtains sufficient rights in federally supported inventions.” 85 U. S. C. §200. To achieve these aims, the Act allocates rights in federally funded “subject invention[s]” between the Federal Government and federal contractors (“any person, small business firm, or nonprofit organization that is a party to a funding agreement”). §§ 201(e), (c), 202(a). The Act defines “subject invention” as “any invention of the contractor conceived or first actually reduced to practice in the performance of work under a funding agreement.” § 201(e).
The Bayh-Dole Act provides that contractors may “elect to retain title to any subject invention.” § 202(a). To be able to retain title, a contractor must fulfill a number of obligations imposed by the statute. The contractor must “disclose each subject invention to the [relevant] Federal agency within a reasonable time”; it must “make a written election within two years after disclosure” stating that the contractor opts to retain title to the invention; and the contractor must “file a patent application prior to any statutory bar date.” §§202(c)(l)-(3). The “Federal Government may receive title” to a subject invention if a contractor fails to comply with any of these obligations. Ibid.
The Government has several rights in federally funded subject inventions under the Bayh-Dole Act. The agency that granted the federal funds receives from the contractor “a nonexclusive, nontransferrable, irrevocable, paid-up license to practice . . . [the] subject invention.” § 202(c)(4). The agency also possesses “[m]arch-in rights,” which permit the agency to grant a license to a responsible third party under certain circumstances, such as when the contractor fails to take “effective steps to achieve practical application” of the invention. §203. The Act further provides that when the contractor does not elect to retain title to a subject invention, the Government “may consider and after consultation with the contractor grant requests for retention of rights by the inventor.” § 202(d).
Some of Stanford’s research related to the HIV measurement technique was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), thereby subjecting the invention to the BayhDole Act. Accordingly, Stanford disclosed the invention, conferred on the Government a nonexclusive, nontransferable, paid-up license to use the patented procedure, and formally notified NIH that it elected to retain title to the invention.
C
In 2005, the Board of Trustees of Stanford University filed suit against Roche Molecular Systems, Inc., Roche Diagnostics Corporation, and Roche Diagnostics Operations, Inc. (collectively Roche), contending that Roche’s HIV test kits infringed Stanford’s patents. As relevant here, Roche responded by asserting that it was a eo-owner of the HIV quantification procedure, based on Holodniy’s assignment of his rights in the VCA. As a result, Roche argued, Stanford lacked standing to sue it for patent infringement. 487 F. Supp. 2d 1099, 1111, 1115 (ND Cal. 2007). Stanford claimed that Holodniy had no rights to assign because the University’s HIV research was federally funded, giving the school superior rights in the invention under the Bayh-Dole Act. Ibid.
The District Court held that the “VCA effectively assigned any rights that Holodniy had in the patented invention to Cetus,” and thus to Roche. Id., at 1117. But because of the operation of the Bayh-Dole Act, “Holodniy had no interest to assign.” Id., at 1117, 1119. The court concluded that the Bayh-Dole Act “provides that the individual inventor may obtain title” to a federally funded invention “only after the government and the contracting party have declined to do so.” Id., at 1118.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit disagreed. First, the court concluded that Holodniy’s initial agreement with Stanford in the CPA constituted a mere promise to assign rights in the future, unlike Holodniy’s agreement with Cetus in the VCA, which itself assigned Holodniy’s rights in the invention to Cetus. See 583 F. 3d 832, 841-842 (2009). Therefore, as a matter of contract law, Cetus obtained Holodniy’s rights in the HIV quantification technique through the VCA. Next, the court explained that the Bayh-Dole Act “does not automatically void ab initio the inventors’ rights in government-funded inventions” and that the “statutory scheme did not automatically void the patent rights that Cetus received from Holodniy.” Id., at 844-845. The court held that “Roche possesse[d] an ownership interest in the patents-in-suit” that was not extinguished by the Bayh-Dole Act, “depriv[ing] Stanford of standing.” Id., at 836-837. The Court of Appeals then remanded the case with instructions to dismiss Stanford’s infringement claim. Id., at 849.
We granted certiorari. 562 U. S. 1001 (2010).
II
A
Congress has the authority “[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing ... to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 8. The First Congress put that power to use by enacting the Patent Act of 1790. That Act provided “[t]hat upon the petition of any person or persons . . . setting forth, that he, she, or they, hath or have invented or discovered” an invention, a patent could be granted to “such petitioner or petitioners” or “their heirs, administrators or assigns.” Act of Apr. 10, 1790, § 1, 1 Stat. 109-110. Under that law, the first patent was granted in 1790 to Samuel Hopkins, who had devised an improved method for making potash, America’s first industrial chemical. U. S. Patent No. XI (issued July 81, 1790).
Although much in intellectual property law has changed in the 220 years sinee the first Patent Act, the basic idea that inventors have the right to patent their inventions has not. Under the law in its current form, “[wjhoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter... may obtain a patent therefor.” 35 U. S. C. § 101. The inventor must attest that “he believes himself to be the original and first inventor of the [invention] for which he solicits a patent.” § 115. In most cases, a patent may be issued only to an applying inventor, or — because an inventor’s interest in his invention is “assignable in law by an instrument in writing” — an inventor’s assignee. §§151,152, 261.
Our precedents confirm the general rule that rights in an invention belong to the inventor. See, e. g., Gayler v. Wilder, 10 How. 477, 498 (1851) (“the discoverer of a new and useful improvement is vested by law with an inchoate right to its exclusive use, which he may perfect and make absolute by proceeding in the manner which the law requires”); Solo mons v. United States, 137 U. S. 342, 346 (1890) (“whatever invention [an inventor] may thus conceive and perfect is his individual property”); United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp., 289 U. S. 178, 188 (1933) (an inventor owns “the product of [his] original thought”). The treatises are to the same effect. See, e. g., 8 D. Chisum, Patents §22.01, p. 22-2 (2011) (“The presumptive owner of the property right in a patentable invention is the single human inventor”).
It is equally well established that an inventor can assign his rights in an invention to a third party. See Dubilier Condenser Corp., supra, at 187 (“A patent is property and title to it can pass only by assignment”); 8 Chisum, supra, §22.01, at 22-2 (“The inventor . . . [may] transfer ownership interests by written assignment to anyone”). Thus, although others may acquire an interest in an invention, any such interest — as a general rule — must trace back to the inventor.
In accordance with these principles, we have recognized that unless there is an agreement to the contrary, an employer does not have rights in an invention “which is the original conception of the employee alone.” Dubilier Condenser Corp., 289 U. S., at 189. Such an invention “remains the property of him who conceived it.” Ibid. In most circumstances, an inventor must expressly grant his rights in an invention to his employer if the employer is to obtain those rights. See id., at 187 (“The respective rights and obligations of employer and employee, touching an invention conceived by the latter, spring from the contract of employment”).
B
Stanford and the United States as amicus curiae contend that the Bayh-Dole Act reorders the normal priority of rights in an invention when the invention is conceived or first reduced to practice with the support of federal funds. In their view, the Act moves inventors from the front of the line to the back by vesting title to federally funded inventions in the inventor’s employer — the federal contractor. See Brief for Petitioner 26-27; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 6.
Congress has in the past divested inventors of their rights in inventions by providing unambiguously that inventions created pursuant to specified federal contracts become the property of the United States. For example, with respect to certain contracts dealing with nuclear material and atomic energy, Congress provided that title to such inventions “shall be vested in, and be the property of, the [Atomic Energy] Commission.” 42 U. S. C. §2182. Congress has also enacted laws requiring that title to certain inventions made pursuant to contracts with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration “shall be the exclusive property of the United States,” Pub. L. 111-314, §3, 124 Stat. 3339, 51 U. S. C. § 20135(b)(1), and that title to certain inventions under contracts with the Department of Energy “shall vest in the United States,” 42 U. S. C. § 5908.
Such language is notably absent from the Bayh-Dole Act. Nowhere in the Act is title expressly vested in contractors or anyone else; nowhere in the Act are inventors expressly deprived of their interest in federally funded inventions. Instead, the Act provides that contractors may “elect to retain title to any subject invention.” 35 U. S. C. § 202(a). A “subject invention” is defined as “any invention of the contractor conceived or first actually reduced to practice in the performance of work under a funding agreement.” § 201(e).
Stanford asserts that the phrase “invention of the contractor” in this provision “is naturally read to include all inventions made by the contractor’s employees with the aid of federal funding.” Brief for Petitioner 32 (footnote omitted). That reading assumes that Congress subtly set aside two centuries of patent law in a statutory definition. It also renders the phrase “of the contractor” superfluous. If the phrase “of the contractor” were deleted from the definition of “subject invention,” the definition would cover “any invention ... conceived or first actually reduced to practice in the performance of work under a funding agreement.” Reading “of the contractor” to mean “all inventions made by the contractor’s employees with the aid of federal funding,” as Stanford would, adds nothing that is not already in the definition, since the definition already covers inventions made under the funding agreement. That is contrary to our general “reluctan[ce] to treat statutory terms as surplusage.” Duncan v. Walker, 533 U. S. 167, 174 (2001) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Construing the phrase to refer instead to a particular category of inventions conceived or reduced to practice under a funding agreement — inventions “of the contractor,” that is, those owned by or belonging to the contractor — makes the phrase meaningful in the statutory definition. And “invention owned by the contractor” or “invention belonging to the contractor” are natural readings of the phrase “invention of the contractor.” As we have explained, “[t]he use of the word ‘of’ denotes ownership.” Poe v. Seaborn, 282 U. S. 101, 109 (1930); see Flores-Figueroa v. United States, 556 U. S. 646, 647, 657 (2009) (treating the phrase “identification [papers] of another person” as meaning such items belonging to another person (internal quotation marks omitted)); Ellis v. United States, 206 U. S. 246, 259 (1907) (interpreting the phrase “works of the United States” to mean “works . . . belonging to the United States” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
That reading follows from a common definition of the word “of.” See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1565 (2002) (“of” can be “used as a function word indicating a possessive relationship”); New Oxford American Dictionary 1180 (2d ed. 2005) (defining “of” as “indicating an association between two entities, typically one of belonging”); Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary 1241 (2d ed. 1979) (defining “of” as “belonging to”).
Stanford’s reading of the phrase “invention of the contractor” to mean “all inventions made by the contractor’s employees” is plausible enough in the abstract; it is often the ease that whatever an employee produces in the course of his employment belongs to his employer. No one would claim that an autoworker who builds a car while working in a factory owns that car. But, as noted, patent law has always been different: We have rejected, the idea that mere employment is sufficient to vest title to an employee’s invention in the employer. Against this background, a contractor’s invention — an “invention of the contractor” — does not automatically include inventions made by the contractor’s employees.
The Bayh-Dole Act’s provision stating that contractors may “elect to retain title” confirms that the Act does not vest title. 35 U. S. C. § 202(a) (emphasis added). Stanford reaches the opposite conclusion, but only because it reads “retain” to mean “acquire” and “receive.” Brief for Petitioner 36 (internal quotation marks omitted). That is certainly not the common meaning of “retain.” “[Rjetain” means “to hold or continue to hold in possession or use.” Webster’s Third, supra, at 1938; see Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary 980 (1980) (“to keep in possession or use”); American Heritage Dictionary 1109 (1969) (“[t]o keep or hold in one’s possession”). You cannot retain something unless you already have it. See Alaska v. United States, 545 U. S. 75, 104 (2005) (interpreting the phrase “ 'the United States shall retain title to all property’” to mean that “[t]he United States . . . retained title to its property located within Alaska’s borders” (emphasis added)). The Bayh-Dole Act does not confer title to federally funded inventions on contractors or authorize contractors to unilaterally take title to those inventions; it simply assures contractors that they may keep title to whatever it is they already have. Such a provision makes sense in a statute specifying the respective rights and responsibilities of federal contractors and the Government.
The Bayh-Dole Act states that it “take[s] precedence over any other Act which would require a disposition of rights in subject inventions ... that is inconsistent with” the Act. 85 U. S. C. § 210(a). The United States as amicus curiae argues that this provision operates to displace the basic principle, codified in the Patent Act, that an inventor owns the rights to his invention. See Brief for United States 21. But because the Bayh-Dole Act, including § 210(a), applies only to “subject inventions” — “invention[s] of the contractor” — it does not displace an inventor’s antecedent title to his invention. Only when an invention belongs to the contractor does the Bayh-Dole Act come into play. The Act’s disposition of rights — like much of the rest of the Bayh-Dole Act — serves to clarify the order of priority of rights between the Federal Government and a federal contractor in a federally funded invention that already belongs to the contractor. Nothing more.
The isolated provisions of the Bayh-Dole Act dealing with inventors’ rights in subject inventions are consistent with our construction of the Act. Under the Act, a federal agency may “grant requests for retention of rights by the inventor” “[i]f a contractor does not elect to retain title to a subject invention.” § 202(d). If an employee inventor never had title to his invention because title vested in the contractor by operation of law — as Stanford submits — it would be odd to allow the Government to grant “requests for retention of rights by the inventor.” By using the word “retention,” § 202(d) assumes that the inventor had rights in the subject invention at some point, undermining the notion that the Act automatically vests title to federally funded inventions in federal contractors.
The limited scope of the Act’s procedural protections also bolsters our conclusion. The Bayh-Dole Act expressly confers on contractors the right to challenge a Government-imposed impediment to retaining title to a subject invention. § 202(b)(3) (2006 ed., Supp. III). As Roche correctly notes, however, “the Act contains not a single procedural protection for third parties that have neither sought nor received federal funds,” such as cooperating private research institutions. Brief for Respondents 29. Nor does the Bayh-Dole Act allow inventors employed by federal .contractors to contest their employer’s claim to a subject invention. The Act, for example, does not expressly permit an interested third party or an inventor to challenge a claim that a particular invention was supported by federal funding. In a world in which there is frequent collaboration between private entities, inventors, and federal contractors, see Brief for Pharmaceutieal Research and Manufacturers of America as Amicus Curiae 22-23, that absence would be deeply troubling. But the lack of procedures protecting inventor and third-party rights makes perfect sense if the Act applies only when a federal contractor has already acquired title to an inventor’s interest. In that case, there is no need to protect inventor or third-party rights, because the only rights at issue are those of the contractor and the Government.
The Bayh-Dole Act applies to subject inventions “conceived or first actually reduced to practice in the performance of work” “funded in whole or in part by the Federal Government.” 35 U. S. C. §§ 201(e), 201(b) (2006 ed.) (emphasis added). Under Stanford’s construction of the Act, title to one of its employee’s inventions could vest in the University even if the invention was conceived before the inventor became a University employee, so long as the invention’s reduction to practice was supported by federal funding. What is more, Stanford’s reading suggests that the school would obtain title to one of its employee's inventions even if only one dollar of federal funding was applied toward the invention’s conception or reduction to practice.
It would be noteworthy enough for Congress to supplant one of the fundamental precepts of patent law and deprive inventors of rights in their own inventions. To do so under such unusual terms would be truly surprising. We are confident that if Congress had intended such a sea change in intellectual property rights it would have said so clearly— not obliquely through an ambiguous definition of “subject invention” and an idiosyncratic use of the word “retain.” Cf. Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457, 468 (2001) (“Congress ... does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions”).
Though unnecessary to our conclusion, it is worth noting that our construction of the Bayh-Dole Act is reflected in the common practice among parties operating under the Act. Contractors generally institute policies to obtain assignments from their employees. See Brief for Respondents 34; Brief for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America as Amicus Curiae 13-18. Agencies that grant funds to federal contractors typically expect those contractors to obtain assignments. So it is with NIH, the agency that granted the federal funds at issue in this case. In guidance documents made available to contractors, NIH has made clear that “[b]y law, an inventor has initial ownership of an invention” and that contractors should therefore “have in place employee agreements requiring an inventor to ‘assign’ or give ownership of an invention to the organization upon acceptance of Federal funds.” NIH Policies, Procedures, and Forms, A “20-20” View of Invention Reporting to the National Institutes of Health (Sept. 22, 1995). Such guidance would be unnecessary if Stanford’s reading of the statute were correct.
Stanford contends that reading the Bayh-Dole Act as not vesting title to federally funded inventions in federal contractors “fundamentally undermin[es]” the Act’s framework and severely threatens its continued “successful application.” Brief for Petitioner 45. We do not agree. As just noted, universities typically enter into agreements with their employees requiring the assignment to the university of rights in inventions. With an effective assignment, those inventions — if federally funded — become “subject inventions” under the Act, and the statute as a practical matter works pretty much the way Stanford says it should. The only significant difference is that it does so without violence to the basic principle of patent law that inventors own their inventions.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Roche submitted a host of other claims to the District Court, including that it had “shop rights” to the patents and was entitled to a license to use the patents. See 583 F. 3d 832, 838 (CA Fed. 2009). None of those claims is now before us; we deal only with Roche’s claim to co-ownership to rebut Stanford’s standing to bring an infringement action.
Because the Federal Circuit’s interpretation of the relevant assignment agreements is not an issue on which we granted certiorari, we have no occasion to pass on the validity of the lower court’s construction of those agreements.
The patent was signed by President George Washington, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph. See Maxey, Samuel Hopkins, The Holder of the First U. S. Patent: A Study of Failure, 122 Pa. Magazine of Hist, and Biography 3, 6 (1998).
The dissent suggests that “we could interpret the Bayh-Dole Act as ordinarily assuming, and thereby ordinarily requiring, an assignment of patent rights by the federally funded employee to the federally funded employer.” Post, at 801 (opinion of Breyer, J.). That suggestion is based in large part on Executive Order No. 10096, which “governs Federal Government employee-to-employer patent right assignments.” Post, at 802. Lest there be any doubt, employees of nonfederal entities that have federal funding contracts — like Holodniy — are not federal employees. And there is no equivalent Executive Order governing invention rights with respect to federally funded research; that issue is of course addressed by the Bayh-Dole Act.
Far from superseding the Patent Act in such a backhanded way, it is clear that §210(a)’s concern is far narrower. That provision specifies 21 different statutory provisions that the Bayh-Dole Act “take[s] precedence over,” the vast majority of which deal with the division of ownership in certain inventions between a contractor and the Government. 35 U. S. C. §§ 210(a)<l) — (21); see, e.g., §§210(a)(19)-(20) (the Bayh-Dole Act takes precedence over “section 6(b) of the Solar Photovoltaic Energy Research Development and Demonstration Act” and “section 12 of the Native Latex Commercialization and Economic Development Act”).
Stanford contends that it cannot be the case “that the contractor can only ‘retain title’ to an invention that it already owns, while an inventor may be considered for ‘retention’ of title only when he has assigned title away.” Reply Brief for Petitioner 8. That argument has some force. But there may be situations where an inventor, by the terms of an assignment, has subsidiary rights in an invention to which a contractor has title, as § 202(d) suggests. Compare § 202(d) (“retention of rights”) with § 202(a) (“retain title”) (emphasis added). And at the end of the day, it is Stanford’s contention that “retain” must be “read as a synonym for ‘acquire’ or ‘receive’” that dooms its argument on this point. Brief for Petitioner 37.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Chief Justice Roberts
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we consider whether police may enter a home without a warrant when they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury. We conclude that they may.
I
This case arises out of a melee that occurred in a Brigham City, Utah, home in the early morning hours of July 23, 2000. At about 3 a.m., four police officers responded to a call regarding a loud party at a residence. Upon arriving at the house, they heard shouting from inside, and proceeded down the driveway to investigate. There, they observed two juveniles drinking beer in the backyard. They entered the backyard, and saw — through a screen door and windows — an altercation taking place in the kitchen of the home. According to the testimony of one of the officers, four adults were attempting, with some difficulty, to restrain a juvenile. The juvenile eventually “broke free, swung a fist and struck one of the adults in the face.” 2005 UT 13, ¶ 2, 122 P. 3d 506, 508. The officer testified that he observed the victim of the blow spitting blood into a nearby sink. App. 40. The other adults continued to try to restrain the juvenile, pressing him up against a refrigerator with such force that the refrigerator began moving across the floor. At this point, an officer opened the screen door and announced the officers’ presence. Amid the tumult, nobody noticed. The officer entered the kitchen and again cried out, and as the occupants slowly became aware that the police were on the scene, the altercation ceased.
The officers subsequently arrested respondents and charged them with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, disorderly conduct, and intoxication. In the trial court, respondents filed a motion to suppress all evidence obtained after the officers entered the home, arguing that the warrantless entry violated the Fourth Amendment. The court granted the motion, and the Utah Court of Appeals affirmed.
Before the Supreme Court of Utah, Brigham City argued that although the officers lacked a warrant, their entry was nevertheless reasonable on either of two grounds. The court rejected both contentions and, over two dissenters, affirmed. First, the court held that the injury caused by the juvenile’s punch was insufficient to trigger the so-called “emergency aid doctrine” because it did not give rise to an “objectively reasonable belief that an unconscious, semiconscious, or missing person feared injured or dead [was] in the home.” 122 P. 3d, at 513 (internal quotation marks omitted). Furthermore, the court suggested that the doctrine was inapplicable because the officers had not sought to assist the injured adult, but instead had acted “exclusively in their law enforcement capacity.” Ibid.
The court also held that the entry did not fall within the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement. This exception applies, the court explained, where police have probable cause and where “a reasonable person [would] believe that the entry was necessary to prevent physical harm to the officers or other persons.” Id., at 514 (internal quotation marks omitted). Under this standard, the court stated, the potential harm need not be as serious as that required to invoke the emergency aid exception. Although it found the case “a close and difficult call,” the court nevertheless concluded that the officers’ entry was not justified by exigent circumstances. Id., at 515.
We granted certiorari, 546 U. S. 1085 (2006), in light of differences among state courts and the Courts of Appeals concerning the appropriate Fourth Amendment standard governing warrantless entry by law enforcement in an emergency situation. Compare In re Sealed Case 96-3167, 153 F. 3d 759, 766 (CADC 1998) (“[T]he standard for exigent circumstances is an objective one”), and People v. Hebert, 46 P. 3d 473, 480 (Colo. 2002) (en banc) (considering the circumstances as they “would have been objectively examined by a prudent and trained police officer”), with United States v. Cervantes, 219 F. 3d 882, 890 (CA9 2000) (“[U]nder the emergency doctrine, ‘[a] search must not be primarily motivated by intent to arrest and seize evidence’” (quoting People v. Mitchell, 39 N. Y. 2d 173, 177, 347 N. E. 2d 607, 609 (1976)), and State v. Mountford, 171 Vt. 487, 492, 769 A. 2d 639, 645 (2000) (Mitchell test “requires] courts to find that the primary subjective motivation behind such searches was to provide emergency aid”).
II
It is a “‘basic principle of Fourth Amendment law that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.’ ” Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U. S. 551, 559 (2004) (quoting Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 586 (1980); some internal quotation marks omitted). Nevertheless, because the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is “reasonableness,” the warrant requirement is subject to certain exceptions. Flippo v. West Virginia, 528 U. S. 11, 13 (1999) (per curiam); Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 357 (1967). We have held, for example, that law enforcement officers may make a warrantless entry onto private property to fight a fire and investigate its cause, Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499, 509 (1978), to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence, Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23, 40 (1963) (plurality opinion), or to engage in “ ‘hot pursuit’ ” of a fleeing suspect, United States v. Santana, 427 U. S. 38, 42, 43 (1976). “[Wjarrants are generally required to search a person’s home or his person unless ‘the exigencies of the situation’ make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that the warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U. S. 385, 393-394 (1978).
One exigency obviating the requirement of a warrant is the need to assist persons who are seriously injured or threatened with such injury. “ ‘The need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury is justification for what would be otherwise illegal absent an exigency or emergency.’” Id., at 392 (quoting Wayne v. United States, 318 F. 2d 205, 212 (CADC 1963) (Burger, J.)); see also Tyler, supra, at 509. Accordingly, law enforcement officers may enter a home without a warrant to render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent injury. Mincey, supra, at 392; see also Georgia v. Randolph, ante, at 118 (“[I]t would be silly to suggest that the police would commit a tort by entering ... to determine whether violence (or threat of violence) has just occurred or is about to (or soon will) occur”).
Respondents do not take issue with these principles, but instead advance two reasons why the officers’ entry here was unreasonable. First, they argue that the officers were more interested in making arrests than quelling violence. They urge us to consider, in assessing the reasonableness of the entry, whether the officers were “indeed motivated primarily by a desire to save lives and property.” Brief for Respondents 3; see also Brief for National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae 6 (entry to render emergency assistance justifies a search “only when the searching officer is acting outside his traditional law-enforcement capacity”). The Utah Supreme Court also considered the officers’ subjective motivations relevant. See 122 P. 3d, at 513 (search under the “emergency aid doctrine” may not be “primarily motivated by intent to arrest and seize evidence” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Our cases have repeatedly rejected this approach. An action is “reasonable” under the Fourth Amendment, regardless of the individual officer’s state of mind, “as long as the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify [the] action.” Scott v. United States, 436 U. S. 128, 138 (1978) (emphasis added). The officer’s subjective motivation is irrelevant. See Bond v. United States, 529 U. S. 334, 338, n. 2 (2000) (“The parties properly agree that the subjective intent of the law enforcement officer is irrelevant in determining whether that officer’s actions violate the Fourth Amendment...; the issue is not his state of mind, but the objective effect of his actions”); Whren v. United States, 517 U. S. 806, 813 (1996) (“[W]e have been unwilling to entertain Fourth Amendment challenges based on the actual motivations of individual officers”); Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386, 397 (1989) (“[0]ur prior cases make clear” that “the subjective motivations of the individual officers . . . ha[ve] no bearing on whether a particular seizure is ‘unreasonable’ under the Fourth Amendment”). It therefore does not matter here — even if their subjective motives could be so neatly unraveled — whether the officers entered the kitchen to arrest respondents and gather evidence against them or to assist the injured and prevent further violence.
As respondents note, we have held in the context of programmatic searches conducted without individualized suspicion — such as checkpoints to combat drunk driving or drug trafficking — that “an inquiry into programmatic purpose” is sometimes appropriate. Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U. S. 32, 46 (2000) (emphasis added); see also Florida v. Wells, 495 U. S. 1, 4 (1990) (an inventory search must be regulated by “standardized criteria” or “established routine” so as not to “be a ruse for a general rummaging in order to discover incriminating evidence”). But this inquiry is directed at ensuring that the purpose behind the program is not “ultimately indistinguishable from the general interest in crime control.” Edmond, 531 U. S., at 44. It has nothing to do with discerning what is in the mind of the individual officer conducting the search. Id., at 48.
Respondents further contend that their conduct was not serious enough to justify the officers’ intrusion into the home. They rely on Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U. S. 740, 753 (1984), in which we held that “an important factor to be considered when determining whether any exigency exists is the gravity of the underlying offense for which the arrest is being made.” This contention, too, is misplaced. Welsh involved a warrantless entry by officers to arrest a suspect for driving while intoxicated. There, the “only potential emergency” confronting the officers was the' need to preserve evidence (i. e., the suspect’s blood-alcohol level) — an exigency that we held insufficient under the circumstances to justify entry into the suspect’s home. Ibid. Here, the officers were confronted with ongoing violence occurring within the home. Welsh did not address such a situation.
We think the officers’ entry here was plainly reasonable under the circumstances. The officers were responding, at 3 o’clock in the morning, to complaints about a loud party. As they approached the house, they could hear from within “an altercation occurring, some kind of a fight.” App. 29. “It was loud and it was tumultuous.” Id., at 33. The officers heard “thumping and crashing” and people yelling “stop, stop” and “get off me.” Id., at 28, 29. As the trial court found, “it was obvious that . . . knocking on the front door” would have been futile. Id., at 92. The noise seemed to be coming from the back of the house; after looking in the front window and seeing nothing, the officers proceeded around back to investigate further. They found two juveniles drinking beer in the backyard. From there, they could see that a fracas was taking place inside the kitchen. A juvenile, fists clenched, was being held back by several adults. As the officers watch, he breaks free and strikes one of the adults in the face, sending the adult to the sink spitting blood.
In these circumstances, the officers had an objectively reasonable basis for believing both that the injured adult might need help and that the violence in the kitchen was just beginning. Nothing in the Fourth Amendment required them to wait until another blow rendered someone “unconscious” or “semi-conscious” or worse before entering. The role of a peace officer includes preventing violence and restoring order, not simply rendering first aid to casualties; an officer is not like a boxing (or hockey) referee, poised to stop a bout only if it becomes too one-sided.
The manner of the officers’ entry was also reasonable. After witnessing the punch, one of the officers opened the screen door and “yelled in police.” Id., at 40. When nobody heard him, he stepped into the kitchen and announced himself again. Only then did the tumult subside. The officer’s announcement of his presence was at least equivalent to a knock on the screen door. Indeed, it was probably the only option that had even a chance of rising above the din. Under these circumstances, there was no violation of the Fourth Amendment’s knock-and-announce rule. Furthermore, once the announcement was made, the officers were free to enter; it would serve no purpose to require them to stand dumbly at the door awaiting a response while those within brawled on, oblivious to their presence.
Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Utah, and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in this case to determine whether the right of a defendant in a criminal case under the Sixth Amendment to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor is applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, and whether that right was violated by a state procedural statute providing that persons charged as principals, accomplices, or accessories in the same crime cannot be introduced as witnesses for each other.
Petitioner, Jackie Washington, was convicted in Dallas County, Texas, of murder with malice and was sentenced by a jury to 50 years in prison. The prosecution’s evidence showed that petitioner, an 18-year-old youth, had dated a girl named Jean Carter until her mother had forbidden her to see him. The girl thereafter began dating another boy, the deceased. Evidently motivated by jealousy, petitioner with several other boys began driving around the City of Dallas on the night of August 29, 1964, looking for a gun. The search eventually led to one Charles Fuller, who joined the group with his shotgun. After obtaining some shells from another source, the group of boys proceeded to Jean Carter’s home, where Jean, her family and the deceased were having supper. Some of the boys threw bricks at the house and then ran back to the car, leaving petitioner and Fuller alone in front of the house with the shotgun. At the sound of the bricks the deceased and Jean Carter’s mother rushed out on the porch to investigate. The shotgun was fired by either petitioner or Fuller, and the deceased was fatally wounded. Shortly afterward petitioner and Fuller came running back to the car where the other boys waited, with Fuller carrying the shotgun.
Petitioner testified in his own behalf. He claimed that Fuller, who was intoxicated, had taken the gun from him, and that he had unsuccessfully tried to persuade Fuller to leave before the shooting. Fuller had insisted that he was going to shoot someone, and petitioner had run back to the automobile. He saw the girl’s mother come out of the door as he began running, and he subsequently heard the shot. At the time, he had thought that Fuller had shot the woman. In support of his version of the facts, petitioner offered the testimony of Fuller. The record indicates that Fuller would have testified that petitioner pulled at him and tried to persuade him to leave, and that petitioner ran before Fuller fired the fatal shot.
It is undisputed that Fuller’s testimony would have been relevant and material, and that it was vital to the defense. Fuller was the only person other than petitioner who knew exactly who had fired the shotgun and whether petitioner had at the last minute attempted to prevent the shooting. Fuller, however, had been previously convicted of the same murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison, and he was confined in the Dallas County jail. Two Texas statutes provided at the time of the trial in this case that persons charged or convicted as coparticipants in the same crime could not testify for one another, although there was no bar to their testifying for the State. On the basis of these statutes the trial judge sustained the State’s objection and refused to allow Fuller to testify. Petitioner’s conviction followed, and it was upheld on appeal by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. 400 S. W. 2d 756. We granted certiorari. 385 U. S. 812. We reverse.
I.
We have not previously been called upon to decide whether the right of an accused to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, guaranteed in federal trials by the Sixth Amendment, is so fundamental and essential to a fair trial that it is incorporated in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. At one time, it was thought that the Sixth Amendment had no application to state criminal trials. That view no longer prevails, and in recent years we have increasingly looked to the specific guarantees of the Sixth Amendment to determine whether a state criminal trial was conducted with due process of law. We have held that due process requires that the accused have the assistance of counsel for his defense, that he be confronted with the witnesses against him, and that he have the right to a speedy and public trial.
The right of an accused to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor stands on no lesser footing than the other Sixth Amendment rights that we have previously held applicable to the States. This Court had occasion in In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257 (1948), to describe what it regarded as the most basic ingredients of due process of law. It observed that:
“A person’s right to reasonable notice of a charge against him, and an opportunity to be heard in his defense — a right to his day in court — are basic in our system of jurisprudence; and these rights include, as a minimum, a right to examine the witnesses against him, to offer testimony, and to be represented by counsel.” 333 U. S., at 273 (footnote omitted).
The right to offer the testimony of witnesses, and to compel their attendance, if necessary, is in plain terms the right to present a defense, the right to present the defendant’s version of the facts as well as the prosecution’s to the jury so it may decide where the truth lies. Just as an accused has the right to confront the prosecution’s witnesses for the purpose of challenging their testimony, he has the right to present his own witnesses to establish a defense. This right is a fundamental element of due process of law.
II.
Since the right to compulsory process is applicable in this state proceeding, the question remains whether it was violated in the circumstances of this case. The testimony of Charles Fuller was denied to the defense not because the State refused to compel his attendance, but because a state statute made his testimony inadmissible whether he was present in the courtroom or not. We are thus called upon to decide whether the Sixth Amendment guarantees a defendant the right under any circumstances to put his witnesses on the stand, as well as the right to compel their attendance in court. The resolution of this question requires some discussion of the common-law context in which the Sixth Amendment was adopted.
Joseph Story, in his famous Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, observed that the right to compulsory process was included in the Bill of Rights in reaction to the notorious common-law rule that in cases of treason or felony the accused was not allowed to introduce witnesses in his defense at all. Although the absolute prohibition of witnesses for the defense had been abolished in England by statute before 1787, the Framers of the Constitution felt it necessary specifically to provide that defendants in criminal cases should be provided the means of obtaining witnesses so that their own evidence, as well as the prosecution’s, might be evaluated by the jury.
Despite the abolition of the rule generally disqualifying defense witnesses, the common law retained a number of restrictions on witnesses who were physically and mentally capable of testifying. To the extent that they were applicable, they had the same effect of suppressing the truth that the general proscription had had. Defendants and codefendants were among the large class of witnesses disqualified from testifying on the ground of interest. A party to a civil or criminal case was not allowed to testify on his own behalf for fear that he might be tempted to lie. Although originally the disqualification of a codefendant appears to have been based only on his status as a party to the action, and in some jurisdictions co-indictees were allowed to testify for or against each other if granted separate trials, other jurisdictions came to the view that accomplices or co-indictees were incompetent to testify at least in favor of each other even at separate trials, and in spite of statutes making a defendant competent to testify in his own behalf. It was thought that if two persons charged with the same crime were allowed to testify on behalf of each other, “each would try to swear the other out of the charge.” This rule, as well as the other disqualifications for interest, rested on the unstated premises that the right to present witnesses was subordinate to the court’s interest in preventing perjury, and that erroneous decisions were best avoided by preventing the jury from hearing any testimony that might be perjured, even if it were the only testimony available on a crucial issue.
The federal courts followed the common-law restrictions for a time, despite the Sixth Amendment. In United States v. Reid, 12 How. 361 (1852), the question was whether one of two defendants jointly indicted for murder on the high seas could call the other as a witness. Although this Court expressly recognized that the Sixth Amendment was designed to abolish some of the harsh rules of the common law, particularly including the refusal to allow the defendant in a serious criminal case to present witnesses in his defense, it held that the rules of evidence in the federal courts were those in force in the various States at the time of the passage of the Judiciary Act of 1789, including the disqualification of defendants indicted together. The holding in United States v. Reid was not satisfactory to later generations, however, and in 1918 this Court expressly overruled it, refusing to be bound by “the dead hand of the common-law rule of 1789,” and taking note of “the conviction of our time that the truth is more likely to be arrived at by hearing the testimony of all persons of competent understanding who may seem to have knowledge of the facts involved in a case, leaving the credit and weight of such testimony to be determined by the jury or by the court . . . Rosen v. United States, 245 U. S. 467, 471.
Although Rosen v. United States rested on noncon-stitutional grounds, we believe that its reasoning was required by the Sixth Amendment. In light of the common-law history, and in view of the recognition in the Reid case that the Sixth Amendment was designed in part to make the testimony of a defendant’s witnesses admissible on his behalf in court, it could hardly be argued that a State would not violate the clause if it made all defense testimony inadmissible as a matter of procedural law. It is difficult to see how the Constitution is any less violated by arbitrary rules that prevent whole categories of defense witnesses from testifying on the basis of a priori categories that presume them unworthy of belief.
The rule disqualifying an alleged accomplice from testifying on behalf of the defendant cannot even be defended on the ground that it rationally sets apart a group of persons who are particularly likely to commit perjury. The absurdity of the rule is amply demonstrated by the exceptions that have been made to it. For example, the accused accomplice may be called by the prosecution to testify against the defendant. Common sense would suggest that he often has a greater interest in lying in favor of the prosecution rather than against it, especially if he is still awaiting his own trial or sentencing. To think that criminals will lie to save their fellows but not to obtain favors from the prosecution for themselves is indeed to clothe the criminal class with more nobility than one might expect to find in the public at large. Moreover, under the Texas statutes the accused accomplice is no longer disqualified if he is acquitted at his own trial. Presumably, he would then be free to testify on behalf of his comrade, secure in the knowledge that he could incriminate himself as freely as he liked in his testimony, since he could not again be prosecuted for the same offense. The Texas law leaves him free to testify when he has a great incentive to perjury, and bars his testimony in situations where he has a lesser motive to lie.
We hold that the petitioner in this case was denied his right to have compulsory process for obtaining .witnesses in his favor because the State arbitrarily denied him the right to put on the stand a witness who was physically and mentally capable of testifying to events that he had personally observed, and whose testimony would have been relevant and material to the defense. The Framers of the Constitution did not intend to commit the futile act of giving to a defendant the right to secure the attendance of witnesses whose testimony he had no right to use. The judgment of conviction must be reversed.
It is so ordered.
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”
“[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . .”
See Fuller v. State, 397 S. W. 2d 434 (Tex. Crim. App. 1966).
“Persons charged as principals, accomplices or accessories, whether in the same or by different indictments, can not be introduced as witnesses for one another, but they may claim a severance, and if one or more be acquitted they may testify in behalf of the others.” Tex. Pen. Code, Art. 82.
“Persons charged as principals, accomplices or accessories, whether in the same or different indictments, cannot be introduced as witnesses for one another, but they may claim a severance; and, if any one or more be acquitted, or the prosecution against them be dismissed, they may testify in behalf of the others.” Tex. Code Crim. Proc., Art. 711 (1925).
These statutory provisions were apparently repealed by implication by Art. 36.09 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure of 1965, which became effective after petitioner’s trial. Article 36.09 provides that “Two or more defendants who are jointly or separately indicted or complained against for the same offense or an offense growing out of the same transaction may be, in the discretion of the court, tried jointly or separately as to one or more defendants; provided that in any event either defendant may testify for the other or on behalf of the State . . . .”
Counsel have cited no statutes from other jurisdictions, and we have found none, that flatly disqualify coparticipants in a crime from testifying for each other regardless of whether they are tried jointly or separately. To be distinguished are statutes providing that one of two or more defendants tried jointly may, if the evidence against him is insufficient, be entitled to an immediate acquittal so he may testify for the others. These statutes seem designed to allow such joint defendants to testify without incriminating themselves. See, e. g., Ala. Code, Tit. 15, § 309 (1958); Alaska Code Crim. Proc. § 12.20.060 (1962); Kan. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 62-1440 (1964).
Rangel v. State, 22 Tex. Ct. App. 642, 3 S. W. 788 (1887).
“[A] provision of the Bill of Rights which is ‘fundamental and essential to a fair trial’ is made obligatory upon the States by the Fourteenth Amendment.” Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, 342 (1963).
See West v. Louisiana, 194 U. S. 258, 264 (1904).
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963).
Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400 (1965).
Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U. S. 213 (1967).
In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257 (1948).
3 Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States §§ 1786-1788 (1st ed. 1833).
By 1701 the accused in both treason and felony cases was allowed to produce witnesses who could testify under oath. See 2 Wigmore, Evidence § 575, at 685-686 (3d ed. 1940).
See generally 2 Wigmore §§ 575-576 (3d ed. 1940). We have discussed elsewhere the gradual demise of the common-law rule prohibiting defendants from testifying in their own behalf. See Ferguson v. Georgia, 365 U. S. 570 (1961).
See 2 Wigmore § 580, at 709-710 (3d ed. 1940); Henderson v. State, 70 Ala. 23, 24-25 (Dec. Term 1881); Allen v. State, 10 Ohio St. 287, 303 (Dec. Term 1859).
See Foster v. State, 45 Ark. 328 (May Term 1885); State v. Drake, 11 Ore. 396, 4 Pac. 1204 (1884). Both cases have been overturned by statute. Ark. Stat. Ann. §43-2017 (1947); Ore. Rev. Stat. § 139.315 (1965).
Benson v. United States, 146 U. S. 325, 335 (1892).
“Indeed, the theory of the common law was to admit to the witness stand only those presumably honest, appreciating the sanctity of an oath, unaffected as a party by the result, and free from any of the temptations of interest. The courts were afraid to trust the intelligence of jurors.” Benson v. United States, 146 U. S. 325, 336 (1892).
12 How., at 363-364.
See n. 5, supra.
Nothing in this opinion should be construed as disapproving testimonial privileges, such as the privilege against self-incrimination or the lawyer-client or husband-wife privileges, which are based on entirely different considerations from those underlying the common-law disqualifications for interest. Nor do we deal in this case with nonarbitrary state rules that disqualify as witnesses persons who, because of mental infirmity or infancy, are incapable of observing events or testifying about them.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
Respondent Crescent Towing Company contracted with petitioner Dixilyn Drilling Corporation to tow Dixilyn’s barge Julie Ann down the Mississippi River. While being towed, the barge collided with a bridge, and the bridge owners filed a libel in the United States District Court claiming damages from the tower and the barge owner. These two jointly paid the claim but continued to litigate, as between themselves, the question of which was liable. The district judge after a full trial found that the collision and the resulting damage were due solely to the negligence of the tower. He also rejected the tower’s argument that regardless of which was negligent the barge owner should pay the damages because it had contracted to assume liability for all damages arising out of the towage including “any damage claims urged by third parties.” The judge held that the barge owner had not agreed to assume liability for damages caused by the tower’s own negligence. On review the Court of Appeals held that it need not decide the “extremely difficult” factual question of who was negligent because, in the court's view, the barge owner had agreed in the towage contract to assume liability for all losses arising out of the towage, including those caused by the tower’s negligence. Holding such a contract to be valid, the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s judgment.
In treating as valid a contract which exempts the tower from liability for its own negligence, the Court of Appeals’ holding is squarely in conflict with our holding in Bisso v. Inland Waterways Corp., 349 U. S. 85 (1955), and Boston Metals Co. v. The Winding Gulf, 349 U. S. 122 (1955). The Court of Appeals thought that the present case was distinguishable because the peculiar hazards of towage and other factors brought it within the ambit of Southwestern Sugar & Molasses Co. v. River Terminals Corp., 360 U. S. 411 (1959). But Southwestern Sugar is not applicable here, for in that case the Court merely preferred to give the Interstate Commerce Commission an opportunity to rule on an exculpatory clause which was part of a tariff filed with the Commission. We adhere to the rule laid down in Bisso and Winding Gulf and hold that the Court of Appeals was in error in failing to follow it. The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded to that court to consider other questions.
Reversed and remanded.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
The motion of respondent for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is reversed, Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554, and the case is remanded to that court for consideration of the unresolved issues.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is the second in the group of four cases involving income tax prosecutions under the net worth method of proof. In this case petitioner was indicted for the years 1944 through 1947, and convicted on all counts except the first, covering the year 1944.
While the discussion in Holland v. United States, ante, p. 121, is dispositive of some of the more general problems raised by this type of prosecution, petitioner here directs his fire specifically at the sufficiency of the evidence as to his opening net worth. To highlight his contention that the Government had not properly accounted for an alleged hoard of cash and bonds on hand at the beginning of the indictment period, petitioner has stipulated virtually every other net worth issue out of the case.
Although petitioner’s testimony as to this cash on hand vacillated, we conclude from a careful examination of the testimony that the largest amount claimed at the starting point was “far in excess” of $60,000. The Government’s evidence, as in Holland, did not directly dispute this, but it did painstakingly trace the Friedbergs’ finances from 1922 through the prosecution years. It pointed unmistakably to the conclusion that petitioner had no such hoard of cash at the starting point.
This evidence, briefly outlined, was as follows: Petitioner filed no tax return for 1922, paid nominal taxes for 1923, 1924 and 1925, and, except for 1926, 1927, 1930 and 1937, when he filed non taxable returns, he filed no returns from 1926 through 1937. He borrowed small sums of money on three occasions in 1931. In 1934, when he failed to pay $30 a month on a real estate mortgage, the mortgagee brought a foreclosure suit and petitioner was unable to meet the modest compromise terms offered him by the court. In 1936 and 1940, levies on a judgment for $13.76 were returned nulla bona. A mortgage on his former home was foreclosed in 1937, and a deficiency judgment entered for over $3,500. The writ of execution was returned “nothing found” in 1939, and petitioner then settled the judgment by paying $100 to the mortgagee in return for release from liability. In 1939, petitioner stated in an application for a loan that his total assets were $9,200, including $150 cash on hand, while his liabilities were $500. The tailoring business in which petitioner had worked since 1922 for an average pay of $50 a week was dissolved in 1941 because it could not meet its bills, and petitioner bought its assets for $650.
Yet it was during these years, from the 1920’s until 1941, that petitioner claimed to have accumulated “far in excess” of $60,000. We think the jury could readily have concluded that petitioner had saved no such reserve.
Petitioner’s other objections can be disposed of quickly. First, he contends it was error for the special agent, a witness for the Government, to give his “personal opinion” that petitioner had no cash on hand at the starting point. But this distorts what actually happened. The agent was asked on cross-examination to give a “yes or no” answer to whether in his net worth statement he had credited petitioner with any cash on hand for 1941. The agent said “there was no evidence available to show there was cash.” After defense counsel’s insistence that the witness answer “did you or didn’t you” give credit for any cash, the court allowed the agent to explain his answer. He explained that his investigation disclosed no evidence which would permit him to credit petitioner with cash on hand in 1941 and on redirect examination he elaborated, pointing out the foreclosures and the other evidence which has been detailed above. From this, he said,, he “could see no reason why [he] should . . . include” any cash on hand at the starting point.
This was hardly a “conclusion of the witness,” which is an “ultimate issue to be decided by the jury,” as petitioner claims. The agent, upon petitioner’s insistence, was testifying to a negative fact: he had not included cash because he had found no evidence of cash. The evidence which he then summarized on redirect was only that which had already been introduced at the trial. It is difficult to see how he invaded the province of the jury; nor do we see how petitioner’s question could have been answered otherwise.
Finally, error is asserted in the trial judge’s final instruction to the jury, which was given some three to four hours after it had begun its deliberations. Petitioner contends that the instruction called upon the jury to compromise the issues. It may be that “compromise” in its literal sense, if used alone, would leave improper connotations. Though its use here was unfortunate, we do not think it misled the jury. We note that no objection was made to any of the instructions, nor was any of petitioner’s oral argument devoted to them a week later on motion for a new trial. In fact, petitioner specifically disclaimed any intent to make the instruction now attacked a ground for a new trial. This is persuasive evidence that he did not originally consider this' section of the charge prejudicial; and since the remaining instructions were fair and negatived any inference that a compromise verdict was permissible, we are inclined to agree. In the face of this record, we can hardly conclude that this error is sufficient ground for reversal.
Affirmed.
Both Friedberg and his wife testified that he had “far in excess” of $50,000 by 1936; at another point he swore he had between $50,000 and $100,000 by that time; by 1938 he claimed “far in excess” of $60,000; and finally, he stated that he had “substantially” $100,000 by 1947.
The instruction was:
“The Court will stand in recess until one-thirty. The Court may say to the jury at this time that I want you to make an honest and sincere effort to reach an agreement as to the merits of this case. I do not want you to shirk your duty. I want you to be fair to the Government, the United States, and the defendant. Nevertheless, this case has taken many days to try, and I hope you will make a sincere effort to compromise and adjust your differences and reach a verdict, if possible.”
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents a challenge to § 505 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Pub. L. 104-104,110 Stat. 136,47 U. S. C. § 561 (1994 ed., Supp. III). Section 505 requires cable television operators who provide channels “primarily dedicated to sexually-oriented programming” either to “fully scramble or otherwise fully block” those channels or to limit their transmission to hours when children are unlikely to be viewing,
' set by administrative regulation as the time between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. 47 U. S. C. § 561(a) (1994 ed., Supp. Ill); 47 CFR § 76.227 (1999). Even before enactment of the statute, signal scrambling was already in use. Cable operators used scrambling in the regular course of business, so that only paying customers had access to certain programs; Scrambling could be imprecise, however; and either or both audio and visual portions of the scrambled programs might be heard or seen, a phenomenon known as “signal bleed.” The purpose of § 505 is to shield children from hearing or seeing images resulting from signal bleed.
To comply with the statute, the majority of cable operators adopted the second, or “time channeling,” approach. The effect of the widespread adoption of time channeling was to eliminate altogether the transmission of the targeted programming outside the safe harbor period in affected cable service areas. In other words, for two-thirds of the day no household in those service areas could receive the programming, whether or not the household or the viewer wanted to do so.
Appellee Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., challenged the statute as unnecessarily restrictive content-based legislation violative of the First Amendment. After a trial, a three-judge District Court concluded that a regime in which viewers could order signal blocking on a household-by-household basis presented an effective, less restrictive alternative to § 505. 30 F. Supp. 2d 702,719 (Del. 1998). Finding no error in this conclusion, we affirm.
I
Playboy Entertainment Group owns and prepares programs for adult television networks, including Playboy Television and Spice. Playboy transmits its programming to cable television operators, who retransmit it to their subscribers, either through monthly subscriptions to premium channels or on a so-called “pay-per-view” basis. Cable operators transmit Playboy’s signal, like other premium channel signals, in scrambled form. The operators then provide paying subscribers with an “addressable converter,” a box placed on the home television set. The converter permits the viewer to see 'and hear the descrambled signal. It is conceded that almost all of Playboy’s programming consists of sexually explicit material as defined by the statute.
The statute was enacted because not all scrambling technology is perfect. Analog cable television systems may use either “RF” or “baseband” scrambling systems, which may not prevent signal bleed, so discernible pictures may appear from time to time on the scrambled screen. Furthermore, the listener might hear the audio portion of the program.
These imperfections are not inevitable. The problem is that at present it appears not to be economical to convert simpler RP or baseband scrambling systems to alternative scrambling technologies on a systemwide scale. Digital technology may one day provide another solution, as it presents no bleed problem at all. Indeed, digital systems are projected to become the technology of choice, which would eliminate the signal bleed problem. Digital technology is not yet in widespread use, however. With imperfect scrambling, viewers who have not paid to receive Playboy’s channels may happen across discernible images of a sexually explicit nature. How many viewers, how discernible the scene or sound, and how often this may occur are at issue in this case.
Section 505 was enacted to address the signal bleed phenomenon. As noted, the statute and its implementing regulations require cable operators either to scramble a sexually explicit channel in full or to limit the channel’s programming to the hours between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. 47 U. S. C. § 561 (1994 ed., Supp. III); 47 CFR §76.227 (1999). Section 505 was added by floor amendment, without significant debate, to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Act), a major legislative effort designed "to reduce regulation and encourage ‘the rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies.’ ” Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844, 857 (1997) (quoting 110 Stat. 56). "The Act includes seven Titles, six of which are the product of extensive committee hearings and the subject of discussion in Reports prepared by Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives.” Reno, supra, at 858. Section 505 is found in Title V of the Act, which is itself known as the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA). 110 Stat. 133. Section 505 was to become effective on March 9,1996, 30 days after the Act was signed by the President. Note following 47 U. S. C. §561 (1994 ed., Supp. III).
On March 7,1996, Playboy obtained a temporary restraining order (TRO) enjoining the enforcement of §505. 918 E Supp. 813 (Del.), and brought this suit in a three-judge District Court pursuant to § 561 of the Act, 110 Stat. 142, note following 47 U. S. C. § 223 (1994 ed., Supp. III). Playboy sought a declaration that § 505 violates the Constitution and an injunction prohibiting the law’s enforcement. The District Court denied Playboy a preliminary injunction, 945 E Supp. 772 (Del. 1996), and we summarily affirmed, 520 U. S. 1141 (1997). The TRO was lifted, and the Federal Communications Commission announced it would begin enforcing § 505 on May 18,1997. In re Implementation of Section 505 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 12 FCC Red. 5212, 5214 (1997).
When the statute became operative, most cable operators had “no practical choice but to curtail [the targeted] programming during the [regulated] sixteen hours or risk the penalties imposed... if any audio or video signal bleed occurred] during [those] times.” 30 F. Supp. 2d, at 711. The majority of operators — “in one survey, 69%” — complied with § 505 by time channeling the targeted programmers. Ibid. Since “30 to 50% of all adult programming is viewed by households prior to 10 p.m.,” the result was a significant restriction of communication, with a corresponding reduction in Playboy’s revenues. Ibid.
In March 1998, the District Court held a full trial and concluded that § 505 violates the First Amendment. Id., at 702. The District Court observed that §505 imposed a content-based restriction on speech. Id., at 714-715. It agreed that the interests the statute advanced were compelling but concluded the Government might further those interests in less restrictive ways. Id., at 717-720. One plausible, less restrictive alternative could be found in another section of the Act: § 504, which requires a cable operator, “[u]pon request by a cable service subscriber... without charge, [to] fully scramble or otherwise fully block” any channel the subscriber does not wish to receive. 110 Stat. 136, 47 U. S. C. §560 (1994 ed., Supp. III). As long as subscribers knew about this opportunity, the court reasoned, § 504 would provide as much protection against unwanted programming as would § 505. 30 F. Supp. 2d, at 718-720. At the same time, §504 was content neutral and would be less restrictive of Playboy’s First Amendment rights. Ibid.
The court described what “adequate notice” would include, suggesting
“[operators] should communicate to their subscribers the information that certain channels broadcast sexually-oriented programming; that signal bleed... may appear; that children may view signal bleed without their parents’ knowledge or permission; that channel blocking devices... are available free of charge...; and that a request for a free device... can be made by a telephone call to the [operator].” Id., at 719.
The means of providing this notice could include
“inserts in monthly billing statements, barker channels (preview channels of programming coming up on Pay-Per-View), and on-air advertisement on channels other than the one broadcasting the sexually explicit programming.” Ibid.
The court added that this notice could be “conveyed on a regular basis, at reasonable intervals,” and could include notice of changes in channel alignments. Ibid.
The District Court concluded that §504 so supplemented would be an effective, less restrictive alternative to §505, and consequently declared §505 unconstitutional and enjoined its enforcement. Id., at 719-720. The court also required Playboy to insist on these notice provisions in its contracts with cable operators. Ibid.
The United States filed a direct appeal in this Court pursuant to §561. The District Court thereafter dismissed for lack of jurisdiction two post-trial motions filed by the Government. App. to Juris. Statement 91a-92a. We noted probable jurisdiction, 527 U. S. 1021 (1999), and now affirm.
II
Two essential points should be understood concerning the speech at issue here. First, we shall assume that many adults themselves would find the material highly offensive; and when we consider the further circumstance that the material comes unwanted into homes where children might see or hear it against parental wishes or consent, there are legitimate reasons for regulating it. Second, all parties bring the case to us on the premise that Playboy’s programming has First Amendment protection. As this case has been litigated, it is not alleged to be obscene; adults have a constitutional right to view it; the Government disclaims any interest in preventing children from seeing or hearing it with the consent of their parents; and Playboy has concomitant rights under the First Amendment to transmit it. These points are undisputed.
The speech in question is defined by its content; and the statute which seeks to restrict it is content based. Section 505 applies only to channels primarily dedicated to “sexually explicit adult programming or other programming that is indecent.” The statute is unconcerned with signal bleed from any other channels. See 945 F. Supp., at 785 (“[Section 505] does not apply when signal bleed occurs on other premium channel networks, like HBO or the Disney Channel”). The overriding justification for the regulation is concern for the effect of the subject matter on young viewers. Section 505 is not “ ‘justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech.’ ” Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U. S. 781, 791 (1989) (quoting Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U. S. 288, 293 (1984)). It “focuses only on the content of the speech and the direct impact that speech has on its listeners.” Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S. 312, 321 (1988) (opinion of O’Connor, J.). This is the essence of content-based regulation.
Not only does § 505 single out particular programming content for regulation, it also singles out particular programmers. The speech in question was not thought by Congress to be so harmful that all channels were subject to restriction. Instead, the statutory disability applies only to channels '‘primarily dedicated to sexually-oriented programming.” 47 U. S. C. § 561(a) (1994 ed., Supp. III). One sponsor of the measure even identified appellee by name. See 141 Cong. Rec. 15587 (1995) (statement of Sen. Feinstein) (noting the statute would apply to channels “such as the Playboy and Spice channels”). Laws designed or intended to suppress or restrict the expression of specific speakers contradict basic First Amendment principles. Section 505 limited Playboy’s market as a penalty for its programming choice, though other channels capable of transmitting like material are altogether exempt.
The effect of the federal statute on the protected speech is now apparent. It is evident that the only reasonable way for a substantial number of cable operators to comply with the letter of § 505 is to time channel, which silences the protected speech for two-thirds of the day in every home in a cable service area, regardless of the presence or likely presence of children or of the wishes of the viewers. According to the District Court, “30 to 50% of all adult programming is viewed by households prior to 10 p.m.,” when the safe-harbor period begins. 30 F. Supp. 2d, at 711. To prohibit this much speech is a significant restriction of communication between speakers and willing adult listeners, communication which enjoys First Amendment protection. It is of no moment that the statute does not impose a complete prohibition. The distinction between laws burdening and laws banning speech is but a matter of degree. The Government’s content-based burdens must satisfy the same rigorous scrutiny as its content-based bans.
Since §505 is a content-based speech restriction, it can stand only if it satisfies strict scrutiny. Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U. S. 115, 126 (1989). If a statute regulates speech based on its content, it must be narrowly tailored to promote a compelling Government interest. Ibid. If a less restrictive alternative would serve the Government’s purpose, the legislature must use that alternative. Reno, 521 U. S., at 874 (“[The CDA’s Internet indecency provisions’] burden on adult speech is unacceptable if less restrictive alternatives would be at least as effective in achieving the legitimate purpose that the statute was enacted to serve”); Sable Communications, supra, at 126 (“The Government may... regulate the content of constitutionally protected speech in order to promote a compelling interest if it chooses the least restrictive means to further the articulated interest”). To do otherwise would be to restrict speech without an adequate justification, a course the First Amendment does not permit.
Our precedents teach these principles. Where the designed benefit of a content-based speech restriction is to shield the sensibilities of listeners, the general rule is that the right of expression prevails, even where no less restrictive alternative exists. We are expected to protect our own sensibilities “simply by averting [our] eyes.” Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15, 21 (1971); accord, Erznoznik v. Jacksonville, 422 U. S. 205, 210-211 (1975). Here, of course, we consider images transmitted to some homes where they are not wanted and where parents often are not present to give immediate guidance. Cable television, like broadcast media, presents unique problems, which inform our assessment of the interests at stake, and which may justify restrictions that would be unacceptable in other contexts. See Denver Area Ed. Telecommunications Consortium, Inc. v. FCC, 518 U. S. 727, 744 (1996) (plurality opinion); id., at 804-805 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part, concurring in judgment in part, and dissenting in part); FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U. S. 726 (1978). No one suggests the Government must be indifferent to unwanted, indecent speech that comes into the home without parental consent. The speech here, all agree, is protected speech; and the question is what standard the Government must meet in order to restrict it. As we consider a content-based regulation, the answer should be clear: The standard is strict scrutiny. This case involves speech alone; and even where speech is indecent and enters the home, the objective of shielding children does not suffice to support a blanket ban if the protection can be accomplished by a less restrictive alternative.
In Sable Communications, for instance, the feasibility of a technological approach to controlling minors’ access to “dial-a-porn” messages required invalidation of a complete statutory ban on the medium. 492 U. S., at 130-131. And, while mentioned only in passing, the mere possibility that user-based Internet screening software would “‘soon be widely available’ ” was relevant to our rejection of an over-broad restriction of indecent cyberspeech. Reno, supra, at 876-877. Compare Rowan v. Post Office Dept., 397 U. S. 728, 729-730 (1970) (upholding statute “whereby any householder may insulate himself from advertisements that offer for sale ‘matter which the addressee in his sole discretion believes to be erotically arousing or sexually provocative’” (quoting then 39 U. S. C. § 4009(a) (1964 ed., Supp. IV))), with Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U. S. 60, 75 (1983) (rejecting blanket ban on the mailing of unsolicited contraceptive advertisements). Compare also Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S. 629, 631 (1968) (upholding state statute barring the sale to minors of material defined as “obscene on the basis of its appeal to them”), with Butler v. Michigan, 352 U. S. 380, 381 (1957) (rejecting blanket ban of material “ ‘tending to incite minors to violent or depraved or immoral acts, manifestly tending to the corruption of the morals of youth’” (quoting then Mich. Penal Code §343)). Each of these cases arose in a different context — Sable Communica tions and Reno, for instance, also note the affirmative steps necessary to obtain access to indecent material via the media at issue — but they provide necessary instruction for complying with accepted First Amendment principles.
Our zoning cases, on the other hand, are irrelevant to the question here. Post, at 83B (Breyer, J., dissenting) (citing Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41 (1986), and Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50 (1976)). We have made clear that the lesser scrutiny afforded regulations targeting the secondary effects of crime or declining property values has no application to content-based regulations targeting the primary effects of protected speech. Reno, supra, at 867-868; Boos, 485 U. S., at 320-321. The statute now before us burdens speech because of its content; it must receive strict scrutiny.
There is, moreover, a key difference between cable television and the broadcasting media, which is the point on which this case turns: Cable systems have the capacity to block unwanted channels on a household-by-household basis. The option to block reduces the likelihood, so concerning to the Court in Pacifica, supra, at 744, that traditional First Amendment scrutiny would deprive the Government of all authority to address this sort of problem. The corollary, of course, is that targeted blocking enables the Government to support parental authority without affecting the First Amendment interests of speakers and willing listeners — listeners for whom, if the speech is unpopular or indecent, the privacy of their own homes may be the optimal place of receipt. Simply put, targeted blocking is less restrictive than banning, and the Government cannot ban speech if targeted blocking is a feasible and effective means of furthering its compelling interests. This is not to say that the absence of an effective blocking mechanism will in all cases suffice to support a law restricting the speech in question; but if a less restrictive means is available for the Government to achieve its goals, the Government must use it.
I — I I — I H-t
The District Court concluded that a less restrictive alternative is available: §504, with adequate publicity. 30 F. Supp. 2d, at 719-720. No one disputes that § 504, which requires cable operators to block undesired channels at individual households upon request, is narrowly tailored to the Government’s goal of supporting parents who want those channels blocked. The question is whether §504 can be effective.
When a plausible, less restrictive alternative is offered to a content-based speech restriction, it is the Government’s obligation to prove that the alternative will be ineffective to achieve its goals. The Government has not met that burden here. In support of its position, the Government cites empirical evidence showing that §504, as promulgated and implemented before trial, generated few requests for household-by-household blocking. Between March 1996 and May 1997, while the Government was enjoined from enforcing §505, §504 remained in operation. A survey of cable operators determined that fewer than 0.5% of cable subscribers requested full blocking during that time. Id., at 712. The uncomfortable fact is that §504 was the sole blocking regulation in effect for over a year; and the public greeted it with a collective yawn.
The District Court was correct to direct its attention to the import of this tepid response. Placing the burden of proof upon the Government, the District Court examined whether §504 was capable of serving as an effective, less restrictive means of reaching the Government’s goals. Id., at 715, 718-719. It concluded that § 504, if publicized in an adequate manner, could be. Id., at 719-720.
The District Court employed the proper approach. When the Government restricts speech, the Government bears the burden of proving the constitutionality of its actions. Greater New Orleans Broadcasting Assn., Inc. v. United States, 527 U.S. 173, 183 (1999) (“[T]he Government bears the burden of identifying a substantial interest and justifying the challenged restriction”); Reno, 521 U. S., at 879 (“The breadth of this content-based restriction of speech imposes an especially heavy burden on the Government to explain why a less restrictive provision would not be as effective. ); Edenfield v. Fane, 507 U. S. 761, 770-771 (1993) (“[A] governmental body seeking to sustain a restriction on commercial speech must demonstrate that the harms it recites are real and that its restriction will in fact alleviate them to a material degree”); Board of Trustees of State Univ. of N. Y. v. Fox, 492 U. S. 469, 480 (1989) (“[T]he State bears the burden of justifying its restrictions...”); Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 509 (1969) (“In order for the State... to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint”). When the Government seeks to restrict speech based on its content, the usual presumption of constitutionality afforded congressional enactments is reversed. “Content-based regulations are presumptively invalid,” R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 382 (1992), and the Government bears the burden to rebut that presumption.
This is for good reason. “[T]he line between speech unconditionally guaranteed and speech which may legitimately be regulated, suppressed, or punished is finely drawn.” Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 525 (1958). Error in marking that line exacts an extraordinary cost. It is through speech that our convictions and beliefs are influenced, expressed, and tested. It is through speech that we bring those beliefs to bear on Government and on society. It is through speech that our personalities are formed and expressed. The citizen is entitled to seek out or reject certain ideas or influences without Government interference or control.
When a student first encounters our free speech jurisprudence, he or she might think it is influenced by the philosophy that one idea is as good as any other, and that in art and literature objective standards of style, taste, decorum, beauty, and esthetics are deemed by the Constitution to be inappropriate, indeed unattainable. Quite the opposite is true. The Constitution no more enforces a relativistic philosophy or moral nihilism than it does any other point of view. The Constitution exists precisely so that opinions and judgments, including esthetic and moral judgments about art and literature, can be formed, tested, and expressed. What the Constitution says is that these judgments are for the individual to make, not for the Government to decree, even with the mandate or approval of a majority. Technology expands the capacity to choose; and it denies the potential of this revolution if we assume the Government is best positioned to make these choices for us.
It is rare that a regulation restricting speech because of its content will ever be permissible. Indeed, were we to give the Government the benefit of the doubt when it attempted to restrict speech, we would risk leaving regulations in place that sought to shape our unique personalities or to silence dissenting ideas. When First Amendment compliance is the point to be proved, the risk of nonpersuasion— operative in all trials — must rest with the Government, not with the citizen. Id., at 526.
With this burden in mind, the District Court explored three explanations for the lack of individual blocking requests. 30 F. Supp. 2d, at 719. First, individual blocking might not be an effective alternative, due to technological or other limitations. Second, although an adequately advertised blocking provision might have been effective, § 504 as written did not require sufficient notice to make it so. Third, the actual signal bleed problem might be far less of a concern than the Government at first had supposed. Ibid.
To sustain its statute, the Government was required to show that the first was the right answer. According to the District Court, however, the first and third possibilities were “equally consistent” with the record before it. Ibid. As for the second, the record was “not clear” as to whether enough notice had been issued to give § 504 a fighting chance. Ibid. The case, then, was at best a draw. Unless the District Court’s findings are clearly erroneous, the tie goes to free expression.
The District Court began with the problem of signal bleed itself, concluding “the Government has not convinced us that [signal bleed] is a pervasive problem.” Id., at 708-709, 718. The District Court’s thorough discussion exposes a central weakness in the Government’s proof: There is little hard evidence of how widespread or how serious the problem of signal bleed is. Indeed, there is no proof as to how likely any child is to view a discernible explicit image, and no proof of the duration of the bleed or the quality of the pictures or sound. To say that millions of children are subject to a risk of viewing signal bleed is one thing; to avoid articulating the true nature and extent of the risk is quite another. Under §505, sanctionable signal, bleed can include instances as fleeting as an image appearing on a screen for just a few seconds. The First Amendment requires a more careful assessment and characterization of an evil in order to justify a regulation as sweeping as this. Although the parties have taken the additional step of lodging with the Court an assortment of videotapes, some of which show quite explicit bleeding and some of which show television static or snow, there is no attempt at explanation or context; there is no discussion, for instance, of the extent to which any particular tape is representative of what appears on screens nationwide.
The Government relied at trial on anecdotal evidence to support its regulation, which the District Court summarized as follows:
“The Government presented evidence of two city councillors, eighteen individuals, one United States Senator, and the officials of one city who complained either to their [cable operator], to their local Congressman, or to the FCC about viewing signal bleed on television. In each instance, the local [cable operator] offered to, or did in fact, rectify the situation for free (with the exception of 1 individual), with varying degrees of rapidity. Included in the complaints was the additional concern that other parents might not be aware that their children are exposed to this problem. In addition, the Government presented evidence of a child exposed to signal bleed at a friend’s house. Cindy Omlin set the lockout feature on her remote control to prevent her child from tuning to adult channels, but her eleven year old son was nevertheless exposed to signal bleed when he attended a slumber party at a friend’s house.
“The Government has presented evidence of only a handful of isolated incidents over the 16 years since 1982 when Playboy started broadcasting. The Government has not presented any survey-type evidence on the magnitude of the ‘problem.’ ” Id., at 709 (footnote and record citations omitted).
Spurred by the District Court’s express request for more specific evidence of the problem, see 945 F. Supp., at 779, n. 16, the Government also presented an expert’s spreadsheet estimate that 39 million homes with 29.5 million children had the potential to be exposed to signal bleed, 30 F. Supp. 2d, at 708-709. The Government made no attempt to confirm the accuracy of its estimate through surveys or other field tests, however. Accordingly, the District Court discounted the figures and made this finding: “[T]he Government presented no evidence on the number of households actually exposed to signal bleed and thus has not quantified the actual extent of the problem of signal bleed.” Id., at 709. The finding is not clearly erroneous; indeed it is all but required.
Once § 505 went into effect, of course, a significant percentage of cable operators felt it necessary to time channel their sexually explicit programmers. Id., at 711, and n. 14. This is an indication that scrambling technology is not yet perfected. That is not to say, however, that scrambling is completely ineffective. Different cable systems use different scrambling systems, which vary in their dependability. “The severity of the problem varies from time to time and place to place, depending on the weather, the quality of the equipment, its installation, and maintenance.” Id., at 708. At even the good end of the spectrum a system might bleed to an extent sufficient to trigger the time-channeling requirement for a cautious cable operator. (The statute requires the signal to be “fully bloek[ed].” 47 U. S. C. § 561(a) (1994 ed., Supp. Ill) (emphasis added).) A rational cable operator, faced with the possibility of sanctions for intermittent bleeding, could well choose to time channel even if the bleeding is too momentary to pose any concern to most households. To affirm that the Government failed to prove the existence of a problem, while at the same time observing that the statute imposes a severe burden on speech, is consistent with the analysis our cases require. Here, there is no probative evidence in the record which differentiates among the extent of bleed at individual households and no evidence which otherwise quantifies the signal bleed problem.
In addition, market-based solutions such as programmable televisions, VCR’s, and mapping systems (which display a blue screen when tuned to a scrambled signal) may eliminate signal bleed at the consumer end of the cable. 30 F. Supp. 2d, at 708. Playboy made the point at trial that the Government’s estimate failed to account for these factors. Id., at 708-709. Without some sort of field survey, it is impossible to know how widespread the problem in fact is, and the only indicator in the record is a handful of complaints. Cf. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 520 U. S. 180, 187 (1997) (reviewing “ ‘a record of tens of thousands of pages’ of evidence” developed through “three years of pre-enactment hearings,... as well as additional expert submissions, sworn declarations and testimony, and industry documents” in support of complex must-carry provisions). If the number of children transfixed by even flickering pornographic television images in fact reached into the millions we, like the District Court, would have expected to be directed to more than a handful of complaints.
No support for the restriction can be found in the near barren legislative record relevant to this provision. Section 505 was added to the Act by floor amendment, accompanied by only brief statements, and without committee hearing or debate. See 141 Cong. Ree. 15586-15589 (1995). One of the measure’s sponsors did indicate she considered time channeling to be superior to voluntary blocking, which “put[s] the burden of action on the subscriber, not the cable company.” Id., at 15587 (statement of Sen. Feinstein). This sole eonclu-sory statement, however, tells little about the relative efficacy of voluntary blocking versus time channeling, other than offering the unhelpful, self-evident generality that voluntary measures require voluntary action. The Court has declined to rely on similar evidence before. See Sable Communications, 492 U. S., at 129-130 (“[A]side from conclusory statements during the debates by proponents of the bill,... the congressional record presented to us contains no evidence as to how effective or ineffective the... regulations were or might prove to be” (footnote omitted)); Reno, 521 U. S., at 858, and n. 24, 875-876, n. 41 (same). This is not to suggest that a 10,000-page record must be compiled in every case or that the Government must delay in acting to address a real problem; but the Government must present more than anecdote and supposition. The question is whether an actual problem has been proved in- this ease. We agree that the Government has failed to establish a pervasive, nationwide problem justifying its nationwide daytime speech ban.
Nor did the District Court err in its second conclusion. The Government also failed to prove § 504 with adequate notice would be an ineffective alternative to § 505. Once again, the District Court invited the Government to produce its proof. See 945 F. Supp., at 781 (“If the § 504 blocking option is not being promoted, it cannot become a meaningful alternative to the provisions of § 505. At the time of the permanent injunction hearing, further evidence of the actual and predicted impact and efficacy of §504 would be helpful to us”). Once again, the Government fell short. See 30 F. Supp. 2d, at 719 (“[The Government’s argument that § 504 is ineffective] is premised on adequate notice to subscribers. It is not clear, however, from the record that notices of the provisions of § 504 have been adequate”). There is no evidence that a well-promoted voluntary blocking provision would not be capable at least of informing parents about signal bleed (if they are not yet aware of it) and about their rights to have the bleed blocked (if they consider it a problem and have not yet controlled it themselves).
The Government finds at least two problems with the conclusion of the three-judge District Court. First, the Government takes issue with the District Court’s reliance, without proof, on a “hypothetical, enhanced version of Section 504.” Brief for Appellants 32. It was not the District Court’s obligation, however, to predict the extent to which an improved notice scheme would improve § 504. It was for the Government, presented with a plausible, less restrictive alternative, to prove the alternative to be ineffective, and § 505 to be the least restrictive available means. Indeed, to the extent the District Court erred, it was only in attempting to implement the less restrictive alternative through judicial decree by requiring
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1974, respondent Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., published a book entitled KGB, the Secret Work of Soviet Agents (KGB), written by respondent John Barron. The book describes the Soviet Union’s espionage organization and chronicles its activities since World War II. In a passage referring to disclosures by “royal commissions in Canada and Australia, and official investigations in Great Britain and the United States,” the book contains the following statements relating to petitioner Ilya Wolston:
“Among Soviet agents identified in the United States were Elizabeth T. Bentley, Edward Joseph Fitzgerald, William Ludwig Ullmann, William Walter Remington, Franklin Victor Reno, Judith Coplon, Harry Gold, David Greenglass, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Morton Sobell, William Perl, Alfred Dean Slack, Jack Soble, Ilya Wol-ston, Alfred and Martha Stern.*
“'"‘No claim is made that this list is complete. It consists of Soviet agents who were convicted of espionage or falsifying information or perjury and/or contempt charges following espionage indictments, or who fled to the Soviet bloc to avoid prosecution. . . .” App. 28 (emphasis supplied).
In addition, the index to KGB lists petitioner as follows: “Wolston, Ilya, Soviet agent in U. S.” Id., at 29.
Petitioner sued the author and publishers of KGB in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, claiming that the passages in KGB stating that he had been indicted for espionage and had been a Soviet agent were false and defamatory. The District Court granted respondents’ motion for summary judgment. 429 F. Supp. 167 (1977). The court held that petitioner was a “public figure” and that the First Amendment therefore precluded recovery unless petitioner proved that respondents had published a defamatory falsehood with “ 'actual malice’ — that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not,” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 264, 280 (1964). 429 F. Supp., at 172, 176. While the District Court agreed that the above-quoted portions of KGB appeared to state falsely that petitioner had been indicted for espionage, it ruled, on the basis of affidavits and deposition testimony, that the evidence raised no genuine issue with respect to the existence of “actual malice” on the part of respondents. Id., at 180-181. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. 188 U. S. App. D. C. 185, 578 F. 2d 427 (1978).
We granted certiorari, 439 U. S. 1066 (1979), and we now reverse. We hold that the District Court and the Court of Appeals were wrong in concluding that petitioner was a public figure within the meaning of this Court's defamation cases. Petitioner therefore was not required by the First Amendment to meet the “actual, malice" standard of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra, in order to recover from respondents.
During 1957 and 1958, a special federal grand jury sitting in New York City conducted a major investigation into the activities of Soviet intelligence agents in the United States. As a result of this investigation, petitioner’s aunt and uncle, Myra and Jack Soble, were arrested in January 1957 on charges of spying. The Sobles later pleaded guilty to espionage charges, and in the ensuing months, the grand jury’s investigation focused on other participants in a suspected Soviet espionage ring, resulting in further arrests, convictions, and guilty pleas. On the same day the Sobles were arrested, petitioner was interviewed by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation at his home in the District of Columbia. Petitioner was interviewed several more times during the following months in both Washington and in New York City and traveled to New York on various occasions pursuant to grand jury subpoenas.
On July 1, 1958, however, petitioner failed to respond to a grand jury subpoena directing him to appear on that date. Petitioner previously had attempted to persuade law enforcement authorities not to require him to travel to New York for interrogation because of his state of mental depression. App. 91 (affidavit of petitioner, June 15, 1976). On July 14, a Federal District Judge issued an order to show cause why petitioner should not be held in criminal contempt- of court. These events immediately attracted the interest of the news media, and on July 15 and 16, at least seven news stories focusing on petitoner’s failure to respond to the grand jury subpoena appeared in New York and Washington newspapers.
Petitioner appeared in court on the return date of the show-cause order and offered to testify before the grand jury, but the offer was refused. A hearing then commenced on the contempt charges. Petitioner’s wife, who then was pregnant, was called to testify as to petitioner’s mental condition at the time of the return date of the subpoena, but after she became hysterical on the witness stand, petitioner agreed to plead guilty to the contempt charge. See App. 92 (affidavit of petitioner, June 15, 1976). He received a 1-year suspended sentence and was placed on probation for three years, conditioned on his cooperation with the grand jury in any further inquiries regarding Soviet espionage. Ibid. Newspapers also reported the details of the contempt proceedings and petitioner’s guilty plea and sentencing. In all, during the 6-week period between petitioner’s failure to appear before the grand jury and his sentencing, 15 stories in newspapers in Washington and New York mentioned or discussed these events. This flurry of publicity subsided following petitioner’s sentencing, however, and, thereafter, he succeeded for the most part in returning to the private life he had led prior to issuance of the grand jury subpoena. 429 F. Supp., at 174. At no time was petitioner indicted for espionage.
In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S., at 279-280, the Court held that the First and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct absent proof that the statement was made with “actual malice,” as that term is defined in that opinion. See also St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U. S. 727, 731 (1968). Three years later, the Court extended the New York Times standard to “public figures.” Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U. S. 130, 162 (1967) (Warren, C. J., concurring in result). But in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 344-347 (1974), we declined to expand the protection afforded by that standard to defamation actions brought by private individuals. We explained in Gerts that the rationale for extending the New York Times rule to public figures-was twofold. First, we recognized that public figures are less vulnerable to injury from defamatory statements because of their ability to resort to effective “self-help.” They usually enjoy significantly greater access than private individuals to channels of effective communication, which enable them through discussion to counter criticism and expose the falsehood and fallacies of defamatory statements. 418 U. S., at 344; see Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U. S., at 155 (plurality opinion); id., at 164 (Warren, C. J., concurring in result). Second, and more importantly, was a normative consideration that public figures are less deserving of protection than private persons because public figures, like public officials, have “voluntarily exposed themselves to increased risk of injury from defamatory falsehood concerning them.” 418 U. S., at 345; see Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, supra, at 164 (Warren, C. J., concurring in result). We identified two ways in which a person may become a public figure for purposes of the First Amendment:
“For the most part those who attain this status have assumed roles of especial prominence in the affairs of society. Some occupy positions of such persuasive power and influence that they are deemed public figures for all purposes. More commonly, those classed as public figures have thrust themselves to the forefront of particular | public controversies in order to influence the resolution of ¡ the issues involved.” 418 U. S., at 345.
See id., at 351; Time, Inc. v. Firestone, 424 U. S. 448, 453 (1976).
Neither respondents nor the lower courts relied on any claim that petitioner occupied a position of such “persuasive power and influence” that he could be deemed one of that small group of individuals who are public figures for all purposes. Petitioner led a thoroughly private existence prior to the grand jury inquiry and returned to a position of relative obscurity after his sentencing. He achieved no general fame or notoriety and assumed no role of special prominence in the affairs of society as a result of his contempt citation or because of his involvement in the investigation of Soviet espionage in 1958. See Time, Inc. v. Firestone, supra, at 453; Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., supra, at 352.
Instead, respondents argue, and the lower courts held, that petitioner falls within the second category of public figures— those who have “thrust themselves to the forefront of particular public controversies in order to influence the resolution of the issues involved” — and that, therefore, petitioner is a public figure for the limited purpose of comment on his connection with, or involvement in, Soviet espionage in the 1940’s and 1950’s. 188 U. S. App. D. C., at 189, 578 F. 2d, at 431; 429 F. Supp., at 174-178. Both lower courts found petitioner’s failure to appear before the grand jury and citation for contempt determinative of the public-figure issue. The District Court concluded that by failing to appear before the grand jury and subjecting himself to a citation for contempt, petitioner “became involved in a controversy of a decidedly public nature in a way that invited attention and comment, and thereby created in the public an interest in knowing about his connection with espionage . . . .” Id., at 177 n. 33. Similarly, the Court of Appeals stated that by refusing to comply with the subpoena, petitioner “stepped center front into the spotlight focused on the investigation of Soviet espionage. In short, by his voluntary action he invited attention and comment in connection with the public questions involved in the investigation of espionage.” 188 U. S. App. D. C., at 189, 578 F. 2d, at 431.
We do not agree with respondents and the lower courts that petitioner can be classed as such a limited-purpose public figure. First, the undisputed facts do not justify the conclusion of the District Court and Court of Appeals that petitioner “voluntarily thrust” or “injected” himself into the forefront of the public controversy surrounding the investigation of Soviet espionage in the United States. See Time, Inc. v. Firestone, supra, at 453-454; Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., supra, at 352; Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, supra, at 155 (plurality opinion). It would be more accurate to say that petitioner was dragged unwillingly into the controversy. The Government pursued him in its investigation. Petitioner did fail to respond to a grand jury subpoena, and this failure, as well as his subsequent citation for contempt, did attract media attention. But the mere fact that petitioner voluntarily chose not to appear before the grand jury, knowing that his action might be attended by publicity, is not decisive on the question of public-figure status. In Gertz, we held that an attorney was not a public figure even though he voluntarily associated himself with a case that was certain to receive extensive media exposure. 418 U. S., at 352. We emphasized that a court must focus on the “nature and extent of an individual’s participation in the particular controversy giving rise to the defamation.” Ibid. In Gertz, the attorney took no part in the criminal prosecution, never discussed the litigation with the press, and limited his participation in the civil litigation solely to his representation of a private client. Ibid. Similarly, petitioner never discussed this matter with the press and limited his involvement to that necessary to defend himself against the contempt charge. It is clear that petitioner played only a minor role in whatever public controversy there may have been concerning the investigation of Soviet espionage. We decline to hold that his mere citation for contempt rendered him a public figure for purposes of comment on the investigation of Soviet espionage.
Petitioner’s failure to appear before the grand jury and citation for contempt no doubt were “newsworthy,” but the simple fact that these events attracted media attention also is not conclusive of the public-figure issue. A private individual is not automatically transformed into a public figure just by becoming involved in or associated with a matter that attracts public attention. To accept such reasoning would in effect re-establish the doctrine advanced by the plurality opinion in Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc., 403 U. S. 29, 44 (1971), which concluded that the New York Times standard should extend to defamatory falsehoods relating to private persons if the statements involved matters of public or general concern. We repudiated this proposition in Gertz and in Firestone, however, and we reject it again today. A libel defendant must show more than mere newsworthiness to justify application of the demanding burden of New York Times. See Time, Inc. v. Firestone, 424 U. S., at 454.
Nor do we think that petitioner engaged the attention of the public in an attempt to influence the resolution of the issues involved. Petitioner assumed no “special prominence in the resolution of public questions.” See Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S., at 351. His failure to respond to the grand jury’s subpoena was in no way calculated to draw attention to himself in order to invite public comment or influence the public with respect to any issue. He did not in any way seek to arouse public sentiment in his favor and against the investigation. Thus, this is not a case where a defendant invites a citation for contempt in order to use the contempt citation as a fulcrum to create public discussion about the methods being used in connection with an investigation or prosecution. To the contrary, petitioner’s failure to appear before the grand jury appears simply to have been the result of his poor health. 429 F. Supp., at 177 n. 33; App. 91-92 (affidavit of petitioner, June 15, 1976). He then promptly communicated his desire to testify and, when the offer was rejected, passively accepted his punishment. There is no evidence that petitioner’s failure to appear was intended to have, or did in fact have, any effect on any issue of public concern. In short, we find no basis whatsoever for concluding that petitioner relinquished, to any degree, his interest in the protection of his own name.
This reasoning leads us to reject the further contention of respondents that any person who engages in criminal conduct automatically becomes a public figure for purposes of comment on a limited range of issues relating to his conviction. Brief for Respondents 24; Tr. of Oral Arg. 15, 17. We declined to accept a similar argument in Time, Inc. v. Firestone, supra, at 457, where we said
“[Wjhile participants in some litigation may be legitimate 'public figures,’ either generally or for the limited purpose of that litigation, the majority will more likely resemble respondent, drawn into a public forum largely against their will in order to attempt to obtain the only redress available to them or to defend themselves against actions brought by the State or by others. There appears little reason why these individuals should substantially forfeit that degree of protection which the law of defamation would otherwise afford them simply by virtue of their being drawn into a courtroom. The public interest in accurate reports of judicial proceedings is substantially protected by Cox Broadcasting Co. [v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469 (1975)]. As to inaccurate and defamatory reports of facts, matters deserving no First Amendment protection ... , we think Gertz provides an adequate safeguard for the constitutionally protected interests of the press and affords it a tolerable margin for error by requiring some type of fault.”
We think that these observations remain sound, and that they control the disposition of this case. To hold otherwise would create an “open season” for all who sought to defame persons convicted of a crime.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Respondents Bantam Books, Inc., MacMillan Book Clubs, Inc., and Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc., are subsequent publishers of KGB under contractual arrangements with Reader’s Digest.
Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals rested their decisions on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The District Court commented in a footnote that it “might also have decided to apply the actual-malice standard in this case on the ground that the law in the District of Columbia requires it.” 429 F. Supp., at 178-179, n. 37. The court referred to an unpublished decision of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia as support for that proposition. Hatter v. Evening Star Newspaper Co., Civ. No. 8298-75 (Mar. 15, 1975). But the Court of Appeals in a footnote to its opinion cast substantial doubt on the correctness of the District Court’s comment. See 188 U. S. App. D. C., at 193 n. 3, 578 F. 2d, at 435 n. 3. It described Hatter as “a brief unpublished order which recited several other grounds for granting summary judgment” and which cited no District of Columbia authority, and it noted that subsequent to the District Court’s decision, another judge of the District of Columbia Superior Court had “filed an elaborate opinion which concluded to the contrary that in the District a newspaper may be liable for actual damages suffered by a private person if it negligently publishes defamation, without actual malice.” 188 U. S. App. D. C., at 193 n. 3, 578 F. 2d, at 435 n. 3, citing Phillips v. Evening Star Newspaper Co., Civ. No. 9999-75 (June 30, 1977). We assume that the Court of Appeals is as familiar as we are with the general principle that dispositive issues of statutory and local law are to be treated before reaching constitutional issues. E. g., Dillard v. Virginia Industrial Comm’n, 416 U. S. 783, 785 (1974); Alma Motor Co. v. Timken-Detroit Axle Co., 329 U. S. 129, 136 (1946); Siler v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 213 U. S. 175, 193 (1909). We interpret the footnote to the Court of Appeals’ opinion in this-case, where jurisdiction is based upon diversity of citizenship, to indicate its view that Phillips represents a more accurate expression of District of Columbia law than the dicta from Hatter and that, therefore, the appeal could not be decided without reaching the constitutional question. See Commissioner v. Estate of Bosch, 387 U. S. 456, 465 (1967); King v. Order of Travelers, 333 U. S. 153, 162 (1948); West v. American Tel. & Tel. Co., 311 U. S. 223, 236-237 (1940); Washington Times Co. v. Bonner, 66 App. D. C. 280, 86 F. 2d 836 (1936); Johnson v. Johnson Pub. Co., 271 A. 2d 696 (D. C. App. 1970); Chaloner v. Washington Post Co., 36 App. D. C. 231 (1911).
Petitioner also challenges the propriety of summary judgment on the issue of “actual malice.” Brief for Petitioner 21-31. In view of our disposition of the public-figure issue, we need not and do not reach this question. See generally Hutchinson v. Proxmire, ante, at 120 n. 9.
“Wolston was bom in Russia in 1918. He subsequently lived in Lithuania, Germany, France, and England before coming to the United States in 1939. The army drafted him in 1942, and during his tour of duty he became a naturalized citizen; he was trained as an interpreter and served primarily in Alaska. After receiving an honorable discharge in 1946 he worked as an interpreter for the United States Military Government and the State Department in Allied-occupied Berlin. He returned to the United States in 1951 and worked as a clerk until 1953, when he enrolled in an undergraduate program at New York University. In 1955 he and his wife moved to Washington, D. C., where he worked several months for the Army Map Service and then as a free-lance translator until January 1957. Deposition of Ilya Wolston at 5-42.” 429 F. Supp., at 169 n. 1.
Since this case was decided on respondents' motion for summary judgment, we must construe the record most favorably to petitioner. E. g., Bishop v. Wood, 426 U. S. 341, 347 n. 11 (1976); United States v. Diebold, Inc., 369 U. S. 654, 655 (1962).
A short time after these events, petitioner was mentioned in two publications. In the book My Ten Years as a Counterspy, written by Boris Morros and published in 1959, Morros, a former confederate of Jack Soble who later became a double agent, states that Soble identified petitioner as a Soviet agent. App. 30-34. And in 1960, a report prepared by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, entitled Exposé of Soviet Espionage May 1960, listed petitioner’s name among people "the FBI investigation resulted in identifying as Soviet intelligence agents.” S. Doc. No. 114, 86th Cong., 2d Sess., 24, 26-27 (1960).
Both lower courts found that petitioner became a public figure at the time of his contempt citation in 1968. See 188 U. S. App. D. C., at 189, 578 F. 2d, at 431; 429 F. Supp., at 176-177. Petitioner argued below that even if he was once a public figure, the passage of time has restored him to the status of a private figure for purposes of the First Amendment. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals rejected this argument. 188 U. S. App. D. C., at 189, 678 F. 2d, at 431; 429 F. Supp., at 178. And petitioner has abandoned the argument in this Court. Reply Brief for Petitioner 5-6, n. 8; Tr. of Oral Arg. 10. Because petitioner does not press the issue in this Court and because we conclude that petitioner was not a public figure in 1958, we need not and do not decide whether or when an individual who was once a public figure may lose that status by the passage of time.
It is difficult to determine with precision the “public controversy” into which petitioner is alleged to have thrust himself. Certainly, there was no public controversy or debate in 1958 about the desirability of permitting Soviet espionage in the United States; all responsible United States citizens understandably were and are opposed to it. Respondents urge, and the Court of Appeals apparently agreed, that the public controversy involved the propriety of the actions of law enforcement officials in investigating and prosecuting suspected Soviet agents. 188 U. S. App. D. C., at 189, 578 F. 2d, at 431; Brief for Respondents 26-27; Tr. of Oral Arg. 27-29. We may accept, arguendo, respondents’ characterization of the “public controversy” involved in this case, for it is clear that petitioner fails to meet the other criteria established in Gertz for public-figure status.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
For the second time this Term, we consider a constitutional challenge to the former Texas capital sentencing system. Like the condemned prisoner in Graham v. Collins, 506 U. S. 461 (1993), the petitioner here claims that the Texas special issues system in effect until 1991 did not allow his jury to give adequate mitigating effect to evidence of his youth. Graham was a federal habeas corpus proceeding where the petitioner had to confront the rule of Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989), barring the application of new rules of law on federal habeas corpus. In part because the relief sought by Graham would have required a new rule within the meaning of Teague, we denied relief. The instant case comes to us on direct review of petitioner’s conviction and sentence, so we consider it without the constraints of Teague, though of course with the customary respect for the doctrine of stare decisis. Based upon our precedents, including much of the reasoning in Graham, we find the Texas procedures as applied in this case were consistent with the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
I
Petitioner, then 19 years of age, and his companion, Amanda Miles, decided to rob Allsup’s convenience store in Snyder, Texas, on March 23, 1986. After agreeing that there should be no witnesses to the crime, the pair went to the store to survey its layout and, in particular, to determine the number of employees working in the store that evening. They found that the only employee present during the predawn hours was a clerk, Jack Huddleston. Petitioner and Miles left the store to make their final plans.
They returned to Allsup’s a short time later. Petitioner, a handgun in his pocket, reentered the store with Miles. After waiting for other customers to leave, petitioner asked Huddleston whether the store had any orange juice in one gallon plastic jugs because there were none on the shelves. Saying he would check, Huddleston went to the store’s cooler. Petitioner followed Huddleston there, told Huddleston the store was being robbed, and ordered him to lie on the floor. After Huddleston complied with the order and placed his hands behind his head, petitioner shot him in the back of the neck, killing him. When petitioner emerged from the cooler, Miles had emptied the cash registers of about $160. They each grabbed a carton of cigarettes and fled.
In April 1986, a few weeks after this crime, petitioner was arrested for a subsequent robbery and attempted murder of a store clerk in Colorado City, Texas. He confessed to the murder of Jack Huddleston and the robbery of Allsup’s and was tried and convicted of capital murder. The homicide qualified as a capital offense under Texas law because petitioner intentionally or knowingly caused Huddleston’s death and the murder was carried out in the course of committing a robbery. Tex. Penal Code Ann. §§ 19.02(a)(1), 19.03(a)(2) (1989).
After the jury determined that petitioner was guilty of capital murder, a separate punishment phase of the proceedings was conducted in which petitioner’s sentence was determined. In conformity with the Texas capital sentencing statute then in effect, see Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 37.071(b) (Vernon 1981), the trial court instructed the jury that it was to answer two special issues:
“[(1)] Was the conduct of the Defendant, Dorsie Lee Johnson, Jr., that caused the death of the deceased, committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased or another would result?
“[(2)] Is there a probability that the Defendant, Dorsie Lee Johnson, Jr., would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society?” App. 148-149.
The trial court made clear to the jury the consequences of its answers to the special issues:
“You are further instructed that if the jury returns affirmative or ‘yes’ answer [sic] to all the Issues submitted, this Court shall sentence the Defendant to death. If the jury returns a negative or ‘no’ answer to any Issue submitted, the Court shall sentence the Defendant to life in prison.” Id., at 146.
The jury was instructed not to consider or discuss the possibility of parole. Id., at 147. The trial court also instructed the jury as follows concerning its consideration of mitigating evidence:
“In determining each of these Issues, you may take into consideration all the evidence submitted to you in the trial of this case, whether aggravating or mitigating in nature, that is, all the evidence in the first part of the trial when you were called upon to determine the guilt or innocence of the Defendant and all the evidence, if any, in the second part of the trial wherein you are called upon to determine the answers to the Special Issues.” Ibid.
Although petitioner’s counsel filed various objections to the jury charge, there was no request that a more expansive instruction be given concerning any particular mitigating circumstance, including petitioner’s youth.
In anticipation of the trial court’s instructions, the State during the punishment phase of the proceedings presented numerous witnesses who testified to petitioner’s violent tendencies. The most serious evidence related to the April convenience store robbery in Colorado City. Witnesses testified that petitioner had shot that store clerk in the face, resulting in the victim’s permanent disfigurement and brain damage. Other witnesses testified that petitioner had fired two shots at a man outside a restaurant in Snyder only six days after the murder of Huddleston, and a sheriff’s deputy who worked in the jail where petitioner was being held testified that petitioner had threatened to “get” the deputy when he got out of jail.
Petitioner’s acts of violence were not limited to strangers. A longtime friend of petitioner, Beverly Johnson, testified that in early 1986 petitioner had hit her, thrown a large rock at her head, and pointed a gun at her on several occasions. Petitioner’s girlfriend, Paula Williams, reported that, after petitioner had become angry with her one afternoon in 1986, he threatened her with an axe. There were other incidents, of less gravity, before 1986. One of petitioner’s classmates testified that petitioner cut him with a piece of glass while they were in the seventh grade. Another classmate testified that petitioner also cut him with glass just a year later, and there was additional evidence presented that petitioner had stabbed a third classmate with a pencil.
The State established that the crimes committed in 1986 were not petitioner’s first experience with the criminal justice system. Petitioner had been convicted in 1985 of a store burglary in Waco, Texas. Petitioner twice violated the terms of probation for that offense by smoking marijuana. Petitioner was still on probation when he committed the Huddleston murder.
The defense presented petitioner’s father, Dorsie Johnson, Sr., as its only witness. The elder Johnson attributed his son’s criminal activities to his drug use and his youth. When asked by defense counsel whether his son at the age of 19 was “a real mature person,” petitioner’s father answered:
“No, no. Age of nineteen? No, sir. That, also, I find to be a foolish age. That’s a foolish age. They tend to want to be macho, built-up, trying to step into manhood. You’re not mature-lized for it.” Id., at 27.
At the close of his testimony, Johnson summarized the role that he thought youth had played in his son’s crime:
“[A]ll I can say is I still think that a kid eighteen or nineteen years old has an undeveloped mind, undeveloped sense of assembling not — I don’t say what is right or wrong, but the evaluation of it, how much, you know, that might be — well, he just don’t — he just don’t evaluate what is worth — what’s worth and what’s isn’t like he should like a thirty or thirty-five year old man would. He would take under consideration a lot of things that a younger person that age wouldn’t.” Id., at 47.
The father also testified that his son had been a regular churchgoer and his problems were attributable in large part to the death of his mother following a stroke in 1984 and the murder of his sister in 1985. Finally, the senior Johnson testified to his son’s remorse over the killing of Huddleston.
At the voir dire phase of the proceedings, during which more than 90 prospective jurors were questioned over the course of 15 days, petitioner’s counsel asked the venirepersons whether they believed that people were capable of change and whether the venirepersons had ever done things as youths that they would not do now. See, e. g., Tr. of Voir Dire in No. 5575 (132d Jud. Dist. Ct., Scurry County, Tex.), pp. 1526-1529 (Juror Swigert); id., at 1691-1692 (Juror Freeman); id., at 2366 (Juror Witte); id., at 2630-2632 (Juror Raborn). Petitioner’s counsel returned to this theme in his closing argument:
“The question — the real question, I think, is whether you believe that there is a possibility that he can change. You will remember that that was one thing every one of you told me you agreed — every one of you agreed with me that people can change. If you agree that people can change, then that means that Dorsie can change and that takes question two [regarding future dangerousness] out of the realm of probability and into possibility, you see, because if he can change, then it is no longer probable that he will do these things, but only possible that he can and will do these things, you see.
“If people couldn’t change, if you could say I know people cannot change, then you could say probably. But every one of you knows in your heart and in your mind that people can and people do change and Dorsie Johnson can change and, therefore, the answer to question two should be no.” App. 81.
Counsel also urged the jury to remember the testimony of petitioner’s father. Id., at 73-74.
The jury was instructed that the State bore the burden of proving each special issue beyond a reasonable doubt. Id., at 145. A unanimous jury found that the answer to both special issues was yes, and the trial court sentenced petitioner to death, as required by law. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 37.071(e) (Vernon 1981).
On appeal, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence after rejecting petitioner’s seven allegations of error, none of which involved a challenge to the punishment-phase jury instructions. 773 S. W. 2d 322 (1989). Five days after that state court ruling, we issued our opinion in Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302 (1989). Petitioner filed a motion for rehearing in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals arguing, among other points, that the special issues did not allow for adequate consideration of his youth. Citing Penry, petitioner claimed that a separate instruction should have been given that would have allowed the jury to consider petitioner’s age as a mitigating factor. Although petitioner had not requested such an instruction at trial and had not argued the point prior to the rehearing stage on appeal, no procedural bar was interposed. Instead, the Court of Criminal Appeals considered the argument on the merits and rejected it. After noting that it had already indicated in Lackey v. State, 819 S. W. 2d 111, 134 (Tex. Crim. App. 1989), that youth was relevant to the jury’s consideration of the second special issue, the court reasoned that “[i]f a juror believed that [petitioner’s] violent actions were a result of his youth, that same juror would naturally believe that [petitioner] would cease to behave violently as he grew older.” App. 180. The court concluded that “the jury was able to express a reasoned moral response to [petitioner's] mitigating evidence within the scope of the art. 37.071 instructions given to them by the trial court.” Id., at 180-181.
Petitioner filed a petition for certiorari, which we granted. 506 U. S. 1090 (1993).
II
A
This is the latest in a series of decisions in which the Court has explained the requirements imposed by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments regarding consideration of mitigating circumstances by sentencers in capital cases. The earliest case in the decisional line is Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238 (1972). At the time of Furman, sentencing juries had almost complete discretion in determining whether a given defendant would be sentenced to death, resulting in a system in which there was “no meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which [death was] imposed from the many cases in which it [was] not.” Id., at 313 (White, J., concurring). Although no two Justices could agree on a single rationale, a majority of the Court in Furman concluded that this system was “cruel and unusual” within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment. The guiding principle that emerged from Furman was that States were required to channel the discretion of sentencing juries in order to avoid a system in which the death penalty would be imposed in a “wanto[n]” and “freakis[h]” manner. Id., at 310 (Stewart, J., concurring).
Four Terms after Furman, we decided five cases, in opinions issued on the same day, concerning the constitutionality of various capital sentencing systems. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153 (1976); Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U. S. 242 (1976); Jurek v. Texas, 428 U. S. 262 (1976); Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280 (1976); Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U. S. 325 (1976). In the wake of Furman, at least 35 States had abandoned sentencing schemes that vested complete discretion in juries in favor of systems that either (i) “specified] the factors to be weighed and the procedures to be followed in deciding when to impose a capital sentence,” or (ii) “ma[de] the death penalty mandatory for certain crimes.” Gregg, supra, at 179-180 (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.). In the five cases, the controlling joint opinion of three Justices reaffirmed the principle of Furman that “discretion must be suitably directed and limited so as to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action.” 428 U. S., at 189; accord, Proffitt, supra, at 258 (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.).
Based upon this principle, it might have been thought that statutes mandating imposition of the death penalty if a defendant was found guilty of certain crimes would be consistent with the Constitution. But the joint opinions of Justices Stewart, Powell, and Stevens indicated that there was a second principle, in some tension with the first, to be considered in assessing the constitutionality of a capital sentencing scheme. According to the three Justices, “consideration of the character and record of the individual offender and the circumstances of the particular offense [is] a constitutionally indispensable part of the process of inflicting the penalty of death.” Woodson, supra, at 304 (plurality opinion); accord, Gregg, supra, at 189-190, n. 38 (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.); Jurek, supra, at 273-274 (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.); Roberts, supra, at 333 (plurality opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.). Based upon this second principle, the Court struck down mandatory imposition of the death penalty for specified crimes as inconsistent with the requirements of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. See Woodson, supra, at 305; Roberts, supra, at 335-336.
Two Terms later, a plurality of the Court in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586 (1978), refined the requirements related to the consideration of mitigating evidence by a capital sentences Unlike the mandatory schemes struck down in Woodson and Roberts in which all mitigating evidence was excluded, the Ohio system at issue in Lockett permitted a limited range of mitigating circumstances to be considered by the sentences The plurality nonetheless found this system to be unconstitutional, holding that “the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require that the sentencer... not be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant’s character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death.” 438 U. S., at 604. A majority of the Court adopted the Lockett rule in Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U. S. 104 (1982); accord, Hitchcock v. Dugger, 481 U. S. 393, 398-399 (1987); Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U. S. 1, 4 (1986), and we have not altered the rule’s central requirement. “Lockett and its progeny stand only for the proposition that a State may not cut off in an absolute manner the presentation of mitigating evidence, either by statute or judicial instruction, or by limiting the inquiries to which it is relevant so severely that the evidence could never be part of the sentencing decision at all.” McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U. S. 433, 456 (1990) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment); see also Graham, 506 U. S., at 475; Saffle v. Parks, 494 U. S. 484, 490-491 (1990).
Although Lockett and Eddings prevent a State from placing relevant mitigating evidence “beyond the effective reach of the sentencer,” Graham, supra, at 475, those cases and others in that decisional line do not bar a State from guiding the sentencer’s consideration of mitigating evidence. Indeed, we have held that “there is no... constitutional requirement of unfettered sentencing discretion in the jury, and States are free to structure and shape consideration of mitigating evidence ‘in an effort to achieve a more rational and equitable administration of the death penalty/” Boyde v. California, 494 U. S. 370, 377 (1990) (quoting Franklin v. Lynaugh, 487 U. S. 164, 181 (1988) (plurality opinion)); see also Saffle, supra, at 490.
B
The Texas law under which petitioner was sentenced has been the principal concern of four previous opinions in our Court. See Jurek v. Texas, supra; Franklin v. Lynaugh, supra; Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302 (1989); Graham, supra. As we have mentioned, Jurek was included in the group of five cases addressing the post-Furman statutes in 1976.
In Jurek, the joint opinion of Justices Stewart, Powell, and Stevens first noted that there was no constitutional deficiency in the means used to narrow the group of offenders subject to capital punishment, the statute having adopted five different classifications of murder for that purpose. See Jurek, 428 U. S., at 270-271. Turning to the mitigation side of the sentencing system, the three Justices said: “[T]he constitutionality of the Texas procedures turns on whether the enumerated [special issues] allow consideration of particularized mitigating factors.” Id., at 272. In assessing the constitutionality of the mitigation side of this scheme, the three Justices examined in detail only the second special issue, which asks whether “ ‘there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society.’ ” Although the statute did not define these terms, the joint opinion noted that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had indicated that it would interpret the question in a manner that allowed the defendant to bring all relevant mitigating evidence to the jury’s attention:
“Tn determining the likelihood that the defendant would be a continuing threat to society, the jury could consider whether the defendant had a significant criminal record. It could consider the range and severity of his prior criminal conduct. It could further look to the age of the defendant and whether or not at the time of the commission of the offense he was acting under duress or under the domination of another. It could also consider whether the defendant was under an extreme form of mental or emotional pressure, something less, perhaps, than insanity, but more than the emotions of the average man, however inflamed, could withstand.’ [Jurek v. State,] 522 S. W. 2d [934], 939-940 [(Tex. Crim. App. 1975)].” Id., at 272-273.
The joint opinion determined that the Texas system satisfied the requirements of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments concerning the consideration of mitigating evidence: “By authorizing the defense to bring before the jury at the separate sentencing hearing whatever mitigating circumstances relating to the individual defendant can be adduced, Texas has ensured that the sentencing jury will have adequate guidance to enable it to perform its sentencing function.” Id., at 276. Three other Justices agreed that the Texas system satisfied constitutional requirements. See id., at 277 (White, J., concurring in judgment).
We next considered a constitutional challenge involving the Texas special issues in Franklin v. Lynaugh, supra. Although the defendant in that case recognized that we had upheld the constitutionality of the Texas system as a general matter in Jwrek, he claimed that the special issues did not allow the jury to give adequate weight to his mitigating evidence concerning his good prison disciplinary record and that the jury, therefore, should have been instructed that it could consider this mitigating evidence independent of the special issues. 487 U. S., at 171-172. A plurality of the Court rejected the defendant’s claim, holding that the second special issue provided an adequate vehicle for consideration of the defendant’s prison record as it bore on his character. Id., at 178. The plurality also noted that Jwrek foreclosed the defendant’s argument that the jury was still entitled to cast an “independent” vote against the death penalty even if it answered yes to the special issues. 487 U. S., at 180. The plurality concluded that, with its special issues system, Texas had guided the jury’s consideration of mitigating evidence while still providing for sufficient jury discretion. See id., at 182. Although Justice O’Connor expressed reservations about the Texas scheme for other cases, she agreed that the special issues had not inhibited the jury’s consideration of the defendant’s mitigating evidence in that case. See id., at 183-186 (opinion concurring in judgment).
The third case in which we considered the Texas statute is the pivotal one from petitioner’s point of view, for there we set aside a capital sentence because the Texas special issues did not allow for sufficient consideration of the defendant’s mitigating evidence. Penry v. Lynaugh, supra. In Penry, the condemned prisoner had presented mitigating evidence of his mental retardation and childhood abuse. We agreed that the jury instructions were too limited for the appropriate consideration of this mitigating evidence in light of Penry’s particular circumstances. We noted that “[t]he jury was never instructed that it could consider the evidence offered by Penry as mitigating evidence and that it could give mitigating effect to that evidence in imposing sentence.” 492 U. S., at 320. Absent any definition for the term “deliberately,” we could not “be sure that the jury was able to give effect to the mitigating evidence... in answering the first special issue,” id., at 323, so we turned to the second special issue, future dangerousness. The evidence in the case suggested that Penry’s mental retardation rendered him unable to learn from his mistakes. As a consequence, we decided the mitigating evidence was relevant to the second special issue “only as an aggravating factor because it suggests a ‘yes’ answer to the question of future dangerousness.” Ibid. The Court concluded that the trial court had erred in not instructing the jury that it could “consider and give effect to the mitigating evidence of Penry’s mental retardation and abused background by declining to impose the death penalty.” Id., at 328. The Court was most explicit in rejecting the dissent’s concern that Penry was seeking a new rule, in contravention of Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989). Indeed, the Court characterized its holding in Penry as a straightforward application of our earlier rulings in Jurek, Lockett, and Eddings, making it clear that these cases can stand together with Penry. See Penry, 492 U. S., at 314-318.
We confirmed this limited view of Penry and its scope in Graham v. Collins. There we confronted a claim by a defendant that the Texas system had not allowed for adequate consideration of mitigating evidence concerning his youth, family background, and positive character traits. In rejecting the contention that Penry dictated a ruling in the defendant’s favor, we stated that Penry did not “effec[t] a sea change in this Court’s view of the constitutionality of the former Texas death penalty statute,” 506 U. S., at 474, and we noted that a contrary view of Penry would be inconsistent with the Penry Court’s conclusion that it was not creating a “new rule,” 506 U. S., at 474. We also did not accept the view that the Lockett and Eddings line of cases, upon which Penry rested, compelled a holding for the defendant in Graham:
“In those cases, the constitutional defect lay in the fact that relevant mitigating evidence was placed beyond the effective reach of the sentencer. In Lockett, Eddings, Skipper, and Hitchcock, the sentencer was precluded from even considering certain types of mitigating evidence. In Penry, the defendant’s evidence was placed before the sentencer but the sentencer had no reliable means of giving mitigating effect to that evidence. In this case, however, Graham’s mitigating evidence was not placed beyond the jury’s effective reach.” Graham, 506 U. S., at 475.
In addition, we held that Graham’s case differed from Penry in that “Graham’s evidence — unlike Penry’s — had mitigating relevance to the second special issue concerning his likely future dangerousness.” 506 U. S., at 475. We concluded that, even with the benefit of the subsequent Penry decision, reasonable jurists at the time of Graham’s sentencing “would [not] have deemed themselves compelled to accept Graham’s claim.” 506 U. S., at 477. Thus, we held that a ruling in favor of Graham would have required the impermissible application of a new rule under Teague. 506 U. S., at 477.
Ill
Today we are asked to take the step that would have been a new rule had we taken it in Graham. Like Graham, petitioner contends that the Texas sentencing system did not allow the jury to give adequate mitigating effect to the evidence of his youth. Unlike Graham, petitioner comes here on direct review, so Teague presents no bar to the rule he seeks. The force of stare decisis, though, which rests on considerations parallel in many respects to Teague, is applicable here. The interests of the State of Texas, and of the victims whose rights it must vindicate, ought not to be turned aside when the State relies upon an interpretation of the Eighth Amendment approved by this Court, absent demonstration that our earlier cases were themselves a misinterpretation of some constitutional command. See, e. g., Vasquez v. Hiller v. 474 U. S. 254, 265-266 (1986); Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U. S. 203, 212 (1984).
There is no dispute that a defendant’s youth is a relevant mitigating circumstance that must be within the effective reach of a capital sentencing jury if a death sentence is to meet the requirements of Lockett and Eddings. See, e. g., Sumner v. Shuman, 483 U. S. 66, 81-82 (1987); Eddings, 455 U. S., at 115; Lockett, 438 U. S., at 608 (plurality opinion). Our cases recognize that “youth is more than a chronological fact. It is a time and condition of life when a person may be most susceptible to influence and to psychological damage.” Eddings, supra, at 115. A lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility are found in youth more often than in adults and are more understandable among the young. These qualities often result in impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions. A sentencer in a capital case must be allowed to consider the mitigating qualities of youth in the course of its deliberations over the appropriate sentence.
The question presented here is whether the Texas special issues allowed adequate consideration of petitioner’s youth. An argument that youth can never be given proper mitigating force under the Texas scheme is inconsistent with our holdings in Jurek, Graham, and Penry itself. The standard against which we assess whether jury instructions satisfy the rule of Lockett and Eddings was set forth in Boyde v. California, 494 U. S. 370 (1990). There we held that a reviewing court must determine “whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury has applied the challenged instruction in a way that prevents the consideration of constitutionally relevant evidence.” Id., at 380. Although the reasonable likelihood standard does not require that the defendant prove that it was more likely than not that the jury was prevented from giving effect to the evidence, the standard requires more than a mere possibility of such a bar. Ibid. In evaluating the instructions, we do not engage in a technical parsing of this language of the instructions, but instead approach the instructions in the same way that the jury would — with a “commonsense understanding of the instructions in the light of all that has taken place at the trial.” Id., at 381.
We decide that there is no reasonable likelihood that the jury would have found itself foreclosed from considering the relevant aspects of petitioner’s youth. Pursuant to the second special issue, the jury was instructed to decide whether there was “a probability that [petitioner] would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society.” App. 149. The jury also was told that, in answering the special issues, it could consider all the mitigating evidence that had been presented during the guilt and punishment phases of petitioner’s trial. Id., at 147. Even on a cold record, one cannot be unmoved by the testimony of petitioner’s father urging that his son’s actions were due in large part to his youth. It strains credulity to suppose that the jury would have viewed the evidence of petitioner’s youth as outside its effective reach in answering the second special issue. The relevance of youth as a mitigating factor derives from the fact that the signature qualities of youth are transient; as individuals mature, the impetuousness and recklessness that may dominate in younger years can subside. We believe that there is ample room in the assessment of future dangerousness for a juror to take account of the difficulties of youth as a mitigating force in the sentencing determination. As we recognized in Graham, the fact that a juror might view the evidence of youth as aggravating, as opposed to mitigating, does not mean that the rule of Lockett is violated. Graham, 506 U. S., at 475-476. As long as the mitigating evidence is within “the effective reach of the sentencer,” the requirements of the Eighth Amendment are satisfied. Ibid.
That the jury had a meaningful basis to consider the relevant mitigating qualities of petitioner’s youth is what distinguishes this case from Penry. In Penry, there was expert medical testimony that the defendant was mentally retarded and that his condition prevented him from learning from experience. 492 U. S., at 308-309. Although the evidence of the mental illness fell short of providing Penry a defense to prosecution for his crimes, the Court held that the second special issue did not allow the jury to give mitigating effect to this evidence. Penry’s condition left him unable to learn from his mistakes, and the Court reasoned that the only logical manner in which the evidence of his mental retardation could be considered within the future dangerousness inquiry was as an aggravating factor. Id., at 323. Penry remains the law and must be given a fair reading. The evidence of petitioner’s youth, however, falls outside Penry’s ambit. Unlike Penry’s mental retardation, which rendered him unable to learn from his mistakes, the ill effects of youth that a defendant may experience are subject to change and, as a result, are readily comprehended as a mitigating factor in consideration of the second special issue.
Petitioner does not contest that the evidence of youth could be given some effect under the second special issue. Instead, petitioner argues that the forward-looking perspective of the future dangerousness inquiry did not allow the jury to take account of how petitioner’s youth bore upon his personal culpability for the murder he committed. According to petitioner, “[a] prediction of future behavior is not the same thing as an assessment of moral culpability for a crime already committed.” Brief for Petitioner 38. Contrary to petitioner’s suggestion, however, this forward-looking inquiry is not independent of an assessment of personal culpability. It is both logical and fair for the jury to make its determination of a defendant’s future dangerousness by asking the extent to which youth influenced the defendant’s conduct. See Skipper, 476 U. S., at 5 (“Consideration of a defendant’s past conduct as indicative of his probable future behavior is an inevitable and not undesirable element of criminal sentencing”). If any jurors believed that the transient qualities of petitioner’s youth made him less culpable for the murder, there is no reasonable likelihood that those jurors would have deemed themselves foreclosed from considering that in evaluating petitioner’s future dangerousness. It is true that Texas has structured consideration of the relevant qualities of petitioner’s youth, but in so doing, the State still “allow[s] the jury to give effect to [this] mitigating evidence in making the sentencing decision.” Saffle, 494 U. S., at 491. Although Texas might have provided other vehicles for consideration of petitioner’s youth, no additional instruction beyond that given as to future dangerousness was required in order for the jury to be able to consider the mitigating qualities of youth presented to it.
In a related argument, petitioner, quoting a portion of our decision in Penry, supra, at 328, claims that the jurors were not able to make a “reasoned moral response” to the evidence of petitioner’s youth because the second special issue called for a narrow factual inquiry into future dangerousness. We, however, have previously interpreted the Texas special issues system as requiring jurors to “exercise a range of judgment and discretion.” Adams v. Texas, 448 U. S. 38, 46 (1980). This view accords with a “commonsense understanding” of how the jurors were likely to view their instructions and to implement the
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari, 436 U. S. 943, to consider whether federal patent law pre-empts state contract law so as to pre-elude enforcement of a contract to pay royalties to a patent applicant, on sales of articles embodying the putative invention, for so long as the contracting party sells them, if a patent is not granted.
(1)
In October 1955 the petitioner, Mrs. Jane Aronson, filed an application, Serial No. 542677, for a patent on a new form of keyholder. Although ingenious, the design was so simple that it readily could be copied unless it was protected by patent. In June 1956, while the patent application was pending, Mrs. Aronson negotiated a contract with the respondent, Quick Point Pencil Co., for the manufacture and sale of the keyholder.
The contract was embodied in two documents. In the first, a letter from Quick Point to Mrs. Aronson, Quick Point agreed to pay Mrs. Aronson a royalty of 5% of the selling price in return for “the exclusive right to make and sell keyholders of the type shown in your application, Serial No. 542677.” The letter further provided that the parties would consult one another concerning the steps to be taken “[i]n the event of any infringement.”
The contract did not require Quick Point to manufacture the keyholder. Mrs. Aronson received a $750 advance on royalties and was entitled to rescind the exclusive license if Quick Point did not sell a million keyholders by the end of 1957. Quick Point retained the right to cancel the agreement whenever “the volume of sales does not meet our expectations.” The duration of the agreement was not otherwise prescribed.
A contemporaneous document provided that if Mrs. Aron-son’s patent application was “not allowed within five (5) years, Quick Point Pencil Co. [would] pay . . . two and one half percent (2%%) of sales ... so long as you [Quick Point] continue to sell same.”
In June 1961, when Mrs. Aronson had failed to obtain a patent on the keyholder within the five years specified in the agreement, Quick Point asserted its contractual right to reduce royalty payments to 2%% of sales. In September of that year the Board of Patent Appeals issued a final rejection of the application on the ground that the keyholder was not patentable, and Mrs. Aronson did not appeal. Quick Point continued to pay reduced royalties to her for 14 years thereafter.
The market was more receptive to the keyholder’s novelty and utility than the Patent Office. By September 1975 Quick Point had made sales in excess of $7 million and paid Mrs. Aronson royalties totaling $203,963.84; sales were continuing to rise. However, while Quick Point was able to pre-empt the market in the earlier years and was long the only manufacturer of the Aronson keyholder, copies began to appear in the late 1960’s. Quick Point’s competitors, of course, were not required to pay royalties for their use of the design. Quick Point’s share of the Aronson keyholder market has declined during the past decade.
(2)
In November 1975 Quick Point commenced an action in the United States District Court for a declaratory judgment, pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2201, that the royalty agreement was unenforceable. Quick Point asserted that state law which might otherwise make the contract enforceable was preempted by federal patent law. This is the only issue presented to us for decision.
Both parties moved for summary judgment on affidavits, exhibits, and stipulations of fact. The District Court concluded that the “language of the agreement is plain, clear and unequivocal and has no relation as to whether or not a patent is ever granted.” Accordingly, it held that the agreement was valid, and that Quick Point was obliged to pay the agreed royalties pursuant to the contract for so long as it manufactured the keyholder.
The Court of Appeals reversed, one judge dissenting. 567 F. 2d 757. It held that since the parties contracted with reference to a pending patent application, Mrs. Aronson was estopped from denying that patent law principles governed her contract with Quick Point. Although acknowledging that this Court had never decided the precise issue, the Court of Appeals held that our prior decisions regarding patent licenses compelled the conclusion that Quick Point’s contract with Mrs. Aronson became unenforceable once she failed to obtain a patent. The court held that a continuing obligation to pay royalties would be contrary to “the strong federal policy favoring the full and free use of ideas in the public domain,” Lear, Inc. v. Adkins, 395 U. S. 653, 674 (1969). The court also observed that if Mrs. Aronson actually had obtained a patent, Quick Point would have escaped its royalty obligations either if the patent were held to be invalid, see ibid., or upon its expiration after 17 years, see Brulotte v. Thys Co., 379 U. S. 29 (1964). Accordingly, it concluded that a licensee should be relieved of royalty obligations when the licensor’s efforts to obtain a contemplated patent prove unsuccessful.
(3)
On this record it is clear that the parties contracted with full awareness of both the pendency of a patent application and the possibility that a patent might not issue. The clause de-escalating the royalty by half in the event no patent issued within five years makes that crystal clear. Quick Point apparently placed a significant value on exploiting the basic novelty of the device, even if no patent issued; its success demonstrates that this judgment was well founded. Assuming, arguendo, that the initial letter and the commitment to pay a 5% royalty was subject to federal patent law, the provision relating to the 2y2% royalty was explicitly independent of federal law. The cases and principles relied on by the Court of Appeals and Quick Point do not bear on a contract that does not rely on a patent, particularly where, as here, the contracting parties agreed expressly as to alternative obligations if no patent should issue.
Commercial agreements traditionally are the domain of state law. State law is not displaced merely because the contract relates to intellectual property which may or may not be patentable; the states are free to regulate the use of such intellectual property in any manner not inconsistent with federal law. Kewanee Oil Co. v. Bicron Corp., 416 U. S. 470, 479 (1974); see Goldstein v. California, 412 U. S. 546 (1973). In this as in other fields, the question of whether federal law pre-empts state law “involves a consideration of whether that law 'stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.5 Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52, 67 (1941).” Kewanee Oil Co., supra, at 479. If it does not, state law governs.
In Kewanee Oil Co., supra, at 480-481, we reviewed the purposes of the federal patent system. First, patent law seeks to foster and rewaxd invention; second, it promotes disclosure of inventions to stimulate further innovation and to permit the public to practice the invention once the patent expires; third, the stringent requirements for patent protection seek to assure that ideas in the public domain remain there for the free use of the public.
Enforcement of Quick Point's agreement with Mrs. Aronson is not inconsistent with any of these aims. Permitting inventors to make enforceable agreements licensing the use of their inventions in return for royalties provides an additional incentive to invention. Similarly, encouraging Mrs. Aronson to make arrangements for the manufacture of her keyholder furthers the federal policy of disclosure of inventions; these simple devices display the novel idea which they embody wherever they are seen.
Quick Point argues that enforcement of such contracts conflicts with the federal policy against withdrawing ideas from the public domain and discourages recourse to the federal patent system by allowing states to extend “perpetual protection to articles too lacking in novelty to merit any patent at all under federal constitutional standards." Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., 376 U. S. 225, 232 (1964).
We find no merit in this contention. Enforcement of the agreement does not withdraw any idea from the public domain. The design for the keyholder was not in the public domain before Quick Point obtained its license to manufacture it. See Kewanee Oil Co., supra, at 484. In negotiating the agreement, Mrs. Aronson disclosed the design in confidence. Had Quick Point tried to exploit the design in breach of that confidence, it would have risked legal liability. It is equally clear that the design entered the public domain as a result of the manufacture and sale of the keyholders under the contract.
Requiring Quick Point to bear the burden of royalties for the use of the design is no more inconsistent with federal patent law than any of the other costs involved in being the first to introduce a new product to the market, such as outlays for research and development, and marketing and promotional expenses. For reasons which Quick Point’s experience with the Aronson keyholder demonstrate, innovative entrepreneurs have usually found such costs to be well wotth paying.
Finally, enforcement of this agreement does not discourage anyone from seeking a patent. Mrs. Aronson attempted to obtain a patent for over five years. It is quite true that had she succeeded, she would have received a 5% royalty only on keyholders sold during the 17-year life of the patent. Offsetting the limited terms of royalty payments, she would have received twice as much per dollar of Quick Point’s sales, and both she and Quick Point could have licensed any others who produced the same keyholder. Which course would have produced the greater yield to the contracting parties is a matter of speculation; the parties resolved the uncertainties by their bargain.
(4)
No decision of this Court relating to patents justifies relieving Quick Point of its contract obligations. We have held that a state may not forbid the copying of an idea in the public domain which does not meet the requirements for federal patent protection. Compco Corp. v. Day-Brite Lighting, Inc., 376 U. S. 234 (1964); Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., supra. Enforcement of Quick Point’s agreement, however, does not prevent anyone from copying the keyholder. It merely requires Quick Point to pay the consideration which it promised in return for the use of a novel device which enabled it to pre-empt the market.
In Lear, Inc. v. Adkins, 395 U. S. 653 (1969), we held that a person licensed to use a patent may challenge the validity of the patent, and that a licensee who establishes that the patent is invalid need not pay the royalties accrued under the licensing agreement subsequent to the issuance of the patent. Both holdings relied on the desirability of encouraging licensees to challenge the validity of patents, to further the strong federal policy that only inventions which meet the rigorous requirements of patentability shall be withdrawn from the public domain. Id., at 670-671, 673-674. Accordingly, neither the holding nor the rationale of Lear controls when no patent has issued, and no ideas have been withdrawn from public use.
Enforcement of the royalty agreement here is also consistent with the principles treated in Brulotte v. Thys Co., 379 U. S. 29 (1964). There, we held that the obligation to pay royalties in return for the use of a patented device may not extend beyond the life of the patent. The principle underlying that holding was simply that the monopoly granted under a patent cannot lawfully be used to “negotiate with the leverage of that monopoly.” The Court emphasized that to “use that leverage to project those royalty payments beyond the life of the patent is analogous to an effort to enlarge the monopoly of the patent. . . .” Id., at 33. Here the reduced royalty which is challenged, far from being negotiated “with the leverage” of a patent, rested on the contingency that no patent would issue within five years.
No doubt a pending patent application gives the applicant some additional bargaining power for purposes of negotiating a royalty agreement. The pending application allows the inventor to hold out the hope of an exclusive right to exploit the idea, as well as the threat that the other party will be prevented from using the idea for 17 years. However, the amount of leverage arising from a patent application depends on how likely the parties consider it to be that a valid patent will issue. Here, where no patent ever issued, the record is entirely clear that the parties assigned a substantial likelihood to that contingency, since they specifically provided for a reduced royalty in the event no patent issued within five years.
This case does not require us to draw the line between what constitutes abuse of a pending application and what does not. It is clear that whatever role the pending application played in the negotiation of the 5% royalty, it played no part in the contract to pay the 2%% royalty indefinitely.
Our holding in Kewanee Oil Co. puts to rest the contention that federal law pre-empts and renders unenforceable the contract made by these parties. There we held that state law forbidding the misappropriation of trade secrets was not preempted by federal patent law. We observed:
“Certainly the patent policy of encouraging invention is not disturbed by the existence of another form of incentive to invention. In this respect the two systems [patent and trade secret law] are not and never would be in conflict.” 416 U. S., at 484.
Enforcement of this royalty agreement is even less offensive to federal patent policies than state law protecting trade secrets. The most commonly accepted definition of trade secrets is restricted to confidential information which is not disclosed in the normal process of exploitation. See Restatement of Torts § 757, Comment b, p. 5 (1939). Accordingly, the exploitation of trade secrets under state law may not satisfy the federal policy in favor of disclosure, whereas disclosure is inescapable in exploiting a device like the Aronson keyholder.
Enforcement of these contractual obligations, freely undertaken in arm’s-length negotiation and with no fixed reliance on a patent or a probable patent grant, will
“encourage invention in areas where patent law does not reach, and will prompt the independent innovator to proceed with the discovery and exploitation of his invention. Competition is fostered and the public is not deprived of the use of valuable, if not quite patentable, invention.” (Footnote omitted.) 416 U. S., at 485.
The device which is the subject of this contract ceased to have any secrecy as soon as it was first marketed, yet when the contract was negotiated the inventiveness and novelty were sufficiently apparent to induce an experienced novelty manufacturer to agree to pay for the opportunity to be first in the market. Federal patent law is not a barrier to such a contract.
Reversed.
In April 1961, while Mrs. Aronson’s patent application was pending, her husband sought a patent on a different keyholder and made plans to license another company to manufacture it. Quick Point's attorney wrote to the couple that the proposed new license would violate the 1956 agreement. He observed that
“your license agreement is in respect of the disclosure of said Jane [Aronson’s] application (not merely in respect of its claims) and that even if no patent is ever granted on the Jane [Aronson] application, Quick Point Pencil Company is obligated to pay royalties in respect of any keyholder manufactured by it in accordance with any disclosure of said application.” (Emphasis added.)
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to decide whether two instruments, a conventional certificate of deposit and a business agreement between two families, could be considered securities under the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws.
J — I
Respondents, Sam and Alice Weaver, purchased a $50,000 certificate of deposit from petitioner Marine Bank on February 28, 1978. The certificate of déposit has a 6-year maturity, and it is insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The Weavers subsequently pledged the certificate of deposit to Marine Bank on March 17, 1978, to guarantee a $65,000 loan made by the bank to Columbus Packing Co. Columbus was a wholesale slaughterhouse and retail meat market which owed the bank $33,000 at that time for prior loans and was also substantially overdrawn on its checking account with the bank.
In consideration for guaranteeing the bank’s new loan, Columbus’ owners, Raymond and Barbara Piccirillo, entered into an agreement with the Weavers. Under the terms of the agreement, the Weavers were to receive 50% of Columbus’ net profits and $100 per month as long as they guaranteed the loan. It was also agreed that the Weavers could use Columbus’ barn and pasture at the discretion of the Piccirillos, and that they had the right to veto future borrowing by Columbus.
The Weavers allege that bank officers told them Columbus would use the $65,000 loan as working capital but instead it was immediately applied to pay Columbus’ overdue obligations. The bank kept approximately $42,800 to satisfy its prior loans and Columbus’ overdrawn checking account. All but $3,800 of the remainder was disbursed to pay overdue taxes and to satisfy other creditors; the bank then refused to permit Columbus to overdraw its checking account. Columbus became bankrupt four months later. Although the bank had not yet resorted to the Weavers’ certificate of deposit at the time this litigation commenced, it acknowledged that its other security was inadequate and that it intended to claim the pledged certificate of deposit.
These allegations were asserted in a complaint filed in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania in support of a claim that the bank violated § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 891, 15 U. S. C. § 78j(b). The Weavers also pleaded pendent claims for violations of the Pennsylvania Securities Act and for common-law fraud by the bank. The Weavers alleged that bank officers actively solicited them to guarantee the $65,000 loan to Columbus while knowing, but not disclosing, Columbus’ financial plight or the bank’s plans to repay itself from the new loan guaranteed by the Weavers’ pledged certificate of deposit. Had they known of Columbus’ precarious financial condition and the bank’s plans, the Weavers allege they would not have guaranteed the loan and pledged the certificate of deposit. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the bank. It concluded that if a wrong occurred it did not take place “in connection with the purchase . or sale of any security,” as required for liability under § 10(b). The District Court declined to exercise pendent jurisdiction over the state-law claims.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed. 637 F. 2d 157 (1980). A divided court held that a finder of fact could reasonably conclude that either the certificate of deposit or the agreement between the Weavers and the Piccirillos was a security. It therefore remanded for further consideration of the claim based on the federal securities laws. The Court of Appeals also reversed the District Court’s dismissal of the pendent state-law claims.
We granted certiorari, 452 U. S. 904 (1981), and we reverse. We hold that neither the certificate of deposit nor the agreement between the Weavers and the Piceirillos is a security under the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws. We remand the case to the Court of Appeals to determine whether the pendent state claims should now be entertained.
II
The definition of “security” in the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 is quite broad. The Act was adopted to restore investors’ confidence in the financial markets, and the term “security” was meant to include “the many types of instruments that in our commercial world fall within the ordinary concept of a security.” H. R. Rep. No. 85, 73d Cong., 1st Sess., 11 (1933); quoted in United Housing Foundation, Inc. v. Forman, 421 U. S. 837, 847-848 (1975). The statutory definition excludes only currency and notes with a maturity of less than nine months. It includes ordinary stocks and bonds, along with the “countless and variable schemes devised by those who seek the use of the money of others on the promise of profits . . . .” SEC v. W. J. Howey Co., 328 U. S. 293, 299 (1946). Thus, the coverage of the antifraud provisions of the securities laws is not limited to instruments traded at securities exchanges and over-the-counter markets, but extends to uncommon and irregular instruments. Superintendent of Insurance of New York v. Bankers Life & Casualty Co., 404 U. S. 6, 10 (1971); SEC v. C. M. Joiner Leasing Corp., 320 U. S. 344, 351 (1943). We have repeatedly held that the test “ ‘is what character the instrument is given in commerce by the terms of the offer, the plan of distribution, and the economic inducements held out to the prospect.”’ SEC v. United Benefit Life Ins. Co., 387 U. S. 202, 211 (1967), quoting SEC v. C. M. Joiner Leasing Corp., supra, at 352-353.
The broad statutory definition is preceded, however, by the statement that the terms mentioned are not to be considered securities if “the context otherwise requires . . . .” Moreover, we are satisfied that Congress, in enacting the securities laws, did not intend to provide a broad federal remedy for all fraud. Great Western Bank & Trust v. Kotz, 532 F. 2d 1252, 1253 (CA9 1976); Bellah v. First National Bank, 495 F. 2d 1109, 1114 (CA5 1974).
Ill
The Court of Appeals concluded that the certificate of deposit purchased by the Weavers might be a security. Examining the statutory definition, n. 3, supra, the court correctly noted that the certificate of deposit is not expressly excluded from the definition since it is not currency and it has a maturity exceeding nine months. It concluded, however, that the certificate of deposit was the functional equivalent of the withdrawable capital shares of a savings and loan association held to be securities in Tcherepnin v. Knight, 389 U. S. 332 (1967). The court also reasoned that, from an investor’s standpoint, a certificate of deposit is no different from any other long-term debt obligation. Unless distinguishing features were found on remand, the court concluded that the certificate of deposit should be held to be a security.
Tcherepnin is not controlling. The withdrawable capital shares found there to be securities did not pay a fixed rate of interest; instead, purchasers received dividends based on the association’s profits. Purchasers also received voting rights. In short, the withdrawable capital shares in Tcherepnin were much more like ordinary shares of stock and “the ordinary concept of a security,” supra, at 556, than a certificate of deposit.
The Court of Appeals’ also concluded that a certificate of deposit is similar to any other long-term debt obligation commonly found to be a security. In our view, however, there is an important difference between a bank certificate of deposit and other long-term debt obligations. This certificate of deposit was issued by a federally regulated bank which is subject to the comprehensive set of regulations governing the banking industry. Deposits in federally regulated banks are protected by the reserve, reporting, and inspection requirements of the federal banking laws; advertising relating to the interest paid on deposits is also regulated. In addition, deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Since its formation in 1933, nearly all depositors in failing banks insured by the FDIC have received payment in full, even payment for the portions of their deposits above the amount insured. 1980 Annual Report of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation 18-21 (1981).
We see, therefore, important differences between a certificate of deposit purchased from a federally regulated bank and other long-term debt obligations. The Court of Appeals failed to give appropriate weight to the important fact that the purchaser of a certificate of deposit is virtually guaranteed payment in full, whereas the holder of an ordinary long-term debt obligation assumes the risk of the borrower’s insolvency. The definition of “security” in the 1934 Act provides that an instrument which seems to fall within the broad sweep of the Act is not to be considered a security if the context otherwise requires. It is unnecessary to subject issuers of bank certificates of deposit to liability under the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws since the holders of bank certificates of deposit are abundantly protected under the federal banking laws. We therefore hold that the certificate of deposit purchased by the Weavers is not a security.
t> H-*
The Court of Appeals also held that a finder of fact could conclude that the separate agreement between the Weavers and the Piccirillos is a security. Examining the statutory language, n. 3, supra, the court found that the agreement might be a “certificate of interest or participation in any profit-sharing agreement” or an “investment contract.” It stressed that the agreement gave the Weavers a share in the profits of the slaughterhouse which would result from the efforts of the Piccirillos. Accordingly, in that court’s view, the agreement fell within the definition of “investment contract” stated in Howey, because “the scheme involves an investment of money in a common enterprise with profits to come solely from the efforts of others.” 328 U. S., at 301.
Congress intended the securities laws to cover those instruments ordinarily and commonly considered to be securities in the commercial world, but the agreement between the Weavers and the Piccirillos is not the type of instrument that comes to mind when the term “security” is used and does not fall within “the ordinary concept of a security.” Supra, at 556. The unusual instruments found to constitute securities in prior cases involved offers to a number of potential investors, not a private transaction as in this case. In Howey, for example, 42 persons purchased interests in a citrus grove during a 4-month period. 328 U. S., at 295. In C. M. Joiner Leasing, offers to sell oil leases were sent to over 1,000 prospects. 320 U. S., at 346. In C. M, Joiner Leasing, we noted that a security is an instrument in which there is “common trading.” Id., at 351. The instruments involved in C. M. Joiner Leasing and Howey had equivalent values to most persons and could have been traded publicly.
Here, in contrast, the Piccirillos distributed no prospectus to the Weavers or to other potential investors, and the unique agreement they negotiated was not designed to be traded publicly. The provision that the Weavers could use the bam and pastures of the slaughterhouse at the discretion of the Piccirillos underscores the unique character of the transaction. Similarly, the provision that the Weavers could veto future loans gave them a measure of control over the operation of the slaughterhouse not characteristic of a security. Although the agreement gave the Weavers a share of the Piccirillos’ profits, if any, that provision alone is not sufficient to make that agreement a security. Accordingly, we hold that this unique agreement, negotiated one-on-one by the parties, is not a security.
V
Whatever may be the consequences of these transactions, they did not occur in connection with the purchase or sale of “securities.” The Weavers allege that the bank manipulated them so that they would suffer the loss the bank would have borne from the failure of the Columbus Packing Co. Their pendent state-law claims against the bank are not before the Court since the Court of Appeals did not treat the issue of those claims. Accordingly, the case is remanded for consideration of whether the District Court should now entertain the pendent claims.
Reversed and remanded.
The certificate of deposit pays 772% interest and provides that, if the bank permits early withdrawal, the depositor will earn interest at the bank’s current savings passbook rate on the amount withdrawn, except that no interest will be paid for the three months prior to withdrawal. When the Weavers purchased the certificate of deposit, it could only be insured up to $40,000 by the FDIC. The ceiling on insured deposits is now $100,000. Act of Mar. 31, 1980, Pub. L. 96-221, 94 Stat. 147, § 308(b)(1), 12 U. S. C. § 1724(b) (1976 ed., Supp. IV).
The Court of Appeals also concluded that the pledge of a security is a sale, an issue on which the Federal Circuits were split. We held in Rubin v. United States, 449 U. S. 424 (1981), that a pledge of stock is equivalent to a sale for the purposes of the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws. Accordingly, in determining whether fraud may have occurred here “in connection with the purchase or sale of any security,” the only issue now before the Court is whether a security was involved.
Section 3(a)(10) of the 1934 Act, as set forth in 15 U. S. C. § 78c(a)(10), provides:
“(a) . . . When used in this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires—
“(10) The term ‘security’ means any note, stock, treasury stock, bond, debenture, certificate of interest or participation in any profit-sharing agreement or in any oil, gas, or other mineral royalty or lease, any collateral-trust certificate, pre-organization certificate or subscription, transferable share, investment contract, voting-trust certificate, certificate of deposit, for a security, or in general, any instrument commonly known as a ‘security’; or any certificate of interest or participation in, temporary or interim certificate for, receipt for, or warrant or right to subscribe to or purchase, any of the foregoing; but shall not include currency or any note, draft, bill of exchange, or banker’s acceptance which has a maturity at the time of issuance of not exceeding nine months, exclusive of days of grace, or any renewal thereof the maturity is likewise limited.”
We have consistently held that the definition of “security” in the 1934 Act is essentially the same as the definition of “security” in § 2(1) of the Securities Act of 1933,15 U. S. C. § 77(b)(1), United Housing Foundation, Inc. v. Forman, 421 U. S. 837, 847, n. 12 (1975).
Fitzgibbon, What is a Security? A Redefinition Based on Eligibility to Participate in the Financial Markets, 64 Minn. L. Rev. 893, 912-918 (1980).
The definition of a “security” in the 1934 Act, n. 3, supra, includes the term, “certificate of deposit, for a security.” However, this term does not refer to certificates of deposit such as the Weavers purchased. Instead, “certificate of deposit, for a security” refers to instruments issued by protective committees in the course of corporate reorganizations. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v. Fingland, 615 F. 2d 465, 468 (CA7 1980).
In addition, the Court of Appeals noted that the Securities and Exchange Commission had taken the position that certificates of deposit are securities. However, the SEC has filed a brief as amicus curiae in this case, jointly with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which argues that the Weavers’ certificate of deposit is not a security.
In Teamsters v. Daniel, 439 U. S. 551 (1979), we held that a honcon-tributory, compulsory pension plan was not a security. One of our reasons for our holding in Daniel was that the pension plan was regulated by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA): “The existence of this comprehensive legislation governing the use and terms of employee pension plans severely undercuts all arguments for extending the Securities Acts to noncontributory, compulsory pension plans.” Id., at 569-570. Since ERISA regulates the substantive terms of pension plans, and also requires certain disclosures, it was unnecessary to subject pension plans to the requirements of the federal securities laws as well.
See, e. g., 12 U. S. C. §461(b) (1976 ed., Supp. IV) (reserve requirements); 12 U. S. C. §§ 161, 324, and 1817 (1976 ed. and Supp. IV) (reporting requirements); 12 U. S. C. §§481, 483, and 1820(b) (1976 ed. and Supp. IV) (inspection requirements); 12 CFR §§217.6 and 329.8 (1981) (advertising).
We reject respondents’ argument that the certificate of deposit was somehow transformed into a security when it was pledged, even though it was not a security when purchased.
Cf. Great Western Bank & Trust v. Kotz, 532 F. 2d 1252, 1260-1262 (CA9 1976) (Wright, J., concurring) (unsecured note, the terms of which were negotiated face-to-face, given to a bank in return for a business loan, is not a security).
It does not follow that a certificate of deposit or business agreement between transacting parties invariably falls outside the definition of a “security” as defined by the federal statutes. Each transaction must be analyzed and evaluated on the basis of the content of the instruments in question, the purposes intended to be served, and the factual setting as a whole.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Me. Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In sustaining a state criminal statute that forbids certain expenditures by banks and business corporations for the purpose of influencing the vote on referendum proposals, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that the First Amendment rights of a corporation are limited to issues that materially affect its business, property, or assets. The court rejected appellants’ claim that the statute abridges freedom of speech in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The issue presented in this context is one of first impression in this Court. We postponed the question of jurisdiction to our consideration of the merits. 430 U. S. 964 (1977). We now reverse.
I
The statute at issue, Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 55, § 8 (West Supp. 1977), prohibits appellants, two national banking associations and three business corporations, from making contributions or expenditures “for the purpose of... influencing or affecting the vote on any question submitted to the voters, other than one materially affecting any of the property, business or assets of the corporation.” The statute further specifies that “[n]o question submitted to the voters solely concerning the taxation of the income, property or transactions of individuals shall be deemed materially to affect the property, business or assets of the corporation.” A corporation that violates § 8 may receive a maximum fine of $50,000; a corporate officer, director, or agent who violates the section may receive a maximum fine of $10,000 or imprisonment for up to one year, or both.
Appellants wanted to spend money to publicize their views on a proposed constitutional amendment that was to be submitted to the voters as a ballot question at a general election on November 2,1976. The amendment would have permitted the legislature to impose a graduated tax on the income of individuals. After appellee, the Attorney General of Massachusetts, informed appellants that he intended to enforce § 8 against them, they brought this action seeking to have the statute declared unconstitutional. On April 26, 1976, the case was submitted to a single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court on an expedited basis and upon agreed facts, in order to settle the question before the upcoming election. Judgment was reserved and the case referred to the full court that same day.
Appellants argued that § 8 violates the First Amendment, the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, and similar provisions of the Massachusetts Constitution. They prayed that the statute be declared unconstitutional on its face and as it would be applied to their proposed expenditures. The parties’ statement of agreed facts reflected their disagreement as to the effect that the adoption of a personal income tax would have on appellants’ business; it noted that “[t]here is a division of opinion among economists as to whether and to what extent a graduated income tax imposed solely on individuals would affect the business and assets of corporations.” App. 17. Appellee did not dispute that appellants’ management believed that the tax would have a significant effect on their businesses.
On September 22, 1976, the full bench directed the single justice to enter judgment upholding the constitutionality of § 8. An opinion followed on February 1,1977. In addressing appellants’ constitutional contentions, the court acknowledged that § 8 “operate [s] in an area of the most fundamental First Amendment activities,” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 14 (1976), and viewed the principal question as “whether business corporations, such as [appellants], have First Amendment rights coextensive with those of natural persons or associations of natural persons.” 371 Mass. 773, 783, 359 N. E. 2d 1262, 1269. The court found its answer in the.contours of a corporation’s constitutional right, as a “person” under the Fourteenth Amendment, not to be deprived of property without due process of law. Distinguishing the First Amendment rights of a natural person from the more limited rights of a corporation, the court concluded that “whether its rights are designated ‘liberty’ rights or ‘property’ rights, a corporation’s property and business interests are entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection.... [A] s an incident of such protection, corporations also possess certain rights of speech and expression under the First Amendment.” Id., at 784, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1270. (citations and footnote omitted). Accordingly, the court held that “only when a general political issue materially affects a corporation’s business, property or assets may that corporation claim First Amendment protection for its speech or other activities entitling it to communicate its position on that issue to the general public.” Since this limitation is “identical to the legislative command in the first sentence of [§8],” the court concluded that the legislature “has clearly identified in the challenged statute the parameters of corporate free speech.” Id., at 785, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1270.
The court also declined to say that there was “no rational basis for [the] legislative determination,” embodied in the second sentence of § 8, that a ballot question concerning the taxation of individuals could not materially affect the interests of a corporation. Id., at 786, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1271. In rejecting appellants’ argument that this second sentence established a conclusive presumption in violation of the Due Process Clause, the court construed § 8 to embody two distinct crimes: The first prohibits a corporation from spending money to influence the vote on a ballot question not materially affecting its business interests; the second, and more specific, prohibition makes it criminal per se for a corporation to spend money to influence the vote on a ballot question solely concerning individual taxation. While acknowledging that the second crime is “related to the general crime” stated in the first sentence of § 8, the court intimated that the second sentence was intended to make criminal an expenditure of the type proposed by appellants without regard to specific proof of the materiality of the question to the corporation’s business interests. Id., at 795 n. 19, 790-791, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1276 n. 19, 1273-1274. The court nevertheless seems to have reintroduced the “materially affecting” concept into its interpretation of the second sentence of § 8, as a limitation on the scope of the so-called “second crime” imposed by the Federal Constitution rather than the Massachusetts Legislature. Id., at 786, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1271. But because the court thought appellants had not made a sufficient showing of material effect, their challenge to the statutory prohibition as applied to them also failed.
Appellants’ other arguments fared no better. Adopting a narrowing construction of the statute, the Supreme Judicial Court rejected the contention that § 8 is overbroad. It also found no merit in appellants’ vagueness argument because the specific prohibition against corporate expenditures on a referendum solely concerning individual taxation is “both precise and definite.” Id., at 791, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1273-1274. Finally, the court held that appellants were not denied the equal protection of the laws.
II
Because the 1976 referendum has been held, and the proposed constitutional amendment defeated, we face at the outset a question of mootness. As the case falls within the class of controversies “capable of repetition, yet evading review,” Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U. S. 498, 515 (1911), we conclude that it is not moot. Present here are both elements identified in Weinstein v. Bradford, 423 U. S. 147, 149 (1975), as precluding a finding of mootness in the absence of a class action: “(1) the challenged action was in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or expiration, and (2) there [is] a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party [will] be subjected to the same action again.”
Under no reasonably foreseeable circumstances could appellants obtain plenary review by this Court of the issue here presented in advance of a referendum on a similar' constitutional amendment. In each of the legislature’s four attempts to obtain constitutional authorization to enact a graduated income tax, including this most recent one, the period of time between legislative authorization of the proposal and its submission to the voters was approximately 18 months. This proved too short a period of time for appellants to obtain complete judicial review, and there is every reason to believe that any future suit would take at least as long. Furthermore, a decision allowing the desired expenditures would be an empty gesture unless it afforded appellants sufficient opportunity prior to the election date to communicate their views effectively.
Nor can there be any serious doubt that there is a “reasonable expectation,” Weinstein v. Bradford, supra, that appellants again will be subject to the threat of prosecution under § 8. The 1976 election marked the fourth time in recent years that a proposed graduated income tax amendment has been submitted to the Massachusetts voters. Appellee’s suggestion that the legislature may abandon its quest for a constitutional amendment is purely speculative. Appellants insist that they will continue to oppose the constitutional amendment, and there is no reason to believe that the Attorney General will refrain from prosecuting violations of § 8. Compare Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart, 427 U. S. 539, 546-547 (1976), with Spomer v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 514, 521 (1974).
Meanwhile, § 8 remains on the books as a complete prohibition of corporate expenditures related to individual tax referenda, and as a restraining influence on corporate expenditures concerning other ballot questions. The criminal penalties of § 8 discourage challenge by violation, and the effect of the statute on arguably protected speech will persist. Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S. 724, 737 n. 8 (1974); see American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U. S. 767, 770 n. 1 (1974); Rosario v. Rockefeller, 410 U. S. 752, 756 n. 5 (1973); Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330, 333 n. 2 (1972). Accordingly, we conclude that this cáse is not moot and proceed to address the merits.
Ill
The court below framed the principal question in this case as whether and to what extent corporations have First Amendment rights. We believe that the court posed the wrong question. The Constitution often protects interests broader than those of the party seeking their vindication. The First Amendment, in particular, serves significant societal interests. The proper question therefore is not whether corporations “have” First Amendment rights and, if so, whether they are coextensive with those of natural persons. Instead, the question must be whether § 8 abridges expression that the First Amendment was meant to protect. We hold that it does.
A
The speech proposed by appellants is at the heart of the First Amendment’s protection.
“The freedom of speech and of the press guaranteed by the Constitution embraces at the least the liberty to discuss publicly and truthfully all matters of public concern without previous restraint or fear of subsequent punishment.... Freedom of discussion, if it would fulfill its historic function in this nation, must embrace all issues about which information is needed or appropriate to enable the members of society to cope with the exigencies of their period.” Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 101-102 (1940).
The referendum issue that appellants wish to address falls squarely within this description. In appellants’ view, the enactment of a graduated personal income tax, as proposed to be authorized by constitutional amendment, would have a seriously adverse effect on the economy of the State. See n. 4, supra. The importance of the referendum issue to the people and government of Massachusetts is not disputed. Its merits, however, are the subject of sharp disagreement.
As the Court said in Mills v. Alabama, 384 U. S. 214, 218 (1966), “there is practically universal agreement that á major purpose of [the First] Amendment was to protect the free discussion of governmental affairs.” If the speakers here were not corporations, no one would suggest that the State could silence their proposed speech. It is the type of speech indispensable to decisionmaking in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation rather than an individual. The inherent worth of the speech in terms of its capacity for informing the public does not depend upon the identity of its source, whether corporation, association, union, or individual.
The court below nevertheless held that corporate speech is protected by the First Amendment only when it pertains directly to the corporation’s business interests. In deciding whether this novel and restrictive gloss on the First Amendment comports with the Constitution and the precedents of this Court, we need not survey the outer boundaries of the Amendment’s protection of corporate speech, or address the abstract question whether corporations have the full measure of rights that individuals enjoy under the First Amendment. The question in this case, simply put, is whether the corporate identity of the speaker deprives this proposed speech of what otherwise would be its clear entitlement to protection. We turn now to that question.
B
The court below found confirmation of the legislature’s definition of the scope of a corporation’s First Amendment rights in the language of the Fourteenth Amendment. Noting that the First Amendment is applicable to the States through the Fourteenth, and seizing upon the observation that corporations “cannot claim for themselves the liberty which the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees,” Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 535 (1925), the court concluded that a corporation’s First Amendment rights must derive from its property rights under the Fourteenth.
This is an artificial mode of analysis, untenable under decisions of this Court.
“In a series of decisions beginning with Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652 (1925), this Court held that the liberty of speech and of the press which the First Amendment guarantees against abridgment by the federal government is within the liberty safeguarded by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from invasion by state action. That principle has been followed and reaffirmed to the present day.” Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495, 500-501 (1952) (footnote omitted) (emphasis supplied).
Freedom of speech and the other freedoms encompassed by the First Amendment always have been viewed as fundamental components of the liberty safeguarded by the Due Process Clause, see Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 666 (1925) (opinion of the Court); id., at 672 (Holmes, J., dissenting); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449, 460 (1958); Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359, 368 (1931); De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353, 364 (1937); Warren, The New “Liberty” Under the Fourteenth Amendment, 39 Harv. L. Rev. 431 (1926), and the Court has not identified a separate source for the right when it has been asserted by corporations. See, e. g., Times Film Corp. v. Chicago, 365 U. S. 43, 47 (1961); Kingsley Int’l Pictures Corp. v. Regents, 360 U. S. 684, 688 (1959); Joseph Burstyn, supra. In Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U. S. 233, 244 (1936), the Court rejected the very reasoning adopted by the Supreme Judicial Court and did not rely on the corporation's property rights under the Fourteenth Amendment in sustaining its freedom of speech.
Yet appellee suggests that First Amendment rights generally have been afforded only to corporations engaged in the communications business or through which individuals express themselves, and the court below apparently accepted the “materially affecting” theory as the conceptual common denominator between appellee’s position and the precedents of this Court. It is true that the “materially affecting” requirement would have been satisfied in the Court’s decisions affording protection to the speech of media corporations and corporations otherwise in the business of communication or entertainment, and to the commercial speech of business corporations. See cases cited in n. 14, supra. In such cases, the speech would be connected to the corporation’s business almost by definition. But the effect on the business of the corporation was not the governing rationale in any of these decisions. None of them mentions, let alone attributes significance to, the fact that the subject of the challenged communication materially affected the corporation’s business.
The press cases emphasize the special and constitutionally recognized role of that institution in informing and educating the public, offering criticism, and providing a forum for discussion and debate. Mills v. Alabama, 384 U. S., at 219; see Saxbe v. Washington Post Co., 417 U. S. 843, 863-864 (1974) (Powell, J., dissenting). But the press does not have a monopoly on either the First Amendment or the ability to enlighten. Cf. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S., at 51 n. 56; Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U. S. 367, 389-390 (1969); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 266 (1964); Associated Press v. United States, 326 U. S. 1, 20 (1945). Similarly, the Court’s decisions involving corporations in the business of communication or entertainment are based not only on the role of the First Amendment in fostering individual self-expression but also on its role in affording the public access to discussion, debate, and the dissemination of information and ideas. See Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, supra; Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557, 564 (1969); Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U. S. 374, 389 (1967). Even decisions seemingly based exclusively on the individual’s right to express himself acknowledge that the expression may contribute to society’s edification. Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 510 (1948).
Nor do our recent commercial speech cases lend support to appellee’s business interest theory. They illustrate that the First Amendment goes beyond protection of the press and the self-expression of individuals to prohibit government from limiting the stock of information from which members of the public may draw. A commercial advertisement is constitutionally protected not so much because it pertains to' the seller’s business as because it furthers the societal interest in the “free flow of commercial information.” Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U. S. 748, 764 (1976); see Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro, 431 U. S. 85,95 (1977).
C
We thus find no support in the First or Fourteenth Amendment, or in the decisions of this Court, for the proposition that speech that otherwise would be within the protection of the First Amendment loses that protection simply because its source is a corporation that cannot prove, to the satisfaction of a court, a material effect on its business or property. The “materially affecting” requirement is not an identification of the boundaries of corporate speech etched by the Constitution itself. Rather, it amounts to an impermissible legislative prohibition of speech based on the identity of the interests that spokesmen may represent in public debate over controversial issues and a requirement that the speaker have a sufficiently great interest in the subject to justify communication.
Section 8 permits a corporation to communicate to the public its views on certain referendum subjects — those materially affecting its business — but not others. It also singles out one kind of ballot question — individual, taxation — as a subject about which corporations may never make their ideas public. The legislature has drawn the line between permissible and impermissible speech according to whether there is a sufficient nexus, as defined by the legislature, between the issue presented to the voters and the business interests of the speaker.
In the realm of protected speech, the legislature is constitutionally disqualified from dictating the subjects about which persons may speak and the speakers who may address a public issue. Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92, 96 (1972). If a legislature may direct business corporations to “stick to business,” it also may limit other corporations— religious, charitable, or civic — to their respective “business” when addressing the public. Such power in government to channel the expression of views is unacceptable under the First Amendment. Especially where, as here, the legislature’s suppression of speech suggests an attempt to give one side of a debatable public question an advantage in expressing its views to the people, the First Amendment is plainly offended. Yet the State contends that its action is necessitated by governmental interests of the highest order. We next consider these asserted interests.
IV
The constitutionality of § 8’s prohibition of the “exposition of ideas” by corporations turns on whether it can survive the exacting scrutiny necessitated by a state-imposed restriction of freedom of speech. Especially where, as here, a prohibition is directed at speech itself, and the speech is intimately related to the process of governing, “the State may prevail only upon showing a subordinating interest which is compelling,” Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U. S. 516, 524 (1960); see NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 438-439 (1963); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S., at 463; Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 530 (1945), “and the burden is on the government to show the existence of such an interest.” Elrod v. Burns, 427 U. S. 347, 362 (1976). Even then, the State must employ means “closely drawn to avoid unnecessary abridgment....” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S., at 25; see NAACP v. Button, supra, at 438; Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, 488 (1960).
The Supreme Judicial Court did not subject § 8 to “the critical scrutiny demanded under accepted First Amendment and equal protection principles,” Buckley, supra, at 11, because of its view that the First Amendment does not apply to appellants’ proposed speech. For this reason the court did not even discuss the State’s interests in considering appellants’ First Amendment argument. The court adverted to the conceivable interests served by § 8 only in rejecting appellants’ equal protection claim. Appellee nevertheless advances two principal justifications for. the prohibition of corporate speech. The first is the State’s interest in sustaining the active role of the individual citizen in the electoral process and thereby preventing diminution of the citizen’s confidence in government. The second is the interest in protecting the rights of shareholders whose views differ from those expressed by management on behalf of the corporation. However weighty these interests may be in the context of partisan candidate elections, they either are not implicated in this case or are not served at all, or in other than a random manner, by the prohibition in § 8.
A
f Preserving the integrity of the electoral process, preventing ^corruption, and “sustain [ing] the active, alert responsibility of the individual citizen in a democracy for the wise conduct of government” are interests of the highest importance. Buckley, supra; United States v. Automobile Workers, 352 U. S. 567, 570 (1957); United States v. CIO, 335 U. S. 106, 139 (1948) (Rutledge, J., concurring); Burroughs v. United States, 290 U. S. 534 (1934). Preservation of the individual citizen’s confidence in government is equally important. Buckley, supra, at 27; CSC v. Letter Carriers, 413 U. S. 548, 565 (1973).
Appellee advances a number of arguments in support of his view that these interests are endangered by corporate participation in discussion of a referendum issue. They hinge upon the assumption that such participation would exert an undue influence on the outcome of a referendum vote, and — • in the end — destroy the confidence of the people in the democratic process and the integrity of government. According to appellee, corporations are wealthy and powerful and their views may drown out other points of view. If appellee’s arguments were supported by record or legislative findings that corporate advocacy threatened imminently to undermine democratic processes, thereby denigrating rather than serving First Amendment interests, these arguments would merit our consideration. Cf. Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U. S. 367 (1969). But there has been no showing that the relative voice of corporations has been overwhelming or even significant in influencing referenda in Massachusetts, or that there has been any threat to the confidence of the citizenry in government. Cf. Wood v. Georgia, 370 U. S. 375, 388 (1962).
Nor are appellee’s arguments inherently persuasive or supported by the precedents of this Court. Referenda are held on issues, not candidates for public -office. The risk of corruption perceived in cases involving candidate elections, e. g., United States v. Automobile Workers, supra; United States v. CIO, supra, simply is not present in a popular vote on a public issue. To be sure, corporate advertising may influence the outcome of the vote; this would be its purpose. But the fact that advocacy may persuade the electorate is hardly a reason to suppress it: The Constitution “protects expression which is eloquent no less than that which is unconvincing.” Kingsley Int’l Pictures Corp. v. Regents, 360 U. S., at 689. We noted only recently that “the concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment... Buckley, 424 U. S., at 48-49. Moreover, the people in our democracy are entrusted with the responsibility for judging and evaluating the relative merits of conflicting arguments. They may consider, in making their judgment, the source and credibility of the advocate. But if there be any danger that the people cannot evaluate the information and arguments advanced by appellants, it is a danger contemplated by the Framers of the First Amendment. Wood v. Georgia, supra. In sum, “[a] restriction so destructive of the right of public discussion [as § 8], without greater or more imminent danger to the public interest than existed in this case, is incompatible with the freedoms secured by the First Amendment.”
B
Finally, appellee argues that § 8, protects corporate shareholders, an interest that is both legitimate and traditionally within the province of state law. Cort v. Ash, 422 U. S. 66, 82-84 (1975). The statute is said to serve this interest by preventing the use of corporate resources in furtherance of views with which some shareholders may disagree. This purpose is belied, however, by the provisions of the statute, which are both underinclusive and overinclusive.
The underinclusiveness of the statute is self-evident. Corporate expenditures with respect to a referendum are prohibited, while corporate activity with respect to the passage or defeat of legislation is permitted, see n. 31, supra, even though corporations may engage in lobbying more often than they take positions on ballot questions submitted to the voters. Nor does § 8 prohibit a corporation from expressing its views, by the expenditure of corporate funds, on any public issue until it becomes the subject of a referendum, though the displeasure of disapproving shareholders is unlikely to be any less.
The fact that a particular kind of ballot question has been singled out for special treatment undermines the likelihood of a genuine state interest in protecting shareholders. It suggests instead that the legislature may have been concerned with silencing corporations on a particular subject. Indeed, appellee has conceded that “the legislative and judicial history of the statute indicates... that the second crime was ‘tailor-made' to prohibit corporate campaign contributions to' oppose a graduated income tax amendment." Brief for Appellee 6.
Nor is the fact that § 8 is limited to banks and business corporations without relevance. Excluded from its provisions and criminal sanctions are entities or organized groups in which numbers of persons may hold an interest or membership, and which often have resources comparable to those of large corporations. Minorities in such groups or entities may have interests with respect to institutional speech quite comparable to those of minority shareholders in a corporation. Thus the exclusion of Massachusetts business trusts, real estate investment trusts, labor unions, and other associations undermines the plausibility of the State’s purported concern for the persons who happen to be shareholders in the banks and corporations covered by § 8.
The overinclusiveness of the statute is demonstrated by the fact that § 8 would prohibit a corporation from supporting or opposing a referendum proposal even if its shareholders unanimously authorized the contribution or expenditure. Ultimately shareholders may decide, through the procedures of corporate democracy, whether their corporation should engage in debate on public issues. Acting through their power to elect the board of directors or to insist upon protective provisions in the corporation’s charter, shareholders normally are presumed competent to protect their own interests. In addition to intracorporate remedies, minority shareholders generally have access to the judicial remedy of a derivative suit to challenge corporate disbursements alleged to have been made for improper corporate purposes or merely to further the personal interests of management.
Assuming, arguendo, that protection of shareholders is a “compelling” interest under the circumstances of this case, we find “no substantially relevant correlation between the governmental interest asserted and the State’s effort” to prohibit appellants from speaking. Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S., at 485.
V
Because that portion of § 8 challenged by appellants prohibits protected speech in a manner unjustified by a compelling state interest, it must be invalidated. The judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court is
Reversed.
Appellants are the First National Bank of Boston, New England Merchants National Bank, the Gillette Co., Digital Equipment Corp., and Wyman-Gordon. Co.
Massachusetts Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 55, §8 (West Supp. 1977), provides (with emphasis supplied):
“No corporation carrying on the business of a bank, trust, surety, indemnity, safe deposit, insurance, railroad, street railway, telegraph, telephone, gas, electric light, heat, power, canal, aqueduct, or water company, no company having the right to take land by eminent domain or to exercise franchises in public ways, granted by the commonwealth or by any county, city or town, no trustee or trustees owning or holding the majority of the stock of such a corporation, no business corporation incorporated under the laws of or doing business in the commonwealth and no officer or agent acting in behalf of any corporation mentioned in this section, shall directly or indirectly give, pay, expend or contribute, or promise to give, pay, expend or contribute, any money or other valuable thing for the purpose of aiding, promoting or preventing the nomination or election of any person to public office, or aiding, promoting or antagonizing the interests of any political party, or influencing or affecting the vote on any question submitted to the voters, other than one materially affecting any of the property, business or assets of the corporation. No question submitted to the voters solely concerning the taxation of the income, property or transactions of individuáis shall be deemed materially to affect the property, business or assets of the corporation. No person or persons, no political committee, and no person acting under the authority of a political committee, or in its behalf, shall solicit or receive from such corporation or such holders of stock any gift, payment, expenditure, contribution or promise to give, pay, expend or contribute for any such purpose.
“Any corporation violating any provision of this section shall be punished by a fine of not more than fifty thousand dollars and any officer, director or agent of the corporation violating any provision thereof or authorizing such violation,... shall be punished by a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.”
This was not the first challenge to § 8. The statute’s legislative and judicial history has been a troubled one. Its successive re-enactments have been linked to the legislature’s repeated submissions to the voters of a constitutional amendment that would allow the enactment of a graduated tax.
The predecessor of § 8, Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 55, § 7 (as amended by 1946 Mass. Acts, ch. 537, § 10), was first challenged in Lustwerk v. Lytron, Inc., 344 Mass. 647, 183 N. E. 2d 871 (1962). Unlike § 8, § 7 did not dictate that questions concerning the taxation of individuals could not satisfy the “materially affecting” requirement. The Supreme Judicial Court construed §7 not to prohibit a corporate expenditure urging the voters to reject a proposed constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to impose a graduated tax on corporate as well as individual income.
After Lustwerk the legislature amended § 7 by adding the sentence: “No question submitted to the voters concerning the taxation of the income, property or transactions of individuals shall be deemed materially to affect the property, business or assets of the corporation.” 1972 Mass. Acts, ch. 458. The statute was challenged in 1972 by four of the present appellants; they wanted to oppose a referendum proposal similar to the one submitted to and rejected by the voters in 1962. Again the expenditure was held to be lawful. First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Attorney General, 362 Mass. 570,290 N. E. 2d 526 (1972).
The most recent amendment was enacted on April 28, 1975, when the legislature further refined the second sentence of § 8 to apply only to ballot questions "solely” concerning the taxation of individuals. 1975 Mass. Acts, ch. 151, § 1. Following this amendment, the legislature on May 7, 1975, voted to submit to the voters on November 2, 1976, the proposed constitutional amendment authorizing the imposition of a graduated 'personal income tax. It was this proposal that led to the case now before us.
Appellants believe that the adoption of a graduated personal income tax would materially affect their business in a variety of ways, including, in the words of the court below,
“discouraging highly qualified executives and highly skilled professional personnel from settling, working or remaining in Massachusetts; promoting a tax climate which would be considered unfavorable by business corporations, thereby discouraging them from settling in Massachusetts with ‘resultant adverse effects’ on the plaintiff banks’ loans, deposits, and other services; and tending to shrink the disposable income of individuals available for the purchase of the consumer products manufactured by at least one of the plaintiff corporations.” 371 Mass., at 777, 359 N. E. 2d, at 1266.
In contrast to its approach in the previous challenges to the predecessor of § 8, see n. 3, supra, the court determined that
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Stevens
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which The Chief Justice, Justice White, and Justice O’Connor join.
The United States and the State of North Dakota exercise concurrent jurisdiction over the Grand Forks Air Force Base and the Minot Air Force Base. Each sovereign has its own separate regulatory objectives with respect to the area over which it has authority. The Department of Defense (DoD), which operates clubs and package stores located on those bases, has sought to reduce the price that it pays for alcoholic beverages sold on the bases by instituting a system of competitive bidding. The State, which has established a liquor distribution system in order to promote temperance and ensure orderly market conditions, wishes to protect the integrity of that system by requiring out-of-state shippers to file monthly reports and to affix a label to each bottle of liquor sold to a federal enclave for domestic consumption. The clash between the State’s interest in preventing thé diversion of liquor and the federal interest in obtaining the lowest possible price forms the basis for the Federal Government’s Supremacy Clause and pre-emption challenges to the North Dakota regulations.
I
The United States sells alcoholic beverages to military personnel and their families at clubs and package stores on its military bases. The military uses revenue from these sales to support a morale, welfare, and recreation program for personnel and their families..See 32 CFR §261.3 (1989); DoD Directive 1015.1 (Aug. 19, 1981). Before December 1985, no federal statute governed the purchase of liquor for these establishments. From December 19, 1985, to October 19, 1986, federal law required military bases to purchase alcoholic beverages only within their home State. See Pub. L. 99-190, §8099, 99 Stat. 1219. Effective October 30, 1986, Congress eliminated the requirement that the military purchase liquor from within the State and directed that distilled spirits be “procured from the most competitive source, price and other factors considered.” Pub. L. 99-661, §313, 100 Stat. 3853, 10 U. S. C. § 2488(a).
In accordance with this statute, the DoD has developed a joint-military purchasing program to buy liquor in bulk directly from the Nation’s primary distributors who offer the lowest possible prices. Purchases are made pursuant to a DoD regulation which provides:
“ ‘The Department of Defense shall cooperate with local, state, and federal officials to the degree that their duties relate to the provisions of this chapter. However, the purchase of all alcoholic beverages for resale at any camp, post, station, base, or other DoD installation within the United States shall be in such a manner and under such conditions as shall obtain for the government the most advantageous contract, price and other considered factors. These other factors shall not be construed as meaning any submission to state control, nor shall cooperation be construed or represented as an admission of any legal obligation to submit to state control, pay state or local taxes, or purchase alcoholic beverages within geographical boundaries or at prices or from suppliers prescribed by any state.’” 32 CFR §261.4 (1989).
Since long before the enactment of the most recent procurement statute, the State of North Dakota has regulated the importation and distribution of alcoholic beverages within its borders. See N. D. Cent. Code ch. 5 (1987 and Supp. 1989). Under the State’s regulatory system, there are three levels of liquor distributors: out-of-state distillers/suppliers, state-licensed wholesalers, and state-licensed retailers. Distillers/suppliers may sell to only licensed wholesalers or federal enclaves. N. D. Admin. Code §84-02-01-05(2) (1986). Licensed wholesalers, in turn, may sell to licensed retailers, other licensed wholesalers, and federal enclaves. N. D. Cent. Code §5-03-01 (1987). Taxes are imposed at both levels of distribution. N. D. Cent. Code §5-03-07 (1987); N. D. Cent. Code ch. 57-39.2 (Supp. 1989). In order to monitor the importation of liquor, the State since 1978 has required all persons bringing liquor into the State to file monthly reports documenting the volume of liquor they have imported. The reporting regulation provides:
“All persons sending or bringing liquor into North Dakota shall file a North Dakota Schedule A Report of all shipments and returns for each calender month with the state treasurer. The report must be postmarked on or before the fifteenth day of the following month.” N. D. Admin. Code §84-02-01-05(1) (1986).
Since 1986, the State has also required out-of-state distillers who sell liquor directly to a federal enclave to affix labels to each individual item, indicating that the liquor is for domestic consumption only within the federal enclave. The labels may be purchased from the state treasurer for a small sum or printed by the distillers/suppliers themselves according to a state-approved format. App. 34. The labeling regulation provides:
“All liquor destined for delivery to a federal enclave in North Dakota for domestic consumption and not transported through a licensed North Dakota wholesaler for delivery to such bona fide federal enclave in North Dakota shall have clearly identified on each individual item that such shall be for consumption within the federal enclave exclusively. Such identification must be in a form and manner prescribed by the state treasurer.” N. D. Admin. Code §84-02-01-05(7) (1986).
Within the State of North Dakota, the United States operates two military bases: Grand Forks Air Force Base and Minot Air Force Base. The State and Federal Government exercise concurrent jurisdiction over both. Shortly after the effective date of the procurement statute permitting the military to make purchases from out of state, the state treasurer conducted a meeting with out-of-state suppliers to explain the labeling and reporting requirements. App. 34. Five out-of-state distillers and importers thereupon informed federal military procurement officials that they would not ship liquor to the North Dakota bases because of the burden of complying with the North Dakota regulations. A sixth supplier, Kobrand Importers, Inc., increased its prices from between $0.85 and $20.50 per case to reflect the cost of labeling and reporting.
The United States instituted this action in the United States District Court for the District of North Dakota seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the application of the State’s regulations to liquor destined for federal enclaves. The District Court denied the United States’ cross-motion for summary judgment and granted the State’s motion. The court reasoned that there was no conflict between the state and federal regulations because the state regulations did not prevent the Government from obtaining beverages at the “lowest cost.” 675 F. Supp. 555, 557 (1987). A divided United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed. 856 F. 2d 1107 (1988). While recognizing that “nothing in the record compels us to believe that the regulations are a pretext to require in-state purchases,” id., at 1113, the majority held that the regulations impermissibly made out-of-state distillers less competitive with local wholesalers. Ibid. Chief Judge Lay argued in dissent that the effect on the Federal Government was a permissible incident of regulations passed pursuant to the State’s powers under the Twenty-first Amendment. Id., at 1115-1116. We noted probable jurisdiction, 489 U. S. 1095 (1989), and now reverse.
II
The Court has considered the power of the States to pass liquor control regulations that burden the Federal Government in four cases since the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment. See Collins v. Yosemite Park & Curry Co., 304 U. S. 518 (1938); Hostetter v. Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp., 377 U. S. 324 (1964); United States v. Mississippi Tax Comm’n, 412 U. S. 363 (1973) (Mississippi Tax Comm’n I); United States v. Mississippi Tax Comm’n, 421 U. S. 599 (1975) (Mississippi Tax Comm’n II); see also Johnson v. Yellow Cab Transit Co., 321 U. S. 383 (1944). In each of those cases, we concluded that the State has no authority to regulate in an area or over a transaction that fell outside of its jurisdiction. In Collins, we held that the Twenty-first Amendment did not give the States the power to regulate the use of alcohol within a national park over which the Federal Government had exclusive jurisdiction. In Hostetter, we held that the Twenty-first Amendment conferred no authority to license the sale of tax-free liquors at an airport for delivery to foreign destinations made under the supervision of the United States Bureau of Customs. Mississippi Tax Comm’n I held that the State had no authority to regulate a transaction between an out-of-state liquor supplier and a federal military base within the exclusive federal jurisdiction. And, in Mississippi Tax Comm’n II, we held that the State has no authority to tax directly a federal instrumentality on an enclave over which the United States exercised concurrent jurisdiction.
At the same time, however, within the area of its jurisdiction, the State has “virtually complete control” over the importation and sale of liquor and the structure of the liquor distribution system. See California Retail Liquor Dealers Assn. v. Midcal Aluminum, Inc., 445 U. S. 97, 110 (1980); see also Capital Cities Cable, Inc. v. Crisp, 467 U. S. 691, 712 (1984); California Board of Equalization v. Young’s Market Co., 299 U. S. 59 (1936). The Court has made clear that the States have the power to control shipments of liquor during their passage through their territory and to take appropriate steps to prevent the unlawful diversion of liquor into their regulated intrastate markets. In Hostetter, we stated that our decision in Collins, striking down the California Alcoholic Beverage Control Act as applied to an exclusive federal reservation, might have been otherwise if “California had sought to regulate or control the transportation of the liquor there involved from the time of its entry into the State until its delivery at the national park, in the interest of preventing unlawful diversion into her territory.” 377 U. S., at 333. We found that the state licensing law there under attack was unlawful because New York “ha[d] not sought to regulate or control the passage of intoxicants through her territory in the interest of preventing their unlawful diversion into the internal commerce of the State. As the District Court emphasized, this cáse does not involve ‘measures aimed at preventing unlawful diversion or use of alcoholic beverages within New York.’ 212 F. Supp., at 386.” Id., at 333-334.
In Mississippi Tax Comm’n I, supra, after holding that the State could n'ot impose its normal markup on sales to the military bases, we added that “a State may, in the absence of conflicting federal regulation, properly exercise its police powers to regulate and control such shipments during their passage through its territory insofar as necessary to prevent the ‘unlawful diversion’ of liquor ‘into the internal commerce of the State.’” 412 U. S., at 377-378 (citations omitted).
The two North Dakota regulations fall within the core of the State’s power under the Twenty-first Amendment. In the interest of promoting temperance, ensuring orderly market conditions, and raising revenue, the State has established a comprehensive system for the distribution of liquor within its borders. That system is unquestionably legitimate. See Carter v. Virginia, 321 U. S. 131 (1944); California Board of Equalization v. Young’s Market Co., 299 U. S. 59 (1936). The requirements that an out-of-state supplier which transports liquor into the State affix a label to each bottle of liquor destined for delivery to a federal enclave and that it report the volume of liquor it has transported are necessary components of the regulatory regime. Because liquor sold at Grand Forks and Minot Air Force Bases has been purchased directly from out-of-state suppliers, neither the markup nor the state taxes paid by liquor wholesalers and retailers in North Dakota is reflected in the military purchase price. Moreover, the federal enclaves are not governed by state laws with respect to the sale of intoxicants; the military establishes the type of liquor it sells, the minimum age of buyers, and the days and times its package stores will be open. The risk of diversion into the retail market and disruption of the liquor distribution system is thus both substantial and real. It is necessary for the State to record the volume of liquor shipped into the State and to identify those products which have not been distributed through the State’s liquor distribution system. The labeling and reporting requirements unquestionably serve valid state interests. Given the special protection afforded to state liquor control policies by the Twenty-first Amendment, they are supported by a strong presumption of validity and should not be set aside lightly. See, e. g., Capital Cities Cable, Inc. v. Crisp, 467 U. S., at 714.
Ill
State law may run afoul of the Supremacy Clause in two distinct ways: The law may regulate the Government directly or discriminate against it, see McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 425-437 (1819), or it may conflict with an affirmative command of Congress. See Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 211 (1824); see also Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Laboratories, Inc., 471 U. S. 707, 712-713 (1985). The Federal Government’s attack on the regulations is based on both grounds of invalidity.
The Government argues that the state provisions governing the distribution of liquor by out-of-state shippers “regulate” governmental actions and are therefore invalid directly under the Supremacy Clause. The argument is unavailing. State tax laws, licensing provisions, contract laws, or even “a statute or ordinance regulating the mode of turning at the corner of streets,” Johnson v. Maryland, 254 U. S. 51, 56 (1920), no less than the reporting and labeling regulations at issue in this case, regulate federal activity in the sense that they make it more costly for the Government to do its business. At one time, the Court struck down many of these state regulations, see Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 277 U. S. 218, 222 (1928) (state tax on military contractor); Dobbins v. Commissioners of Erie County, 16 Pet. 435 (1842) (tax on federal employee); Gillespie v. Oklahoma, 257 U. S. 501 (1922) (tax on lease of federal property); Weston v. City Council of Charleston, 2 Pet. 449 (1829) (tax on federal bond), on the theory that they interfered with “the constitutional means which have been legislated by the government of the United States to carry into effect its powers.” Dobbins, 16 Pet., at 449. Over 50 years ago, however, the Court decisively rejected the argument that any state regulation which indirectly regulates the Federal Government’s activity is unconstitutional, see James v. Dravo Contracting Co., 302 U. S. 134 (1937), and that view has now been “thoroughly repudiated.” South Carolina v. Baker, 485 U. S. 505, 520 (1988); see also California Board of Equalization v. Sierra Summit, Inc., 490 U. S. 844, 848 (1989); Cotton Petroleum Corp. v. New Mexico, 490 U. S. 163, 174 (1989).
The Court has more recently adopted a functional approach to claims of governmental immunity, accommodating of the full range of each sovereign’s legislative authority and respectful of the primary role of Congress in resolving conflicts between the National and State Governments. See United States v. County of Fresno, 429 U. S. 452, 467-468 (1977); cf. Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Auth., 469 U. S. 528 (1985). Whatever burdens are imposed on the Federal Government by a neutral state law regulating its suppliers “are but normal incidents of the organization within the same territory of two governments.” Helvering v. Gerhardt, 304 U. S. 405, 422 (1938); see also South Carolina v. Baker, 485 U. S., at 520-521; Penn Dairies, Inc. v. Milk Control Comm’n of Pennsylvania, 318 U. S. 261, 271 (1943); Graves v. New York ex rel. O’Keefe, 306 U. S. 466, 487 (1939). A state regulation is invalid only if it regulates the United States directly- or discriminates against the Federal Government or those with whom it deals. South Carolina v. Baker, 485 U. S., at 523; County of Fresno, 429 U. S., at 460. In addition, the question whether a state regulation discriminates against the Federal Government cannot be viewed in isolation. Rather, the entire regulatory system should be analyzed to determine whether it is discriminatory “with regard to the economic burdens that result.” Washington v. United States, 460 U. S. 536, 544 (1983). Claims to any further degree of immunity must be resolved under principles of congressional pre-emption. See, e. g., Penn Dairies, Inc. v. Milk Control Comm’n, 318 U. S., at 271; James v. Dravo Contracting Co., 302 U. S., at 161.
Application of these principles to the North Dakota regulations demonstrates that they do not violate the intergovernmental immunity doctrine. There is no claim in this case, nor could there be, that North Dakota regulates the Federal Government directly. See United States v. New Mexico, 455 U. S. 720 (1982); Hancock v. Train, 426 U. S. 167 (1976); Mississippi Tax Comm’n II, 421 U. S., at 608-610; Mayo v. United States, 319 U. S. 441, 447 (1943). Both the reporting requirement and the labeling regulation operate against suppliers, not the Government, and concerns about direct interference with the Federal Government, see City of Detroit v. Murray Corp. of America, 355 U. S. 489, 504-505 (1958) (opinion of Frankfurter, J.), therefore are not implicated. In this respect, the regulations cannot be distinguished from the price control regulations and taxes imposed on Government contractors that we have repeatedly upheld against constitutional challenge. See United States v. City of Detroit, 355 U. S. 466 (1958); Penn Dairies, Inc., 318 U. S., at 279-280; Alabama v. King & Boozer, 314 U. S. 1, 8 (1941).
Nor can it be said that the regulations discriminate against the Federal Government or those with whom it deals. The nondiscrimination rule finds its reason in the principle that the States may not directly obstruct the activities of the Federal Government. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat., at 425-437. Since a regulation imposed on one who deals with the Government has as much potential to obstruct governmental functions as a regulation imposed on the Government itself, the Court has required that the regulation be one that is imposed on some basis unrelated to the object’s status as a Government contractor or supplier, that is, that it be imposed equally on other similarly situated constituents of the State. See, e. g., United States v. County of Fresno, 429 U. S., at 462-464. Moreover, in analyzing the constitutionality of a state law, it is not appropriate to look to the most narrow provision addressing the Government or those with whom it deals. A state provision that appears to treat the Government differently on the most specific level of analysis may, in its broader regulatory context, not be discriminatory. We have held that “[t]he State does not discriminate against the Federal Government and those with whom it deals unless it treats someone else better than it treats them.” Washington v. United States, 460 U. S., at 544-545.
The North Dakota liquor control regulations, the regulatory regime of which the Government complains, do not disfavor the Federal Government but actually favor it. The labeling and reporting regulations are components of an extensive system of statewide regulation that furthers legitimate interests in promoting temperance and controlling the distribution of liquor, in addition to raising revenue. The system applies to all liquor retailers in the State. In this system, the Federal Government is favored over all those who sell liquor in the State.' All other liquor retailers are required to purchase from state-licensed wholesalers, who are legally bound to comply with the State’s liquor distribution system. N. D. Cent. Code §5-03-01.1 (1987). The Government has the option, like the civilian retailers in the State, to purchase liquor from licensed wholesalers. However, alone among retailers in the State, the Government also has the option to purchase liquor from out-of-state wholesalers if those wholesalers comply with the labeling and reporting regulations. The system does not discriminate “with regard to the economic burdens that result.” Washington, 460 U. S., at 544. A regulatory regime which so favors the Federal Government cannot be considered to discriminate against it.
• IV
The conclusion that the labeling regulation does not violate the intergovernmental immunity doctrine does not end the inquiry into whether the regulation impermissibly interferes with federal activities. Congress has the power to confer immunity from state regulation on Government suppliers beyond that conferred by the Constitution alone, see, e. g., United States v. New Mexico, 455 U. S., at 737-738; Penn Dairies, Inc., 318 U. S., at 275, even when the state regulation is enacted pursuant to the State’s powers under the Twenty-first Amendment. Capital Cities Cable, Inc. v. Crisp, 467 U. S., at 713. But when the Court is asked to set aside a regulation at the core of the State’s powers under the Twenty-first Amendment, as when it is asked to recognize an implied exemption from state taxation, see Rockford Life Ins. Co. v. Illinois Dept. of Revenue, 482 U. S. 182, 191 (1987), it must proceed with particular care. Capital Cities Cable, 467 U. S., at 714. Congress has not here spoken with sufficient clarity to pre-empt North Dakota’s attempt to protect its liquor distribution system.
The Government’s claim that the regulations are preempted rests upon a federal statute and federal regulation. The federal statute is 10 U. S. C. §2488, which governs the procurement of alcoholic beverages by nonappropriated fund instrumentalities. It provides simply that purchases of alcoholic beverages for resale on military installations “shall be made from the most competitive source, price and other factors considered,” § 2488(a)(1), but that malt beverages and wine shall be purchased from sources within the State in which the installation is located. It may be inferred from the latter provision as well as from the provision, elsewhere in the Code, that alcoholic beverages purchased for resale in Alaska and Hawaii must be purchased in state, Act of Oct. 30, 1986, Pub. L. 99-591, §9090, 100 Stat. 3341-116, that Congress intended for the military to be free in the other 48 States to purchase liquor from out-of-state wholesalers. It follows that the States may not directly restrict the military from purchasing liquor out of state. That is the central lesson of our decisions in Paul v. United States, 371 U. S. 245 (1963); United States v. Georgia Public Service Comm’n, 371 U. S. 285 (1963); Public Utilities Comm’n of California v. United States, 355 U. S. 534 (1958); and Leslie Miller, Inc. v. Arkansas, 352 U. S. 187 (1956), in which we invalidated state regulations that prohibited what federal law required. We stated in Paul that there was a “collision... clear and acute,” between the federal law which required competitive bidding among suppliers and the state law which directly limited the extent to which suppliers could compete. 371 U. S., at 253.
It is one thing, however, to say that the State may not pass regulations which directly obstruct federal law; it is quite another to say that they cannot pass regulations which incidentally raise the costs to the military. Any number of state laws may make it more costly for the military to purchase liquor. As Chief Judge Lay observed in dissent, “[c]ompliance with regulations regarding the importation of raw materials, general operations of the distillery or brewery, treatment of employees, bottling, and shipping necessarily increase the cost of liquor.” 856 F. 2d, at 1116. Highway tax laws and safety laws may make it more costly for the military to purchase from out-of-state shippers.
The language used in the 1986 procurement statute does not expressly pre-empt any of these state regulations or address the problem of unlawful diversion of liquor from military bases into the civilian market. It simply states that covered alcoholic beverages shall be obtained from the most competitive source, price and other factors considered. As the District Court observed, however, “‘[IJowest cost’ is a relative term.” 675 F. Supp., at 557. The fact that the reporting and labeling regulations, like safety laws or minimum wage laws, increase the costs for out-of-state shippers does not prevent the Government from obtaining liquor at the most competitive price, but simply raises that price. The procurement statute does not cut such a wide swath through state law as to invalidate the reporting and labeling regulations.
In this case the most competitive source for alcoholic beverages are out-of-state distributors whose prices are lower than those charged by North Dakota wholesalers regardless of whether the labeling and reporting requirements are enforced. The North Dakota regulations, which do not restrict the parties from whom the Government may purchase liquor or its ability to engage in competitive bidding, but at worst raise the costs of selling to the military for certain shippers, do not directly conflict with the federal statute.
V
The DoD regulation restates, in slightly different language, the statutory requirement that distilled spirits be “procured from the most competitive source, price and other factors considered,” but it does not purport to carry a greater pre-emptive power than the statutory command itself. It is Congress — not the DoD — that has the power to pre-empt otherwise valid state laws, and there is no language in the relevant statute that either pre-empts state liquor distribution laws or delegates to the DoD the power to pre-empt such state laws.
Nor does the text of the DoD regulation itself purport to pre-empt any state laws. See California Coastal Comm’n v. Granite Rock Co., 480 U. S. 572, 583 (1987); Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Laboratories, Inc., 471 U. S., at 717-718. It directs the military to consider various factors in determining “the most advantageous contract, price and other considered factors,” but that command cannot be understood to pre-empt state laws that have the incidental effect of raising costs for the military. Indeed, the regulation specifically envisions some regulation by state law, for it provides that the Department “shall cooperate with local [and] state... officials... to the degree that their duties relate to the provisions of this chapter.” The regulation does admonish that such cooperation should not be construed as an admission that the military is obligated to submit to state control or required to buy from suppliers located within the State or prescribed by the State. The North Dakota regulations, however, do not require the military to submit to state control or to purchase alcoholic beverage from suppliers within the State or prescribed by the State. The DoD regulation has nothing to say about labeling or reporting by out-of-state suppliers.
When the Court is confronted with questions relating to military discipline and military operations, we properly defer to the judgment of those who must lead our Armed Forces in battle. But in questions relating to the allocation of power between the Federal and State Governments on civilian commercial issues, we heed the command of Congress without any special deference to the military’s interpretation of that command.
The present record does not establish the precise burdens the reporting and labeling regulations will impose on the Government, but there is no evidence that they will be substantial. The reporting requirement has been in effect since 1978 and there is no evidence that it has caused any supplier to raise its costs or stop supplying the military. Although the labeling regulation has caused a few suppliers either to adjust their prices or to cease direct shipments to the bases, there has been no showing that there are not other suppliers willing to enter the market and there is no indication that the Government has made any attempt to secure other out-of-state suppliers. The cost of the labels is approximately three to five cents if purchased from the state treasurer, and the distillers have the right to print their own labels if they prefer. App. 34. Even in the initial stage of enforcing the requirement for the two bases in North Dakota, various distillers and suppliers have already notified the state treasurer that they intend to comply with the new regulations. Ibid. And, even if its worst predictions are fulfilled, the military-will still be the most favored customer in the State.
It is Congress, not this Court, which is best situated to evaluate whether the federal interest in procuring the most inexpensive liquor outweighs.the State’s legitimate interest in preventing diversion. Congress has already effected a compromise by excluding beer and wine and the States of Hawaii and Alaska from the 1986 statute. It may also decide to prohibit labels entirely or prescribe their use on a nationwide basis. It would be both an unwise and an unwarranted extension of the intergovernmental immunity doctrine for this Court to hold that the burdens associated with the labeling and reporting requirements — no matter how trivial they may prove to be — are sufficient to make them unconstitutional. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Congress kept the rule requiring in-state purchases of distilled spirits for installations in Hawaii and Alaska and of beer and wine for installations throughout the United States. Act of Oct. 30, 1986, Pub. L. 99-591, §9090, 100 Stat. 3341-116.
The parties stipulated to concurrent jurisdiction but offered no further information. App. 16. A territory under concurrent jurisdiction is generally subject to the plenary authority of both the Federal Government and the State for the purposes of the regulation of liquor as well as the exercise of other police powers. See, e. g., United States v. Mississippi Tax Comm’n, 412 U. S. 363, 379-380 (1973); James v. Dravo Contracting Co., 302 U. S. 134, 141-142 (1937); Surplus Trading Co. v. Cook, 281 U. S. 647, 650-651 (1930). The parties have not argued that North Dakota ceded its authority to regulate the importation of liquor destined for federal bases.
The five are Heublein, Inc., James B. Beam, Joseph Seagram & Sons, Inc., Somerset Importers, and Hiram Walker & Sons, Inc. App. 26.
Section 2 of the Twenty-first Amendment provides:
“The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.”
A member of the National Conference of State Liquor Administrators executed an affidavit describing the following types of misconduct that North Dakota liquor regulations are intended to prevent:
“a. Diversion of alcohol off a federal enclave in Hawaii by a dependent of a Department of Defense employee in quantities large enough to supply the dependent’s own liquor store in the private sector.
“b. Loss of quantities of alcohol from the time the supplier delivered the product to the Department of Defense personnel to the time when the product was to be inventoried or taken by Department of Defense personnel to another facility.
“c. Purchases of alcohol is [sic] quantities so large that the only logical explanation is that the alcohol was diverted from the military base into a state’s stream of commerce. This occurred in the state of Washington as documented by the Washington State Liquor Control Board’s February 20, 1987, letter to Mr. Chapman Cox, Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon in Washington, D. C. A copy of that letter is attached hereto as Attachment 1. The Washington State Liquor Control Board letter describes purchases of alcohol in quantities so large that on-base personnel would have had to individually consume 85 cases each during the fiscal year 1986. This amounts to 1,020 bottles or approximately 5 bottles per person per day, including Sundays and holidays.” App. 36.
Cf. Rice v. Rehner, 463 U. S. 713, 724 (1983) (“The State has an unquestionable interest in the liquor traffic that occurs within its borders”).
Thus, for example, in Public Utilities Comm’n of California v. United States, 355 U. S. 534 (1958), we put to one side “eases where, absent a conflicting federal regulation, a State seeks to impose safety or other requirements on a contractor who does business for the United States.” Id., at 543. We invalidated the state law because there was a clear conflict between the state policy of regulation of negotiated rates and the federal policy, expressed in statute and regulation, of negotiated rates. Id., at 544. Similarly, in Leslie Miller, Inc. v. Arkansas, 352 U. S. 187 (1956), the state licensing law came into direct conflict with “the action which Congress and the Department of Defense ha[d] taken to insure the reliability of persons and companies contracting with the Federal Government.” Id., at 190. Paul v. United States, 371 U. S. 245 (1963), involved the Armed Services Procurement Act and regulations promulgated thereunder. We stated that the collision between the federal policy, expressed in these laws, and the state policy was “clear and acute.” Id., at 253. In United States v. Georgia Public Service Comm’n, 371 U. S. 285 (1963), we relied upon the passage by Congress of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act, which spoke too clearly to permit any state regulation of competitive bidding or negotiation.
In discussing why it was proper to convene a three-judge court, the Court in Georgia Public Service Comm’n did state: “Direct conflict between a state law and federal constitutional provisions raises of course a question under the Supremacy Clause but one of broader scope than where the alleged conflict is only between a state statute and a federal statute that might be resolved by the construction given either the state or the federal law.” Id., at 287 (citing Kesler v. Department of Public Safety of Utah, 369 U. S. 153 (1962)). That statement constituted an explanation for the assertion of jurisdiction, not an expression of a general principle of implied intergovernmental immunity. Under 28 U. S. C. § 2281 (1970 ed.), a three-judge court was required whenever a state statute was sought to be enjoined “upon the ground of the unconstitutionality of
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
PER CURIAM.
The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.
It is so ordered.
Justice BREYER, with whom Justice SOTOMAYOR and Justice KAGAN join, dissenting.
Section 302(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 Stat. 157, as amended, an antibribery provision, makes it a crime for an employer "to pay, lend, or deliver, or agree to pay, lend, or deliver, any money or other thing of value" to a labor union that represents or seeks to represent its employees. 29 U.S.C. § 186(a)(2). Section 302(b) makes it a crime "for any person to request [or] demand ..., or agree to receive or accept, any payment, loan, or delivery of any money or other thing of value prohibited by subsection (a)." § 186(b)(1). The question in this case is whether an employer violates § 302(a) by making the following promises to a union that seeks to represent its employees: (1) that the employer will remain neutral in respect to the union's efforts to organize its employees, (2) that the union will be given access (for organizing purposes) to nonpublic areas of the employer's premises, and (3) that the union will receive a list of employees' names and contact information (also for organizing purposes). A further question (the other side of the same coin) is whether a union violates § 302(b) by requesting that the employer perform its contractual obligations to fulfill these promises.
The Eleventh Circuit held that these items are "thing[s] of value" and that an employer's promise to "pay" them in return for something of value from the union violates the Act if the employer intends to use the payment to "corrupt" the union; the Eleventh Circuit also held that a union's request that an employer make such a payment violates § 302(b) if the union intends to "extort" the benefit from the employer. 667 F.3d 1211, 1215-1216 (2012). Other Circuits have held to the contrary, reasoning that similar promises by an employer to assist a union's organizing campaign (or merely to avoid opposing the campaign) fall outside the scope of § 302. See Adcock v. Freightliner LLC, 550 F.3d 369 (C.A.4 2008); Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union, Local 57 v. Sage Hospitality Resources, LLC, 390 F.3d 206 (C.A.3 2004). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict.
We have received briefs on the issue, and we have heard oral argument. But in considering the briefs and argument, we became aware of two logically antecedent questions that could prevent us from reaching the question of the correct interpretation of § 302. First, it is possible that the case is moot because the contract between the employer and union that contained the allegedly criminal promises appears to have expired by the end of 2011, before the Eleventh Circuit rendered its decision on the scope of § 302. Second, it is arguable that respondent Mulhall, the sole plaintiff in this case, lacks Article III standing.
In my view, rather than dismiss the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted, the Court should simply ask for additional briefs addressing these two questions. If it turns out that the federal courts lack jurisdiction either because the case is moot or because Mulhall lacks standing, then we cannot reach the merits. But if that is the case, then we should likely order the Eleventh Circuit's decision vacated, thereby removing its precedential effect and leaving the merits question open to be resolved in a later case that does fall within the jurisdiction of the federal courts.
I believe we should also ask for further briefing on a third question: the question whether § 302 authorizes a private right of action. I recognize that the Court said, long ago and in passing, that § 302(e) "permit[s] private litigants to obtain injunctions" for violations of § 302. Sinclair Refining Co. v. Atkinson, 370 U.S. 195, 205, 82 S.Ct. 1328, 8 L.Ed.2d 440 (1962), overruled in part on other grounds, Boys Markets, Inc. v. Retail Clerks, 398 U.S. 235, 237-238, 90 S.Ct. 1583, 26 L.Ed.2d 199 (1970). But, in light of the Court's more restrictive views on private rights of action in recent decades, see, e.g.,Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275, 286-287, 121 S.Ct. 1511, 149 L.Ed.2d 517 (2001), the legal status of Sinclair Refining 's dictum is uncertain. And if § 302 in fact does not provide a right of action to private parties like Mulhall, then courts will not need to reach difficult questions about the scope of § 302, as happened in this case, unless the Federal Government decides to prosecute such cases rather than limit its attention to cases that clearly fall within the statute's core antibribery purpose.
Unless resolved, the differences among the Courts of Appeals could negatively affect the collective-bargaining process. This is because the Eleventh Circuit's decision raises the specter that an employer or union official could be found guilty of a crime that carries a 5-year maximum sentence, see 29 U.S.C. § 186(d), if the employer or union official is found to have made certain commonplace organizing assistance agreements with the intent to "corrupt" or "extort." In my view, given the importance of the question presented to the collective-bargaining process, further briefing, rather than dismissal, is the better course of action.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
The False Claims Act contains two limitations periods that apply to a "civil action under section 3730"-that is, an action asserting that a person presented false claims to the United States Government. 31 U.S.C. § 3731(b). The first period requires that the action be brought within 6 years after the statutory violation occurred. The second period requires that the action be brought within 3 years after the United States official charged with the responsibility to act knew or should have known the relevant facts, but not more than 10 years after the violation. Whichever period provides the later date serves as the limitations period.
This case requires us to decide how to calculate the limitations period for qui tam suits in which the United States does not intervene. The Court of Appeals held that these suits are "civil action[s] under section 3730" and that the limitations periods in § 3731(b) apply in accordance with their terms, regardless of whether the United States intervenes. It further held that, for purposes of the second period, the private person who initiates the qui tam suit cannot be deemed the official of the United States. We agree, and therefore affirm.
I
As relevant, the False Claims Act imposes civil liability on "any person" who "knowingly presents, or causes to be presented, a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval" to the Government or to certain third parties acting on the Government's behalf. 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729(a), (b)(2). Section 3730 authorizes two types of actions: First, the Attorney General, who "diligently shall investigate a violation under section 3729," may bring a civil action against the alleged false claimant. § 3730(a). Second, a private person, known as a relator, may bring a qui tam civil action "for the person and for the United States Government" against the alleged false claimant, "in the name of the Government." § 3730(b).
If a relator initiates the action, he must deliver a copy of the complaint and supporting evidence to the Government, which then has 60 days to intervene in the action. §§ 3730(b)(2), (4). During this time, the complaint remains sealed. § 3730(b)(2). If the Government intervenes, it assumes primary responsibility for prosecuting the action, though the relator may continue to participate. § 3730(c). Otherwise, the relator has the right to pursue the action. §§ 3730(b)(4), (c)(3). Even if it does not intervene, the Government is entitled to be served with all pleadings upon request and may intervene at any time with good cause. § 3730(c)(3). The relator receives a share of any proceeds from the action-generally 15 to 25 percent if the Government intervenes, and 25 to 30 percent if it does not-plus attorney's fees and costs. §§ 3730(d)(1)-(2). See Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens , 529 U.S. 765, 769-770, 120 S.Ct. 1858, 146 L.Ed.2d 836 (2000).
At issue here is the Act's statute of limitations, which provides:
"(b) A civil action under section 3730 may not be brought-
"(1) more than 6 years after the date on which the violation of section 3729 is committed, or
"(2) more than 3 years after the date when facts material to the right of action are known or reasonably should have been known by the official of the United States charged with responsibility to act in the circumstances, but in no event more than 10 years after the date on which the violation is committed,
"whichever occurs last." § 3731(b).
On November 27, 2013, respondent Billy Joe Hunt filed a complaint alleging that petitioners-two defense contractors (collectively, Cochise)-defrauded the Government by submitting false claims for payment under a subcontract to provide security services in Iraq "from some time prior to January 2006 until early 2007." App. 43a. A little less than three years before bringing his complaint, Hunt was interviewed by federal agents about his role in an unrelated contracting fraud in Iraq. Hunt claims to have revealed Cochise's allegedly fraudulent scheme during this November 30, 2010, interview.
The United States declined to intervene in Hunt's action, and Cochise moved to dismiss the complaint as barred by the statute of limitations. Hunt conceded that the 6-year limitations period in § 3731(b)(1) had elapsed before he filed suit on November 27, 2013. But Hunt argued that his complaint was timely under § 3731(b)(2) because it was filed within 3 years of the interview in which he informed federal agents about the alleged fraud (and within 10 years after the violation occurred).
The District Court dismissed the action. It considered three potential interpretations of § 3731(b). Under the first interpretation, § 3731(b)(2) does not apply to a relator-initiated action in which the Government elects not to intervene, so any such action must be filed within six years after the violation. Under the second interpretation, § 3731(b)(2) applies in nonintervened actions, and the limitations period begins when the relator knew or should have known the relevant facts. Under the third interpretation, § 3731(b)(2) applies in nonintervened actions, and the limitations period begins when "the official of the United States charged with responsibility to act in the circumstances" knew or should have known the relevant facts. The District Court rejected the third interpretation and declined to choose between the first two because it found that Hunt's complaint would be untimely under either. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, adopting the third interpretation. 887 F.3d 1081 (C.A.11 2018).
Given a conflict between the Courts of Appeals, we granted certiorari. 586 U.S. ----, 139 S.Ct. 566, 202 L.Ed.2d 400 (2018).
II
The first question before us is whether the limitations period in § 3731(b)(2) is available in a relator-initiated suit in which the Government has declined to intervene. If so, the second question is whether the relator in such a case should be considered "the official of the United States" whose knowledge triggers § 3731(b)(2) 's 3-year limitations period.
A
Section 3731(b) sets forth two limitations periods that apply to "civil action[s] under section 3730." Both Government-initiated suits under § 3730(a) and relator-initiated suits under § 3730(b) are "civil action[s] under section 3730." Thus, the plain text of the statute makes the two limitations periods applicable in both types of suits.
Cochise agrees with that view as to the limitations period in § 3731(b)(1), but argues that the period in § 3731(b)(2) is available in a relator-initiated suit only if the Government intervenes. According to Cochise, starting a limitations period when the party entitled to bring a claim learns the relevant facts is a default rule of tolling provisions, so subsection (b)(2) should be read to apply only when the Government is a party. In short, under Cochise's reading, a relator-initiated, nonintervened suit is a "civil action under section 3730" for purposes of subsection (b)(1) but not subsection (b)(2).
This reading is at odds with fundamental rules of statutory interpretation. In all but the most unusual situations, a single use of a statutory phrase must have a fixed meaning. See Ratzlaf v. United States , 510 U.S. 135, 143, 114 S.Ct. 655, 126 L.Ed.2d 615 (1994). We therefore avoid interpretations that would "attribute different meanings to the same phrase." Reno v. Bossier Parish School Bd. , 528 U.S. 320, 329, 120 S.Ct. 866, 145 L.Ed.2d 845 (2000). Here, either a relator-initiated, nonintervened suit is a "civil action under section 3730"-and thus subject to the limitations periods in subsections (b)(1) and (b)(2)-or it is not. It is such an action. Whatever the default tolling rule might be, the clear text of the statute controls this case.
Under Cochise's reading, a relator-initiated civil action would convert to "[a] civil action under section 3730" for purposes of subsection (b)(2) if and when the Government intervenes. That reading cannot be correct. If the Government intervenes, the civil action remains the same-it simply has one additional party. There is no textual basis to base the meaning of "[a] civil action under section 3730" on whether the Government has intervened.
Cochise relies on our decision in Graham County Soil & Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson , 545 U.S. 409, 125 S.Ct. 2444, 162 L.Ed.2d 390 (2005), which addressed the question whether § 3731(b)(1) or federal common law provided the limitations period for § 3730(h) retaliation actions. Section 3730(h) creates a cause of action for an employee who suffers retaliation for, among other things, assisting with the prosecution of a False Claims Act action. At the time, § 3730(h) did not specify a time limit for bringing a retaliation action, so the question before us was whether the phrase "civil action under section 3730" in § 3731(b) encompassed actions under § 3730(h). We considered the statute "ambiguous because its text, literally read, admits of two plausible interpretations." Id. , at 419, n. 2, 125 S.Ct. 2444. One reading was that a "civil action under section 3730" includes § 3730(h) actions because such actions arise under § 3730. Id. , at 415, 125 S.Ct. 2444. "Another reasonable reading" was that a "civil action under section 3730" "applies only to actions arising under §§ 3730(a) and (b)" because " § 3731(b)(1) t[ies] the start of the time limit to 'the date on which the violation of section 3729 is committed.' " Ibid. That reading had force because retaliation claims need not involve an actual violation of § 3729. Ibid. Looking to statutory context, we explained that the phrase " 'civil action under section 3730 ' means only those civil actions under § 3730 that have as an element a 'violation of section 3729,' that is, §§ 3730(a) and (b) actions"-not § 3730(h) retaliation actions. Id. , at 421-422, 125 S.Ct. 2444.
A relator-initiated, nonintervened suit arises under § 3730(b) and has as an element a violation of § 3729. Graham County supports our reading. Nonetheless, Cochise points out that in considering the statutory context, we discussed a similar phrase contained in § 3731(c) (now § 3731(d) ), which stated: "In any action brought under section 3730 , the United States shall be required to prove all essential elements of the cause of action, including damages, by a preponderance of the evidence." (Emphasis added.) We explained that § 3731(c)"use[d] the similarly unqualified phrase 'action brought under section 3730 ' to refer only to §§ 3730(a) and (b) actions." Id. , at 417-418, 125 S.Ct. 2444. We then stated: "As [respondent] and the United States concede, the context of this provision implies that the phrase 'any action brought under section 3730 ' is limited to § 3730(a) actions brought by the United States and § 3730(b) actions in which the United States intervenes as a party, as those are the types of § 3730 actions in which the United States necessarily participates." Id. , at 418, 125 S.Ct. 2444.
Cochise contends that we should adopt a similar construction of the phrase "civil action under section 3730" in § 3731(b). We disagree. Our discussion of § 3731(c) was focused on "the context of th[at] provision" and on whether it could be read to impose the burden of proof on the Government even in cases where the Government did not participate. Id. , at 418, 125 S.Ct. 2444. Those considerations do not apply here; there is nothing illogical about reading § 3731(b) to apply in accordance with its plain terms. Moreover, if a "civil action under section 3730" included only an action in which the Government participates for purposes of § 3731(b)(2), then we would be obligated to give it a like meaning for purposes of § 3731(b)(1). This would mean that a relator-initiated, nonintervened suit would be subject to neither § 3731(b)(1) nor § 3731(b)(2) -a reading Cochise expressly disclaims. See Brief for Petitioners 20, n. 3. Nothing in Graham County supports giving the same phrase in § 3731(b) two different meanings depending on whether the Government intervenes.
Again pointing to Graham County , Cochise next contends that our reading would lead to " 'counterintuitive results.' " Brief for Petitioners 26. For instance, if the Government discovers the fraud on the day it occurred, it would have 6 years to bring suit, but if a relator instead discovers the fraud on the day it occurred and the Government does not discover it, the relator could have as many as 10 years to bring suit. That discrepancy arises because § 3731(b)(2) begins its limitations period on the date that "the official of the United States charged with responsibility to act" obtained knowledge of the relevant facts. But we see nothing unusual about extending the limitations period when the Government official did not know and should not reasonably have known the relevant facts, given that the Government is the party harmed by the false claim and will receive the bulk of any recovery. See § 3730(d). In any event, a result that "may seem odd ... is not absurd." Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc. , 545 U.S. 546, 565, 125 S.Ct. 2611, 162 L.Ed.2d 502 (2005). Although in Graham County we sought "a construction that avoids ... counterintuitive results," there the text "admit[ted] of two plausible interpretations." 545 U.S. at 421, 419, n. 2, 125 S.Ct. 2444. Here, Cochise points to no other plausible interpretation of the text, so the " 'judicial inquiry is complete.' " Barnhart v. Sigmon Coal Co. , 534 U.S. 438, 462, 122 S.Ct. 941, 151 L.Ed.2d 908 (2002).
B
Cochise's fallback argument is that the relator in a nonintervened suit should be considered "the official of the United States charged with responsibility to act in the circumstances," meaning that § 3731(b)(2) 's 3-year limitations period would start when the relator knew or should have known about the fraud. But the statute provides no support for reading "the official of the United States" to encompass a private relator.
First, a private relator is not an "official of the United States" in the ordinary sense of that phrase. A relator is neither appointed as an officer of the United States, see U.S. Const., Art. II, § 2, cl. 2, nor employed by the United States. Indeed, the provision that authorizes qui tam suits is entitled "Actions by Private Persons." § 3730(b). Although that provision explains that the action is brought "for the person and for the United States Government" and "in the name of the Government," ibid. , it does not make the relator anything other than a private person, much less "the official of the United States" referenced by the statute. Cf. Stevens , 529 U.S. at 773, n. 4, 120 S.Ct. 1858 ("[A] qui tam relator is, in effect, suing as a partial assignee of the United States" (emphasis deleted)).
Second, the statute refers to "the" official "charged with responsibility to act in the circumstances." The Government argues that, in context, "the" official refers to the Attorney General (or his delegate), who by statute "shall investigate a violation under section 3729." § 3730(a). Regardless of precisely which official or officials the statute is referring to, § 3731(b)(2) 's use of the definite article "the" suggests that Congress did not intend for any and all private relators to be considered "the official of the United States." See Rumsfeld v. Padilla , 542 U.S. 426, 434, 124 S.Ct. 2711, 159 L.Ed.2d 513 (2004) (explaining that the "use of the definite article ... indicates that there is generally only one" person covered). More fundamentally, private relators are not "charged with responsibility to act" in the sense contemplated by § 3731(b), as they are not required to investigate or prosecute a False Claims Act action.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed .
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.
Compare 887 F.3d 1081, 1089-1097 (C.A.11 2018) (adopting the third interpretation), with United States ex rel. Hyatt v. Northrop Corp. , 91 F.3d 1211, 1216-1218 (C.A.9 1996) (adopting the second interpretation); United States ex rel. Sanders v. North Am. Bus Industries, Inc. , 546 F. 3d 288, 293-294 (C.A.4 2008) (adopting the first interpretation); and United States ex rel. Sikkenga v. Regence Bluecross Blueshield of Utah , 472 F. 3d 702, 725-726 (C.A.10 2006) (same).
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case originated in 1978 when the Crow Tribe sought to enjoin the State of Montana and its counties from taxing coal extracted from mines held by the United States in trust for the Tribe. Having succeeded in that endeavor, the Tribe and the United States now seek to recover coal-related taxes once paid to the State and counties by Westmoreland Resources, Inc., a nontribal enterprise that mined coal under a lease from the Tribe. We hold that the restitution sought for the Tribe is not warranted.
H-i
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Just north of the northern surface boundary of the Crow Reservation in Montana lies the “ceded strip,” approximately 1,137,500 acres of land that was originally part of the reservation. The Tribe ceded the tract to the United States in 1904 for settlement by non-Indians. Act of Apr. 27, 1904, ch. 1624, 33 Stat. 352; see Ash Sheep Co. v. United States, 252 U. S. 159 (1920). Surface interests in the eeded strip were thereafter conveyed to non-Indians, but the United States holds rights to minerals underlying the strip in trust for the Tribe. Since 1904, the State and the Counties of Big Horn, Treasure, and Yellowstone have exercised full legal authority and responsibility for public services on the eeded strip, and the Tribe has not exercised civil jurisdiction over this area. See Crow Tribe v. Montana, 650 F. 2d 1104, 1107 (CA9 1981) (noting the Court of Appeals’ understanding, in Little Light v. Crist, 649 F. 2d 683, 685 (CA9 1981), that “the ceded area is not a part of the reservation”).
In 1972, with the approval of the Department of the Interior and pursuant to the Indian Mineral Leasing Act of 1938 (IMLA), 52 Stat. 347, 25 U. S. C. § 396a et seq., Westmoreland Resources, a non-Indian company, entered into a mining lease with the Tribe for coal underlying approximately 31,000 acres of the eeded strip. After executing the 1972 lease, Westmoreland signed contracts with its customers, four Midwest utility companies, allowing Westmoreland to pass on the cost of valid taxes to the utilities. Westmore-land began mining the coal in the spring of 1974.
In November 1974, Westmoreland and the Tribe renegotiated the 1972 lease. The renegotiated royalties were recognized at the time as being among the highest in the United States. Crow Tribe v. United States, 657 F. Supp. 573, 587 (Mont. 1985); see App. 376 (testimony of Westmoreland’s president that the renegotiated royalty was “by far the highest royalty that was being paid in the nation”). A settlement agreement attending the 1974 renegotiation stated that the Tribe found the amended lease and associated documents “satisfactory in that they provide the financial, economic and social protections that the Tribe deems necessary.” Id., at 44. The amended lease and the royalties for which it provided had an extendable term of ten years, running from June 14,1972. Id., at 8. Pursuant to the lease, Westmore-land paid the Tribe almost $18 million in royalties through October 1983. Crow Tribe v. United States, 657 F. Supp., at 588.
In July 1975, the State imposed a severance tax and a gross proceeds tax on all coal produced in Montana, including coal underlying the reservation proper and the ceded strip. See Mont. Code Ann. §§ 15-23-701 to 15-23-704, 15-35-101 to 15-35-111 (1979). The severance tax rate applicable to the ceded strip coal was 30 percent of the contract sales price of the coal extracted; the gross proceeds tax rate was approximately 5 percent of the contract sales price. During the relevant periods, Westmoreland paid approximately $46.8 million in severance taxes to the State and $11.4 million in gross proceeds taxes to Big Horn County. Westmoreland paid these taxes without timely pursuit of the procedures Montana law provides for protests and refunds. App. to Pet. for Cert. 37; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 13-14. The company subsequently agreed, in exchange for $50,000, to dismiss with prejudice any claim of entitlement to a refund of the severance or gross proceeds taxes it had paid to the State or Big Horn County. App. to Pet. for Cert. 37; see also App. 294-296.
In January 1976; some six months after the State imposed its coal taxes, the Tribal Council adopted an ordinance setting out a Crow Tribal Coal Taxation Code. Id., at 79-86. The Tribe’s code imposed a 25 percent severance tax on “all persons engaged in or carrying on the business of coal mining within the boundaries of the Crow Indian Reservation].” Id., at 81; see also id., at 97-98. Reservation boundaries, as described in the code, included the coal beneath the ceded strip. Id., at 81. Under the Tribe’s constitution, the tax adopted by the Tribal Council was subject to review by the Department of the Interior. Id., at 329.
In January 1977, the Department approved the Tribe’s code “to the extent that it applied to coal underlying the Crow Reservation proper.” Id., at 98. Because of a limitation in the Tribe’s constitution, however, the Department “disapproved the tax to the extent that it applied to the Crow Tribe’s coal in the ceded strip.” Id., at 153; see also id., at 217-218, 329, In 1982, the Tribe again enacted a tax for coal mined on the ceded strip, and again the Department rejected the tax. See Crow Tribe v. Montana, 819 F. 2d 895, 897 (CA9 1987). According to the Superintendent of the Crow Agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department continued to withhold permission for extension of the Tribe’s tax to the ceded area because the Tribe’s constitution “disclaimed jurisdiction outside the boundaries of the reservation.” App. 218. The Tribe endeavored to amend its constitution to satisfy the Department’s objection; it did not petition for court review of the Department’s refusal to approve extension of the Tribe’s tax to the ceded strip.
B
The Tribe brought a federal action against Montana and Montana counties in 1978, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against imposition of the State’s severance and gross proceed taxes on coal belonging to the Tribe. The State’s taxes, the Tribe alleged, were preempted by the IMLA and infringed on the Tribe’s right to govern itself. The District Court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Crow Tribe v. Montana, 469 F. Supp. 154 (Mont. 1979). The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. 650 F. 2d 1104 (1981), amended, 665 F. 2d 1390 (1982) (Crow I). It held that the Tribe’s allegations, if proved, would establish that the IMLA preempted Montana’s taxes, 650 F. 2d, at 1113-1115, and that the taxes impermissibly infringed upon the Tribe’s sovereignty, id., at 1115-1117.
While the Ninth Circuit trained on the nonmonetary claim the Tribe was then pursuing, one for declaratory and injunc-tive relief to stop the imposition of Montana’s taxes, the Court of Appeals noted: “As to the taxes already paid by Westmoreland... it is true that the Tribe has not paid any of the taxes and is apparently not entitled to any refund if the tax statutes are declared invalid.” Id., at 1113, n. 13. The Ninth Circuit further observed that the Tribe’s own attempt “to tax its lessees’ coal production was partially frustrated by the Secretary of the Interior’s refusal to sanction the Tribe’s tax ordinances insofar as they applied to coal production on the ceded strip.” Id., at 1115, n. 19.
In July 1982, after the Crow I decision, the Tribe and Westmoreland entered into an amended lease agreement, approved by the Interior Department that September. Under the amended arrangement, Westmoreland agreed to pay the Tribe a tax equal to the State’s then-existing taxes, less any tax payments Westmoreland was required to make to the State and its subdivisions. See App. 135-141; see also id., at 329-330. The 1982 agreement achieved, prospectively, the federal permission the Tribe had long sought. It allowed the Tribe to have an approved tax in place so that, if successful in the litigation against Montana, the Tribe could claim for itself any tax amounts Westmoreland might be ordered to pay into the District Court’s registry pendente lite. Correspondingly, the agreement enabled Westmoreland to avoid double taxation, present and future, and it absolved the company from any tax payment obligation to the Tribe for the 1976-1982 period. App. to Pet. for Cert. 32-35.
In November 1982, in keeping with their amended lease agreement, the Tribe and Westmoreland jointly filed a motion to deposit severance tax payments into the District Court’s registry, pending resolution of the controversy over Montana’s authority to tax coal mined at the ceded strip. Id., at 32. In January 1983, the District Court granted the motion. Thereafter, Westmoreland paid the Montana severance tax into the court’s registry in lieu of paying the State. The District Court granted the same interim relief, in November 1987, for the gross proceeds tax. Id., at 35, 36. In ordering the registry deposits, which ultimately would be paid over, with interest, to the prevailing party (Montana or the Tribe), the District Court recalled the Ninth Circuit’s observation that “the Tribe is apparently not entitled to any refund of taxes previously paid by Westmoreland to Montana.” App. 213 (citing Crow I, 650 F. 2d, at 1113, n. 13). The provisional remedy attended to that concern; it “preserve[d the District Court’s] power... [to give post-1982] tax moneys to their rightful owner after a trial on the merits.” App. 215.
In June 1983, the United States intervened on behalf of the Tribe to protect its interests as trustee of the coal upon which Montana’s taxes were levied. Trial took place in January 1984, after which the District Court concluded that federal law did not preempt the State’s taxes on coal underlying the ceded strip. Crow Tribe v. United States, 657 F. Supp. 573 (Mont. 1985). The Ninth Circuit again reversed. Crow Tribe v. Montana, 819 F. 2d 895 (1987) (Crow II). Montana’s taxes, as applied to the ceded strip coal, the Court of Appeals held, were both “preempted by federal law and policies,” as reflected in the IMLA, and “void for interfering with tribal self-government.” Id., at 903. Explaining its decision, the Ninth Circuit stressed these considerations: The Tribe had a vital interest in the development of its coal resources, id., at 899, 901; the State’s taxes had “at least some negative impact on the... marketability [of the Tribe’s coal],” id., at 900; Montana’s coal tax exactions were not “narrowly tailored” to serve only the State’s “legitimate” interests, id., at 902. Montana appealed, and this Court summarily affirmed. 484 U. S. 997 (1988).
When the case returned to the District Court in 1988, the Tribe sought an order directing release of the funds held in the court’s registry. Montana did not object but, in a new twist, Westmoreland did. The company, for the first time in this protracted litigation, asserted that neither Montana nor the Tribe qualified for receipt of the funds. Montana was out because the Ninth Circuit had declared the State’s taxes preempted. The Tribe, according to Westmoreland, did not have a valid tax law in place even in the years following 1982 — the fund deposit period — for want of proper Interior Department approval. Therefore, Westmoreland urged, the company should receive back all deposited funds.
Rejecting Westmoreland’s novel claim of entitlement to the deposited funds, the District Court observed that the Ninth Circuit, in Crow I, 650 F. 2d, at 1117, and Crow II, 819 F. 2d, at 898, had characterized the minerals underlying the ceded strip as a “ ‘component of the Reservation land itself.’ ” App. 286. It follows, the District Court next said, that the tax approved for the reservation proper in 1977, see supra, at 703, covered the strip as well, and the Interior Department had erred in ever opining otherwise, App. 286. As to Westmoreland’s operations on the strip, the District Court further stated, the Crow tax had been modified by the 1982 agreement amending the lease. Id., at 287; see supra, at 704-705. That 1982 Tribe-Westmoreland accord controlled, the District Court concluded, rendering the amount deposited payable to the Tribe, and not to Westmoreland. Shortly thereafter, the District Court ordered distribution of funds in its registry to the United States, as trustee for the Tribe. App. 288-291.
Having secured exclusively for the Tribe’s benefit West-moreland’s post-1982 tax payments once held in the District Court’s registry, the United States and the Tribe commenced the fray now before us.. Filing amended complaints against Montana and Big Horn County, they invoked theories of as-sumpsit and constructive trust in support of prayers to recover some $58.2 million in state and county taxes paid by Westmoreland prior to the 1983 and 1987 orders directing deposits into the court’s registry. App. to Pet. for Cert. 243-260. These complaints alleged that, because the State and Big Horn County had collected taxes from Westmoreland in violation of federal law, it would be unjust and inequitable to allow them to retain the funds. In “equity and good conscience,” the United States and the Tribe urged, Montana should pay over for the benefit of the Tribe all moneys illegally collected, together with interest thereon..See id., at 249-250,258-259. Neither the Tribe nor the United States requested, as additional or alternate relief, recovery for the Tribe’s actual financial losses attributable to the State’s taxes.
Montana moved for summary judgment, arguing, inter alia, that any refund right that may have existed belonged to Westmoreland, as payer of the taxes in question. Id., at 72. The District Court, in December 1990, denied Montana’s motion on the ground that full airing of the parties’ positions was in order. Id., at 67-85.
On Montana’s application, the District Court certified for interlocutory appeal, pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1292(b), the question whether summary judgment for the State was properly denied. Id., at 61-66. The Ninth Circuit, in 1991, initially granted permission for the interlocutory appeal, but one year later, in 1992, dismissed the appeal as improvidently granted. Crow Tribe v. Montana, 969 F. 2d 848 (Crow III). In dismissing the appeal, the Ninth Circuit commented that the “sole issue” presented was whether the Tribe and the United States, although they did not pay the Montana taxes, were nevertheless positioned to state a claim for relief in assumpsit and constructive trust. That issue, the Ninth Circuit said, “was already addressed” in Crow II. The Court of Appeals then recited passages from Crow II indicating why that court had determined that “The state tax[es] threatened] Congress’ overriding objective of encouraging tribal self-government and economic development.’” 969 F. 2d, at 848-849 (quoting Crow II, 819 F. 2d, at 903).
C
The District Court conducted a trial in April and May 1994 to determine whether coal taxes paid by Westmoreland to Montana and its counties in the years 1975-1982 unjustly enriched the State and its subdivisions at the expense of the Tribe. In detailed findings and conclusions, that court explained why, in its judgment, the disgorgement remedy sought by the Tribe was not appropriate. App. to Pet. for Cert. 17-38, 42-54.
The Tribe’s case rested on three principal points: first, the fact, settled in Crow I, that the coal underlying the ceded strip was a mineral resource of the Tribe; second, the federal policy favoring tribal self-government and economic development; finally, the Ninth Circuit’s preemption decision. Critical to the preemption decision, the District Court recognized, was the Court of Appeals’ determination that “Montana’s coal taxes burdened the Tribe’s economic interests by increasing the costs of production by coal producers, which reduced royalties received by the Tribe.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 45 (citing Crow II, 819 F. 2d, at 899).
Counterbalancing the Tribe’s case, the District Court observed first that the State and its subdivisions, not the Tribe, provided “[pjublic services to residents and businesses on the [c]eded [sjtrip, many of which facilitate the mining of coal.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 47; see supra, at 701,703, n. 5. Key to the District Court’s reasoning, however, was the respective taxing authority of State and Tribe.
In a decision rendered two years after the Ninth Circuit’s Crow II preemption decision, this Court held that both State and Tribe may impose severance taxes on on-reservation oil and gas production by a non-Indian lessee. Cotton Petroleum Corp. v. New Mexico, 490 U. S. 163 (1989). Cotton Petroleum indicated that Montana’s taxes on ceded strip coal were invalidated, not because the State lacked power to tax the coal at all, but because the taxes at issue were “extraordinarily high.” Id., at 186-187, n. 17.
The Tribe’s exercise of taxing authority, on the other hand, required approval from the Secretary of the Interior, and that approval had not been obtained in the relevant period, 1976-1982. See supra, at 703-704. In 1988, the District Court had determined that the Interior Department’s refusal to approve the Tribe’s tax on the ceded strip was an error, see supra, at 707, but the presence of the state taxes did not cause that error. App. to Pet. for Cert. 36. Rather, the Department initially questioned the Tribe’s authority to tax on the ceded strip and later pointed to the Tribe’s noneompli-anee with the proper procedures for amending its constitution to impose the tax. Id., at 36-37.
Accorded weight in the District Court’s evaluation, West-moreland would not have paid coal taxes to the Tribe prior to 1983, for Interior Department approval was essential to allow pass-through to the company’s customers. Id., at 35. Furthermore, under the 1982 lease agreement, see supra, at 704-705, the Tribe and Westmoreland stipulated that Westmoreland would have no tax liability to the Tribe for the 1976-1982 period. App. to Pet. for Cert. 36. Moreover, the deposited funds, Westmoreland’s post-1982 tax payments, had been turned over in full to the United States for the benefit of the Tribe. Ibid.; see supra, at 705-707.
The District Court further noted that Westmoreland did not timely endeavor to recover taxes paid to the State and counties, and that the Tribe did nothing to prompt West-moreland to initiate appropriate proceedings for refunds. App. to Pet. for Cert. 50-51. In that regard, the District Court recalled the Court of Appeals’ statement in Crow I that “ ‘as to the taxes already paid by Westmoreland,... the Tribe... is apparently not entitled to any refund if the tax statutes are declared invalid.’” App. to Pet. for Cert. 53 (quoting Crow I, 650 F. 2d, at 1113, n. 13).
Concerning the negative effect of Montana’s taxes on the marketability of coal produced in Montana, the District Court entertained additional evidence, supplementing the evidence offered ten years earlier. Westmoreland’s president testified that “he could not identify any utility contracts lost during the relevant time period due to Montana’s coal taxes,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 29, and the parties’ economic experts presented conflicting testimony on the impact of Montana’s taxes on the sale of Montana coal. The District Court described the conflicting positions, but made no findings on the matter. Id., at 29-30.
Satisfied that the factors justifying preemption did not impel the disgorgement relief demanded by the Tribe, that under Cotton Petroleum, the State could impose a reasonably sized severance tax, and that the State, though enriched by Westmoreland’s tax payments, did not gain that enrichment unjustly at the expense of the Tribe, the District Court refused to order that Montana coal taxes collected between 1975 and 1982 be remitted to the Tribe.
The Ninth Circuit again reversed the District Court’s judgment; in a per curiam opinion, the Court of Appeals read its prior opinions to require the relief the Tribe demanded, i. e., an order directing the State and county to disgorge approximately $58.2 million in coal taxes paid by Westmoreland to Montana and its subdivisions before Westmoreland began making payments into the District Court’s registry. 92 F. 3d 826, amended, 98 F. 3d 1194 (1996) (Crow TV). Acknowledging “the absence of traditional requirements for relief under theories of assumpsit or constructive trust,” 92 F. 3d, at 828, the Court of Appeals remanded for entry of the disgorgement order. That court left to the District Court only the “unresolved requests] for prejudgment interest [and attorney’s fees].” Id., at 830-831.
In the Ninth Circuit’s view, the District Court had not adhered to the “law of this case,” id., at 828, and had therefore abused its discretion, id., at 830. In particular, the Court of Appeals faulted the District Court for giving undue weight to the fact that Westmoreland rather than the Tribe had paid the taxes, id., at 828-829, and to the fact, made plain by this Court in Cotton Petroleum, 490 U. S., at 176-187, that “similar [state] taxes are not always preempted,” Crow IV, 92 F. 3d, at 829. Further, the Ninth Circuit discounted the public services Montana provided at the ceded strip because “the State would have provided such services even if the Tribal coal had not been mined.” Ibid. Finally, the Court of Appeals attributed to the District Court a finding that Westmoreland “would have paid the tribal tax even without [the Interior Department’s] approval because [Westmore-land] agreed to do so in its 1982 lease.” Id., at 830; see also ibid. (‘Westmoreland was willing to pay coal taxes to the Tribe as early as 1976, so there was no reason for the [District Court] to distinguish between the taxes collected before and after 1982.”).
We granted certiorari, 522 U. S. 912 (1997), and now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
II
A
The petition for certiorari presents the question whether the Tribe — or the United States as its trustee — may recover state and county taxes imposed on and paid by the Tribe’s mineral lessee, Westmoreland, a party who has forfeited entitlement to a tax refund. Taxpayer Westmoreland, it is undisputed, did not qualify for a refund because the company failed to pursue protest and claim procedures within the time Montana law prescribes. Further, Westmoreland entered into a settlement with the State and the county relinquishing any claim it might have had for return of the tax payments in question. See supra, at 702.
As a rule, a nontaxpayer may not sue for a refund of taxes paid by another. See, e. g., Furman Univ. v. Livingston, 136 S. E. 2d 254, 256, 244 S. C. 200, 204 (1964); Krauss Co. v. Develle, 236 La. 1072, 1077, 110 So. 2d 104, 106 (1959); Kesbec, Inc. v. McGoldrick, 278 N. Y. 293, 297, 16 N. E. 2d 288, 290 (1938); cf. United States v. California, 507 U. S. 746, 752 (1993). The Ninth Circuit evidently had that rule in mind when it noted, in Crow I, that the Tribe “is apparently not entitled to any refund” of taxes Westmoreland had paid to Montana. 650 F. 2d, at 1113, n. 13.
The Tribe now maintains, however, that the disgorgement remedy approved by the Ninth Circuit does not fall within the “refund” category. The Tribe suggests two ways of analyzing its claim. First, Westmoreland was liable for tax payments, but it paid the wrong sovereign; the Tribe, not the State, should have been the recipient of those payments. Second, the State’s taxes adversely affected the Tribe’s economy by reducing the demand for the Tribe’s coal and the royalties the Tribe could charge; a remedial order transferring Westmoreland’s 1975-1982 tax payments from Montana to the Tribe would eliminate the enrichment unjustly gained by the State at the Tribe’s expense.
Before inspecting the Tribe’s justifications for the disgorgement ordered by the Court of Appeals, we place in clear view a pathmarking decision this Court rendered less than two years after our summary affirmance in Crow II. In Cotton Petroleum Corp. v. New Mexico, 490 U. S. 163 (1989), we held that the IMLA did not preempt New Mexico’s nondiscriminatory severance taxes on the production of oil and gas on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation by Cotton Petroleum, a non-Indian lessee. Id., at 186-187. In so holding, we acknowledged that the same on-reservation production of oil and gas was subject to tribal severance taxes, id., at 167-169, and that New Mexico’s taxes might reduce demand for on-reservation leases, id., at 186-187. Cotton Petroleum clarified that neither the IMLA, nor any other federal law, categorically preempts state mineral severance taxes imposed, without discrimination, on all extraction enterprises in the State, including on-reservation operations. “Unless and until Congress provides otherwise, each of the... two sovereigns[ — State and Tribe — ]has taxing jurisdiction over all [on-reservation production].” Id., at 189.
The Court in Cotton Petroleum distinguished Grow II in a footnote referring to the Solicitor General’s representation that Montana’s taxes were “extraordinarily high” and the Ninth Circuit’s recognition that “the state taxes had a negative effect on the marketability of coal produced in Montana.” 490 U. S., at 186-187, n. 17. Montana, Cotton Petroleum thus indicates, had the power to tax Grow coal, but not at an exorbitant rate. See id., at 187, n. 17 (according to the Tribe’s expert, Montana’s rate was “'more than twice that of any other state’s coal taxes’”). We examine the Tribe’s disgorgement claim in light of Cotton Petroleum, a decision on the books before the Tribe (and the United States) filed their current claims for restitution.
B
We consider first the argument that the Tribe, not Montana, should have received Westmoreland’s 1975-1982 coal tax payments; therefore the proper remedy is to require the State to turn all taxes it collected from Westmoreland over to the Tribe. As authority, the Tribe and the United States rely on eases typified by Valley County v. Thomas, 109 Mont. 345, 97 P. 2d 345 (1939). That ease involved a Montana law providing for the licensing of motor vehicles by the county in which the vehicle is owned and taxable. Valley County claimed that McCone County was unlawfully issuing licenses, and collecting license fees, for vehicles owned and taxable within Valley County. Valley sued McCone for both injunc-tive and monetary relief. The Montana Supreme Court held that if Montana’s vehicle licensing law made Valley, not Mc-Cone, the county entitled to issue the licenses in question, then Valley could recover from McCone the fees McCone improperly collected. It would make scant sense, the court reasoned, to hold instead that Valley should “exact the... license fee anew from the [vehicle] owner, leaving the latter to his remedy, if any, for the illegal exaction.” Id., at 385-386, 97 P. 2d, at 366.
As the District Court in this case correctly recognized, App. to Pet. for Cert. 49-50, the Valley County pattern is not the one presented here. There, the Montana licensing statute bound both counties. One, and not the other, was the sole subdivision authorized to issue the license and collect the fee. Here, as Cotton Petroleum makes plain, neither the State nor the Tribe enjoys authority to tax to the total exclusion of the other. Moreover, dispositively distancing the Tribe’s situation from that of the prevailing subdivision in Valley County, the Tribe itself could not have taxed lessee Westmoreland during the period in question, for the Interior Department (whether wrongly or rightly) had withheld the essential permission.
It bears repetition that the Department did not approve the Tribe’s imposition of a coal tax on ceded strip production until September 1982, see supra, at 705, that the Tribe never sought judicial review of the Department’s pre-1982 disap-provals, see supra, at 703-704, that Westmoreland would pay no tax to the Tribe absent Department approval, see supra, at 706, 710, 713, n. 18, that Montana’s taxes did not impede the Tribe from gaining the Department’s clearance, see supra, at 710, and that Montana received no share of the post-1982 tax payments released from the District Court’s registry, see supra, at 705-707. These were factors the District Court correctly considered significant in holding disgorgement an exorbitant, and therefore inequitable, remedy.
C
The negative impact of Montana’s high taxes on the marketability of the Tribe’s coal, as the District Court correctly. comprehended, was the principal basis for the Ninth Circuit’s Crow II preemption decision. See supra, at 709. The Tribe and the United States urge that impact as an alternative justification for requiring Montana to disgorge taxes collected from Westmoreland from 1975 through 1982.
At oral argument, counsel for the Tribe clarified that the impact of concern was not coal that went unsold because the State’s tax made the price too high. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 37. Instead, the Tribe’s disgorgement claim rested on the coal “actually produced and sold”; by taxing that coal, counsel maintained, Montana “deprived [the Tribe] of its fair share of the economic rent.” Ibid.
Again, however, the Tribe itself could not have exaete.d a tax from Westmoreland before 1983, because the Interior Department withheld approval. And the royalty the Tribe and Westmoreland agreed upon in 1974 was both high and long term, running until June 1982. See supra, at 701-702. No evidence suggests Westmoreland would have paid higher royalties, but for Montana’s tax. It merits emphasis also, as the District Court recognized, App. to Pet. for Cert. 46, 50, that under our Cotton Petroleum decision, Montana could have imposed a severance tax, albeit not one so extraordinarily high. See Cotton Petroleum, 490 U. S., at 186-187 (New Mexico’s oil and gas severance taxes imposed on on-reservation production, amounting to about 8 percent of the value of the taxpayer’s production, were not preempted by federal law although the taxes could be expected to have “at least a marginal effect on the demand for on-reservation leases, the value to the Tribe of those leases, and the ability of the Tribe to increase its tax rate”).
The District Court did not consider awarding the Tribe, in lieu of all the 1975-1982 taxes Montana collected, damages based on actual losses the Tribe suffered. We cannot call this an oversight. The complaint contained no prayer for compensatory damages. See supra, at 707-708, and nn. 7,8. Nor did the proof establish entitlement to such relief. See supra, at 711.
The only testimony homing in on Westmoreland’s sales came from the company’s president. He could “identify [no] utility contracts lost during the relevant time period due to Montana’s coal taxes.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 29. While he acknowledged that some customers “exereise[d] the payment option under their contracts rather than continuing to receive coal and that the Montana coal taxes were probably a factor,” he identified as other factors “demand, alternative sources, and transportation.” Ibid. Indeed, as just noted, see supra this page, the Tribe concentrated on disgorgement as the desired remedy; it deliberately sought “no damages... now” for “coal that was not sold because the price was too high [due to] the State’s tax.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 87. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(e), therefore, could not aid the Tribe. That Rule instructs that “every final judgment shall grant the relief to which the party in whose favor it is rendered is entitled, even if the party has not demanded such relief in the party’s pleadings.” The Tribe, however, had not shown entitlement to actual damages.
In sum, the District Court carefully and fairly determined that the disgorgement demanded was not warranted and should not be granted. In so ruling, that court endeavored to heed both Crow II and Cotton Petroleum, and closely attended to the history of and record in this tangled, long-pending ease. See supra, at 708, n. 8. Proceeding as it did, the District Court ignored no tenable “law of the case” and did not indulge in an “abuse
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents questions concerning a federal court’s obligation to abstain from the adjudication of federal claims arising out of an ongoing state grand jury investigation. We granted certiorari, 479 U. S. 1063 (1987), to consider whether the District Court, under Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), was required to abstain from adjudicating respondents’ claims for injunctive relief, and, if so, whether the court had the discretion to dismiss, rather than to stay, respondents’ additional claims for damages and attorney’s fees. Because we have concluded that the first issue is now moot, we vacate that portion of the Court of Appeals’ judgment and remand with directions to dismiss all claims for equitable relief. We affirm, however, the remaining portion of the Court of Appeals’ judgment reversing the District Court’s dismissal of respondents’ claims for monetary relief.
Respondents William Monaghan, Theodore DeSantis, and John James are in the construction business together. They jointly own respondents Foundations & Structures, Inc. (F & S), and MJD Construction Company, Inc., New Jersey corporations, and William E. Monaghan Associates, a New Jersey general partnership. On October 4, 1984, petitioner Albert G. Palentchar, a criminal investigator for the State of New Jersey, applied to the Honorable Samuel T. Lenox, Jr., the “assignment judge” of the Superior Court for Mercer County with supervisory authority over the state grand jury, for a warrant to search the Tuckahoe, N. J., premises of F & S for evidence of theft, bribery, records tampering, and other criminal activities that were the subject of an ongoing state grand jury investigation. Judge Lenox found probable cause and issued a warrant authorizing the seizure of documents, including contracts, minutes, site logs, invoices, correspondence, memoranda, deeds, canceled checks, and bank statements. The validity of this warrant has not been contested.
The following morning, Palentchar and eight other New Jersey law enforcement officers, all petitioners here, executed the warrant. The search lasted approximately eight hours. In their federal complaint, respondents allege that, in addition to seizing hundreds of documents, petitioners barricaded the sole exit from the premises, searched all departing vehicles, recorded the serial numbers on F & S machinery, detained in one room all persons on the premises at the time of the search until they produced identification, threatened to tear apart respondents’ homes if the documents were not discovered, and engaged in a number of other unlawful activities. See Complaint in No. 84-5369 (D NJ), pp. 7-9, 10. The execution of the warrant gave rise to the federal litigation now before us.
Respondents’ attorneys arrived while the search was in progress and challenged the adequacy under New Jersey law of the inventory procedure. To resolve the dispute, respondents’ counsel and petitioner Deakins telephoned Judge Lenox, who ordered all seized materials sealed pending his assessment of the procedure. Ten days later, on October 15, 1984, New Jersey’s Deputy Attorney General Julian Wilsey invited respondents’ counsel to examine the documents under seal and to copy whatever documents respondents needed in order to continue the conduct of their business. General Wilsey also informed respondents’ counsel that the State was prepared to return any documents discovered that exceeded the scope of the warrant. In the course of this examination, counsel identified numerous documents that they contended were either outside the scope of the warrant or protected by the attorney-client or attorney-work-product privilege. The State disagreed, and the disputed documents were resealed under the authority of Judge Lenox’s original sealing order.
On December 27, while the documents were still under seal, respondents instituted this civil rights action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Respondents sought equitable relief, including the return of all documents seized, and, as well, compensatory and punitive damages for the alleged violations of their rights under the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and attorney’s fees. Respondents also asserted certain pendent state claims for trespass, conversion, unlawful confinement, and the intentional or reckless infliction of emotional distress. Prior to filing an answer, petitioners moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the existence of an ongoing state grand jury investigation required the federal court to abstain from adjudicating disputes arising out of that investigation. Respondents countered with a motion for a preliminary injunction directing the return of the documents.
While all this was taking place in federal court, Judge Lenox, at the State’s behest, entered an ex parte order directing respondents to show cause why he should not lift the seal and make the documents available to the state officials conducting the grand jury investigation. Three days before the scheduled hearing on that order to show cause, the District Court issued a temporary restraining order staying discovery in the federal action and directing the State not to lift the seal before the District Court disposed of the motions pending before it. Several months later, on August 6, 1985, the District Court granted petitioners’ motion to dismiss on abstention grounds and denied respondents’ motion for a preliminary injunction. App. to Pet. for Cert. 5a.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the District Court’s denial of the preliminary injunction but reversed the judgment dismissing the complaint. 798 F. 2d 632 (1986). A divided panel ruled that the abstention doctrine pronounced in Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), and its progeny did not require the District Court to abstain from adjudicating respondents’ claims for injunctive relief arising out of the ongoing state grand jury investigation. The panel was unanimous, however, in reversing the District Court’s dismissal of respondents’ claims for money damages and attorney’s fees. Relying on Circuit precedent, the Court of Appeals held that, even when abstaining entirely from the adjudication of equitable claims, a district court was required to stay rather than to dismiss federal claims that were not cognizable in the state forum in which the companion equitable claims were being adjudicated. 798 F. 2d, at 635-636, citing Crane v. Fauver, 762 F. 2d 325, 328-329 (CA3 1985); Williams v. Red Bank Bd. of Ed., 662 F. 2d 1008, 1022-1024 (CA3 1981). The Court of Appeals noted that the availability of a separate state forum in which the monetary claims could be brought did nothing to lessen the District Court’s obligation to retain jurisdiction over the claims properly before it. 798 F. 2d, at 635-636. The court remanded the case for further proceedings.
After the Court of Appeals rendered its judgment, the state grand jury returned an indictment against three of the respondents — Monaghan, DeSantis, and F & S — and against others not parties to the present federal action. None of the seized documents had ever been submitted to the indicting grand jury, and the contested documents were still under seal at the time the indictment was returned. The Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Cumberland County, to which the indictment was assigned for trial, took jurisdiction over respondents’ equitable claims for the return of the seized documents. See Memorandum for Respondents Suggesting that Cause is Moot 3. The Superior Court has since held that certain documents were seized in violation of the attorney-client privilege and has ordered their return. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 22-23. Still pending before that court are motions seeking the return of other documents seized. See id., at 23. In light of these developments, all six respondents represent, through common counsel, that they do not wish to pursue their claims for equitable relief in federal court. Id., at 22-25. They wish to withdraw these claims from their federal complaint and seek injunctive relief exclusively in the state proceedings initiated by the indictment. Respondents also represent that, if the complaint were remanded to the District Court, they would seek a stay of all federal proceedings on the damages claims pending resolution of the state proceedings. Id., at 22, 25; Memorandum for Respondents Suggesting that Cause is Moot 4.
I-H ( — I
Article III of the Constitution limits federal courts to the adjudication of actual, ongoing controversies between litigants. Preiser v. Newkirk, 422 U. S. 395, 401 (1975); SEC v. Medical Committee for Human Rights, 404 U. S. 403, 407 (1972). It is not enough that a controversy existed at the time the complaint was filed, and continued to exist when review was obtained in the Court of Appeals. Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393, 402 (1975); Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452, 459, n. 10 (1974). In the case now before us, respondents state that they no longer seek any equitable relief in federal court. Because there no longer is a live controversy between the parties over whether a federal court can hear respondents’ equitable claims, the first question on which certiorari was granted is moot.
Petitioners, however, object that respondents’ promise to amend their complaint is an empty one, because nothing will prevent respondents, particularly those not indicted, from nullifying that amendment by further amendment or from filing a new complaint if they are dissatisfied with the relief obtained in the state criminal proceeding. Petitioners also express concern that respondents will raise only some of their equitable claims in the state proceeding, thus preserving the option of pursuing the remaining claims in federal court. If respondents return to federal court while the grand jury investigation is still in progress, petitioners argue, the District Court would be bound by the decision of the Court of Appeals in this case and would refuse to abstain. To prevail on the abstention question, petitioners would then have to appeal to the very court that already had decided the question against them and ultimately petition successfully again for certiorari. Even then, petitioners suggest, respondents could use the same ploy once more to deprive this Court of jurisdiction. According to petitioners, this potential for manipulation renders the case “capable of repetition, yet evading review,” and should therefore shield it from a conclusion of mootness. See Murphy v. Hunt, 455 U. S. 478, 482 (1982).
Petitioners misconceive the effect respondents’ representations and our reliance thereon will have on the shape of the federal litigation. When a claim is rendered moot while awaiting review by this Court, the judgment below should be vacated with directions to the District Court to dismiss the relevant portion of the complaint. See United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36, 39-40 (1950). This disposition strips the decision below of its binding effect. And respondents can be prevented from reviving their claims by the order of dismissal. Because this case was rendered moot in part by respondents’ willingness permanently to withdraw their equitable claims from their federal action, a dismissal with prejudice is indicated. This will prevent the regeneration of the controversy by a reassertion of a right to litigate the equitable claims in federal court. Relying upon the representations of respondents’ counsel at oral argument that all six respondents have no continuing interest in the federal adjudication of their claims for equitable relief, the equitable claims of all respondents should be dismissed with prejudice. Respondents therefore will be barred from reviving in federal court their equitable claims against petitioners arising out of the events surrounding the execution of the search warrant.
Ill
Our conclusion that the issue concerning respondents’ equitable claims is now moot does not prevent our consideration of the propriety of the District Court’s dismissal of respondents’ claims for monetary relief. See University of Texas v. Camenisch, 451 U. S. 390, 393 (1981); Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486, 495-500 (1969). Respondents continue to press their claims for damages and attorney’s fees. They state, however, that they will seek a stay of federal proceedings on these claims pending resolution of the state proceeding. Tr. of Oral Arg. 25; Memorandum for Respondents Suggesting that Cause is Moot 4.
Petitioners argue that the Younger doctrine — which requires a federal court to abstain where a plaintiff's federal claims could be adjudicated in a pending state judicial proceeding — applies to complaints seeking only monetary relief. Petitioners further argue that it is within the District Court’s discretion to dismiss rather than stay a federal complaint for damages and fees where abstention is required. We need not decide the extent to which the Younger doctrine applies to a federal action seeking only monetary relief, however, because even if the Younger doctrine requires abstention here, the District Court has no discretion to dismiss rather than to stay claims for monetary relief that cannot be redressed in the state proceeding.
In reversing the District Court’s dismissal of the claims for damages and attorney’s fees, the Court of Appeals applied the Third Circuit rule that requires a District Court to stay rather than dismiss claims that are not cognizable in the parallel state proceeding. 798 F. 2d, at 635, citing Crane v. Fauver, 762 F. 2d 325 (1985), and Williams v. Red Bank Bd. of Ed., 662 F. 2d 1008 (1981). The Third Circuit rule is sound. It allows a parallel state proceeding to go forward without interference from its federal sibling, while enforcing the duty of federal courts “to assume jurisdiction where jurisdiction properly exists.” Id., at 1024. This Court repeatedly has stated that the federal courts have a “virtually unflagging obligation” to exercise their jurisdiction except in those extraordinary circumstances “ ‘where the order to the parties to repair to the State court would clearly serve an important countervailing interest.’” Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U. S. 800, 813, 817 (1976), quoting County of Allegheny v. Frank Mashuda Co., 360 U. S. 185, 188-189 (1959); see also Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Construction Corp., 460 U. S. 1, 14-15 (1983).
We are unpersuaded by petitioners’ suggestion that this case presents such extraordinary circumstances. First, petitioners’ speculation that the District Court, if allowed to retain jurisdiction, would “hover” about the state proceeding, ready to lift the stay whenever it concluded that things were proceeding unsatisfactorily, is groundless. Petitioners seem to assume that the District Court would not hold up its end of the comity bargain — an assumption as inappropriate as the converse assumption that the States cannot be trusted to enforce federal rights with adequate diligence. See Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465, 493-494, n. 35 (1976).
Second, petitioners’ contention that Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U. S. 89 (1984), prevents the District Court from adjudicating respondents’ claims under state law does not argue for the dismissal of all of respondents’ damages claims, state and federal. Petitioners seem to suggest that the state-law claims predominate in the complaint, and the federal claims are minimal additions not substantial enough to require the District Court to exercise its jurisdiction. Saying nothing about the applicability of Penn hurst to the particular state-law claims alleged in respondents’ complaint, we note that a sizable portion of the relief sought in the federal complaint is intended to compensate respondents for injuries allegedly sustained in violation of federal constitutional rights. There can be no question that respondents have alleged injuries under federal law sufficient to justify the District Court’s retention of jurisdiction. When the federal proceeding recommences in the District Court, petitioners will be free to argue that the state claims should be dismissed under Pennhurst.
Finally, petitioners argue that allowing the District Court to dismiss the complaint will prevent the piecemeal litigation of the dispute between the parties. But the involvement of the federal courts cannot be blamed for the fragmentary nature of the proceedings in this litigation. Because the state criminal proceeding can provide only equitable relief, any action for damages would necessarily be separate. Indeed, the state forum in which petitioners invite respondents to pursue their claims for monetary relief clearly would require the initiation of a separate action. See Brief for Petitioners 32. Piecemeal litigation of the issues involved in this case is thus inevitable.
In sum, none of the circumstances cited by petitioners to justify the District Court’s dismissal of respondents’ claims for damages and attorney’s fees constitutes the kind of extraordinary circumstance that we have held may justify abdication of the “virtually unflagging obligation ... to exercise the jurisdiction given” the federal courts. Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U. S., at 817.
>
Because respondents’ claims for equitable relief are moot, we vacate the portion of the Court of Appeals’ judgment addressing those claims and remand with instructions to dismiss the claims for equitable relief with prejudice. We affirm the portion of the Court of Appeals’ judgment reversing the District Court’s dismissal of respondents’ claims for monetary relief and attorney’s fees.
It is so ordered.
This fact is not reflected in the record but the parties have informed the Court in their briefs, in their memoranda as to mootness, and at oral argument, that the indictment had been returned. See Brief for Petitioners 18; Brief for Respondents 17; Memorandum for Respondents Suggesting that Cause is Moot 3; Memorandum for Petitioners in Opposition to Suggestion 2; Tr. of Oral Arg. 6-7 and 22.
See Memorandum for Respondents Suggesting that Cause is Moot 3; Brief for Respondents 18; Tr. of Oral Arg. 22, 24-25.
This Court rejected respondents’ suggestion of mootness filed before argument. 482 U. S. 912 (1987). Representations of counsel in response to inquiries at oral argument now have persuaded us that the suggestion is sound as to the first question presented.
The Court’s ability to prevent respondents from renewing their claims after they are dismissed as moot distinguishes this case from one in which a defendant attempts to avoid appellate review by voluntarily ceasing the challenged conduct without losing the ability to reinitiate the conduct once the mooted case is dismissed. In the latter circumstance this Court has ruled that “[m]ere voluntary cessation of allegedly illegal conduct does not moot a case; if it did, the courts would be compelled to leave ‘[t]he defendant . . . free to return to his old ways.’” United States v. Concentrated Phosphate Export Assn., Inc., 393 U. S. 199, 203 (1968), quoting United States v. W. T. Grant Co., 345 U. S. 629, 632 (1953). In this case, the “conduct” that petitioners fear will be resumed is the pursuit of the federal litigation for equitable relief. Once that litigation is dismissed with prejudice, it cannot be resumed in this or any subsequent action. To reinitiate the abstention dispute between these parties, respondents would have to allege new equitable claims, presumably arising out of other events. The threat to petitioners, based on the mere “speculative eontingenc[y],” Hall v. Beals, 396 U. S. 45, 49 (1969), that respondents will assert new federal claims for equitable relief against the same New Jersey law enforcement agents cannot be said to be “sufficiently real and immediate to show an existing controversy.” O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488, 496 (1974).
This, of course, is not to say that respondents would be prevented from asserting a right to present claims against these petitioners for equitable relief in federal court should the disputed conduct be repeated. The Court recognized in United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36, 40 (1950), that the vacation and dismissal of the complaint that has become moot “clears the path for future relitigation of the issues between the parties,” should subsequent events rekindle their controversy.
In his concurring opinion in this case, Justice White urges that we reach the question — not considered at any stage below, and not the subject of our grant of certiorari — whether the Younger doctrine applies to cases in which only money damages are sought in the federal forum. Apparently, Justice White also finds it appropriate to conclude that Younger requires abstention in this particular case, although he does not analyze this question separately. Because all respondents have represented that they will seek a stay of their damages claims on remand, we see no reason to reach issues so awkwardly presented for review.
In both Crane v. Fauver, 762 F. 2d, at 329, and Williams v. Red Bank Bd. of Ed., 662 F. 2d, at 1024, n. 16, the Court of Appeals recognized that unless it retained jurisdiction during the pendency of the state proceeding, a plaintiff could be barred permanently from asserting his claims in the federal forum by the running of the applicable statute of limitations.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
To enforce the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against "unreasonable searches and seizures," this Court has at times required courts to exclude evidence obtained by unconstitutional police conduct. But the Court has also held that, even when there is a Fourth Amendment violation, this exclusionary rule does not apply when the costs of exclusion outweigh its deterrent benefits. In some cases, for example, the link between the unconstitutional conduct and the discovery of the evidence is too attenuated to justify suppression. The question in this case is whether this attenuation doctrine applies when an officer makes an unconstitutional investigatory stop; learns during that stop that the suspect is subject to a valid arrest warrant; and proceeds to arrest the suspect and seize incriminating evidence during a search incident to that arrest. We hold that the evidence the officer seized as part of the search incident to arrest is admissible because the officer's discovery of the arrest warrant attenuated the connection between the unlawful stop and the evidence seized incident to arrest.
I
This case began with an anonymous tip. In December 2006, someone called the South Salt Lake City police's drug-tip line to report "narcotics activity" at a particular residence. App. 15. Narcotics detective Douglas Fackrell investigated the tip. Over the course of about a week, Officer Fackrell conducted intermittent surveillance of the home. He observed visitors who left a few minutes after arriving at the house. These visits were sufficiently frequent to raise his suspicion that the occupants were dealing drugs.
One of those visitors was respondent Edward Strieff. Officer Fackrell observed Strieff exit the house and walk toward a nearby convenience store. In the store's parking lot, Officer Fackrell detained Strieff, identified himself, and asked Strieff what he was doing at the residence.
As part of the stop, Officer Fackrell requested Strieff's identification, and Strieff produced his Utah identification card. Officer Fackrell relayed Strieff's information to a police dispatcher, who reported that Strieff had an outstanding arrest warrant for a traffic violation. Officer Fackrell then arrested Strieff pursuant to that warrant. When Officer Fackrell searched Strieff incident to the arrest, he discovered a baggie of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.
The State charged Strieff with unlawful possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. Strieff moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the evidence was inadmissible because it was derived from an unlawful investigatory stop. At the suppression hearing, the prosecutor conceded that Officer Fackrell lacked reasonable suspicion for the stop but argued that the evidence should not be suppressed because the existence of a valid arrest warrant attenuated the connection between the unlawful stop and the discovery of the contraband.
The trial court agreed with the State and admitted the evidence. The court found that the short time between the illegal stop and the search weighed in favor of suppressing the evidence, but that two countervailing considerations made it admissible. First, the court considered the presence of a valid arrest warrant to be an " 'extraordinary intervening circumstance.' " App. to Pet. for Cert. 102 (quoting United States v. Simpson, 439 F.3d 490, 496 (C.A.8 2006) ). Second, the court stressed the absence of flagrant misconduct by Officer Fackrell, who was conducting a legitimate investigation of a suspected drug house.
Strieff conditionally pleaded guilty to reduced charges of attempted possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia, but reserved his right to appeal the trial court's denial of the suppression motion. The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed. 2012 UT App ¶ 245, 286 P.3d 317.
The Utah Supreme Court reversed. 2015 UT ¶ 2, 357 P.3d 532. It held that the evidence was inadmissible because only "a voluntary act of a defendant's free will (as in a confession or consent to search)" sufficiently breaks the connection between an illegal search and the discovery of evidence. Id., at 536. Because Officer Fackrell's discovery of a valid arrest warrant did not fit this description, the court ordered the evidence suppressed. Ibid.
We granted certiorari to resolve disagreement about how the attenuation doctrine applies where an unconstitutional detention leads to the discovery of a valid arrest warrant. 576 U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 27, 192 L.Ed.2d 997 (2015). Compare, e.g., United States v. Green, 111 F.3d 515, 522-523 (C.A.7 1997) (holding that discovery of the warrant is a dispositive intervening circumstance where police misconduct was not flagrant), with, e.g., State v. Moralez, 297 Kan. 397, 415, 300 P.3d 1090, 1102 (2013) (assigning little significance to the discovery of the warrant). We now reverse.
II
A
The Fourth Amendment protects "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." Because officers who violated the Fourth Amendment were traditionally considered trespassers, individuals subject to unconstitutional searches or seizures historically enforced their rights through tort suits or self-help. Davies, Recovering the Original Fourth Amendment, 98 Mich. L. Rev. 547, 625 (1999). In the 20th century, however, the exclusionary rule-the rule that often requires trial courts to exclude unlawfully seized evidence in a criminal trial-became the principal judicial remedy to deter Fourth Amendment violations. See, e.g., Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961).
Under the Court's precedents, the exclusionary rule encompasses both the "primary evidence obtained as a direct result of an illegal search or seizure" and, relevant here, "evidence later discovered and found to be derivative of an illegality," the so-called " 'fruit of the poisonous tree.' " Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 804, 104 S.Ct. 3380, 82 L.Ed.2d 599 (1984). But the significant costs of this rule have led us to deem it "applicable only... where its deterrence benefits outweigh its substantial social costs." Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 591, 126 S.Ct. 2159, 165 L.Ed.2d 56 (2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). "Suppression of evidence... has always been our last resort, not our first impulse." Ibid.
We have accordingly recognized several exceptions to the rule. Three of these exceptions involve the causal relationship between the unconstitutional act and the discovery of evidence. First, the independent source doctrine allows trial courts to admit evidence obtained in an unlawful search if officers independently acquired it from a separate, independent source. See Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533, 537, 108 S.Ct. 2529, 101 L.Ed.2d 472 (1988). Second, the inevitable discovery doctrine allows for the admission of evidence that would have been discovered even without the unconstitutional source. See Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 443-444, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984). Third, and at issue here, is the attenuation doctrine: Evidence is admissible when the connection between unconstitutional police conduct and the evidence is remote or has been interrupted by some intervening circumstance, so that "the interest protected by the constitutional guarantee that has been violated would not be served by suppression of the evidence obtained." Hudson, supra, at 593, 126 S.Ct. 2159.
B
Turning to the application of the attenuation doctrine to this case, we first address a threshold question: whether this doctrine applies at all to a case like this, where the intervening circumstance that the State relies on is the discovery of a valid, pre-existing, and untainted arrest warrant. The Utah Supreme Court declined to apply the attenuation doctrine because it read our precedents as applying the doctrine only "to circumstances involving an independent act of a defendant's 'free will' in confessing to a crime or consenting to a search." 357 P.3d, at 544. In this Court, Strieff has not defended this argument, and we disagree with it, as well. The attenuation doctrine evaluates the causal link between the government's unlawful act and the discovery of evidence, which often has nothing to do with a defendant's actions. And the logic of our prior attenuation cases is not limited to independent acts by the defendant.
It remains for us to address whether the discovery of a valid arrest warrant was a sufficient intervening event to break the causal chain between the unlawful stop and the discovery of drug-related evidence on Strieff's person. The three factors articulated in Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975), guide our analysis. First, we look to the "temporal proximity" between the unconstitutional conduct and the discovery of evidence to determine how closely the discovery of evidence followed the unconstitutional search. Id., at 603, 95 S.Ct. 2254. Second, we consider "the presence of intervening circumstances." Id., at 603-604, 95 S.Ct. 2254. Third, and "particularly" significant, we examine "the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct." Id., at 604, 95 S.Ct. 2254. In evaluating these factors, we assume without deciding (because the State conceded the point) that Officer Fackrell lacked reasonable suspicion to initially stop Strieff. And, because we ultimately conclude that the warrant breaks the causal chain, we also have no need to decide whether the warrant's existence alone would make the initial stop constitutional even if Officer Fackrell was unaware of its existence.
1
The first factor, temporal proximity between the initially unlawful stop and the search, favors suppressing the evidence. Our precedents have declined to find that this factor favors attenuation unless "substantial time" elapses between an unlawful act and when the evidence is obtained. Kaupp v. Texas, 538 U.S. 626, 633, 123 S.Ct. 1843, 155 L.Ed.2d 814 (2003) (per curiam ). Here, however, Officer Fackrell discovered drug contraband on Strieff's person only minutes after the illegal stop. See App. 18-19. As the Court explained in Brown, such a short time interval counsels in favor of suppression; there, we found that the confession should be suppressed, relying in part on the "less than two hours" that separated the unconstitutional arrest and the confession. 422 U.S., at 604, 95 S.Ct. 2254.
In contrast, the second factor, the presence of intervening circumstances, strongly favors the State. In Segura, 468 U.S. 796, 104 S.Ct. 3380, 82 L.Ed.2d 599, the Court addressed similar facts to those here and found sufficient intervening circumstances to allow the admission of evidence. There, agents had probable cause to believe that apartment occupants were dealing cocaine. Id., at 799-800, 104 S.Ct. 3380. They sought a warrant. In the meantime, they entered the apartment, arrested an occupant, and discovered evidence of drug activity during a limited search for security reasons. Id., at 800-801, 104 S.Ct. 3380. The next evening, the Magistrate Judge issued the search warrant. Ibid. This Court deemed the evidence admissible notwithstanding the illegal search because the information supporting the warrant was "wholly unconnected with the [arguably illegal] entry and was known to the agents well before the initial entry." Id., at 814, 104 S.Ct. 3380.
Segura, of course, applied the independent source doctrine because the unlawful entry "did not contribute in any way to discovery of the evidence seized under the warrant." Id., at 815, 104 S.Ct. 3380. But the Segura Court suggested that the existence of a valid warrant favors finding that the connection between unlawful conduct and the discovery of evidence is "sufficiently attenuated to dissipate the taint." Ibid. That principle applies here.
In this case, the warrant was valid, it predated Officer Fackrell's investigation, and it was entirely unconnected with the stop. And once Officer Fackrell discovered the warrant, he had an obligation to arrest Strieff. "A warrant is a judicial mandate to an officer to conduct a search or make an arrest, and the officer has a sworn duty to carry out its provisions." United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 920, n. 21, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984) (internal quotation marks omitted). Officer Fackrell's arrest of Strieff thus was a ministerial act that was independently compelled by the pre-existing warrant. And once Officer Fackrell was authorized to arrest Strieff, it was undisputedly lawful to search Strieff as an incident of his arrest to protect Officer Fackrell's safety. See Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 339, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009) (explaining the permissible scope of searches incident to arrest).
Finally, the third factor, "the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct," Brown, supra, at 604, 95 S.Ct. 2254, also strongly favors the State. The exclusionary rule exists to deter police misconduct. Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229, 236-237, 131 S.Ct. 2419, 180 L.Ed.2d 285 (2011). The third factor of the attenuation doctrine reflects that rationale by favoring exclusion only when the police misconduct is most in need of deterrence-that is, when it is purposeful or flagrant.
Officer Fackrell was at most negligent. In stopping Strieff, Officer Fackrell made two good-faith mistakes. First, he had not observed what time Strieff entered the suspected drug house, so he did not know how long Strieff had been there. Officer Fackrell thus lacked a sufficient basis to conclude that Strieff was a short-term visitor who may have been consummating a drug transaction. Second, because he lacked confirmation that Strieff was a short-term visitor, Officer Fackrell should have asked Strieff whether he would speak with him, instead of demanding that Strieff do so. Officer Fackrell's stated purpose was to "find out what was going on [in] the house." App. 17. Nothing prevented him from approaching Strieff simply to ask. See Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 434, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991) ("[A] seizure does not occur simply because a police officer approaches an individual and asks a few questions"). But these errors in judgment hardly rise to a purposeful or flagrant violation of Strieff's Fourth Amendment rights.
While Officer Fackrell's decision to initiate the stop was mistaken, his conduct thereafter was lawful. The officer's decision to run the warrant check was a "negligibly burdensome precautio[n]" for officer safety. Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. ----, ----, 135 S.Ct. 1609, 1616, 191 L.Ed.2d 492 (2015). And Officer Fackrell's actual search of Strieff was a lawful search incident to arrest. See Gant, supra, at 339, 129 S.Ct. 1710.
Moreover, there is no indication that this unlawful stop was part of any systemic or recurrent police misconduct. To the contrary, all the evidence suggests that the stop was an isolated instance of negligence that occurred in connection with a bona fide investigation of a suspected drug house. Officer Fackrell saw Strieff leave a suspected drug house. And his suspicion about the house was based on an anonymous tip and his personal observations.
Applying these factors, we hold that the evidence discovered on Strieff's person was admissible because the unlawful stop was sufficiently attenuated by the pre-existing arrest warrant. Although the illegal stop was close in time to Strieff's arrest, that consideration is outweighed by two factors supporting the State. The outstanding arrest warrant for Strieff's arrest is a critical intervening circumstance that is wholly independent of the illegal stop. The discovery of that warrant broke the causal chain between the unconstitutional stop and the discovery of evidence by compelling Officer Fackrell to arrest Strieff. And, it is especially significant that there is no evidence that Officer Fackrell's illegal stop reflected flagrantly unlawful police misconduct.
2
We find Strieff's counterarguments unpersuasive.
First, he argues that the attenuation doctrine should not apply because the officer's stop was purposeful and flagrant. He asserts that Officer Fackrell stopped him solely to fish for evidence of suspected wrongdoing. But Officer Fackrell sought information from Strieff to find out what was happening inside a house whose occupants were legitimately suspected of dealing drugs. This was not a suspicionless fishing expedition "in the hope that something would turn up." Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U.S. 687, 691, 102 S.Ct. 2664, 73 L.Ed.2d 314 (1982).
Strieff argues, moreover, that Officer Fackrell's conduct was flagrant because he detained Strieff without the necessary level of cause (here, reasonable suspicion). But that conflates the standard for an illegal stop with the standard for flagrancy. For the violation to be flagrant, more severe police misconduct is required than the mere absence of proper cause for the seizure. See, e.g., Kaupp, 538 U.S., at 628, 633, 123 S.Ct. 1843 (finding flagrant violation where a warrantless arrest was made in the arrestee's home after police were denied a warrant and at least some officers knew they lacked probable cause). Neither the officer's alleged purpose nor the flagrancy of the violation rise to a level of misconduct to warrant suppression.
Second, Strieff argues that, because of the prevalence of outstanding arrest warrants in many jurisdictions, police will engage in dragnet searches if the exclusionary rule is not applied. We think that this outcome is unlikely. Such wanton conduct would expose police to civil liability. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ; Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 690, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978) ; see also Segura, 468 U.S., at 812, 104 S.Ct. 3380. And in any event, the Brown factors take account of the purpose and flagrancy of police misconduct. Were evidence of a dragnet search presented here, the application of the Brown factors could be different. But there is no evidence that the concerns that Strieff raises with the criminal justice system are present in South Salt Lake City, Utah.
* * *
We hold that the evidence Officer Fackrell seized as part of his search incident to arrest is admissible because his discovery of the arrest warrant attenuated the connection between the unlawful stop and the evidence seized from Strieff incident to arrest. The judgment of the Utah Supreme Court, accordingly, is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Justice SOTOMAYOR, with whom Justice GINSBURG joins as to Parts I, II, and III, dissenting.
The Court today holds that the discovery of a warrant for an unpaid parking ticket will forgive a police officer's violation of your Fourth Amendment rights. Do not be soothed by the opinion's technical language: This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants-even if you are doing nothing wrong. If the officer discovers a warrant for a fine you forgot to pay, courts will now excuse his illegal stop and will admit into evidence anything he happens to find by searching you after arresting you on the warrant. Because the Fourth Amendment should prohibit, not permit, such misconduct, I dissent.
I
Minutes after Edward Strieff walked out of a South Salt Lake City home, an officer stopped him, questioned him, and took his identification to run it through a police database. The officer did not suspect that Strieff had done anything wrong. Strieff just happened to be the first person to leave a house that the officer thought might contain "drug activity." App. 16-19.
As the State of Utah concedes, this stop was illegal. App. 24. The Fourth Amendment protects people from "unreasonable searches and seizures." An officer breaches that protection when he detains a pedestrian to check his license without any evidence that the person is engaged in a crime. Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 663, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979) ; Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). The officer deepens the breach when he prolongs the detention just to fish further for evidence of wrongdoing. Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 135 S.Ct. 1609, 1615-1616, 191 L.Ed.2d 492 (2015). In his search for lawbreaking, the officer in this case himself broke the law.
The officer learned that Strieff had a "small traffic warrant." App. 19. Pursuant to that warrant, he arrested Strieff and, conducting a search incident to the arrest, discovered methamphetamine in Strieff's pockets.
Utah charged Strieff with illegal drug possession. Before trial, Strieff argued that admitting the drugs into evidence would condone the officer's misbehavior. The methamphetamine, he reasoned, was the product of the officer's illegal stop. Admitting it would tell officers that unlawfully discovering even a "small traffic warrant" would give them license to search for evidence of unrelated offenses. The Utah Supreme Court unanimously agreed with Strieff. A majority of this Court now reverses.
II
It is tempting in a case like this, where illegal conduct by an officer uncovers illegal conduct by a civilian, to forgive the officer. After all, his instincts, although unconstitutional, were correct. But a basic principle lies at the heart of the Fourth Amendment: Two wrongs don't make a right. See Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 392, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652 (1914). When "lawless police conduct" uncovers evidence of lawless civilian conduct, this Court has long required later criminal trials to exclude the illegally obtained evidence. Terry, 392 U.S., at 12, 88 S.Ct. 1868 ; Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961). For example, if an officer breaks into a home and finds a forged check lying around, that check may not be used to prosecute the homeowner for bank fraud. We would describe the check as " 'fruit of the poisonous tree.' " Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). Fruit that must be cast aside includes not only evidence directly found by an illegal search but also evidence "come at by exploitation of that illegality." Ibid.
This "exclusionary rule" removes an incentive for officers to search us without proper justification. Terry, 392 U.S., at 12, 88 S.Ct. 1868. It also keeps courts from being "made party to lawless invasions of the constitutional rights of citizens by permitting unhindered governmental use of the fruits of such invasions." Id., at 13, 88 S.Ct. 1868. When courts admit only lawfully obtained evidence, they encourage "those who formulate law enforcement polices, and the officers who implement them, to incorporate Fourth Amendment ideals into their value system." Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 492, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976). But when courts admit illegally obtained evidence as well, they reward "manifest neglect if not an open defiance of the prohibitions of the Constitution." Weeks, 232 U.S., at 394, 34 S.Ct. 341.
Applying the exclusionary rule, the Utah Supreme Court correctly decided that Strieff's drugs must be excluded because the officer exploited his illegal stop to discover them. The officer found the drugs only after learning of Strieff's traffic violation; and he learned of Strieff's traffic violation only because he unlawfully stopped Strieff to check his driver's license.
The court also correctly rejected the State's argument that the officer's discovery of a traffic warrant unspoiled the poisonous fruit. The State analogizes finding the warrant to one of our earlier decisions, Wong Sun v. United States. There, an officer illegally arrested a person who, days later, voluntarily returned to the station to confess to committing a crime. 371 U.S., at 491, 83 S.Ct. 407. Even though the person would not have confessed "but for the illegal actions of the police," id., at 488, 83 S.Ct. 407 we noted that the police did not exploit their illegal arrest to obtain the confession, id., at 491, 83 S.Ct. 407. Because the confession was obtained by "means sufficiently distinguishable" from the constitutional violation, we held that it could be admitted into evidence. Id., at 488, 491, 83 S.Ct. 407. The State contends that the search incident to the warrant-arrest here is similarly distinguishable from the illegal stop.
But Wong Sun explains why Strieff's drugs must be excluded. We reasoned that a Fourth Amendment violation may not color every investigation that follows but it certainly stains the actions of officers who exploit the infraction. We distinguished evidence obtained by innocuous means from evidence obtained by exploiting misconduct after considering a variety of factors: whether a long time passed, whether there were "intervening circumstances," and whether the purpose or flagrancy of the misconduct was "calculated" to procure the evidence. Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 603-604, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975).
These factors confirm that the officer in this case discovered Strieff's drugs by exploiting his own illegal conduct. The officer did not ask Strieff to volunteer his name only to find out, days later, that Strieff had a warrant against him. The officer illegally stopped Strieff and immediately ran a warrant check. The officer's discovery of a warrant was not some intervening surprise that he could not have anticipated. Utah lists over 180,000 misdemeanor warrants in its database, and at the time of the arrest, Salt Lake County had a "backlog of outstanding warrants" so large that it faced the "potential for civil liability." See Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Survey of State Criminal History Information Systems, 2014 (2015) (Systems Survey) (Table 5a), online at https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/249799.pdf (all Internet materials as last visited June 16, 2016); Inst. for Law and Policy Planning, Salt Lake County Criminal Justice System Assessment 6.7 (2004), online at http://www.slco.org/cjac/resources/SaltLakeCJSAfinal.pdf. The officer's violation was also calculated to procure evidence. His sole reason for stopping Strieff, he acknowledged, was investigative-he wanted to discover whether drug activity was going on in the house Strieff had just exited. App. 17.
The warrant check, in other words, was not an "intervening circumstance" separating the stop from the search for drugs. It was part and parcel of the officer's illegal "expedition for evidence in the hope that something might turn up." Brown, 422 U.S., at 605, 95 S.Ct. 2254. Under our precedents, because the officer found Strieff's drugs by exploiting his own constitutional violation, the drugs should be excluded.
III
A
The Court sees things differently. To the Court, the fact that a warrant gives an officer cause to arrest a person severs the connection between illegal policing and the resulting discovery of evidence. Ante, at 2062-2063. This is a remarkable proposition: The mere existence of a warrant not only gives an officer legal cause to arrest and search a person, it also forgives an officer who, with no knowledge of the warrant at all, unlawfully stops that person on a whim or hunch.
To explain its reasoning, the Court relies on Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 104 S.Ct. 3380, 82 L.Ed.2d 599 (1984). There, federal agents applied for a warrant to search an apartment but illegally entered the apartment to secure it before the judge issued the warrant. Id., at 800-801, 104 S.Ct. 3380. After receiving the warrant, the agents then searched the apartment for drugs. Id., at 801, 104 S.Ct. 3380. The question before us was what to do with the evidence the agents then discovered. We declined to suppress it because "[t]he illegal entry into petitioners' apartment did not contribute in any way to discovery of the evidence seized under the warrant." Id., at 815, 104 S.Ct. 3380.
According to the majority, Segura involves facts "similar" to this case and "suggest[s]" that a valid warrant will clean up whatever illegal conduct uncovered it. Ante, at 2062 - 2063. It is difficult to understand this interpretation. In Segura, the agents' illegal conduct in entering the apartment had nothing to do with their procurement of a search warrant. Here, the officer's illegal conduct in stopping Strieff was essential to his discovery of an arrest warrant. Segura would be similar only if the agents used information they illegally obtained from the apartment to procure a search warrant or discover an arrest warrant. Precisely because that was not the case, the Court admitted the untainted evidence. 468 U.S., at 814, 104 S.Ct. 3380.
The majority likewise misses the point when it calls the warrant check here a " 'negligibly burdensome precautio[n]' " taken for the officer's "safety." Ante, at 2063 (quoting Rodriguez, 575 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 1615 ). Remember, the officer stopped Strieff without suspecting him of committing any crime. By his own account, the officer did not fear Strieff. Moreover, the safety rationale we discussed in Rodriguez, an opinion about highway patrols, is conspicuously absent here. A warrant check on a highway "ensur[es] that vehicles on the road are operated safely and responsibly." Id., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 1615. We allow such checks during legal traffic stops because the legitimacy of a person's driver's license has a "close connection to roadway safety." Id., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 1615. A warrant check of a pedestrian on a sidewalk, "by contrast, is a measure aimed at 'detect[ing] evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing.' " Ibid. (quoting Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 40-41, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000) ). Surely we would not allow officers to warrant-check random joggers, dog walkers, and lemonade vendors just to ensure they pose no threat to anyone else.
The majority also posits that the officer could not have exploited his illegal conduct because he did not violate the Fourth Amendment on purpose. Rather, he made "good-faith mistakes." Ante, at 2063. Never mind that the officer's sole purpose was to fish for evidence. The majority casts his unconstitutional actions as "negligent"
and therefore incapable of being deterred by the exclusionary rule. Ibid.
But the Fourth Amendment does not tolerate an officer's unreasonable searches and seizures just because he did not know any better. Even officers prone to negligence can learn from courts that exclude illegally obtained evidence. Stone, 428 U.S., at 492, 96 S.Ct. 3037. Indeed, they are perhaps the most in need of the education, whether by the judge's opinion, the prosecutor's future guidance, or an updated manual on criminal procedure. If the officers are in doubt about what the law requires, exclusion gives them an "incentive to err on the side of constitutional behavior." United States v. Johnson, 457 U.S. 537, 561, 102 S.Ct. 2579, 73 L.Ed.2d 202 (1982).
B
Most striking about the Court's opinion is its insistence that the event here was "isolated," with "no indication that this unlawful stop was part of any systemic or recurrent police misconduct." Ante, at 2063. Respectfully, nothing about this case is isolated.
Outstanding warrants are surprisingly common. When a person with a traffic ticket misses a fine payment or court appearance, a court will issue a warrant. See, e.g., Brennan Center for Justice, Criminal Justice Debt 23 (2010), online at https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Fees% 20and% 20Fines% 20FINAL.pdf. When a person on probation drinks alcohol or breaks curfew, a court will issue a warrant. See, e.g., Human Rights Watch, Profiting from Probation 1, 51 (2014), online at https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/02/05/profiting-probation/americas-offender-funded-probation-industry. The States and Federal Government maintain databases with over 7.8 million outstanding warrants, the vast majority of which appear to be for minor offenses. See Systems Survey (Table 5a). Even these sources may not track the "staggering" numbers of warrants, " 'drawers and drawers' " full, that many cities issue for traffic violations and ordinance infractions. Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Div., Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department 47, 55 (2015) (Ferguson Report), online at https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-re
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice O'Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is another in the long line of cases, beginning with McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819), in which the Federal Government asks this Court for relief from what it considers illegal state taxes. Unlike the typical tax immunity case, however, we are not presented with a claim that the state tax is unconstitutional; instead, the question is whether the Federal Government may recover taxes it claims were wrongfully assessed under California law against one of the Government’s private contractors.
I
The United States has established three Naval Petroleum Reserves in California and Wyoming, one of which is Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 1, located in Kern County, California. 10 U. S. C. § 7420. First through the Department of the Navy and later through the Department of Energy, the United States contracted with Williams Brothers Engineering Company (WBEC) to manage oil drilling operations at Reserve No. 1 from 1975 to 1985. Under the contract, WBEC received an annual fixed fee plus reimbursement for costs, which the contract defined to include state sales and use taxes.
California assessed approximately $14 million in sales and use taxes, pursuant to Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code Ann. §6384 (West 1987), against WBEC for the years 1975 through 1981. The State informed WBEC of the tax deficiencies through two notices, one issued in July 1978 and the other in December 1982. WBEC, at the direction of the United States, applied to the California Board of Equalization for administrative redetermination of the assessments, see § 6932. WBEC argued that the State had misapplied its own law, taxing property that was outside the scope of §6384. The Board of Equalization denied each claim, with minor exceptions. Thereafter, WBEC paid the assessments under protest, using funds the Federal Government provided. It then filed timely actions in state court. In January 1988, the State and WBEC stipulated to a $3 million refund, for erroneous assessments on property that WBEC had purchased and that Government personnel had installed, and to dismissal of both actions without prejudice. The remaining $11 million resulted from assessments on property that WBEC had purchased and that private subcontractors, managed by WBEC, had installed.
In May 1988, the United States filed suit in the Eastern District of California, seeking a declaratory judgment that California had classified and taxed WBEC erroneously under California law and that the taxed property actually was exempt. It sought a refund of the $11 million plus interest. In the course of the suit, the United States argued it was entitled to recovery based on the federal common-law cause of action for money had and received. The District Court rejected both grounds for recovery and granted summary judgment for the State.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. 932 F. 2d 1346 (1991). The court began by noting that the Government did not claim that either it or WBEC was constitutionally immune from the tax, an argument this Court rejected in United States v. New Mexico, 455 U. S. 720 (1982). 932 F. 2d, at 1347-1348. Because the United States lacked “a colorable constitutional challenge,” id., at 1349, the Court of Appeals looked to whether federal common law might provide a cause of action. It declined to accept the Government’s argument that the simple act of disbursing federal funds was a “constitutional function” that created a federal interest in conflict with state law. The Government had done no more than pay state taxes pursuant to state law; this did not rise to the level of a federal interest requiring the application of federal law. Ibid. The Court of Appeals then held that the Government could not maintain a quasi-contract cause of action because the facts did not support a claim of unjust enrichment. Among other things, “WBEC, backed throughout by the United States, had a fair chance to argue against the validity of the assessments in the administrative and state court proceedings.” Id., at 1350. Finally, the Court of Appeals relied on the fact that the Government’s quasi-contract argument was “posited upon the interpretation of a state-created exemption from a state[]created sales tax.” Ibid. The court found that the State’s claim filing requirements, including that a court action be filed within 90 days of an administrative denial, were conditions precedent to a cause of action for a tax refund. Id., at 1350-1351. The Government had failed to satisfy the conditions; therefore, the Court of Appeals held, the Government had no state cause of action and no quasi-contract action. “Since federal statutes of limitations become determinative only after the government acquires a cause of action, and since the United States never acquired a cause of action,” the court reasoned, the 6-year statute of limitations of “28 U. S. C. §2415 does not apply.” Id., at 1351.
The Court of Appeals acknowledged that the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in a factually similar case, recently had reached the opposite conclusion. Id., at 1351-1352. In United States v. Broward County, 901 F. 2d 1005 (1990), the Eleventh Circuit rejected the argument on which the Ninth Circuit relied and held that the Government had a “federal common law cause of action in quasi-contract for money had and received.” Id., at 1008-1009. We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 506 U. S. 813 (1992).
I HH
The Government concedes that it could have intervened in WBEC’s administrative and state-court proceedings. Tr. of Oral Arg. 17. But it argues that whether it complied with state procedural requirements or whether it could have intervened is irrelevant, because it has a federal right to recover the taxes under the federal common-law cause of action for money had and received (also known as indebitatus assumpsit). Prior to the creation of federal administrative and statutory remedies for the recovery of federal taxes, this Court held that a taxpayer could bring an action for money had and received to recover erroneously or illegally assessed taxes. In City of Philadelphia v. The Collector, 5 Wall. 720 (1867), the Court stated:
“[The] [appropriate remedy to recover back money paid [to federal tax collectors] under protest on account of duties or taxes erroneously or illegally assessed, is an action of assumpsit for money had and received. Where the party voluntarily pays the money, he is without remedy; but if he pays it by compulsion of law, or under protest, or with notice that he intends to bring suit to test the validity of the claim, he may recover it back, if the assessment was erroneous or illegal, in an action of assumpsit for money had and received.” Id., at 731-732 (citing Elliott v. Swartwout, 10 Pet. 137, 150 (1836)).
The Government reasons that it paid WBEC’s taxes, that the taxes were wrongfully assessed, and that therefore it may recover the funds used to pay those taxes. Since an action for money had and received is based on a contract implied in law, see Bayne v. United States, 93 U. S. 642, 643 (1877), the Government further reasons, that its claims are governed by the 6-year statute of limitations in 28 U. S. C. § 2415(a), and not the 90-day limitation period in the California Code.
The taxpayers in both City of Philadelphia and the case on which it relies, Elliott v. Swartwout, were attempting to recover money they had paid under protest to the federal tax collector in settlement of tax assessments erroneously made against them. In this case, by contrast, the taxpayer — WBEC—has had its day in court and gone home. The Government attempts to recover money it paid in reimbursement for state tax assessments against the contractor, even though the contractor already has challenged the assessment and accepted a resolution of its claims. The Government contends that, because its contract with WBEC involved an advanced funding arrangement, the Government was the one that actually paid the state taxes. Because the disbursement of federal funds is involved, the Government asserts, the federal action for money had and received is appropriate. Even assuming that federal courts may entertain a federal common-law action for the recovery of state taxes paid by the Government, we conclude that a federal action is inappropriate here because the Government is in no better position than as a subrogee of its contractor WBEC.
The management contract between the Government and WBEC is in all relevant respects identical to the contracts we discussed in United States v. New Mexico, 455 U. S. 720 (1982). There, as here, the State had imposed sales and use taxes on private contractors managing Department of Energy sites. Like WBEC, two of the contractors received costs plus a fixed fee. Id., at 723-724. Like WBEC’s contracts, the contracts provided that title to all tangible personal property passed directly from the vendor to the Government. Id., at 724. “Finally, and most importantly, the contracts use[d] a so-called ‘advanced funding’ procedure to meet contractor costs.” Id., at 725. The contractors paid creditors and employees with drafts drawn on a special bank account in which the Government deposited funds, so that only federal funds were expended when the contractors made purchases. Id., at 726. Cf. App. 142-143 (Declaration of Kenneth Meeks in Support of United States’ Motion for Summary Judgment, describing similar funding operations with WBEC).
In New Mexico, the Government brought an action arguing that the contractors’ expenditures, other than those made out of the fixed fees, were constitutionally immune from taxation. We noted that the doctrine of federal immunity from state taxation is “one that has been marked from the beginning by inconsistent decisions and excessively delicate distinctions.” 455 U. S., at 730. After surveying our “confusing” precedents, we concluded it was time to return to the underlying constitutional principle of tax immunity: A State may not lay a tax “ ‘directly upon the United States.’ ” Id., at 733 (quoting Mayo v. United States, 319 U. S. 441, 447 (1943)). But whereas the Government is absolutely immune from direct taxes, it is not immune from taxes merely because they have an “effect” on it, or “even because the Federal Government shoulders the entire economic burden of the levy.” 455 U. S., at 734. In fact, it is “constitutionally irrelevant that the United States reimburse[s] all the contractor’s expenditures, including those going to meet the tax.” Ibid, (citing Alabama v. King & Boozer, 314 U. S. 1 (1941)). Tax immunity is “appropriate in only one circumstance: when the levy falls on the United States itself, or on an agency or instrumentality so closely connected to the Government that the two cannot realistically be viewed as separate entities.” 455 U. S., at 735.
It is beyond peradventure that California did not tax— indeed, could not have taxed — the Federal Government in this case. California taxed WBEC. And the Government’s voluntary agreement to reimburse (or even fund in advance) WBEC for those taxes does not make the Government’s payments direct disbursements of federal funds to the State. We addressed an analogous indemnification relationship in Brady v. Roosevelt S. S. Co., 317 U. S. 575 (1943). The United States had contracted with a private corporation to operate a Maritime Commission vessel. A customs inspector suffered injuries on the vessel that led to his death, and his widow brought a maritime tort action against the private corporation. In defense, respondent contended “that if the judgment against [it] stands, the United States ultimately will have to pay it by reason of provisions of the contract between respondent and the [Maritime] Commission. It is therefore urged that the United States is the real party in interest.” Id., at 582. We rejected respondent’s argument that petitioner could be deprived of her cause of action by reason of the contract. “Immunity from suit on a cause of action which the law creates cannot be so readily obtained.” Id., at 583. Absent congressional action, we would not allow “concessions made by contracting officers of the government” to make such a “basic alteration” in the law. Id., at 584.
We conclude from Brady and New Mexico that the Government cannot use the existence of an obligation to indemnify WBEC to create a federal causé of action for money had and received to recover state taxes paid by WBEC any more than the Roosevelt Steamship Company could use the existence of a right to indemnity from the Government to defeat a claim for recovery. See Brady, supra, at 584. Cf. Farid v. Smith, 850 F. 2d 917, 923 (CA2 1988) (a State’s decision to indemnify its public servants does not confer Eleventh Amendment immunity on state officials sued in their personal capacity).
Although the Government does not cite Brady, it does cite two other cases that suggest the lesson of Brady might not apply in an action for money had and received. According to the Government, Bayne v. United States, 93 U. S. 642 (1877), and Gaines v. Miller, 111 U. S. 395 (1884), stand for the proposition that an action for money had and received may “be employed by the United States to recover money from a third party who received federal funds that had been misappropriated by a government agent.” Brief for United
States 14. We find these cases inapposite. In Bayne, an Army paymaster withdrew money from the paymaster’s bank account, endorsed the checks in blank, and sent them to Merchants’ Bank with instructions to credit the account of Bayne & Co. The Court affirmed the Government’s judgment against Bayne & Co. under an action for money had and received. 93 U. S., at 643. In Gaines, the agent of an estate’s executors sold estate property and illegally kept a portion of the money. Ill U. S., at 396. Many years later, the agent had died, but Gaines, the legatee of the first estate, brought an action in equity against the administrator of the agent’s estate. The Court affirmed the lower court’s judgment against Gaines because, among other reasons, she had an adequate remedy at law: an action for money had and received. Id., at 397-398.
Bayne and Gaines share two features this case lacks. The first is that, in each, the rightful owner of the money lost it by way of theft. That is, the money passed from the first party to the second party unlawfully. See Bayne, supra, at 643; Gaines, supra, at 396. The second feature is that in both cases the rightful owner of the money sued a third party who had a relationship that, at least for our purposes, made that party legally responsible for the actions of the one who unlawfully took the money. The Court was satisfied in Bayne that the transactions between the paymaster, the banks, and Bayne & Co. were “the result of a fraudulent purpose to secure the use of the public money to Bayne & Co., who received it with full knowledge that it belonged to the United States, and had been applied in manifest violation of the act of Congress.” 93 U. S., at 643. In other words, Bayne & Co. and the paymaster were accomplices, each liable for the acts of the other. Cf. 18 U. S. C. §2. In Gaines, petitioner sued the administrator of the agent’s estate, who was legally responsible for paying the agent’s debts out of the estate. See, e. g., 2 J. Perkins, Law of Executors and Administrators 988-990 (6th Am. ed. 1877).
The Government does not contend that WBEC stole the money at issue in this case or otherwise took money from the Government unlawfully. WBEC did not. Nor does the Government contend that California and WBEC had a relationship that would make California liable for WBEC’s actions. They did not. In fact, California and WBEC had an adverse relationship: that of creditor and debtor. California’s demand that WBEC pay what California believed to be a lawful debt does not make California legally responsible for the Government’s indemnification of WBEC. In these circumstances, we do not imply a contract in law between California and the Government. Without an implied contract, an action for money had and received will not lie against the State.
Although the Government cannot proceed in an action for money had and received, our discussion of indemnification suggests the Government may not be without recourse: Because it indemnified the contractor, the Government has a right to be subrogated to the contractor’s claims against the State. See 10 W. Jaeger, Williston on Contracts § 1265 (3d ed. 1967); Brief for Respondents 13 (conceding the same). When proceeding by subrogation, the subrogee “stands in the place of one whose claim he has paid.” United States v. Munsey Trust Co., 332 U. S. 234, 242 (1947). Here WBEC’s rights have lapsed and its claims are barred. Under traditional subrogation principles then, the claims of the United States also would be barred. The subrogee, who has all the rights of the subrogor, usually “cannot acquire by subrogation what another whose rights he claims did not have.” Ibid. Although WBEC filed actions in state court within 90 days of the Board of Equalization’s administrative decisions, WBEC later dismissed those cases without prejudice. A dismissal without prejudice terminates the action and “concludes the rights of the parties in that particular action.” Gagnon Co. v. Nevada Desert Inn, 45 Cal. 2d 448, 455, 289 R 2d 466, 472 (1955). A subrogee could have proceeded only if WBEC could have filed a new state-court action at that time, which it could not do.
The traditional rules of subrogation, however, do not necessarily apply to the Government. But cf. United States v. Standard Oil Co. of Cal, 332 U. S. 301,309 (1947) (suggesting that state law controls “where the Government has simply substituted itself for others as successor to rights governed by state law”). The Government argues strenuously that, at the very least, state statutes of limitations do not bind it. It cites three cases to support this position. See United States v. Summerlin, 310 U. S. 414, 416 (1940); Board of Comm’rs of Jackson County v. United States, 308 U. S. 343, 361 (1939); United States v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co., 364 U.. S. 301, 308 (1960). In the cases the Government cites, however, either the right at issue was obtained by the Government through, or created by, a federal statute, see Summerlin, supra, at 416 (United States suing under claim received by assignment pursuant to Act of June 27, 1934, 48 Stat. 1246); Board of Comm’rs, supra, at 349-350 (United States suing as Indian trustee pursuant to congressional statute); or a federal statute provided the statute of limitations, see John Hancock, supra, at 301 (United States redeeming mortgage foreclosure pursuant to statute of limitations in 28 U. S. C. § 2410(c)). Moreover, in each case, the Government was proceeding in its sovereign capacity. As the 'Government rightly notes:
“When the United States becomes entitled to a claim, acting in its governmental capacity, and asserts its claim in that right, it cannot be deemed to have abdicated its governmental authority so as to become subject to a state statute putting a time limit upon enforcement.” Summerlin, supra, at 417.
In contrast, the Government here became entitled to its claim by indemnifying a private contractor's state-law debt. It can assert its claim only by way of subrogation, an equitable action created by the courts. Summerlin is clearly distinguishable.
Whether in general a state-law action brought by the United States is subject to a federal or state statute of limitations is a difficult question. We need not resolve it today, however, because Guaranty Trust Co. v. United States, 304 U. S. 126 (1938), provides guidance in this case. There the United States was proceeding as the assignee of the Soviet Government and sought to collect under state law. The petitioner argued that the statute of limitations had run, and the United States asserted, among other defenses, that it was not bound by state statutes of limitations. We found that the circumstances of the case “admitted] of no appeal to such a policy.” Id., at 141. Even if the United States had a right to be free from the statute of limitations, it was deprived of no right on those facts. “[F]or the proof demonstrated] that the United States never acquired a right free of a pre-existing infirmity, the running of limitations against its assignor, which public policy does not forbid.” Id., at 142.
Here, although the Government acquired a right to subro-gation to WBEC’s claims upon payment of the taxes, the Government did not assert that right until it filed the federal judicial proceeding. As the California Supreme Court has held: “ ‘[A] surety by payment does not become ipso facto subrogated to the rights of the creditor, but only acquires a right to such subrogation, and . . . before the substitution or equitable assignment can actually take place he must actively assert his equitable right thereto. It is not a substantive tangible right of such nature and character that it can be seized and held and enjoyed independently of a judicial proceeding.’” Offer v. Superior Court of San Francisco, 194 Cal. 114, 117, 228 P. 11, 12 (1924) (quoting 25 Ruling Case Law 1391 (1919)). Accord, 10 Jaeger, Williston on Contracts § 1265, at 848, and n. 9 (citing cases). Because the Government waited until after the state statute of limitations had run against WBEC to bring suit, the Government was not subrogated to “a right free of a pre-existing infirmity.” Guaranty Trust, supra, at 142. That the doctrine of subro-gation is one of equity only strengthens our conclusion that the Government may not proceed: The Government waited 10 years after the first notice of deficiency was issued, 8 years after the second notice was issued, and almost 6 years after the state statute of limitations ran to bring this suit.
The Government argues that affirming the Court of Appeals often will leave it “without an effective remedy to contest a tax improperly exacted from a federal contractor” and subject it to the “vagaries” of 50 state tax-law procedures. Brief for United States 26-27. But federal contractors already are subject to the substantive tax laws of the 50 States. Nothing in our decision prevents the Government from including in its contracts a requirement that its contractors be responsible for all taxes the Government believes are wrongfully assessed, a contract term that likely would remove any disinterest a contractor may have toward litigating in state court. If our decision today results in an intolerable drain on the public fisc, Congress, which can take into account 'the concerns of the States as well as the Federal Government, is free to address the situation. See New Mexico, 455 U. S., at 737-738.
III
In United States v. New Mexico, we held that the Federal Government is immune only from state taxes imposed on it directly. Id., at 734. In so holding, we hoped to “forestall, at least to a degree, some of the manipulation and wooden formalism that occasionally have marked tax litigation — and that have no proper place in determining the allocation of power between coexisting sovereignties.” Id., at 737. Today we hold that shouldering the “entire economic burden of the levy,” id., at 734, through indemnification does not give the Federal Government a federal common-law cause of action for money had and received to challenge a state tax on state-law grounds simply because it is the Government. To do otherwise would be to return to the “manipulation and wooden formalism” we put aside in New Mexico.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to clarify the standard that governs a claim that a union has breached its duty of fair representation in its negotiation of a back-to-work agreement terminating a strike. We hold that the rule announced in Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 190 (1967)—that a union breaches its duty of fair representation if its actions are either “arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith” — applies to all union activity, including contract negotiation. We further hold that a union’s actions are arbitrary only if, in light of the factual and legal landscape at the time of the union’s actions, the union’s behavior is so far outside a “wide range of reasonableness,” Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U. S. 330, 338 (1953), as to be irrational.
> — I
This case arose out of a bitter confrontation between Continental Airlines, Inc. (Continental), and the union representing its pilots, the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA). On September 24, 1983, Continental filed a petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. Immediately thereafter, with the approval of the Bankruptcy Court, Continental repudiated its collective-bargaining agreement with ALPA and unilaterally reduced its pilots’ salaries and benefits by more than half. ALPA responded by calling a strike that lasted for over two years. See 886 F. 2d 1438, 1440 (CA5 1989).
Of the approximately 2,000 pilots employed by Continental, all but about 200 supported the strike. By the time the strike ended, about 400 strikers had “crossed over” and been accepted for reemployment in order of reapplication. App. to Brief for Continental Airlines, Inc., as Amicus Curiae All, and n. 8. By trimming its operations and hiring about 1,000 replacements, Continental was able to continue in business. By August 1986, there were 1,600 working pilots and only 1,000 strikers. 886 F. 2d, at 1440.
The strike was acrimonious, punctuated by incidents of violence and the filing of a variety of lawsuits, charges, and countercharges. In August 1985, Continental notified ALPA that it was withdrawing recognition of ALPA as the collective-bargaining agent for its pilots. ALPA responded with a federal lawsuit alleging that Continental was unlawfully refusing to continue negotiations for a new collective-bargaining agreement. In this adversary context, on September 9, 1985, Continental posted its “Supplementary Base Vacancy Bid 1985-5” (85-5 bid) — an act that precipitated not only an end to the strike, but also the litigation that is now before us. Ibid.
For many years Continental had used a “system bid” procedure for assigning pilots to new positions. Bids were typically posted well in advance in order to allow time for necessary training without interfering with current service. When a group of vacancies was posted, any pilot could submit a bid specifying his or her preferred position (captain, first officer, or second officer), base of operations, and aircraft type. Ibid. In the past, vacant positions had been awarded on the basis of seniority, determined by the date the pilot first flew for Continental. The 85-5 bid covered an unusually large number of anticipated vacancies — 441 future captain and first officer positions and an undetermined number of second officer vacancies. Pilots were given nine days — until September 18, 1985 — to submit their bids. Id., at 1441.
Fearing that this bid might effectively lock the striking pilots out of jobs for the indefinite future, ALP A authorized the strikers to submit bids. Several hundred did so, as did several hundred working pilots. Although Continental initially accepted bids from both groups, it soon became concerned about the bona fides of the striking pilots’ offers to return to work at a future date. It therefore challenged the strikers’ bids in court and announced that all of the 85-5 bid positions had been awarded to working pilots. Ibid.
At this juncture, ALP A intensified its negotiations for a complete settlement. ALPA’s negotiating committee and Continental reached an agreement, which was entered as an order by the Bankruptcy Court on October 31, 1985. See App. 7-41. The agreement provided for an end to the strike, the disposition of all pending litigation, and reallocation of the positions covered by the 85-5 bid. See id., at 10-34.
The agreement offered the striking pilots three options. Under the first, pilots who settled all outstanding claims with Continental were eligible to participate in the allocation of the 85-5 bid positions. Under the second option, pilots who elected not to return to work received severance pay of $4,000 per year of service (or $2,000 if they had been furloughed before the strike began). Under the third option, striking pilots retained their individual claims against Continental and were eligible to return to work only after all the first option pilots had been reinstated. See 886 F. 2d., at 1441-1442.
Pilots who chose the first option were thus entitled to some of the 85-5 bid positions that, according to Continental, had previously been awarded to working pilots. The first 100 captain positions were allocated to working pilots and the next 70 captain positions were awarded, in order of seniority, to returning strikers who chose option one. App. 13. Thereafter, striking and nonstriking pilots were eligible for captain positions on a 1-to-l ratio. Id., at 13-14. The initial base and aircraft type for a returning striker was assigned by Continental, but the assignments for working pilots were determined by their bids. 886 F. 2d, at 1441. After the initial assignment, future changes in bases and equipment were determined by seniority, and striking pilots who were in active service when the strike began received seniority credit for the period of the strike. See App. 22.
f-H HH
Several months after the settlement, respondents, as representatives of a class of former striking pilots, brought this action against ALPA. See App. 1. In addition to raising other charges not before us, respondents alleged that the union had breached its duty of fair representation in negotiating and accepting the settlement. After extensive discovery, ALPA filed a motion for summary judgment. See id., at 3. Opposing that motion, respondents identified four alleged breaches of duty, including the claim that “ALPA negotiated an agreement that arbitrarily discriminated against striking pilots.”
The District Court granted the motion, relying alternatively on the fact that the Bankruptcy Court had approved the settlement and on its own finding that, even if the October 31 settlement was merely a private agreement, ALPA did not breach its duty of fair representation. In his oral explanation of his ruling, the District Judge opined that “the agreement that was achieved looks atrocious in retrospect, but it is not a breach of fiduciary duty badly to settle the strike.” App. 75.
The Court of Appeals reversed. 886 F. 2d 1438 (CA5 1989). It first rejected ALPA’s argument that a union cannot breach its duty of fair representation without intentional misconduct. The court held that the duty includes “‘three distinct’ ” components. Id., at 1444 (quoting Tedford v. Peabody Coal Co., 533 F. 2d 952, 957, n. 6 (CA5 1976)). A union breaches the duty if its conduct is “‘arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith.’” 886 F. 2d, at 1444 (quoting Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S., at 190). With respect to the arbitrariness component, the Court of Appeals followed Fifth Circuit precedent, stating:
“‘We think a decision to be non-arbitrary must be (1) based upon relevant, permissible union factors which excludes the possibility of it being based upon motivations such as personal animosity or political favoritism; (2) a rational result of the consideration of these factors; and (3) inclusive of a fair and impartial consideration of the interests of all employees.’” 886 F. 2d, at 1444 (quoting Tedford, 533 F. 2d, at 957) (footnotes omitted and emphasis added by the Court of Appeals).
Applying this arbitrariness test to the facts of this case, the Court of Appeals concluded that a jury could find that ALPA acted arbitrarily because the jury could find that the settlement “left the striking pilots worse off in a number of respects than complete surrender to [Continental].” 886 F. 2d, at 1445. That conclusion rested on the court’s opinion that the evidence suggested that, if ALPA had simply surrendered and made an unconditional offer to return to work, the strikers would have been entitled to complete priority on all the positions covered by the 85-5 bid. Relying on a District Court decision in litigation between ALPA and another airline, the court rejected ALPA’s argument that the 85-5 bid positions were arguably not vacancies because they had already been assigned to working pilots. Id., at 1446. In addition, the Court of Appeals ruled that the evidence raised a genuine issue of material fact whether the favored treatment of working pilots in the allocation of 85-5 bid positions constituted discrimination against those pilots who had chosen to strike. Id., at 1446-1447.
The court held that respondents had raised a jury question whether ALPA had violated its duty to refrain from “arbitrary” conduct, and the court therefore remanded the case for trial. Id., at 1448-1449. Because it reversed the District Court’s grant of summary judgment on the arbitrariness component, the Court of Appeals did not decide whether summary judgment on the fair representation claim might be precluded by the existence of other issues of fact.
We granted certiorari to review the Court of Appeals’ statement of the standard governing an alleged breach of a union’s duty of fair representation and the court’s application of the standard in this case. 498 U. S. 806 (1990).
III
ALPA's central argument is that the duty of fair represen tation requires only that a union act in good faith and treat its members equally and in a nondiscriminatory fashion. The duty, the union argues, does not impose any obligation to provide adequate representation. The District Court found that there was no evidence that ALPA acted other than in good faith and without discrimination. Because of its view of the limited scope of the duty, ALPA contends that the District Court’s finding, which the Court of Appeals did not question, is sufficient to support summary judgment.
The union maintains, not without some merit, that its view that courts are not authorized to review the rationality of good-faith, nondiscriminatory union decisions is consonant with federal labor policy. The Government has generally regulated only “the process of collective bargaining,” H. K. Porter Co. v. NLRB, 397 U. S. 99, 102 (1970) (emphasis added), but relied on private negotiation between the parties to establish “their own charter for the ordering of industrial relations,” Teamsters v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283, 295 (1959). As we stated in NLRB v. Insurance Agents, 361 U. S. 477, 488 (1960), Congress “intended that the parties should have wide latitude in their negotiations, unrestricted by any governmental power to regulate the substantive solution of their differences.” See also Carbon Fuel Co. v. Mine Workers, 444 U. S. 212, 219 (1979).
There is, however, a critical difference between governmental modification of the terms of a private agreement and an examination of those terms in search for evidence that a union did not fairly and adequately represent its constituency. Our decisions have long recognized that the need for such an examination proceeds directly from the union’s statutory role as exclusive bargaining agent. “[T]he exercise of a granted power to act in behalf of others involves the assumption toward them of a duty to exercise the power in their interest and behalf.” Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S. 192, 202 (1944).
The duty of fair representation is thus akin to the duty owed by other fiduciaries to their beneficiaries. For example, some Members of the Court have analogized the duty a union owes to the employees it represents to the duty a trustee owes to trust beneficiaries. See Teamsters v. Terry, 494 U. S. 558, 567-568 (1990); id., at 584-588 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). Others have likened the relationship between union and employee to that between attorney and client. See id., at 582 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). The fair representation duty also parallels the responsibilities of corporate officers and directors toward shareholders. Just as these fiduciaries owe their beneficiaries a duty of care as well as a duty of loyalty, a union owes employees a duty to represent them adequately as well as honestly and in good faith. See, e. g., Restatement (Second) of Trusts § 174 (1959) (trustee’s duty of care); Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 686 (1984) (lawyer must render “adequate legal assistance”); Hanson Trust PLC v. ML SCM Acquisition Inc., 781 F. 2d 264, 274 (CA2 1986) (directors owe duty of care as well as loyalty).
ALPA suggests that a union need owe no enforceable duty of adequate representation because employees are protected from inadequate representation by the union political process. ALPA argues, as has the Seventh Circuit, that employees “do not need . . . protection against representation that is inept but not invidious” because if a “union does an incompetent job . . .its members can vote in new officers who will do a better job or they can vote in another union.” Dober v. Roadway Express, Inc., 707 F. 2d 292, 295 (CA7 1983). In Steele, the case in which we first recognized the duty of fair representation, we also analogized a union’s role to that of a legislature. See 323 U. S., at 198. Even legislatures, however, are subject to some judicial review of the rationality of their actions. See, e. g., United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144 (1938); Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U. S. 528 (1973).
ALPA relies heavily on language in Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U. S. 330 (1953), which, according to the union, suggests that no review of the substantive terms of a settlement between labor and management is permissible. In particular, ALPA stresses our comment in the case that “[a] wide range of reasonableness must be allowed a statutory bargaining representative in serving the unit it represents, subject always to complete good faith and honesty of purpose in the exercise of its discretion.” Id., at 338. Unlike ALPA, we do not read this passage to limit review of a union’s actions to “good faith and honesty of purpose,” but rather to recognize that a union’s conduct must also be within “[a] wide range of reasonableness.”
Although there is admittedly some variation in the way in which our opinions have described the unions’ duty of fair representation, we have repeatedly identified three components of the duty, including a prohibition against “arbitrary” conduct. Writing for the Court in the leading case in this area of the law, Justice White explained:
“The statutory duty of fair representation was developed over 20 years ago in a series of cases involving alleged racial discrimination by unions certified as exclusive bargaining representatives under the Railway Labor Act, see Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U. S. 192; Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, 323 U. S. 210, and was soon extended to unions certified under the N. L. R. A., see Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, supra. Under this doctrine, the exclusive agent’s statutory authority to represent all members of a designated unit includes a statutory obligation to serve the interests of all members without hostility or discrimination toward any, to exercise its discretion with complete good faith and honesty, and to avoid arbitrary conduct. Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U. S., at 342. It is obvious that Owens’ complaint alleged a breach by the Union of a duty grounded in federal statutes, and that federal law therefore governs his cause of action.” Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S., at 177.
This description of the “duty grounded in federal statutes” has been accepted without question by Congress and in a line of our decisions spanning almost a quarter of a century.
The union correctly points out, however, that virtually all of those cases can be distinguished because they involved contract administration or enforcement rather than contract negotiation. ALPA argues that the policy against substantive review of contract terms applies directly only in the negotiation area. Although this is a possible basis for distinction, none of our opinions has suggested that the duty is governed by a double standard. Indeed, we have repeatedly noted that the Vaca v. Sipes standard applies to “challenges leveled not only at a union’s contract administration and enforcement efforts but at its negotiation activities as well.” Communications Workers v. Beck, 487 U. S. 735, 743 (1988) (internal citation omitted); see also Electrical Workers v. Foust, 442 U. S. 42, 47 (1979); Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S., at 177. We have also held that the duty applies in other instances in which a union is acting in its representative role, such as when the union operates a hiring hall. See Breininger v. Sheet Metal Workers, 493 U. S. 67, 87-89 (1989).
We doubt, moreover, that a bright line could be drawn between contract administration and contract negotiation. Industrial grievances may precipitate settlement negotiations leading to contract amendments, and some strikes and strike settlement agreements may focus entirely on questions of contract interpretation. See Conley v. Gibson, 355 U. S. 41, 46 (1957); Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U. S. 574, 581 (1960). Finally, some union activities subject to the duty of fair representation fall into neither category. See Breininger, 493 U. S., at 87-89.
We are, therefore, satisfied that the Court of Appeals correctly concluded that the tripartite standard announced in Vaca v. Sipes applies to a union in its negotiating capacity. We are persuaded, however, that the Court of Appeals’ further refinement of the arbitrariness component of the standard authorizes more judicial review of the substance of negotiated agreements than is consistent with national labor policy.
As we acknowledged above, Congress did not intend judicial review of a union’s performance to permit the court to substitute its own view of the proper bargain for that reached by the union. Rather, Congress envisioned the relationship between the courts and labor unions as similar to that between the courts and the legislature. Any substantive examination of a union’s performance, therefore, must be highly deferential, recognizing the wide latitude that negotiators need for the effective performance of their bargaining responsibilities. Cf. Day-Brite Lighting, Inc. v. Missouri, 342 U. S. 421, 423 (1952) (court does “not sit as a super-legislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation nor to decide whether the policy which it expresses offends the public welfare”); United States v. Carolene Products, 304 U. S., at 154 (where “question is at least debatable,” “decision was for Congress”). For that reason, the final product of the bargaining process may constitute evidence of a breach of duty only if it can be fairly characterized as so far outside a “wide range of reasonableness,” Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U. S., at 338, that it is wholly “irrational” or “arbitrary.”
The approach of the Court of Appeals is particularly flawed because it fails to take into account either the strong policy favoring the peaceful settlement of labor disputes, see, e. g., Groves v. Ring Screw Works, Ferndale Fastener Div., 498 U. S. 168, 174 (1990), or the importance of evaluating the rationality of a union’s decision in light of both the facts and the legal climate that confronted the negotiators at the time the decision was made. As we shall explain, these factors convince us that ALPA’s agreement to settle the strike was not arbitrary for either of the reasons posited by the Court of Appeals.
IV
The Court of Appeals placed great stress on the fact that the deal struck by ALPA was worse than the result the union would have obtained by unilateral termination of the strike. Indeed, the court held that a jury finding that the settlement was worse than surrender could alone support a judgment that the union had acted arbitrarily and irrationally. See 886 F. 2d, at 1445-1446. This holding unduly constrains the “wide range of reasonableness,” 345 U. S., at 338, within which unions may act without breaching their fair representation duty.
For purposes of decision, we may assume that the Court of Appeals was correct in its conclusion that, if ALPA had simply surrendered and voluntarily terminated the strike, the striking pilots would have been entitled to reemployment in the order of seniority. Moreover, we may assume that Continental would have responded to such action by rescinding its assignment of all of the 85-5 bid positions to working pilots. After all, it did rescind about half of those assignments pursuant to the terms of the settlement. Thus, we assume that the union made a bad settlement — one that was even worse than a unilateral termination of the strike.
Nevertheless, the settlement was by no means irrational. A settlement is not irrational simply because it turns out in retrospect to have been a bad settlement. Viewed in light of the legal landscape at the time of the settlement, ALPA’s decision to settle rather than give up was certainly not illogical. At the time of the settlement, Continental had notified the union that all of the 85-5 bid positions had been awarded to working pilots and was maintaining that none of the strikers had any claim on any of those jobs.
A comparable position had been asserted by United Air Lines in litigation in the Northern District of Illinois. Because the District Court in that case had decided that such vacancies were not filled until pilots were trained and actually working in their new assignments, the Court of Appeals here concluded that the issue had been resolved in ALPA’s favor when it agreed to the settlement with Continental. See 886 F. 2d, at 1446. But this reasoning overlooks the fact that the validity of the District Court’s ruling in the other case was then being challenged on appeal.
Moreover, even if the law had been clear that the 85-5 bid positions were vacancies, the Court of Appeals erroneously assumed that the existing law was also clarion that the striking pilots had a right to those vacancies because they had more seniority than the crossover and replacement workers. The court relied for the latter proposition solely on our cases interpreting the National Labor Relations Act. See 886 F. 2d, at 1445. We have made clear, however, that National Labor Relations Act cases are not necessarily controlling in situations, such as this one, which are governed by the Railway Labor Act. See Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U. S. 369, 383 (1969).
Given the background of determined resistance by Continental at all stages of this strike, it would certainly have been rational for ALPA to recognize the possibility that an attempted voluntary return to work would merely precipitate litigation over the right to the 85-5 bid positions. Because such a return would not have disposed of any of the individual claims of the pilots who ultimately elected option one or option two of the settlement, there was certainly a realistic possibility that Continental would not abandon its bargaining position without a complete settlement.
At the very least, the settlement produced certain and prompt access to a share of the new jobs and avoided the costs and risks associated with major litigation. Moreover, since almost a third of the striking pilots chose the lump-sum severance payment rather than reinstatement, see n. 1, supra, the settlement was presumably more advantageous than a surrender to a significant number of striking pilots. In labor disputes, as in other kinds of litigation, even a bad settlement may be more advantageous in the long run than a good lawsuit. In all events, the resolution of the dispute over the 85-5 bid vacancies was well within the “wide range of reasonableness,” 345 U. S., at 338, that a union is allowed in its bargaining.
The suggestion that the “discrimination” between striking and working pilots represented a breach of the duty of fair representation also fails. If we are correct in our conclusion that it was rational for ALPA to accept a compromise between the claims of the two groups of pilots to the 85-5 bid positions, some form of allocation was inevitable. A rational compromise on the initial allocation of the positions was not invidious “discrimination” of the kind prohibited by the duty of fair representation. Unlike the grant of “super-seniority” to the crossover and replacement workers in NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U. S. 221 (1963), this agreement preserved the seniority of the striking pilots after their initial reinstatement. In Erie, the grant of extra seniority enabled the replacement workers to keep their jobs while more senior strikers lost theirs during a layoff subsequent to the strike. See id., at 223-224. The agreement here only provided the order and mechanism for the reintegration of the returning strikers but did not permanently alter the seniority system. This case therefore more closely resembles our decision in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Flight Attendants, 489 U. S. 426 (1989), in which we held that an airline’s refusal, after a strike, to displace crossover workers with more senior strikers was not unlawful discrimination.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
In its amicus curiae brief, Continental states that the 366 pilots who elected option two received $17.3 million, an average of over $47,000 per pilot. See Brief for Continental Airlines, Inc., as Amicus Curiae 9.
The complaint included four counts: breach of the duty of fair representation, violation of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA), 29 U. S. C. § 411 et seq., breach of fiduciary duty in violation of the LMRDA, and breach of contract. See App. 47-56. The District Court granted summary judgment for petitioner on all counts, id., at 72-77, but respondents appealed only on the first two counts, see 886 F. 2d 1438, 1442 (CA5 1989). The Court of Appeals affirmed the summary judgment on the LMRDA count, id., at 1448, and respondents did not seek our review of this decision. Therefore, only the fair representation claim is before us.
The Court of Appeals described respondents’ claims as follows:
“The O’Neill Group asserted that the duty of fair representation had been breached by ALPA and various ALPA officers because (1) ALPA failed to allow ratification of the agreement and misrepresented the facts surrounding the negotiations to avoid a ratification vote; (2) ALPA negotiated an agreement that arbitrarily discriminated against striking pilots, including the O’Neill Group; (3) ALPA and various ALPA officers misrepresented to retired and resigned pilots that they would be included in any settlement; and (4) defendants were compelled by motives of personal gain, namely self-interest and political motivations.” Id., at 1442.
“Accepting the pilots’ evidence as true as we are required to do, a jury could reasonably conclude that if ALPA had unconditionally offered to return the pilots to duty, [Continental] likely would have returned striking pilots to work according to seniority, and would have permitted strikers to bid for vacancies according to [Continental]^ seniority-based assignment procedures.” Id.., at 1446.
Air Line Pilots Assn. Int’l v. United Air Lines, Inc., 614 F. Supp. 1020 (ND Ill. 1985), aff’d in relevant part, Air Line Pilots Assn., Int’l v. United Air Lines, Inc., 802 F. 2d 886 (CAT 1986), cert. denied, 480 U. S. 946 (1987).
Respondents also argued that a jury could find that ALPA acted in bad faith. See n. 3, supra. Although we conclude below that the Court of Appeals erred in reversing summary judgment on the arbitrariness component, see Part IV, infra, we express no opinion on whether respondents have put forth a triable issue concerning whether ALPA acted in bad faith.
“There is nothing to indicate that the Union made any choices among the Union members or the strikers who were not Union members other than on the best deal that the Union thought it could construct; that the deal is somewhat less than not particularly satisfactory is not relevant to the issue of fair representation.” App. 74.
See, e. g., Teamsters v. Terry, 494 U. S. 558, 563 (1990); Electrical Workers v. Foust, 442 U. S. 42, 47 (1979); Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U. S. 554, 564 (1976).
Air Line Pilots Assn. Int’l v. United Air Lines, Inc., 614 F. Supp. 1020 (ND Ill. 1985).
Even if the Seventh Circuit had already affirmed the District Court’s holding in the United Air Lines case, the Court of Appeals would have erred in its conclusion that the law was so assuredly in ALPA’s favor that the settlement was irrational. First, a Seventh Circuit case would not have controlled the outcome in this dispute, which arose in the Fifth Circuit. Second, even if the United Air Lines decision had been a Fifth Circuit case, it was factually distinguishable and therefore might not have dictated the outcome regarding the 85-5 bid positions. In United Air Lines, the Seventh Circuit affirmed on the basis of the District Court’s finding that the carrier’s action was taken in bad faith, motivated by antiunion animus. 802 F. 2d, at 898; 614 F. Supp., at 1046. An equivalent finding was by no means certain in this case.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion- of the Court.
This case concerns two applications for passports, denied by the Secretary of State. One was by Rockwell Kent who desired to visit England and attend a meeting of an organization known as the “World Council of Peace” in Helsinki, Finland. The Director of the Passport Office informed Kent that issuance of a passport was precluded by § 51.135 of the Regulations promulgated by the Secretary of State on two grounds: (1) that he was a Communist and (2) that he had had “a consistent and prolonged adherence to the Communist Party line.” The letter of denial specified in some detail the facts on which those conclusions were based. Kent was also advised of his right to an informal hearing under § 51.137 of the Regulations. But he was also told that whether or not a hearing was requested it would be necessary, before a. passport would be issued, to submit an affidavit as to whether he was then or ever had been a Communist. Kent did not ask for a hearing but filed a new passport application listing several European countries he desired to visit. When advised that a hearing was still available to him, his attorney replied that Kent took the position that the requirement of an affidavit concerning Communist Party membership “is unlawful and that for that reason and as a matter of conscience,” he would not supply one. He did, however, have a hearing at which the principal evidence against him was from his book It's Me 0 Lord, which Kent agreed was accurate. He again refused to submit the affidavit, maintaining that any matters unrelated to the question of his citizenship were irrelevant to the Department’s consideration of his application. The Department advised him that no further consideration of his application would be given until he satisfied the requirements of the Regulations.
Thereupon Kent sued in the District Court for declaratory relief. The District Court granted summary judgment for respondent. On appeal the case of Kent was heard with that of Dr. Walter Briehl, a psychiatrist. When Briehl applied for a passport, the Director of the Passport Office asked him to supply the affidavit covering membership in the- Communist Party. Briehl, like Kent, refused. The1 Director- then tentatively disapproved the application on the following grounds:
“In your case it has been alleged that you were a Communist. Specifically it is alleged that you were a member of the Los Angeles County Communist Party; that you were a member of the Bookshop Association, St. Louis, Missouri; that you held Communist Party meetings; that in 1936 and 1941 you contributed articles to the Communist Publication ‘Social Work Today’; that in 1939, 1940 and 1941 you were a sponsor to raise funds for veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in calling on the President of the United States by a petition to defend the rights of the Communist Party and its members; that you contributed to the Civil Rights Congress bail fund to be used in raising bail on behalf of convicted Communist leaders in New York City; that you were a member of the Hollywood Arts, Sciences and Professions Council and a contact of the Los Angeles Committee for Protection of Foreign Born and a contact of the Freedom Stage, Incorporated.”
The Director advised Briehl of his right to a hearing but stated that whether or not a hearing was held, an affidavit concerning membership in the Communist Party would be necessary. Briehl asked for a hearing and one was held. At that hearing he raised three objections: (1) that his “political affiliations” were irrelevant to his right to a passport; (2) that “every American citizen has the right to travel regardless of politics”; and (3) that the burden was on the Department to prove illegal activities by Briehl. Briehl persisted in his refusal to supply the affidavit. Because of that refusal Briehl was advised that the Board of Passport Appeals could not under the Regulations entertain an appeal.
Briehl filed his complaint in the District Court which held that his case was indistinguishable from Kent’s and dismissed the complaint.
The Court of Appeals heard the two cases en banc and affirmed the District Court by a divided vote. 101 U. S. App. D. C. 278, 239, 248 F. 2d 600, 561. The cases are here on writ of certiorari. 355 U. S. 881.
The Court first noted the function that the passport performed in American law in the case of Urtetiqui v. D’Arbel, 9 Pet. 692, 699, decided in 1835:
“There is no law of the United States, in any manner regulating the issuing of passports, or directing upon what evidence it may be done, or declaring their legal effect. It is understood, as matter of practice, that some evidence of citizenship is required, by the secretary of state, before issuing a passport. This, however, is entirely discretionary with him. No inquiry is instituted by him to ascertain the fact of citizenship, or any proceedings had, that will in any manner bear the character of a judicial inquiry. It is a document, which, from its nature and object, is addressed to foreign powers; purporting only to be a request, that the bearer of it may pass safely and freely; and is to be considered rather in the character of a political document, by which the bearer is recognized, in foreign countries, as an American citizen; and which, by usage and the law of nations, is received as evidence of the fact.”
A passport not only is of great value — indeed necessary — abroad; it is also an aid in establishing citizenship for purposes of re-entry into the United States. See Browder v. United States, 312 U. S. 335, 339; 3 Moore, Digest of International Law (1906), § 512. But throughout most of our history- — -until indeed quite recently — a passport, though a great convenience in foreign travel, was not a legal requirement for leaving or entering the United States. See Jaffe, The Right to Travel: The Passport Problem, 35 Foreign Affairs 17. Apart from minor exceptions to be noted, it was first made a requirement by § 215 of the Act of June 27, 1952, 66 Stat. 190, 8 U. S. C. § 1185, which states that, after a prescribed proclamation by the President, it is “unlawful for any citizen of the United States to depart from or enter, or attempt to depart from or enter, the United States unless he bears a valid passport.” And the Proclamation necessary to make the restrictions of this Act applicable and in force has been made/
Prior to 1952 there were numerous laws enacted by Congress regulating passports and many decisions, rulings, and regulations by the Executive Department concerning them. Thus in 1803 Congress made it unlawful for an official knowingly to issue a passport to an alien certifying that he is a citizen. 2 Stat. 205. In 1815, just prior to the termination of the War of 1812, it made it illegal for a citizen to “cross the frontier” into enemy territory, to board vessels of the enemy on waters of the United States or to visit any of his camps within the limits of the United States, “without a passport first obtained” from the Secretary of State or other designated official. 3 Stat. 199-200. The Secretary of State took similar steps during the Civil War. See Dept, of State, The American Passport (1898), 50. In 1850 Congress ratified a treaty with Switzerland requiring passports from citizens of the two nations. 11 Stat. 587, 589-590. Finally in 1856 Congress enacted what remains today as our basic passport statute. Prior to that time various federal officials, state and local officials, and notaries public had undertaken to issue either certificates of citizenship or other documents in the nature of letters of introduction to foreign officials requesting treatment according to the usages of international law. By the Act of August 18, 1856, 11 Stat. 52, 60-61, 22 U. S. C. .§ 211a, Congress put an end to those practices. This provision, as codified by the Act of July 3, 1926, 44 Stat., Part 2, 887, reads,
“The Secretary of State may grant and issue passports . . . under such rules as the President shall designate and prescribe for and on behalf of the United States, and no other person shall grant, issue, or verify such passports.”
Thus for most of our history a passport was not a condition to entry or exit.
It is true that, at intervals, a passport has been required for travel. Mention has already been made of the restrictions imposed during the War of 1812 and during the Civil War. A like restriction, which was the forerunner of that contained in the 1952 Act, was imposed by Congress in 1918.
The Act of May 22,1918,40 Stat. 559, made it unlawful, while a Presidential Proclamation was in force, for a citizen to leave or enter the United States “unless he bears a valid passport.” See H. R. Rep. No. 485, 65th Cong., 2d Sess. That statute was invoked by Presidential Proclamation No. 1473 on August 8,1918, 40 Stat. 1829, which continued in effect until March 3, 1921. 41 Stat. 1359.
The 1918 Act was effective only in wartime. It was amended in 1941 so that it could be invoked in the then-existing emergency. 55 Stat. 252. See S. Rep. No. 444, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. It was invoked by Presidential Proclamation No. 2523, November 14, 1941, 55 Stat. 1696. That emergency continued until April 28, 1952. Proc. No. 2974, 66 Stat. C31. Congress extended the statutory provisions until April 1, 1953. 66 Stat. 54, 57, 96, 137, 330, 333. It was during this extension period that the Secretary of State issued the Regulations here complained of.
Under the 1926 Act and its predecessor a large body of precedents grew up which repeat over and again that the issuance of passports is “a discretionary act” on the part of the Secretary of State. The scholars, the courts, the Chief Executive, and the Attorneys General, all so said. This long-continued executive construction should be enough, it is said, to warrant the inference that Congress had adopted it. See Allen v. Grand Central Aircraft Co., 347 U. S. 535, 544-545; United States v. Allen-Bradley Co., 352 U. S. 306, 310. But the key to that problem, as we shall see, is in the manner in which the Secretary’s discretion was exercised, not in the bare fact that he had discretion.
The right to travel is a part of the “liberty” of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. So much is conceded by the Solicitor General. In Anglo-Saxon law that right was emerging at least as early as the Magna Carta. Chafee, Three Human Rights in the Constitution of 1787 (1956), 171-181, 187 et seq., shows how deeply engrained in our history this freedom of movement is. Freedom of movement across frontiers in either direction, and inside frontiers as well, was a part of our heritage. Travel abroad, like travel within the country, may be necessary for a livelihood. It may be as close to the heart of the individual as the choice of what he eats, or wears, or reads. Freedom of movement is basic in our scheme of values. See Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 35, 44; Williams v. Fears, 179 U. S. 270, 274; Edwards v. California, 314 U. S. 160. “Our nation,” wrote Chafee, “has thrived on the principle that, outside areas of plainly harmful conduct, every American is left to shape his own life as he thinks best, do what he pleases, go where he pleases.” Id., at 197.
Freedom of movement also has large social values. As Chafee put it:
“Foreign correspondents and lecturers on public affairs need first-hand information. Scientists and scholars gain greatly from consultations with colleagues in other countries. Students equip themselves for more fruitful careers in the United States by instruction in foreign universities. Then there are reasons close to the core of personal life — marriage, reuniting families, spending hours with old friends. Finally, travel abroad enables American citizens to understand that people like themselves live in Europe and helps them to be well-informed on public issues. An American who has crossed the ocean is not obliged to form his opinions about our foreign policy merely from what he is told by officials of our government or by a few correspondents of American newspapers. Moreover, his views on domestic questions are enriched by seeing how foreigners are trying to solve similar problems. In many different ways direct contact with other countries contributes to sounder decisions at home.” Id., at 195-196. And see Vestal, Freedom of Movement, 41 Iowa L. Rev. 6, 13-14.
Freedom to travel is, indeed, an important aspect of the citizen's “liberty.” We need not decide the extent to which it can be curtailed. We are first concerned with the extent, if any, to which Congress has authorized its curtailment.
The difficulty is that while the power of the Secretary of State over the issuance of passports is expressed in broad terms, it was apparently long exercised quite narrowly. So far as material here, the cases of refusal of passports generally fell into two categories. First, questions pertinent to the citizenship of the applicant and his allegiance to the United States had to be resolved by the Secretary, for the command of Congress was that “No passport shall be granted or issued to or verified for any other persons than those owing allegiance, whether citizens or not, to the United States.” 32 Stat. 386, 22 U. S. C. § 212. Second, was the question whether the applicant was participating in illegal conduct, trying to escape the toils of the law, promoting passport frauds, or otherwise engaging in conduct which would violate the laws of the United States. See 3 Moore, Digest of International Law (1906), § 512; 3 Hackworth, Digest of International Law (1942), § 268; 2 Hyde, International Law (2d rev. ed.), § 401.
The grounds for refusal asserted here do not relate to citizenship or allegiance on the one hand or to criminal or unlawful conduct on the other. Yet, so far as relevant here, those two are the only ones which it could fairly be argued were adopted by Congress in light of prior administrative practice. One can find in the records of the State Department rulings of subordinates covering a wider range of activities than the two indicated. But as respects Communists these are scattered rulings and not consistently of one pattern. We can say with assurance that whatever may have been the practice after 1926, at the time the Act of July 3, 1926, was adopted, the administrative practice, so far as relevant here, had jelled only around the two categories mentioned. We, therefore, hesitate to impute to Congress, when in 1952 it made a passport necessary for foreign travel and left its issuance to the discretion of the Secretary of State, a purpose to give him unbridled discretion to grant or withhold a passport from a citizen for any substantive reason he may choose.
More restrictive regulations were applied in 1918 and in 1941 as war measures. We are not compelled to equate this present problem of statutory construction with problems that may arise under the war power. Cf. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579.
In a case of comparable magnitude, Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214, 218, we allowed the Government in time of war to exclude citizens from their homes and restrict their freedom of movement only on a showing of “the gravest imminent danger to the public safety.” There the Congress and the Chief Executive moved in coordinated action; and, as we said, the Nation was then at war. No such condition presently exists. No such showing of extremity, no such showing of joint action by the Chief Executive and the Congress to curtail a constitutional right of the citizen has been made here.
Since we start with an exercise by an American citizen of an activity included in constitutional protection, we will not readily infer that Congress gave the Secretary of State unbridled discretion to grant or withhold it. If we were dealing with political questions entrusted to the Chief Executive by the Constitution we would have a different case. But there is more involved here. In part, of course, the issuance of the passport carries some implication of intention to extend the bearer diplomatic protection, though it does no more than “request all whom it may concern to permit safely and freely to pass, and in case of need to give all lawful aid and protection” to this citizen of the United States. But that function of the passport is subordinate. Its crucial function today is control over exit. And, as we have seen, the right of exit is a personal right included within the word “liberty” as used in the Fifth Amendment. If that’ “liberty” is to be regulated, it must be pursuant to the law-making functions of the Congress. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, supra. And if that power is delegated, the standards must be adequate to pass scrutiny by the accepted tests. See Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U. S. 388, 420-430. Cf. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 307; Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268, 271. Where activities or enjoyment, natural and often necessary to the well-being of an American citizen, such as travel, are involved, we will construe narrowly all delegated powers that curtail or dilute them. See Ex parte Endo, 323 U. S. 283, 301-302. Cf. Hannegan v. Esquire, Inc., 327 U. S. 146, 156; United States v. Rumely, 345 U. S. 41, 46. We hesitate to find in this broad generalized power an authority to trench so heavily on the rights of the citizen.
Thus we do not reach the question of constitutionality. We only conclude that § 1185 and § 211a do not delegate to the Secretary the kind of authority exercised here. We deal with beliefs, with associations, with ideological matters. We must remember that we are dealing here with citizens who have neither been accused of crimes nor found guilty. They are being denied their freedom of movement solely because of their refusal to be subjected to inquiry into their beliefs and associations. They do not seek to escape the law nor to violate it. They may or may not be Communists. But assuming they are, the only law which Congress has passed expressly curtailing the movement of Communists across our borders has not yet become effective. It would therefore be strange to infer that pending the effectiveness of that law, the Secretary has been silently granted by Congress the larger, the more pervasive power to curtail in his discretion the free movement of citizens in order to satisfy himself about their beliefs or associations.
To repeat, we deal here with a constitutional right of the citizen, a right which we must assume Congress will be faithful to respect. We would be faced with important constitutional questions were we to hold that Congress by § 1185 and § 211a had given the Secretary authority to withhold passports to citizens because of their beliefs or associations. Congress has made no such provision in explicit terms; and absent one, the Secretary may not employ that standard to restrict the citizens’ right of free movement.
Reversed.
22 CFR §51.135 provides:
“In order to promote the national interest by assuring that persons who support the world Communist movement of which the Communist Party is an integral unit may not, through use of United States passports, further the purposes of that movement, no passport, except one limited for direct and immediate return to the United States, shall be issued to:
“(a) Persons who are members of the Communist Party or who have recently terminated such membership under such circumstances as to warrant the conclusion — not otherwise rebutted by the evidence — that they continue to act in furtherance of the interests and under the discipline of the Communist Party;
“ (b) Persons, regardless of the formal state of their affiliation with the Communist Party, who engage in activities which support the Communist movement under such circumstances as to warrant the conclusion — not otherwise rebutted by the evidence — that they have engaged in such activities as a result of direction, domination, or control exercised over them by the Communist movement;
“(c) Persons, regardless of the formal state of their affiliation with the Communist Party, as to whom there is reason to believe, on the balance of all the evidence, that they are going abroad to engage in activities which will advance the Communist movement for the purpose, knowingly and wilfully of advancing that movement.”
Section 51.142 of the Regulations provides:
“At any stage of the proceedings in the Passport Division or before the Board, if it is deemed necessary, the applicant may be required, as a part of his application, to subscribe, under oath or affirmation, to a statement with respect to present or past membership in the Communist Party. If applicant states that he is a Communist, refusal of a passport in his case will be without further proceedings.”
Sections 2 and 6 of the Act of September 23, 1950, known as the Internal Security Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 987, 993, 50 U. S. C. §§ 781, 785, provide that it shall be unlawful, when a Communist organization is registered under the Act or when “there is in effect a final order of the Board requiring an organization to register,” for any member having knowledge of such registry and order to apply for a passport or for any official to issue him one. But the conditions precedent have not yet materialized.
That section provides in relevant part:
“(a) When the United States is at war or during the existence of any national emergency proclaimed by the President, . . . and the President shall find that the interests of the United States require that restrictions and prohibitions in addition to those provided otherwise than by this section be imposed upon the departure of persons from and their entry into the United States, and shall make public proclamation thereof, it shall, until otherwise ordered by the President or the Congress, be unlawful—
“(1) for any alien to depart from or enter or attempt to depart from or enter the United States except under such reasonable rules, regulations, and orders, and subject to such limitations and exceptions as the President may prescribe;
“(3) for any person knowingly to make any false statement in an application for permission to depart from or enter the United States with intent to induce or secure the granting of such permission either for himself or for another;
“(b) After such proclamation as is provided for in subsection (a) has been made and published and while such proclamation is in force, it shall, except as otherwise provided by the President, and subject to such limitations and exceptions as the President may authorize and prescribe, be unlawful for any citizen of the United States to depart from or enter, or attempt to depart from or enter, the United States unless he bears a valid passport.”
Proc. No. 3004, 67 Stat. C31.
See 9 Op. Atty. Gen. 350, 352.
Dept. Reg. No. 108.162, effective August 28, 1952, 17 Fed. Reg. 8013.
See 2 Hyde, International Law (2d rev. ed. 1945), §399; 3 Hackworth, Digest of International Law (1942), §268.
See Perkins v. Elg, 307 U. S. 325, 350.
Exec. Order No. 654, June 13, 1907; id., No. 2119-A, Jan. 12, 1915; id., No. 2286-A, Dec. 17, 1915; id., No. 2362-A, Apr. 17, 1916; id., No. 2519-A, Jan. 24, 1917; id., No. 4382-A, Feb. 12, 1926; id., No. 4800, Jan. 31, 1928; id., No. 5860, June 22, 1932; id., No. 7856, Mar. 31, 1938, 3 Fed. Reg. 681, 22 CFR § 51.75. The present provision is that last listed and reads in part as follows:
“The Secretary of State is authorized in his discretion to refuse to issue a passport, to restrict a passport for use only in certain countries, to restrict it against use in certain countries, to withdraw or cancel a passport already issued, and to withdraw a passport for the purpose of restricting its validity or use in certain countries.”
The Department, however, did not feel that the Secretary of State could exercise his discretion willfully without cause. Acting Secretary Wilson wrote on April 27, 1907, "The issuance of passports is a discretionary act on the part of the Secretary of State, and he may, for reasons deemed by him to be sufficient, direct the refusal of a passport to an American citizen; but a passport is not to be refused to an American citizen, even if his character is doubtful, unless there is reason to believe that he will put the passports to an improper or unlawful use.” Foreign Relations of the United States, Pt. II (1910), 1083. See 3 Moore, Digest of International Law (1906), § 512. Freund, Administrative Powers over Persons and Property (1928), 97, states . .in practice it is clear that the Department of State acts upon the theory that it must grant the passport unless there is some circumstance making it a duty to refuse it. Any other attitude would indeed be intolerable; it would mean an executive power of a political character over individuals quite out of harmony with traditional American legislative practice.”
13 Op. Atty. Gen. 89, 92; 23 Op. Atty. Gen. 509, 511.
Article 42 reads as follows:
“It shall be lawful to any person, for the future, to go out of our kingdom, and to return, safely and securely, by land or by water, saving his allegiance to us, unless it be in time of war, for some short space, for the common good of the kingdom: excepting prisoners and outlaws, according to the laws of the land, and of the people of the nation at war against us, and Merchants who shall be treated as it is said above.” And see Jaffe, op. cit. supra, 19-20; Sibley, The Passport System, 7 J. Soc. Comp. Leg. (N. S.) 26, 32-33; 1 Blaclcstone Commentaries 134-135.
The use of foreign travel to promote educational interests is reviewed by Francis J. Colligan in 30 Dept. State Bull. 663.
See note 3, supra.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellant, who has served on board American-flag commercial vessels in various capacities, is now qualified to act as a second assistant engineer on steam vessels. But between 1949 and 1964 he was employed in trades other than that of a merchant seaman. In October 1964 he applied to the Commandant of the Coast Guard for a validation of the permit or license which evidences his ability to act as a second assistant engineer.
Under the Magnuson Act, 64 Stat. 427, 50 U. S. C. § 191 (b), the President is authorized, if he finds that “the security of the United States is endangered by . . . subversive activity,” to issue rules and regulations “to safeguard against destruction, loss, or injury from sabotage or other subversive acts” all “vessels” in the territories or waters subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
President Truman promulgated Regulations, 33 CFR, pt. 6, which give the Commandant of the Coast Guard authority to grant or withhold validation of any permit or license evidencing the right of a seaman to serve on a merchant vessel of the United States. § 6.10-3. He is directed not to issue such validation unless he. is satisfied that “the character and habits of life of such person are such as to authorize the belief that the presence of the individual on board would not be inimical to the security of the United States.” § 6.10-1.
The questionnaire, which appellant in his application was required to submit, contained the following inquiry which he answered:
“Item 4. Do you now advocate, or have you ever advocated, the overthrow or alteration of the Government of the United States by force' or violence or by unconstitutional means?
“Answer: No.”
The questionnaire contained the following inquiries which related to his membership and participation in organizations which were on the special list of the Attorney General as authorized by Executive Order 10450, 18 Fed. Reg. 2489:
“Item 5. Have you ever submitted material for publication to any of the organizations listed in Item 6 below?
“Answer. No.
“Item 6. Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of, or affiliated or associated with in any way, any of the organizations set forth below? [There followed a list of more than 250 organizations.]
“Answer. Yes.
“If your answer is 'yes/ give full details in Item 7.
“Item 7. (Use this space to explain Items 1 through 6. . . . Attach a separate sheet if there is not enough space here.)
“Answer. I have been a member of many political & social organizations, including several named on this list.
“I cannot remember the names of most of them & could not be specific about any.
“To the best of my knowledge, I have not been a member or participated in the activities of any of these organizations for ten years.”
Upon receiving the questionnaire returned by the appellant, the Commandant advised him that the information was not sufficient and that answers to further interrogatories were necessary.
In reply, appellant, speaking through his counsel, admitted to the Commandant that he had been a member of the Communist Party as well as other organizations on the Attorney General’s list and that he had subscribed to People’s World. He said that he had joined the Party because of his personal philosophy and idealistic goals, but later quit it and the other organizations due to fundamental disagreement with Communist methods and techniques. But beyond that he said he would not answer because “it would be obnoxious to a truly free citizen to answer the kinds of questions under compulsion that you require.” The Commandant declined to process the application further, relying upon 33 CFR § 121.05 (d)(2), which authorizes him to hold the application in abeyance if an applicant fails or refuses to furnish the additional information.
Appellant thereupon brought this action for declaratory relief that the provisions of the Magnuson Act in question and the Commandant’s actions thereunder were unconstitutional, praying that the Commandant be directed to approve his application and that he be enjoined from interfering with appellant’s employment upon vessels flying the American flag.
A three-judge court was convened and the complaint was dismissed. 263 F. Supp. 496. The case is here on appeal, 28 U. S. C. § 1263. We postponed the question of jurisdiction to the merits. 389 U. S. 810.
We agree, as does appellee, that the case was one to be heard by a three-judge court and that accordingly we have jurisdiction of this appeal. For appellant did raise the question as to whether the statute was unconstitutional because of vagueness and abridgment of First Amendment rights and also questioned whether the power to install a screening program was validly delegated. A three-judge court was accordingly proper. Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U. S. 360; Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S. 1.
The Magnuson Act gives the President no express authority to set up a screening program for personnel on merchant vessels of the United States. As respects “any foreign-flag vessels” the power to control those who “go or remain on board” is clear. 50 U. S. C. § 191 (a). As respects personnel of our own merchant ships, the power exists under the Act only if it is found in the power to “safeguard” vessels and waterfront facilities against “sabotage or other subversive acts,” that is, under § 191 (b). The Solicitor General argues that the power to exclude persons from vessels “clearly implies auhority to establish a screening procedure for determining who shall be allowed on board.” But that power to exclude is contained in § 191 (a) which, as noted, applies to “foreign-flag vessels,” while, as we have said, the issue tendered here must find footing in § 191 (b).
We agree with the District Court that keeping our merchant marine free of saboteurs is within the purview of this Act. Our question is a much narrower one.
The Regulations prescribe the standards by which the Commandant is to judge the “character and habits of life” of the employee to determine whether his “presence ... on board” the vessel would be “inimical to the security of the United States”:
“(a) Advocacy of the overthrow or alteration of the Government of the United States by unconstitutional means.
“(b) Commission of, or attempts or preparations to commit, an act of espionage, sabotage, sedition or treason, or conspiring with, or aiding or abetting another to commit such an act.
“(c) Performing, or attempting to perform, duties or otherwise acting so as to serve the interests of another government to the detriment of the United States.
“(d) Deliberate unauthorized disclosure of classified defense information.
“(e) Membership in, or affiliation or sympathetic association with, any foreign or domestic organization, association, movement, group, or combination of persons designated by the Attorney General pursuant to Executive Order 10450, as amended.” 33 CFR § 121.03.
If we assume arguendo that the Act authorizes a type of screening program directed at “membership” or “sympathetic association,” the problem raised by it and the Regulations would b'e kin to the one presented in Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, where a teacher to be hired by a public school of Arkansas had to submit an affidavit “listing all organizations to which he at the time belongs and to which he has belonged during the past five years.” Id., at 481.
We held that an Act touching on First Amendment rights must be narrowly drawn so that the precise evil is exposed; that an unlimited and indiscriminate search of the employee’s past which interferes with his associational freedom is unconstitutional. Id., at 487-490.
If we gave § 191 (b) the broad construction the Solicitor General urges, we would face here the kind of issue present in Shelton v. Tucker, supra, whether government can probe the reading habits, political philosophy, beliefs, and attitudes on social and economic issues of prospective seamen on our merchant vessels.
A saboteur on a merchant vessel may, of course, be dangerous. But no charge that appellant was a saboteur was made. Indeed, no conduct of appellant was at issue before the Commandant. The propositions tendered in the complaint were (1) plaintiff is now and always has been loyal to the United States; (2) he has not been active in any organization on the Attorney General’s list for the past 10 years; (3) he has never committed any act of sabotage or espionage or any act inimical to the security of the United States. Those propositions were neither contested by the Commandant nor conceded. He took the position that admission of evidence on those propositions was “irrelevant and immaterial.”
We are loath to conclude that Congress, in its grant of authority to the President to “safeguard” vessels and waterfront facilities from “sabotage or other subversive acts,” undertook to reach into the First Amendment area. The provision of the Act in question, 50 U. S. C. § 191 (b), speaks only in terms of actions, not ideas or beliefs or reading habits or social, educational, or political associations.
The purpose of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, unlike more recent models promoting a welfare state, was to take government off the backs of people. The First Amendment’s ban against Congress “abridging” freedom of speech, the right peaceably to assemble and to petition, and the “associational freedom” (Shelton v. Tucker, supra, at 490) that goes with those rights create a preserve where the views of the individual are made inviolate. This is the philosophy of Jefferson that “the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction .... [I]t is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order . ...”
No act of sabotage or espionage or any act inimical to the security of the United States is raised or charged in the present case.
In United States v. Rumely, 345 U. S. 41, the Court construed the statutory word “lobbying” to include only direct representation to Congress, its members, and its committees, not all activities tending to influence, encourage, promote, or retard legislation. Id., at 47. Such an interpretation of the statute, it was said, was “in the candid service of avoiding a serious constitutional doubt” (ibid.) — doubts that were serious “in view of the prohibition of the First Amendment.” Id., at 46.
The holding in Rumely was not novel. It is part of the stream of authority which admonishes courts to construe statutes narrowly so as to avoid constitutional questions.
The Court said in Rumely, “Whenever constitutional limits upon the investigative power of Congress have to be drawn by this Court, it ought only to be done after Congress has demonstrated its full awareness of what is at stake by unequivocally authorizing an inquiry of dubious limits. Experience admonishes us to tread warily in this domain.” 345 U. S., at 46.
The present case involves investigation, not by Congress but by the Executive Branch, stemming from congressional delegation. When we read that delegation with an eye to First Amendment problems, we hesitate to conclude that Congress told the Executive to ferret out the ideological strays in the maritime industry. The words it used — “to safeguard . . . from sabotage or other subversive acts” — refer to actions, not to ideas or beliefs. We would have to stretch those words beyond their normal meaning to give them the meaning the Solicitor General urges. Rumely, and its allied cases, teach just the opposite — that statutory words are to be read narrowly so as to avoid questions concerning the “associational freedom” that Shelton v. Tucker protected and concerning other rights within the purview of the First Amendment.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Black, while concurring in the Court’s judgment and opinion, also agrees with the statement in Mr. Justice Fortas’ concurring opinion that the statute under consideration, if construed to authorize the interrogatories involved, is offensive to the First Amendment.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Section 191 provides in part:
“Whenever the President finds that the security of the United States is endangered by reason of actual or threatened war, or invasion, or insurrection, or subversive activity, or ’of disturbances or threatened disturbances of the international relations of the United States, the President is authorized to institute such measures and issue such rules and regulations—
“(a) to govern the anchorage and movement of any foreign-flag vessels in the territorial waters of the United States, to inspect such vessels at any time, to place guards thereon, and, if necessary in his opinion in order to secure such vessels from damage or injury, or to prevent damage or injury to any harbor or waters of the United States, or to secure the observance of rights and obligations of the United States, may take for such purposes full possession and control of such vessels and remove therefrom the officers and crew thereof, and all other persons not especially authorized by him to go or remain on board thereof;
“(b) to safeguard against destruction, loss, or injury from sabotage or other subversive acts, accidents, or other causes of similar nature, vessels, harbors, ports, and waterfront facilities in the United States, the Canal Zone, and all territory and water, continental or insular, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.”
"1. With respect to your statements above, furnish the following information, fully and honestly to the best of your ability:
“(a) List the names of the political and social organizations to which you belonged, and location.
“(b) Furnish approximate dates of membership.
“(c) Furnish full particulars concerning the extent of your activities and participation in the organization's (number and type of meetings/functions attended; positions or offices held; classes or schools attended; contributions made; etc.).
“(d) Your reason for discontinuing the membership.
“(e) Your present attitude toward the principles and objectives of the organizations.
“If your answer is ‘YES’ to the following Questions, explain jully in the space provided at the end of the Interrogatories:
“2. Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of or affiliated with, in any way, the Communist Party, its Subdivisions, Subsidiaries, or Affiliates?
(Answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’)
“3. Have you at any time been a subscriber to the ‘People’s World’?
“. If your answer is ‘Yes,’ give dates.
(Answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’)
4. “Have you at any time engaged in any activities in behalf of
the ‘People’s World’? .
(Answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’)
“If your answer is ‘Yes,’ furnish details.
“5. What is your present attitude toward the Communist Party?
“6. What is your present attitude toward the principles and objectives of Communism?
“7. What is your attitude toward the form of Government in the United States?”
It is true that Senator Magnuson when discussing this measure stated that it “will give the President the authority to invoke th§ same kind of security measures which were invoked in World War I and in World War II.” 96 Cong. Pec. 10795. And from that the Solicitor General argues that the Act authorizes the broad sweeping personnel screening programs which were in force during World War II.
But this reference by Senator Magnuson apparently was to § 191 (a) which, as noted, covers “any foreign-flag vessels.” When it came to § 191 (b) Senator Magnuson did not speak in terms of any screening program, but said:
“It [the bill] also has this purpose, which I think is a good one: As I have said before, the last stronghold of subversive activity in this country, in my opinion, or at least the last concentrated stronghold, has been around our waterfronts. It would be impossible for destruction to come to any great port of the United States, of which there are many, as the result of a ship coming into port with an atomic bomb or with biological or other destructive agency, without some liaison ashore. This would give authority to the President to instruct the FBI, in cooperation with the Coast Guard, the Navy, or any other appropriate governmental agency, to go.to our water fronts and pick out people who might be subversives or security risks to this country. I think it goes a long way toward taking care of the domestic situation, as related to this subject, particularly in view of the large amount of talk we have had in the Senate within the past few days about Communists. The bill also protects that last loophole which is left, by which there might be some actual destruction along the shores of the United States.” 96 Cong. Rec. 11321.
A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, Jeffersonian Cyclopedia 976 (1900).
United States v. Delaware & H. Co., 213 U. S. 366, 407-408; United States v. Harriss, 347 U. S. 612, 618, n. 6; International Machinists v. Street, 367 U. S. 740, 749; Lynch v. Overholser, 369 U. S. 705, 710-711; United States v. National Dairy Corp., 372 U. S. 29, 32.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether, in an action for money damages, a United States District Court has the power to issue a preliminary injunction preventing the defendant from transferring assets in which no lien or equitable interest is claimed.
I
Petitioner Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo, S. A. (GMD), is a Mexican holding company. In February 1994, GMD issued $250 million of 8.25% unsecured, guaranteed notes due in 2001 (Notes), which ranked pari passu in priority of payment with all of GMD’s other unsecured and unsubordinated debt. Interest payments were due in February and August of every year. Four subsidiaries of GMD (which are the remaining petitioners) guaranteed the Notes. Respondents are investment funds which purchased approximately $75 million of the Notes.
Between 1990 and 1994, GMD was involved in a toll road construction program sponsored by the Government of Mexico. In order to elicit private financing, the Mexican Government granted concessions to companies that would build and operate the system of toll roads. GMD was both an investor in the concessionaries and among the construction companies hired by the concessionaries to build the toll roads. Problems in the Mexican economy resulted in severe losses for the concessionaries, who were therefore unable to pay contractors like GMD. In response to these problems, in 1997, the Mexican Government announced the Toll Road Rescue Program, under which it would issue guaranteed notes (Toll Road Notes) to the concessionaries, in exchange for their ceding to the Government ownership of the toll roads. The Toll Road Notes were to be used to pay the bank debt of the concessionaries, and also to pay outstanding receivables held by GMD and other contractors for services rendered to the concessionaries (Toll Road Receivables). In the fall of 1997, GMD announced that it expected to receive approximately $309 million of Toll Road Notes under the program.
Because of the downturn in the Mexican economy and the related difficulties in the toll road program, by mid-1997 GMD was in serious financial trouble. In addition to the Notes, GMD owed other debts of about $450 million. GMD’s 1997 Form 20-F, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 30,1997, stated that GMD’s current liabilities exceeded its current assets and that there was “substantial doubt” whether it could continue as a going concern. As a result of these financial problems, neither GMD nor its subsidiaries (who had guaranteed payment) made the August 1997 interest payment on the Notes.
Between August and December 1997, GMD attempted to negotiate a restructuring of its debt with its creditors. On August 26, Reuters reported that GMD was negotiating with the Mexican banks to reduce its $256 million bank debt, and that it planned to deal with this liability before negotiating with the investors owning the Notes. On October 28, GMD publicly announced that it would place in trust its right to receive $17 million of Toll Road Notes, to cover employee compensation payments, and that it had transferred its right to receive $100 million of Toll Road Notes to the Mexican Government (apparently to pay back taxes). GMD also negotiated with the holders of the Notes (including respondents) to restructure that debt, but by December these negotiations had failed.
On December 11, respondents accelerated the principal amount of their Notes, and, on December 12, filed suit for the amount due in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (petitioners had consented to personal jurisdiction in that forum). The complaint alleged that “GMD is at risk of insolvency, if not insolvent already”; that GMD was dissipating its most significant asset, the Toll Road Notes, and was preferring its Mexican creditors by its planned allocation of Toll Road Notes to the payment of their claims, and by its transfer to them of Toll Road Receivables; and that these actions would “frustrate any judgment” respondents could obtain. App. 29-30. Respondents sought breach-of-contract damages of $80.9 million, and requested a preliminary injunction restraining petitioners from transferring the Toll Road Notes or Receivables. On that same day, the District Court entered a temporary restraining order preventing petitioners from transferring their right to receive the Toll Road Notes.
On December 28, the District Court entered an order in which it found that “GMD is at risk of insolvency if not already insolvent”; that the Toll Road Notes were GMD’s “only substantial asset”; that GMD planned to use the Toll Road Notes “to satisfy its Mexican creditors to the exclusion of [respondents] and other holders of the Notes”; that “[i]n light of [petitioners’] financial condition and dissipation of assets, any judgment [respondents] obtain in this action will be frustrated”; that respondents had demonstrated irreparable injury; and that it was “almost certain” that respondents would succeed on the merits of their claim. App. to Pet. for Cert. 25a-26a. It preliminarily enjoined petitioners “from dissipating, disbursing, transferring, conveying, encumbering or otherwise distributing or affecting any [petitioner’s] right to, interest in, title to or right to receive or retain, any of the [Toll Road Notes].” Id., at 26a. The court ordered respondents to post a $50,000 bond.
The Second Circuit affirmed. 143 F. 3d 688 (1998). We granted certiorari, 525 U. S. 1015 (1998).
II
Respondents contend that events subsequent to petitioners’ appeal of the preliminary injunction render this ease moot. While that appeal was pending in the Second Circuit, the ease proceeded in the District Court. Petitioners filed an answer and asserted various counterclaims. On April 17, 1998, the District Court granted summary judgment to respondents on their contract claim and dismissed petitioners’ counterclaims. The eourt ordered petitioners to pay respondents $82,444,259 by assignment or transfer of Toll Road Receivables or Toll Road Notes; the court also converted the preliminary injunction into a permanent injunction pending such assignment or transfer. Although petitioners initially appealed both portions of this order to the Second Circuit, they later abandoned their appeal from the permanent injunction. The appeal from the payment order is still pending in the Second Circuit. The same date the District Court entered judgment, respondents moved to dismiss petitioners’ first appeal — the one now before us — arguing that the final judgment rendered the appeal moot. On May 4, the Second Circuit denied the motion to dismiss and two days later affirmed, as mentioned above, the District Court’s grant of the preliminary injunction.
Respondents argue that the issue of the propriety of the preliminary injunction is moot because that injunction is now merged into the permanent injunction. Petitioners contend that the ease is not moot because, if we hold that the District Court was without power to issue the preliminary injunction, then under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 65(c) and 65.1 they will have a claim against the injunction bond. They assert that the injunction “interfered with GMD’s efforts to restructure its debt and substantially impaired GMD’s ability to continue its operations in the ordinary course of business.” Brief for Petitioners 7. Respondents concede that a party who has been wrongfully enjoined has a claim on the bond, but they argue that although such a claim might mean that the case is not moot, it does not prevent this interlocutory appeal from becoming moot. In any event, say respondents, because a claim for wrongful injunction requires that the enjoined party win on the ultimate merits, petitioners have forfeited any claim by failing to appeal the portion of the District Court’s, judgment converting the preliminary injunction into a permanent injunction.
Generally, an appeal from the grant of a preliminary injunction becomes moot when the trial court enters a permanent injunction, because the former merges into the latter. We have dismissed appeals in such circumstances. See, e. g., Smith v. Illinois Bell Telephone Co., 270 U. S. 587, 588-589 (1926). We agree with petitioners, however, that their potential cause of action against the injunction bond preserves our jurisdiction over this appeal. Cf. Liner v. Jafco, Inc., 375 U. S. 301, 305-306 (1964).
In the case of the usual preliminary injunction, the plaintiff seeks to enjoin, pending the outcome of the litigation, action that he claims is unlawful. If his lawsuit turns out to be meritorious — if he is found to be entitled to the permanent injunction that he seeks — even if the preliminary injunction was wrongly issued (because at that stage of the litigation the plaintiff’s prospects of winning were not sufficiently clear, or the plaintiff was not suffering irreparable injury) its issuance would in any event be harmless error. The final injunction establishes that the defendant should not have been engaging in the conduct that was enjoined. Hence, it is reasonable to regard the preliminary injunction as merging into the final one: If the latter is valid, the former is, if not procedurally correct, at least harmless. A quite different situation obtains in the present case, where (according to petitioners’ claim) the substantive validity of the final injunction does not establish the substantive validity of the preliminary one. For the latter was issued not to enjoin unlawful conduct, but rather to render unlawful conduct that would otherwise be permissible, in order to protect the anticipated judgment of the court; and it is the essence of petitioners’ claim that such an injunction can be issued only after the judgment is rendered. If petitioners are correct, they have been harmed by issuance of the unauthorized preliminary injunction — and hence should be able to recover on the bond — even i/the final injunction is proper. It would make no sense, when this is the claim, to say that the preliminary injunction merges into the final one.
We reject respondents’ argument that the controversy over the bond saves the “ease” from mootness, but does not save the “issue” of the validity of the preliminary injunction from mootness. University of Texas v. Camenisch, 451 U. S. 390 (1981), upon which respondents principally rely, is inap-posite. In that case a deaf graduate student sued the University of Texas to obtain an injunction requiring the school to pay for a sign-language interpreter for his school work. The District Court granted a preliminary injunction and required the student to post an injunction bond. Pending appeal of that injunction, the university paid for the interpreter, but the student graduated before the Court of Appeals issued its decision. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeals held that the appeal of the preliminary injunction was not moot because the issue of who had to pay for the interpreter remained. We reversed:
“The Court of Appeals correctly held that the case as a whole is not moot, since, as that court noted, it remains to be decided who should ultimately bear the cost of the interpreter. However, the issue before the Court of Appeals was not who should pay for the interpreter, but rather whether the District Court had abused its discretion in issuing a preliminary injunction requiring the University to pay for him. The two issues are significantly different, since whether the preliminary injunction should have issued depended on the balance of factors listed in [Fifth Circuit precedent], while whether the University should ultimately bear the cost of the interpreter depends on a final resolution of the merits of Cameniseh’s case.
“This, then, is simply another instance in which one issue in a ease has become moot, but the ease as a whole remains alive because other issues have not become moot.... Because the only issue presently before us— the correctness of the decision to grant a preliminary injunction — is moot, the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be vacated and the ease must be remanded to the District Court for trial on the merits.” Id., at 393-394 (citations omitted).
Camenisch is simply an application of the same principle which underlies the rule that a preliminary injunction ordinarily merges into the final injunction. Since the preliminary injunction no longer had any effect (the student had graduated), and since the substantive issue governing the propriety of what had been paid under the preliminary injunction (as opposed to the procedural issue of whether the injunction should have issued when it did) was the same issue underlying the merits claim, there was no sense in trying the preliminary injunction question separately. In the present case, however, petitioners’ basis for arguing that the preliminary injunction was wrongfully issued — which is that the District Court lacked the power to restrain their use of assets pending a money judgment — is independent of respondents’ claim on the merits — which is that petitioners breached the note instrument by failing to make the August 1997 interest payment. The resolution of the merits is immaterial to the validity of petitioners’ potential claim on the bond. Cf. American Can Co. v. Mansukhani, 742 F. 2d 314, 320-321 (CA7 1984); Stacey G. v. Pasadena Independent Sch. Dist., 695 F. 2d 949, 955 (CA5 1983).
For the same reason, petitioners’ failure to appeal the permanent injunction does not forfeit their claim that the preliminary injunction was wrongful. Petitioners do not contest the District Court’s power to issue a permanent injunction after rendering a money judgment against them, but they do contest its power to issue a preliminary injunction, and they do so on a ground that has nothing to do with the validity of the permanent injunction. And again for the same reason, we reject respondents’ argument that petitioners have no wrongful injunction claim because they lost the case on the merits.
III
We turn, then, to the merits question whether the District Court had authority to issue the preliminary injunction in this case pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65. The Judiciary Act of 1789 conferred on the federal courts jurisdiction over “all suits... in equity.” § 11, 1 Stat. 78. We have long held that “[t]he 'jurisdiction’ thus conferred... is an authority to administer in equity suits the principles of the system of judicial remedies which had been devised and was being administered by the English Court of Chancery at the time of the separation of the two countries.” Atlas Life Ins. Co. v. W. I. Southern, Inc., 306 U. S. 563, 568 (1939). See also, e. g., Stainback v. Mo Hock Ke Lok Po, 336 U. S. 368, 382, n. 26 (1949); Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U. S. 99, 105 (1945); Gordon v. Washington, 295 U. S. 30, 36 (1935). “Substantially, then, the equity jurisdiction of the federal courts is the jurisdiction in equity exercised by the High Court of Chancery in England at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the enactment of the original Judiciary Act, 1789 (1 Stat. 73).” A. Dobie, Handbook of Federal Jurisdiction and Procedure 660 (1928). “[T]he substantive prerequisites for obtaining an equitable remedy as well as the general availability of injunctive relief are not altered by [Rule 65] and depend on traditional principles of equity jurisdiction.” 11A C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure §2941, p. 31 (2d ed. 1995). We must ask, therefore, whether the relief respondents requested here was traditionally accorded by courts of equity.
A
Respondents do not even argue this point. The United States as amicus curiae, however, contends that the preliminary injunction issued in this case is analogous to the relief obtained in the equitable action known as a “creditor’s bill.” This remedy was used (among other purposes) to permit a judgment creditor to discover the debtor’s assets, to reach equitable interests not subject to execution at law, and to set aside fraudulent conveyances. See 1 D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies §2.8(1), pp. 191-192 (2d ed. 1993); 4 S. Symons, Pomeroy’s Equity Jurisprudence § 1415, pp. 1065-1066 (5th ed. 1941); 1 G. Glenn, Fraudulent Conveyances and Preferences §26, p. 51 (rev. ed. 1940). It was well established, however, that, as a general rule, a creditor’s bill could be brought only by a creditor who had already obtained a judgment establishing the debt. See, e. g., Pusey & Jones Co. v. Hanssen, 261 U.S. 491, 497 (1923); Hollins v. Brierfield Coal & Iron Co., 150 U. S. 371, 378-379 (1893); Cates v. Allen, 149 U. S. 451, 457 (1893); National Tube Works Co. v. Ballou, 146 U. S. 517, 523-524 (1892); Scott v. Neely, 140 U. S. 106, 113 (1891); Smith v. Railroad Co., 99 U. S. 398, 401 (1879); Adler v. Fenton, 24 How. 407, 411-413 (1861); see also 4 Symons, supra, at 1067; 1 Glenn, supra, §9, at 11; F. Wait, Fraudulent Conveyances and Creditors’ Bills §73, pp. 110-111 (1884). The rule requiring a judgment was a product, not just of the procedural requirement that remedies at law had to be exhausted before equitable remedies could be pursued, but also of the substantive rule that a general creditor (one without a judgment) had no cognizable interest, either at law or in equity, in the property of his debtor, and therefore could not interfere with the debtor’s use of that property. As stated by Chancellor Kent: “The reason of the rule seems to be, that until the creditor has established his title, he has no right to interfere, and it would lead to an unnecessary, and, perhaps, a fruitless and oppressive interruption of the exercise of the debtor’s rights.” Wiggins v. Armstrong, 2 Johns. Ch. 144, 145-146 (N. Y. 1816). See also, e. g., Guaranty Trust Co., supra, at 106-107, n. 3; Pusey & Jones Co., supra, at 497; Cates, supra, at 457; Adler, supra, at 411-418; Shufeldt v. Boehm, 96 Ill. 560, 564 (1880); 1 Glenn, supra, § 9, at 11; Wait, supra, §52, at 81, §73, at 113.
The United States asserts that there were exceptions to the general rule requiring a judgment. The existence and scope of these exceptions is by no means clear. Cf. G. Glenn, The Rights and Remedies of Creditors Respecting Their Debtor’s Property §§21-24, pp. 18-21 (1915). Although the United States says that some of them “might have been relevant in a case like this one,” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 11, it chooses not to resolve (or argue definitively) whether any particular one would have been, id., at 12. For their part, as noted above, respondents do not discuss creditor’s bills at all. Particularly in the absence of any discussion of this point by the lower courts, we are not inclined to speculate upon the existence or applicability to this case of any exceptions, and follow the well-established general rule that a judgment establishing the debt was necessary before a court of equity would interfere with the debtor’s use of his property.
Justice Ginsburg concedes that federal equity courts have traditionally rejected the type of provisional relief granted in this case. See post, at 338 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). She invokes, however, “the grand aims of equity,” and asserts a general power to grant relief whenever legal remedies are not “practical and efficient,” unless there is a statute to the contrary. Post, at 342 (internal quotation marks omitted). This expansive view of equity must be rejected. Joseph Story’s famous treatise reflects what we consider the proper rule, both with regard to the general role of equity in our “government of laws, not of men,” and with regard to its application in the very case before us:
“Mr. Justice Blackstone has taken considerable pains to refute this doctrine. ‘It is said,’ he remarks, ‘that it is the business of a Court of Equity, in England, to abate the rigor of the common law. But no such power is contended for. Hard was the ease of bond creditors, whose debtor devised away his real estate.... But a Court of Equity can give no relief....’ And illustrations of the same character may be found in every state of the Union.... In many [States], if not in all, a debtor may prefer one creditor to another, in discharging his debts, whose assets are wholly insufficient to pay all the debts.” 1 Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence § 12, pp. 14-15 (1886).
See also infra, at 332-833. We do not question the proposition that equity is flexible; but in the federal system, at least, that flexibility is confined within the broad boundaries of traditional equitable relief. To accord a type of relief that has never been available before — and especially (as here) a type of relief that has been specifically disclaimed by longstanding judicial precedent — is to invoke a “default rule,” post, at 342, not of flexibility but of omnipotence. When there are indeed new conditions that might call for a wrenching departure from past practice, Congress is in a much better position than we both to perceive them and to design the appropriate remedy. Despite Justice Gins-BURG’s allusion to the “increasing complexities of modern business relations,” post, at 337 (internal quotation marks omitted), and to the bygone “age of slow-moving capital and comparatively immobile wealth,” post, at 338, we suspect there is absolutely nothing new about debtors’ trying to avoid paying their debts, or seeking to favor some creditors over others — or even about their seeking to achieve these ends through “sophisticated... strategies,” ibid. The law of fraudulent conveyances and bankruptcy was developed to prevent such conduct; an equitable power to restrict a debtor’s use of his unencumbered property before judgment was not.
Respondents argue (supported by the United States) that the merger of law and equity changed the rule that a general creditor could not interfere with the debtor’s use of his property. But the merger did not alter substantive rights. “Notwithstanding the fusion of law and equity by the Rules of Civil Procedure, the substantive principles of Courts of Chancery remain unaffected.” Stainback, 336 U. S., at 382, n. 26. Even in the absence of historical support, we would not be inclined to believe that it is merely a question of procedure whether a person’s unencumbered assets can be frozen by general-creditor claimants before their claims have been vindicated by judgment. It seems to us that question goes to the substantive rights of all property owners. In any event it appears, as we have observed, that the rule requiring a judgment was historically regarded as serving, not merely the procedural end of assuring exhaustion of legal remedies (which the merger of law and equity could render irrelevant), but also the substantive end of giving the creditor an interest in the property which equity could then act upon. See supra, at 319-320.
We note that none of the parties or amici specifically raised the applicability to this case of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 18(b), which states:
‘^Whenever a claim is one heretofore cognizable only after another claim has been prosecuted to a conclusion, the two claims may be joined in a single action; but the court shall grant relief in that action only in accordance with the relative substantive rights of the parties. In particular, a plaintiff may state a claim for money and a claim to have set aside a conveyance fraudulent as to that plaintiff, without first having obtained a judgment establishing the claim for money.”
Because the Rule was neither mentioned by the lower courts nor briefed by the parties, we decline to consider its application to the present ease. We note, however, that it says nothing about preliminary relief, and specifically reserves substantive rights (as did the Rules Enabling Act, see 28 U. S. C. § 2072(b)).
B
Respondents contend that two of our postmerger cases support the District Court’s order “in principle.” Brief for Respondents 22. We find both of these cases entirely consistent with the view that the preliminary injunction in this case was beyond the equitable authority of the District Court.
In Deckert v. Independence Shares Corp., 311 U. S. 282 (1940), purchasers of certificates that entitled the holders to invest in a trust of common stocks sued the company that sold the certificates and the company administering the trust, and related officers and affiliates, under the Securities Act of 1933, alleging that the sale was fraudulent. They further alleged that the company that sold the certificates was insolvent, that it was likely to make preferential payments to certain creditors, and that its assets were in danger of dissipation. They sought the appointment of a receiver and an injunction restraining the company administering the trust from transferring any assets of the corporations or of the trust. The District Court preliminarily enjoined the company from transferring a fixed sum. Id., at 285-286. After deciding that the Securities Act permitted equitable relief, we concluded that the bill stated a cause of action for the equitable remedies of rescission of the contracts and restitution of the consideration paid, id., at 287-288, and that the preliminary injunction “was a reasonable measure to preserve the status quo pending final determination of the questions raised by the bill,” id., at 290. Deckert is not on point here because, as the Court took pains to explain, “the bill state[d] a cause [of action] for equitable relief.” Id., at 288.
“The principal objects of the suit are rescission of the Savings Plan contracts and restitution of the consideration paid.... That a suit to rescind a contract induced by fraud and to recover the consideration paid may be maintained in equity, at least where there are circumstances making the legal remedy inadequate, is well established.” Id., at 289.
The preliminary relief available in a suit seeking equitable relief has nothing to do with the preliminary relief available in a creditor’s bill seeking equitable assistance in the collection of a legal debt.
In the second ease relied on by respondents, United States v. First Nat. City Bank, 379 U. S. 378 (1965), the United States, in its suit to enforce a tax assessment and tax lien, requested a preliminary injunction preventing a third-party bank from transferring any of the taxpayer’s assets which were held in a foreign branch office of the bank. Id., at 379-380. Relying on a statute giving district courts the power to grant injunctions “'necessary or appropriate for the enforcement of the internal revenue laws,’ ” id., at 380 (quoting former 26 U. S. C. § 7402(a) (1964 ed.)), we concluded that the temporary injunction was “appropriate to prevent further dissipation of assets,” 379 U. S., at 385. We stated that if a district court could not issue such an injunction, foreign taxpayers could avoid their tax obligations.
First National is distinguishable from the present ease on a number of grounds. First, of course, it involved not the Court’s general equitable powers under the Judiciary Act of 1789, but its powers under the statute authorizing issuance of tax injunctions. Second, First National relied in part on the doctrine that courts of equity will “ ‘go much farther both to give and withhold relief in furtherance of the public interest than they are accustomed to go when only private interests are involved,’ ” id., at 383 (quoting Virginian R. Co. v. Railway Employees, 300 U. S. 515, 552 (1937)). And finally, although the Court did not rely on this fact, the creditor (the Government) asserted an equitable lien on the property, see 379 U. S., at 379-380, which presents a different case from that of the unsecured general creditor.
That Deckert and First National should not be read as establishing the principle relied on by respondents is strongly suggested by De Beers Consol. Mines, Ltd. v. United States, 325 U. S. 212 (1945). In that case the United States brought suit against several corporations seeking equitable relief against alleged antitrust violations. The United States also sought a preliminary injunction restraining the defendants from removing their assets from this country pending adjudication of the merits. We concluded that the injunction was beyond the power of the District Court. We stated that “[a] preliminary injunction is always appropriate to grant intermediate relief of the same character as that which may be granted finally,” but that the injunction in that case dealt “with a matter lying wholly outside the issues in the suit.” Id., at 220. We pointed out that “Federal and State courts appear consistently to have refused relief of the nature here sought,” id., at 221, and we concluded:
“To sustain the challenged order would create a precedent of sweeping effect. This suit, as we have said, is not to be distinguished from any other suit in equity. What applies to it applies to all such. Every suitor who resorts to chancery for any sort of relief by injunction may, on a mere statement of belief that the defendant can easily make away with or transport his money or goods, impose an injunction on him, indefinite in duration, disabling him to use so much of his funds or property as the court deems necessary for security or compliance with its possible decree. And, if so, it is difficult to see why a plaintiff in any action for a personal judgment in tort or contract may not, also, apply to the chancellor for a so-called injunction sequestrating his opponent’s assets pending recovery and satisfaction of a judgment in such a law action. No relief of this character has been thought justified in the long history of equity jurisprudence.” Id., at 222-223.
The statements in the last two sentences, though dictum, confirms that the relief sought by respondents does not have a basis in the traditional powers of equity courts.
C
As further support for the proposition that the relief accorded here was unknown to traditional equity practice, it is instructive that the English Court of Chancery, from which the First Congress borrowed in conferring equitable powers on the federal courts, did not provide an injunctive remedy such as this -until 1975. In that year, the Court of Appeal decided Mareva Compania Naviera S. A. v. International Bulkcarriers S. A., 2 Lloyd’s Rep. 509. Mareva, although acknowledging that the prior case of Lister & Co. v. Stubbs, [1890] 45 Ch. D. 1 (C. A.), said that a court has no power to protect a creditor before he gets judgment, relied on a statute giving courts the authority to grant an interlocutory injunction ‘“in all eases in which it shall appear to the court to be just or convenient,' ” 2 Lloyd’s Rep., at 510 (quoting Judicature Act of 1925, Law Reports 1925 (2), 15 & 16 Geo. V, ch. 49, §45). It held (in the words of Lord Denning) that “[i]f it appears that the debt is due and owing — and there is a danger that the debtor may dispose of his assets so as to defeat it before judgment — the Court has jurisdiction in a proper case to grant an interlocutory judgment so as to prevent him [sic] disposing of those assets.” 2 Lloyd’s Rep., at 510. The Mareva injunction has now been confirmed by statute. See Supreme Court Act of 1981, § 37, 11 Halsbury’s Statutes 966, 1001 (1991 reissue).
Commentators have emphasized that the adoption of Mareva injunctions was a dramatic departure from prior practice.
"Before 1975 the courts would not grant an injunction to restrain a defendant from disposing of his assets pen-dente lite merely because the plaintiff feared that by the time he obtained judgment the defendant would have no assets against which execution could be levied. Applications for such injunctions were consistently refused in the English Commercial Court as elsewhere. They were thought to be so clearly beyond the powers of the court as to be ‘wholly unarguable.’ ” Hetherington, supra n. 9, at 3.
See also Wasserman, Equity Renewed: Preliminary Injunctions to Secure Potential Money Judgments, 67 Wash. L. Rev. 257, 337 (1992) (stating that Mareva “revolutionized English practice”). The Mareva injunction has been recognized as a powerful tool for general creditors; indeed, it has been called the “nuclear weapo[n] of the law.” R. Ough & W. Flenley, The Mareva Injunction and Anton Piller Order: Practice and Precedents xi (2d ed. 1993).
The parties debate whether Mareva was based on statutory authority or on inherent equitable power. See Brief for Petitioners 17, n. 8; Brief for Respondents 35-36. Regardless of the answer to this question, it is indisputable that the English courts of equity did not actually exercise this power until 1975, and that federal courts in this country have traditionally applied the principle that courts of equity will not, as a general matter, interfere with the debtor’s disposition of his property at the instance of a nonjudgment creditor. We think it incompatible with our traditionally cautious approach to equitable powers, which leaves any substantial expansion of past practice to Congress, to decree the elimination of this significant protection for debtors.
IV
The parties and amici discuss various arguments for and against creating the preliminary injunctive remedy at issue in this ease. The United States suggests that the factors supporting such a remedy include
“simplicity and uniformity of procedure; preservation of the court’s ability to render a judgment that will prove enforceable; prevention of inequitable conduct on the part of defendants; avoiding disparities between defendants that have assets within the jurisdiction (which would be subject to pre-judgment attachment 'at law’) and those that do not; avoiding the necessity for plaintiffs to locate a forum in which the defendant has substantial assets; and, in an age of easy global mobility of capital, preserving the attractiveness of the United States as a center for financial transactions.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16.
But there are weighty considerations on the other side as well, the most significant of which is the historical principle that before judgment (or its equivalent) an unsecured creditor has no rights at law or in equity in the property of his debtor. As one treatise writer explained:
“A rule of procedure which allowed any prowling creditor, before his claim was definitely established by judgment, and without reference to the character of his demand, to file a bill to discover assets, or to impeach transfers, or
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A regulation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission authorizes refusal to hire an individual because his performance on the job would endanger his own health, owing to a disability. The question in this case is whether the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 104 Stat. 328, 42 U. S. C. § 12101 et seq. (1994 ed. and Supp. V), permits the regulation. We hold that it does.
I
Beginning in 1972, respondent Mario Echazabal worked for independent contractors at an oil refinery owned by petitioner Chevron U. S. A. Inc. Twice he applied for a job directly with Chevron, which offered to hire him if he could pass the company’s physical examination. See 42 U. S. C. § 12112(d)(3) (1994 ed.). Each time, the exam showed liver abnormality or damage, the cause eventually being identified as Hepatitis C, which Chevron’s doctors said would be aggravated by continued exposure to toxins at Chevron’s refinery. In each instance, the company withdrew the offer, and the second time it asked the contractor employing Echazabal either to reassign him to a job without exposure to harmful chemicals or to remove him from the refinery altogether. The contractor laid him off in early 1996.
Echazabal filed suit, ultimately removed to federal court, claiming, among other things, that Chevron violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA or Act) in refusing to hire him, or even to let him continue working in the plant, because of a disability, his liver condition. Chevron defended under a regulation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) permitting the defense that a worker’s disability on the job would pose a “direct threat” to his health, see 29 CFR § 1630.15(b)(2) (2001). Although two medical witnesses disputed Chevron’s judgment that Echaza-bal’s liver function was impaired and subject to further damage under the job conditions in the refinery, the District Court granted summary judgment for Chevron. It held that Echazabal raised no genuine issue of material fact as to whether the company acted reasonably in relying on its own doctors’ medical advice, regardless of its accuracy.
On appeal, the Ninth Circuit asked for briefs on a threshold question not raised before, whether the EEOC’s regulation recognizing a threat-to-self defense, ibid., exceeded the scope of permissible rulemaking under the ADA. 226 F. 3d 1063, 1066, n. 3 (2000). The Circuit held that it did and reversed the summary judgment. The court rested its position on the text of the ADA itself in explicitly recognizing an employer’s right to adopt an employment qualification barring anyone whose disability would place others in the workplace at risk, while saying nothing about threats to the disabled employee himself. The majority opinion reasoned that “by specifying only threats to ‘other individuals in the workplace,’ the statute makes it clear that threats to other persons — including the disabled individual himself — are not included within the scope of the [direct threat] defense,” id., at 1066-1067, and it indicated that any such regulation would unreasonably conflict with congressional policy against paternalism in the workplace, id., at 1067-1070. The court went on to reject Chevron’s further argument that Echaza-bal was not “ ‘otherwise qualified’ ” to perform the job, holding that the ability to perform a job without risk to one’s health or safety is not an “ ‘essential function’ ” of the job. Id., at 1070.
The decision conflicted with one from the Eleventh Circuit, Moses v. American Nonwovens, Inc., 97 F. 3d 446, 447 (1996), and raised tension with the Seventh Circuit case of Koshinski v. Decatur Foundry, Inc., 177 F. 3d 599, 603 (1999). We granted certiorari, 534 U. S. 991 (2001), and now reverse.
II
Section 102 of the ADA, 104 Stat. 328, 42 U. S. C. § 12101 et seq., prohibits “discrimination] against a qualified individual with a disability because of the disability ... in regard to” a number of actions by an employer, including “hiring.” 42 U. S. C. § 12112(a). The statutory definition of “discrimination]” covers a number of things an employer might do to block a disabled person from advancing in the workplace, such as “using qualification standards . . . that screen out or tend to screen out an individual with a disability.” § 12112(b)(6). By that same definition, ibid., as well as by separate provision, § 12113(a), the Act creates an affirmative defense for action under a qualification standard “shown to be job-related for the position in question and ... consistent with business necessity.” Such a standard may include “a requirement that an individual shall not pose a direct threat to the health or safety of other individuals in the workplace,” § 12113(b), if the individual cannot perform the job safely with reasonable accommodation, § 12113(a). By regulation, the EEOC carries the defense one step further, in allowing an employer to screen out a potential worker with a disability not only for risks that he would pose to others in the workplace but for risks on the job to his own health or safety as well: “The term ‘qualification standard’ may include a requirement that an individual shall not pose a direct threat to the health or safety of the individual or others in the workplace.” 29 CFR § 1680.15(b)(2) (2001).
Chevron relies on the regulation here, since it says a job in the refinery would pose a “direct threat” to Echazabal’s health. In seeking deference to the agency, it argues that nothing in the statute unambiguously precludes such a defense, while the regulation was adopted under authority explicitly delegated by Congress, 42 U. S. C. § 12116, and after notice-and-comment rulemaking. See United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 227 (2001); Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842-844 (1984). Echazabal, on the contrary, argues that as a matter of law the statute precludes the regulation, which he claims would be an unreasonable interpretation even if the agency had leeway to go beyond the literal text.
A
As for the textual bar to any agency action as a matter of law, Echazabal says that Chevron loses on the threshold question whether the statute leaves a gap for the EEOC to fill. See id., at 843-844. Echazabal recognizes the generality of the language providing for a defense when a plaintiff is screened out by “qualification standards” that are “job-related and consistent with business necessity” (and reasonable accommodation would not cure the difficulty posed by employment). 42 U. S. C. § 12113(a). Without more, those provisions would allow an employer to turn away someone whose work would pose a serious risk to himself. That possibility is said to be eliminated, however, by the further specification that “‘qualification standards’ may include a requirement that an individual shall not pose a direct threat to the health or safety of other individuals in the workplace.” § 12113(b); see also §12111(3) (defining “direct threat” in terms of risk to others). Echazabal contrasts this provision with an EEOC regulation under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 87 Stat. 357, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 701 et seq., antedating the ADA, which recognized an employer’s right to consider threats both to other workers and to the threatening employee himself. Because the ADA defense provision recognizes threats only if they extend to another, Echazabal reads the statute to imply as a matter of law that threats to the worker himself cannot count.
The argument follows the reliance of the Ninth Circuit majority on the interpretive canon, expressio unius est exclusio alterius, “expressing one item of [an] associated group or series excludes another left unmentioned.” United States v. Vonn, 535 U. S. 55, 65 (2002). The rule is fine when it applies, but this case joins some others in showing when it does not. See, e. g., ibid.; United Dominion Industries, Inc. v. United States, 532 U. S. 822, 836 (2001); Pauley v. BethEnergy Mines, Inc., 501 U. S. 680, 703 (1991).
The first strike against the expression-exclusion rule here is right in the text that Echazabal quotes. Congress included the harm-to-others provision as an example of legitimate qualifications that are “job-related and consistent with business necessity.” These are spacious defensive categories, which seem to give an agency (or in the absence of agency action, a court) a good deal of discretion in setting the limits of permissible qualification standards. That discretion is confirmed, if not magnified, by the provision that “qualification standards” falling within the limits of job relation and business necessity “may include” a veto on those who would directly threaten others in the workplace. Far from supporting Echazabal’s position, the expansive phrasing of “may include” points directly away from the sort of exclusive specification he claims. United States v. New York Telephone Co., 434 U. S. 159, 169 (1977); Federal Land Bank of St. Paul v. Bismarck Lumber Co., 314 U. S. 95, 100 (1941).
Just as statutory language suggesting exclusiveness is missing, so is that essential extrastatutory ingredient of an expression-exclusion demonstration, the series of terms from which an omission bespeaks a negative implication. The canon depends on identifying a series of two or more terms or things that should be understood to go hand in hand, which is abridged in circumstances supporting a sensible inference that the term left out must have been meant to be excluded. E. Crawford, Construction of Statutes 337 (1940) (expressio unius “ ‘properly applies only when in the natural association of ideas in the mind of the reader that which is expressed is so set over by way of strong contrast to that which is omitted that the contrast enforces the affirmative inference’” (quoting State ex rel. Curtis v. De Corps, 134 Ohio St. 295, 299, 16 N. E. 2d 459, 462 (1938))); United States v. Vonn, supra.
Strike two in this case is the failure to identify any such established series, including both threats to others and threats to self, from which Congress appears to have made a deliberate choice to omit the latter item as a signal of the affirmative defense’s scope. The closest Echazabal comes is the EEOC’s rule interpreting the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 87 Stat. 357, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 701 et seq., a precursor of the ADA. That statute excepts from the definition of a protected “qualified individual with a handicap” anyone who would pose a “direct threat to the health or safety of other individuals,” but, like the later ADA, the Rehabilitation Act says nothing about threats to self that particular employment might pose. 42 U. S. C. § 12113(b). The EEOC nonetheless extended the exception to cover threat-to-self employment, 29 CFR § 1613.702(f) (1990), and Echazabal argues that Congress’s adoption only of the threat-to-others exception in the ADA must have been a deliberate omission of the Rehabilitation Act regulation’s tandem term of threat-to-self, with intent to exclude it.
But two reasons stand in the way of treating the omission as an unequivocal implication of congressional intent. The first is that the EEOC was not the only agency interpreting the Rehabilitation Act, with the consequence that its regulation did not establish a clear, standard pairing of threats to self and others. While the EEOC did amplify upon the text of the Rehabilitation Act exclusion by recognizing threats to self along with threats to others, three other agencies adopting regulations under the Rehabilitation Act did not. See 28 CFR §42.540(0(1) (1990) (Department of Justice), 29 CFR § 32.3 (1990) (Department of Labor), and 45 CFR § 84.3(k)(l) (1990) (Department of Health and Human Services). It would be a stretch, then, to say that there was a standard usage, with its source in agency practice or elsewhere, that connected threats to others so closely to threats to self that leaving out one was like ignoring a twin.
Even if we put aside this variety of administrative expérience, however, and look no further than the EEOC’s Rehabilitation Act regulation pairing self and others, the congressional choice to speak only of threats to others would still be equivocal. Consider what the ADA reference to threats to others might have meant on somewhat different facts. If the Rehabilitation Act had spoken only of “threats to health” and the EEOC regulation had read that to mean threats to self or others, a congressional choice to be more specific in the ADA by listing threats to others but not threats to self would have carried a message. The most probable reading would have been that Congress understood what a failure to specify could lead to and had made a choice to limit the possibilities. The statutory basis for any agency rule-making under the ADA would have been different from its basis under the Rehabilitation Act and would have indicated a difference in the agency’s rulemaking discretion. But these are not the circumstances hére. Instead of making the ADA different from the Rehabilitation Act on the point at issue, Congress used identical language, knowing full well what the EEOC had made of that language under the earlier statute. Did Congress mean to imply that the agency had been wrong in reading the earlier language to allow it to recognize threats to self, or did Congress just assume that the agency was free to do under the ADA what it had already done under the earlier Act’s identical language? There is no way to tell. Omitting the EEOC’s reference to self-harm while using the very language that the EEOC had read as consistent with recognizing self-harm is equivocal at best. No negative inference is possible.
There is even a third strike against applying the expression-exclusion rule here. It is simply that there is no apparent stopping point to the argument that by specifying a threat-to-others defense Congress intended a negative implication about those whose safety could be considered. When Congress specified threats to others in the workplace, for example, could it possibly have meant that an employer could not defend a refiisal to hire when a worker’s disability would threaten others outside the workplace? If Typhoid Mary had come under the ADA, would a meat packer have been defenseless if Mary had sued after being turned away? See 42 U. S. C. § 12113(d). Expressio unius just fails to work here.
B
Since Congress has not spoken exhaustively on threats to a worker’s own health, the agency regulation can claim adherence under the rule in Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843, so long as it makes sense of the statutory defense for qualification standards that are “job-related and consistent with business necessity.” 42 U. S. C. § 12113(a). Chevron’s reasons for calling the regulation reasonable are unsurprising: moral concerns aside, it wishes to avoid time lost to sickness, excessive turnover from medical retirement or death, litigation under state tort law, and the risk of violating the national Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, 84 Stat. 1590, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §651 et seq. Although Eehazabal claims that none of these reasons is legitimate, focusing on the concern with OSHA will be enough to show that the regulation is entitled to survive.
Eehazabal points out that there is no known instance of OSHA enforcement, or even threatened enforcement, against an employer who relied on the ADA to hire a worker willing to accept a risk to himself from his disability on the job. In Echazabal’s mind, this shows that invoking OSHA policy and possible OSHA liability is just a red herring to excuse covert discrimination. But there is another side to this. The text of OSHA itself says its point is “to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthful working conditions,” § 651(b), and Congress specifically obligated an employer to “furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards, that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees,” § 654(a)(1). Although there may be an open question whether an employer would actually be liable under OSHA for hiring an individual who knowingly consented to the particular dangers the job would pose to him, see Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae 19, n. 7, there is no denying that the employer would be asking for trouble: his decision to hire would put Congress’s policy in the ADA, a disabled individual’s right to operate on equal terms within the workplace, at loggerheads with the competing policy of OSHA, to ensure the safety of “each” and “every” worker. Courts would, of course, resolve the tension if there were no agency action, but the EEOC’s resolution exemplifies the substantive choices that agencies are expected to make when Congress leaves the intersection of competing objectives both imprecisely marked but subject to the administrative leeway found in 42 U. S. C. § 12113(a).
Nor can the EEOC’s resolution be fairly called unreasonable as allowing the kind of workplace paternalism the ADA was meant to outlaw. It is true that Congress had paternalism in its sights when it passed the ADA, see § 12101(a)(5) (recognizing “overproteetive rules and policies” as a form of discrimination). But the EEOC has taken this to mean that Congress was not aiming at an employer’s refusal to place disabled workers at a specifically demonstrated risk, but was trying to get at refusals to give an even break to classes of disabled people, while claiming to act for their own good in reliance on untested and pretextual stereotypes. Its regulation disallows just this sort of sham protection, through demands for a particularized enquiry into the harms the employee would probably face. The direct threat defense must be “based on a reasonable medical judgment that relies on the most current medical knowledge and/or the best available objective evidence,” and upon an expressly “individualized assessment of the individual’s present ability to safely perform the essential functions of the job,” reached after considering, among other things, the imminence of the risk and the severity of the harm portended. 29 CFR § 1630.2(r) (2001). The EEOC was certainly acting within the reasonable zone when it saw a difference between rejecting workplace paternalism and ignoring specific and documented risks to the employee himself, even if the employee would take his chances for the sake of getting a job.
Finally, our conclusions that some regulation is permissible and this one is reasonable are not open to Echazabal’s objection that they reduce the direct threat provision to “surplusage,” see Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter, Communities for Great Ore., 515 U. S. 687, 698 (1995). The mere fact that a threat-to-self defense reasonably falls within the general “job related” and “business necessity” standard does not mean that Congress accomplished nothing with its explicit provision for a defense based on threats to others. The provision made a conclusion clear that might otherwise have been fought over in litigation or administrative rule-making. It did not lack a job to do merely because the EEOC might have adopted the same rule later in applying the general defense provisions, nor was its job any less responsible simply because the agency was left with the option to go a step further. A provision can be useful even without congressional attention being indispensable.
Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
We do not consider the farther issue passed upon by the Ninth Circuit, which held that the respondent is a “ ‘qualified individual’ ” who “can perform the essential functions of the employment position,” 42 U. S. C. §12111(8) (1994 ed.). 226 F. 3d 1063, 1072 (2000). That issue will only resurface if the Circuit concludes that the decision of respondent’s employer to exclude him was not based on the sort of individualized medical enquiry required by the regulation, an issue on which the District Court granted summary judgment for petitioner and which we leave to the Ninth Circuit for initial appellate consideration if warranted.
Chevron did not dispute for purposes of its summary-judgment motion that Echazabal is “disabled” under the ADA, and Echazabal did not argue that Chevron could have made a ‘“reasonable accommodation.’” App. 184, n. 6.
In saying that the expansive textual phrases point in the direction of agency leeway we do not mean that the defense provisions place no limit on agency rulemaking. Without deciding whether all safety-related qualification standards must satisfy the ADA's direct-threat standard, see Al- bertson’s, Inc. v. Kirkingburg, 527 U. S. 555, 569-570, n. 15 (1999), we assume that some such regulations are implicitly precluded by the Act’s specification of a direct-threat defense, such as those allowing “indirect” threats of “insignificant” harm. This is so because the definitional and defense provisions describing the defense in terms of “direct” threats of “significant” harm, 42 Uj S. C. §§ 12113(b), 12111(3), are obviously intended to forbid qualifications that screen out by reference to general categories pretextually applied. See infra, at 85-86, and n. 5. Recognizing the “indirect” and “insignificant” would simply reopen the door to pretext by way of defense.
In fact, we have said that the regulations issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, which had previously been the regulations of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, are of “particular significance” in interpreting the Rehabilitation Act because “HEW was the agency responsible for coordinating the implementation and enforcement of § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U. S. C. § 794,” prohibiting discrimination against individuals with disabilities by recipients of federal funds. Toyota Motor Mfg., Ky., Inc. v. Williams, 534 U. S. 184, 195 (2002). Unfortunately for Echazabal’s argument, the congruence of the ADA with the HEW regulations does not produce an unequivocal statement of congressional intent.
Echazabal’s contention that the Act’s legislative history is to the contrary is unpersuasive. Although some of the comments within the legislative history decry paternalism in general terms, see, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 101-485, pt. 2, p. 72 (1990) (“It is critical that paternalistic concerns for the disabled person’s own safety not be used to disqualify an otherwise qualified applicant”); ADA Conf. Rep., 136 Cong. Rec. 17377 (1990) (statement of Sen. Kennedy) (“[A]n employer could not use as an excuse for not hiring a person with HIV disease the claim that the employer was simply ‘protecting the individual’ from opportunistic diseases to which the individual might be exposed”), those comments that elaborate actually express the more pointed concern that such justifications are usually pretextual, rooted in generalities and misperceptions about disabilities. See, e.g., H. R. Rep. No. 101-485, at 74 (“Generalized fear about risks from the employment environment, such as exacerbation of the disability caused by stress, cannot be used by an employer to disqualify a person with a disability”); S. Rep. No. 101-116, p. 28 (1989) (“It would also be a violation to deny employment to an applicant based on generalized fears about the safety of the applicant.... By definition, such fears are based on averages and group-based predictions. This legislation requires individualized assessments”).
Similarly, Echazabal points to several of our decisions expressing concern under Title VII, which like the ADA allows employers to defend otherwise discriminatory practices that are “consistent with business necessity,” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2(k), with employers adopting rules that exclude women from jobs that are seen as too risky. See, e. g., Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U. S. 321, 335 (1977); Automobile Workers v. Johnson Controls, Inc., 499 U. S. 187, 202 (1991). Those cases, however, are beside the point, as they, like Title VII generally, were concerned with paternalistic judgments based on the broad category of gender, while the EEOC has required that judgments based on the direct threat provision be made on the basis of individualized risk assessments.
Respect for this distinction does not entail the requirement, as Echaza-bal claims, that qualification standards be “neutral,” stating what the job requires, as distinct from a worker’s disqualifying characteristics. Brief for Respondent 26. It is just as much business necessity for skyscraper contractors to have steelworkers without vertigo as to have well-balanced ones. See 226 F. 3d, at 1074 (Trott, J., dissenting). Reasonableness does not turn on formalism. We have no occasion, however, to try to describe how acutely an employee must exhibit a disqualifying condition before an employer may exclude him from the class of the generally qualified. See Brief for Respondent 31. This is a job for the trial courts in the first instance.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case is properly here on appeal, 28 U. S. C. § 345, from a district court decree enjoining enforcement of a cease and desist order of the Interstate Commerce Commission. 71 F. Supp. 499. The order enjoined required the five railroad appellees to abstain from refusing to deliver interstate shipments of livestock to the sidetrack of Swift & Company’s packing plant at Cleveland, Ohio, and to establish tariffs for such deliveries. Swift’s sidetrack has only one connection with a railroad. That connection is with the main line of the New York Central by way of a spur track, known as “Spur No. 245,” operated by that railroad. One end of this spur owned by the New York Central connects with its main line; the other end of the spur, also owned by the railroad, connects with Swift’s sidetrack and with other private sidetracks. A 1619-foot middle segment of the spur, known as “Track 1619,” is owned by the Cleveland Union Stock Yards Company. Under the terms of a trackage agreement with Stock Yards, New York Central uses Track 1619 for deliveries to Swift’s sidetrack and other private sidetracks connected with Spur No. 245. Thus all interstate railroad shipments to Swift’s siding and to others similarly located can be made only over the segment of track owned by Stock Yards. Because of its interest in Track 1619, Stock Yards was made a party to the proceedings before the Commission and was included in its cease and desist order along with the railroads. So long as Stock Yards continues to own Track 1619, delivery of livestock and other freight by New York Central to Swift and others similarly located depends upon whether and to what extent Stock Yards will grant or has granted New York Central a right to operate over Track 1619. This present case involves the question of whether the railroads, and particularly New York Central, in making deliveries of livestock over Track 1619 to Swift’s sidetrack must comply with certain conditions imposed by Stock Yards in its present agreement with New York Central.
Track 1619 was constructed in 1899 on Stock Yards’ property by Stock Yards and New York Central’s predecessor in interest. A contemporaneous written agreement, cancellable on 60-days’ written notice by the railroad, gave the railroad a right to use the track for railroad purposes, provided the use did not interfere with Stock Yards’ business. In 1910, after negotiations with the railroad, Swift built its sidetrack, and the railroad extended its Spur No. 245 by a track which connected Track 1619 with Swift’s siding. The 1899 written trackage agreement was superseded by another in 1924. This one was cancellable by either party on 30-days’ written notice. It provided that the railroad should maintain the tracks at its own expense, and it granted to the railroad “the free and uninterrupted use of any and all tracks or portions thereof belonging to the Industry and located on its land.” From 1910, when Swift’s siding was constructed, to 1924, and for many years thereafter, the railroad continued to deliver all kinds of commodities to Swift and to other packers likewise served only by way of Spur No. 245 and Track 1619.
In the early 1930’s Stock Yards concluded that it was losing patronage and fees because of delivery of livestock to Swift at its siding. A large part of Stock Yards’ income comes from fees it charges for unloading and delivering interstate shipments of livestock to pens within its yard. Stock carried over Track 1619 to Swift’s siding and to other private sidings are unloaded at those sidings; as a result Stock Yards loses the fees it would receive if livestock consigned to Swift and to other packers were unloaded at the Stock Yards. With a view toward collecting unloading fees from Swift and other packers served by Spur No. 245, Stock Yards'instituted negotiations with the New York Central which in 1935 resulted in a modification of their 1924 agreement. The old 1924 agreement had unconditionally granted “Railroad, (a) the free and uninterrupted use of any and all tracks . . . .” The 1935 modified agreement also granted New York Central “the free and uninterrupted use” of Stock Yards’ tracks, but added “except for competitive traffic a charge for which use shall be the subject of a separate agreement.”
After this 1935 restrictive modification Stock Yards demanded that the railroad adopt one of two courses with regard to livestock, which the parties agreed was the “competitive traffic” the modified agreement was designed to suppress. The railroad must either stop carrying livestock over Track 1619 to Swift and other packers or pay Stock Yards, for use of Track 1619 in carrying livestock to these packers, an amount equivalent to fees Stock Yards would have collected had the livestock consigned to them been unloaded and delivered in the yard. This amount was considered exorbitant by New York Central and the other railroads for whom New York Central performed switching charges, and they therefore refused to pay it. The result was that in 1938 the railroads ceased delivering-livestock to the sidings of Swift and other packers served by Spur No. 245, although they have under agreement with Stock Yards continued to use the spur for delivery of all other kinds of commodity shipments to these sidings. Swift demanded that the railroads deliver livestock to its siding, and in 1941 filed a complaint with the Interstate Commerce Commission upon their refusal to make deliveries.
After notice and hearing the Commission concluded that the railroad’s refusal to carry livestock to Swift violated several provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act. It was found to violate § 3 (1) because of the discrimination against a single commodity, livestock, and because New York Central’s deliveries of livestock to the sidetracks of some of Swift’s nearby competitors, whose sidings were served without using Track 1619, subjected Swift to undue prejudice and gave those competitors an undue preference. The Commission also found that the failure to deliver under the circumstances shown was a violation of § 1 (6) which forbids unreasonable practices affecting the manner and method of delivering freight, and also a violation of § 1 (9) which requires railroads to operate switch connections with private side tracks without discrimination under such conditions as the Commission found to exist here.
The Commission’s findings of fact are not challenged. There can be no doubt that those facts found would constitute a violation of the sections referred to if Spur No. 245 were wholly owned by the railroad. Ownership of Track 1619 by Stock Yards and its objection to livestock deliveries is, in fact, the only reason suggested for the railroads’ failure to deliver shipments of livestock to Swift as they do to neighboring packers, and for their failure to provide switching connections for livestock shipments. From what has been said our question is this: Can the non-carrier owner of a segment of railroad track who contracts for an interstate railroad’s use of the segment as part of its line reserve a right to regulate the type of commodities that the railroad may transport over the segment, or would such a reservation be invalid under the Interstate Commerce Act?
The Interstate Commerce Act is one of the most comprehensive regulatory plans that Congress has ever undertaken. The first Act, and all amendments to it, have aimed at wiping out discriminations of all types, New York v. United States, 331 U. S. 284, 296, and language of the broadest scope has been used to accomplish all the purposes of the Act. United States v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 323 U. S. 612, 616. It would be strange had this legislation left a way open whereby carriers could engage in discriminations merely by entering into contracts for the use of trackage. In fact this Court has long recognized that the purpose of Congress to prevent certain types of discriminations and prejudicial practices could not be frustrated by contracts, even though the contracts were executed before enactment of the legislation. See Philadelphia, Balt. & Wash. R. Co. v. Schubert, 224 U. S. 603, 613-614; Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley, 219 U. S. 467, 483, 485-86.
We think the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act plainly empowered the Commission to enter this order against the discriminatory practices found, despite ownership of Track 1619 by Stock Yards. Section 1 (1) (a) makes the Interstate Commerce Act applicable to common carriers “wholly by railroad.” Section 1 (3) (a) defines the term “railroad” as including “all the road in use by any common carrier operating a railroad, whether owned or operated under a contract, agreement, or lease, and also all switches, spurs, tracks . . . .” As one of the many other indications that Congress did not intend its railroad regulatory provisions to depend on who had legal title to transportation instrumentalities, § 1 (3) (a) also provides that the word “transportation” as used in the Act shall broadly include “locomotives . . . and all instrumentalities and facilities of shipment or carriage, irrespective of ownership or of any contract, express or implied, for the use thereof . . . .” It is true, as appel-lees argue, that the above language of § 1 (3) (a) is definitional only. Ellis v. Interstate Commerce Comm’n, 237 U. S. 434. But it is also true that these definitions by their unambiguous language make all trackage “in use by any common carrier” subject to the regulatory provisions of the Act, even though not owned by the carrier but only used by it under a contract or agreement. Thus Track 1619, though owned by Stock Yards, was subject to the Act because of its use by the New York Central under trackage agreements.
It is just as prejudicial to shippers and the public for a railroad that uses a portion of track under lease or contract to discriminate as it is for the discrimination to be inflicted by a railroad that owns its entire track. Practically the only argument suggested to justify discriminatory practices under the circumstances here is that an owner has a right to let others use his land subject to whatsoever conditions the owner chooses to impose. It is even argued that to construe the Interstate Commerce Act as limiting that right would result in depriving an owner of his property without due process of law. But no such broad generalization can be accepted. Property can be used even by its owner only in accordance with law, and conditions its owner places on its use by another are subject to like limitations. Of course it does not deprive an owner of his property without due process of law to deny him the right to enforce conditions upon its use which conflict with the power of Congress to regulate railroads so as to secure equality of treatment of those whom the railroads serve.
Here Congress under its constitutional authority has provided that no railroad shall engage in certain types of discriminatory conduct in violation of three provisions of the Act. The Commission found that discriminatory conduct here. The excuse offered by the railroads is that the owner of Track 1619 required them to do the prohibited things. But the command of Congress against discrimination cannot be subordinated to the command of a track owner that a railroad using the track practice discrimination.
We hold that the Commission’s order was authorized by statute and that it does not deprive Stock Yards of its property without due process of law. In doing so we do not pass upon any questions in relation to the dedication of Track 1619 to railroad use. Neither do we decide what are the relative financial rights of Stock Yards and New York Central under their contracts, nor whether Stock Yards can cancel the contract with New York Central, nor what would be the duty of New York Central should Stock Yards attempt to terminate its right to use Track 1619. We only hold that Stock Yards’ ownership of Track 1619 does not vest it with power to compel the railroads to operate in a way which violates the Interstate Commerce Act.
The Commission’s order is valid and should be enforced.
Reversed.
The railroad appellees are Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, the Erie Railroad Company, the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad Company, the New York Central Railroad Company, and the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.
Appellees argue that Stock Yards was improperly made a party and that the Commission was without power to include Stock Yards in its cease and desist order. We think §2 of the Elkins Act, 32 Stat. 848, 49 U. S. C. § 42, justified the Commission’s action and find no merit to the contention that we should by interpretation restrict that section’s broad language authorizing inclusion as parties of “all persons interested in or affected by the rate, regulation, or practice under consideration” by the Commission or by a court, and which provides that decrees may be made with reference to such additional parties to the same extent as though they were carriers.
In 1938 New York Central ceased to switch livestock carloads of other carriers over Spur No. 245 to Swift’s siding, and it canceled its tariffs for this service. Since that time there has been no specific tariff authority for movement of livestock to Swift’s siding when shipped to Cleveland over lines other than the New York Central. Although New York Central has never canceled its tariff for livestock shipments to Swift’s Cleveland siding from points of origin on its own lines, it has delivered all livestock consigned to Swift’s siding to Stock Yards since 1938. Swift has been forced to pay charges to Stock Yards to obtain possession of livestock unloaded at the yards.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A beeper is a radio transmitter, usually battery operated, which emits periodic signals that can be picked up by a radio receiver. In this case, a beeper was placed in a five-gallon drum containing chloroform purchased by one of respondent’s codefendants. By monitoring the progress of a car carrying the chloroform Minnesota law enforcement agents were able to trace the can of chloroform from its place of purchase in Minneapolis, Minn., to respondent’s secluded cabin near Shell Lake, Wis. The issue presented by the case is whether such use of a beeper violated respondent’s rights secured by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
I — <
Respondent and two codefendants were charged in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota with conspiracy to manufacture controlled substances, including but not limited to methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U. S. C. §846. One of the codefendants, Darryl Petschen, was tried jointly with respondent; the other codefendant, Tristan Armstrong, pleaded guilty and testified for the Government at trial.
Suspicion attached to this trio when the 3M Co., which manufactures chemicals in St. Paul, notified a narcotics investigator for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension that Armstrong, a former 3M employee, had been stealing chemicals which could be used in manufacturing illicit drugs. Visual surveillance of Armstrong revealed that after leaving the employ of 3M Co., he had been purchasing similar chemicals from the Hawkins Chemical Co. in Minneapolis. The Minnesota narcotics officers observed that after Armstrong had made a purchase, he would deliver the chemicals to codefendant Petschen.
With the consent of the Hawkins Chemical Co., officers installed a beeper inside a five-gallon container of chloroform, one of the so-called “precursor” chemicals used to manufacture illicit drugs. Hawkins agreed that when Armstrong next purchased chloroform, the chloroform would be placed in this particular container. When Armstrong made the purchase, officers followed the car in which the chloroform had been placed, maintaining contact by using both visual surveillance and a monitor which received the signals sent from the beeper.
Armstrong proceeded to Petschen’s house, where the container was transferred to Petschen’s automobile. Officers then followed that vehicle eastward towards the state line, across the St. Croix River, and into Wisconsin. During the latter part of this journey, Petschen began making evasive maneuvers, and the pursuing agents ended their visual surveillance. At about the same time officers lost the signal from the beeper, but with the assistance of a monitoring device located in a helicopter the approximate location of the signal was picked up again about one hour later. The signal now was stationary and the location identified was a cabin occupied by respondent near Shell Lake, Wis. The record before us does not reveal that the beeper was used after the location in the area of the cabin had been initially determined.
Relying on the location of the chloroform derived through the use of the beeper and additional information obtained during three days of intermittent visual surveillance of respondent’s cabin, officers secured a search warrant. During execution of the warrant, officers discovered a fully operable, clandestine drug laboratory in the cabin. In the laboratory area officers found formulas for amphetamine and methamphetamine, over $10,000 worth of laboratory equipment, and chemicals in quantities sufficient to produce 14 pounds of pure amphetamine. Under a barrel outside the cabin, officers located the five-gallon container of chloroform.
After his motion to suppress evidence based on the war-rantless monitoring of the beeper was denied, respondent was convicted for conspiring to manufacture controlled substances in violation of 21 U. S. C. .§ 846. He was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed the conviction, finding that.the monitoring of the beeper was prohibited by the Fourth Amendment because its use had violated respondent’s reasonable expectation of privacy, and that all information derived after the location of the cabin was a fruit of the illegal beeper monitoring. 662 F. 2d 515 (1981). We granted certiorari, 457 U. S. 1131 (1982), and we now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
In Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438 (1928), this Court held that the wiretapping of a defendant’s private telephone line did not violate the Fourth Amendment because the wiretapping had been effectuated without a physical trespass by the Government. Justice Brandéis, joined by Justice Stone, dissented from that decision, believing that the actions of the Government in that case constituted an “unjustifiable intrusion . . . upon the privacy of the individual,” and therefore a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Id., at 478. Nearly 40 years later, in Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967), the Court overruled Olmstead saying that the Fourth Amendment’s reach “cannot turn upon the presence or absence of a physical intrusion into any given enclosure.” 389 U. S., at 353. The Court said:
“The Government’s activities in electronically listening to and recording the petitioner’s words violated the privacy upon which he justifiably relied while using the telephone booth and thus constituted a ‘search and seizure’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The fact that the electronic device employed to achieve that end did not happen to penetrate the wall of the booth can have no constitutional significance.” Ibid.
In Smith v. Maryland, 442 U. S. 735 (1979), we elaborated on the principles stated in Katz:
“Consistently with Katz, this Court uniformly has held that the application of the Fourth Amendment depends on whether the person invoking its protection can claim a ‘justifiable,’ a ‘reasonable,’ or a ‘legitimate expectation of privacy’ that has been invaded by government action. [Citations omitted.] This inquiry, as Mr. Justice Harlan aptly noted in his Katz concurrence, normally embraces two discrete questions. The first is whether the individual, by his conduct, has ‘exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy,’ 389 U. S., at 361 — whether, in the words of the Katz majority, the individual has shown that ‘he seeks to preserve [something] as private.’ Id., at 351. The second question is whether the individual’s subjective expectation of privacy is ‘one that society is prepared to recognize as “reasonable,”’ id., at 361— whether, in the words of the Katz majority, the individual’s expectation, viewed objectively, is ‘justifiable’ under the circumstances. Id., at 353. See Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U. S., at 143-144, n. 12; id., at 151 (concurring opinion); United States v. White, 401 U. S., at 752 (plurality opinion).” 442 U. S., at 740-741 (footnote omitted).
The governmental surveillance conducted by means of the beeper in this case amounted principally to the following of an automobile on public streets and highways. We have commented more than once on the diminished expectation of privacy in an automobile:
“One has a lesser expectation of privacy in a motor vehicle because its function is transportation and it seldom serves as one’s residence or as the repository of personal effects. A car has little capacity for escaping public scrutiny. It travels public thoroughfares where both its occupants and its contents are in plain view.” Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U. S. 583, 590 (1974) (plurality opinion).
See also Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U. S. 128, 153-154, and n. 2 (1978) (Powell, J., concurring); South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364, 368 (1976).
A person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another. When Petschen traveled over the public streets he voluntarily conveyed to anyone who wanted to look the fact that he was traveling over particular roads in a particular direction, the fact of whatever stops he made, and the fact of his final destination when he exited from public roads onto private property.
Respondent Knotts, as the owner of the cabin and surrounding premises to which Petschen drove, undoubtedly had the traditional expectation of privacy within a dwelling place insofar as the cabin was concerned:
“Crime, even in the privacy of one’s own quarters, is, of course, of grave concern to society, and the law allows such crime to be reached on proper showing. The right of officers to thrust themselves into a home is also of grave concern, not only to the individual, but to a society which chooses to dwell in reasonable security and freedom from surveillance. When the right of privacy must reasonably yield to the right of search is, as a rule, to be decided by a judicial officer, not by a policeman or government enforcement agent.” Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 14 (1948), quoted with approval in Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 586 (1980).
But no such expectation of privacy extended to the visual observation of Petschen’s automobile arriving on his premises after leaving a public highway, nor to movements of objects such as the drum of chloroform outside the cabin in the “open fields.” Hester v. United States, 265 U. S. 57 (1924).
Visual surveillance from public places along Petschen’s route or adjoining Knotts’ premises would have sufficed to reveal all of these facts to the police. The fact that the officers in this case relied not only on visual surveillance, but also on the use of the beeper to signal the presence of Petschen’s automobile to the police receiver, does not alter the situation. Nothing in the Fourth Amendment prohibited the police from augmenting the sensory faculties bestowed upon them at birth with such enhancement as science and technology afforded them in this case. In United States v. Lee, 274 U. S. 559 (1927), the Court said:
“But no search on the high seas is shown. The testimony of the boatswain shows that he used a searchlight. It is not shown that there was any exploration below decks or under hatches. For aught that appears, the cases of liquor were on deck and, like the defendants, were discovered before the motor boat was boarded. Such use of a searchlight is comparable to the use of a marine glass or a field glass. It is not prohibited by the Constitution.” Id., at 563.
We have recently had occasion to deal with another claim which was to some extent a factual counterpart of respondent’s assertions here. In Smith v. Maryland, we said:
“This analysis dictates that [Smith] can claim no legitimate expectation of privacy here. When he used his phone, [Smith] voluntarily conveyed numerical information to the telephone company and ‘exposed’ that information to its equipment in the ordinary course of business. In so doing, [Smith] assumed the risk that the company would reveal to police the numbers he dialed. The switching equipment that processed those numbers is merely the modern counterpart of the operator who, in ' an earlier day, personally completed calls for the subscriber. [Smith] concedes that if he had placed his calls through an operator, he could claim no legitimate expectation of privacy. [Citation omitted.] We are not inclined to hold that a different constitutional result is required because the telephone company has decided to automate.” 442 U. S., at 744-745.
Respondent does not actually quarrel with this analysis, though he expresses the generalized view that the result of the holding sought by the Government would be that “twenty-four hour surveillance of any citizen of this country will be possible, without judicial knowledge or supervision.” Brief for Respondent 9 (footnote omitted). But the fact is that the “reality hardly suggests abuse,” Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U. S. 547, 566 (1978); if such dragnet-type law enforcement practices as respondent envisions should eventually occur, there will be time enough then to determine whether different constitutional principles may be applicable. Ibid. Insofar as respondent’s complaint appears to be simply that scientific devices such as the beeper enabled the police to be more effective in detecting crime, it simply has no constitutional foundation. We have never equated police efficiency with unconstitutionality, and we decline to do so now.
Respondent specifically attacks the use of the beeper insofar as it was used to determine that the can of chloroform had come to rest on his property at Shell Lake, Wis. He repeatedly challenges the “use of the beeper to determine the location of the chemical drum at Respondent’s premises,” Brief for Respondent 26; he states that “[t]he government thus overlooks the fact that this case involves the sanctity of Respondent’s residence, which is accorded the greatest protection available under the Fourth Amendment.” Ibid. The Court of Appeals appears to have rested its decision on this ground:
“As noted above, a principal rationale for allowing war-rantless tracking of beepers, particularly beepers in or on an auto, is that beepers are merely a more effective means of observing what is already public. But people pass daily from public to private spheres. When police agents track bugged personal property without first obtaining a warrant, they must do so at the risk that this enhanced surveillance, intrusive at best, might push fortuitously and unreasonably into the private sphere protected by the Fourth Amendment.” 662 F. 2d, at 518.
We think that respondent’s contentions, and the above-quoted language from the opinion of the Court of Appeals, to some extent lose sight of the limited use which the government made of the signals from this particular beeper. As we have noted, nothing in this record indicates that the beeper signal was received or relied upon after it had indicated that the drum containing the chloroform had ended its automotive journey at rest on respondent’s premises in rural Wisconsin. Admittedly, because of the failure of the visual surveillance, the beeper enabled the law enforcement officials in this case to ascertain the ultimate resting place of the chloroform when they would not have been able to do so had they relied solely on their naked eyes. But scientific enhancement of this sort raises no constitutional issues which visual surveillance would not also raise. A police car following Petschen at a distance throughout his journey could have observed him leaving the public highway and arriving at the cabin owned by respondent, with the drum of chloroform still in the car. This fact, along with others, was used by the government in obtaining a search warrant which led to the discovery of the clandestine drug laboratory. But there is no indication that the beeper was used in any way to reveal information as to the movement of the drum within the cabin, or in any way that would not have been visible to the naked eye from outside the cabin. Just as notions of physical trespass based on the law of real property were not dispositive in Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967), neither were they dis-positive in Hester v. United States, 265 U. S. 57 (1924).
We thus return to the question posed at the beginning of our inquiry in discussing Katz, supra; did monitoring the beeper signals complained of by respondent invade any legitimate expectation of privacy on his part? For the reasons previously stated, we hold it did not. Since it did not, there was neither a “search” nor a “seizure” within the contemplation of the Fourth Amendment. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
Reversed.
Justice Brennan, with whom Justice Marshall joins, concurring in the judgment.
I join Justice Blackmun’s and Justice Stevens’ opinions concurring in the judgment. I should add, however, that I think this would have been a much more difficult case if respondent had challenged, not merely certain aspects of the monitoring of the beeper installed in the chloroform container purchased by respondent’s compatriot, but also its original installation. See ante, at 279, n. Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967), made quite clear that the Fourth Amendment protects against governmental invasions of a person’s reasonable “expectation[s] of privacy,” even when those invasions are not accompanied by physical intrusions. Cases such as Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505, 509-512 (1961), however, hold that, when the Government does engage in physical intrusion of a constitutionally protected area in order to obtain information, that intrusion may constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment even if the same information could have been obtained by other means. I do not believe that Katz, or its progeny, have eroded that principle. Cf. The Supreme Court, 1979 Term, 94 Harv. L. Rev. 75, 203-204 (1980).
I am also entirely unconvinced by the Court of Appeals’ footnote disposing of the installation issue with the statement: “we hold that the consent of the owner [of the chloroform drum] at the time of installation meets the requirements of the Fourth Amendment, even if the consenting owner intends to soon sell the ‘bugged’ property to an unsuspecting buyer. Caveat emptor.” 662 F. 2d 515, 517, n. 2 (1981) (citation omitted). The Government is not here defending against a claim for damages in an action for breach of a warranty; it is attempting to justify the legality of a search conducted in the course of a criminal investigation. I am not at all sure that, for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, there is a constitutionally significant difference between planting a beeper in an object in the possession of a criminal suspect and purposefully arranging that he be sold an object that, unknown to him, already has a beeper installed inside it. Cf. Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298, 305-306 (1921); Lewis v. United States, 385 U. S. 206, 211 (1966).
Respondent claimed at oral argument that, under this Court’s cases, he would not have standing to challenge the original installation of the beeper in the chloroform drum because the drum was sold, not to him, but to one of his compatriots. See ante, at 279, n. If respondent is correct, that would only confirm for me the formalism and confusion in this Court’s recent attempts to redefine Fourth Amendment standing. See Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U. S. 98, 114 (1980) (Marshall, J., dissenting); Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U. S. 128, 156 (1978) (White, J., dissenting).
Respondent does not challenge the warrantless installation of the beeper in the chloroform container, suggesting in oral argument that he did not believe he had standing to make such a challenge. We note that while several Courts of Appeals have approved warrantless installations, see United States v. Bernard, 625 F. 2d 854 (CA9 1980); United States v. Lewis, 621 F. 2d 1382 (CA5 1980), cert. denied, 450 U. S. 935 (1981); United States v. Bruneau, 594 F. 2d 1190 (CA8), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 847 (1979); United States v. Miroyan, 577 F. 2d 489 (CA9), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 896 (1978); United States v. Cheshire, 569 F. 2d 887 (CA5), cert. denied, 437 U. S. 907 (1978); United States v. Curtis, 562 F. 2d 1153 (CA9 1977), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 910 (1978); United States v. Abel, 548 F. 2d 591 (CA5), cert. denied, 431U. S. 956 (1977); United States v. Hufford, 539 F. 2d.32 (CA9), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 1002 (1976), we have not before and do not now pass on the issue.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondents in these cases obtained from the California Court of Appeal an extraordinary writ prohibiting the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control from enforcing an amendment to the State’s liquor statutes. That court held that because the conduct contemplated by the amendment was per se illegal under the Sherman Act, the statute on its face was invalid pursuant to the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. 108 Cal. App. 3d 348, 166 Cal. Rptr. 563 (1980). We conclude that the California Court of Appeal was mistaken in its application of antitrust and pre-emption principles, and we reverse its judgment.
I
Alcoholic beverages may be brought into California from outside the State for delivery or use within the State only if the beverages are consigned to a licensed importer. Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code Ann. § 23661 (West Supp. 1982). In 1979, the California Legislature amended the State’s alcoholic beverage control laws to provide that a “licensed importer shall not purchase or accept delivery of any brand of distilled spirits unless he is designated as an authorized importer of such brand by the brand owner or his authorized agent.” § 23672. This challenged statute, which was to become effective on January 1, 1980, is understandably referred to as a “designation statute.”
California apparently enacted its designation statute in response to the effects of Oklahoma’s alcoholic beverage laws. At the time, Oklahoma’s statutes were understood to require any distiller or brand owner selling its products to Oklahoma wholesalers to sell to all wholesalers on a nondiscriminatory basis. Because of the perceived extraterritorial effect of Oklahoma’s “open-wholesaling” statutes, a licensed California importer who was unable to obtain distilled spirits through the distiller’s established distribution system could obtain them from Oklahoma wholesalers. As a result, a distiller who desired to sell its products to Oklahoma wholesalers was unable to rely on contractual undertakings to determine which California wholesalers would handle its products. California’s designation statute, therefore, sought to close off the “Oklahoma connection” to California importers not authorized by the distiller to deal in its products.
Prior to the effective date of the designation statute, respondents, liquor importers who were benefiting from the “Oklahoma connection,” sought an extraordinary writ from the California Court of Appeal enjoining the enforcement of the designation statute. The Court of Appeal agreed with respondents that the designation statute on its face conflicted with § 1 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1. According to that court, the designation statute would result, in all cases, in a per se violation of the Sherman Act, because it “gives brand owners the unfettered power to restrain competition ... by merely deciding who may and who may not compete.” 108 Cal. App. 3d, at 356, 166 Cal. Rptr., at 569. The Court of Appeal distinguished Continental T. V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U. S. 36 (1977), in which we held that vertical nonprice restraints are to be judged under the “rule of reason” rather than under a per se rule of illegality, on the ground that respondents did not attack the distiller’s decision to refuse to do business with them, but “the state provided authority of the distillers to prohibit them from trading with others.” 108 Cal. App. 3d, at 357, 166 Cal. Rptr., at 570.
The Supreme Court of California denied review. We granted certiorari, 454 U. S. 1080 (1981), and now reverse.
II
A
In determining whether the Sherman Act pre-empts a state statute, we apply principles similar to those which we employ in considering whether any state statute is preempted by a federal statute pursuant to the Supremacy Clause. As in the typical pre-emption case, the inquiry is whether there exists an irreconcilable conflict between the federal and state regulatory schemes. The existence of a hypothetical or potential conflict is insufficient to warrant the pre-emption of the state statute. A state regulatory scheme is not pre-empted by the federal antitrust laws simply because in a hypothetical situation a private party’s compliance with the statute might cause him to violate the antitrust laws. A state statute is not pre-empted by the federal antitrust laws simply because the state scheme might have an anticompetitive effect. See, e. g., New Motor Vehicle Bd. of Cal. v. Orrin W. Fox Co., 439 U. S. 96, 110-111 (1978); Exxon Corp. v. Governor of Maryland, 437 U. S. 117, 129-134 (1978); Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc. v. Hostetter, 384 U. S. 35, 45-46 (1966).
A party may successfully enjoin the enforcement of a state statute only if the statute on its face irreconcilably conflicts with federal antitrust policy. In California Retail Liquor Dealers Assn. v. Midcal Aluminum, Inc., 445 U. S. 97 (1980), we examined a statute that required members of the California wine industry to file fair trade contracts or price schedules with the State, and provided that if a wine producer had not set prices through a fair trade contract, wholesalers must post a resale price schedule for that producer’s brands. We held that the statute facially conflicted with the Sherman Act because it mandated resale price maintenance, an activity that has long been regarded as a per se violation of the Sherman Act. Id., at 102-103; see Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co., 220 U. S. 373, 407-409 (1911).
By contrast, in Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc. v. Hostetter, supra, we rejected a facial attack upon § 9 of New York’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Law, which required retailers and wholesalers to file monthly price schedules with the State Liquor Authority accompanied by an affirmation that the prices charged were no higher than the lowest price at which sales were made anywhere in the United States during the preceding month. Id., at 39-40. The Court found no clear repugnancy between §9 and the federal antitrust laws:
“The bare compilation, without more, of price information on sales to wholesalers and retailers to support the affirmations filed with the State Liquor Authority would not of itself violate the Sherman Act. Section 9 imposes no irresistible economic pressure on the appellants to violate the Sherman Act in order to comply with the requirements of § 9. On the contrary, § 9 appears firmly anchored to the assumption that the Sherman Act will deter any attempts by the appellants to preserve their New York price level by conspiring to raise the prices at which liquor is sold elsewhere in the country. . . .
“Although it is possible to envision circumstances under which price discriminations proscribed by the Robinson-Patman Act might be compelled by § 9, the existence of such potential conflicts is entirely too speculative in the present posture of this case . . . .” Id., at 45-46 (citations omitted).
Our decisions in this area instruct us, therefore, that a state statute, when considered in the abstract, may be condemned under the antitrust laws only if it mandates or authorizes conduct that necessarily constitutes a violation of the antitrust laws in all cases, or if it places irresistible pressure on a private party to violate the antitrust laws in order to comply with the statute. Such condemnation will follow under § 1 of the Sherman Act when the conduct contemplated by the statute is in all cases a per se violation. If the activity addressed by the statute does not fall into that category, and therefore must be analyzed under the rule of reason, the statute cannot be condemned in the abstract. Analysis under the rule of reason requires an examination of the circumstances underlying a particular economic practice, and therefore does not lend itself to a conclusion that a statute is facially inconsistent with federal antitrust laws.
It remains for us to determine whether a distiller’s invocation of the designation statute would be subject in all cases to a per se rule of illegality under the Sherman Act.
B
We held in GTE Sylvania that a manufacturer’s use of vertical nonprice restraints is not per se illegal. Because restraints on intrabrand competition may promote interbrand competition, we concluded that nonprice vertical restraints should be scrutinized under the rule of reason. 433 U. S., at 57-59. After our decision in GTE Sylvania, it cannot be said that every attempt by a manufacturer to restrain competition in its own products is illegal under the Sherman Act.
California’s designation statute merely enforces the distiller’s decision to restrain intrabrand competition. It permits the distiller to designate which wholesalers may import the distiller’s products into the State. It prevents an unauthorized wholesaler from obtaining the distiller’s products from outside the distiller’s established distribution chain. The designation statute does not require the distiller to impose vertical restraints of any kind; that is a matter for it to determine. The number of importers which may be designated by the distiller is not limited; the designated importer is not required to sell the imported brand to retailers within a specified area or from a specified location within the State.
It is irrelevant for our purposes that the distiller’s ability to restrict intrabrand competition in California has the imprimatur of a state statute. New Motor Vehicle Bd. of Cal. v. Orrin W. Fox Co., 439 U. S., at 110-111. The effect of the statute is simply to counteract the perceived extraterritorial effects of Oklahoma’s alcoholic beverage laws, which, as once understood, operated to deprive the distiller of control over its distribution system nationwide. Thus, California’s designation statute merely restored what Oklahoma had taken away: the distiller’s ability to determine which wholesalers may import its products into California.
In these respects, therefore, we find these cases to be much like Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc. v. Hostetter, 384 U. S. 35 (1966). As in Hostetter, upholding the validity of the designation statute will not insulate a distiller’s invocation of the statute from scrutiny under the Sherman Act. The manner in which a distiller utilizes the designation statute and the arrangements a distiller makes with its wholesalers will be subject to Sherman Act analysis under the rule of reason. There is no basis, however, - for condemning the statute itself by force of the Sherman Act.
III
Respondents seek to support the judgment of the Court of Appeal on three federal grounds not considered by the court below. None of these contentions have merit.
A
Respondents contend that the California designation statute is pre-empted by § 5(a) of the Federal Alcohol Administration Act, 49 Stat. 981, as amended, 27 U. S. C. § 205(a). Section 5(a) prohibits a distiller or wholesaler from establishing exclusive retail outlets. See S. Rep. No. 1215, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 6-7 (1935); H. R. Rep. No. 1542, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 10-11 (1935). In other words, §5(a) prohibits a distiller or wholesaler from requiring a retailer to buy only the distiller’s or wholesaler’s products to the exclusion of the products of other distillers or wholesalers. The statute does not prohibit a distiller from requiring its wholesalers to purchase the distiller’s products from the distiller itself rather than from a third party. California’s statute in no way requires exclusive retail outlets. By its terms, the designation statute does not even require exclusive wholesale arrangements. One might be able to hypothesize an arrangement enforced by the designation statute that might be prohibited by §5(a), but this is insufficient to invalidate a state statute pursuant to the Supremacy Clause. “To hold otherwise would be to ignore the teaching of this Court’s decisions which enjoin seeking out conflicts between state and federal regulation where none clearly exists.” Huron Portland Cement Co. v. Detroit, 362 U. S. 440, 446 (1960).
B
Respondents contend that the designation statute denies them due process of law. According to respondents, California has established a “second tier of private licensing over the state’s licensing process,” and therefore procedural due process protections apply with regard to the distiller’s designation decisions. Brief for Respondents 36.
We find this contention without merit. The designation statute merely enforces the distiller’s decision to deny permission to a California wholesaler to deal in the distiller’s products. We do not think that respondents possess any constitutionally protected liberty or property interest in obtaining the distiller’s permission. Thus, the Due Process Clause is not offended by the wholesaler’s inability to challenge the distiller’s decisionmaking. What respondents are really challenging is the California Legislature’s decision to give such a power to the distiller without establishing any criteria to govern the exercise of that power. The Due Process Clause does not authorize this Court to assess the wisdom of the California Legislature’s decision. See Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726, 729-732 (1963).
c
Finally, respondents contend that the designation statute violates the Equal Protection Clause because it discriminates between designated and nondesignated wholesalers. There can be little doubt but that the designation statute is rationally related to the statute’s legitimate purposes. Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U. S. 456, 461-470 (1981). The designation statute enables the distiller to place restraints on intrabrand competition in order to foster inter-brand competition. It is not our province to determine whether or not California consumers would be better off had the California Legislature decided not to close off the “Oklahoma connection.” See Vance v. Bradley, 440 U. S. 93, 109 (1979).
The judgment of the Court of Appeal is reversed, and these cases are remanded to that court for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Section 23672 is actually an amended version of a statute invalidated by the California Supreme Court in Rice v. Alcoholic Beverage Control Appeals Bd., 21 Cal. 3d 431, 579 P. 2d 476 (1978), because its minimum price system constituted resale price maintenance in violation of the Sherman Act. See California Retail Liquor Dealers Assn. v. Midcal Aluminum, Inc., 445 U. S. 97, 100-102 (1980).
Okla. Stat., Tit. 37, §533 (1981).
The Oklahoma Supreme Court, however, has recently closed off the “Oklahoma connection” by holding that the open-wholesaling statute does not apply to alcoholic beverages destined for consumption in other States. Central Liquor Co. v. Oklahoma Alcoholic Beverage Control Bd., 640 P. 2d 1351 (1982). What made the “Oklahoma connection” particularly attractive to California wholesalers was that Oklahoma required distillers to sell to Oklahoma wholesalers at the lowest price charged for its products anywhere in the United States. See Okla. Stat., Tit. 37, §536.1 (1981). The demise of the “Oklahoma connection,” however, has no bearing on our disposition of the legal issues in these cases.
Although it did not phrase its conclusion in these terms, it is evident that the California Court of Appeal concluded that the designation statute was pre-empted by the Sherman Act. The court properly recognized that it had no jurisdiction to entertain a lawsuit brought pursuant to § 4 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 15. 108 Cal. App. 3d 348, 354, n. 2, 166 Cal. Rptr. 563, 568, n. 2 (1980). Rather than seeking a private remedy against private parties, respondents in these cases sought to enjoin the enforcement of a state statute that they contend to be unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause in its every application. Indeed, because respondents brought this suit prior to the effective date of the statute, respondents did not, and could not, challenge any vertical restraints actually employed by a distiller pursuant to the statute. Instead, respondents challenge the statute on its face without consideration of particular circumstances.
Under established antitrust principles, per se rules of illegality are appropriate only when they apply to 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.’” Continental T. V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U. S. 36, 50 (1977), quoting Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S. 1, 5 (1958). It is not surprising, therefore, that a statute which requires practices per se illegal under the Sherman Act may be subject to a facial challenge under the Supremacy Clause.
As with the instant case, because the challenged statute had not as yet been put into effect, this Court in Hostetter was presented only with a facial challenge to its constitutionality.
This is merely another way of stating that the designation statute might have an anticompetitive effect when applied in concrete factual situations. See New Motor Vehicle Bd. of Cal. v. Orrin W. Fox Co., 439 U. S., at 110-111. We have explained, however, that this is insufficient to declare the statute itself void on its face.
It is certainly conceivable, however, that particular conduct pursuant to the statute might be subject to a challenge under one or more of the established per se rules of illegality.
Because of our resolution of the pre-emption issue, it is not necessary for us to consider whether the statute may be saved from invalidation under the doctrine of Parker v. Brown, 317 U. S. 341 (1943), or under the Twenty-first Amendment.
Section 5(a) provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any person engaged in business as a distiller, brewer, rectifier, blender, or other producer, or as an importer or wholesaler, of distilled spirits, wine, or malt beverages, or as a bottler, or warehouseman and bottler, of distilled spirits, directly or indirectly or through an affiliate:
“(a) Exclusive outlet
“To require, by agreement or otherwise, that any retailer engaged in the sale of distilled spirits, wine, or malt beverages, purchase any such products from such person to the exclusion in whole or in part of distilled spirits, wine, or malt beverages sold or offered for sale by other persons in interstate or foreign commerce, if such requirement is made in the course of interstate or foreign commerce, or if such person engages in such practice to such an extent as substantially to restrain or prevent transactions in interstate or foreign commerce in any such products, or if the direct effect of such requirement is to prevent, deter, hinder, or restrict other persons from selling or offering for sale any such products to such retailer in interstate or foreign commerce.” 27 U. S. C. § 205(a).
See 27 CFR §§8.3, 8.11, 8.23 (1982).
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether a complaint filed in forma pauperis which fails to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) is automatically frivolous within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 1915(d). The answer, we hold, is no.
I
On October 27, 1986, respondent Harry Williams, Sr., an inmate in the custody of the Indiana Department of Corrections, filed a complaint under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, naming five Indiana correctional officials as defendants. App. 38. The complaint alleged that, while at the Indiana State Prison, Williams had been diagnosed by a prison doctor as having a small brain tumor which affected his equilibrium. Id., at 40. Because of this condition, the doctor placed Williams for one year on “medical idle status.” A medical report Williams attached to the complaint stated that “[i]t is very likely that he will have this condition for some time to come.” Id., at 48.
The complaint further alleged that, when Williams was transferred to the Indiana State Reformatory, he notified the reformatory staff about the tumor and about the doctor’s recommendation that he not participate in any prison work program. Id., at 41. Despite this notification, reformatory doctors refused to treat the tumor, id., at 40-41, and reformatory officials assigned Williams to do garment manufacturing work, id., at 42. After Williams’ equilibrium problems worsened and he refused to continue working, the reformatory disciplinary board responded by transferring him to a less desirable cell house. Id., at 42-43.
The complaint charged that by denying medical treatment, the reformatory officials had violated Williams’ rights under the Eighth Amendment, and by transferring him without a hearing, they had violated his rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id., at 44. The complaint sought money damages and declaratory and injunctive relief. Id., at 45-46. Along with the complaint, Williams filed a motion to proceed informa pauperis pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1915(a), stating that he had no assets and only prison income. App. 36-37.
The District Court dismissed the complaint sua sponte as frivolous under 28 U. S. C. § 1915(d) on the grounds that Williams had failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Insofar as Williams claimed deficient medical care, his pleadings did not state a claim of “deliberate indifference to [his] serious medical needs,” as prisoners’ Eighth Amendment claims must under Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 104 (1976), but instead described a constitutionally noncognizable instance of medical malpractice. Williams v. Faulkner, Cause No. IP 86-1307-C (SD Ind., Jan. 16, 1987), reprinted at App. 67. Insofar as Williams protested his transfer without a hearing, his pleadings failed to state a due process violation, for a prisoner has no constitutionally protected liberty or property interest in being incarcerated in a particular institution or a particular wing. Id., at 26. The court gave no other reasons for finding the complaint frivolous. On Williams’ ensuing motion to vacate the judgment and amend his pleadings, the District Court reached these same conclusions. Williams v. Faulkner, Cause No. IP 86-1307-C (SD Ind., Mar. 11, 1987), reprinted at App. 29.
The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. Williams v. Faulkner, 837 F. 2d 304 (1988). In its view, the District Court had wrongly equated the standard for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) with the standard for frivolousness under § 1915(d). The frivolousness standard, authorizing sua sponte dismissal of an in forma pauperis complaint “only if the petitioner cannot make any rational argument in law or fact which would entitle him or her to relief,” is a “more lenient” standard than that of Rule 12(b)(6), the court stated. 837 F. 2d, at 307. Unless there is “‘indisputably absent any factual or legal basis’” for the wrong asserted in the complaint, the trial court, “[i]n a close case,” should permit the claim to proceed at least to the point where responsive pleadings are required. Ibid, (citation omitted).
Evaluated under this frivolousness standard, the Court of Appeals held, Williams’ Eighth Amendment claims against two of the defendants had been wrongly dismissed. Although the complaint failed to allege the level of deliberate indifference necessary to survive a motion to' dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), at this stage of the proceedings, the court stated, “we cannot state with certainty that Williams is unable to make any rational argument in law or fact to support his claim for relief” against these defendants. 837 F. 2d, at 308. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded these claims to the District Court. The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of Williams’ due process claims as frivolous, however. Because the law is clear that prisoners have no constitutionally protected liberty interest in remaining in a particular wing of a prison, the court stated, Williams could make no rational argument in law or fact that his transfer violated due process. Id., at 308-309.
We granted the petition for a writ of certiorari, 488 U. S. 816 (1988), filed by those defendants against whom Williams’ claims still stand to decide whether a complaint that fails to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) is necessarily frivolous within the meaning of § 1915(d), a question over which the Courts of Appeals have disagreed. We now affirm.
I — H HH
The federal informa pauperis statute, enacted in 1892 and presently codified as 28 U. S. C. § 1915, is designed to ensure that indigent litigants have meaningful access to the federal courts. Adkins v. E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 335 U. S. 331, 342-343 (1948). Toward this end, § 1915(a) allows a litigant to commence a civil or criminal action in federal court in forma pauperis by filing in good faith an affidavit stating, inter alia, that he is unable to pay the costs of the lawsuit. Congress recognized, however, that a litigant whose filing fees and court costs are assumed by the public, unlike a paying litigant, lacks an economic incentive to refrain from filing frivolous, malicious, or repetitive lawsuits. To prevent such abusive or captious litigation, § 1915(d) authorizes federal courts to dismiss a claim filed informa pauperis “if the allegation of poverty is untrue, or if satisfied that the action is frivolous or malicious.” Dismissals on these grounds are often made sua sponte prior to the issuance of process, so as to spare prospective defendants the inconvenience and expense of answering such complaints. See Franklin v. Murphy, 745 F. 2d 1221, 1226 (CA9 1984).
The brevity of § 1915(d) and the generality of its terms have left the judiciary with the not inconsiderable tasks of fashioning the procedures by which the statute operates and of giving content to § 1915(d)’s indefinite adjectives. Articulating the proper contours of the § 1915(d) term “frivolous,” which neither the statute nor the accompanying congressional reports defines, presents one such task. The Courts of Appeals have, quite correctly in our view, generally adopted as formulae for evaluating frivolousness under § 1915(d) close variants of the definition of legal frivolousness which we articulated in the Sixth Amendment case of Anders v. California, 386 U. S. 738 (1967). There, we stated that an appeal on a matter of law is frivolous where “[none] of the legal points [are] arguable on their merits.” Id., at 744. By logical extension, a complaint, containing as it does both factual allegations and legal conclusions, is frivolous where it lacks an arguable basis either in law or in fact. As the Courts of Appeals have recognized, § 1915(d)’s term “frivolous,” when applied to a complaint, embraces not only the inarguable legal conclusion, but also the fanciful factual allegation.
Where the appellate courts have diverged, however, is on the question whether a complaint which fails to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) automatically satisfies this frivolousness standard. The petitioning prison officials urge us to adopt such a per se reading, primarily on the policy ground that such a reading will halt the “flood of frivolous litigation” generated by prisoners that has swept over the federal judiciary. Brief for Petitioners 7. In support of this position, petitioners note the large and growing number of prisoner civil rights complaints, the burden which disposing of meritless complaints imposes on efficient judicial administration, and the need to discourage prisoners from filing frivolous complaints as a means of gaining a “‘short sabbatical in the nearest federal courthouse.’” Id., at 6, quoting Cruz v. Beto, 405 U. S. 319, 327 (1972) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). Because a complaint which states no claim “must be dismissed pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) anyway,” petitioners assert, “delaying] this determination until after service of process and a defendant’s response only delays the inevitable.” Reply Brief for Petitioners 3.
We recognize the problems in judicial administration caused by the surfeit of meritless in forma pauperis complaints in the federal courts, not the least of which is the possibility that meritorious complaints will receive inadequate attention or be difficult to identify amidst the overwhelming number of meritless complaints. See Turner, When Prisoners Sue: A Study of Prisoner Section 1983 Suits in the Federal Courts, 92 Harv. L. Rev. 610, 611 (1979). Nevertheless, our role in appraising petitioners’ reading of § 1915(d) is not to make policy, but to interpret a statute. Taking this approach, it is evident that the failure-to-state-a-claim standard of Rule 12(b)(6) and the frivolousness standard of § 1915(d) were devised to serve distinctive goals, and that while the overlap between these two standards is considerable, it does not follow that a complaint which falls afoul of the former standard will invariably fall afoul of the latter. Appealing though petitioners’ proposal may appear as a broadbrush means of pruning meritless complaints from the federal docket, as a matter of statutory construction it is untenable.
Rule 12(b)(6) authorizes a court to dismiss a claim on the basis of a dispositive issue of law. Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U. S. 69, 73 (1984); Conley v. Gibson, 355 U. S. 41, 45-46 (1957). This procedure, operating on the assumption that the factual allegations in the complaint are true, streamlines litigation by dispensing with needless discovery and factfinding. Nothing in Rule 12(b)(6) confines its sweep to claims of law which are obviously insupportable. On the contrary, if as a matter of law “it is clear that no relief could be granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations,” Hishon, supra, at 73, a claim must be dismissed, without regard to whether it is based on an outlandish legal theory or on a close but ultimately unavailing one. What Rule 12(b)(6) does not countenance are dismissals based on a judge’s disbelief of a complaint’s factual allegations. District court judges looking to dismiss claims on such grounds must look elsewhere for legal support.
Section 1915(d) has a separate function, one which molds rather differently the power to dismiss which it confers. Section 1915(d) is designed largely to discourage the filing of, and waste of judicial and private resources upon, baseless lawsuits that paying litigants generally do not initiate because of the costs of bringing suit and because of the threat of sanctions for bringing vexatious suits under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. To this end, the statute accords judges not only the authority to dismiss a claim based on an indisputably meritless legal theory, but also the unusual power to pierce the veil of the complaint’s factual allegations and dismiss those claims whose factual contentions are clearly baseless. Examples of the former class are claims against which it is clear that the defendants are immune from suit, see, e. g., Williams v. Goldsmith, 701 F. 2d 603 (CA7 1983), and claims of infringement of a legal interest which clearly does not exist, like respondent Williams’ claim that his transfer within the reformatory violated his rights under the Due Process Clause. Examples of the latter class are claims describing fantastic or delusional scenarios, claims with which federal district judges are all too familiar.
To the extent that a complaint filed in forma pauperis which fails to state a claim lacks even an arguable basis in law, Rule 12(b)(6) and § 1915(d) both counsel dismissal. But the considerable common ground between these standards does not mean that the one invariably encompasses the other. When a complaint raises an arguable question of law which the district court ultimately finds is correctly resolved against the plaintiff, dismissal on Rule 12(b)(6) grounds is appropriate, but dismissal on the basis of frivolousness is not. This conclusion follows naturally from § 1915(d)’s role of replicating the function of screening out inarguable claims which is played in the realm of paid cases by financial considerations. The cost of bringing suit and the fear of financial sanctions doubtless deter most inarguable paid claims, but such deterrence presumably screens out far less frequently those arguably meritorious legal theories whose ultimate failure is not apparent at the outset.
Close questions of federal law, including claims filed pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1983, have on a number of occasions arisen on motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim, and have been substantial enough to warrant this Court’s granting review, under its certiorari jurisdiction, to resolve them. See, e. g., Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97 (1976); McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 427 U. S. 273 (1976); Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971); Jones v. Alfred Mayer Co., 392 U. S. 409 (1968). It can hardly be said that the substantial legal claims raised in these cases were so defective that they should never have been brought at the outset. To term these claims frivolous is to distort measurably the meaning of frivolousness both in common and legal parlance. Indeed, we recently reviewed the dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) of a complaint based on 42 U. S. C. § 1983 and found by a 9-to-0 vote that it had, in fact, stated a cognizable claim — a powerful illustration that a finding of a failure to state a claim does not invariably mean that the claim is without arguable merit. See Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U. S. 593 (1989). That frivolousness in the § 1915(d) context refers to a more limited set of claims than does Rule 12(b)(6) accords, moreover, with the understanding articulated in other areas of law that not all unsuccessful claims are frivolous. See, e. g., Penson v. Ohio, 488 U. S. 75 (1988) (criminal defendant has right to appellate counsel even if his claims are ultimately unavailing so long as they are not frivolous); Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U. S. 412, 422 (1978) (attorney’s fees may not be assessed against a plaintiff who fails to state a claim under 42 U. S. C. § 1988 or under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 unless his complaint is frivolous); Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U. S. 528, 536-537 (1974) (complaint that fails to state a claim may not be dismissed for want of subject-matter jurisdiction unless it is frivolous).
Our conclusion today is consonant with Congress’ overarching goal in enacting the in forma pauperis statute: “to assure equality of consideration for all litigants.” Coppedge v. United States, 369 U. S. 438, 447 (1962); see also H. R. Rep. No. 1079, 52d Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1892). Under Rule 12(b)(6), a plaintiff with an arguable claim is ordinarily accorded notice of a pending motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim and an opportunity to amend the complaint before the motion is ruled upon. These procedures alert him to the legal theory underlying the defendant’s challenge, and enable him meaningfully to respond by opposing the motion to dismiss on legal grounds or by clarifying his factual allegations so as to conform with the requirements of a valid legal cause of action. This adversarial process also crystallizes the pertinent issues and facilitates appellate review of a trial court dismissal by creating a more complete record of the case. Brandon v. District of Columbia Board of Parole, 236 U. S. App. D. C. 155, 158, 734 F. 2d 56, 59 (1984), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 1127 (1985). By contrast, the sua sponte dismissals permitted by, and frequently employed under, § 1915(d), necessary though they may sometimes be to shield defendants from vexatious lawsuits, involve no such procedural protections.
To conflate the standards of frivolousness and failure to state a claim, as petitioners urge, would thus deny indigent plaintiffs the practical protections against unwarranted dismissal generally accorded paying plaintiffs under the Federal Rules. A complaint like that filed by Williams under the Eighth Amendment, whose only defect was its failure to state a claim, will in all likelihood be dismissed sua sponte, whereas an identical complaint filed by a paying plaintiff will in all likelihood receive the considerable benefits of the adversary proceedings contemplated by the Federal Rules. Given Congress’ goal of putting indigent plaintiffs on a similar footing with paying plaintiffs, petitioners’ interpretation cannot reasonably be sustained. According opportunities for responsive pleadings to indigent litigants commensurate to the opportunities accorded similarly situated paying plaintiffs is all the more important because indigent plaintiffs so often proceed pro se and therefore may be less capable of formulating legally competent initial pleadings. See Haines v. Kerner, 404 U. S. 519, 520 (1972).
We therefore hold that a complaint filed informa pauperis is not automatically frivolous within the meaning of § 1915(d) because it fails to state a claim. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Affirmed,
Both in its initial ruling and upon the motion to vacate and amend, the District Court also denied Williams leave to proceed informa pauperis. It based this denial exclusively on its finding of frivolousness, stating that Williams had presumptively satisfied § 1915’s poverty requirement. Williams v. Faulkner, Cause No. IP 86-1307-C (SD Ind., Jan. 16, 1987), reprinted at App. 22. In so ruling, the District Court adhered to precedent in the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to the effect that, if a district court finds a complaint frivolous or malicious, it should not only dismiss the complaint but also retroactively deny the accompanying motion to proceed informa pauperis under § 1915, regardless of the plaintiff’s financial status. See Wartman v. Branch 7, Civil Division, County Court, Milwaukee County, Wis., 510 F. 2d 130, 134 (1975). Other Circuits, however, treat the decision whether to grant leave to file in forma pauperis as a threshold inquiry based exclusively on the movant’s poverty. See, e. g., Franklin v. Murphy, 745 F. 2d 1221, 1226-1227, n. 5 (CA9 1984); Boyce v. Alizaduh, 595 F. 2d 948, 950-951 (CA4 1979). Because our review is confined to the question whether the complaint in this case is frivolous within the meaning of § 1915(d), we have no occasion to consider the propriety of these varying applications of the statute.
The two defendants against whom the Eighth Amendment claims were reinstated were Han Chul Choi, a reformatory doctor whom Williams alleged had refused to treat the brain tumor, and Dean Neitzke, who as administrator of the reformatory infirmary was presumptively responsible for ensuring that Williams received adequate medical care. Williams v. Faulkner, 837 F. 2d 304, 308 (CA7 1988). The Court of Appeals held that Williams’ complaint had alleged no personal involvement on the part of the remaining three defendants in his medical treatment, and that these defendants’ prison jobs did not justify an “inference of personal involvement in the alleged deprivation of medical care.” Ibid. Because Williams could thus make no rational argument to support his claims for relief against these officials, the Court of Appeals stated, the District Court had appropriately dismissed those claims as frivolous. Ibid.
Compare Brandon v. District of Columbia Board of Parole, 236 U. S. App. D. C. 155, 159, 734 F. 2d 56, 59 (1984), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 1127 (1985), with Harris v. Menendez, 817 F. 2d 737, 740 (CA11 1987); Spears v. McCotter, 766 F. 2d 179, 182 (CA5 1985); Franklin, supra, at 1227; Malone v. Colyer, 710 F. 2d 258, 261 (CA6 1983).
See, e. g., Catz & Guyer, Federal In Forma Pauperis Litigation: In Search of Judicial Standards, 31 Rutgers L. Rev. 655 (1978); Feldman, Indigents in the Federal Courts: The In Forma Pauperis Statute — Equality and Frivolity, 54 Ford. L. Rev. 413 (1985).
See, e. g., Payne v. Lynaugh, 843 F. 2d 177, 178 (CA5 1988); Franklin, 745 F. 2d, at 1227-1228; Johnson v. Silvers, 742 F. 2d 823, 824 (CA4 1984); Brandon, supra, at 159, 734 F. 2d, at 59; Wiggins v. New Mexico State Supreme Court Clerk, 664 F. 2d 812, 815 (CA10 1981), cert. denied, 459 U. S. 840 (1982).
A patently insubstantial complaint may be dismissed, for example, for want of subject-matter jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). See, e. g., Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U. S. 528, 536-537 (1974) (federal courts lack power to entertain claims that are “ ‘so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of merit’ ”) (citation omitted); Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, 682-683 (1946).
At argument, Williams’ counsel estimated that many, if not most, prisoner complaints which fail to state a claim also fall afoul of § 1915’s strictures, Tr. of Oral Arg. 27, an estimate with which our experience does not incline us to take issue.
We have no occasion to pass judgment, however, on the permissible scope, if any, of sua sponte dismissals under Rule 12(b)(6).
Petitioners’ related suggestion that, as a practical matter, the liberal pleading standard applied to pro se plaintiffs under Haines provides ample protection misses the mark for two reasons. First, it is possible for a plaintiff to file in forma pauperis while represented by counsel. See, e. g., Adkins v. E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 335 U. S. 331 (1948). Second, the liberal pleading standard of Haines applies only to a plaintiff’s factual allegations. Responsive pleadings thus may be necessary for a pro se plaintiff to clarify his legal theories.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Kennedy
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and IV, and an opinion with respect to Part III, in which The Chief Justice, Justice O’Connor, and Justice Scalia join.
Once more we consider the distinction the law has drawn between the elements of a crime and factors that influence a criminal sentence,'Legislatures define crimes in terms of the facts that are their essential elements, and constitutional guarantees attach to these facts. In federal prosecutions, “[n]o person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury” alleging all the elements of the crime. U. S. Const., Amdt. 5; see Hamling v. United States, 418 U. S. 87, 117 (1974). “In all criminal prosecutions,” state and federal, “the accused shall enjoy the right to... trial... by an impartial jury,” U. S. Const., Amdt. 6; see Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 149 (1968), at which the government must prove each element beyond a reasonable doubt, see In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970).
Yet not all facts affecting the defendant’s punishment are elements. After the accused is convicted, the judge may impose a sentence within a range provided by statute, basing it on various facts relating to the defendant and the manner in which the offense was committed. Though these facts may have a substantial impact on the sentence, they are not elements, and are thus not subject to the Constitution’s indictment, jury, and proof requirements. Some statutes also direct judges to give specific weight to certain facts when choosing the sentence. The statutes do not require these facts, sometimes referred to as sentencing factors, to be alleged in the indictment, submitted to the jury, or established beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Constitution permits legislatures to make the distinction between elements and sentencing factors, but it imposes some limitations as well. For if it did not, legislatures could evade the indictment, jury, and proof requirements by labeling almost every relevant fact a sentencing factor. The Court described one limitation in this respect two Terms ago in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466, 490 (2000): “Other than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum,” whether the statute calls it an element or a sentencing factor, “must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Fourteen years before, in McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79 (1986), the Court had declined to adopt a more restrictive constitutional rule. McMillan sustained a statute that increased the minimum penalty for a crime, though not beyond the statutory maximum, when the sentencing judge found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant had possessed a firearm.
The principal question before us is whether McMillan stands after Apprendi.
I
Petitioner William Joseph Harris sold illegal narcotics out of his pawnshop with an unconcealed semiautomatic pistol at his side. He was later arrested for violating federal drug and firearms laws, including 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1)(A). That statute provides in relevant part:
“[A]ny person who, during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime... uses or carries a firearm, or who, in furtherance of any such crime, possesses a firearm, shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such crime of violence or drug trafficking crime—
“(i) be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 5 years;
“(ii) if the firearm is brandished, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 7 years; and
“(iii) if the firearm is discharged, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 10 years.”
The Government proceeded on the assumption that § 924(c)(1)(A) defines a single crime and that brandishing is a sentencing factor to be considered by the judge after the trial. For this reason the indictment said nothing of brandishing and made no reference to subsection (ii). Instead, it simply alleged the elements from the statute’s principal paragraph: that “during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime,” petitioner had “knowingly carried] a firearm.” At a bench trial the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina found petitioner guilty as charged.
Following his conviction, the presentence report recommended that petitioner be given the 7-year minimum because he had brandished the gun. Petitioner objected, citing this Court’s decision in Jones v. United States, 526 U. S. 227 (1999), and arguing that, as a matter of statutory interpretation, brandishing is an element of a separate offense, an offense for which he had not been indicted or tried. At the sentencing hearing the District Court overruled the objection, found by a preponderance of the evidence that petitioner had brandished the gun, and sentenced him to seven years in prison.
In the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit petitioner again pressed his statutory argument. He added that if brandishing is a sentencing factor as a statutory matter, the statute is unconstitutional in light of Apprendi — even though, as petitioner acknowledged, the judge’s finding did not alter the maximum penalty to which he was exposed. Rejecting these arguments, the Court of Appeals affirmed. 243 F. 3d 806 (2001). Like every other Court of Appeals to have addressed the question, it held that the statute makes brandishing a sentencing factor. Id., at 812; accord, United States v. Barton, 257 F. 3d 433, 443 (CA5 2001); United States v. Carlson, 217 F. 3d 986, 989 (CA8 2000); United States v. Pounds, 230 F. 3d 1317, 1319 (CA11 2000). The court also held that the constitutional argument was foreclosed by McMillan. 243 F. 3d, at 809.
We granted certiorari, 534 U. S. 1064 (2001), and now affirm.
II
We must first answer a threshold question of statutory construction: Did Congress make brandishing an element or a sentencing factor in § 924(c)(1)(A)? In the Government’s view the text in question defines a single crime, and the facts in subsections (ii) and (iii) are considerations for the sentencing judge. Petitioner, on the other hand, contends that Congress meant the statute to define three different crimes. Subsection (ii), he says, creates a separate offense of which brandishing is an element. If petitioner is correct, he was neither indicted nor tried for that offense, and the 7-year minimum did not apply.
So we begin our analysis by asking what § 924(c)(1)(A) means. The statute does not say in so many words whether brandishing is an element or a sentencing factor, but the structure of the prohibition suggests it is the latter. Federal laws usually list all offense elements “in a single sentence” and separate the sentencing factors “into subsections.” Castillo v. United States, 530 U. S. 120, 125 (2000). Here, § 924(c)(1)(A) begins with a lengthy principal paragraph listing the elements of a complete crime — “the basic federal offense of using or carrying a gun during and in relation to” a violent crime or drug offense. Id., at 124. Toward the end of the paragraph is “the word ‘shall,’ which often divides offense-defining provisions from those that specify sentences.” Jones, 526 U. S., at 233. And following “shall” are the separate subsections, which explain how defendants are to “be sentenced.” Subsection (i) sets a catchall minimum and “certainly adds no further element.” Ibid. Subsections (ii) and (iii), in turn, increase the minimum penalty if certain facts are present, and those subsections do not repeat the elements from the principal paragraph.
When a statute has this sort of structure, we can presume that its principal paragraph defines a single crime and its subsections identify sentencing factors. But even if a statute “has a look to it suggesting that the numbered subsections are only sentencing provisions,” id., at 232, the text might provide compelling evidence to the contrary. This was illustrated by the Court’s decision in Jones, in which the federal carjacking statute, which had a similar structure, was interpreted as setting out the elements of multiple offenses.
The critical textual clues in this case, however, reinforce the single-offense interpretation implied by the statute’s structure. Tradition and past congressional practice, for example, were perhaps the most important guideposts in Jones. The fact at issue there — serious bodily injury — is an element in numerous federal statutes, including two on which the carjacking statute was modeled; and the Jones Court doubted that Congress would have made this fact a sentencing factor in one isolated instance. Id., at 235-237; see also Castillo, supra, at 126-127; Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U. S. 224, 230 (1998). In contrast, there is no similar federal tradition of treating brandishing and discharging as offense elements. In Castillo v. United States, supra, the Court singled out brandishing as a paradigmatic sentencing factor: “Traditional sentencing factors often involve... special features of the manner in which a basic crime was carried out (e. g., that the defendant... brandished a gun).” Id., at 126. Under the Sentencing Guidelines, moreover, brandishing and discharging affect the sentences for numerous federal crimes. See, e. g., United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual §§2A2.2(b)(2), 2B3.1(b)(2), 2B3.2(b)(3)(A), 2E2.1(b)(l), 2L1.1(b)(4) (Nov. 2001). Indeed, the Guidelines appear to have been the only antecedents for the statute’s brandishing provision. The term “brandished” does not appear in any federal offense-defining provision save 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1)(A), and did not appear there until 1998, when the statute was amended to take its current form. The numbered subsections were added then, describing, as sentencing factors often do, “special features of the manner in which” the statute’s “basic crime” could be carried out. Castillo, supra, at 126. It thus seems likely that brandishing and discharging were meant to serve the same function under the statute as they do under the Guidelines.
We might have had reason to question that inference if brandishing or discharging altered the defendant’s punishment in a manner not usually associated with sentencing factors. Jones is again instructive. There the Court accorded great significance to the “steeply higher penalties” authorized by the carjacking statute’s three subsections, which enhanced the defendant’s maximum sentence from 15 years, to 25 years, to life — enhancements the Court doubted Congress would have made contingent upon judicial factfinding. 526 U. S., at 233; see also Castillo, supra, at 131; Almendarez-Torres, supra, at 235-236. The provisions before us now, however, have an effect on the defendant’s sentence that is more consistent with traditional understandings about how sentencing factors operate; the required findings constrain, rather than extend, the sentencing judge’s discretion. Section 924(c)(1)(A) does not authorize the judge to impose “steeply higher penalties” — or higher penalties at all — once the facts in question are found. Since the subsections alter only the minimum, the judge may impose a sentence well in excess of seven years, whether or not the defendant brandished the firearm. The incremental changes in the minimum — from 5 years, to 7, to 10 — are precisely what one would expect to see in provisions meant to identify matters for the sentencing judge’s consideration.
Nothing about the text or history of the statute rebuts the presumption drawn from its structure. Against the single-offense interpretation to which these considerations point, however, petitioner invokes the canon of constitutional avoidance. Under that doctrine, when “a statute is susceptible of two constructions, by one of which grave and doubtful constitutional questions arise and by the other of which such questions are avoided, our duty is to adopt the latter.” United States ex rel. Attorney General v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U. S. 366, 408 (1909). It is at least an open question, petitioner contends, whether the Fifth and Sixth Amendments require every fact increasing a federal defendant’s minimum sentence to be alleged in the indictment, submitted to the jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. To avoid resolving that question (and possibly invalidating the statute), petitioner urges, we should read § 924(c)(1)(A) as making brandishing an element of an aggravated federal crime.
The avoidance canon played a role in Jones, for the subsections of the carjacking statute enhanced the maximum sentence, and a single-offense interpretation would have implicated constitutional questions later addressed — and resolved in the defendant’s favor — by Apprendi. See Jones, supra, at 243, n. 6 (“[A]ny fact (other than prior conviction) that increases the maximum penalty for a crime must be charged in an indictment, submitted to a jury, and proven beyond a reasonable doubt”). Yet the canon has no role to play here. It applies only when there are serious concerns about the statute’s constitutionality, Reno v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292, 314, n. 9 (1993), and petitioner’s proposed rule — that the Constitution requires any fact increasing the statutory minimum sentence to be accorded the safeguards assigned to elements — was rejected 16 years ago in McMillan. Petitioner acknowledges as much but argues that recent developments cast doubt on McMillan’s viability. To avoid deciding whether McMillan must be overruled, he says, we should construe the problem out of the statute.
Petitioner’s suggestion that we use the canon to avoid overruling one of our own precedents is novel and, given that McMillan was in place when § 924(c)(1)(A) was enacted, unsound. The avoidance canon rests upon our “respect for Congress, which we assume legislates in the light of constitutional limitations.” Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U. S. 173, 191 (1991). The statute at issue in this case was passed when McMillan provided the controlling instruction, and Congress would have had no reason to believe that it was approaching the constitutional line by following that instruction. We would not further the canon’s goal of eliminating friction with our coordinate branch, moreover, if we alleviated our doubt about a constitutional premise we had supplied by adopting a strained reading of a statute that Congress had enacted in reliance on the premise. And if we stretched the text to avoid the question of McMillan's continuing vitality, the canon would embrace a dynamic view of statutory interpretation, under which the text might mean one thing when enacted yet another if the prevailing view of the Constitution later changed. We decline to adopt that approach.
As the avoidance canon poses no obstacle and the interpretive circumstances point in a common direction, we conclude that, as a matter of statutory interpretation, § 924(e)(1)(A) defines a single offense. The statute regards brandishing and discharging as sentencing factors to be found by the judge, not offense elements to be found by the jury.
III
Confident that the statute does just what McMillan said it could, we consider petitioner’s argument that § 924(c)(l)(A)(ii) is unconstitutional because McMillan is no longer sound authority. Stare decisis is not an “inexorable command,” Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U. S. 393, 405 (1932) (Brandéis, J., dissenting), but the doctrine is “of fundamental importance to the rule of law,” Welch v. Texas Dept. of Highways and Public Transp., 483 U. S. 468, 494 (1987). Even in constitutional cases, in which stare decisis concerns are less pronounced, we will not overrule a precedent absent a “special justification.” Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U. S. 203, 212 (1984).
The special justification petitioner offers is our decision in Apprendi, which, he says, cannot be reconciled with McMillan. Cf. Ring v. Arizona, post, at 609 (overruling Walton v. Arizona, 497 U. S. 639 (1990), because “Walton and Apprendi are irreconcilable”). We. do not find the argument convincing. As we shall explain, McMillan and Apprendi are consistent because there is a fundamental distinction between the factual findings that were at issue in those two cases. Apprendi said that any fact extending the defendant’s sentence beyond the maximum authorized by the jury’s verdict would have been considered an element of an aggravated crime — and thus the domain of the jury — by those who framed the Bill of Rights. The same cannot be said of a fact increasing the mandatory minimum (but not extending the sentence beyond the statutory maximum), for the jury’s verdict has authorized the judge to impose the minimum with Or without the finding. As McMillan recognized, a statute may reserve this type of factual finding for the judge without violating the Constitution.
Though defining criminal conduct is a task generally “left to the legislative branch,” Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197, 210 (1977), Congress may not manipulate the definition of a crime in a way that relieves the Government of its constitutional obligations to charge each element in the indictment, submit each element to the jury, and prove each element beyond a reasonable doubt, Jones, 526 U. S., at 240-241; Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684, 699 (1975). McMillan and Apprendi asked whether certain types of facts, though labeled sentencing factors by the legislature, were nevertheless “traditional elements” to which these constitutional safeguards were intended to apply. Patterson v. New York, supra, at 211, n. 12.
McMillan’s answer stemmed from certain historical and doctrinal understandings about the role of the judge at sentencing. The mid-19th century produced a general shift in this country from criminal statutes “providing fixed-term sentences to those providing judges discretion within a permissible range.” Apprendi, 530 U. S., at 481. Under these statutes, judges exercise their sentencing discretion through “an inquiry broad in scope, largely unlimited either as to the kind of information [they] may consider, or the source from which it may come.” United States v. Tucker, 404 U. S. 443, 446 (1972). The Court has recognized that this process is constitutional — and that the facts taken into consideration need not be alleged in the indictment, submitted to the jury, or proved beyond a reasonable doubt. See, e. g., United States v. Watts, 519 U. S. 148, 156 (1997) (per curiam); Nichols v. United States, 511 U. S. 738, 747 (1994); Williams v. New York, 337 U. S. 241, 246 (1949). As the Court reiterated in Jones: “It is not, of course, that anyone today would claim that every fact with a bearing on sentencing must be found by a jury; we have resolved that general issue and have no intention of questioning its resolution.” 526 U. S., at 248. Judicial factfinding in the course of selecting a sentence within the authorized range does not implicate the indictment, jury-trial, and reasonable-doubt components of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
That proposition, coupled with another shift in prevailing sentencing practices, explains McMillan. In the latter part of the 20th century, many legislatures, dissatisfied with sentencing disparities among like offenders, implemented measures regulating judicial discretion. These systems maintained the statutory ranges and the judge’s factfinding role but assigned a uniform weight to factors judges often relied upon when choosing a sentence. See, e. g., Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 820 (1991). One example of reform, the kind addressed in McMillan, was mandatory minimum sentencing. The Pennsylvania Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Act, 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 9712 (1982), imposed a minimum prison term of five years when the sentencing judge found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant had possessed a firearm while committing the crime of conviction.
In sustaining the statute the McMillan Court placed considerable reliance on the similarity between the sentencing factor at issue and the facts judges contemplate when exercising their discretion within the statutory range. Given that the latter are not elements of the crime, the Court explained, neither was the former:
“Section 9712 neither alters the maximum penalty for the crime committed nor creates a separate offense calling for a separate penalty; it operates solely to limit the sentencing court’s discretion in selecting a penalty within the range already available to it without the special finding of visible possession of a firearm. Section 9712 ‘ups the ante’ for the defendant only by raising to five years the minimum sentence which may be imposed within the statutory plan.... Petitioners’ claim that visible possession under the Pennsylvania statute is ‘really’ an element of the offenses for which they are being punished... would have at least more superficial appeal if a finding of visible possession exposed them to greater or additional punishment,... but it does not.” 477 U. S., at 87-88 (footnote omitted).
In response to the argument that the Act evaded the Constitution’s procedural guarantees, the Court noted that the statute “simply took one factor that has always been considered by sentencing courts to bear on punishment... and dictated the precise weight to be given that factor.” Id., at 89-90.
That reasoning still controls. If the facts judges consider when exercising their discretion within the statutory range are not elements, they do not become as much merely because legislatures require the judge to impose a minimum sentence when those facts are found — a sentence the judge could have imposed absent the finding. It does not matter, for the purposes of the constitutional analysis, that in statutes like the Pennsylvania Act the “State provides” that a fact “shall give rise both to a special stigma and to a special punishment.” Id., at 108 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Judges choosing a sentence within the range do the same, and “[j]udges, it is sometimes necessary to remind ourselves, are part of the State.” Apprendi, supra, at 498 (Scalia, J., concurring). These facts, though stigmatizing and punitive, have been the traditional domain of judges; they have not been alleged in the indictment or proved beyond a reasonable doubt. There is no reason to believe that those who framed the Fifth and Sixth Amendments would have thought of them as the elements of the crime.
This conclusion might be questioned if there were extensive historical evidence showing that facts increasing the defendant’s minimum sentence (but not affecting the maximum) have, as a matter of course, been treated as elements. The evidence on this score, however, is lacking. Statutes like the Pennsylvania Act, which alter the minimum sentence without changing the maximum, were for the most part the product of the 20th century, when legislatures first asserted control over the sentencing judge’s discretion. Courts at the founding (whose views might be relevant, given the contemporaneous adoption of the Bill of Rights, see Apprendi, 530 U. S., at 478-484) and in the mid-19th century (whose views might be relevant, given that sentencing ranges first arose then, see id., at 501-518 (Thomas, J., concurring)) were not as a general matter required to decide whether a fact giving rise to a mandatory minimum sentence within the available range was to be alleged in the indictment and proved to the jury. See King & Klein, Essential Elements, 54 Vand. L. Rev. 1467, 1474-1477 (2001). Indeed, though there is no clear record of how history treated these facts, it is clear that they did not fall within the principle by which history determined what facts were elements. That principle defined elements as “fact[s]... legally essential to the punishment to be inflicted.” United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214, 232 (1876) (Clifford, J., dissenting) (citing 1 J. Bishop, Law of Criminal Procedure §81, p. 51 (2d ed. 1872)). This formulation includes facts that, as McMillan put it, “alte[r] the maximum penalty,” 477 U. S., at 87, but it does not include facts triggering a mandatory minimum. The minimum may be imposed with or without the factual finding; the finding is by definition not “essential” to the defendant’s punishment.
McMillan was on firm historical ground, then, when it held that a legislature may specify the condition for a mandatory minimum without making the condition an element of the crime. The fact of visible firearm possession was more like the facts considered by judges when selecting a sentence within the statutory range — facts that, as the authorities from the 19th century confirm, have never been charged in the indictment, submitted to the jury, or proved beyond a reasonable doubt:
“[Wjithin the limits of any discretion as to the punishment which the law may have allowed, the judge, when he pronounces sentence, may suffer his discretion to be influenced by matter shown in aggravation or mitigation, not covered by the allegations of the indictment. Where the law permits the heaviest punishment, on a scale laid down, to be inflicted, and has merely committed to the judge the authority to interpose its mercy and inflict a punishment of a lighter grade, no rights of the accused are violated though in the indictment there is no mention of mitigating circumstances. The aggravating circumstances spoken of cannot swell the penalty above what the law has provided for the acts charged against the prisoner, and they are interposed merely to check the judicial discretion in the exercise of the permitted mercy. This is an entirely different thing from punishing one for what is not alleged against him.” Bishop, Criminal Procedure § 85, at 54.
Since sentencing ranges came into use, defendants have not been able to predict from the face of the indictment precisely what their sentence will be; the charged facts have simply made them aware of the “heaviest punishment” they face if convicted. Ibid. Judges, in turn, have always considered uncharged “aggravating circumstances” that, while increasing the defendant’s punishment, have not “swell[ed] the penalty above what the law has provided for the acts charged.” Ibid. Because facts supporting a mandatory minimum fit squarely within that description, the legislature’s choice to entrust them to the judge does not implicate the “competition... between judge and jury over... their respective roles,” Jones, 526 U. S., at 245, that is the central concern of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
At issue in Apprendi, by contrast, was a sentencing factor that did “swell the penalty above what the law has provided,” Bishop, supra, §85, at 54, and thus functioned more like a “traditional elemen[t].” Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S., at 211, n. 12. The defendant had been convicted of illegal possession of a firearm, an offense for which New Jersey law prescribed a maximum of 10 years in prison. See N. J. Stat. Ann. §§ 2C:39-4(a), 2C:43-6(a)(2) (1995). He was sentenced to 12 years, however, because a separate statute permitted an enhancement when the judge found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant “acted with a purpose to intimidate an individual or group of individuals because of race.” §2C:44-3(e) (Supp. 2001-2002).
The Court held that the enhancement was unconstitutional. “[0]ur cases in this area, and... the history upon which they rely,” the Court observed, confirmed the eonstitu-
tional principle first identified in Jones: “Other than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” 530 U. S., at 490. Those facts, Apprendi held, were what the Framers had in mind when they spoke of “crimes” and “criminal prosecutions” in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments: A crime was not alleged, and a criminal prosecution not complete, unless the indictment and the jury verdict included all the facts to which the legislature had attached the maximum punishment. Any “fact that... exposes the criminal defendant to a penalty exceeding the maximum he would receive if punished according to the facts reflected in the jury verdict alone,” the Court concluded, id., at 483, would have been, under the prevailing historical practice, an element of an aggravated offense. See id., at 479-481; see also id., at 501-518 (Thomas, J., concurring).
Apprendi's conclusions do not undermine McMillan’s. There was no comparable historical practice of submitting facts increasing the mandatory minimum to the jury, so the Apprendi rule did not extend to those facts. Indeed, the Court made clear that its holding did not affect McMillan at all:
“We do not overrule McMillan. We limit its holding to cases that do not involve the imposition of a sentence more severe than the statutory maximum for the offense established by the jury’s verdict — a limitation identified in the McMillan opinion itself.” 530 U. S., at 487, n. 13.
The sentencing factor in McMillan did not increase “the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum,” 530 U. S., at 490; nor did it, as the concurring opinions in Jones put it, “alter the eongressionally prescribed range of penalties to which a criminal defendant is exposed,” 526 U. S., at 253 (Scalia, J., concurring). As the Apprendi Court observed, the McMillan finding merely required the judge to impose “a specific sentence within the range authorized by the jury’s finding that the defendant [was] guilty.” 530 U. S., at 494, n. 19; see also Jones, supra, at 242 (“[T]he Winship issue [in McMillan] rose from a provision that a judge’s finding (by a preponderance) of visible possession of a firearm would require a mandatory minimum sentence for certain felonies, but a minimum that fell within the sentencing ranges otherwise prescribed”).
As its holding and the history on which it was based would suggest, the Apprendi Court's understanding of the Constitution is consistent with the holding in McMillan. Facts extending the sentence beyond the statutory maximum had traditionally been charged in the indictment and submitted to the jury, Apprendi said, because the function of the indictment and jury had been to authorize the State to impose punishment:
“The evidence... that punishment was, by law, tied to the offense... and the evidence that American judges have exercised sentencing discretion within a legally prescribed range... point to a single, consistent conclusion: The judge’s role in sentencing is constrained at its outer limits by the facts alleged in the indictment and found by the jury. Put simply, facts that expose a defendant to a punishment greater than that otherwise legally prescribed were by definition ‘elements’ of a separate legal offense.” 530 U. S., at 483, n. 10.
The grand and petit juries thus form a “ ‘strong and two-fold barrier... between the liberties of the people and the prerogative of the [government].’” Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S., at 151 (quoting W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 349 (T. Cooley ed. 1899)). Absent authorization from the trial jury — in the form of a finding, by proof beyond a reasonable doubt, of the facts warranting the extended sentence under the New Jersey statute — the State had no power to sentence the defendant to more than 10 years, the maximum “authorized by the jury’s guilty verdict.” Apprendi, 530 U. S., at 494. “[T]hose facts that determine the maximum sentence the law allows,” then, are necessarily elements of the crime. Id., at 499 (Scalia, J., concurring).
Yet once the jury finds all those facts, Apprendi says that the defendant has been convicted of the crime; the Fifth and Sixth Amendments have been observed; and the Government has been authorized to impose any sentence below the maximum. That is why, as Apprendi noted, “nothing in this history suggests that it is impermissible for judges to exercise discretion — taking into consideration various factors relating both to offense and offender — in imposing a judgment within the range.” Id., at 481. That is also why, as McMillan noted, nothing in this history suggests that it is impermissible for judges to find facts that give rise to a mandatory minimum sentence below “the maximum penalty for the crime committed.” 477 U. S., at 87-88. In both instances the judicial factfinding does not “expose a defendant to a punishment greater than that otherwise legally prescribed.” Apprendi, supra, at 483, n. 10. Whether chosen by the judge or the legislature, the facts guiding judicial discretion below the statutory maximum need not be alleged in the indictment, submitted to the jury, or proved beyond a reasonable doubt. When a judge sentences the defendant to a mandatory minimum, no less than when the judge chooses a sentence within the range, the grand and petit juries already have found all the facts necessary to authorize the Government to impose the sentence. The judge may impose the minimum, the maximum, or any other sentence within the range without seeking further authorization from those juries — and without contradicting Apprendi.
Petitioner argues, however, that the concerns underlying Apprendi apply with equal or more force to facts increasing the defendant’s minimum sentence. Those factual findings, he contends, often have a greater impact on the defendant than the findings at issue in Apprendi. This is so because when a fact increasing the statutory maximum is found, the judge may still impose a sentence far below that maximum; but when a fact increasing the minimum is found, the judge has no choice but to impose that minimum, even if he or she otherwise would have chosen a lower sentence. Cf. Almendarez-Torres, 523 U. S., at 244-245. Why, petitioner asks, would fairness not also require the latter sort of fact to be alleged in the indictment and found by the jury under a reasonable-doubt standard? The answer is that because it is beyond dispute that the judge’s choice of sentences within the authorized range may be influenced by facts
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Once again we are called upon to consider the scope of the provision of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which declares that' “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or-prohibiting the free exercise thereof....” These companion cases present the issues in the context of state action requiring that schools begin each day with readings from the Bible.'While raising the basic questions under slightly different factual situations, -the cases permit of joint treatment. In light of the history of the First Amendment and of our cases interpreting and applying its requirements, we hold that the practices at issue and the laws requiring them are unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause, 'as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.
I.
The Facts in Each Case: No. 142. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by law, 24 Pa. Stat. § 15-1516, as amended, Pub. Law' 1928 (Supp. 1960) Dec. 17, 1959, requires that “At least ten verses from the Holy Bible shall be read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each school day. Any child shall be excused from such Bible reading, or attending such Bible reading, upon the written request of' his parent or. guardian.” The Schempp family, husband and wife and two of their three children, brought suit to enjoin enforcement of the statute, contending that their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to-the Constitution of the United States are, have been, and will continue to be violated unless this statute be declared unconstitutional as violative of these provisions of the First Amendment. They sought to enjoin the appellant school district, wherein the Schempp children attend school, and its officers and the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the Commonwealth from continuing to conduct such readings and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in the public schools of the-district pursuant to the statute. A three-judge statutory District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania held that the statute is violative of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as applied to the States by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and directed that appropriate injunctive relief issue. 201 F. Supp. 815. On appeal by the District, its officials and the Superintendent, under 28 U. S. C. § 1253, we noted probable jurisdiction. 371 U. S. 807.
The appellees Edward Lewis Schempp, his wife Sidney, and their children, Roger and Donna, are of the Unitarian faith and are members of the Unitarian Church in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where they, as well as another son, Ellory,' regularly attend religious services. The latter was originally a party but having graduated from the school system pendente lite was voluntarily dismissed from the action. The other children attend the Abington Senior High School, which is a public school operated by appellant district.
On each school day at the Abington Senior High School between 8:15 and 8:30 a. m., while the pupils are attending their home rooms or advisory sections, opening exercises are'conducted pursuant to the statute. The exercises are broadcast into each room in the school building through an intercommunications system and are conducted under the supervision, of a teacher by students attending the school’s radio and television workshop. Selected students from this course gather each morning in the school’s workshop, studio for the exercises, which include' readings by one of the students of 10 verses of the Holy Bible, broadcast to each room in the building. This is followed by the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, likewise over th' intercommunications system, but- also by the studer, m the various classrooms, who are asked to stand and join in repeating the prayer in unison. The exercises are closed with the flag salute and such pertinent announcements as are of interest to the students. Participation in the opening exercises, as directed by the statute, is voluntary. The student reading the verses from the Bible may select the passages and read from any version he chooses, although the only copies furnished by the school are the King James version, copies of which were circulated to each teacher by the school district. During the period in which the exercises have been, conducted the King James, the Douay and the Revised Standard versions of the Bible have been used-, as well as the Jewish Holy Scriptures., There are no prefatory statements, no questions asked or solicited, no comments or explanations made and no interpretations given at or during the exercises. The students and parents are advised that the student may absent himself from the classroom or, should he elect to remain, not participate in the exercises.
It appears from the record that in schools not having an intercommunications system the Bible reading and the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer were conducted by the home-room teacher, who chose the text of the verses and read them herself or had students read them in rotation or by volunteers. This was followed by a standing recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, together with the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag by the class in unison and a closing announcement of routine school items of interest.
At the first trial Edward Schempp and the children testified as to specific religious doctrines purveyed by a literal reading of the Bible “which were contrary to the religious beliefs which they held and to their familial teaching.” 177 F. Supp. 398, 400. The children testified that all of the doctrines to which they referred were read to them at various times as part of the exercises. Edward Schempp testified at the second trial that he had considered having Roger and Donna excused from attendance at the exercises but decided against it for several reasons, including his belief that the children’s relationships with their teachers and classmates would be adversely affected.
Expert testimony was introduced by both appellants and appellees at the first trial, which testimony was summarized by the trial court as follows:
“Dr. Solomon Grayzel testified that there were marked differences between the Jewish Holy Scriptures and the Christian Holy Bible, the most obvious of which was the absence of the New Testament in the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Dr. Grayzel testified that portions of the New Testament were offensive to Jewish tradition and that, from the standpoint of Jewish faith, the concept of Jesus Christ as the Son of God was ‘practically blasphemous.’ He cited instances in the New Testament which, assertedly, were not only sectarian in nature but tended to bring the Jews into ridicule or scorn. Dr. Grayzel gave as his expert opinion that such material from the New Testament could be explained to Jewish children in such a way as to do no harm to them. But if portions of the New Testament were read without explanation, they could be, and in his specific experience with children Dr. Grayzel observed, had been, psychologically harmful to the child and had caused a divisive force within the social media of the school.
“Dr. Grayzel also testified that there was significant difference in attitude with regard to the respective Books of the Jewish and Christian Religions in that Judaism attaches no special significance to the reading of the Bible per se and that the Jewish Holy Scriptures are source materials to be studied. But Dr. Grayzel did state that many portions of the New, as well as of the Old, Testament contained passages of great literary and moral value.
“Dr. Luther A. Weigle, an expert witness for the defense, testified in some detail as to the reasons for and the methods employed in developing the King James and the Revised Standard Versions of the Bible. On direct examination, Dr. Weigle stated that the Bible was non-sectarian. He later stated that the phrase ‘non-sectarian’ meant to him non-' sectarian within the Christian faiths. Dr. Weigle stated that his definition of the Holy Bible would include the Jewish Holy Scriptures, but also stated that the ‘Holy Bible’ would not be complete without the New Testament. He stated that the New Testament ‘conveyed the message of Christians.’ In his opinion, reading of the Holy Scriptures to the exclusion of the New Testament would be a sectarian practice. Dr. Weigle ^tated that the Bible was of great moral, historical and literary value. This is conceded by all the parties and is also the view of the court.” 177 F. Supp. 398, 401-402.
The trial court, in striking down the practices and the statute requiring them, made specific findings of fact that the children’s attendance at Abington Senior High School is compulsory and that the practice of reading 10 verses from the Bible is also compelled by law. It also found that:
“The reading of the verses, even without comment, possesses a devotional and religious character and constitutes in effect a religious observance. The devotional and religious nature of the morning exercises is made all the more apparent by the fact that the Bible reading is followed immediately by a recital in unison by the' pupils of the Lord’s Prayer. The fact that some pupils, or theoretically all pupils, might be excused.from attendance at the exercises does not mitigate the obligatory nature of the ceremony for... Section 1516... unequivocally requires the exercises to be held every school day in every school in the Commonwealth. The exercises are held in the school buildings and perforce are conducted by and under the authority of the local school authorities and during school sessions. Since the statute requires the reading of the ‘Holy Bible,’ a Christian document, the practice... prefers the. Christian religion. The record demonstrates ‘that it was the intention of... the Commonwealth... to introduce a religious ceremony into the public schools of the Commonwealth.” 201 P. Supp., at 819.
No. 119. In 1905 the Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore City adopted a rule pursuant to Art. 77, § 202 of the Annotated Code of Maryland. The rule provided for the holding of opening exercises in the schools of the city, consisting primarily of the “reading, without comment, of a chapter in the Holy Bible and/or the use of the Lord’s Prayer.” The petitioners, Mrs. Madalyn Murray and her son,- William J. Murray III, are both professed atheists. Following unsuccessful attempts to have the respondent school board rescind the rule, this suit was filed for mandamus to compel its rescission and cancellation. It was alleged that William was a student in a public school of the city and Mrs. Murray, his mother, was a taxpayer therein; that it was the practice under the rule to have a reading on each, school morning from the King James version of the-Bible; that at petitioners’ insistence the rule was amended to permit children to be excused from the exercise on request of the parent and that William had been excused pursuant thereto; that nevertheless the rule as amended was in violation of the petitioners’ rights “to freedom of religion under the First and Fourteenth Amendments” and in violation of “the principle of separation between church and state, contained therein...,” The petition particularized the petitioners’ atheistic beliefs, and stated that the rule, as practiced,.violated their" rights.
“in that it threatens their religious liberty by placing a premium on belief as against non-belief and subjects their freedom of conscience to the rule of the majority; it pronounces belief in God as the source of all moral and spiritual values, equating these values with religious values,, and thereby renders sinister, alien and suspect the beliefs and ideals of your Petitioners; promoting doubt and question of their morality, good citizenship and good faith.”
The respondents demurred and the. trial court, recognizing that the demurrer admitted all facts well pleaded, sustained it without leave to amend. The Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed, the majority of four justices holding the exercise not in "violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, with three justices dissenting. 228 Md. 239, 179 A. 2d 698. We granted certiorari. 371 U. S. 809.
II.
It is true that religion has been closely identified with our history, and government. As we said in Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, -434 (1962), “The history of man is inseparable from the history of religion. And... since the beginning of that history many people have devoutly believed that ‘More things are wrought by prayer than' this world dreams of.’” In Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306, 313 (1952), we gave specific recognition to the proposition that “[w]e are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” The fact that the Founding Fathers believed devotedly that there was a God and that the unalienable rights of man were rooted in Him is clearly evidénced in their writings, from the Mayflower Compact to the Constitution itself. This background is evidenced today in our public life through the continuance in our. oaths of office from the Presidency to the Alderman of the final supplication, “So help mé God.” Likewise each House of the Congress provides through its Chaplain an opening prayer, and the sessions of this Court are declared open by the crier in a short ceremony, the final phrase of which invokes the grace of God. Again, there are such manifestations in our military forces, where those of our citizens who are under the restrictions of military service wish to engage in voluntary worship. Indeed, only last year an official survey of the country indicated that 64% of our people have church membership, Bureau of the Census, U. S. Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States (83d ed. 1962), 48, while less than 3% profess no religion whatever. Id., at p. 46. It can be truly said, therefore, that today, as in the beginning, our national life reflects a religious people who, in the words of Madison, are “earnestly praying, as... in duty bound, that the Supreme Lawgiver of the Universe... guide them into every measure which may be worthy of his [blessing....]” Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, quoted in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 71-72 (1947) (Appendix to dissenting opinion of Rutledge, J.).
This is not to say, however, that religion has been so identified with our history and government that religious freedom is not likewise as strongly imbedded in our public and private life. Nothing but the most telling of personal experiences in religious persecution suffered by our forebears, see Everson v. Board of Education, supra, at 8-11, could have planted our belief in liberty of religious opinion any more deeply in our heritage. It is true that this liberty frequently was not realized by the colonists, but this is readily accountable by their close ties to the Mother Country. However, the views of Madison and Jefferson, preceded by Roger. Williams, came to be incorporated not only in the Federal Constitution but likewise in those of most of our States. This freedom to worship was indispensable in a country whose people came from the four quarters of the earth and brought with them a diversity of religious opinion. Today authorities list 83 separate religious bodies, each with membership exceeding 50,000, existing among our people, as well as innumerable smaller groups. Bureau of the Census, op. cit., supra, at. 46-47.
III.
Almost a hundred years ago in Minor v. Board of Education of Cincinnati, Judge Alphonso Taft, father of the revered Chief Justice, in an unpublished opinion stated the ideal of our people as to religious freedom as one of
“absolute equality before the law, of all religious-opinions and sects....
.....
“The government is neutral, and, while protecting all, it prefers none, and it disparages none.”
Before examining this “neutral” position in which the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment place our Government it is well that we discuss the reach of the Amendment under the cases of this Court.
First, this Court has decisively settled that the.First Amendment’s mandate that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” has been made wholly applicable to the' States, by the Fourteenth Amendment. Twenty-three years ago in Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303 (1940), this Court, through Mr. Justice Roberts, said:
“The fundamental concept of liberty embodied in that [Fourteenth] Amendment embraces the liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment. The First Amendment declares that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The Fourteenth Amendment has rendered the legislatures of the states as incompetent as Congress to enact such laws....”
In a series of cases since Cantwell the Court has repeatedly reaffirmed that doctrine, and we do so now. Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 108 (1943); Everson v. Board of Education, supra; Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of. Education, 333 U. S. 203, 210-211 (1948); Zorach v. Clauson, supra; McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420 (1961); Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488 (1961); and Engel v. Vitale, supra.
Second, this Court has rejected unequivocally the contention that the Establishment Clause forbids only governmental preference of one religion over another. Almost 20 years ago in Everson, supra, at 15, the Court said that “[n] either a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another.”. And Mr. Justice Jackson, dissenting, agreed:
“There is no answer to the proposition... that the effect of the religious freedom Amendment to our Constitution was to take every form of propagation of religion out of the realm of things which could directly or indirectly be made public business and thereby be supported in whole or in part at taxpayers’ expense.... This freedom was first in the Bill of Rights because it was first in the forefathers’ minds; it was set forth in absolute terms, and its strength is its rigidity.” Id., at 26.
Further, Mr. Justice Rutledge, joined by Justices Frankfurter, Jackson and Burton, declared:
“The [First] Amendment’s purpose was not to strike merely at the official establishment of a single sect, creed or religion, outlawing only a formal relation such as had prevailed in England and some of the colonies. Necessarily it was to uproot all such relationships. But the object was broader than separating church and state in this narrow sense. It was to create a complete and permanent separation of the spheres of religious activity and civil authority by comprehensively forbidding every form of public aid or support for religion.” Id., at 31-32.
The same conclusion has been firmly maintained ever since that time, see Illinois ex rel. McCollum, supra, at pp. 210-211; McGowan v. Maryland, supra, at 442-443; Torcaso v. Watkins, supra, at 492-493, 495, and we reaffirm it now.
While none of the parties to either of these cases has questioned these basic conclusions of the Court, both of which have been long established, recognized and consistently reaffirmed, others continue to question their history, logic and efficacy. Such contentions, in the light of the consistent interpretation in cases of this Court, seem entirely untenable and of value only as academic exercises.
IV.
The interrelationship of. the Establishment and the Free Exercise Clauses was first touched upon by Mr. Justice Roberts for the Court in Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, at 303-304, where it was said that their “inhibition of legislation” had
“a double aspect. On the one hand, it forestalls compulsion by law of the acceptance of any creed or the practice of any form of worship. Freedom of conscience and freedom to adhere to such religious organization or form of worship as the individual may choose cannot be restricted by law. On the other hand, it safeguards the free exercise of the chosen form of religion. Thus the Amendment embraces two concepts, — freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute but, in the nature of things, the second cannot be.”
A half dozen, years later in Everson v. Board of Education, supra, at 14-15, this Court, through Me. Justice Black, stated that the “scope of the First Amendment... was designed forever to suppress” the establishment of religion or the prohibition, of the free exercise thereof. In short, the Court held that the Amendment
“requires the state to be a neutral in its relations with groups of religious believers and non-believers; it does not require the state to be their adversary. State power is no more to be used so as to handicap religions than it is to favor them.” Id., at 18.
And Mr, Justice Jackson, in dissent, declared that public schools are organized
“on the premise that secular education can be isolated from all religious teaching so that the school can inculcate all needed temporal knowledge and also maintain a strict and lofty neutrality as to religion. The assumption is that after the individual has been instructed in worldly wisdom he will be better fitted to choose his religion.” Id., at 23-24.
Moreover, all of the four dissenters, speaking through Mr. Justice Rutledge, agreed that
“Our constitutional policy... does not deny the value or the necessity for religious training, teaching or observance. Rather it secures their free exercise. But to that end it does deny that the state can undertake or sustain them in any form or degree. For this reason the sphere of religious activity, as distinguished from the secular intellectual liberties, has been given the twofold protection and, „as the state cannot forbid, neither can it perform or'aid in'performing the religious function.' The dual prohibition makes that function altogether private.” Id., at 52.
Only one year later the Court was asked to reconsider and repudiate the doctrine of these cases in McCollum v. Board of Education. It was argued that “historically the'First Amendment was intended to forbid only government preference of one religion over another.... In addition they ask that we distinguish or overrule our holding in the Everson case that the Fourteenth Amendment made the ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment applicable as a prohibition against the States.” 333 U. S., at 211.. The Court, with Mr: Justice Reed alone dissenting, was unable to “accept either of these contentions.” Ibid. Mr. Justice Frankfurter, joined by Justices Jackson, Rutledge and Burton, wrote a very comprehensive and scholarly concurrence in which he said that “[separation is a requirement to abstain from fusing functions of Government and of religious sects, not merely to treat them all equally.” Id., at 227. Continuing, he stated that:
“the Constitution... prohibited the Government common to all from becoming embroiled, however innocently, in the destructive religious conflicts of which the history of even this country records some dark pages.” Id., at 228.
In 1952 in Zorach v. Clauson, supra, Mr. Justice Douglas for the Court reiterated:
“There cannot be the slightest doubt that the First Amendment reflects the philosophy that Church and State should be separated. And so far as interference with the ‘free exercise’ of religion and an ‘establishment’ of religion are concerned, the separation must be complete and unequivocal. The First Amendment within the scope of its coverage permits no exception; the prohibition is absolute. The First Amendment, however, does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and State. Rather, it studiously defines the manner, the specific ways, in which there shall be no concert or union or dependency one on the other..That is the common sense of the matter.” 343 U. S., at 312.
And then in 1961 in McGowan v. Maryland and in Torcaso v. Watkins each of these cases was discussed and approved. Chief Justice Warren in McGowan, for a unanimous Court on this point, said:
“But, the First Amendment, in its final form, did not simply bar a congressional enactment establishing a church; it forbade all laws respecting an establishment of religion. Thus, this Court has given the Amendment a ‘broad interpretation... in the light of its history and the evils it was designed forever to suppress....’” 366 U. S., at 441-442.
And Mr. Justice Black for the Court in Torcaso, without dissent but with Justices Frankfurter and Harlan concurring in the result, used this language:
“We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person ‘to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.’ Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs.” 367 U. S., at 496.
Finally, in Engel v. Vitale, only last year, these principles were so universally recognized that the Court, without the citation of a single case and over the sole dissent of Mr. Justice Stewart, reaffirmed them. The Court found the 22-word prayer used in “New York’s program of daily classroom invocation of God’s blessings as prescribed in the Regents’ prayer... [to. be] a religious activity.” 370 U. S., at 424. It held that “it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government.” Id., at 425. In discussing the reach of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment the Court said:
“Although these two clauses may in certain instances overlap, they forbid two quite different kinds of governmental- encroachment upon religious freedom. The Establishment Clause, unlike the Free Exercise Clause, does not depend upon any showing of direct governmental compulsion and is violated by the enactment of laws which establish an official religion whether those laws operate directly to coerce non-observing individuals or not. This is not to say, of course, that laws officially prescribing a particular form of religious worship do not involve coercion of such individuals. When the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain.” Id., at 430-431.
And in further elaboration the Court found that the “first and most immediate purpose [of the Establishment Clause] rested on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion.” Id., at 431. When government, the Court said, allies itself with one particular form of religion, the inevitable result is that it incurs “the hatred, disrespect and even contempt of those who held contrary beliefs.”
Ibid.
V.
The wholesome “neutrality” of which this Court’s cases speak thus stems from a recognition of the teachings of history that powerful sects or groups might bring about a fusion of governmental and religious functions or a concert or dependency of one upon the other to the end that official support of the State or Federal Government would be placed behind the tenets of one or of all orthodoxies. This the Establishment Clause prohibits. And a further reason for neutrality is found in the Free Exercise Clause, which recognizes the value of religious training, teaching and observance and, more particularly, the right of every person to freely choose his own course with reference thereto, free of any compulsion from the state. This the Free Exercise Clause guarantees. Thus, as we have seen, the two clauses may overlap. As we have indicated, the Establishment Clause has been directly considered by this Court eight times in the past score of years and, with only one Justice dissenting on the point, it has consistently held that the clause withdrew all legislative power respecting religious belief or the expression thereof. The test may be stated as follows:, what are the purpose and the primary effect of the enactment? If either is the advancement or inhibition of religion then the enactment exceeds the scope of legislative power as circumscribed by the Constitution. That is to say that to withstand the strictures of the Establishment Clause there must be a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion. Everson v. Board of Education, supra; McGowan v. Maryland, supra, at 442. The Free Exercise Clause, likewise considered many times here, withdraws from legislative power, state and federal, the exertion of any restraint on the free exercise of religion. Its purpose is to secure religious liberty in the individual by prohibiting any invasions thereof by civil authority. Hence it is necessary in a free exercise case for one to show the coercive effect of the enactment as it operates against him in the practice of his religion. The distinction between the two clauses is apparent — a violation of the Free Exercise Clause is predicated on coercion while the Establishment Clause violation need not be so attended.
Applying the Establishment Clause principles to the cases at bar we find that the States are requiring the selection and reading at the opening of the school day of verses from the Holy Bible and the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer by the students in unison. These exercises are prescribed as part of the curricular activities of students who are required by law to attend school. They are held in the school buildings under the supervision and with the participation of teachers employed in those schools. None of these factors, other than compulsory school attendance, was present in the program upheld in Zorach v. Clauson. The trial court in No. 142 has found that such an opening exercise is a religious ceremony and was intended by the State to be so. We agree with the trial court’s finding as to the religious character of the exercises. Given that finding, the exercises and the law requiring them are in violation of the Establishment Clause.
There is no such specific finding as to the religious character of the exercises in No. 119, and the State contends (as does the State in No. 142) that the program is an effort to extend its benefits to all public school children without regard to their religious belief. Included within its secular purposes, it says, are the promotion of moral values, the contradiction to the materialistic trends of our times, the perpetuation of our institutions and the teaching of literature. The case came up on demurrer, of course, to a petition which alleged that the uniform practice under the rule had been to read from the King James version of the Bible and that the exercise was sectarian. Thé. short answer, therefore, is that the religious character of the exercise was admitted by the State. But even if its purpose is not strictly religious, it is sought to be accomplished through readings, without comment, from the Bible. Surely the place of the Bible as an instrument of religion cannot be gainsaid, and the State’s recognition of the pervading religious character of the ceremony is evident from the rule’s specific permission of the alternative use of the Catholic Douay version as-well as the recent amendment permitting nonattendance at the exercises. None of these factors is consistent with the contention that the Bible is here used either as an instrument for nonreligious moral inspiration or as a reference for the teaching of secular subjects.
The conclusion follows that in both cases the laws require religious exercises and such exercises are being conducted in direct violation of the rights of the appellees and petitioners. Nor are these required exercises mitigated by the fact that individual students may absent themselves upon parental request, for that fact furnishes no defense to a claim of unconstitutionality under the Establishment Clause. See Engel v. Vitale, supra, at 430. Further, it is no defense to urge that the religious practices here may be relatively minor encroachments on the First Amendment. The breach of neutrality that is today a trickling stream may all too soon become a raging torrent and, in the words of Madison, “it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.” Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, quoted in Everson, supra, at 65..
It is insisted that unless these religious exercises are permitted a “religion of secularism” is established in the schools. We agree of course that the State may not establish, a “religion of secularism” in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus “preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe.” Zorach v. Clauson, supra, at 314. We do not agree, however, that this decision in any sense has that effect. In addition, it might well be said that one’s education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization. It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities. Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment. But the exercises here do not fall into those categories. They are religious exercises, required by the States in violation of the command of the First Amendment that the Government maintain strict neutrality, neither aiding nor opposing religion.
Finally, we cannot accept that the concept of neutrality, which does not permit a State to require a religious exercise even with. the consent of the majority of those affected, collides with the majority’s right to free exercise of religion. While the Free Exercise Clause clearly prohibits the use of state action to deny the rights of free exercise to anyone, it has never meant that a majority could use the machinery of the State to practice its beliefs. Such a contention was effectively answered by Mr. Justice Jackson for the Court in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 638 (1943):
“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to.... freedom of worship... and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”
The place of religion in our society is an exalted one, ¿chieved through a long tradition of reliance on the home, the church and the inviolable citadel of the individual heart and mind. We have come to recognize through bitter experience that it is not within the power of government to invade that citadel, whether its purpose or effect be to aid or oppose, to advance, or retard. In the relationship between man and religion, the State is firmly committed to á position of neutrality. Though the application of that rule requires interpretation of a delicate sort, the rule itself is clearly and concisely stated in the words of the First Amendment. Applying that rule to the facts of these cases, we affirm the judgment in No. 142. In No. 119, the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded to the Maryland Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The action was brought in 1958, prior to the 1959 amendment of § 15-1516 authorizing a child’s nonattendance at the exercises upon parental request. The three-judge court held the statute and the practices coihplained of unconstitutional under both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. 177 F. Supp. 398. Pending appeal to this Court
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a companion case to Leng May Ma v. Barber, decided today, ante, p. 185. The five respondents are natives of China who came to the United States seeking admission between 1949 and 1954, four of them arriving before the effective date of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Like petitioner in Leng May Ma, all were paroled into the United States, and all have been ordered excluded. They applied for stays of deportation under § 243 (h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and upon refusal, filed complaints in the District Court seeking judgments declaring their nondeportability to China, directing consideration of their claims under § 243 (h), and restraining the Attorney General from deporting them. The complaints were dismissed by the District Court, but the Court of Appeals held that excluded aliens on parole are “within the United States” for purposes of § 243 (h). 101 U. S. App. D. C. 229, 248 F. 2d 89. Because of the conflict with the Ninth Circuit's decision in Leng May Ma, we granted certiorari. 355 U. S. 861 (1957). We have concluded that respondents, like petitioner in Leng May Ma, are ineligible for stays of deportation under § 243 (h). However, because of the importance of this problem in the administration of the immigration laws, we deem it appropriate to deal specifically with a contention not directly asserted by petitioner in Leng May Ma.
The deportation of excluded aliens under the Immigration and Nationality Act is authorized in § 237 (a) of Chapter 4, wherein it is provided that an alien excluded under the Act “shall be immediately deported to the country whence he came . . . .” 66 Stat. 201, 8 U. S. C. § 1227 (a). A similar provision existed in the immediate predecessor to § 237 (a), which was § 18 of the Immigration Act of 1917. Deportation in expulsion proceedings is separately provided for under the present Act in § 243 of Chapter 5, subsection (h) of which, of course, contains the authority which respondents seek to invoke in this case. 66 Stat. 212, 8 U. S. C. § 1253. Like authority existed in the immediate predecessor of § 243, which was § 20 of the Immigration Act of 1917, 39 Stat. 890, as amended by § 23 of the Internal Security Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 1010.
Respondents assert, however, that neither § 237 (a) nor its predecessor, § 18 of the 1917 Act, is the basis for their deportation since they were not “immediately” deported as required in the sections. Hence, they argue that deportation must rest upon § 243 of the present Act, as to the respondent who arrived after the Immigration and Nationality Act, and its predecessor, § 20 of the 1917 Act, as to the four who arrived prior to the present Act.
We will assume, for purpose of analysis, that four of the five respondents are, as they claim, deportable only under prior Acts by virtue of their early arrival. However, under neither of the exclusion sections, i. e., § 237 (a) of the present Act or § 18 of the 1917 Act, is the deportation authority confined, as respondents contend, to those situations where deportation is immediate. Neither section, when read in its entirety and in context, fairly suggests any such limitation. Nor are there reasons of policy to compel such a result. As the desire to remain increases,, those knocking on our doors quite naturally become more litigious, and contested departures often involve long delays. We doubt that the Congress intended the mere fact of delay to improve an alien’s status from that of one seeking admission to that of one legally considered within the* United States. We conclude that there is ample basis under § 237 (a) and § 18 of the 1917 Act to deport respondents; we need not draw upon the provisions in § 243 of the present Act or § 20 of the 1917 Act.
Regardless of which of the two exclusion sections, § 237 (a) of the 1952 Act or § 18 of the 1917 Act, provides the basis for respondents’ deportation, the applications for stays were all filed subsequent to the 1952 Act and hence must be determined by that Act. For reasons explained in Leng May Ma, § 243 (h) is unavailable to excluded aliens, and the fact of parole creates no variance from this principle.
Reversed.
The Chief Justice, MR. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Douglas, and Mr. Justice Brennan dissent for the reasons stated in the dissenting opinion in Leng May Ma v. Barber, ante, p. 190.
Section 243 (h): “The Attorney General is authorized to withhold deportation of any alien within the United States to any country in which in his opinion the alien would be subject to physical persecution and for such period of time as he deems to be necessary for such reason.” 66 Stat. 214, 8 U. S. C. § 1253 (h).
Section 18: “[A] 11 aliens brought to this country in violation of law shall be immediately sent back . . . .” 39 Stat. 887.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
Upon consideration of the entire record and the confession of error by the Solicitor General, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is reversed. Jencks v. United States, 353 U. S. 657.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals, 528 P. 2d 1208, is vacated and the cause remanded for further consideration in light of General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125 (1976), and Nashville Gas Co. v. Satty, ante, p. 136, and for consideration of possible mootness.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
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
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 81 Stat. 602, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §621 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. V), forbids arbitrary discrimination by public and private employers against employees on account of age. Under § 4(f)(2) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 623(f)(2), however, age-based employment decisions taken pursuant to the terms of “any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan, which is not a subterfuge to evade the purposes of” the Act, are exempt from the prohibitions of the ADEA. In the case before us, we must consider the meaning and scope of the § 4(f)(2) exemption.
I
A
In 1933, the State of Ohio established the Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio (PERS) to provide retirement benefits for state and local government employees. Public employers and employees covered by PERS make contributions to a fund maintained by PERS to pay benefits to covered employees. Under the PERS statutory scheme, two forms of monthly retirement benefits are available to public employees upon termination of their public employment. Age-and-service retirement benefits are paid to those employees who at the time of their retirement (1) have at least 5 years of service credit and are at least 60 years of age; (2) have 30 years of service credit; or (3) have 25 years of service credit and are at least 55 years of age. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §§ 145.33, 145.34 (1984 and Supp. 1988). Disability retirement benefits are available to employees who suffer a permanent disability, have at least five years of total service credit, and are under the age of 60 at retirement. § 145.35. The requirement that disability retirees be under age 60 at the time of their retirement was included in the original PERS statute, and has remained unchanged since 1959..
Employees who take disability retirement are treated as if they are on leave of absence for the first five years of their retirement. Should their medical conditions improve during that time, they are entitled to be rehired. § 145.39. Employees receiving age-and-service retirement, on the other hand, are not placed on leave of absence, but they are permitted to apply for full-time employment with any public employer covered by PERS after 18 months of retirement. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 145.381(C) (1984). Once an individual retires on either age-and-service or disability retirement benefits, he or she continues to receive that type of benefit throughout retirement, regardless of age.
B
Appellee June M. Betts was hired by the Hamilton County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities as a speech pathologist in 1978. The board is a public agency, and its employees are covered by PERS. In 1984, because of medical problems, appellee became unable to perform her job adequately and was reassigned to a less demanding position. Appellee’s medical condition continued to deteriorate, however, and by May 1985, when appellee was 61 years of age, her employer concluded that she was no longer able to perform adequately in any employment capacity. Appel-lee was given the choice of retiring or undergoing medical testing to determine whether she should be placed on unpaid medical leave. She chose to retire, an option which gave her eligibility for age-and-service retirement benefits from PERS. Because she was over 60 at the time of retirement, however, appellee was denied disability retirement benefits, despite her medical condition.
Before 1976, the fact that appellee’s age disqualified her for disability benefits would have had little practical significance, because the formula for calculating disability benefits was almost the same as the formula used to determine age-and-service benefits. In 1976, however, the PERS statutory scheme was amended to provide that disability retirement payments would in no event constitute less than 30 percent of the disability retiree’s final average salary. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 145.36 (1984). No such floor applies in the case of employees receiving age-and-service retirement payments. The difference was of much significance in appellee’s case: her age-and-service retirement benefits amount to $158.50 per month, but she would have received nearly twice that, some $355 per month, had she been permitted to take disability retirement instead.
Appellee filed an age discrimination charge against PERS with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, claiming that PERS’ refusal to grant her application for disability retirement benefits violated the ADEA. The District Court found that PERS’ retirement scheme was discriminatory on its face, in that it denied disability retirement benefits to certain employees on account of their age. Betts v. Hamilton County Bd. of Mental Retardation, 631 F. Supp. 1198, 1202-1203 (1986). The court rejected PERS’ reliance on § 4(f)(2) of the ADEA, which exempts from the Act’s prohibitions certain actions taken in observance of “the terms of... any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan, which is not a subterfuge to evade the purposes of [the Act]....” 29 U. S. C. § 623(f)(2). Relying on interpretive regulations promulgated by the EEOC, the District Court held that employee benefit plans qualify for the § 4(f)(2) exemption only if any age-related reductions in employee benefits are justified by the increased cost of providing those benefits to older employees. Because the PERS plan provided for a reduction in available benefits at age 60, a reduction not shown to be justified by considerations of increased cost, the court concluded that PERS’ plan was not entitled to claim the protection of the § 4(f)(2) exemption. 631 F. Supp., at 1203-1204.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed. Betts v. Hamilton County Bd. of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, 848 F. 2d 692 (CA6 1988). The majority agreed with the District Court that the § 4(f)(2) exemption is available only to those retirement plans that can provide age-related cost justifications or “a substantial business purpose” for any age-based reduction in benefits. Id., at 694. The majority rejected PERS’ reliance on United Air Lines, Inc. v. McMann, 434 U. S. 192 (1977), which held that retirement plans adopted prior to the enactment of the ADEA need not be justified by any business purpose, concluding that Congress had “expressly repudiated” this decision when it amended the ADEA in 1978. 848 F. 2d, at 694. Because PERS had failed to provide any evidence that its discrimination against older workers was justified by age-related cost considerations, the majority concluded that summary judgment was appropriate.
Judge Wellford dissented. Noting that PERS’ plan was adopted long before enactment of the ADEA, he argued that under United Air Lines, Inc. v. McMann, supra, it could not be a “subterfuge to evade the purposes” of the Act. Judge Wellford rejected the EEOC’s regulations requiring cost justifications for all age-based reductions in benefits, finding that nothing in the statute’s language imposed such a requirement. We noted probable jurisdiction, 488 U. S. 907 (1988), and now reverse.
II
Under § 4(a)(1) of the ADEA, it is unlawful for an employer
“to fail or refuse to hire or discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s age.” 29 U. S. C. § 623(a)(1).
Notwithstanding this general prohibition, however, § 4(f)(2) of the ADEA provides that it is not unlawful for an employer
“to observe the terms of... any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan, which is not a subterfuge to evade the purposes of this chapter, except that no such employee benefit plan shall excuse the failure to hire any individual, and no such... employee benefit plan shall require or permit the involuntary retirement of any individual... because of the age of such individual.” 29 U. S. C. § 623(f)(2).
On its face, the PERS statutory scheme renders covered employees ineligible for disability retirement once they have attained age 60. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 145.35 (1984). PERS’ refusal to grant appellee’s application for disability benefits therefore qualifies as an action “to observe the terms of” the plan. All parties apparently concede, moreover, that PERS’ plan is “bona fide,” in that it “‘exists and pays benefits.’” McMann, 434 U. S., at 194; see id., at 206-207 (White, J., concurring in judgment). Finally, whatever the precise meaning of the phrase “any... employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan,” see infra, at 173-175, it is apparent that a disability retirement plan falls squarely within that category. Cf. 29 CFR § 1625.10(f)(1)(h) (1988). Accordingly, PERS is entitled to the protection of the § 4(f)(2) exemption unless its plan is “a subterfuge to evade the purposes of” the Act.
We first construed the meaning of “subterfuge” under § 4(f)(2) in United Air Lines, Inc. v. McMann, supra. In McMann, the employer’s retirement plan required employees to retire at the age of 60. After being forced to retire by the terms of the plan, McMann sued under the ADEA, claiming that the forced retirement was a violation of the Act, and that the mandatory retirement provision was not protected by the § 4(f)(2) exemption because it was a subterfuge to evade the purposes of the Act. We rejected both positions. With respect to mandatory retirement, we found that the statutory language and legislative history provided no support for the proposition that Congress intended to forbid age-based mandatory retirement.
Turning to the claim that the mandatory retirement provision was a “subterfuge to evade the purposes of” the Act, we rejected the conclusion of the court below that forced retirement on the basis of age must be deemed a subterfuge absent some business or economic purpose for the age-based distinction. Instead, we held that the term “subterfuge” must be given its ordinary meaning as “a scheme, plan, stratagem, or artifice of evasion.” Id., at 203. Viewed in this light, the retirement plan at issue could not possibly be characterized as a subterfuge to evade the purposes of the Act, since it had been established in 1941, long before the Act was enacted. As we observed, “[t]o spell out an intent in 1941 to evade a statutory requirement not enacted until 1967 attributes, at the very least, a remarkable prescience to the employer. We reject any such per se rule requiring an employer to show an economic or business purpose in order to satisfy the subterfuge language of the Act.” Ibid.
As an initial matter, appellee asserts that McMann is no longer good law. She points out that in 1978, less than a year after McMann was decided, Congress amended § 4(f)(2) to overrule McMann’s validation of mandatory retirement based on age. See Pub. L. 95-256, § 2(a), 92 Stat. 189. The result of that amendment was the addition of what now is the final clause of § 4(f)(2).
The legislative history of the 1978 amendment contains various references to the definition of subterfuge, and according to appellee these reveal clear congressional intent to disapprove the reasoning of McMann. The Conference Committee Report on the 1978 amendment, for example, expressly discusses and rejects McMann, stating that “[p]lan provisions in effect prior to the date of enactment are not exempt under section 4(f)(2) by virtue of the fact that they antedate the act or these amendments.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 95-950, p. 8 (1978). See also 124 Cong. Rec. 7881 (1978) (remarks of Rep. Hawkins) (“The conferees specifically disagree with the Supreme Court’s holding and reasoning in [McMann], particularly its conclusion that an employee benefit plan which discriminates on the basis of age is protected by section 4(f)(2) because it predates the enactment of the ADEA”); id., at 8219 (remarks of Sen. Javits); id., at 7888 (remarks of Rep. Waxman).
PERS disputes appellee’s interpretation of this legislative history, asserting that it refers only to benefit plans that permit involuntary retirement and not to the more general issue whether a pre-Act plan can be a subterfuge in other circumstances. We need not resolve this dispute, however. The 1978 amendment to the ADEA did not add a definition of the term “subterfuge” or modify the language of § 4(f)(2) in any way, other than by inserting the final clause forbidding mandatory retirement based on age. We have observed on more than one occasion that the interpretation given by one Congress (or a committee or Member thereof) to an earlier statute is of little assistance in discerning the meaning of that statute. See Weinberger v. Rossi, 456 U. S. 25, 35 (1982); Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S. 102, 118, and n. 13 (1980); United States v. Southwestern Cable Co., 392 U. S. 157, 170 (1968); Rainwater v. United States, 356 U. S. 590, 593 (1958); see also McMann, supra, at 200, n. 7. Congress changed the specific result of McMann by adding a final clause to § 4(f)(2), but it did not change the controlling, general language of the statute. As Congress did not amend the relevant statutory language, we see no reason to depart from our holding in McMann that the term “subterfuge” is to be given its ordinary meaning, and that as a result an employee benefit plan adopted prior to enactment of the ADEA cannot be a subterfuge. See EEOC v. Cargill, Inc., 855 F. 2d 682, 686 (CA10 1988); EEOC v. County of Orange, 837 F. 2d 420, 422 (CA9 1988).
According to PERS, our reaffirmation of McMann should resolve this case. The PERS system was established by statute in 1933, and the rule that employees over age 60 may not qualify for disability retirement benefits has remained unchanged since 1959. The ADEA was not made applicable to the States until 1974. See Pub. L. 93-259, § 28(a)(2), 88 Stat. 74, codified at 29 U. S. C. § 630(b)(2). Since the age-60 requirement predates application of the ADEA to PERS, PERS argues that, under McMann, its plan cannot be a subterfuge to evade the purposes of the ADEA.
While McMann remains of considerable relevance to our decision here, we reject the argument that it is dispositive. It is true that the age-60 rule was adopted before 1974, and is thus insulated under McMann from challenge as a subterfuge. The plan provision attacked by appellee, however, is the rule that disability retirees automatically receive a minimum of 30 percent of, their final average salary upon retirement, while disabled employees who retire after age 60 do not. The 30 percent floor was not added to the plan until 1976, and to the extent this new rule increased the age-based disparity caused by the pre-Act age limitation, McMann does not insulate it from challenge. See EEOC v. Cargill, supra, at 686, n. 4; EEOC v. County of Orange, supra, at 423; EEOC v. Home Ins. Co., 672 F. 2d 252, 259, and n. 9 (CA2 1982). No “remarkable prescience” would have been required of PERS in 1976 for it to formulate the necessary intent to evade the ADEA, and thus the automatic rule of McMann is inapplicable. See 434 U. S., at 203. Accordingly, we must turn to an inquiry into the precise meaning of the § 4(f)(2) exemption in the context of post-Act plans.
H-i hH
Appellee and her amici say that § 4(f)(2) protects age-based distinctions in employee benefit plans only when justified by the increased cost of benefits for older workers. They cite an interpretive regulation promulgated by the Department of Labor, the agency initially charged with enforcing the Act, in 1979. 44 Fed. Reg. 30658-30662 (1979), codified at 29 CFR §860.120 (1980), redesignated 29 CFR § 1625.10 (1988). The regulation recites that the purpose of the exemption “is to permit age-based reductions in employee benefit plans where such reductions are justified by significant cost considerations,” and that “benefit levels for older workers may be reduced to the extent necessary to achieve approximate equivalency in cost for older and younger workers.” § 1625.10(a)(1). With respect to disability benefits in particular, the regulation provides that “[Reductions on the basis of age in the level or duration of benefits available for disability are justifiable only on the basis of age-related cost considerations....” § 1625.10(f)(1)(h). Under these provisions, employers may reduce the value of the benefits provided to older workers as necessary to equalize costs for workers of all ages, but they cannot exclude older workers from the coverage of their benefit plans altogether.
The requirement that employers show a cost-based justification for age-related reductions in benefits appears nowhere in the statute itself. The EEOC as amicus contends that this rule can be drawn either from the statutory requirement that age-based distinctions in benefit plans not be a subterfuge to evade the purposes of the Act, or from the portion of § 4(f)(2) limiting its scope to actions taken pursuant to “any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan.” Brief for EEOC as Amicus Curiae 9-14. We consider these alternatives in turn.
A
The regulations define “subterfuge” as follows: “In general, a plan or plan provision which prescribes lower benefits for older employees on account of age is not a ‘subterfuge’ within the meaning of section 4(f)(2), provided that the lower level of benefits is justified by age-related cost considerations.” 29 CFR § 1625.10(d) (1988). Various lower courts have accepted this definition. E. g., EEOC v. Mt. Lebanon, 842 F. 2d 1480, 1489 (CA3 1988); see also Cipriano v. Board, of Education of North Tonawanda School Dist., 785 F. 2d 51, 57-58 (CA2 1986). As the analysis in McMann makes apparent, however, this approach to the definition of subterfuge cannot be squared with the plain language of the statute. Although McMann’s holding, that pre-Act plans can never be a subterfuge, is not dispositive here, its reasoning is nonetheless controlling, for we stated in that case that “subterfuge” means “a scheme, plan, stratagem, or artifice of evasion,” which, in the context of § 4(f)(2), connotes a specific “intent... to evade a statutory requirement.” 434 U. S., at 203. The term thus includes a subjective element that the regulation’s objective cost-justification requirement fails to acknowledge.
Ignoring this inconsistency with the plain language of the statute, appellee and the EEOC suggest that the regulation represents a contemporaneous and consistent interpretation of the ADEA by the agencies responsible for the Act’s enforcement and is therefore entitled to special deference. See EEOC v. Associated Dry Goods Corp., 449 U. S. 590, 600, n. 17 (1981); see also Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984). But, of course, no deference is due to agency interpretations at odds with the plain language of the statute itself. Even contemporaneous and longstanding agency interpretations must fall to the extent they conflict with statutory language.
Contrary to the suggestion of the EEOC and appellee, moreover, the cost-justification requirement was not adopted contemporaneously with enactment of the ADEA. The cost-justification rule had its genesis in an interpretive bulletin issued by the Department of Labor in January 1969. 34 Fed. Reg. 322, 323, codified at 29 CFR § 860.120(a) (1970). To be sure, that regulation provided that plans which reduced benefits on the basis of age would “be considered in compliance with the statute” if the benefit reductions were justified by age-related cost considerations, but it did not purport to exclude from the § 4(f)(2) exemption all plans that could not meet a cost-justification requirement. Rather, this original version of the cost-justification rule was nothing more than a safe harbor, a nonexclusive objective test for employers to use in determining whether they could be certain of qualifying for the § 4(f)(2) exemption. It was not until 1979 that this regulatory safe harbor was transformed into the exclusive means of escaping classification as a subterfuge.
Appellee and her amici rely in large part on the legislative history of the ADEA and the 1978 amendments. In view of our interpretation of the plain statutory language of the subterfuge requirement, however, this reliance on legislative history is misplaced. See Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803, 808, n. 3 (1989); McMann, 434 U. S., at 199. The “subterfuge” exception to the § 4(f)(2) exemption cannot be limited in the manner suggested by the regulation.
B
The second possible source of authority for the cost-justification rule is the statute’s requirement that the § 4(f)(2) exemption be available only in the case of “any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan.” The EEOC argues, and some courts have held, that the phrase “such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan” is intended to limit the protection of § 4(f)(2) to those plans which have a cost justification for all age-based differentials in benefits. See EEOC v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 725 F. 2d 211, 224 (CA3 1983), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 820 (1984); EEOC v. Borden’s, Inc., 724 F. 2d 1390, 1396 (CA9 1984). The argument is as follows: the types of plans listed in the statute share the common characteristic that the cost of the benefits they provide generally rises with the age of their beneficiaries. This common characteristic suggests that Congress intended the § 4(f)(2) exemption to cover only those plans in which costs rise with age. The obvious explanation for the limitation on the scope of § 4(f)(2), the argument continues, is that the purpose of the exemption is to permit employers to reduce overall benefits paid to older workers only to the extent necessary to equalize costs for older and younger workers.
There are a number of difficulties with this explanation for the cost-justification requirement. Perhaps most obvious, it requires us to read a great deal into the language of this clause of § 4(f)(2), language that appears on its face to be nothing more than a listing of the general types of plans that fall within the category of “employee benefit plan.” The statute’s use of the phrase “any employee benefit plan” seems to imply a broad scope for the statutory exemption, and the “such as” clause suggests enumeration by way of example, not an exclusive listing. Nor is it by any means apparent that the types of plans mentioned were intentionally selected because the cost to the employer of the benefits provided by these plans tends to increase with age. Indeed, many plans that fall within these categories do not share that particular attribute at all, defined-contribution pension plans perhaps being the most obvious example. We find it quite difficult to believe that Congress would have chosen such a circuitous route to the result urged by appellee and the EEOC.
The interpretation is weakened further by the fact that the regulation itself does not support it. According to 29 CFR §1625.10(b) (1988), “[a]n ‘employee benefit plan’ is a plan, such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan, which provides employees with what are frequently referred to as ‘fringe benefits.’” This definition makes no mention of the limitation urged by the EEOC, and indeed seems sufficiently broad to encompass a wide variety of plans providing fringe benefits to employees, regardless of whether the cost of those benefits increases yith age. The regulation’s discussion of the cost-justification requirement is reserved for the subsection defining “subterfuge.” § 1625.10(d). Under these circumstances, this aspect of the EEOC’s argument is entitled to little, if any, deference. Cf. Bowen v. Georgetown University Hospital, 488 U. S. 204, 212-213 (1988).
For these reasons, we conclude that the phrase “any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan” cannot reasonably be limited to benefit plans in which all age-based reductions in benefits are justified by age-related cost considerations. Accordingly, the interpretive regulation construing § 4(f)(2) to include a cost-justification requirement is contrary to the plain language of the statute and is invalid.
IV
Having established that the EEOC’s definition of subterfuge is invalid, we turn to the somewhat more difficult task of determining the precise meaning of the term as applied to post-Act plans. We begin, as always, with the language of the statute itself.
The protection of § 4(f)(2) is unavailable to any employee benefit plan “which is a subterfuge to evade the purposes of” the Act. As set forth in § 2(b) of the ADE A, the purposes of the Act are “to promote employment of older persons based on their ability rather than age; to prohibit arbitrary age discrimination in employment; to help employers and workers find ways of meeting problems arising from the impact of age on employment.” 29 U. S. C. § 621(b). On the facts of this case, the only purpose that the PERS plan could be a “subterfuge to evade” is the goal of eliminating “arbitrary age discrimination in employment.”
As the presence of the various exemptions and affirmative defenses contained in § 4(f) illustrates, Congress recognized that not all age discrimination in employment is “arbitrary.” In order to determine the type of age discrimination that Congress sought to eliminate as arbitrary, we must look for guidance to the substantive prohibitions of the Act itself, for these provide the best evidence of the nature of the evils Congress sought to eradicate. Indeed, our decision in McMann compels this approach, for it rejected the contention that the purposes of the Act can be distinguished from the Act itself: “The distinction relied on is untenable because the Act is the vehicle by which its purposes are expressed and carried out; it is difficult to conceive of a subterfuge to evade the one which does not also evade the other.” 434 U. S., at 198. Accordingly, a post-Act plan cannot be a subterfuge to evade the ADEA’s purpose of banning arbitrary age discrimination unless it discriminates in a manner forbidden by the substantive provisions of the Act.
Section 4(a), the ADEA’s primary enforcement mechanism against age discrimination by employers, forbids employers
“(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s age;
“(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s age; or
“(3) to reduce the wage rate of any employee in order to comply with this chapter.” 29 U. S. C. § 623(a).
The phrase “compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment” in § 4(a)(1) can be read to encompass employee benefit plans of the type covered by § 4(f)(2). Such an interpretation, however, would in effect render the § 4(f) (2) exemption nugatory with respect to post-Act plans. Any benefit plan that by its terms mandated discrimination against older workers would also be facially irreconcilable with the prohibitions in § 4(a)(1) and, therefore, with the purposes of the Act itself. It is difficult to see how a plan provision that expressly mandates disparate treatment of older workers in a manner inconsistent with the purposes of the Act could be said not to be a subterfuge to evade those purposes, at least where the plan provision was adopted after enactment of the ADEA.
On the other hand, if § 4(f)(2) is viewed as exempting the provisions of a bona fide benefit plan from the purview of the ADEA so long as the plan is not a method of discriminating in other, non-fringe-benefit aspects of the employment relationship, both statutory provisions can be given effect. This interpretation of the ADEA would reflect a congressional judgment that age-based restrictions in the employee benefit plans covered by § 4(f)(2) do not constitute the “arbitrary age discrimination in employment” that Congress sought to prohibit in enacting the ADEA. Instead, under this construction of the statute, Congress left the employee benefit battle for another day, and legislated only as to hiring and firing, wages and salaries, and other non-fringe-benefit terms and conditions of employment.
To be sure, this construction of the words of the statute is not the only plausible one. But the alternative interpretation would eviscerate § 4(f)(2). As Justice White wrote in his separate concurrence in McMann, “[bjecause all retirement plans necessarily make distinctions based on age, I fail to see how the subterfuge language, which was included in the original version of the bill and was carried all the way through, could have been intended to impose a requirement which almost no retirement plan could meet.” 434 U. S., at 207.
Not surprisingly, the legislative history does not support such a self-defeating interpretation, but to the contrary shows that Congress envisioned a far broader role for the § 4(f)(2) exemption. When S. 830, the bill that was to become the ADEA, was originally proposed by the administration in January 1967, it contained no general exemption for benefit plans that differentiated in benefits based on age. Senator Javits, one of the principal moving forces behind enactment of age discrimination legislation, generally favored the administration’s bill, but believed that a broader exemption for employee benefit plans was needed. Accordingly, he proposed an amendment substantially along the lines of present-day § 4(f)(2). 113 Cong. Rec. 7077 (1967).
One factor motivating Senator Javits’ amendment was the concern that, absent some exemption for benefit plans, the Act might “actually encourage employers, faced with the necessity of paying greatly increased premiums, to look for excuses not to hire older workers when they might have done so under a law granting them a degree of flexibility with respect to such matters.” Id., at 7076. Reducing the cost of hiring older workers was not the only purpose of the proposed amendment, however. Its goals were far more comprehensive. As Senator Javits put it, “the age discrimination law is not the proper place to fight” the battle of ensuring “adequate pension benefits for older workers,” and § 4(f)(2) was therefore intended to be “a fairly broad exemption... for bona fide retirement and seniority systems.” Ibid. Later, referring to the effect of his proposed amendment on the provisions of employee benefit plans, Senator Ja-vits stated that “[i]f the older worker chooses to waive all of those provisions, then the older worker can obtain the benefits of this act....” Id., at 31255. And finally, in his individual views accompanying the Senate Report on S. 830, Senator Javits observed: “I believe the bill has also been improved by the adoption of language, based on an amendment which I had offered, exempting the observance of bona fide seniority systems and retirement, pension, or other employment benefit plans from its prohibitions.” S. Rep. No. 723, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 14 (1967) (emphasis added).
Other Members of Congress expressed similar views. Senator Yarborough, the principal sponsor and floor manager of the administration bill, observed that § 4(f)(2), “when it refers to retirement, pension, or insurance plan,... means that a man who would not have been employed except for this law does not have to receive the benefits of the plan.” 113 Cong. Rec. 31255 (1967). Indeed, at least one Congressman opposed the ADEA precisely because it permitted employers to exclude older employees from participation in benefit plans altogether when the terms of the plans mandated that result. Id., at 34745 (remarks of Rep. Smith).
While the Committee Reports on the ADEA do not address the matter in any detail, they do state that § 4(f)(2) “serves to emphasize the primary purpose of the bill — hiring of older workers — by permitting employment without necessarily including such workers in employee benefit plans.” S. Rep. No. 723,
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Fortas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an action by the United States to recover statutory forfeitures under the False Claims Act. The question is whether the Act applies to the supplying of false information in support of an application to a federal agency, the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), for a loan. The District Court dismissed the action on the ground that an application for a CCC loan, as distinguished from a claim for payment of an obligation owed by the Government, is not a “claim” within the meaning of the Act. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. We granted certiorari. 389 U. S. 814 (1967).
The CCC is authorized to make loans to grain growers to finance the construction or purchase of storage facilities. § 4 (h) of the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act, as amended, 62 Stat. 1071, 15 U. S. C. § 714b (h). Pursuant to its authority under statute, 15 U. S. C. § 714b (d), the CCC has adopted regulations providing for the granting of loans in amounts not to exceed 80% of the actual purchase price of storage bins. A grain grower who desires to apply for a loan is required to support his application by an invoice showing the purchase price and the amount of the down payment made by him. 23 Fed. Reg. 9687.
Since the Government’s complaint was dismissed for failure to state a cause of action, the allegations of the complaint must be taken as true for present purposes. According to the complaint, respondent is a dealer in grain storage bins. In 1959, in selling bins to 12 grain farmers, one of respondent’s officers prepared invoices in which the purchase price was deliberately overstated. The purpose was fraudulently to induce the CCC to extend loans to respondent’s customers in amounts exceeding 80% of the actual purchase price. The invoices were submitted to the CCC along with the loan applications, and the agency relied on the overstated purchase price in determining the amount of loans that were subsequently made. The United States claims the statutory forfeiture of $2,000 for each of the 12 alleged violations of the Act.
The issue in this case is narrow and precise: Does the False Claims Act reach “claims” for favorable action by the Government upon applications for loans or is it confined to “claims” for payments due and owing from the Government? It is respondent’s position that the term “claims” in the Act must be read in its narrow sense to include only a demand based upon the Government’s liability to the claimant. Respondent relies upon United States v. Cohn, 270 U. S. 339 (1926), and United States v. McNinch, 356 U. S. 595 (1958), to support this narrow reading.
Cohm, involved a criminal proceeding under an earlier version of the present False Claims Act. It concerned a fraudulent application to obtain the release of merchandise which did not belong to the United States and which was being held by the customs authorities as bailee only. The case did not involve an attempt, by fraud, to cause the Government to part with its money or property, either in discharge of an obligation or in response to an application for discretionary action. The language in the Court’s opinion upon which respondent relies cannot be taken as a decision upon a point which the facts of the case did not present.
In McNinch, the Government brought suit for damages and forfeitures under the False Claims Act, in its present form, against persons who had filed fraudulent applications for home-modernization loans with a private bank which was regularly insured by the Federal Housing Administration against losses on such loans. The bank granted the loans sought by defendants, which were “routinely” insured by the FHA. 356 U. S., at 597, n. 4. This Court held that since FHA “disburses no funds nor does it otherwise suffer immediate financial detriment,” id., at 599, the transaction was not within the ambit of the False Claims Act. The Court emphasized the distinction between contracts of insurance against loss such as those involved in McNinch, and transactions in which the United States pays or lends money. For purposes of the present case, we need not reconsider the validity of this distinction. It is sufficient to note that the instant case involves a false statement made with the purpose and effect of inducing the Government immediately to part with money.
The precise question presented by this case has never been considered by the Court. However, both the history and the language of the False Claims Act, as well as the thrust of our prior decisions, indicate the answer to our present inquiry. The original False Claims Act was passed in 1863 as a result of investigations of the fraudulent use of government funds during the Civil War. Debates at the time suggest that the Act was intended to reach all types of fraud, without qualification, that might result in financial loss to the Government. In its present form the Act is broadly phrased to reach any person who makes or causes to be made “any claim upon or against” the United States, or who makes a false “bill, receipt, . . . claim, . . . affidavit, or deposition” for the purpose of “obtaining or aiding to obtain the payment or approval of” such a false claim. In the various contexts in which questions of the proper construction of the Act have been presented, the Court has consistently refused to accept a rigid, restrictive reading, even at the time when the statute imposed criminal sanctions as well as civil. See, e. g., United States ex rel. Marcus v. Hess, 317 U. S. 537 (1943).
On the very day that this Court decided McNinch, it also decided three cases holding that a fraudulent application for a loan submitted to the CCC was a claim against the Government of the United States, within the meaning of the False Claims Act. The question debated in those cases was not the meaning of the word “claim,” but whether the CCC, a wholly owned government corporation, was “the Government of the United States, or any department or officer thereof” within the meaning of the statute. In the course of its opinion on this matter, the Court noted that the objective of Congress in enacting the False Claims Act “was broadly to protect the funds and property of the Government from fraudulent claims, regardless of the particular form, or function, of the government instrumentality upon which such claims were made” and that “ [b] y any ordinary standard the language of the Act is certainly comprehensive enough to achieve this purpose.” Rainwater v. United States, 356 U. S. 590, 592 (1958).
Analogous reasoning leads us to hold today that the False Claims Act should not be given the narrow reading that respondent urges. This remedial statute reaches beyond “claims” which might be legally enforced, to all fraudulent attempts to cause the Government to pay out sums of money. We believe the term “claim,” as used in the statute, is broad enough to reach the conduct alleged by the Government in its complaint. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
In relevant part, the statute provides as follows:
R. S. § 3490 (1874):
“Any person . . . who shall do or commit any of the acts prohibited by any of the provisions of section fifty-four hundred and thirty-eight, Title ‘CRIMES/ shall forfeit and pay to the United States the sum of two thousand dollars, and, in addition, double the amount of damages which the United States may have sustained by reason of the doing or committing such act . . . .”
R. S. § 5438 (1874):
“Every person who makes or causes to be made, or presents or causes to be presented, for payment or approval, to or by any person or officer in the civil, military, or naval service of the United States, any claim upon or against the Government of the United States, or any department or officer thereof, knowing such claim to be false, fictitious, or fraudulent, or who, for the purpose of obtaining or aiding to obtain the payment or approval of such claim, makes, uses, or causes to be made or used, any false bill, receipt, voucher, roll, account, claim, certificate, affidavit, or deposition, knowing the same to contain any fraudulent or fictitious statement or entry, or who enters into any agreement, combination, or conspiracy to defraud the Government of the United States, or any department or officer thereof, by obtaining or aiding to obtain the payment or allowance of any false or fraudulent claim, . . . shall be imprisoned at hard labor for not less than one nor more than five years, or fined not less than one thousand nor more than five thousand dollars.”
The criminal aspect of this statutory scheme has been altered and codified in 18 U. S. C. §287 and 18 U. S. C. § 1001; see n. 2, infra. The civil (forfeiture) provisions have been codified, unaltered, in 31 U. S. C. § 231, but the above-cited version of these provisions continues to be the official one. The above-quoted provisions survive only insofar as civil liability is concerned.
No other issue is presented. The statute expressly reaches persons who falsify a “receipt” “for the purpose of . . . aiding to obtain the payment or approval of [a] claim.” See n. 1, supra.
See n. 1, supra. The criminal aspect of the original False Claims Act has been carried forward in two separate criminal statutes currently in force. Section 287 of Title 18 makes it a crime for a person to present “any claim upon or against the United States, or any department or agency thereof, knowing such claim to be false, fictitious, or fraudulent.”
Section 1001 of the same title subjects to criminal penalties “[w]hoever . . . knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact, or makes any false, fictitious or fraudulent statements or representations, or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or entry.”
Respondent has been indicted under still another criminal statute, 15 U. S. C. § 714m (a), which prohibits the making of false statements for the purpose of influencing the CCC.
“[I]t is clear, in the light of the entire context, that in the present statute, the provision relating to the payment or approval of a ‘claim upon or against’ the Government relates solely to the payment or approval of a claim for money or property to which a right is asserted against the Government, based upon the Government’s own liability to the claimant!’ 270 U. S., at 345-346. (Emphasis added.)
See Cong. Globe, 37th Cong., 3d Sess., 952-958.
See n. 1, supra.
The principal case was Rainwater v. United States, 356 U. S. 590 (1958). Reference was made to the other two cases, Cato Bros. v. United States and Toepleman v. United States, in the course of the opinion in McNinch.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
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 Mc
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Demetrius Gathers was convicted of murder and sentenced to death for the killing of Richard Haynes. The evidence at trial showed that Gathers and three companions encountered Haynes, a stranger to them, at a park bench one evening. When Haynes rebuffed Gathers’ attempt to initiate a conversation, Gathers and his friends assaulted Haynes, beating and kicking him severely and smashing a bottle over his head. Before leaving the scene, Gathers beat Haynes with an umbrella, which he then inserted into the victim’s anus. Some time later Gathers apparently returned to the scene and stabbed Haynes with a knife.
Richard Haynes was about 31 years old and unemployed. For two years prior to his death he had been experiencing “some mental problems” and had been “in and out of [a] mental hospital” three times. App. 4. Although without formal religious training, Haynes considered himself a preacher and referred to himself as “Reverend Minister”; his mother testified that he would he would “tal[k] to people all the time about the Lord.” Id., at 5-6. He generally carried with him several bags containing articles of religious significance, including two Bibles, rosary beads, plastic statues, olive oil, and religious tracts. Among these items, on the evening of his murder, was a tract entitled “The Game Guy’s Prayer.” Relying on football and boxing metaphors, it extolled the virtues of the good sport. After Haynes was beaten, his assailants went through his belongings, looking (apparently in vain) for something worth stealing. In rummaging through his personal effects they scattered on the ground the contents of his wallet and bags, including the just-mentioned tract.
Gathers was tried in the Court of General Sessions for Charleston County, South Carolina. During the guilt phase the articles found at the scene of the crime were admitted into evidence without objection. The jury found Gathers guilty of murder and first-degree criminal sexual conduct. All of the testimony and exhibits from the guilt phase were readmitted into evidence at the sentencing phase. The State presented no other evidence at the sentencing phase, but the prosecutor’s closing argument included the following remarks, which are the basis for the present controversy:
“We know from the proof that Reverend Minister Haynes was a religious person. He had his religious items out there. This defendant strewn [sic] them across the bike path, thinking nothing of that.
“Among the many cards that Reverend Haynes had among his belongings was this card. It’s in evidence. Think about it when you go back there. He had this [sic] religious items, his beads. He had a plastic angel. Of course, he is now with the angels now, but this defendant Demetrius Gathers could care little about the fact that he is a religious person. Cared little of the pain and agony he inflicted upon a person who is trying to enjoy one of our public parks.
“But look at Reverend Minister Haynes’ prayer. It’s called the Game Guy’s Prayer. ‘Dear God, help me to be a sport in this little game of life. I don’t ask for any easy place in this lineup. Play me anywhere you need me. I only ask you for the stuff to give you one hundred percent of what I have got. If all the hard drives seem to come my way, I thank you for the compliment. Help me to remember that you won’t ever let anything come my way that you and I together can’t handle. And help me to take the bad break as part of the game. Help me to understand that the game is full of knots and knocks and trouble, and make me thankful for them. Help me to be brave so that the harder they come the better I like it. And, oh God, help me to always play on the square. No matter what the other players do, help me to come clean. Help me to study the book so that I’ll know the rules, to study and think a lot about the greatest player that ever lived and other players that are portrayed in the book. If they ever found out the best part of the game was helping other guys who are out of luck, help me to find it out, too. Help me to be regular, and also an inspiration with the other players. Finally, oh God, if fate seems to uppercut me with both hands, and I am laid on the shelf in sickness or old age or something, help me to take that as part of the game, too. Help me not to whimper or squeal that the game was a frameup or that I had a raw deal. When in the falling dusk I get the final bell, I ask for no lying, complimentary tombstones. I’d only like to know that you feel that I have been a good guy, a good game guy, a saint in the game of life.’
“Reverend Minister Haynes, we know, was a very smairperson. He had his mental problems. Unable to keep a regular job. And he wasn’t blessed with fame or fortune. And he took things as they came along. He was prepared to deal with tragedies that he came across in his life.
“You will find some other exhibits in this case that tell you more about a just verdict. Again this is not easy. No one takes any pleasure from it, but the proof cries out from the grave in this case. Among the personal effects that this defendant could care little about when he went through it is something that we all treasure. Speaks a lot about Reverend Minister Haynes. Very simple yet very profound. Voting. A voter’s registration card.
“Reverend Haynes believed in this community. He took part. And he believed that in Charleston County, in the United States of America, that in this country you could go to a public park and sit on a public bench and not be attacked by the likes of Demetrius Gathers.” Id., at 41-43.
Finding that these “extensive comments to the jury regarding the victim’s character were unnecessary to an understanding of the circumstances of the crime,” the Supreme Court of South Carolina concluded that the prosecutor’s remarks “conveyed the suggestion appellant deserved a death sentence because the victim was a religious man and a registered voter.” 295 S. C. 476, 484, 369 S. E. 2d 140, 144 (1988). Relying on our decision in Booth v. Maryland, 482 U. S. 496 (1987), the court reversed Gathers’ sentence of death and remanded for a new sentencing proceeding. We granted certiorari, 488 U. S. 888 (1988), and we now affirm.
Our capital cases have consistently recognized that “[f]or purposes of imposing the death penalty . . . [the defendant’s] punishment must be tailored to his personal responsibility and moral guilt.” Enmund v. Florida, 458 U. S. 782, 801 (1982). See also id., at 825 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (“[Proportionality requires a nexus between the punishment imposed and the defendant’s blameworthiness”); Tison v. Arizona, 481 U. S. 137, 149 (1987) (“The heart of the retribution rationale is that a criminal sentence must be directly related to the personal culpability of the criminal offender”). Two Terms ago, in Booth v. Maryland, supra, we addressed the question whether use of “victim impact statements” in capital sentencing proceedings violated this principle that a sentence of death must be related to the moral culpability of the defendant. We held that such statements introduced factors that might be “wholly unrelated to the blameworthiness of a particular defendant.” 482 U. S., at 504.
The statements placed before the jury in Booth included descriptions of the victims’ personal characteristics, statements concerning the emotional impact of the crime on the victims’ family, and the family members’ opinions about the crime and the defendant. At issue in the present case is a statement of the first sort — one concerning personal characteristics of the victim. While in this case it was the prosecutor rather than the victim’s survivors who characterized the victim’s personal qualities, the statement is indistinguishable in any relevant respect from that in Booth. As in Booth, “[allowing the jury to rely on [this information] . . . could result in imposing the death sentence because of factors about which the defendant was unaware, and that were irrelevant to the decision to kill.” Id., at 505.
Our opinion in Booth, however, left open the possibility that the kind of information contained in victim impact statements could be admissible if it “relate [d] directly to the circumstances of the crime.” Id., at 507, n. 10. South Carolina asserts that such is the case here. Brief for Petitioner 25-41. It contends that the various personal effects which were “maliciously strewn around [the victim’s] body during the event” were “relevant to the circumstances of the crime or reveal certain personal characteristics of the defendant.” Id., at 28.
We disagree. The fact that Gathers scattered Haynes’ personal papers around his body while going through them looking for something to steal was certainly a relevant circumstance of the crime, and thus a proper subject for comment. But the prosecutor’s argument in this case went well beyond that fact: he read to the jury at length from the religious tract the victim was carrying and commented on the personal qualities he inferred from Haynes’ possession of the “Game Guy’s Prayer” and the voter registration card. The content of these cards, however, cannot possibly have been relevant to the “circumstances of the crime. ” There is no evidence whatever that the defendant read anything that was printed on either the tract or the voter card. Indeed, it is extremely unlikely that he did so. The testimony at trial was that Gathers went through Haynes’ bags very quickly, “just throwing [his belongings] everywhere, looking through things,” App. 27, and that he spent not more than a minute doing so, id., at 28. The crime took place, moreover, at night, along a dark path through a wooded area. Id., at 17; Record 621-622, 926-927. Nor did the assailants have flashlights. Id., at 622-623. Under these circumstances, the content of the various papers the victim happened to be carrying when he was attacked was purely fortuitous and cannot provide any information relevant to the defendant’s moral culpability. Notwithstanding that the papers had been admitted into evidence for another purpose, their content cannot be said to relate directly to the circumstances of the crime.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of South Carolina is therefore
Affirmed.
The objects found scattered around Haynes’ body were, for the most part, admitted into evidence during the testimony of Charleston police officer Anthony Hazel. Record 768-790. At no time then, or otherwise during the guilt phase, was there any reference to the content of the papers Haynes had with him. For example, the following was the entire colloquy at the time many of the papers were admitted:
“Q. Okay____ What else?
“A. Point C, we found some personal papers.
“Q. Personal papers that appeared to belong to the victim?
“A. Yes, sir.
“Q. That would be State’s Exhibit 19?
“A. Yes.” Id., at 782.
See also id., at 787.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
Pro se petitioner George Sassower requests leave to proceed in forma pauperis under Rule 39 of this Court. We deny this request pursuant to Rule 39.8. Sassower is allowed until November 2,1993, within which to pay the docketing fees required by Rule 38 and to submit his petitions in compliance with this Court’s Rule 33. For the reasons explained below, we also direct the Clerk not to accept any further petitions for certiorari nor any petitions for extraordinary writs from Sassower in noncriminal matters unless he pays the docketing fee required by Rule 38 and submits his petition in compliance with Rule 33.
Prior to this Term, Sassower had filed 11 petitions in this Court over the last three years. Although Sassower was granted in forma pauperis status to file these petitions, all were denied without recorded dissent. During the last four months, Sassower has suddenly increased his filings. He currently has 10 petitions pending before this Court — all of them patently frivolous.
Although we have not previously denied Sassower in forma pauperis status pursuant to Rule 39.8, we think it appropriate to enter an order pursuant to Martin v. District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 506 U. S. 1 (1992). In both In re Sindram, 498 U. S. 177 (1991) (per curiam), and In re McDonald, 489 U. S. 180 (1989) (per curiam), we entered orders similar to this one without having previously denied petitioners’ motions to proceed in forma pauperis under Rule 39.8. For the important reasons discussed in Martin, Sindram, and McDonald, we feel compelled to enter the order today barring prospective filings from Sassower.
Sassower’s abuse of the writ of certiorari and of the extraordinary writs has been in noncriminal cases, and so we limit our sanction accordingly. The order therefore will not prevent Sassower from petitioning to challenge criminal sanctions which might be imposed on him. The order, however, will allow this Court to devote its limited resources to the claims of petitioners who have not abused our process.
It is so ordered.
Justice Thomas and Justice Ginsburg took no part in the consideration or decision of the motion in No. 93-5252.
See Sassower v. New York, 499 U. S. 966 (1991) (certiorari); In re Sassower, 499 U. S. 935 (1991) (mandamus/prohibition); In re Sassower, 499 U. S. 935 (1991) (mandamus/prohibition); Sassower v. Mahoney, 498 U. S. 1108 (1991); In re Sassower, 499 U. S. 904 (1991) (mandamus/prohibition); In re Sassower, 498 U. S. 1081 (1991) (habeas corpus); In re Sassower, 498 U. S. 1081 (1991) (mandamus/prohibition); Sassower v. United States Court of Appeals for D. C. Cir., 498 U. S. 1094 (1991) (certiorari); Sassower v. Brieant, 498 U. S. 1094 (1991) (certiorari); Sassower v. Thornburgh, 498 U. S. 1036 (1991) (certiorari); Sassower v. Dillon, 493 U. S. 979 (1989) (certiorari).
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides in unequivocal terms that no person may “be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” To protect this right Congress has declared that the failure of a defendant to testify in his own defense “shall not create any presumption against him.” Ordinarily, the effectuation of this protection is a relatively simple matter — if the defendant chooses not to take the stand, no comment or argument about his failure to testify is permitted. But where for any reason it becomes necessary to try a particular charge more than one time, a more complicated problem may be presented. For a defendant may choose to remain silent at his first trial and then decide to take the stand at a subsequent trial. When this occurs, questions arise as to the propriety of comment or argument in the second trial based upon the defendant’s failure to take the stand at his previous trial. This case turns upon such a question.
Petitioner has been tried three times in the District Court for the District of Columbia upon an indictment charging that he had committed first-degree murder under a felony-murder statute. In all three trials, petitioner’s chief defense has been insanity but, on each occasion, the jury has rejected this defense and returned a verdict of guilty upon which the District of Columbia’s mandatory death sentence has been imposed. After the first two trials, in which petitioner did not testify, the convictions and death sentences were set aside on, the basis of trial errors that the Court of Appeals found had prevented a proper consideration of the case by the jury. At the third trial, in an apparent effort to bolster the contention of insanity, petitioner was placed upon the stand and asked a number of questions by defense counsel — a maneuver obviously made for the purpose of giving the jury an opportunity directly to observe the functioning of petitioner’s mental processes in the hope that such an exhibition would persuade them that his memory and mental comprehension were defective. Petitioner’s responses to these questions were aptly described by the court below as “gibberish without meaning.”
Upon cross-examination, the prosecutor attempted without noticeable success to demonstrate that these irrational answers were given by petitioner in furtherance of his plan to feign a mental weakness that did not exist. To this end, the prosecutor asked petitioner a number of questions about statements petitioner had allegedly made subsequent to his arrest, apparently in the hope that one of these questions would surprise petitioner and provoke a sensible response. When petitioner continued to talk in the same manner that he had used upon direct examination, the prosecutor concluded his cross-examination with the following remarks in the form of questions: “Willie, you were tried on two other occasions.” And, “This is the first time you have gone on the stand, isn’t it, Willie?”
The defense moved immediately for a mistrial on the ground that it was highly prejudicial for the prosecutor to inform the jury of the defendant’s failure to take the stand in his previous trials. The prosecutor defended his actions on the ground that this “is a fact that the Jury is entitled to know.” The trial judge agreed with the prosecutor, denied the motion for a mistrial, and the trial proceeded, culminating in the third verdict of guilty and death sentence. On appeal, the case was heard by all nine members of the Court of Appeals sitting en banc and was affirmed by a 5-4 vote — the majority concluding that the issue was controlled by the decision of this Court in Raffel v. United States, and the minority concluding that the issue was controlled by our decision in Grunewald v. United States. We granted certiorari to consider whether it was error for the trial court to deny the motion for a mistrial under the circumstances.
In this Court, the Government concedes that the question put to the defendant about his prior failures to testify cannot be justified under Raffel, Grünewald, or any other of this Court’s prior decisions. This concession, which we accept as proper, rests upon the Government’s recognition of the fact that in no case has this Court intimated that there is such a basic inconsistency between silence at one trial and taking the stand at a subsequent trial that the fact of prior silence can be used to impeach any testimony which a defendant elects to give at a later trial. The Raffel case, relied upon by the majority below, involved a situation in which Raffel had sat silent at his first trial in the face of testimony by a government agent that Raffel had previously made admissions pointing to his guilt. On a second trial, Raffel took the stand and denied the truth of this same testimony offered by the same witness. Under these circumstances, this Court held that Raffel’s silence at the first trial could be shown in order to discredit his testimony at the second trial on the theory that the silence itself constituted an admission as to the truth of the agent’s testimony. The result was that Raffel’s silence at the first trial was held properly admitted to impeach the specific testimony he offered at the second trial. Here, on the other hand, the defendant’s entire “testimony” comprised nothing more than “gibberish without meaning” with the result that there was no specific testimony to impeach. Any attempt to impeach this defendant as a witness could therefore have related only to his demeanor on the stand, and, indeed, the majority below expressly rested its conclusion upon the view that the prosecution had the right under Raffel to test the genuineness of this sort of “demeanor-evidence” by questions as to why it was not offered at previous trials. But if Raffel could properly be read as standing for this proposition, such questions would be permissible in every instance, for whenever a witness takes the stand, he necessarily puts the genuineness of his demeanor into issue. The Government quite properly concedes that this cannot be the law since it would conflict with the precise holding of this Court in the Grünewald case.
Despite this concession, however, the Government persists in the contention that petitioner’s conviction should be upheld, arguing that the error committed was harmless and could not have affected the jury’s verdict. This argument is rested upon three grounds: first, that the jury may not even have heard the improper question; secondly, that even if the jury did hear the question, it may not have inferred that petitioner in fact did not testify at his previous trial; and, finally, that even if the jury did infer that petitioner did not testify previously, no inference adverse to petitioner would have been drawn from this fact. The first two of these grounds can be quickly disposed of. We can think of no justification for ignoring the part of a record showing error on a mere conjecture that the jury might not have heard the testimony that part of the record represents. Nor do we believe it reasonable to argue that the jury trying this cáse would not have inferred that this defendant had failed to testify in his prior trials when the prosecutor asked, “This is the first time you have gone on the stand, isn’t it, Willie?” Indeed, the recognition that such an inference will in all likelihood be drawn from leading questions of this kind lies at the root of the long-established rule that such questions may not properly be put unless the inference, if drawn, would be factually true. Thus, the Government’s argument that the error was harmless must stand or fall upon the third ground it urges — that the jury’s awareness of petitioner’s failure to take the stand at his previous trials would not have prejudiced the consideration of his case. The disposition of this contention requires the statement of a few more of the relevant facts of the case.
In connection with the defense of insanity, petitioner had introduced evidence of both mental disease and mental defect, as those terms are applied in the relevant law of the District of Columbia. On the mental disease issue, the testimony was that petitioner was suffering from manic depressive psychosis, a disease which the record shows tends to fluctuate considerably in its manifestations from time to time. On the mental defect issue, the defense introduced evidence that petitioner had an intelligence level in the moronic class. The case went to the jury on both of these points, the jury being directed to acquit if it found the homicide to have been the product either of mental disease or mental defect. Petitioner’s “testimony” thus raised at least two different issues in the minds of the jury: first, whether petitioner was simply feigning this testimony; and, secondly, whether, if not, petitioner’s condition at the time of his third trial fairly represented his condition at the time of the act charged in the indictment.
We think it apparent that the jury’s awareness of petitioner’s failure to testify at his first two trials could have affected its deliberations on either or both of these issues. Thus, the jury might well have thought it likely that petitioner elected to feign this “testimony” out of desperation brought on by his failure to gain acquittal without it in the two previous trials. Similarly, even if the jury believed petitioner’s “testimony” was genuine, .it might have thought that petitioner’s condition was caused by a mental disease and concluded that it is unlikely that a disease that had manifested itself only one out of three times for exhibition at trial was active at the occasion of the homicide. Or, on the same assumption, it might have thought that petitioner’s failure to exhibit himself at the previous trials indicated that the condition manifested at this trial was the result of a worsening in his mental condition since those trials and, consequently, also since the commission of the acts charged in the indictment. There may be other ways in which the jury might have used the information improperly given it by the prosecution — we have mentioned more than enough already, however, to satisfy ourselves that the Government’s contention that the error was harmless must be rejected.
The Government’s final contention is that even if the error was prejudicial the conviction should be allowed to stand on the theory that the error was not sufficiently prejudicial to warrant the granting of a mistrial and the defense made no request for cautionary instructions. One answer to this argument is to be found in the Government’s own brief. For, in its argument regarding the possibility that the jury may not have been aware of the improper question, the Government stresses the fact that the question was not emphasized by any reference to it in the instructions to the jury. During the course of this argument the Government expressly recognizes that the danger of the situation would have been increased by a cautionary instruction in that such an instruction would have again brought the jury’s attention to petitioner’s prior failures to testify. Plainly, the defense was under no obligation to take such a risk. The motion for a mistrial was entirely appropriate and, indeed, necessary to protect the interests of petitioner.
We thus conclude that this conviction and sentence against petitioner cannot stand. In doing so, we agree with the point made by the Government in its brief — that it is regrettable when the concurrent findings of 36 jurors are not sufficient finally to terminate a case. But under our system, a man is entitled to the findings of 12 jurors on evidence fairly and properly presented to them. Petitioner may not be deprived of his life until that right is accorded him. That right was denied here by the prosecutor’s improper questions.
Reversed.
“In trial of all persons charged with the commission of offenses against the United States and in all proceedings in courts martial and courts of inquiry in any State, District, Possession or Territory, the person charged shall, at his own request, be a competent witness. His failure to make such request shall not create any presumption against him.” 62 Stat. 833, 18 U. S. C. § 3481.
Wilson v. United, States, 149 U. S. 60.
“Whoever, being of sound memory and discretion, kills another purposely, either of deliberate and premeditated malice or by means of poison, or in perpetrating or attempting to perpetrate any offense punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary, or without purpose so to do kills another in perpetrating or in attempting to perpetrate any arson, as defined in section 22-401 or 22-402 of this Code, rape, mayhem, robbery, or kidnapping, or in perpetrating or in attempting to perpetrate any housebreaking while armed with or using a dangerous weapon, is guilty of murder in the first degree.” District of Columbia Code § 22-2401. (Emphasis supplied.)
Section 22-2404 of the District of Columbia Code provides: “The punishment of murder in the first degree shall be death by electrocution.”
The first conviction was set aside because of erroneous instructions on the defense of insanity. 94 U. S. App. D. C. 293, 214 F. 2d 879. The second conviction was set aside because of improper argument by the prosecutor. 101 U. S. App. D. C. 51, 247 F. 2d 42.
107 U. S. App. D. C. 159, 160, 275 F.2d 617, 618. The following excerpt from petitioner's testimony is entirely typical:
“Q. Who is your lawyer?
■“A. Well, I mean, I am my own lawyer, as far as my concern.
“Q. Have I been representing you here the last couple days?
“A. As far as I am concerned, you all look the same to me.
“Q. Do you know what is going on in this courtroom the last couple days?
“A. I ain’t asked about what is going on. It is up to you go on and describe yourself. I mean, don’t ask me. As far as I am just sitting here.
“Q. Did you ever hear the name Harry Honigman [the man with whose murder petitioner was charged] before?
“A. I haven’t.
“Q. Do you know you are charged with first degree murder ?
“A. As far as I am concerned, I ain’t charged with nothing.
“Q. What is first degree murder; do you know?
“A. I don’t know.”
The record reveals the following exchange at the conclusion of the cross-examination of petitioner by the prosecutor, a Mr. Smithson:
“Q. Willie, you were tried on two other occasions.
“A. Well, I don’t care how many occasions, how many case — you say case. I was a case man once in a time.
“Q. This is the first time you have gone on the stand, isn’t it, Willie?
“A. What?
"Q. This is the first time you have gone on the stand, isn’t it, Willie?
“A. I am always the stand; I am everything, I done told you.
“Mr. Smithson: That is all.”
107 U. S. App. D. C. 159, 275 F. 2d 617.
271 U. S. 494.
353 U. S. 391.
363 U. S. 818. The petition for certiorari also raised objections based upon other alleged errors during the course of the trial. In view of our disposition of the primary issue and because the actions complained of may not arise at any subsequent trial, we find it unnecessary to pass upon these other objections.
Thus, the majority reasoned: “The logical and permissible first step under Raffel v. United States, supra, was to have him say whether he had previously testified in order to lay the groundwork for developing an inconsistency inherent in the difference in his ‘demeanor-evidence’ in the two trials.” 107 U. S. App. D. C. 159, 167, 275 F. 2d 617, 625.
This is so because the defendant’s credibility is in issue whenever he testifies. If the failure to testify at a previous trial were to amount to evidence that testimony at a subsequent trial was feigned or perjurious, the fact of failure to testify would always be admissible.
The holding in Grünewald was that the defendant’s answers to certain questions were not inconsistent with his previous reliance upon the Fifth Amendment to excuse a refusal to answer those very same questions. Since defendant’s testimony placed his credibility in issue, the necessary implication of that holding is that his prior refusal to testify could not be used to impeach his general credibility.
III Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed.), § 780. Wigmore quotes Chitty, Practice of the Law, 2d ed., III, 901, for the proposition: “It is an established rule, as regards cross-examination, that a counsel'has no right, even in order to detect or catch a witness in a falsity, falsely to assume or pretend that the witness had previously sworn or stated differently to the fact, or that a matter had previously been proved when it had not.” This Court has previously recognized that principle. Berger v. United States, 295 U. S. 78, 84.
The difference between the terms “disease” and “defect” was explained in the charge to the jury in the following manner: “We'use ‘disease’ in the sense of a condition which is considered capable of either improving or deteriorating. We use ‘defect’ in the sense of a condition which is not considered capable of either improving or deteriorating, and which may be either congenital or the result of injury, or the residual effect of a physical or mental disease.”
These instructions stemmed from the test of criminal responsibility that prevails in the District of Columbia under the decision of the Court of Appeals in Durham v. United States, 94 U. S. App. D. C. 228, 214 F. 2d 862.
This second issue arises from the fact that the jury was not here trying the question whether petitioner was mentally competent to stand trial. Under the District of Columbia practice, that question is decided in a separate proceeding. See District of Columbia Code §24-301.
Johnson v. United States, 318 U. S. 189, relied upon by the Government, does not sustain its argument on this point. There the defense made no objection at all, choosing instead to rest its chances upon the verdict of the jury. Petitioner here made no such choice for he has repeatedly pressed his right to a mistrial, in the. District Court, in the Court of Appeals, and here.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Speedy Trial Act, 18 U. S. C. § 3161 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. II), as amended in 1979 and in 1984, commands that a defendant be tried within 70 days of the latest of either the filing of an indictment or information, or the first appearance before a judge or magistrate. Section 3161(h)(1)(F) excludes from this time “delay resulting from any pretrial motion, from the filing of the motion through the conclusion of the hearing on, or other prompt disposition of, such motion.” This case requires us to decide the narrow questions whether that exclusion is limited to reasonably necessary delays, and whether it applies to delays occasioned by the filing of posthearing briefs on motions.
I
A jury convicted petitioners of charges arising out of manufacture, possession, and distribution of controlled substances. The evidence at trial showed that in February and April 1980 petitioner Henderson, under the alias “Richard Martin,” placed orders with a scientific supply company in Ohio for chemicals that could be used in the manufacture of illegal drugs. The orders attracted the attention of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Agents obtained a warrant from a United States Magistrate, authorizing installation of an electronic transmitter in one of the chemical containers. Henderson drove from California to Ohio, picked up the second order of chemicals on June 24, and headed west. Agents lost the tracking signal despite their following by both car and plane, only to receive it later in July from petitioner Freedman’s house near Watsonville, California. A search pursuant to warrant on July 17 revealed an illicit drug factory. The last of the codefendants, Peter Bell, was arraigned on September 3, 1980.
The Speedy Trial Act requires that trial begin within 70 days of the latest indictment, information, or appearance — in this case, September 3. 18 U. S. C. § 3161(c)(1). A timely trial would have commenced on November 12, 1980, barring periods of excludable delay. Overlapping filings by petitioners and the Government, however, kept a suppression motion pending from its filing on November 3, 1980, through a hearing on that motion on March 25, 1981. The court deferred decision on the motion pending receipt of posthearing submissions from the parties, the last of which was filed on December 15, 1981. See App. 29-31. The District Court finally denied the motion to suppress on January 19, 1982.
From January 25 to May 10, 1982, both parties filed additional motions before the District Court — on January 25 the Government moved to set the case for trial, and on March 23 petitioners moved to reconsider the motion to suppress. On February 3, the court held a hearing on the Government’s motion and granted a continuance through April 21 to allow defense counsel to file a motion for reconsideration of the order denying the suppression motion. After a hearing on May 10, the court denied petitioners’ motion to reconsider the motion to suppress, and set a trial date of September 13, 1982. The court also entered an order excluding, for purposes of the Act, the time from May 10 to September 13 based on a provision of the Act that allows such exclusion by the Court to satisfy the “ends of justice.” Id., at 32-33; see 18 U. S. C. § 3161(h)(8)(A).
On July 23, 1982, Thornton filed a motion to dismiss the superseding indictment for violation of the Speedy Trial Act. The other two petitioners subsequently joined this motion. The District Judge held a hearing almost two months later, on September 8, and denied the motion from the bench on that date. He filed a memorandum and order outlining his reasons exactly 30 days later. At that time, the judge also entered an order excluding the time from October 8 to November 1, again based on the “interests of justice.” 3 Record, Doc. Nos. 98-99. Trial commenced on November 1, 1982.
Petitioners appealed their convictions, arguing, inter alia, that the District Court could exclude from their Speedy Trial Act computation only delays that were “reasonably necessary.” 746 F. 2d 619, 622 (CA9 1984). The Court of Appeals held that the statute “excludes delays resulting from pretrial motions without qualification.” Ibid. The court noted that Congress had explicitly provided that the excludability of certain other delays depended on their reasonableness, but had not done so for delays from pretrial motions. Ibid. Judge Ferguson dissented, relying on the Act’s legislative history and the interpretations of other Circuits. Id., at 625-626. We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Circuits. 474 U. S. 900 (1985). We now affirm.
II
The Speedy Trial Act requires that a criminal trial must commence within 70 days of the latest of a defendant’s indictment, information, or appearance, barring periods of ex-cludable delay. United States v. Rojas-Contreras, 474 U. S. 231 (1985); see 18 U. S. C. § 3161(c)(1). Section 3161(h) (1)(F) (subsection (F)) excludes from these 70 days certain delays occasioned by the filing of pretrial motions:
“(h) The following periods of delay shall be excluded in computing the time within which an information or an indictment must be filed, or in computing the time within which the trial of any such offense must commence:
“(1) Any period of delay resulting from other proceedings concerning the defendant, including but not limited to—
“(F) delay resulting from any pretrial motion, from the filing of the motion through the conclusion of the hearing on, or other prompt disposition of, such motion” (emphasis added).
A
On its face, subsection (F) excludes “[a]ny period of delay” caused by “any pretrial motion,” “from the filing of the motion through the conclusion of the hearing.” The plain terms of the statute appear to exclude all time between the filing of and the hearing on a motion whether that hearing was prompt or not. Moreover, subsection (F) does not require that a period of delay be “reasonable” to be excluded, although Congress clearly knew how to limit an exclusion: in § 3161(h)(7), Congress provided for exclusion of a “reasonable period of delay when the defendant is joined for trial with a codefendant as to whom the time for trial has not run and no motion for severance has been granted.” Apart from this single instance, every other provision in § 3161(h) provides for exclusion of “any period of delay.” The provision excludes, for example, all of the time consumed by an interlocutory appeal, § 3161(h)(1)(E), by a competency examination, § 3161(h)(1)(A), and by the defendant’s unavailability, § 3161(h)(3)(A). As the Court of Appeals concluded: “The difference between (7) and (1) through (6) is a strong indication that exclusion of the periods defined in (l)-(6) was intended to be automatic.” 746 F. 2d, at 622.
The legislative history of the 1979 Amendments to the Act supports this reading of subsection (F). That history shows that Congress was aware of the breadth of the exclusion it was enacting in subsection (F). The Senate Judiciary Committee acknowledged that “if basic standards for prompt consideration of pretrial motions are not developed,” the liberalized 1979 Amendments to subsection (F) “could become a loophole which could undermine the whole Act.” S. Rep. No. 96-212, p. 34 (1979). In its subsequent consideration of subsection (F), the House of Representatives did not qualify the exclusion in any way or limit such potential abuse by statute. Instead the House adopted the Senate’s version “with the intention that potentially excessive and abusive use of this exclusion be precluded by district or circuit guidelines, rules, or procedures relating to motions practice.” H. R. Rep. No. 96-390, p. 10 (1979). Congress clearly envisioned that any limitations should be imposed by circuit or district court rules rather than by the statute itself. Such rules, developed pursuant to § 3166(f), should provide the assurance of a speedy disposition of pretrial motions.
Petitioners largely concede these arguments and advance two other contentions for limiting subsection (F)’s exclusion to time that is “reasonably necessary” for the disposition of pretrial motions. First, they contend that the phrase “other prompt disposition” within subsection (F) implies that a district court may not unreasonably delay a criminal trial by deferring a hearing on a pretrial motion. Two of the Courts of Appeals that have limited the exclusion in subsection (F) to delays that are “reasonably necessary” have relied on this argument. United States v. Janik, 723 F. 2d 537, 543 (CA7 1983); United States v. Cobb, 697 F. 2d 38, 41-42 (CA2 1982). But a reading of subsection (F) in connection with §3161 (h)(l)(J) (subsection (J)), which allows exclusion of up to 30 days while the district court has a motion “under advisement,” i. e., 30 days from the time the court receives all the papers it reasonably expects, undermines this conclusion. The phrase “prompt disposition” was intended to prevent a district court from using subsection (F) to exclude time after a motion is taken under advisement when that time fails to qualify for exclusion under subsection (J).
Subsection (F), written in the disjunctive, excludes time in two situations. The first arises when a pretrial motion requires a hearing: subsection (F) on its face excludes the entire period between the filing of the motion and the conclusion of the hearing. The second situation concerns motions that require no hearing and that result in a “prompt disposition.” There, the promptness requirement was “intended to provide a point at which time will cease to be excluded, where motions are decided on the papers filed without hearing.” S. Rep. No. 96-212, at 34. The “point at which time will cease to be excluded” is identified by subsection (J), which permits an exclusion of 30 days from the time a motion is actually “under advisement” by the court. Without the promptness requirement in subsection (F), a court could exclude time beyond subsection (J)’s 30-day “under advisement” provision simply by designating the additional period as time “from the filing of the motion” through its “disposition” under subsection (F). As the Senate Committee on the Judiciary explained:
“In using the words ‘prompt disposition’, the committee intends to make it clear that, in excluding time between filing and disposition on the papers, the Committee does not intend to permit circumvention of the 30-days, ‘under advisement’ provision contained in Subsection (h)(l)(J). Indeed, if motions are so simple or routine that they do not require a hearing, necessary advisement time should be considerably less than 30 days.” Ibid.
We therefore conclude that for pretrial motions that require a hearing, the phrase “or other prompt disposition” in subsection (F) does not imply that only “reasonably necessary” delays may be excluded between the time of filing of a motion and the conclusion of the hearing thereon.
Petitioners’ second argument rests on the sentence that immediately follows the extract quoted above: “Nor does the Committee intend that additional time be made eligible for exclusion by postponing the hearing date or other disposition of the motions beyond what is reasonably necessary.” Ibid. (emphasis added). Four Courts of Appeals have relied on this legislative history to support their “reasonably necessary” qualification in subsection (F). United States v. Ray, 768 F. 2d 991, 998 (CA8 1985); United States v. Mitchell, 723 F. 2d 1040, 1047 (CA1 1983); United States v. Novak, 715 F. 2d 810, 819 (CA3 1983), cert. denied sub nom. Ware v. United States, 465 U. S. 1030 (1984); United States v. Cobb, 697 F. 2d 38, 44 (CA2 1982).
Any qualification of subsection (F)’s exclusion based on this sentence, which appears in the paragraph discussing motions decided without a hearing, would be at odds with the plain language of the statute. It also would be contrary to other passages contained in both the House and Senate Reports that specifically concern the “hearings” provision of subsection (F). See supra, at 327-328. We therefore decline to read into subsection (F) a “reasonably necessary” qualification based on this single sentence from the Senate Report. We instead hold that Congress intended subsection (F) to exclude from the Speedy Trial Act’s 70-day limitation all time between the filing of a motion and the conclusion of the hearing on that motion, whether or not a delay in holding that hearing is “reasonably necessary.”
B
The remaining issue is whether subsection (F) excludes time after a hearing on a motion but before the district court receives all the submissions by counsel it needs to decide that motion. Cf. § 3161(h)(1) (excluding “[a]ny period of delay re-suiting from other proceedings concerning the defendant”). Although the language of subsection (F) is not clear on this point, we are convinced that its structure, as well as reason, requires that such time be excluded.
The provisions of the Act are designed to exclude all time that is consumed in placing the trial court in a position to dispose of a motion. See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 96-212, at 9-10. District courts often find it impossible to resolve motions on which hearings have been held until the parties have submitted posthearing briefs or additional factual materials, especially where the motion presents complicated issues. It would not have been sensible for Congress to exclude automatically all the time prior to the hearing on a motion and 30 days after the motion is taken under advisement, but not the time during which the court remains unable to rule because it is awaiting the submission by counsel of additional materials. Moreover, for motions decided solely on the papers, Congress has allowed exclusion of time during which the parties are filing their briefs. 18 U. S. C. §§ 3161(h)(1)(F), (J); see supra, at 328-329. It is consistent with this exclusion to exclude time when the court awaits the briefs and materials needed to resolve a motion on which a hearing has been held — motions that the Senate Judiciary Committee recognized as typically more difficult than motions decided on the papers. See S. Rep. No. 96-212, at 34. We therefore hold that subsection (F) excludes time after a hearing has been held where a district court awaits additional filings from the parties that are needed for proper disposition of the motion.
Ill
We now calculate the number of nonexcludable days before petitioners’ trial. The Act began to run on September 3, 1980, the date of arraignment of codefendant Bell. On October 22, 1980, the District Court entered — with the consent of the parties — a continuance through November 12. The District Court excluded that continuance from the Speedy Trial Act’s 70-day limit under § 3161(h)(8)(A) in “the interest of justice.” App. 26-27; see 746 F. 2d, at 623-624. That exclusion is not challenged in this Court.
The motion to suppress was filed during this continuance, on November 3, 1980. App. 27. The hearing on this and subsequent motions was held on March 25, 1981. Id., at 28. This time is automatically excludable under § 3161(h)(1)(F). The court declined to reach a final decision on the suppression motion at that hearing because it needed further information. Id., at 28-29. The court did not receive all filings in connection with the motion until December 15, 1981, when the Government submitted its response to petitioners’ memorandum and request for an evidentiary hearing. Id., at 31. That time is also excludable, plus 30 days for the District Court to take the matter under advisement. We therefore exclude the period from March 25, 1981, through January 14, 1982.
On January 25, 1982, the Government filed a motion to set the case for trial, noticed for February 3. We need not decide whether this time is excludable under subsection (F) as it does not affect the disposition of this case. On February 3, the court continued the case until April 21, to afford defense counsel the opportunity to file a motion to reconsider the suppression ruling. Ibid. The District Court subsequently found that this time was excludable under § 3161(h)(8)(A) as a continuance necessary for the “interests of justice.” Id., at 34. On March 23, petitioners filed their motion for reconsideration. Under subsection (F), an exclusion for this pending motion ran from March 23 until the disposition by hearing on May 10. See App. 33. At that time, the court stated that it would exclude under § 3161(h)(8)(A) the time from May 10 to September 13, the new trial date, because of the difficulty of coordinating the schedules of five defense attorneys. The court entered a similar order on September 13 that extended through the ultimate trial date of November 1, 1982. Neither of those orders is properly before us. As the case stands here, it presents 69 nonexcludable days of delay, and therefore the Speedy Trial Act was not violated.
IV
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
The jury convicted all three petitioners of conspiracy to manufacture and possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine and phenyl-2-propanone, see 21 U. S. C. § 846; petitioners Thornton and Freedman of manufacture and possession with intent to distribute of methamphetamine, see § 842(a)(1); and petitioner Henderson of traveling interstate with intent to promote the manufacture and possession of methamphetamine, see 18 U. S. C. § 1952(a)(3).
Codefendant Bell was severed from petitioners’ trial on November 1, 1982. All defendants who are joined for trial generally fall within the speedy trial computation of the latest codefendant. See 18 U. S. C. § 3161(h)(7). Once Bell was joined with petitioners in the September 3 superseding indictment, their 70-day period was measured with respect to his.
On November 3, 1980, petitioners filed a motion to suppress evidence. 2 Record, Doc. Nos. 24-26. On November 24, petitioners filed a supplemental memorandum concerning alleged misrepresentations in the affidavit supporting the search warrant. On its own motion, the District Court rescheduled the hearing from November 26, 1980, to January 14,1981, and again to January 28, 1981. A third continuance, at petitioner Freedman’s request, moved the hearing date to February 18, 1981. Meanwhile, on January 13, petitioners filed a motion to reveal the identity of a confidential informant. At the February 18 hearing, petitioners requested and received a continuance to March 2 to reply to the Government’s responses, filed only the day before. The hearing was held instead on March 25 after a 21-day continuance from the court on March 4.
Petitioners filed the motion on March 23; the Government filed its response on April 14, 1982. 3 Record, Doc. Nos. 74-75.
Section 3161(h)(8)(A) provides for the exclusion of
“[a]ny period of delay resulting from a continuance granted by any judge on his own motion or at the request of the defendant or his counsel or at the request of the attorney for the Government, if the judge granted such continuance on the basis of his findings that the ends of justice served by taking such action outweigh the best interest of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial. No such period of delay resulting from a continuance granted by the court in accordance with this paragraph shall be excludable under this subsection unless the court sets forth, in the record of the case, either orally or in writing, its reasons for finding that the ends of justice served by the granting of such continuance outweigh the best interests of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial.”
Several Courts of Appeals have read into 18 U. S. C. § 3161(h)(1)(F) a requirement that only delays that are “reasonably necessary” may be excluded from the computation of the 70-day period. United States v. Ray, 768 F. 2d 991, 998-999 (CA8 1985); United States v. Mitchell, 723 F. 2d 1040, 1047 (CA1 1983); United States v. Janik, 723 F. 2d 537, 543 (CA7 1983); United States v. Novak, 715 F. 2d 810, 819-820 (CA3 1983), cert. denied sub nom. Ware v. United States, 465 U. S. 1030 (1984); United States v. Cobb, 697 F. 2d 38, 44 (CA2 1982). Other Circuits have held that § 3161(h)(1)(F) excludes without qualification the entire period between the filing of the motion and the conclusion of the hearing. 746 F. 2d 619 (CA9 1984) (case below); United States v. Stafford, 697 F. 2d 1368, 1373 (CA11 1983). Cf. United States v. Horton, 705 F. 2d 1414, 1416 (CA5), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 997 (1983).
Section 3161(h)(1)(H), which provides for the exclusion of delay from transporting a defendant “from another district, or to and from places of examination or hospitalization,” presumes that any such delay over 10 days is unreasonable.
The discussion in S. Rep. No. 96-212, p. 34 (1979), see post, at 336-337, concerns time spent preparing pretrial motions. The pertinent language from the Report reads:
“Although some witnesses contended that all time consumed by motions practice, from preparation through their disposition, should be excluded, the Committee finds that approach unreasonable. This is primarily because, in routine cases, preparation time should not be excluded where the questions of law are not novel and the issues of fact simple. However, the Committee would permit through its amendments to subsection (h)(8)(B) reasonable preparation time for pretrial motions in eases presenting novel questions of law or complex facts.” S. Rep. No. 96-212, at 33-34.
Our holding concerns time after the submission of pretrial motions. We note in such situations that the trial court is in a position to determine what, if any, additional submissions that it needs from the parties, and when those submissions are due.
The dissent relies on district court rules as a basis for invoking petitioners’ standard. Post, at 337-338, n. 2. The interpretation of the local rule, however, is a matter on which we should defer to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. It found no violation of the rule.
It would be useful in the future for circuit and district court rules to include specific timetables, thereby giving substance to the obligations of prosecutors and defense counsel under the Speedy Trial Act.
The unexplained failure of the District Court to find the delay from any continuance to be excludable until October 1982 has not been argued by either party before this Court, and therefore is also not before us.
The count is 49 days from September 3, 1980, to November 22, 1980, and 20 days from January 14, 1982, to February 3, 1982.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
CONSOLIDATED DECREE
On January 19, 1953, the Court granted the State of Arizona leave to file a bill of complaint against the State of California and seven of its public agencies, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Imperial Irrigation District, Coachella Valley County Water District, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, City of Los Angeles, City of San Diego, and County of San Diego. 344 U. S. 919. The United States and the State of Nevada intervened. 344 U. S. 919 (1953) (intervention by the United States); 347 U. S. 985 (1954) (intervention by Nevada). The State of New Mexico and the State of Utah were joined as parties. 350 U. S. 114, 115 (1955). The Court referred the case to George I. Haight, Esquire, and upon his death to Simon H. Rif kind, Esquire, as Special Master. 347 U. S. 986 (1954); 350 U. S. 812 (1955). On January 16, 1961, the Court received and ordered filed the report of Special Master Rifkind. 364 U. S. 940. On June 3,1963, the Court filed an opinion in the case, 373 U. S. 546, and on March 9, 1964, the Court entered a decree in the case. 376 U. S. 340.
On February 28,1966, the Court granted the joint motion of the parties to amend Article VI of the decree, and so amended Article VI to extend the time for submission of lists of present perfected rights. 383 U. S. 268.
On January 9,1979, the Court filed an opinion granting the joint motion for entry of a supplemental decree, entered a supplemental decree, denied in part the motion to intervene of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, and otherwise referred the case and the motions to intervene of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe and the Colorado River Indian Tribes, et al., to Judge Elbert Tuttle as Special Master. 439 U. S. 419, 437. On April 5,1982, the Court received and ordered filed the report of Special Master Tuttle. 456 U. S. 912. On March 30, 1983, the Court filed an opinion rendering a decision on the several exceptions to the report of the Special Master, approving the recommendation that the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, the Colorado River Indian Tribes, the Quechan Tribe, and the Cocopah Indian Tribe be permitted to intervene, and approving some of his further recommendations and disapproving others, 460 U. S. 605, 609, 615. On April 16, 1984, the Court entered a second supplemental decree implementing that decision. 466 U. S. 144.
On October 10, 1989, the Court granted the motion of the state parties to reopen the decree to determine the disputed boundary claims with respect to the Fort Mojave, Colorado River, and Fort Yuma Indian Reservations. 493 U. S. 886. The case was referred to Robert B. McKay, Esquire, and upon his death to Frank McGarr, Esquire, as Special Master. 493 U. S. 971 (1989); 498 U. S. 964 (1990). On October 4, 1999, the Court received and ordered filed the report of Special Master McGarr. 528 U. S. 803. On June 19, 2000, the Court filed an opinion rendering a decision on the several exceptions to the report of the Special Master, approving the settlements of the parties with respect to the Fort Mojave and Colorado River Indian Reservations and remanding the case to the Special Master with respect to the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation. 530 U. S. 392, 418, 419-420. On October 10, 2000, the Court entered a supplemental decree. 531 U. S. 1.
On June 14, 2005, Special Master McGarr submitted his report recommending approval of the settlements of the federal reserved water rights claim with respect to the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation and a proposed supplemental decree to implement those settlements.
The State of Arizona, the State of California, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Coachella Valley Water District, the United States, and the Quechan Tribe, at the direction of the Court, have filed a joint motion to enter a consolidated decree.
This decree consolidates the substantive provisions of the decrees previously entered in this action at 376 U. S. 340 (1964), 383 U. S. 268 (1966), 439 U. S. 419 (1979), 466 U. S. 144 (1984), and 531 U. S. 1 (2000), implements the settlements of the federal reserved water rights claim for the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation, which the Court has approved this date, and reflects changes in the names of certain parties and Indian reservations. This decree is entered in order to provide a single convenient reference to ascertain the rights and obligations of the parties adjudicated in this original proceeding, and reflects only the incremental changes in the original 1964 decree by subsequent decrees and the settlements of the federal reserved water rights claim for the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation.
Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED
Except where the text of this decree differs from the previous decrees, this decree does not vacate the previous decrees nor alter any of their substantive provisions, and all mandates, injunctions, obligations, privileges, and requirements of this decree are deemed to remain effective as of the date of their respective entry in the prior decrees. Entry of this decree shall not affect the validity or effect of, nor affect any right or obligation under, any existing statute, regulation, policy, administrative order, contract, or judicial decision or judgment in other actions that references any of the previous decrees, and any such reference shall be construed as a reference to the congruent provisions of this decree.
I. For purposes of this decree:
(A) “Consumptive use” means diversions from the stream less such return flow thereto as is available for consumptive use in the United States or in satisfaction of the Mexican Treaty obligation;
(B) “Mainstream” means the mainstream of the Colorado River downstream from Lee Ferry within the United States, including the reservoirs thereon;
(C) Consumptive use from the mainstream within a State shall include all consumptive uses of water of the mainstream, including water drawn from the mainstream by underground pumping, and including, but not limited to, consumptive uses made by persons, by agencies of that State, and by the United States for the benefit of Indian reservations and other federal establishments within the State;
(D) “Regulatory structures controlled by the United States” refers to Hoover Dam, Davis Dam, Parker Dam, Headgate Rock Dam, Palo Verde Dam, Imperial Dam, Laguna Dam, and all other dams and works on the mainstream now or hereafter controlled or operated by the United States which regulate the flow of water in the mainstream or the diversion of water from the mainstream;
(E) “Water controlled by the United States” refers to the water in Lake Mead, Lake Mohave, Lake Havasu, and all other water in the mainstream below Lee Ferry and within the United States;
(F) “Tributaries” means all stream systems the waters of which naturally drain into the mainstream of the Colorado River below Lee Ferry;
(G) “Perfected right” means a water right acquired in accordance with state law, which right has been exercised by the actual diversion of a specific quantity of water that has been applied to a defined area of land or to definite municipal or industrial works, and in addition shall include water rights created by the reservation of mainstream water for the use of federal establishments under federal law whether or not the water has been applied to beneficial use;
(H) “Present perfected rights” means perfected rights, as here defined, existing as of June 25, 1929, the effective date of the Boulder Canyon Project Act;
(I) “Domestic use” shall include the use of water for household, stock, municipal, mining, milling, industrial, and other like purposes, but shall exclude the generation of electrical power;
(J) “Annual” and “Year,” except where the context may otherwise require, refer to calendar years;
(K) Consumptive use of water diverted in one State for consumptive use in another State shall be treated as if diverted in the State for whose benefit it is consumed.
II. The United States, its officers, attorneys, agents and employees be and they are hereby severally enjoined:
(A) From operating regulatory structures controlled by the United States and from releasing water controlled by the United States other than in accordance with the following order of priority:
(1) For river regulation, improvement of navigation, and flood control;
(2) For irrigation and domestic uses, including the satisfaction of present perfected rights; and
(3) For power;
Provided, however, that the United States may release water in satisfaction of its obligations to the United States of Mexico under the Treaty dated February 3, 1944, without regard to the priorities specified in this subdivision (A);
(B) From releasing water controlled by the United States for irrigation and domestic use in the States of Arizona, California, and Nevada, except as follows:
(1) If sufficient mainstream water is available for release, as determined by the Secretary of the Interior, to satisfy 7,500,000 acre-feet of annual consumptive use in the aforesaid three States, then of such 7,500,000 acre-feet of consumptive use, there shall be apportioned 2,800,000 acre-feet for use in Arizona, 4,400,000 acre-feet for use in California, and 300,000 acre-feet for use in Nevada;
(2) If sufficient mainstream water is available for release, as determined by the Secretary of the Interior, to satisfy annual consumptive use in the aforesaid States in excess of 7,500,000 acre-feet, such excess consumptive use is surplus, and 50% thereof shall be apportioned for use in Arizona and 50% for use in California; provided, however, that if the United States so contracts with Nevada, then 46% of such surplus shall be apportioned for use in Arizona and 4% for use in Nevada;
(3) If insufficient mainstream water is available for release, as determined by the Secretary of the Interior, to satisfy annual consumptive use of 7,500,000 acre-feet in the aforesaid three States, then the Secretary of the Interior, after providing for satisfaction of present perfected rights in the order of their priority dates without regard to state lines and after consultation with the parties to major delivery contracts and such representatives as the respective States may designate, may apportion the amount remaining available for consumptive use in such manner as is consistent with the Boulder Canyon Project Act as interpreted by the opinion of this Court herein, and with other applicable federal statutes, but in no event shall more than 4,400,000 acre-feet be apportioned for use in California including all present perfected rights;
(4) Any mainstream water consumptively used within a State shall be charged to its apportionment, regardless of the purpose for which it was released;
(5) Notwithstanding the provisions of Paragraphs (1) through (4) of this subdivision (B), mainstream water shall be released or delivered to water users (including but not limited to public and municipal corporations and other public agencies) in Arizona, California, and Nevada only pursuant to valid contracts therefor made with such users by the Secretary of the Interior, pursuant to Section 5 of the Boulder Canyon Project Act or any other applicable federal statute;
(6) If, in any one year, water apportioned for consumptive use in a State will not be consumed in that State, whether for the reason that delivery contracts for the full amount of the State’s apportionment are not in effect or that users cannot apply all of such water to beneficial uses, or for any other reason, nothing in this decree shall be construed as prohibiting the Secretary of the Interior from releasing such apportioned but unused water during such year for consumptive use in the other States. No rights to the recurrent use of such water shall accrue by reason of the use thereof;
(C) From applying the provisions of Article 7(d) of the Arizona water delivery contract dated February 9, 1944, and the provisions of Article 5(a) of the Nevada water delivery contract dated March 30, 1942, as amended by the contract dated January 3,1944, to reduce the apportionment or delivery of mainstream water to users within the States of Arizona and Nevada by reason of any uses in such States from the tributaries flowing therein;
(D) From releasing water controlled by the United States for use in the States of Arizona, California, and Nevada for the benefit of any federal establishment named in this subdivision (D) except in accordance with the allocations made herein; provided, however, that such release may be made notwithstanding the provisions of Paragraph (5) of subdivision (B) of this Article; and provided further that nothing herein shall prohibit the United States from making future additional reservations of mainstream water for use in any of such States as may be authorized by law and subject to present perfected rights and rights under contracts theretofore made with water users in such State under Section 5 of the Boulder Canyon Project Act or any other applicable federal statute:
(1) The Chemehuevi Indian Reservation in annual quantities not to exceed (i) 11,340 acre-feet of diversions from the mainstream or (ii) the quantity of mainstream water necessary to supply the consumptive use required for irrigation of 1,900 acres and for the satisfaction of related uses, whichever of (i) or (ii) is less, with a priority date of February 2, 1907;
(2) The Cocopah Indian Reservation in annual quantities not to exceed (i) 9,707 acre-feet of diversions from the mainstream or (ii) the quantity of mainstream water necessary to supply the consumptive use required for irrigation of 1,524 acres and for the satisfaction of related uses, whichever of (i) or (ii) is less, with priority dates of September 27, 1917, for lands reserved by the Executive Order of said date; June 24, 1974, for lands reserved by the Act of June 24,1974 (88 Stat. 266, 269);
(3) The Fort Yuma Indian Reservation in annual quantities not to exceed (i) 77,966 acre-feet of diversions from the mainstream or (ii) the quantity of mainstream water necessary to supply the consumptive use required for irrigation of 11,694 acres and for the satisfaction of related uses, whichever of (i) or (ii) is less, with a priority date of January 9, 1884;
(4) The Colorado River Indian Reservation in annual quantities not to exceed (i) 719,248 acre-feet of diversions from the mainstream or (ii) the quantity of mainstream water necessary to supply the consumptive use required for irrigation of 107,903 acres and for the satisfaction of related uses, whichever of (i) or (ii) is less, with priority dates of March 3, 1865, for lands reserved by the Act of March 3,1865 (13 Stat. 541, 559); November 22,1873, for lands reserved by the Executive Order of said date; November 16, 1874, for lands reserved by the Executive Order of said date, except as later modified; May 15, 1876, for lands reserved by the Executive Order of said date; November 22, 1915, for lands reserved by the Executive Order of said date;
(5) The Fort Mojave Indian Reservation in annual quantities not to exceed (i) 132,789 acre-feet of diversions from the mainstream or (ii) the quantity of mainstream water necessary to supply the consumptive use required for irrigation of 20,544 acres and for the satisfaction of related uses, whichever of (i) or (ii) is less, with priority dates of September 19, 1890, for lands transferred by the Executive Order of said date; February 2, 1911, for lands reserved by the Executive Order of said date;
(6) The Lake Mead National Recreation Area in annual quantities reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes of the Recreation Area, with priority dates of May 3, 1929, for lands reserved by the Executive Order of said date (No. 5105), and April 25, 1930, for lands reserved by the Executive Order of said date (No. 5339);
(7) The Havasu Lake National Wildlife Refuge in annual quantities reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes of the Refuge, not to exceed (i) 41,839 acre-feet of water diverted from the mainstream or (ii) 37,339 acre-feet of consumptive use of mainstream water, whichever of (i) or (ii) is less, with a priority date of January 22, 1941, for lands reserved by the Executive Order of said date (No. 8647), and a priority date of February 11,1949, for land reserved by the Public Land Order of said date (No. 559);
(8) The Imperial National Wildlife Refuge in annual quantities reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes of the Refuge not to exceed (i) 28,000 acre-feet of water diverted from the mainstream or (ii) 23,000 acre-feet of consumptive use of mainstream water, whichever of (i) or (ii) is less, with a priority date of February 14, 1941;
(9) Boulder City, Nevada, as authorized by the Act of September 2,1958, 72 Stat. 1726, with a priority date of May 15, 1931;
Provided, further, that consumptive uses from the mainstream for the benefit of the above-named federal establishments shall, except as necessary to satisfy present perfected rights in the order of their priority dates without regard to state lines, be satisfied only out of water available, as provided in subdivision (B) of this Article, to each State wherein such uses occur and subject to, in the case of each reservation, such rights as have been created prior to the establishment of such reservation by contracts executed under Section 5 of the Boulder Canyon Project Act or any other applicable federal statute.
III. The States of Arizona, California, and Nevada, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Imperial Irrigation District, Coachella Valley Water District, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, City of Los Angeles, City of San Diego, and County of San Diego, and all other users of water from the mainstream in said States, their officers, attorneys, agents, and employees, be and they are hereby severally enjoined:
(A) From interfering with the management and operation, in conformity with Article II of this decree, of regulatory structures controlled by the United States;
(B) From interfering with or purporting to authorize the interference with releases and deliveries, in conformity with Article II of this decree, of water controlled by the United States;
(C) From diverting or purporting to authorize the diversion of water from the mainstream the diversion of which has not been authorized by the United States for use in the respective States; provided, however, that no party named in this Article and no other user of water in said States shall divert or purport to authorize the diversion of water from the mainstream the diversion of which has not been authorized by the United States for its particular use;
(D) From consuming or purporting to authorize the consumptive use of water from the mainstream in excess of the quantities permitted under Article II of this decree.
IV. The State of New Mexico, its officers, attorneys, agents, and employees, be and they are after March 9, 1968, hereby severally enjoined:
(A) From diverting or permitting the diversion of water from San Simon Creek, its tributaries, and underground water sources for the irrigation of more than a total of 2,900 acres during any one year, and from exceeding a total consumptive use of such water, for whatever purpose, of 72,000 acre-feet during any period of ten consecutive years; and from exceeding a total consumptive use of such water, for whatever purpose, of 8,220 acre-feet during any one year;
(B) From diverting or permitting the diversion of water from the San Francisco River, its tributaries, and underground water sources for the irrigation within each of the following areas of more than the following number of acres during any one year:
Lima Area....................................................................... 225
Apache Creek-Aragon Area........................................ 316
Reserve Area................................................................. 725
Glenwood Area...............................................................1,003
and from exceeding a total consumptive use of such water for whatever purpose, of 31,870 acre-feet during any period of ten consecutive years; and from exceeding a total consumptive use of such water, for whatever purpose, of 4,112 acre-feet during any one year;
(C) From diverting or permitting the diversion of water from the Gila River, its tributaries (exclusive of the San Francisco River and San Simon Creek and their tributaries), and underground water sources for the irrigation within each of the following areas of more than the following number of acres during any one year:
Upper Gila Area............................................................ 287
Cliff-Gila and Buckhorn-Duck Creek Area..............5,314
Red Rock Area...............................................................1,456
and from exceeding a total consumptive use of such water (exclusive of uses in Virden Valley, New Mexico), for whatever purpose, of 136,620 acre-feet during any period of ten consecutive years; and from exceeding a total consumptive use of such water (exclusive of uses in Virden Valley, New Mexico), for whatever purpose, of 15,895 acre-feet during any one year;
(D) From diverting or permitting the diversion of water from the Gila River and its underground water sources in the Virden Valley, New Mexico, except for use on lands determined to have the right to the use of such water by the decree entered by the United States District Court for the District of Arizona on June 29,1935, in United States v. Gila Valley Irrigation District et al. (Globe Equity No. 59) (herein referred to as the Gila Decree), and except pursuant to and in accordance with the terms and provisions of the Gila Decree; provided, however, that:
(1) This decree shall not enjoin the use of underground water on any of the following lands:
Owner Subdivision and Legal Description Sec. Twp. Bng. Acreage
Marvin Arnett and Part Lot 3...... 6 19S 21W 33.84
J. C. O’Dell............... Part Lot 4...... 6 19S 21W 52.33
NWVi SWV4... 5 19S 21W 38.36
SWV4SWV4... 5 19S 21W 39.80
Part Lot 1...... 7 19S 21W 50.68
NW*/4 NWV4.. 8 19S 21W 38.03
Hyrum M. Pace, SWV4NEV4... 12 19S 21W 8.00
Ray Richardson, SWV4 NEV4... 12 19S 21W 15.00
Harry Day and N. O. Pace, Est. SEj/4 NEV4.... 12 19S 21W 7.00
C. C. Martin......... S. part SEV4
SW!/4SE!/4......... 19S 21W 0.93
wta wt& wts
NEV4NEV4........ 12 19S 21W 0.51
NWV4 NEV4........ 12 19S 21W 18.01
A. E. Jacobson...... SW part Lot 1.... 6 19S 21W 11.58
W. LeRoss Jones.. E. Central part: 12 19S 21W 0.70
EVü EVfe Etk
NWV4 NWV4
SW part NEl/4
NW'/4................... 12 19S 21W 8.93
N. Central part: 12 19S 21W 0.51
NtS NtS NWt£
SEV4 NWV4
Conrad and James Ntk NtS NtS
R. Donaldson........... SEV4..................... 18 19S 20W 8.00
James D. Freestone................. Part WVfe NWV4.. 33 18S 21W 7.79
Virgil W. Jones........ Nt& SEV4 12 19S 21W 7.40
NWV4; SEV4
NEV4 NWV4
Darrell Brooks.. SEV4SWV4.......... 32 18S 21W 6.15
Floyd Jones....... Part NtS SEV4
NEV4..................... 13 19S 21W 4.00
Part NWV4
SWí/4 NWl/4......... 18 19S 20W 1.70
L. M. HatchSWV4SWV4......... 32 18S 21W 4.40
Virden Townsite.. 3.90
Owner Subdivision and Legal Description Sec. Twp. Rng. Acreage
Carl M. Donaldson.. SWV4SEV4............. 12 19S 21W 3.40
Part NW>/4 NWV4
Mack Johnson.......... NEV4........................ 10 19S 21W 2.80
Part NEV4 NWV4
NEV4........................ 10 19S 21W 0.30
Part Ntfc NV6 StS
NWV4 NEV4............ 10 19S 21W 0.10
SEV4 SEV4; SWV4
SEV4......................... 3 19S 21W
Chris Dotz.. NWV4 NEj/4; 2.66
NEV4 NEV4............. 10 19S 21W
Roy A. Johnson... NEV4SEV4SEV4.., 4 19S 21W 1.00
Ivan and Antone NEV4 SEV4
Thygerson............ SEV4 32 18S 21W 1.00
SWV4 SEV4
John W. Bonine. SWV4......................... 34 18S 21W 1.00
Marion K. SWV4 SWV4 SEV4
Mortenson.......... 33 18S 21W 1.00
Total. 380.81
or on lands or for other uses in the Virden Valley to which such use may be transferred or substituted on retirement from irrigation of any of said specifically described lands, up to a maximum total consumptive use of such water of 838.2 acre-feet per annum, unless and until such uses are adjudged by a court of competent jurisdiction to be an infringement or impairment of rights confirmed by the Gila Decree; and
(2) This decree shall not prohibit domestic use of water from the Gila River and its underground water sources on lands with rights confirmed by the Gila Decree, or on farmsteads located adjacent to said lands, or in the Virden Townsite, up to a total consumptive use of 265 acre-feet per annum in addition to the uses confirmed by the Gila Decree, unless and until such use is adjudged by a court of competent jurisdiction to be an infringement or impairment of rights confirmed by the Gila Decree;
(E) Provided, however, that nothing in this Article IV shall be construed to affect rights as between individual water users in the State of New Mexico; nor shall anything in this Article be construed to affect possible superior rights of the United States asserted on behalf of National Forests, Parks, Memorials, Monuments, and lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management; and provided further that in addition to the diversions authorized herein the United States has the right to divert water from the mainstream of the Gila and San Francisco Rivers in quantities reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes of the Gila National Forest with priority dates as of the date of withdrawal for forest purposes of each area of the forest within which the water is used;
(F) Provided, further, that no diversion from a stream authorized in Article IV(A) through (D) may be transferred to any of the other streams, nor may any use for irrigation purposes within any area on one of the streams be transferred for use for irrigation purposes to any other area on that stream.
V. The United States shall prepare and maintain, or provide for the preparation and maintenance of, and shall make available, annually and at such shorter intervals as the Secretary of the Interior shall deem necessary or advisable, for inspection by interested persons at all reasonable times and at a reasonable place or places, complete, detailed, and accurate records of:
(A) Releases of water through regulatory structures controlled by the United States;
(B) Diversions of water from the mainstream, return flow of such water to the stream as is available for consumptive use in the United States or in satisfaction of the Mexican Treaty obligation, and consumptive use of such water. These quantities shall be stated separately as to each diverter from the mainstream, each point of diversion, and each of the States of Arizona, California, and Nevada;
(C) Releases of mainstream water pursuant to orders therefor but not diverted by the party ordering the same, and the quantity of such water delivered to Mexico in satisfaction of the Mexican Treaty or diverted by others in satisfaction of rights decreed herein. These quantities shall be stated separately as to each diverter from the mainstream, each point of diversion, and each of the States of Arizona, California, and Nevada;
(D) Deliveries to Mexico of water in satisfaction of the obligations of Part III of the Treaty of February 3, 1944, and, separately stated, water passing to Mexico in excess of treaty requirements;
(E) Diversions of water from the mainstream of the Gila and San Francisco Rivers and the consumptive use of such water, for the benefit of the Gila National Forest.
VI. By March 9, 1967, the States of Arizona, California, and Nevada shall furnish to this Court and to the Secretary of the Interior a list of the present perfected rights, with their claimed priority dates, in waters of the mainstream within each State, respectively, in terms of consumptive use, except those relating to federal establishments. Any named party to this proceeding may present its claim of present perfected rights or its opposition to the claims of others. The Secretary of the Interior shall supply similar information, by March 9, 1967, with respect to the claims of the United States to present perfected rights within each State. If the parties and the Secretary of the Interior are unable at that time to agree on the present perfected rights to the use of mainstream water in each State, and their priority dates, any party may apply to the Court for the determination of such rights by the Court. A list of present perfected rights, with priority dates, in waters of the mainstream in the States of Arizona, California, and Nevada is set forth in Parts I-A, II-A, and III of the Appendix to this decree and is incorporated herein by reference.
VII. The State of New Mexico shall, by March 9, 1968, prepare and maintain, or provide for the preparation and maintenance of, and shall annually thereafter make available for inspection at all reasonable times and at a reasonable place or places, complete, detailed, and accurate records of:
(A) The acreages of all lands in New Mexico irrigated each year from the Gila River, the San Francisco River, San Simon Creek, and their tributaries and all of their underground water sources, stated by legal description and component acreages and separately as to each of the areas designated in Article IV of this decree and as to each of the three streams;
(B) Annual diversions and consumptive uses of water in New Mexico, from the Gila River, the San Francisco River, San Simon Creek, and their tributaries and all their underground water sources, stated separately as to each of the three streams.
VIII. This decree shall not affect:
(A) The relative rights inter sese of water users within any one of the States, except as otherwise specifically provided herein;
(B) The rights or priorities to water in any of the Lower Basin tributaries of the Colorado River in the States of Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah except the Gila River System;
(C) The rights or priorities, except as specific provision is made herein, of any Indian Reservation, National Forest, Park, Recreation Area, Monument or Memorial, or other lands of the United States;
(D) Any issue of interpretation of the Colorado River Compact.
IX. Any of the parties may apply at the foot of this decree for its amendment or for further relief. The Court retains jurisdiction of this suit for the purpose of any order, direction, or modification of the decree, or any supplementary decree, that may at any time be deemed proper in relation to the subject matter in controversy.
APPENDIX
The present perfected rights to the use of mainstream water in the States of Arizona, California, and Nevada, and their priority dates are determined to be as set forth below, subject to the following:
(1) The following listed present perfected rights relate to the quantity of water which may be used by each claimant and the list is not intended to limit or redefine the type of use otherwise set forth in this decree.
(2) This determination shall in no way affect future adjustments resulting from determinations relating to settlement of Indian reservation boundaries referred to in Article 11(D)(5) of this decree.
(3) Article IX of this decree is not affected by this list of present perfected rights.
(4) Any water right listed herein may be exercised only for beneficial uses.
(5) In the event of a determination of insufficient mainstream water to satisfy present perfected rights pursuant to Article 11(B)(3) of this decree, the Secretary of the Interior shall, before providing for the satisfaction of any of the other present perfected rights except for those listed herein as “MISCELLANEOUS PRESENT PERFECTED RIGHTS” (rights numbered 7-21 and 29-80 below) in the order of their priority dates without regard to state lines, first provide for the satisfaction in full of all rights of the Chemehuevi Indian Reservation, Cocopah Indian Reservation, Fort Yuma Indian Reservation, Colorado River Indian Reservation, and the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation as set forth in Article II(D)(l)-(5) of this decree, provided that the quantities fixed in paragraphs (1) through (5) of Article 11(D) of this decree shall continue to be subject to appropriate adjustment by agreement or decree of this Court in
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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C
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Vermont law restricts the sale, disclosure, and use of pharmacy records that reveal the prescribing practices of individual doctors. Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 18, §4631 (Supp. 2010). Subject to certain exceptions, the information may not be sold, disclosed by pharmacies for marketing purposes, or used for marketing by pharmaceutical manufacturers. Vermont argues that its prohibitions safeguard medical privacy and diminish the likelihood that marketing will lead to prescription decisions not in the best interests of patients or the State. It can be assumed that these interests are significant. Speech in aid of pharmaceutical marketing, however, is a form of expression protected by the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. As a consequence, Vermont’s statute must be subjected to heightened judicial scrutiny. The law cannot satisfy that standard.
I
A
Pharmaceutical manufacturers promote their drugs to doctors through a process called “detailing.” This often involves a scheduled visit to a doctor’s office to persuade the doctor to prescribe a particular pharmaceutical. Detailers bring drug samples as well as medical studies that explain the “details” and potential advantages of various prescription drugs. Interested physicians listen, ask questions, and receive followup data. Salespersons can be more effective when they know the background and purchasing preferences of their clientele, and pharmaceutical salespersons are no exception. Knowledge of a physician’s prescription practices — called “prescriber-identifying information” — enables a detailer better to ascertain which doctors are likely to be interested in a particular drug and how best to present a particular sales message. Detailing is an expensive undertaking, so pharmaceutical companies most often use it to promote high-profit brand-name drugs protected by patent. Once a brand-name drug’s patent expires, less expensive bioequivalent generic alternatives are manufactured and sold.
Pharmacies, as a matter of business routine and federal law, receive prescriber-identifying information when processing prescriptions. See 21 U. S. C. § 353(b); see also Vt. Bd. of Pharmacy Admin. Rule 9.1 (2009); Rule 9.2. Many pharmacies sell this information to “data miners,” firms that analyze prescriber-identifying information and produce reports on prescriber behavior. Data miners lease these reports to pharmaceutical manufacturers subject to nondisclosure agreements. Detailers, who represent the manufacturers, then use the reports to refine their marketing tactics and increase sales.
In 2007, Vermont enacted the Prescription Confidentiality Law. The measure is also referred to as Act 80. It has several components. The central provision of the present case is § 4631(d).
“A health insurer, a self-insured employer, an electronic transmission intermediary, a pharmacy, or other similar entity shall not sell, license, or exchange for value regulated records containing prescriber-identifiable information, nor permit the use of regulated records containing prescriber-identifiable information for marketing or promoting a prescription drug, unless the prescriber consents.... Pharmaceutical manufacturers and pharmaceutical marketers shall not use prescriber-identifiable information for marketing or promoting a prescription drug unless the prescriber consents....”
The quoted provision has three component parts. The provision begins by prohibiting pharmacies, health insurers, and similar entities from selling prescriber-identifying information, absent the prescriber’s consent. The parties here dispute whether this clause applies to all sales or only to sales for marketing. The provision then goes on to prohibit pharmacies, health insurers, and similar entities from allowing prescriber-identifying information to be used for marketing, unless the prescriber consents. This prohibition in effect bars pharmacies from disclosing the information for marketing purposes. Finally, the provision’s second sentence bars pharmaceutical manufacturers and pharmaceutical marketers from using prescriber-identifying information for marketing, again absent the prescriber’s consent. The Vermont attorney general may pursue civil remedies against violators. § 4631(f).
Separate statutory provisions elaborate the scope of the prohibitions set out in § 4631(d). “Marketing” is defined to include “advertising, promotion, or any activity” that is “used to influence sales or the market share of a prescription drug.” § 4631(b)(5). Section 4631(c)(1) further provides that Vermont’s Department of Health must allow “a prescriber to give consent for his or her identifying information to be used for the purposes” identified in § 4631(d). Finally, the Act’s prohibitions on sale, disclosure, and use are subject to a list of exceptions. For example, prescriber-identifying information may be disseminated or used for “health care research”; to enforce “compliance” with health insurance formularies or preferred drug lists; for “care management educational communications provided to” patients on such matters as “treatment options”; for law enforcement operations; and for purposes “otherwise provided by law.” § 4631(e).
Act 80 also authorized funds for an “evidence-based prescription drug education program” designed to provide doctors and others with “information and education on the therapeutic and cost-effective utilization of prescription drugs.” § 4622(a)(1). An express aim of the program is to advise prescribers “about commonly used brand-name drugs for which the patent has expired” or will soon expire. § 4622(a)(2). Similar efforts to promote the use of generic pharmaceuticals are sometimes referred to as “counter-detailing.” App. 211; see also IMS Health Inc. v. Ayotte, 550 F. 3d 42, 91 (CA1 2008) (Lipez, J., concurring and dissenting). The counterdetailer’s recommended substitute may be an older, less expensive drug and not a bioequivalent of the brand-name drug the physician might otherwise prescribe. Like the pharmaceutical manufacturers whose efforts they hope to resist, counterdetailers in some States use prescriber-identifying information to increase their effectiveness. States themselves may supply the prescriber-identifying information used in these programs. See App. 313; id., at 375 (“[W]e use the data given to us by the State of Pennsylvania... to figure out which physicians to talk to”); see also id., at 427-429 (Director of the Office of Vermont Health Access explaining that the office collects prescriber-identifying information but “does not at this point in time have a counterdetailing or detailing effort”). As first enacted, Act 80 also required detailers to provide information about alternative treatment options. The Vermont Legislature, however, later repealed that provision. 2008 Vt. Laws No. 89, § 3.
Act 80 was accompanied by legislative findings. 2007 Vt. Laws No. 80, §1. Vermont found, for example, that the “goals of marketing programs are often in conflict with the goals of the state” and that the “marketplace for ideas on medicine safety and effectiveness is frequently one-sided in that brand-name companies invest in expensive pharmaceutical marketing campaigns to doctors.” §§ 1(3), (4). Detailing, in the legislature’s view, caused doctors to make decisions based on “incomplete and biased information.” §1(4). Because they “are unable to take the time to research the quickly changing pharmaceutical market,” Vermont doctors “rely on information provided by pharmaceutical representatives.” §1(13). The legislature further found that detailing increases the cost of health care and health insurance, §1(15); encourages hasty and excessive'reliance on brand-name drugs, before the profession has observed their effectiveness as compared with older and less expensive generic alternatives, §1(7); and fosters disruptive and repeated marketing visits tantamount to harassment, §§ l(27)-(28). The legislative findings further noted that use of prescriber-identifying information “increase^] the effect of detailing programs” by allowing detailers to target their visits to particular doctors. §§ l(23)-(26). Use of prescriber-identifying data also helps detailers shape their messages by “tailoring” their “presentations to individual prescriber styles, preferences, and attitudes.” § 1(25).
B
The present ease involves two consolidated suits. One was brought by three Vermont data miners, the other by an association of pharmaceutical manufacturers that produce ■brand-name drugs. These entities are the respondents here. Contending that § 4631(d) violates their First Amendment rights as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment, respondents sought declaratory and injunctive relief against petitioners, the Attorney General and other officials of the State of Vermont.
After a bench trial, the United States District Court for the District of Vermont denied relief. 631 F. Supp. 2d 434 (2009). The District Court found that “[pjharmaceutical manufacturers are essentially the only paying customers of the data vendor industry” and that, because detailing unpat-ented generic drugs is not “cost-effective,” pharmaceutical sales representatives “detail only branded drugs.” Id., at 451, 442. As the District Court further concluded, “the Legislature’s determination that [prescriber-identifying] data is an effective marketing tool that enables detailers to increase sales of new drugs is supported in the record.” Id., at 451. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and remanded. It held that § 4631(d) violates the First Amendment by burdening the speech of pharmaceutical marketers and data miners without an adequate justification. 630 F. 3d 263 (2010). Judge Livingston dissented.
The decision of the Second Circuit is in conflict with decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit concerning similar legislation enacted by Maine and New Hampshire. See IMS Health Inc. v. Mills, 616 F. 3d 7 (CA1 2010) (Maine); Ayotte, supra (New Hampshire). Recognizing a division of authority regarding the constitutionality of state statutes, this Court granted certiorari. 562 U. S. 1127 (2011).
II
The beginning point is the text of § 4631(d). In the proceedings below, Vermont stated that the first sentence of § 4631(d) prohibits pharmacies and other regulated entities from selling or disseminating prescriber-identifying information for marketing. The information, in other words, could be sold or given away for purposes other than marketing. The District Court and the Court of Appeals accepted the State’s reading. See 630 F. 3d, at 276. At oral argument in this Court, however, the State for the first time advanced an alternative reading of § 4631(d) — namely, that pharmacies, health insurers, and similar entities may not sell prescriber-identifying information for any purpose, subject to the statutory exceptions set out at § 4631(e). See Tr. of Oral Arg. 19-20. It might be argued that the State’s newfound interpretation comes too late in the day. See Sprietsma v. Mercury Marine, 537 U. S. 51, 56, n. 4 (2002) (waiver); New Hampshire v. Maine, 532 U. S. 742, 749 (2001) (judicial estop-pel). Respondents, the District Court, and the Court of Appeals were entitled to rely on the State’s plausible interpretation of the law it is charged with enforcing. For the State to change its position is particularly troubling in a First Amendment case, where plaintiffs have a special interest in obtaining a prompt adjudication of their rights, despite potential ambiguities of state law. See Houston v. Hill, 482 U. S. 451, 467-468, and n. 17 (1987); Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U. S. 241, 252 (1967).
In any event, § 4631(d) cannot be sustained even under the interpretation the State now adopts. As a consequence this Court can assume that the opening clause of § 4631(d) prohibits pharmacies, health insurers, and similar entities from selling prescriber-identifying information, subject to the statutory exceptions set out at § 4631(e). Under that reading, pharmacies may sell the information to private or academic researchers, see § 4631(e)(1), but not, for example, to pharmaceutical marketers. There is no dispute as to the remainder of § 4631(d). It prohibits pharmacies, health insurers, and similar entities from disclosing or otherwise allowing prescriber-identifying information to be used for marketing. And it bars pharmaceutical manufacturers and detailers from using the information for marketing. The questions now are whether § 4631(d) must be tested by heightened judicial scrutiny and, if so, whether the State can justify the law
A
1
On its face, Vermont’s law enacts content- and speaker-based restrictions on the sale, disclosure, and use of prescriber-identifying information. The provision first forbids sale subject to exceptions based in large part on the content of a purchaser’s speech. For example, those who wish to engage in certain “educational communications,” § 4681(e)(4), may purchase the information. The measure then bars any disclosure when recipient speakers will use the information for marketing. Finally, the provision’s second sentence prohibits pharmaceutical manufacturers from using the information for marketing. The statute thus disfavors marketing, that is, speech with a particular content. More than that, the statute disfavors specific speakers, namely pharmaceutical manufacturers. As a result of these content- and speaker-based rules, detailers cannot obtain prescriber-identifying information, even though the information may be purchased or acquired by other speakers with diverse purposes and viewpoints. Detailers are likewise barred from using the information for marketing, even though the information may be used by a wide range of other speakers. For example, it appears that Vermont could supply academic organizations with prescriber-identifying information to use in countering the messages of brand-name pharmaceutical manufacturers and in promoting the prescription of generic drugs. But § 4631(d) leaves detail-ers no means of purchasing, acquiring, or using prescriber-identifying information. The law on its face burdens disfavored speech by disfavored speakers.
Any doubt that § 4631(d) imposes an aimed, content-based burden on detailers is dispelled by the record and by formal legislative findings. As the District Court noted, “[p]har-maceutical manufacturers are essentially the only paying customers of the data vendor industry”; and the almost invariable rule is that detailing by pharmaceutical manufacturers is in support of brand-name drugs. 631 F. Supp. 2d, at 451. Vermont’s law thus has the effect of preventing detail-ers — and only detailers — from communicating with physicians in an effective and informative manner. Cf. Edenfield v. Fane, 507 U. S. 761, 766 (1993) (explaining the “considerable value” of in-person solicitation). Formal legislative findings accompanying § 4631(d) confirm that the law’s express purpose and practical effect are to diminish the effectiveness of marketing by manufacturers of brand-name drugs. Just as the “inevitable effect of a statute on its face may render it unconstitutional,” a statute’s stated purposes may also be considered. United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 384 (1968). Here, the Vermont Legislature explained that detailers, in particular those who promote brand-name drugs, convey messages that “are often in conflict with the goals of the state.” 2007 Vt. Laws No. 80, § 1(3). The legislature designed § 4631(d) to target those speakers and their messages for disfavored treatment. “In its practical operation,” Vermont’s law “goes even beyond mere content discrimination, to actual viewpoint discrimination.” R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 391 (1992). Given the legislature’s expressed statement of purpose, it is apparent that § 4631(d) imposes burdens that are based on the content of speech and that are aimed at a particular viewpoint.
Act 80 is designed to impose a specific, content-based burden on protected expression. It follows that heightened judicial scrutiny is warranted. See Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, Inc., 507 U. S. 410, 418 (1993) (applying heightened scrutiny to “a categorical prohibition on the use of newsracks to disseminate commercial messages”); id., at 429 (“[TJhe very basis for the regulation is the difference in content between ordinary newspapers and commercial speech” in the form of “commercial handbills.... Thus, by any commonsense understanding of the term, the ban in this case is ‘content based’” (some internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U. S. 622, 658 (1994) (explaining that strict scrutiny applies to regulations reflecting “aversion” to what “disfavored speakers” have to say). The Court has recognized that the “distinction between laws burdening and laws banning speech is but a matter of degree” and that the “Government’s content-based burdens must satisfy the same rigorous scrutiny as its content-based bans.” United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U. S. 803, 812 (2000). Lawmakers may no more silence unwanted speech by burdening its utterance than by censoring its content. See Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N. Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U. S. 105, 115 (1991) (content-based financial burden); Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm’r of Revenue, 460 U. S. 575 (1983) (speaker-based financial burden).
The First Amendment requires heightened scrutiny whenever the government creates “a regulation of speech because of disagreement with the message it conveys.” Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U. S. 781, 791 (1989); see also Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U. S. 41, 48 (1986) (explaining that “'content-neutral’ speech regulations” are “those that are justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech” (internal quotation marks omitted)). A government bent on frustrating an impending demonstration might pass a law demanding two years’ notice before the issuance of parade permits. Even if the hypothetical measure on its face appeared neutral as to content and speaker, its purpose to suppress speech and its unjustified burdens on expression would render it unconstitutional. Ibid. Commercial speech is no exception. See Discovery Network, supra, at 429-430 (commercial speech restriction lacking a “neutral justification” was not content neutral). A “consumer’s concern for the free flow of commercial speech often may be far keener than his concern for urgent political dialogue.” Bates v. State Bar of Ariz., 433 U. S. 350, 364 (1977). That reality has great relevance in the fields of medicine and public health, where information can save lives.
2
The State argues that heightened judicial scrutiny is unwarranted because its law is a mere commercial regulation. It is true that restrictions on protected expression are distinct from restrictions on economic activity or, more generally, on nonexpressive conduct. It is also true that the First Amendment does not prevent restrictions directed at commerce or conduct from imposing incidental burdens on speech. That is why a ban on race-based hiring may require employers to remove “‘White Applicants Only’” signs, Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic arid Institutional Rights, Inc., 547 U. S. 47, 62 (2006); why “an ordinance against outdoor fires” might forbid “burning a flag,” R. A. V., supra, at 385; and why antitrust laws can prohibit “agreements in restraint of trade,” Gihoney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 886 U. S. 490, 502 (1949).
But § 4631(d) imposes more than an incidental burden on protected expression. Both on its face and in its practical operation, Vermont’s law imposes a burden based on the content of speech and the identity of the speaker. See supra, at 563-565. While the burdened speech results from an economic motive, so too does a great deal of vital expression. See Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U. S. 809, 818 (1975); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 266 (1964); see also United States v. United Foods, Inc., 533 U. S. 405, 410-411 (2001) (applying “First Amendment scrutiny” where speech effects were not incidental and noting that “those whose business and livelihood depend in some way upon the product involved no doubt deem First Amendment protection to be just as important for them as it is for other discrete, little noticed groups”). Vermont’s law does not simply have an effect on speech, but is directed at. certain content and is aimed at particular speakers. The Constitution “does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics.” Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 75 (1905) (Holmes, J., dissenting). It does enact the First Amendment.
Vermont further argues that § 4631(d) regulates not speech but simply access to information. Prescriber-identifying information was generated in compliance with a legal mandate, the State argues, and so could be considered a kind of governmental information. This argument finds some support in Los Angeles Police Dept. v. United Reporting Publishing Corp., 528 U. S. 32 (1999), where the Court held that a plaintiff could not raise a facial challenge to a content-based restriction on access to government-held information. Because no private party faced a threat of legal punishment, the Court characterized the law at issue as “nothing more than a governmental denial of access to information in its possession.” Id., at 40. Under those circumstances the special reasons for permitting First Amendment plaintiffs to invoke the rights of others did not apply. Id., at 38-39. Having found that the plaintiff could not raise a facial challenge, the Court remanded for consideration of an as-applied challenge. Id., at 41. United Reporting is thus a case about the availability of facial challenges. The Court did not rule on the merits of any First Amendment claim.
United Reporting is distinguishable in at least two respects. First, Vermont has imposed a restriction on access to information in private hands. This confronts the Court with a point reserved, and a situation not addressed, in United Reporting. Here, unlike in United Reporting, we do have “a case in which the government is prohibiting a speaker from conveying information that the speaker already possesses.” Id., at 40. The difference is significant. An individual’s right to speak is implicated when information he or she possesses is subjected to “restraints on the way in which the information might be used” or disseminated. Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart, 467 U. S. 20, 32 (1984); see also Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U. S. 514, 527 (2001); Florida Star v. B. J. F., 491 U. S. 524 (1989); New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U. S. 713 (1971) (per curiam). In Seattle Times, this Court applied heightened judicial scrutiny before sustaining a trial court order prohibiting a newspaper’s disclosure of information it learned through coercive discovery. It is true that respondents here, unlike the newspaper in Seattle Times, do not themselves possess information whose disclosure has been curtailed. That information, however, is in the hands of pharmacies and other private entities. There is no question that the “threat of prosecution... hangs over their heads.” United Reporting, 528 U. S., at 41. For that reason United Reporting does not bar respondents’ facial challenge.
United Reporting is distinguishable for a second and even more important reason. The plaintiff in United Reporting had neither “attempted] to qualify” for access to the government’s information nor presented an as-applied claim in this Court. Id., at 40. As a result, the Court assumed that the plaintiff had not suffered a personal First Amendment injury and could prevail only by invoking the rights of others through a facial challenge. Here, by contrast, respondents claim — with good reason — that § 4631(d) burdens their own speech. That argument finds support in the separate writings in United Reporting, which were joined by eight Justices. All of those writings recognized that restrictions on the disclosure of government-held information can facilitate or burden the expression of potential recipients and so transgress the First Amendment. See id., at 42 (Scalia, J., concurring) (suggesting that “a restriction upon access that allows access to the press..., but at the same time denies access to persons who wish to use the information for certain speech purposes, is in reality a restriction upon speech”); id., at 43 (Ginsburg, J., concurring) (noting that “the provision of [government] information is a kind of subsidy to people who wish to speak” about certain subjects, “and once a State decides to make such a benefit available to the public, there are no doubt limits to its freedom to decide how that benefit will be distributed”); id., at 46 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (concluding that, “because the State’s discrimination is based on its desire to prevent the information from being used for constitutionally protected purposes, [i]t must assume the burden of justifying its conduct”). Vermont’s law imposes a content- and speaker-based burden on respondents’ own speech. That consideration provides a separate basis for distinguishing United Reporting and requires heightened judicial scrutiny.
The State also contends that heightened judicial scrutiny is unwarranted in this case because sales, transfer, and use of prescriber-identifying information are conduct, not speech. Consistent with that submission, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has characterized prescriber-identifying information as a mere “commodity” with no greater entitlement to First Amendment protection than “beef jerky.” Ayotte, 550 F. 3d, at 52-53. In contrast the courts below concluded that a prohibition on the sale of prescriber-identifying information is a content-based rule akin to a ban on the sale of cookbooks, laboratory results, or train schedules. See 630 F. 3d, at 271-272 (“The First Amendment protects even dry information, devoid of advocacy, political relevance, or artistic expression” (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted)); 631 F. Supp. 2d, at 446 (“A restriction on disclosure is a regulation of speech, and the ‘sale’ of [information] is simply disclosure for profit”).
This Court has held that the creation and dissemination of information are speech within the meaning of the First Amendment. See, e. g., Bartnicki, supra, at 527 (“[I]f the acts of ‘disclosing’ and ‘publishing’ information do not constitute speech, it is hard to imagine what does fall within that category, as distinct from the category of expressive conduct” (some internal quotation marks omitted)); Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co., 514 U. S. 476, 481 (1995) (“information on beer labels” is speech); Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U. S. 749, 759 (1985) (plurality opinion) (credit report is “speech”). Facts, after all, are the beginning point for much of the speech that is most essential to advance human knowledge and to conduct human affairs. There is thus a strong argument that prescriber-identifying information is speech for First Amendment purposes.
The State asks for an exception to the rule that information is speech, but there is no need to consider that request in this case. The State has imposed content- and speaker-based restrictions on the availability and use of prescriber-identifying information. So long as they do not engage in marketing, many speakers can obtain and use the information. But detailers cannot. Vermont’s statute could be compared with a law prohibiting trade magazines from purchasing or using ink. Cf. Minneapolis Star, 460 U. S. 575. Like that hypothetical law, § 4631(d) imposes a speaker- and content-based burden on protected expression, and that circumstance is sufficient to justify application of heightened scrutiny. As a consequence, thiG eaoc can be resolved even assuming, as the State argues, that preseriber-identifying information is a mere commodity.
B
In the ordinary case it is all but dispositive to conclude that a law is content based and, in practice, viewpoint discriminatory. See R. A. V., 505 U. S., at 382 (“Content-based regulations are presumptively invalid”); id., at 391-392. The State argues that a different analysis applies here because, assuming § 4631(d) burdens speech at all, it at most burdens only commercial speech. As in previous cases, however, the outcome is the same whether a special commercial speech inquiry or a stricter form of judicial scrutiny is applied. See, o. g., Greater New Orleans Broadcasting Assn., Inc. v. United States, 527 U. S. 173, 184 (1999). For the same reason there is no need to determine whether all speech hampered by § 4631(d) is commercial, as our cases have used that term. Cf. Board of Trustees of State Univ. of N. Y. v. Fox, 492 U. S. 469, 474 (1989) (discussing whether “pure speech and commercial speech” were inextricably intertwined, so that “the entirety must... be classified as noncommercial”).
Tinder a commercial speech inquiry, it is the State’s burden to justify its content-based law as consistent with the First Amendment. Thompson v. Western States Medical Center, 535 U. S. 357, 373 (2002). To sustain the targeted, content-based burden § 4631(d) imposes on protected expression, the State must show at least that the statute directly advances a substantial governmental interest and that the measure is drawn to achieve that interest. See Fox, supra, at 480-481; Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of N. Y., 447 U. S. 557, 566 (1980). There must be a “fit between the legislature’s ends and the means chosen to accomplish those ends.” Fox, supra, at 480 (internal quotation marks omitted). As in other contexts, these standards ensure not only that the State’s interests are proportional to the resulting burdens placed on speech but also that the law does not seek to suppress a disfavored message. See Turner Broadcasting, 512 U. S., at 662-663.
The State’s asserted justifications for § 4631(d) come under two general headings. First, the State contends that its law is necessary to protect medical privacy, including physician confidentiality, avoidance of harassment, and the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship. Second, the State argues that § 4631(d) is integral to the achievement of policy objectives — namely, improved public health and reduced healthcare costs. Neither justification withstands scrutiny.
1
Vermont argues that its physicians have a “reasonable expectation” that their preseriber-identifying information “will not be used for purposes other than... filling and processing” prescriptions. See 2007 Vt. Laws No. 80, § 1(29). It may be assumed that, for many reasons, physicians have an interest in keeping their prescription decisions confidential. But § 4631(d) is not drawn to serve that interest. Under Vermont's law, pharmacies may share preseriber-identifying information with anyone for any reason save one: They must not allow the information to be used for marketing. Exceptions further allow pharmacies to sell preseriber-identifying information for certain purposes, including “health care research.” § 4631(e). And.< the.measure permits insurers, researchers, journalists, the State itself, and others to use the information. See § 4631(d); cf. App. 370-372; id., at 211. A1 but conceding that § 4631(d) does not in itself advance confidentiality interests, the State suggests that other laws might impose separate bars on the disclosure of prescriber-identifying information. See Vt. Bd. of Pharmacy Admin. Rule 20.1. But the potential effectiveness of other measures cannot justify the distinctive set of prohibitions and sanctions imposed by § 4631(d).
Perhaps the State could have addressed physician confidentiality through “a more coherent policy.” Greater New Orleans Broadcasting, supra, at 195; see also Discovery Network, 507 U. S., at 428. For instance, the State might have advanced its asserted privacy interest by allowing the information’s sale or disclosure in only a few narrow and well-justified circumstances. See, e. g., Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, 42 U. S. C. § 1320d-2; 45 CFR pts. 160 and 164 (2010). A statute of that type would present quite a different ease from the one presented here. But the State did not enact a statute with that purpose or design. Instead, Vermont made prescriber-identifying information available to an almost limitless audience. The explicit structure of the statute allows the information to be studied and used by all but a narrow class of disfavored speakers. Given the information’s widespread availability and many permissible uses, the State’s asserted interest in physician confidentiality does not justify the burden that § 4631(d) places on protected expression.
The State points out that it allows doctors to forgo the advantages of § 4631(d) by consenting to the sale, disclosure, and use of their preseriber-identifying information. See § 4631(c)(1). It is true that private decisionmaking can avoid governmental partiality and thus insulate privacy measures from First Amendment challenge. See Rowan v. Post Office Dept., 397 U. S. 728 (1970); cf. Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U. S. 60, 72 (1983). But that principle is inap-posite here. Vermont has given its doctors a contrived choice: Either consent, which will allow your prescriber-identifying information to be disseminated and used without constraint; or, withhold consent, which will allow your information to be used by those speakers whose message the State supports. Section 4631(d) may offer a limited degree of privacy, but only on terms favorable to the speech the State prefers. Cf. Rowan, supra, at 734, 737, 739, n. 6 (sustaining a law that allowed private parties to make “unfettered,” “unlimited,” and “unreviewable” choices regarding their own privacy). This is not to say that all privacy measures must avoid content-based rules. Here, however, the State has conditioned privacy on acceptance of a content-based rule that is not drawn to serve the State’s asserted interest. To obtain the limited privacy allowed by § 4631(d), Vermont physicians are forced to acquiesce in the State’s goal of burdening disfavored speech by disf
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Rylander was held in civil contempt by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California because of his failure to comply with its earlier order enforcing an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) summons for corporate books and records. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed that holding, concluding that Rylander’s showing at the contempt hearing, together with his invocation of the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination, required the Government to shoulder the burden of producing evidence that Rylander was able to produce the documents in question. Because of a conflict among the various Courts of Appeals on this issue, we granted certiorari, 456 U. S. 943 (1982), and we now reverse.
In January 1979, the IRS issued a summons to Rylander pursuant to 26 U. S. C. § 7602. The summons ordered him to appear before an agent of the Service in Sacramento, Cal., and to produce for examination, and testify with respect to, books and records of two corporations. Rylander was the president of each corporation. When he failed to comply with the summons, the District Court issued an order to show cause why the summons should not be enforced. Ry-lander for several months succeeded in evading service, but in November 1979 the Marshal was able to personally serve the fourth successive order to show cause issued by the court. In January 1980, on the return date of that order, Rylander failed to file a responsive pleading and did not appear at the show cause hearing. He had sent an unsworn letter to the court claiming he was neither the president of either corporation nor associated with them in any way. The District Court enforced the IRS summons and ordered Rylander to appear before an agent of the Service in February 1980 to produce the corporate records.
Rylander neither sought reconsideration of the enforcement order nor did he appeal from it. He appeared as ordered before the agent, but failed to produce the records. After this encounter, the District Court issued an order to show cause why Rylander should not be held in contempt. Rylander again successfully evaded service of the court’s order, and the court in May 1980 found that he was willfully avoiding service and issued a bench warrant for his arrest.
The contempt hearing took place on two different dates in October 1980. After an initial skirmish, Rylander took the witness stand and verified an “Oath in Purgation of Contempt” which he had earlier submitted to the court. The essence of this declaration was that he did not possess the records and had not disposed of them to other persons. He refused to submit to additional questioning under oath from the Government, asserting the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination conferred by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The District Court held Rylander in contempt, finding that he had “fail[ed] to introduce any evidence” in support of his claim that he did not possess the records. The court affirmatively found that Rylander “as president or other corporate officer, had possession or control, or both, of the books and records of said corporations.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 17a-18a. Thus 21 months after the IRS had issued a summons to him, Rylander was finally faced with a civil contempt order directing him to either produce the subpoenaed records or face imprisonment.
Rylander appealed to the Court of Appeals, which reversed the District Court. 656 F. 2d 1313 (CA9 1981). The Court of Appeals agreed that the Government, in a contempt proceeding, meets its initial burden by showing only a failure to comply and the burden is then on the defendant to come forward with evidence showing “ ‘categorically and in detail’ ” why he is unable to comply. Id., at 1318. But the Court of Appeals concluded that a defendant need not meet this burden where “he properly claims that his testimony as to the whereabouts of the documents might be incriminatory.” Id., at 1319. The court stated further:
“When the defendant has made a bona fide fifth amendment claim, his statement that the documents are not in his possession or under his control is sufficient to satisfy his burden of production. The burden then shifts to the government to produce evidence showing that the documents in question actually exist and are in the defendant’s possession or under his control.” Ibid.
After concluding that Rylander’s failure to raise this defense in the enforcement proceeding did not limit his argument in the contempt proceeding, the court determined that if Rylander’s Fifth Amendment claim is valid, his burden of production had been met. We think the Court of Appeals was incorrect both in its view of the relationship between the enforcement proceeding and the contempt proceeding, and in its view of the effect of Rylander’s invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege on the burden of production at the latter hearing.
On numerous occasions this Court has been called upon to review the statutory authorization for the IRS to summon witnesses and records and seek judicial enforcement of such summons. See, e. g., United States v. LaSalle National Bank, 437 U. S. 298 (1978); Fisher v. United States, 425 U. S. 391 (1976); United States v. Powell, 379 U. S. 48 (1964); Reisman v. Caplin, 375 U. S. 440 (1964). There is no disagreement here concerning that basic statutory scheme. In the present case, the Court of Appeals held that notwithstanding the issuance of the enforcement order, Rylander was free to relitigate the question of his possession or control of the records in the contempt proceeding. The Court of Appeals emphasized that the enforcement proceeding was summary in nature, that the Government’s burden was light, and that there had been no express finding in the enforcement proceeding that Rylander was in possession or control of the records.
We think the Court of Appeals’ view of the matter gave insufficient weight to this Court’s observations in Maggio v. Zeitz, 333 U. S. 56, 69 (1948):
“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.”
See also id., at 75. Because a proceeding to enforce an IRS summons is an adversary proceeding in which the defendant may contest the summons “on any appropriate ground,” Reisman v. Caplin, supra, at 449, and because lack of possession or control of records is surely such a ground, the issue may not be raised for the first time in a contempt proceeding. Cf. United States v. Bryan, 339 U. S. 323 (1950); United States v. Fleischman, 339 U. S. 349 (1950). See also United States v. Euge, 444 U. S. 707 (1980).
In a civil contempt proceeding such as this, of course, a defendant may assert a present inability to comply with the order in question. Maggio v. Zeitz, supra, at 75—76; Oriel v. Russell, 278 U. S. 358, 366 (1929). While the court is bound by the enforcement order, it will not be blind to evidence that compliance is now factually impossible. Where compliance is impossible, neither the moving party nor the court has any reason to proceed with the civil contempt action. It is settled, however, that in raising this defense, the defendant has a burden of production. McPhaul v. United States, 364 U. S. 372, 379 (1960); Maggio v. Zeitz, supra, at 75-76; Oriel v. Russell, supra, at 366. See also United States v. Fleischman, supra, at 362-363. Thus while Rylander could not attack the enforcement order on the ground that he lacked possession or control of the records at the time the order was issued, he could defend the contempt charge on the ground that he was then unable to comply because he lacked possession or control.
The Court of Appeals, while recognizing that Rylander was obligated to assume the burden of production in making this defense, felt that the showing made by Rylander at the October 1980 hearing was sufficient to shift the burden back to the Government. We disagree. We first analyze the effect of Rylander’s denial of possession when he took the witness stand at the contempt hearing and when he submitted the “Oath in Purgation of Contempt.” Since he declined to be cross-examined with respect to his assertions of nonpossession, the District Court was entirely justified in concluding, as it did, that Rylander “fail[ed] to introduce any evidence at the contempt trial.” This was a time for testimony, and Rylander’s ex parte affidavit and uncross-examined testimony were properly disregarded by the District Court. McGautha v. California, 402 U. S. 183, 215 (1971); Brown v. United States, 356 U. S. 148, 155 (1958).
The Court of Appeals also gave weight to the fact that Rylander’s asserted reason for refusing to allow cross-examination was his claim that answering such questions might lead him to incriminate himself. But while the assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination may be a valid ground upon which a witness such as Rylander declines to answer questions, it has never been thought to be in itself a substitute for evidence that would assist in meeting a burden of production. We think the view of the Court of Appeals would convert the privilege from the shield against compulsory self-incrimination which it was intended to be into a sword whereby a claimant asserting the privilege would be freed from adducing proof in support of a burden which would otherwise have been his. None of our cases support this view.
We have squarely rejected the notion, apparently subscribed to by the Court of Appeals, that a possible failure of proof on an issue where the defendant had the burden of proof is a form of “compulsion” which requires that the burden be shifted from the defendant’s shoulders to that of the government. McGautha v. California, supra; Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78 (1970); see also Barnes v. United States, 412 U. S. 837 (1973); Turner v. United States, 396 U. S. 398 (1970); Yee Hem v. United States, 268 U. S. 178 (1925); Wilson v. United States, 162 U. S. 613 (1896). In Williams, the Court said:
“The defendant in a criminal trial is frequently forced to testify himself and to call other witnesses in an effort to reduce the risk of conviction. When he presents his witnesses, he must reveal their identity and submit them to cross-examination which in itself may prove incriminating or which may furnish the State with leads to incriminating rebuttal evidence. That the defendant faces such a dilemma demanding a choice between complete silence and presenting a defense has never been thought an invasion of the privilege against compelled self-incrimination. The pressures generated by the State’s evidence may be severe but they do not vitiate the defendant’s choice to present an alibi defense and witnesses to prove it, even though the attempted defense ends in catastrophe for the defendant. However ‘testimonial’ or ‘incriminating’ the alibi defense proves to be, it cannot be considered ‘compelled’ within the meaning of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.” 399 U. S., at 83-84 (emphasis added).
The Court of Appeals nonetheless thought that this Court’s decision in Curcio v. United States, 354 U. S. 118 (1957), prevented Rylander from being required to carry his burden of production or risk the consequences from his failure of proof. We do not read the case that way. The issue in Curdo, as stated by the Court in its opinion in that case, was “whether petitioner’s personal privilege against self-incrimination attaches to questions relating to the whereabouts of the union books and records which he did not produce pursuant to subpoena.” Id., at 122. The Court went on to distinguish cases such as Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43 (1906), holding that a corporation had no Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, and cases such as Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361 (1911), and United States v. White, 322 U. S. 694 (1944), holding respectively that the custodians of neither records belonging to unions nor those belonging to corporations might withhold production of such records on the ground that the custodian might be incriminated by their production. The Court refused to accept the Government’s contention, based on those cases, that the custodian had no privilege to refuse to testify about such records on grounds that testimony might incriminate him. In reversing the contempt conviction, however, the Court pointedly noted:
“This conviction related solely to petitioner’s failure to answer questions pursuant to the personal subpoena ad testificandum. He has not been charged with failing to produce the books and records demanded in the subpoena duces tecum.” 354 U. S., at 121.
The instant proceeding is exactly the converse of the one in Curdo. Rylander was originally ordered both to produce books and records and to testify about them. But the only order against him remaining at the time of the contempt hearing was the order to produce books and records. The Court of Appeals assumed, as we do, that Rylander’s claim of privilege “attached” to questions about the whereabouts of the records; that was the issue decided in Curdo. But that is to say no more than if Rylander asserted a valid claim of privilege at the contempt hearing, then the claim could not be overruled by the court and the respondent incarcerated for failure to answer such questions.
Rylander was not, however, incarcerated because he refused to submit himself to' cross-examination by the Government at the contempt hearing. He was held in contempt for failure to comply with a previous order of the District Court enforcing an IRS summons against him. This order, unappealed from, necessarily contained an implied finding that no defense of lack of possession or control had been raised and sustained in that proceeding. The only issue open to Rylander in defending the contempt proceeding was to show inability to then produce, and because of the presumption of continuing possession arising from the enforcement order, Maggio v. Zeitz, 333 U. S. 56 (1948), if he sought to defend on that ground he was required to come forward with evidence in support of it. The fact that his refusal to come forward with such evidence was accompanied by a claim of Fifth Amendment privilege may be an adequate reason for the court’s not compelling him to respond to cross-examination at the contempt hearing, but the claim of privilege is not a substitute for relevant evidence.
Rylander was found by the District Court to be in contempt of the enforcement order which required him to produce documents — documents justifiably found by the District Court to be in his possession. He was committed to custody until such time as he should produce the documents, but the District Court again saved him the additional alternative of adducing evidence to show lack of possession or control. Rylander is thus not compelled “to submit to incarceration or run the risk of incriminating himself,” 656 F. 2d, at 1319; he is committed until he either produces the documents which the District Court found to be in his possession, or adduces evidence as to his present inability to comply with that order.
We think our cases plainly support this result, and we are frank to say that we have no regret that they do. After 21 months of successfully avoiding sanctions for refusing to respond to an IRS summons, or show cause why he should not do so, with the District Court at each step patiently assuring itself that Rylander’s procedural rights were protected, he was finally held in contempt. The Court of Appeals’ view of the matter would require still additional hearings on the issue of possession or control of the corporate books or records, with the Government having the burden of production at the reopened contempt hearing. Given the oft-stated reliance of the federal income tax system on self-assessment, a plainer guide to the successful frustration of this system could hardly be imagined. As we said in an analogous context in United States v. Bryan:
“A subpoena has never been treated as an invitation to a game of hare and hounds, in which the witness must testify only if cornered at the end of the chase. If that were the case, then, indeed, the great power of testimonial compulsion, so necessary to the effective functioning of courts and legislatures, would be a nullity.” 339 U. S., at 331.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
The Court of Appeals remanded to the District Court for a finding concerning the validity of Rylander’s Fifth Amendment claim and, provided the claim is sustained, an opportunity for the Government to introduce additional evidence concerning Rylander’s ability to comply.
The Government has argued that by submitting the ex parte declaration and by taking the witness stand to verify that declaration, Rylander waived his Fifth Amendment privilege. See Brown v. United States, 356 U. S. 148 (1958). Because of our disposition of the case, we need not decide this question.
While the District Court did not state explicitly that Rylander still possessed the documents at the time of the contempt proceeding, we believe such a finding to be plainly implicit in the court’s conclusion that “as president or other corporate officer [Rylander] had possession or control, or both, of the books and records of said corporations.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 17a-18a. A finding of present possession was supported in this case; the District Court found that Rylander possessed the documents at the time of the enforcement proceeding and the circumstances themselves warranted an inference of continuing possession. See Maggio v. Zeitz, 333 U. S. 56, 64-67, 75-76 (1948).
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the questions (a) whether the California Franchise Investment Law, which invalidates certain arbitration agreements covered by the Federal Arbitration Act, violates the Supremacy Clause and (b) whether arbitration under the federal Act is impaired when a class-action structure is imposed on the process by the state courts.
r*H
Appellant Southland Corp. is the owner and franchisor of 7-Eleven convenience stores. Southland’s standard franchise agreement provides each franchisee with a license to use certain registered trademarks, a lease or sublease of a convenience store owned or leased by Southland, inventory financing, and assistance in advertising and merchandising. The franchisees operate the stores, supply bookkeeping data, and pay Southland a fixed percentage of gross profits. The franchise agreement also contains the following provision requiring arbitration:
“Any controversy or claim arising out of or relating to this Agreement or the breach hereof shall be settled by arbitration in accordance with the Rules of the American Arbitration Association . . . and judgment upon any award rendered by the arbitrator may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof.”
Appellees are 7-Eleven franchisees. Between September 1975 and January 1977, several appellees filed individual actions against Southland in California Superior Court alleging, among other things, fraud, oral misrepresentation, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and violation of the disclosure requirements of the California Franchise Investment Law, Cal. Corp. Code Ann. §31000 et seq. (West 1977). Southland’s answer, in all but one of the individual actions, included the affirmative defense of failure to arbitrate.
In May 1977, appellee Keating filed a class action against Southland on behalf of a class that assertedly includes approximately 800 California franchisees. Keating’s principal claims were substantially the same as those asserted by the other franchisees. After the various actions were consolidated, Southland petitioned to compel arbitration of the claims in all cases, and appellees moved for class certification.
The Superior Court granted Southland’s motion to compel arbitration of all claims except those claims based on the Franchise Investment Law. The court did not pass on ap-pellees’ request for class certification. Southland appealed from the order insofar as it excluded from arbitration the claims based on the California statute. Appellees filed a petition for a writ of mandamus or prohibition in the California Court of Appeal arguing that the arbitration should proceed as a class action.
The California Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s refusal to compel arbitration of appellees’ claims under the Franchise Investment Law. Keating v. Superior Court, Alameda County, 167 Cal. Rptr. 481 (1980). That court interpreted the arbitration clause to require arbitration of all claims asserted under the Franchise Investment Law, and construed the Franchise Investment Law not to invalidate such agreements to arbitrate. Alternatively, the court concluded that if the Franchise Investment Law rendered arbitration agreements involving commerce unenforceable, it would conflict with §2 of the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U. S. C. §2, and therefore be invalid under the Supremacy Clause. 167 Cal. Rptr., at 493-494. The Court of Appeal also determined that there was no “insurmountable obstacle” to conducting an arbitration on a classwide basis, and issued a writ of mandate directing the trial court to conduct class-certification proceedings. Id., at 492.
The California Supreme Court, by a vote of 4-2, reversed the ruling that claims asserted under the Franchise Investment Law are arbitrable. Keating v. Superior Court of Alameda County, 31 Cal. 3d 584, 645 P. 2d 1192 (1982). The California Supreme Court interpreted the Franchise Investment Law to require judicial consideration of claims brought under that statute and concluded that the California statute did not contravene the federal Act. Id., at 604, 645 P. 2d, 1203-1204. The court also remanded the case to the trial court for consideration of appellees’ request for classwide arbitration.
We postponed consideration of the question of jurisdiction pending argument on the merits. 459 U. S. 1101 (1983). We reverse in part and dismiss in part.
II
A
Jurisdiction of this Court is asserted under 28 U. S. C. § 1257(2), which provides for an appeal from a final judgment of the highest court of a state when the validity of a challenged state statute is sustained as not in conflict with federal law. Here Southland challenged the California Franchise Investment Law as it was applied to invalidate a contract for arbitration made pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act. Appellees argue that the action of the California Supreme Court with respect to this claim is not a “final judgment or decree” within the meaning of § 1257(2).
Under Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469, 482-483 (1975), judgments of state courts that finally decide a federal issue are immediately appealable when “the party seeking review here might prevail [in the state court] on the merits on nonfederal grounds, thus rendering unnecessary review of the federal issue by this Court, and where reversal of the state court on the federal issue would be preclusive of any further litigation on the relevant cause of action . . . .” In these circumstances, we have resolved the federal issue “if a refusal immediately to review the state-court decision might seriously erode federal policy.” Id., at 483.
The judgment of the California Supreme Court with respect to this claim is reviewable under Cox Broadcasting, supra. Without immediate review of the California holding by this Court there may be no opportunity to pass on the federal issue and as a result “there would remain in effect the unreviewed decision of the State Supreme Court” holding that the California statute does not conflict with the Federal Arbitration Act. Id., at 485. On the other hand, reversal of a state-court judgment in this setting will terminate litigation of the merits of this dispute.
Finally, the failure to accord immediate review of the decision of the California Supreme Court might “seriously erode federal policy.” Plainly the effect of the judgment of the California court is to nullify a valid contract made by private parties under which they agreed to submit all contract disputes to final, binding arbitration. The federal Act permits “parties to an arbitrable dispute [to move] out of court and into arbitration as quickly and easily as possible.” Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Construction Corp., 460 U. S. 1, 22 (1983).
Contracts to arbitrate are not to be avoided by allowing one party to ignore the contract and resort to the courts. Such a course could lead to prolonged litigation, one of the very risks the parties, by contracting for arbitration, sought to eliminate. In The Bremen v. Zapata Off-Shore Co., 407 U. S. 1, 12 (1972), we noted that the contract fixing a particular forum for resolution of all disputes
“was made in an arm’s-length negotiation by experienced and sophisticated businessmen, and absent some compelling and countervailing reason it should be honored by the parties and enforced by the courts.”
The Zapata Court also noted that
“the forum clause was a vital part of the agreement, and it would be unrealistic to think that the parties did not conduct their negotiations, including fixing the monetary terms, with the consequences of the forum clause figuring prominently in their calculations.” Id., at 14 (footnote omitted).
For us to delay review of a state judicial decision denying enforcement of the contract to arbitrate until the state-court litigation has run its course would defeat the core purpose of a contract to arbitrate. We hold that the Court has jurisdiction to decide whether the Federal Arbitration Act preempts §31512 of the California Franchise Investment Law.
B
That part of the appeal relating to the propriety of superimposing class-action procedures on a contract arbitration raises other questions. Southland did not contend in the California courts that, and the state courts did not decide whether, state law imposing class-action procedures was pre-empted by federal law. When the California Court of Appeal directed Southland to address the question whether state or federal law controlled the class-action issue, South-land responded that state law did not permit arbitrations to proceed as class actions, that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were inapplicable, and that requiring arbitrations to proceed as class actions “could well violate the [federal] constitutional guaranty of procedural due process.” Southland did not claim in the Court of Appeal that if state law required class-action procedures, it would conflict with the federal Act and thus violate the Supremacy Clause.
In the California Supreme Court, Southland argued that California law applied but that neither the contract to arbitrate nor state law authorized class-action procedures to govern arbitrations. Southland also contended that the Federal Rules were inapplicable in state proceedings. Southland pointed out that although California law provided a basis for class-action procedures, the Judicial Council of California acknowledged “the incompatibility of class actions and arbitration. ” Petition for Hearing 23. It does not appear that Southland opposed class procedures on federal grounds in the California Supreme Court. Nor does the record show that the California Supreme Court passed upon the question whether superimposing class-action procedures on a contract arbitration was contrary to the federal Act.
Since it does not affirmatively appear that the validity of the state statute was “drawn in question” on federal grounds by Southland, this Court is without jurisdiction to resolve this question as a matter of federal law under 28 U. S. C. §1257(2). See Bailey v. Anderson, 326 U. S. 203, 207 (1945).
HH í — I I — I
As previously noted, the California Franchise Investment Law provides:
“Any condition, stipulation or provision purporting to bind any person acquiring any franchise to waive compliance with any provision of this law or any rule or order hereunder is void.” Cal. Corp. Code Ann. §31512 (West 1977).
The California Supreme Court interpreted this statute to require judicial consideration of claims brought under the state statute and accordingly refused to enforce the parties’ contract to arbitrate such claims. So interpreted the California Franchise Investment Law directly conflicts with §2 of the Federal Arbitration Act and violates the Supremacy Clause.
In enacting §2 of the federal Act, Congress declared a national policy favoring arbitration and withdrew the power of the states to require a judicial forum for the resolution of claims which the contracting parties agreed to resolve by arbitration. The Federal Arbitration Act provides:
“A written provision in any maritime transaction or a contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce to settle by arbitration a controversy thereafter arising out of such contract or transaction, or the refusal to perform the whole or any part thereof, or an agreement in writing to submit to arbitration an existing controversy arising out of such a contract, transaction, or refusal, shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.” 9 U. S. C. §2.
Congress has thus mandated the enforcement of arbitration agreements.
We discern only two limitations on the enforceability of arbitration provisions governed by the Federal Arbitration Act: they must be part of a written maritime contract or a contract “evidencing a transaction involving commerce” and such clauses may be revoked upon “grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.” We see nothing in the Act indicating that the broad principle of enforceability is subject to any additional limitations under state law.
The Federal Arbitration Act rests on the authority of Congress to enact substantive rules under the Commerce Clause. In Prima Paint Corp. v. Flood & Conklin Mfg. Co., 388 U. S. 395 (1967), the Court examined the legislative history of the Act and concluded that the statute “is based upon . . . the incontestable federal foundations of ‘control over interstate commerce and over admiralty.’” Id., at 405 (quoting H. R. Rep. No. 96, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1924)). The contract in Prima Paint, as here, contained an arbitration clause. One party in that case alleged that the other had committed fraud in the inducement of the contract, although not of the arbitration clause in particular, and sought to have the claim of fraud adjudicated in federal court. The Court held that, notwithstanding a contrary state rule, consideration of a claim of fraud in the inducement of a contract “is for the arbitrators and not for the courts,” 388 U. S., at 400. The Court relied for this holding on Congress’ broad power to fashion substantive rules under the Commerce Clause.
At least since 1824 Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause has been held plenary. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 196 (1824). In the words of Chief Justice Marshall, the authority of Congress is “the power to regulate; that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed.” Ibid. The statements of the Court in Prima Paint that the Arbitration Act was an exercise of the Commerce Clause power clearly implied that the substantive rules of the Act were to apply in state as well as federal courts. As Justice Black observed in his dissent, when Congress exercises its authority to enact substantive federal law under the Commerce Clause, it normally creates rules that are enforceable in state as well as federal courts. Prima Paint, supra, at 420.
In Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Construction Corp., 460 U. S., at 1, 25, and n. 32, we reaffirmed our view that the Arbitration Act “creates a body of federal substantive law” and expressly stated what was implicit in Prima Paint, i. e., the substantive law the Act created was applicable in state and federal courts. Moses H. Cone began with a petition for an order to compel arbitration. The District Court stayed the action pending resolution of a concurrent state-court suit. In holding that the District Court had abused its discretion, we found no showing of exceptional circumstances justifying the stay and recognized “the presence of federal-law issues” under the federal Act as “a major consideration weighing against surrender [of federal jurisdiction].” 460 U. S., at 26. We thus read the underlying issue of arbitrability to be a question of substantive federal law: “Federal law in the terms of the Arbitration Act governs that issue in either state or federal court.” Id., at 24.
Although the legislative history is not without ambiguities, there are strong indications that Congress had in mind something more than making arbitration agreements enforceable only in the federal courts. The House Report plainly suggests the more comprehensive objectives:
“The purpose of this bill is to make valid and enforcible [sic] agreements for arbitration contained in contracts involv ing interstate commerce or within the jurisdiction or [sic] admiralty, or which may be the subject of litigation in the Federal courts.” H. R. Rep. No. 96, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1924) (emphasis added).
This broader purpose can also be inferred from the reality that Congress would be less likely to address a problem whose impact was confined to federal courts than a problem of large significance in the field of commerce. The Arbitration Act sought to “overcome the rule of equity, that equity will not specifically enforce an[y] arbitration agreement.” Hearing on S. 4213 and S. 4214 before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 67th Cong., 4th Sess., 6 (1923) (Senate Hearing) (remarks of Sen. Walsh). The House Report accompanying the bill stated:
“The need for the law arises from . . . the jealousy of the English courts for their own jurisdiction. . . . This jealousy survived for so lon[g] a period that the principle became firmly embedded in the English common law and was adopted with it by the American courts. The courts have felt that the precedent was too strongly fixed to be overturned without legislative enactment . . . .” H. R. Rep. No. 96, supra, at 1-2.
Surely this makes clear that the House Report contemplated a broad reach of the Act, unencumbered by state-law constraints. As was stated in Metro Industrial Painting Corp. v. Terminal Construction Co., 287 F. 2d 382, 387 (CA2 1961) (Lumbard, C. J., concurring), “the purpose of the act was to assure those who desired arbitration and whose contracts related to interstate commerce that their expectations would not be undermined by federal judges, or ... by state courts or legislatures.” Congress also showed its awareness of the widespread unwillingness of state courts to enforce arbitration agreements, e. g., Senate Hearing, at 8, and that such courts were bound by state laws inadequately providing for
“technical arbitration by which, if you agree to arbitrate under the method provided by the statute, you have an arbitration by statute[;] but [the statutes] ha[d] nothing to do with validating the contract to arbitrate.” Ibid.
The problems Congress faced were therefore twofold: the old common-law hostility toward arbitration, and the failure of state arbitration statutes to mandate enforcement of arbitration agreements. To confine the scope of the Act to arbitrations sought to be enforced in federal courts would frustrate what we believe Congress intended to be a broad enactment appropriate in scope to meet the large problems Congress was addressing.
Justice O’Connor argues that Congress viewed the Arbitration Act “as a procedural statute, applicable only in federal courts.” Post, at 25. If it is correct that Congress sought only to create a procedural remedy in the federal courts, there can be no explanation for the express limitation in the Arbitration Act to contracts “involving commerce.” 9 U. S. C. § 2. For example, when Congress has authorized this Court to prescribe the rules of procedure in the federal courts of appeals, district courts, and bankruptcy courts, it has not limited the power of the Court to prescribe rules applicable only to causes of action involving commerce. See, e. g., 28 U. S. C. §§2072, 2075, 2076 (1976 ed. and Supp. V). We would expect that if Congress, in enacting the Arbitration Act, was creating what it thought to be a procedural rule applicable only in federal courts, it would not so limit the Act to transactions involving commerce. On the other hand, Congress would need to call on the Commerce Clause if it intended the Act to apply in state courts. Yet at the same time, its reach would be limited to transactions involving interstate commerce. We therefore view the “involving commerce” requirement in §2, not as an inexplicable limitation on the power of the federal courts, but as a necessary qualification on a statute intended to apply in state and federal courts.
Under the interpretation of the Arbitration Act urged by Justice O’Connor, claims brought under the California Franchise Investment Law are not arbitrable when they are raised in state court. Yet it is clear beyond question that if this suit had been brought as a diversity action in a federal district court, the arbitration clause would have been enforceable. Prima Paint, supra. The interpretation given to the Arbitration Act by the California Supreme Court would therefore encourage and reward forum shopping. We are unwilling to attribute to Congress the intent, in drawing on the comprehensive powers of the Commerce Clause, to create a right to enforce an arbitration contract and yet make the right dependent for its enforcement on the particular forum in which it is asserted. And since the overwhelming proportion of all civil litigation in this country is in the state courts, we cannot believe Congress intended to limit the Arbitration Act to disputes subject only to federal-court jurisdiction. Such an interpretation would frustrate congressional intent to place “[a]n arbitration agreement . . . upon the same footing as other contracts, where it belongs.” H. R. Rep. No. 96, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1924).
In creating a substantive rule applicable in state as well as federal courts, Congress intended to foreclose state legislative attempts to undercut the enforceability of arbitration agreements. We hold that §31512 of the California Franchise Investment Law violates the Supremacy Clause.
IV
The judgment of the California Supreme Court denying enforcement of the arbitration agreement is reversed; as to the question whether the Federal Arbitration Act precludes a class-action arbitration and any other issues not raised in the California courts, no decision by this Court would be appropriate at this time. As to the latter issues, the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
California Corp. Code Ann. §31512 (West 1977) provides: “Any condition, stipulation or provision purporting to bind any person acquiring any franchise to waive compliance with any provision of this law or any rule or order hereunder is void.”
Supplemental Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Opposition to Petition for Writs of Mandate or Prohibition in Civ. No. 45162 (Ct. App. Cal., 1st App. Dist.), pp. 19-25.
The question Southland presented to the State Supreme Court was “[w]hether a court may enter an order compelling a private commercial arbitration governed by the Federal Arbitration Act... to proceed as a class action even though the terms of the parties’ arbitration agreement do not provide for such a procedure.” Petition for Hearing in Civ. No. 45162 (Cal. 1980). Southland argued that (1) the decision of the Court of Appeal “is in conflict with the decisions of other Courts of Appeal in this State,” id., at 3; (2) class actions would delay and complicate arbitration, increase its cost, and require judicial supervision, “considerations [which] strongly militate against the creation of class action arbitration procedures,” id., at 22; and (3) there was no basis in law for class actions. According to appellants, the Federal Kules of Civil Procedure did not apply in California courts. Id., at 23. Southland thus relied, not on federal law, but on California law in opposing class-action procedures.
The California Supreme Court cited “[a]nalogous authority” supporting consolidation of arbitration proceedings by federal courts. 31 Cal. 3d, at 611-612, 645 P. 2d, at 1208. E. g., Compania, Española de Petroleos, S. A. v. Nereus Shipping, S. A., 527 F. 2d 966, 975 (CA2 1975), cert. denied, 426 U. S. 936 (1976); In re Czarnikow-Rionda Co., 512 F. Supp. 1308, 1309 (SDNY 1981). This, along with support by other state courts and the California Legislature for consolidation of arbitration proceedings, permitted the court to conclude that class-action proceedings were authorized: “It is unlikely that the state Legislature in adopting the amendment to the Arbitration Act authorizing consolidation of arbitration proceedings, intended to preclude a court from ordering classwide arbitration in an appropriate case. We conclude that a court is not without authority to do so.” 31 Cal. 3d, at 613, 645 P. 2d, at 1209. The California Supreme Court thus ruled that imposing a class-action structure on the arbitration process was permissible as a matter of state law.
We note that in defining “commerce” Congress declared that “nothing herein contained shall apply to contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” 9 U. S. C. § 1.
The procedures to be used in an arbitration are not prescribed by the federal Act. We note, however, that Prima Paint considered the question of what issues are for the courts and what issues are for the arbitrator.
Appellees contend that the arbitration clause, which provides for the arbitration of “any controversy or claim arising out of or relating to this Agreement or the breach hereof,” does not cover their claims under the California Franchise Investment Law. We find the language quoted above broad enough to cover such claims. Cf. Prima Paint, 388 U. S., at 403-404, 406 (finding nearly identical language to cover a claim that a contract was induced by fraud).
It is estimated that 2% of all civil litigation in this country is in the federal courts. Annual Report of the Director of the Administrative Office of the U. S. Courts 3 (1982) (206,000 filings in federal district courts in 12 months ending June 30, 1982, excluding bankruptcy filings); Flango & Eisner, Advance Report, The Latest State Court Caseload Data, 7 State Court J., 18 (Winter 1983) (approximately 13,600,000 civil filings during comparable period, excluding traffic filings).
While the Federal Arbitration Act creates federal substantive law requiring the parties to honor arbitration agreements, it does not create any independent federal-question jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1331 or otherwise. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Construction Corp., 460 U. S. 1, 25, n. 32 (1983). This seems implicit in the provisions in § 3 for a stay by a “court in which such suit is pending” and in § 4 that enforcement may be ordered by “any United States district court which, save for such agreement, would have jurisdiction under title 28, in a civil action or in admiralty of the subject matter of a suit arising out of the controversy between the parties.” Ibid.; Prima Paint, supra, at 420, and n. 24 (Black, J., dissenting); Krauss Bros. Lumber Co. v. Louis Bossert & Sons, Inc., 62 F. 2d 1004, 1006 (CA2 1933) (L. Hand, J.).
The contention is made that the Court’s interpretation of § 2 of the Act renders §§ 3 and 4 “largely superfluous.” Post, at 31, n. 20. This misreads our holding and the Act. In holding that the Arbitration Act preempts a state law that withdraws the power to enforce arbitration agreements, we do not hold that §§3 and 4 of the Arbitration Act apply to proceedings in state courts. Section 4, for example, provides that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure apply in proceedings to compel arbitration. The Federal Rules do not apply in such state-court proceedings.
The California Supreme Court justified its holding by reference to our conclusion in Wilko v. Swan, 346 U. S. 427 (1953), that arbitration agreements are nonbinding as to claims arising under the federal Securities Act of 1933. 31 Cal. 3d, at 602, 645 P. 2d, at 1202-1203. The analogy is unpersuasive. The question in Wilko was not whether a state legislature could create an exception to § 2 of the Arbitration Act, but rather whether Congress, in subsequently enacting the Securities Act, had in fact created such an exception.
Justice Stevens dissents in part on the ground that § 2 of the Arbitration Act permits a party to nullify an agreement to arbitrate on “such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.” Post, at 19. We agree, of course, that a party may assert general contract defenses such as fraud to avoid enforcement of an arbitration agreement. We conclude, however, that the defense to arbitration found in the California Franchise Investment Law is not a ground that exists at law or in equity “for the revocation of any contract” but merely a ground that exists for the revocation of arbitration provisions in contracts subject to the California Franchise Investment Law. Moreover, under this dissenting view, “a state policy of providing special protection for franchisees . . . can be recognized without impairing the basic purposes of the federal statute.” Post, at 21. If we accepted this analysis, states could wholly eviscerate congressional intent to place arbitration agreements “upon the same footing as other contracts,” H. R. Rep. No. 96, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1924), simply by passing statutes such as the Franchise Investment Law. We have rejected this analysis because it is in conflict with the Arbitration Act and would permit states to override the declared policy requiring enforcement of arbitration agreements.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In November 1966, petitioner Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., was duly elected from the 18th Congressional District of New York to serve in the United States House of Representatives for the 90th Congress. However, pursuant to a House resolution, he was not permitted to take his seat. Powell (and some of the voters of his district) then filed suit in Federal District Court, claiming that the House could exclude him only if it found he failed to meet the standing requirements of age, citizenship, and residence contained in Art. I, § 2, of the Constitution — requirements the House specifically found Powell met — and thus had excluded him unconstitutionally. The District Court dismissed petitioners' complaint “for want of jurisdiction of the subject matter.” A panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal, although on somewhat different grounds, each judge filing a separate opinion. We have determined that it was error to dismiss the complaint and that petitioner Powell is entitled to a declaratory judgment that he was unlawfully excluded from the 90th Congress.
I.
Facts.
During the 89th Congress, a Special Subcommittee on Contracts of the Committee on House Administration conducted an investigation into the expenditures of the Committee on Education and Labor, of which petitioner Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., was chairman. The Special Subcommittee issued a report concluding that Powell and certain staff employees had deceived the House authorities as to travel expenses. The report also indicated there was strong evidence that certain illegal salary payments had been made to Powell’s wife at his direction. See H. R. Rep. No. 2349, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 6-7 (1966). No formal action was taken during the 89th Congress. However, prior to the organization of the 90th Congress, the Democratic members-elect met in caucus and voted to remove Powell as chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor. See H. R. Rep. No. 27, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 1-2 (1967).
When the 90th Congress met to organize in January 1967, Powell was asked to step aside while the oath was administered to the other members-elect. Following the administration of the oath to the remaining members, the House discussed the procedure to be followed in determining whether Powell was eligible to take his seat. After some debate, by a vote of 363 to 65 the House adopted House Resolution No. 1, which provided that the Speaker appoint a Select Committee to determine Powell’s eligibility. 113 Cong. Rec. 26-27. Although the resolution prohibited Powell from taking his seat until the House acted on the Select Committee’s report, it did provide that he should receive all the pay and allowances due a member during the period.
The Select Committee, composed of nine lawyer-members, issued an invitation to Powell to testify before the Committee. The invitation letter stated that the scope of the testimony and investigation would include Powell’s qualifications as to age, citizenship, and residency; his involvement in a civil suit (in which he had been held in contempt); and “[mjatters of... alleged official misconduct since January 3, 1961.” See Hearings on H. R. Res. No. 1 before Select Committee Pursuant to H. R. Res. No. 1,90th Cong., 1st Sess., 5 (1967) (hereinafter Hearings). Powell appeared at the Committee hearing held on February 8,1967. After the Committee denied in part Powell's request that certain adversary-type procedures be followed, Powell testified. He would, however, give information relating only to his age, citizenship, and residency; upon the advice of counsel, he refused to answer other questions.
On February 10, 1967, the Select Committee issued another invitation to Powell. In the letter, the Select Committee informed Powell that its responsibility under the House Resolution extended to determining not only whether he met the standing qualifications of Art. I, § 2, but also to “inquiring] into the question of whether you should be punished or expelled pursuant to the powers granted... the House under Article I, Section 5,... of the Constitution. In other words, the Select Committee is of the opinion that at the conclusion of the present inquiry, it has authority to report back to the House recommendations with respect to... seating, expulsion or other punishment.” See Hearings 110. Powell did not appear at the next hearing, held February 14, 1967. However, his attorneys were present, and they informed the Committee that Powell would not testify about matters other than his eligibility under the standing qualifications of Art. I, § 2. Powell’s attorneys reasserted Powell’s contention that the standing qualifications were the exclusive requirements for membership, and they further urged that punishment or expulsion was not possible until a member had been seated. See Hearings 111-113.
The Committee held one further hearing at which neither Powell nor his attorneys were present. Then, on February 23, 1967, the Committee issued its report, finding that Powell met the standing qualifications of Art. I, § 2. H. R. Rep. No. 27, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 31 (1967). However, the Committee further reported that Powell had asserted an unwarranted privilege and immunity from the processes of the courts of New York; that he had wrongfully diverted House funds for the use of others and himself; and that he had made false reports on expenditures of foreign currency to the Committee on House Administration. Id., at 31-32. The Committee recommended that Powell be sworn and seated as a member of the 90th Congress but that he be censured by the House, fined $40,000 and be deprived of his seniority. Id., at 33.
The report was presented to the House on March 1, 1967, and the House debated the Select Committee’s proposed resolution. At the conclusion of the debate, by a vote of 222 to 202 the House rejected a motion to bring the resolution to a vote. An amendment to the resolution was then offered; it called for the exclusion of Powell and a declaration that his seat was vacant. The Speaker ruled that a majority vote of the House would be sufficient to pass the resolution if it were so amended. 113 Cong. Rec. 5020. After further debate, the amendment was adopted by a vote of 248 to 176. Then the House adopted by a vote of 307 to 116 House Resolution No. 278 in its amended form, thereby excluding Powell and directing that the Speaker notify the Governor of New York that the seat was vacant.
Powell and 13 voters of the 18th Congressional District of New York subsequently instituted this suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Five members of the House of Representatives were named as defendants individually and “as representatives of a class of citizens who are presently serving... as members of the House of Representatives.” John W. McCormack was named in his official capacity as Speaker, and the Clerk of the House of Representatives, the Sergeant at Arms and the Doorkeeper were named individually and in their official capacities. The complaint alleged that House Resolution No. 278 violated the Constitution, specifically Art. I, § 2, cl. 1, because the resolution was inconsistent with the mandate that the members of the House shall be elected by the people of each State, and Art. I, § 2, cl. 2, which, petitioners alleged, sets forth the exclusive qualifications for membership. The complaint further alleged that the Clerk of the House threatened to refuse to perform the service for Powell to which a duly elected Congressman is entitled, that the Sergeant at Arms refused to pay Powell his salary, and that the Doorkeeper threatened to deny Powell admission to the House chamber.
Petitioners asked that a three-judge court be convened. Further, they requested that the District Court grant a permanent injunction restraining respondents from executing the House Resolution, and enjoining the Speaker from refusing to administer the oath, the Clerk from refusing to perform the duties due a Representative, the Sergeant at Arms from refusing to pay Powell his salary, and the Doorkeeper from refusing to admit Powell to the Chamber. The complaint also requested a declaratory judgment that Powell’s exclusion was unconstitutional.
The District Court granted respondents’ motion to dismiss the complaint “for want of jurisdiction of the subject matter.” Powell v. McCormack, 266 F. Supp. 354 (D. C. D. C. 1967). The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed on somewhat different grounds, with each judge of the panel filing a separate opinion. Powell v. McCormack, 129 U. S. App. D. C. 354, 395 F. 2d 577 (1968). We granted certiorari. 393 U. S. 949 (1968). While the case was pending on our docket, the 90th Congress officially terminated and the 91st Congress was seated. In November 1968, Powell was again elected as the representative of the 18th Congressional District of New York and he was seated by the 91st Congress. The resolution seating Powell also fined him $25,000. See H. R. Res. No. 2, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 115 Cong. Rec. H21 (daily ed., January 3, 1969). Respondents then filed a suggestion of mootness. We postponed further consideration of this suggestion to a hearing on the merits. 393 U. S. 1060 (1969).
Respondents press upon us a variety of arguments to support the court below; they will be considered in the following order. (1) Events occurring subsequent to the grant of certiorari have rendered this litigation moot. (2) The Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, § 6, insulates respondents’ action from judicial review. (3) The decision to exclude petitioner Powell is supported by the power granted to the House of Representatives to expel a member. (4) This Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over petitioners’ action. (5) Even if subject matter jurisdiction is present, this litigation is not justiciable either under the general criteria established by this Court or because a political question is involved.
II.
Mootness.
After certiorari was granted, respondents filed a memorandum suggesting that two events which occurred subsequent to our grant of certiorari require that the case be dismissed as moot. On January 3, 1969, the House of Representatives of the 90th Congress officially terminated, and petitioner Powell was seated as a member of the 91st Congress. 115 Cong. Rec. H22 (daily ed.,. January 3, 1969). Respondents insist that the gravamen of petitioners’ complaint was the failure. of the 90th Congress to seat petitioner Powell and’that,- since' the House of Representatives is not a continuing body and Powell has now been seated, his claims are moot. Petitioners counter that three issues remain unresolved and thus this litigation presents a “case or controversy” within the meaning of Art. Ill: (1) whether Powell was unconstitutionally deprived of his seniority by his exclusion from the 90th Congress; (2) whether the resolution of the 91st Congress imposing as “punishment” a $25,000 fine is a continuation of respondents’ allegedly unconstitutional exclusion, see H. R. Res. No. 2, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 115 Cong. Rec. H21 (daily ed., January 3, 1969); and (3) whether Powell is entitled to salary withheld after his exclusion from the 90th Congress. We conclude that Powell’s claim for back salary remains viable even though he has been seated in the 91st Congress and thus find it unnecessary to determine whether the other issues have become moot.
Simply stated, a case is moot when the issues presented are no longer “live” or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome. See E. Borchard, Declaratory Judgments 35-37 (2d ed. 1941). Where one of the several issues presented becomes moot, the remaining live issues supply the constitutional requirement of a case or controversy. See United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 86-94 (1947); 6A J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 57.13 (2d ed. 1966). Despite Powell’s obvious and continuing interest in his withheld salary, respondents insist that Alejandrino v. Quezon, 271 U. S. 528 (1926), leaves us no choice but to dismiss this litigation as moot. Alejandrino, a duly appointed Senator of the Philippine Islands, was suspended for one year by a resolution of the Philippine Senate and deprived of all “prerogatives, privileges and emoluments” for the period of his suspension. The Supreme Court of the Philippines refused to enjoin the suspension. By the time the case reached this Court, the suspension had expired and the Court dismissed as moot Alejandrino’s request that the suspension be enjoined. Then, sua sponte, the Court considered whether the possibility that Alejandrino was entitled to back salary required it “to retain the case for the purpose of determining whether he [Alejandrino] may not have a mandamus for this purpose.” Id., at 533. Characterizing the issue of Alejandrino’s salary as a “mere incident” to his claim that the suspension was improper, the Court noted that he had not briefed the salary issue and that his request for mandamus did not set out with sufficient clarity the official or set of officials against whom the mandamus should issue. Id., at 533-534. The Court therefore refused to treat the salary claim and dismissed the entire action as moot.
Respondents believe that Powell’s salary claim is also a “mere incident” to his insistence that he was unconstitutionally excluded so that we should likewise dismiss this entire action as moot. This argument fails to grasp that the reason for the dismissal in Alejandrino was not that Alejandrino’s deprivation of salary was insufficiently substantial to prevent the case from becoming moot, but rather that his failure to plead sufficient facts to establish his mandamus claim made it impossible for any court to resolve the mandamus request. By contrast, petitioners’ complaint names the official responsible for the payment of congressional salaries and asks for both mandamus and an injunction against that official.
Futhermore, even if respondents are correct that petitioners’ averments as to injunctive relief are not sufficiently definite, it does not follow that this litigation must be dismissed as moot. Petitioner Powell has not been paid his salary by virtue of an allegedly unconstitutional House resolution. That claim is still unresolved and hotly contested by clearly adverse parties. Declaratory relief has been requested, a form of relief not available when Alejandrino was decided. A court may grant declaratory relief even though it chooses not to issue an injunction or mandamus. See United Public Workers v. Mitchell, supra, at 93; cf. United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19, 25-26 (1947). A declaratory judgment can then be used as a predicate to further relief, including an injunction. 28 U. S. C. § 2202; see Vermont Structural Slate Co. v. Tatko Brothers Slate Co., 253 F. 2d 29 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1958); United States Lines Co. v. Shaughnessy, 195 F. 2d 385 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1952). Alejandrino stands only for the proposition that, where one claim has become moot and the pleadings are insufficient to determine whether the plaintiff is entitled to another remedy, the action should be dismissed as moot. There is no suggestion that petitioners’ averments as to declaratory relief are insufficient and Powell’s allegedly unconstitutional deprivation of salary remains unresolved.
Respondents further argue that Powell’s “wholly incidental and subordinate” demand for salary is insufficient to prevent this litigation from becoming moot. They suggest that the “primary and principal relief” sought was the seating of petitioner Powell in the 90th Congress rendering his presumably secondary claims not worthy of judicial consideration. Bond v. Floyd, 385 U. S. 116 (1966), rejects respondents’ theory that the mootness of a “primary” claim requires a conclusion that all “secondary” claims are moot. At the Bond oral argument it was suggested that the expiration of the session of the Georgia Legislature which excluded Bond had rendered the case moot. We replied: “The State has not pressed this argument, and it could not do so, because the State has stipulated that if Bond succeeds on this appeal he will receive back salary for the term from which he was excluded.” 385 U. S., at 128, n. 4. Bond is not controlling, argue respondents, because the legislative term from which Bond was excluded did not end until December 31, 1966, and our decision was rendered December 5; further, when Bond was decided, Bond had not as yet been seated while in this case Powell has been. Respondents do not tell us, however, why these factual distinctions create a legally significant difference between Bond and this case. We relied in Bond on the outstanding salary claim, not the facts respondents stress, to hold that the case was not moot.
Finally, respondents seem to argue that Powell’s proper action to recover salary is a suit in the Court of Claims, so that, having brought the wrong action, a dismissal for mootness is appropriate. The short answer to this argument is that it confuses mootness with whether Powell has established a right to recover against the Sergeant at Arms, a question which it is inappropriate to treat at this stage of the litigation.
III.
Speech or Debate Clause.
Respondents assert that the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, § 6, is an absolute bar to petitioners’ action. This Court has on four prior occasions — Dombrowski v. Eastland, 387 U. S. 82 (1967); United States v. Johnson, 383 U. S. 169 (1966); Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367 (1951); and Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168 (1881) — been called upon to determine if allegedly unconstitutional action taken by legislators or legislative employees is insulated from judicial review by the Speech or Debate Clause. Both parties insist that their respective positions find support in these cases and tender for decision three distinct issues: (1) whether respondents in participating in the exclusion of petitioner Powell were “acting in the sphere of legitimate legislative activity,” Tenney v. Brandhove, supra, at 376; (2) assuming that respondents were so acting, whether the fact that petitioners seek neither damages from any of the respondents nor a criminal prosecution lifts the bar of the clause; and (3) even if this action may not be maintained against a Congressman, whether those respondents who are merely employees of the House may plead the bar of the clause. We find it necessary to treat only the last of these issues.
The Speech or Debate Clause, adopted by the Constitutional Convention without debate or opposition, finds its roots in the conflict between Parliament and the Crown culminating in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the English Bill of Rights of 1689. Drawing upon this history, we concluded in United States v. Johnson, supra, at 181, that the purpose of this clause was “to prevent intimidation [of legislators] by the executive and accountability before a possibly hostile judiciary.’' Although the clause sprang from a fear of seditious libel actions instituted by the Crown to punish unfavorable speeches made in Parliament, we have held that it would be a “narrow view” to confine the protection of the Speech or Debate Clause to words spoken in debate. Committee reports, resolutions, and the act of voting are equally covered, as are “things generally done in a session of the House by one of its members in relation to the business before it.” Kilbourn v. Thompson, supra, at 204. Furthermore, the clause not only provides a defense on the merits but also protects a legislator from the burden of defending himself. Dombrowski v. Eastland, supra, at 85; see Tenney v. Brandhove, supra, at 377.
Our cases make it clear that the legislative immunity created by the Speech or Debate Clause performs an important function in representative government. It insures that legislators are free to represent the interests of their constituents without fear that they will be later called to task in the courts for that representation. Thus, in Tenney v. Brandhove, supra, at 373, the Court quoted the writings of James Wilson as illuminating the reason for legislative immunity: “In order to enable and encourage a representative of the publick to discharge his publick trust with firmness and success, it is indispensably necessary, that he should enjoy the fullest liberty of speech, and that he should be protected from the resentment of every one, however powerful, to whom the exercise of that liberty may occasion offence.”
Legislative immunity does not, of course, bar all judicial review of legislative acts. That issue was settled by implication as early as 1803, see Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, and expressly in Kilbourn v. Thompson, the first of this Court’s cases interpreting the reach of the Speech or Debate Clause. Challenged in Kilbourn was the constitutionality of a House Resolution ordering the arrest and imprisonment of a recalcitrant witness who had refused to respond to a subpoena issued by a House investigating committee. While holding that the Speech or Debate Clause barred Kilboum’s action for false imprisonment brought against several members of the House, the Court nevertheless reached the merits of Kil-bourn’s attack and decided that, since the House had no power to punish for contempt, Kilbourn’s imprisonment pursuant to the resolution was unconstitutional. It therefore allowed Kilbourn to bring his false imprisonment action against Thompson, the House’s Sergeant at Arms, who had executed the warrant for Kilbourn’s arrest.
The Court first articulated in Kilbourn and followed in Dombrowski v. Eastland the doctrine that, although an action against a Congressman may be barred by the Speech or Debate Clause, legislative employees who participated in the unconstitutional activity are responsible for their acts. Despite the fact that petitioners brought this suit against several House employees — the Sergeant at Arms, the Doorkeeper and the Clerk — as well as several Congressmen, respondents argue that Kilbourn and Dombrowski are distinguishable. Conceding that in Kilbourn the presence of the Sergeant at Arms and in Dombrowski the presence of a congressional subcommittee counsel as defendants in the litigation allowed judicial review of the challenged congressional action, respondents urge that both cases concerned an affirmative act performed by the employee outside the House having a direct effect upon a private citizen. Here, they continue, the relief sought relates to actions taken by House agents solely within the House. Alternatively, respondents insist that Kilbourn and Dombrowski prayed for damages while petitioner Powell asks that the Sergeant at Arms disburse funds, an assertedly greater interference with the legislative process. We reject the proffered distinctions.
That House employees are acting pursuant to express orders of the House does not bar judicial review of the constitutionality of the underlying legislative decision. Kilbourn decisively settles this question, since the Sergeant at Arms was held liable for false imprisonment even though he did nothing more than execute the House Resolution that Kilbourn be arrested and imprisoned. Respondents’ suggestions thus ask us to distinguish between affirmative acts of House employees and situations in which the House orders its employees not to act or between actions for damages and claims for salary. We can find no basis in either the history of the Speech or Debate Clause or our cases for either distinction. The purpose of the protection afforded legislators is not to forestall judicial review of legislative action but to insure that legislators are not distracted from or hindered in the performance of their legislative tasks by being called into court to defend their actions. A legislator is no more or no less hindered or distracted by litigation against a legislative employee calling into question the employee’s affirmative action than he would be by a lawsuit questioning the employee’s failure to act. Nor is the distraction or hindrance increased because the claim is for salary rather than damages, or because the litigation questions action taken by the employee within rather than without the House. Freedom of legislative activity and the purposes of the Speech or Debate Clause are fully protected if legislators are relieved of the burden of defending themselves. In Kilbourn and Dombrowski we thus dismissed the action against members of Congress but did not regard the Speech or Debate Clause as a bar to reviewing the merits of the challenged congressional action since congressional employees were also sued. Similarly, though this action may be dismissed against the Congressmen petitioners are entitled to maintain their action against House employees and to judicial review of the propriety of the decision to exclude petitioner Powell. As was said in Kilbourn, in language which time has not dimmed:
“Especially is it competent and proper for this court to consider whether its [the legislature’s] proceedings are in conformity with the Constitution and laws, because, living under a written constitution, no branch or department of the government is supreme; and it is the province and duty of the judicial department to determine in cases regularly brought before them, whether the powers of any branch of the government, and even those of the legislature in the enactment of laws, have been exercised in conformity to the Constitution; and if they have not, to treat their acts as null and void.” 103 U. S., at 199.
IV.
Exclusion oe Expulsion.
The resolution excluding petitioner Powell was adopted by a vote in excess of two-thirds of the 434 Members of Congress — 307 to 116. 113 Cong. Rec. 5037-5038. Article I, § 5, grants the House authority to expel a member “with the Concurrence of two thirds.” Respondents assert that the House may expel a member for any reason whatsoever and that, since a two-thirds vote was obtained, the procedure by which Powell was denied his seat in the 90th Congress should be regarded as an expulsion, not an exclusion. Cautioning us not to exalt form over substance, respondents quote from the concurring opinion of Judge McGowan in the court below:
“Appellant Powell’s cause of action for a judicially compelled seating thus boils down, in my view, to the narrow issue of whether a member found by his colleagues... to have engaged in official misconduct must, because of the accidents of timing, be formally admitted before he can be either investigated or expelled. The sponsor of the motion to exclude stated on the floor that he was proceeding on the theory that the power to expel included the power to exclude, provided a % vote was forthcoming. It was. Therefore, success for Mr. Powell on the merits would mean that the District Court must admonish the House that it is form, not substance, that should govern in great affairs, and accordingly command the House members to act out a charade.” 129 U. S. App. D. C., at 383-384, 395 F. 2d, at 606-607.
Although respondents repeatedly urge this Court not to speculate as to the reasons for Powell’s exclusion, their attempt to equate exclusion with expulsion would require a similar speculation that the House would have voted to expel Powell had it been faced with that question. Powell had not been seated at the time House Resolution No. 278 was debated and passed. After a motion to bring the Select Committee’s proposed resolution to an immediate vote had been defeated, an amendment was offered which mandated Powell’s exclusion. Mr. Celler, chairman of the Select Committee, then posed a parliamentary inquiry to determine whether a two-thirds vote was necessary to pass the resolution if so amended “in the sense that it might amount to an expulsion.” 113 Cong. Rec. 5020. The Speaker replied that “action by a majority vote would be in accordance with the rules.” Ibid. Had the amendment been regarded as an attempt to expel Powell, a two-thirds vote would have been constitutionally required. The Speaker ruled that the House was voting to exclude Powell, and we will not speculate what the result might have been if Powell had been seated and expulsion proceedings subsequently instituted.
Nor is the distinction between exclusion and expulsion merely one of form. The misconduct for which Powell was charged occurred prior to the convening of the 90th Congress. On several occasions the House has debated whether a member can be expelled for actions taken during a prior Congress and the House’s own manual of procedure applicable in the 90th Congress states that “both Houses have distrusted their power to punish in such cases.” Rules of the House of Representatives, H. R. Doc. No. 529, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 25 (1967); see G. Galloway, History of the House of Representatives 32 (1961). The House rules manual reflects positions taken by prior Congresses. For example, the report of the Select Committee appointed to consider the expulsion of John W. Langley states unequivocally that the House will not expel a member for misconduct committed during an earlier Congress:
“ [I] t must be said that with practical uniformity the precedents in such cases are to the effect that the House will not expel a Member for reprehensible action prior to his election as a Member, not even for conviction for an offense. On May 23, 1884, Speaker Carlisle decided that the House had no right to punish a Member for any offense alleged to have been committed previous to the time when he was elected a Member, and added, 'That has been so frequently decided in the House that it is no longer a matter of dispute.’ ” H. R. Rep. No. 30, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., 1-2 (1925).
Members of the House having expressed a belief that such strictures apply to its own power to expel, we will not assume that two-thirds of its members would have expelled Powell for his prior conduct had the Speaker announced that House Resolution No. 278 was for expulsion rather than exclusion.
Finally, the proceedings which culminated in Powell’s exclusion cast considerable doubt upon respondents’ assumption that the two-thirds vote necessary to expel would have been mustered. These proceedings have been succinctly described by Congressman Eckhardt:
“The House voted 202 votes for the previous question leading toward the adoption of the [Select] Committee report. It voted 222 votes against the previous question, opening the floor for the Curtis Amendment which ultimately excluded Powell.
“Upon adoption of the Curtis Amendment, the vote again fell short of two-thirds, being 248 yeas to 176 nays. Only on the final vote, adopting the Resolution as amended, was more than a two-thirds vote obtained, the vote being 307 yeas to 116 nays. On this last vote, as a practical matter, members who would not have denied Powell a seat if they were given the choice to punish him had to cast an aye vote or else record themselves as opposed to the only punishment that was likely to come before the House. Had the matter come up through the processes of expulsion, it appears that the two-thirds vote would have failed, and then members would have been able to apply a lesser penalty.”
We need express no opinion as to the accuracy of Congressman Eckhardt’s prediction that expulsion proceedings would have produced a different result. However, the House’s own views of the extent of its power to expel combined with the Congressman’s analysis counsel that exclusion and expulsion are not fungible proceedings. The Speaker ruled that House Resolution No. 278 contemplated an exclusion proceeding. We must reject respondents’ suggestion that we overrule the Speaker and hold that, although the House manifested an intent to exclude Powell, its action should be tested by whatever standards may govern an expulsion.
V.
Subject Matter Jurisdiction.
As we pointed out in Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 198 (1962), there is a significant difference between determining whether a federal court has “jurisdiction of the subject matter” and determining whether a cause over which a court has subject matter jurisdiction is “justiciable.” The District Court determined that “to decide this case on the merits... would constitute a clear violation of the doctrine of separation of powers” and then dismissed the complaint “for want of jurisdiction of the subject matter.” Powell v. McCormack, 266 F. Supp. 354, 359, 360 (D. C. D. C. 1967). However, as the Court of Appeals correctly recognized, the doctrine of separation of powers is more properly considered in determining whether the case is “justiciable.” We agree with the unanimous conclusion of the Court of Appeals that the District Court had jurisdiction over the subject matter of this case. However, for reasons set forth in Part VI, infra, we disagree with the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that this case is not justiciable.
In Baker v. Carr, supra, we noted that a federal district court lacks jurisdiction over the subject matter (1) if the cause does not “arise under” the Federal Constitution, laws, or treaties (or fall within one of the other enumerated categories of Art. Ill); or (2) if it is not a “case or controversy” within the meaning of that phrase in Art. Ill; or (3) if the cause is not one described by any jurisdictional statute. And, as in Baker v. Carr, supra, our determination (see Part VI, B (1) infra) that this cause presents no non justiciable “political question” disposes of respondents’ contentions that this cause is not a “case or controversy.”
Respondents first contend that this is not a case “arising under” the Constitution within the meaning of Art. III. They emphasize that Art. I, § 5, assigns to each House of Congress the power to judge the elections and qualifications of its own members and to punish its members for disorderly behavior. Respondents also note that under Art. I, § 3, the Senate has the “sole power” to try all impeachments. Respondents argue that these delegations (to “judge,” to “punish,” and to “try”) to the Legislative Branch are explicit grants of “judicial power” to the Congress and constitute specific exceptions to the general mandate of Art. Ill that the “judicial power” shall be vested in the federal courts. Thus, respondents maintain, the “power conferred on the courts by article III does not authorize this Court to do anything more than declare its lack of jurisdiction to proceed.”
We reject this contention. Article III, § 1, provides that the “judicial Power... shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may... establish.” Further, § 2 mandates that the “judicial Power shall extend to all Cases... arising under this Constitution....” It has long been held that a suit “arises under” the Constitution if a petitioner’s claim “will be sustained if the Constitution... [is] given one construction and will be defeated if [it is] given another.” Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, 685 (1946). See King County v. Seattle School District No. 1, 263 U. S. 361, 363-364 (1923). Cf. Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether defense counsel’s agreement to a trial date outside the time period required by Article III of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers bars the defendant from seeking dismissal because trial did not occur within that period.
I
The Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD) is a compact entered into by 48 States, the United States, and the District of Columbia to establish procedures for resolution of one State’s outstanding charges against a prisoner of another State. See N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law § 580.20 (McKinney 1995); 18 U. S. C. App. § 2; 11A U. L. A. 48 (1995) (listing jurisdictions). As “a eongressionally sanctioned interstate compact” within the Compact Clause of the United States Constitution, Art. I, § 10, cl. 8, the IAD is a federal law subject to federal construction. Carchman v. Nash, 473 U. S. 716, 719 (1985); Cuyler v. Adams, 449 U. S. 433, 442 (1981).
A State seeking to bring charges against a prisoner in another State’s custody begins the process by filing a detainer, which is a request by the State’s criminal justice agency that the institution in which the prisoner is housed hold the prisoner for the agency or notify the agency when release is imminent. Fex v. Michigan, 507 U. S. 43, 44 (1993). After a detainer has been lodged against him, a prisoner may file a “request for a final disposition to be made of the indictment, information, or complaint.” Art. 111(a). Upon such a request, the prisoner “shall be brought to trial within one hundred eighty days,” “provided that for good cause shown in open court, the prisoner or his counsel being present, the court having jurisdiction of the matter may grant any necessary or reasonable continuance.” Ibid. Resolution of the charges can also be triggered by the charging jurisdiction, which may request temporary custody of the prisoner for that purpose. Art. IV(a). In such a ease, “trial shall be commenced within one hundred twenty days of the arrival of the prisoner in the receiving state,” subject again to continuances for good cause shown in open court. Art. IV(c). If a defendant is not brought to trial within the applicable statutory period, the LAD requires that the indictment be dismissed with prejudice. Art. V(e).
In this case, New York lodged a detainer against respondent, who was a prisoner in Ohio. Respondent signed a request for disposition of the detainer pursuant to Article III of the IAD, and was returned to New York to face murder and robbery charges. Defense counsel filed several motions, which, it is uncontested, tolled the time limits during their pendency.
On January 9, 1995, the prosecutor and defense counsel appeared in court to set a trial date. The following colloquy ensued:
“[Prosecutor]: Your Honor, [the regular attorney] from our office is engaged in a trial today. He told me that the Court was to set a trial date today. I believe the Court may have preliminarily discussed a May 1st date, and [the regular attorney] says that would fit in his calendar.
“The Court: How is that with the defense counsel?
“[Defense Counsel]: That will be fine, Your Honor.” 164 Misc. 2d 1032, 1035, 627 N. Y. S. 2d 234, 236 (Cty. Ct., Monroe County 1995).
The court scheduled trial to begin on May 1.
On April 17, 1995, respondent moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the LAD’s time limit had expired. The trial court found that as of January 9, 1995, when the trial date was set, 167 nonexcludable days had elapsed, so that if the subsequent time period was chargeable to the State, the 180-day time period had indeed expired. However, the trial court concluded that “[d]efense counsel’s explicit agreement to the trial date set beyond the 180 day statutory period constituted a waiver or abandonment of defendant’s rights under the IAD.” Id., at 1036, 627 N. Y. S. 2d, at 237. Accordingly, the court denied respondent’s motion to dismiss.
Respondent was subsequently convicted, following a jury trial, of murder in the second degree and robbery in the first degree. On appeal, respondent argued that the trial court erred in declining to dismiss the indictment for lack of a timely trial under the IAD. The New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, affirmed the decision of the trial court. 244 App. Div. 2d 927, 668 N. Y. S. 2d 126 (1997). The New York Court of Appeals, however, reversed and ordered that the indictment against respondent be dismissed; defense counsel’s agreement to a later trial date, it held, did not waive respondent’s speedy trial rights under the IAD. 92 N. Y. 2d 406, 704 N. E. 2d 542 (1998). We granted certiorari. 526 U. S. 1111 (1999).
II
No provision of the IAD prescribes the effect of a defendant’s assent to delay on the applicable time limits. We have, however, “in the context of a broad array of constitutional and statutory provisions,” articulated a general rule that presumes the availability of waiver, United States v. Mezzanatto, 513 U. S. 196, 200-201 (1995), and we have recognized that “[t]he most basic rights of criminal defendants are .. . subject to waiver,” Peretz v. United States, 501 U. S. 923, 936 (1991). In accordance with these principles, courts have agreed that a defendant may, at least under some circumstances, waive his right to object to a given delay under the IAD, although they have disagreed on what is necessary to effect a waiver. See, e. g., People v. Jones, 197 Mich. App. 76, 80, 495 N. W. 2d 159, 160 (1992) (waiver if prisoner “either expressly or impliedly, agrees or requests to be treated in a manner contrary to the terms of the IAD”); Brown v. Wolff, 706 F. 2d 902, 907 (CA9 1983) (waiver if prisoner “affirmatively requests to be treated in a manner contrary to the procedures prescribed by the IAD”); Drescher v. Superior Ct., 218 Cal. App. 3d 1140, 1148, 267 Cal. Rptr. 661, 666 (1990) (waiver if there is a “showing of record that the defendant or his attorney freely acquiesced in a trial date beyond the speedy trial period” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
What suffices for waiver depends on the nature of the right at issue. “[Wjhether the defendant must participate personally in the waiver; whether certain procedures are required for waiver; and whether the defendant’s choice must be particularly informed or voluntary, all depend on the right at stake.” United States v. Olano, 507 U. S. 725, 733 (1993). For certain fundamental rights, the defendant must personally make an informed waiver. See, e. g., Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464-465 (1938) (right to counsel); Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U. S. 1, 7-8 (1966) (right to plead not guilty). For other rights, however, waiver may be effected by action of counsel. “Although there are basic rights that the attorney cannot waive without the fully informed and publicly acknowledged consent of the client, the lawyer has — and must have — full authority to manage the conduct of the trial.” Taylor v. Illinois, 484 U. S. 400, 417-418 (1988). As to many decisions pertaining to the conduct of the trial, the defendant is “deemed bound by the acts of his lawyer-agent and is considered to have ‘notice of all facts, notice of which can be charged upon the attorney.’ ” Link v. Wabash R. Co., 370 U. S. 626, 634 (1962) (quoting Smith v. Ayer, 101 U. S. 320, 326 (1880)). Thus, decisions by counsel are generally given effect as to what arguments to pursue, see Jones v. Barnes, 463 U. S. 745, 751 (1983), what evidentiary objections to raise, see Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U. S. 443, 451 (1965), and what agreements to conclude regarding the admission of evidence, see United States v. McGill, 11 F. 3d 223, 226-227 (CA1 1993). Absent a demonstration of ineffectiveness, counsel’s word on such matters is the last.
Scheduling matters are plainly among those for which agreement by counsel generally controls. This case does not involve a purported prospective waiver of all protection of the IAD’s time limits or of the IAD generally, but merely agreement to a specified delay in trial. When that subject is under consideration, only counsel is in a position to assess the benefit or detriment of the delay to the defendant’s case. Likewise, only counsel is in a position to assess whether the defense would even be prepared to proceed any earlier. Requiring express assent from the defendant himself for such routine and often repetitive scheduling determinations would consume time to no apparent purpose. The text of the IAD, moreover, confirms what the reason of the matter suggests: In allowing the court to grant “good-cause continuances” when either “prisoner or his counsel” is present, it contemplates that scheduling questions may be left to counsel. Art. 111(a) (emphasis added).
Respondent offers two arguments for affirmance, both of which go primarily to the propriety of allowing waiver of any sort, not to the specifics of the waiver here. First, he argues that by explicitly providing for the grant of “good-cause continuances,” the IAD seeks to limit the situations in which delay is permitted, and that permitting other extensions of the time period would override those limitations. It is of course true that waiver is not appropriate when it is inconsistent with the provision creating the right sought to be secured. E. g., Crosby v. United States, 506 U. S. 255, 258-259 (1993); Smith v. United States, 360 U. S. 1, 9 (1959). That is not, however, the situation here. To be sure, the “necessary or reasonable continuance” provision is, by clear implication, the sole means by which the prosecution can obtain an extension of the time limits over the defendant’s objection. But the specification in that provision that the “prisoner or his counsel” must be present suggests that it is directed primarily, if not indeed exclusively, to prosecution requests that have not explicitly been agreed to by the defense. As applied to, agreed-upon extensions, we think its negative implication is dubious — and certainly not clear enough to constitute the “affirmative indication” required to overcome the ordinary presumption that waiver is available. Mezzanatto, supra, at 201.
Second, respondent argues that the IAD benefits not only the defendant but society generally, and that the defendant may not waive society’s rights. It is true that a “right conferred on a private party, but affecting the public interest, may not be waived or released if such waiver or release contravenes the statutory policy” Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil, 324 U. S. 697, 704 (1945) (emphasis added). The conditional clause is essential, however: It is not true that any private right that also benefits society cannot be waived. In general, “[i]n an adversary system of criminal justice, the public interest in the administration of justice is protected by the participants in the litigation.” Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U. S. 368, 383 (1979). We allow waiver of numerous constitutional protections for criminal defendants that also serve broader social interests. See, e. g., Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U. S. 269, 275 (1942) (waiver of right to jury trial); Johnson, 304 U. S., at 464 (waiver of right to counsel).
Society may well enjoy some benefit from the IAD’s time limits: Delay can lead to a less accurate outcome as witnesses become unavailable and memories fade. See, e. g., Sibron v. New York, 392 U. S. 40, 56-57 (1968). On the other hand, some social interests served by prompt trial are less relevant here than elsewhere. For example, because the would-be defendant is already incarcerated in another jurisdiction, society’s interests in assuring the defendant’s presence at trial and in preventing further criminal activity (or avoiding the costs of pretrial detention) are simply not at issue. Cf. Barker v. Wingo, 407 U. S. 514, 519 (1972). In any case, it cannot be argued that society’s interest in the prompt resolution of outstanding charges is so central to the IAD that it is part of the unalterable “statutory policy,” Brooklyn Savings Bank, supra, at 704. In fact, the time limits do not apply at all unless either the prisoner or the receiving State files a request. Thus, the IAD “eontemplate[s] a de~ gree of party control that is consonant with the background presumption of waivability.” Mezzanatto, 513 U. S., at 206.
Finally, respondent argues that even if waiver of the IAD’s time limits is possible, it can be effected only by affirmative conduct not present here. The New York Court of Appeals adopted a similar view, stating that the speedy trial rights guaranteed by the IAD may be waived either “explicitly or by an affirmative request for treatment that is contrary to or inconsistent with those speedy trial rights.” 92 N. Y. 2d, at 411, 704 N. E. 2d, at 545. The court concluded that defense counsel’s agreement to the trial date here was not an “affirmative request” and therefore did not constitute a waiver. Id., at 412, 704 N. E. 2d, at 546. We agree with the State that this makes dismissal of the indictment turn on a hyperteehnical distinction that should play no part. As illustrated by this case, such an approach would enable defendants to escape justice by willingly accepting treatment inconsistent with the IAD’s time limits, and then recanting later on. Nothing in the IAD requires or even suggests a distinction between waiver proposed and waiver agreed to. In light of its potential for abuse — and given the harsh remedy of dismissal with prejudice — we decline to adopt it.
* * *
The judgment of the New York Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
It was suggested at oral argument that agreement in open court to a trial date outside the allowable time period can itself be viewed as a “necessary or reasonable continuance” for “good cause shown in open court.” Although an agreed-upon trial date might sometimes merit this description, it is far from clear that it always does so, or that it does so here. Because we find waiver, we do not consider under what circumstances an agreed-upon delay could fit within the good-cause provision.
This feature, among others, makes respondent’s analogy to the federal Speedy Trial Act of 1974, 18 U. S. C. §3161 et seq., inapt. The time limits of the Speedy Trial Act begin to run automatically rather than upon request, §§ 3161(a), (b); dismissal may sometimes be without prejudice, §§ 3162(a)(1), (2), United States v. Taylor, 487 U. S. 326, 332-333 (1988); and waiver is expressly allowed in certain limited circumstances, 18 U. S. C. § 3162(a)(2). In any event, the question of waiver under the Speedy Trial Act is not before us today, and we express no view on the subject.
In concluding that objection to a specified delay may be waived, we are mindful that the sending State may have interests distinct from those of the prisoner and the receiving State. This case does not involve any objection from the sending State, and we do not address what recourse the sending State might have under the IAD when the receiving State and prisoner agree to, and the court allows, an inordinate delay. Cf. Article V(e) (“At the earliest practicable time consonant with the purposes of this agreement, the prisoner shall be returned to the sending State”).
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
For over 150 years this Court has applied the doctrine of patent exhaustion to limit the patent rights that survive the initial authorized sale of a patented item. In this case, we decide whether patent exhaustion applies to the sale of components of a patented system that must be combined with additional components in order to practice the patented methods. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the doctrine does not apply to method patents at all and, in the alternative, that it does not apply here because the sales were not authorized by the license agreement. We disagree on both scores. Because the exhaustion doctrine applies to method patents, and because the license authorizes the sale of components that substantially embody the patents in suit, the sale exhausted the patents.
I
Respondent LG Electronics, Inc. (LGE), purchased a portfolio of computer technology patents in 1999, including the three patents at issue here: U. S. Patent Nos. 4,939,641 (’641); 5,379,379 (’379); and 5,077,733 (’733) (collectively LGE Patents). The main functions of a computer system are carried out on a microprocessor, or central processing unit, which interprets program instructions, processes data, and controls other devices in the system. A set of wires, or bus, connects the microprocessor to a chipset, which transfers data between the microprocessor and other devices, including the keyboard, mouse, monitor, hard drive, memory, and disk drives.
The data processed by the computer are stored principally in random access memory, also called main memory. Webster’s New World Dictionary of Computer Terms 334, 451 (8th ed. 2000). Frequently accessed data are generally stored in cache memory, which permits faster access than main memory and is often located on the microprocessor itself. Id., at 84. When copies of data are stored in both the cache and main memory, problems may arise when one copy is changed but the other still contains the original “stale” version of the data. J. Handy, Cache Memory Book 124 (2d ed. 1993). The ’641 patent addresses this problem. It discloses a system for ensuring that the most current data are retrieved from main memory by monitoring data requests and updating main memory from the cache when stale data are requested. LG Electronics, Inc. v. Bizcom Electronics, Inc., 453 F. 3d 1364, 1377 (CA Fed. 2006).
The ’379 patent relates to the coordination of requests to read from, and write to, main memory. Id., at 1378. Processing these requests in chronological order can slow down a system because read requests are faster to execute than write requests. Processing all read requests first ensures speedy access, but may result in the retrieval of outdated data if a read request for a certain piece of data is processed before an outstanding write request for the same data. The ’379 patent discloses an efficient method of organizing read and write requests while maintaining accuracy by allowing the computer to execute only read requests until it needs data for which there is an outstanding write request. LG Electronics, Inc. v. Asustek Computer, Inc., No. C 01-02187 CW etc., Order Construing Disputed Terms and Phrases, p. 42 (ND Cal., Aug. 20, 2002). Upon receiving such a read request, the computer executes pending write requests first and only then returns to the read requests so that the most up-to-date data are retrieved. Ibid.
The ’733 patent addresses the problem of managing the data traffic on a bus connecting two computer components, so that no one device monopolizes the bus. It allows multiple devices to share the bus, giving heavy users greater access. This patent describes methods that establish a rotating priority system under which each device alternately has priority access to the bus for a preset number of cycles and heavier users can maintain priority for more cycles without “hogging” the device indefinitely. Id., at 37-38.
LGE licensed a patent portfolio, including the LGE Patents, to Intel Corporation (Intel). The cross-licensing agreement (License Agreement) permits Intel to manufacture and sell microprocessors and chipsets that use the LGE Patents (Intel Products). The License Agreement authorizes Intel to “‘make, use, sell (directly or indirectly), offer to sell, import or otherwise dispose of’” its own products practicing the LGE Patents. Brief for Petitioners 8 (quoting App. 154). Notwithstanding this broad language, the License Agreement contains some limitations. Relevant here, it stipulates that no license
“ ‘is granted by either party hereto... to any third party for the combination by a third party of Licensed Products of either party with items, components, or the like acquired... from sources other than a party hereto, or for the use, import, offer for sale or sale of such combination.’ ” Brief for Petitioners 8 (quoting App. 164).
The License Agreement purports not to alter the usual rules of patent exhaustion, however, providing that, “‘Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this Agreement, the parties agree that nothing herein shall in any way limit or alter the effect of patent exhaustion that would otherwise apply when a party hereto sells any of its Licensed Products.’” Brief for Petitioners 8 (quoting App. 164).
In a separate agreement (Master Agreement), Intel agreed to give written notice to its own customers informing them that, while it had obtained a broad license “ ‘ensuring] that any Intel product that you purchase is licensed by LGE and thus does not infringe any patent held by LGE,’ ” the license “ ‘does not extend, expressly or by implication, to any product that you make by combining an Intel product with any non-Intel product.’” Brief for Respondent 9 (quoting App. 198; emphasis deleted). The Master Agreement also provides that “ ‘a breach of this Agreement shall have no effect on and shall not be grounds for termination of the Patent License.’” Brief for Petitioners 9 (quoting App. 176).
Petitioners, including Quanta Computer (collectively Quanta), are a group of computer manufacturers. Quanta purchased microprocessors and chipsets from Intel and received the notice required by the Master Agreement. Nonetheless, Quanta manufactured computers using Intel parts in combination with non-Intel memory and buses in ways that practice the LGE Patents. Quanta does not modify the Intel components and follows Intel’s specifications to incorporate the parts into its own systems.
LGE filed a complaint against Quanta, asserting that the combination of the Intel Products with non-Intel memory and buses infringed the LGE Patents. The District Court granted summary judgment to Quanta, holding that, for purposes of the patent exhaustion doctrine, the license LGE granted to Intel resulted in forfeiture of any potential infringement actions against legitimate purchasers of the Intel Products. LG Electronics, Inc. v. Asustek Computer Inc., 65 USPQ 2d 1589, 1593, 1600 (ND Cal. 2002). The court found that, although the Intel Products do not fully practice any of the patents at issue, they have no reasonable noninfringing use and therefore their authorized sale exhausted patent rights in the completed computers under United States v. Univis Lens Co., 316 U. S. 241 (1942). Asustek, supra, at 1598-1600. In a subsequent order limiting its summary judgment ruling, the court held that patent exhaustion applies only to apparatus or composition-of-matter claims that describe a physical object, and does not apply to process, or method, claims that describe operations to make or use a product. LG Electronics, Inc. v. Asustek Com puter, Inc., 248 F. Supp. 2d 912, 918 (ND Cal. 2003). Because each of the LGE Patents includes method claims, exhaustion did not apply.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. It agreed that the doctrine of patent exhaustion does not apply to method claims. In the alternative, it concluded that exhaustion did not apply because LGE did not license Intel to sell the Intel Products to Quanta for use in combination with non-Intel products. 453 F. 3d, at 1370.
We granted certiorari, 551 U. S. 1187 (2007).
II
The longstanding doctrine of patent exhaustion provides that the initial authorized sale of a patented item terminates all patent rights to that item. This Court first applied the doctrine in 19th-century cases addressing patent extensions on the Woodworth planing machine. Purchasers of licenses to sell and use the machine for the duration of the original patent term sought to continue using the licenses through the extended term. The Court held that the extension of the patent term did not affect the rights already secured by purchasers who bought the item for use “in the ordinary pursuits of life.” Bloomer v. McQuewan, 14 How. 539, 549 (1853); see also ibid. (“[W]hen the machine passes to the hands of the purchaser, it is no longer within the limits of the monopoly”); Bloomer v. Millinger, 1 Wall. 340, 351 (1864). In Adams v. Burke, 17 Wall. 453 (1873), the Court affirmed the dismissal of a patent holder’s suit alleging that a licensee had violated postsale restrictions on where patented coffin lids could be used. “[W]here a person ha[s] purchased a patented machine of the patentee or his assignee,” the Court held, “this purchase carrie[s] with it the right to the use of that machine so long as it [is] capable of use.” Id., at 455.
Although the Court permitted postsale restrictions on the use of a patented article in Henry v. A. B. Dick Co., 224 U. S. 1 (1912), that decision was short lived. In 1913, the Court refused to apply A. B. Dick to uphold price-fixing provisions in a patent license. See Bauer & Cie v. O’Donnell, 229 U. S. 1,14-17 (1913). Shortly thereafter, in Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Universal Film Mfg. Co., 243 U. S. 502,518 (1917), the Court explicitly overruled A. B. Dick. In that case, a patent holder attempted to limit purchasers’ use of its film projectors to show only film made under a patent held by the same company. The Court noted the “increasing frequency” with which patent holders were using A. B. Dick-style licenses to limit the use of their products and thereby using the patents to secure market control of related, unpatented items. 243 U. S., at 509, 516-517. Observing that “the primary purpose of our patent laws is not the creation of private fortunes for the owners of patents but is ‘to promote the progress of science and useful arts,’” id., at 511 (quoting U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 8), the Court held that “the scope of the grant which may be made to an inventor in a patent, pursuant to the [patent] statute, must be limited to the invention described in the claims of his patent,” 243 U. S., at 511. Accordingly, it reiterated the rule that “the right to vend is exhausted by a single, unconditional sale, the article sold being thereby carried outside the monopoly of the patent law and rendered free of every restriction which the vendor may attempt to put upon it.” Id., at 516.
This Court most recently discussed patent exhaustion in Univis, 316 U. S. 241, on which the District Court relied. Univis Lens Company, the holder of patents on eyeglass lenses, licensed a purchaser to manufacture lens blanks by fusing together different lens segments to create bi- and trifocal lenses and to sell them to other Univis licensees at agreed-upon rates. Wholesalers were licensed to grind the blanks into the patented finished lenses, which they would then sell to Univis-licensed prescription retailers for resale at a fixed rate. Finishing retailers, after grinding the blanks into patented lenses, would sell the finished lenses to consumers at the same fixed rate. The United States sued Univis under the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1,3,15, alleging unlawful restraints on trade. Univis asserted its patent monopoly rights as a defense to the antitrust suit. The Court granted certiorari to determine whether Univis’ patent monopoly survived the sale of the lens blanks by the licensed manufacturer and therefore shielded Univis’ pricing scheme from the Sherman Act.
The Court assumed that the Univis patents containing claims for finished lenses were practiced in part by the wholesalers and finishing retailers who ground the blanks into lenses, and held that the sale of the lens blanks exhausted the patents on the finished lenses. Univis, 316 U. S., at 248-249. The Court explained that the lens blanks “embodied] essential features of the patented device and [were] without utility until... ground and polished as the finished lens of the patent.” Id., at 249. The Court noted that
“where one has sold an uncompleted article which, because it embodies essential features of his patented invention, is within the protection of his patent, and has destined the article to be finished by the purchaser in conformity to the patent, he has sold his invention so far as it is or may be embodied in that particular article.” Id., at 250-251.
In sum, the Court concluded that the traditional bar on patent restrictions following the sale of an item applies when the item sufficiently embodies the patent — even if it does not completely practice the patent — such that its only and intended use is to be finished under the terms of the patent.
With this history of the patent exhaustion doctrine in mind, we turn to the parties’ arguments.
Ill
A
LGE argues that the exhaustion doctrine is inapplicable here because it does not apply to method claims, which are contained in each of the LGE Patents. LGE reasons that, because method patents are linked not to a tangible article but to a process, they can never be exhausted through a sale. Rather, practicing the patent — which occurs upon each use of an article embodying a method patent — is permissible only to the extent rights are transferred in an assignment contract. Quanta, in turn, argues that there is no reason to preclude exhaustion of method claims, and points out that both this Court and the Federal Circuit have applied exhaustion to method claims. It argues that any other rule would allow patent holders to avoid exhaustion entirely by inserting method claims in their patent specifications.
Quanta has the better of this argument. Nothing in this Court’s approach to patent exhaustion supports LGE’s argument that method patents cannot be exhausted. It is true that a patented method may not be sold in the same way as an article or device, but methods nonetheless may be “embodied” in a product, the sale of which exhausts patent rights. Our precedents do not differentiate transactions involving embodiments of patented methods or processes from those involving patented apparatuses or materials. To the contrary, this Court has repeatedly held that method patents were exhausted by the sale of an item that embodied the method. In Ethyl Gasoline Corp. v. United States, 309 U. S. 436, 446, 457 (1940), for example, the Court held that the sale of a motor fuel produced under one patent also exhausted the patent for a method of using the fuel in combustion motors. Similarly, as previously described, Univis held that the sale of optical lens blanks that partially practiced a patent exhausted the method patents that were not completely practiced until the blanks were ground into lenses. 316 U. S., at 248-251.
These cases rest on solid footing. Eliminating exhaustion for method patents would seriously undermine the exhaustion doctrine. Patentees seeking to avoid patent exhaustion could simply draft their patent claims to describe a method rather than an apparatus. Apparatus and method claims “may approach each other so nearly that it will be difficult to distinguish the process from the function of the apparatus.” United States ex rel. Steinmetz v. Allen, 192 U. S. 543, 559 (1904). By characterizing their claims as method instead of apparatus claims, or including a method claim for the machine’s patented method of performing its task, a patent drafter could shield practically any patented item from exhaustion.
This case illustrates the danger of allowing such an end-run around exhaustion. On LGE’s theory, although Intel is authorized to sell a completed computer system that practices the LGE Patents, any downstream purchasers of the system could nonetheless be liable for patent infringement. Such a result would violate the longstanding principle that, when a patented item is “once lawfully made and sold, there is no restriction on [its] use to be implied for the benefit of the patentee.” Adams, 17 Wall., at 457. We therefore reject LGE’s argument that method claims, as a category, are never exhaustible.
B
We next consider the extent to which a product must embody a patent in order to trigger exhaustion. Quanta argues that, although sales of an incomplete article do not necessarily exhaust the patent in that article, the sale of the microprocessors and chipsets exhausted LGE’s patents in the same way the sale of the lens blanks exhausted the patents in Univis. Just as the lens blanks in Univis did not fully practice the patents at issue because they had not been ground into finished lenses, Quanta observes, the Intel Products cannot practice the LGE Patents — or indeed, function at all — until they are combined with memory and buses in a computer system. If, as in Univis, patent rights are exhausted by the sale of the incomplete item, then LGE has no postsale right to require that the patents be practiced using only Intel parts. Quanta also argues that exhaustion doctrine will be a dead letter unless it is triggered by the sale of components that essentially, even if not completely, embody an invention. Otherwise, patent holders could authorize the sale of computers that are complete with the exception of one minor step — say, inserting the microprocessor into a socket — and extend their rights through each downstream purchaser all the way to the end user.
LGE, for its part, argues that Univis is inapplicable here for three reasons. First, it maintains that Univis should be limited to products that contain all the physical aspects needed to practice the patent. On that theory, the Intel Products cannot embody the patents because additional physical components are required before the patents can be practiced. Second, LGE asserts that in Univis there was no “patentable distinction” between the lens blanks and the patented finished lenses since they were both subject to the same patent. Brief for Respondent 14 (citing Univis, supra, at 248-252). In contrast, it describes the Intel Products as “independent and distinct products” from the systems using the LGE Patents and subject to “independent patents.” Brief for Respondent 13. Finally, LGE argues that Univis does not apply because the Intel Products are analogous to individual elements of a combination patent, and allowing sale of those components to exhaust the patent would impermissibly “ascrib[e] to one element of the patented combination the status of [the] patented invention in itself.” Aro Mfg. Co. v. Convertible Top Replacement Co., 365 U. S. 336, 344-345 (1961).
We agree with Quanta that Univis governs this case. As the Court there explained, exhaustion was triggered by the sale of the lens blanks because their only reasonable and intended use was to practice the patent and because they “embodied] essential features of [the] patented invention.” 316 U. S., at 249-251. Each of those attributes is shared by the microprocessors and chipsets Intel sold to Quanta under the License Agreement.
First, Univis held that “the authorized sale of an article which is capable of use only in practicing the patent is a relinquishment of the patent monopoly with respect to the article sold.” Id., at 249. The lens blanks in Univis met this standard because they were “without utility until [they were] ground and polished as the finished lens of the patent.” Ibid. Accordingly, “the only object of the sale [was] to enable the [finishing retailer] to grind and polish it for use as a lens by the prospective wearer.” Ibid. Here, LGE has suggested no reasonable use for the Intel Products other than incorporating them into computer systems that practice the LGE Patents. Nor can we discern one: A microprocessor or chipset cannot function until it is connected to buses and memory. And here, as in Univis, the only apparent object of Intel’s sales to Quanta was to permit Quanta to incorporate the Intel Products into computers that would practice the patents.
Second, the lens blanks in Univis “embodiefd] essential features of [the] patented invention.” Id., at 250-251. The essential, or inventive, feature of the Univis lens patents was the fusing together of different lens segments to create bi- and trifocal lenses. The finishing process performed by the finishing and prescription retailers after the fusing was not unique. As the United States explained:
“The finishing licensees finish Univis lens blanks in precisely the same manner as they finish all other bifocal lens blanks. Indeed, appellees have never contended that their licensing system is supported by patents covering methods or processes relating to the finishing of lens blanks. Consequently, it appears that appellees perform all of the operations which contribute any claimed element of novelty to Univis lenses.” Brief for United States in United States v. Univis Lens Co., O. T. 1941, No. 855 etc., p. 10 (footnote and citations omitted).
While the Court assumed that the finishing process was covered by the patents, Univis, supra, at 248-249, and the District Court found that it was necessary to make a working lens, United States v. Univis Lens Co., 41 F. Supp. 258, 262-263 (SDNY 1941), the grinding process was not central to the patents. That standard process was not included in detail in any of the patents and was not referred to at all in two of the patents. Those that did mention the finishing process treated it as incidental to the invention, noting, for example, that “[t]he blank is then ground in the usual manner,” U. S. Patent No. 1,876,497, p. 2, or simply that the blank is “then ground and polished,” U. S. Patent No. 1,632,208, p. 1, Tr. of Record in United States v. Univis Lens Co., O. T. 1941, No. 855 etc., pp. 516, 498.
Like the Univis lens blanks, the Intel Products constitute a material part of the patented invention and all but completely practice the patent. Here, as in Univis, the incomplete article substantially embodies the patent because the only step necessary to practice the patent is the application of common processes or the addition of standard parts. Everything inventive about each patent is embodied in the Intel Products. They control access to main and cache memory, practicing the ’641 and ’379 patents by checking cache memory against main memory and comparing read and write requests. They also control priority of bus access by various other computer components under the ’733 patent. Naturally, the Intel Products cannot carry out these functions unless they are attached to memory and buses, but those additions are standard components in the system, providing the material that enables the microprocessors and chipsets to function. The Intel Products were specifically designed to function only when memory or buses are attached; Quanta was not required to make any creative or inventive decision when it added those parts. Indeed, Quanta had no alternative but to follow Intel’s specifications in incorporating the Intel Products into its computers because it did not know their internal structure, which Intel guards as a trade secret. Brief for Petitioners 3. Intel all but practiced the patent itself by designing its products to practice the patents, lacking only the addition of standard parts.
We are unpersuaded by LGE’s attempts to distinguish Univis. First, there is no reason to distinguish the two cases on the ground that the articles in Univis required the removal of material to practice the patent while the Intel Products require the addition of components to practice the patent. LGE characterizes the lens blanks and lenses as sharing a “basic nature” by virtue of their physical similarity, while the Intel Products embody only some of the “patentably distinct elements and steps” involved in the LGE Patents. Brief for Respondent 26-27. But we think that the nature of the final step, rather than whether it consists of adding or deleting material, is the relevant characteristic. In each case, the final step to practice the patent is common and noninventive: grinding a lens to the customer’s prescription, or connecting a microprocessor or chipset to buses or memory. The Intel Products embody the essential features of the LGE Patents because they carry out all the inventive processes when combined, according to their design, with standard components.
With regard to LGE’s argument that exhaustion does not apply across patents, we agree on the general principle: The sale of a device that practices patent A does not, by virtue of practicing patent A, exhaust patent B. But if the device practices patent A while substantially embodying patent B, its relationship to patent A does not prevent exhaustion of patent B. For example, if the Univis lens blanks had been composed of shatter-resistant glass under patent A, the blanks would nonetheless have substantially embodied, and therefore exhausted, patent B for the finished lenses. This case is no different. While each Intel microprocessor and chipset practices thousands of individual patents, including some LGE patents not at issue in this case, the exhaustion analysis is not altered by the fact that more than one patent is practiced by the same product. The relevant consideration is whether the Intel Products that partially practice a patent — by, for example, embodying its essential features— exhaust that patent.
Finally, LGE’s reliance on Aro is misplaced because that case dealt only with the question whether replacement of one part of a patented combination infringes the patent. First, the replacement question is not at issue here. Second, and more importantly, Aro is not squarely applicable to the exhaustion of patents like the LGE Patents that do not disclose a new combination of existing parts. Aro described combination patents as “covering] only the totality of the elements in the claim [so] that no element, separately viewed, is within the grant.” 365 U. S., at 344; see also Mercoid Corp. v. Mid-Continent Investment Co., 320 U. S. 661, 667-668 (1944) (noting that, in a combination patent, “the combination is the invention and it is distinct from any” of its elements). Aro’s warning that no element can be viewed as central to or equivalent to the invention is specific to the context in which the combination itself is the only inventive aspect of the patent. In this case, the inventive part of the patent is not the fact that memory and buses are combined with a microprocessor or chipset; rather, it is included in the design of the Intel Products themselves and the way these products access the memory or bus.
C
Having concluded that the Intel Products embodied the patents, we next consider whether their sale to Quanta exhausted LGE’s patent rights. Exhaustion is triggered only by a sale authorized by the patent holder. Univis, 316 U. S., at 249.
LGE argues that there was no authorized sale here because the License Agreement does not permit Intel to sell its products for use in combination with non-Intel products to practice the LGE Patents. It cites General Talking Pictures Corp. v. Western Elec. Co., 304 U. S. 175 (1938), and General Talking Pictures Corp. v. Western Elec. Co., 305 U. S. 124 (1938), in which the manufacturer sold patented amplifiers for commercial use, thereby breaching a license that limited the buyer to selling the amplifiers for private and home use. The Court held that exhaustion did not apply because the manufacturer had no authority to sell the amplifiers for commercial use, and the manufacturer “could not convey to petitioner what both knew it was not authorized to sell.” 304 U. S., at 181. LGE argues that the same principle applies here: Intel could not convey to Quanta what both knew it was not authorized to sell, i. e., the right to practice the patents with non-Intel parts.
LGE overlooks important aspects of the structure of the Intel-LGE transaction. Nothing in the License Agreement restricts Intel’s right to sell its microprocessors and chipsets to purchasers who intend to combine them with non-Intel parts. It broadly permits Intel to “‘make, use, [or] sell’” products free of LGE’s patent claims. Brief for Petitioners 8 (quoting App. 154). To be sure, LGE did require Intel to give notice to its customers, including Quanta, that LGE had not licensed those customers to practice its patents. But neither party contends that Intel breached the agreement in that respect. Brief for Petitioners 9; Brief for Respondent 9. In any event, the provision requiring notice to Quanta appeared only in the Master Agreement, and LGE does not suggest that a breach of that agreement would constitute a breach of the License Agreement. Hence, Intel’s authority to sell its products embodying the LGE Patents was not conditioned on the notice or on Quanta’s decision to abide by LGE’s directions in that notice.
LGE points out that the License Agreement specifically disclaimed any license to third parties to practice the patents by combining licensed products with other components. Brief for Petitioners 8. But the question whether third parties received implied licenses is irrelevant because Quanta asserts its right to practice the patents based not on implied license but on exhaustion. And exhaustion turns only on Intel’s own license to sell products practicing the LGE Patents.
Alternatively, LGE invokes the principle that patent exhaustion does not apply to postsale restrictions on “making” an article. Brief for Respondent 43. But this is simply a rephrasing of its argument that combining the Intel Products with other components adds more than standard finishing to complete a patented article. As explained above, making a product that substantially embodies a patent is, for exhaustion purposes, no different from making the patented article itself. In other words, no further “making” results from the addition of standard parts — here, the buses and memory — to a product that already substantially embodies the patent.
The License Agreement authorized Intel to sell products that practiced the LGE Patents. No conditions limited Intel’s authority to sell products substantially embodying the patents. Because Intel was authorized to sell its products to Quanta, the doctrine of patent exhaustion prevents LGE from further asserting its patent rights with respect to the patents substantially embodied by those products.
IV
The authorized sale of an article that substantially embodies a patent exhausts the patent holder’s rights and prevents the patent holder from invoking patent law to control post-sale use of the article. Here, LGE licensed Intel to practice any of its patents and to sell products practicing those patents. Intel’s microprocessors and chipsets substantially embodied the LGE Patents because they had no reasonable non-infringing use and included all the inventive aspects of the patented methods. Nothing in the License Agreement limited Intel’s ability to sell its products practicing the LGE Patents. Intel’s authorized sale to Quanta thus took its products outside the scope of the patent monopoly, and as a result, LGE can no longer assert its patent rights against Quanta. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
App. 145-198 is sealed; where material contained therein also appears in the parties’ unsealed briefs, citations are to the latter.
The A. B. Dick Company sold mimeograph machines with an attached license stipulating that the machine could be used only with ink, paper, and other supplies made by the A. B. Dick Company. The Court rejected the notion that a patent holder “can only keep the article within the control of the patent by retaining the title,” A. B. Dick, 224 U. S., at 18, and held that “any... reasonable stipulation, not inherently violative of some substantive law,” was “valid and enforceable,” id., at 31. The only requirement, the Court held, was that “the purchaser must have notice that he buys with only a qualified right of use,” so that a sale made without conditions resulted in “an unconditional title to the machine, with no limitations upon the use.” Id., at 26.
Lens blanks are “rough opaque pieces of glass of suitable size, design and composition for use, when ground and polished, as multifocal lenses in eyeglasses.” Univis, 316 U. S., at 244.
The patentee held patents for (1) a fluid additive increasing gasoline efficiency, (2) motor fuel produced by mixing gasoline with the patented fluid, and (3) a method of using fuel containing the patented fluid in combustion motors. Ethyl Gasoline Corp., 309 U. S., at 446. The patentee sold only the fluid, but attempted to control sales of the treated fuel. Id., at 459. The Court held that the sale of the fluid to refiners relinquished the patentee’s exclusive rights to sell the treated fuel. Id., at 457.
One commentator recommends this strategy as a way to draft patent claims that “will survive numerous transactions regarding the patented good, allowing the force of the patent to intrude deeply into the stream of commerce.” Thomas, Of Text, Technique, and the Tangible: Drafting Patent Claims Around Patent Rules, 17 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 219,252 (1998); see also id., at 225-226 (advocating the conversion of apparatus claims into method claims and noting that “[e]ven the most novice claims drafter would encounter scant difficulty in converting a patent claim from artifact to technique and back again”).
LGE suggests that the Intel Products would not infringe its patents if they were sold overseas, used as replacement parts, or engineered so that use with non-Intel products would disable their patented features. Brief for Respondent 21-22, n. 10. But Univis teaches that the question is whether the product is “capable of use only in practicing the patent,” not whether those uses are infringing. 316 U. S., at 249 (emphasis added). Whether outside the country or functioning as replacement parts, the Intel Products would still be practicing the patent, even if not infringing it. And since the features partially practicing the patent are what must have an alternative use, suggesting that they be disabled is no solution. The disabled features would have no real use.
We note that the authorized nature of the sale to Quanta does not necessarily limit LGE’s other contract rights. LGE’s complaint does not include a breaeh-of-eontract claim, and we express no opinion on whether contract damages might be available even though exhaustion operates to eliminate patent damages. See Keeler v. Standard Folding Bed Co., 157 U. S. 659, 666 (1895) (‘Whether a patentee may protect himself and
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
Daniel Siebert was convicted and sentenced to death in the State of Alabama for the • murder of Linda Jarman. Siebert’s conviction and sentence were affirmed on direct appeal, and the certificate of judgment issued on May 22,1990. This Court denied certiorari on November 5, 1990. Siebert v. Alabama, 498 U. S. 963. On August 25,1992, Siebert filed a petition for postconviction relief in Alabama state court. The state courts denied the petition as untimely, however, because it was filed approximately three months after the expiration of the then-applicable 2-year statute of limitations, Ala. Rule Crim. Proc. 32.2(c) (2000-2001), which began to run from the date the certificate of judgment issued. The Alabama Supreme Court denied certiorari on September 15,2000. Siebert did not seek review in this Court. On September 14,2001, Siebert filed a petition for a federal writ of habeas corpus, see 28 U. S. C. § 2254, in the District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) established a 1-year statute of limitations for filing a federal habeas petition. § 2244(d)(1). The limitations period is tolled, however, while “a properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review with respect to the pertinent judgment or claim is pending.” § 2244(d)(2). Because Siebert’s direct appeal became final before AEDPA became effective, the 1-year limitations period began to run from April 24, 1996, AEDPA’s effective date. See Carey v. Saffold, 536 U. S. 214, 217 (2002). Thus, absent tolling, Siebert’s federal habeas petition would be untimely by over four years.
The District Court dismissed Siebert’s habeas petition as untimely, reasoning that an application for state postconviction relief is not “properly filed” if it was rejected by the state court on statute-of-limitations grounds. The Court of Appeals reversed, however, holding that Siebert’s state post-conviction petition was “properly filed” within the meaning of § 2244(d)(2), because the state time bar was not jurisdictional and the Alabama courts therefore had discretion in enforcing it. See Siebert v. Campbell, 334 F. 3d 1018, 1030 (CA11 2003) (per curiam). The Court of Appeals accordingly remanded to the District Court to consider the merits of Siebert’s petition.
While Siebert’s habeas petition was pending on remand in the District Court, we decided Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U. S. 408 (2005). In Pace, we held that a state postconviction petition rejected by the state court as untimely is not “properly filed” within the meaning of § 2244(d)(2). Id., at 414, 417. Relying on Pace, the District Court again found that Siebert’s state postconviction petition was not “properly filed,” and dismissed his federal habeas petition as untimely. The Court of Appeals, however, reversed and remanded. In a one-paragraph opinion, the court distinguished Pace on the ground that Rule 32.2(c), unlike the statute of limitations at issue in Pace, “operated] as an affirmative defense.” 480 F. 3d 1089,1090 (CA112007). Thus, the court found its prior holding — that Siebert’s state postconviction petition was “properly filed” because the state court rejected it on a non-jurisdictional ground — stood as the law of the case. Ibid.
The Court of Appeals’ carveout of time limits that operate as affirmative defenses is inconsistent with our holding in Pace. Although the Pennsylvania statute of limitations at issue in Pace happens to have been a jurisdictional time bar under state law, see Commonwealth v. Banks, 556 Pa. 1, 5-6, 726 A. 2d 374,376 (1999), the jurisdictional nature of the time limit was not the basis for our decision. Rather, we built upon a distinction that we had earlier articulated in Artuz v. Bennett, 531 U. S. 4 (2000), between postconviction petitions rejected on the basis of “‘filing’ conditions,” which are not “properly filed” under § 2244(d)(2), and those rejected on the basis of “procedural bars [that] go to the ability to obtain relief,” which are. Pace, supra, at 417 (citing Artuz, supra, at 10-11). We found that statutes of limitations are “filing” conditions because they “go to the very initiation of a petition and a court’s ability to consider that petition.” Pace, 544 U. S., at 417. Thus, we held “that time limits, no matter their form, are ‘filing’ conditions,” and that a state post-conviction petition is therefore not “properly filed” if it was rejected by the state court as untimely. Ibid, (emphasis added).
In short, our holding in Pace turned not on the nature of the particular time limit relied upon by the state court, but rather on the fact that time limits generally establish “conditions to filing” a petition for . state postconviction relief. Whether a time limit is jurisdictional, an affirmative defense, or something in between, it is a “condition to filing,” Artuz, supra, at 9 — it places a limit on how long a prisoner can wait before filing a postconviction petition. The fact that Alabama’s Rule 32.2(c) is an affirmative defense that can be waived (or is subject to equitable tolling) renders it no less a “filing” requirement than a jurisdictional time bar would be; it only makes it a less stringent one. Indeed, in Pace we cited the very statute at issue in this case as an example of such a “filing” requirement. See 544 U. S., at 417, n. 7 (citing Ala. Rule Crim. Proc. 32.2(c) (2004-2005)).
Excluding from Pace’s scope those time limits that operate as affirmative defenses would leave a gaping hole in what we plainly meant to be a general rule, as statutes of limitations are often affirmative defenses. See, e.g., Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 8(c); Kirkland v. State, 143 Idaho 544, 546, 149 P. 3d 819, 821 (2006) (“The statute of limitations for petitions for post-conviction relief is not jurisdictional. It ‘is an affirmative defense that may be waived if it is not pleaded by the defendant’” (quoting Cole v. State, 135 Idaho 107, 110, 15 P. 3d 820, 823 (2000); citation omitted)); People v. Boclair, 202 Ill. 2d 89, 101, 789 N. E. 2d 734, 742 (2002) (holding that time bar for filing postconviction petition is “an affirmative defense and can be raised, waived, or forfeited, by the State”). What is more, whether a time limit is jurisdictional or an affirmative defense is often a disputed question, as the interpretive history of Rule 32.2(c) itself illustrates, see Ex parte Ward, 46 So. 3d 888, 894 (2007) (noting confusion in the Alabama lower courts over whether Rule 32.2(c) is jurisdictional). Under the Court of Appeals’ approach, federal habeas courts would have to delve into the intricacies of state procedural law in deciding whether a postconviction petition rejected by the state courts as untimely was nonetheless “properly filed” under § 2244(d)(2). Our decision in Pace precludes such an approach.
We therefore reiterate now what we held in Pace: “When a postconviction petition is untimely under state law, That [is] the end of the matter’ for purposes of § 2244(d)(2).” 544 U. S., at 414 (quoting Carey, 536 U. S., at 226; alteration in original). Because Siebert’s petition for state postconviction relief was rejected as untimely by the Alabama courts, it was not “properly filed” under § 2244(d)(2). Accordingly, he was not entitled to tolling of AEDPA’s 1-year statute of limitations.
The petition for certiorari is granted. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
At the time Siebert’s petition was before the Alabama courts, Rule 32.2(c) provided that “the court shall not entertain any petition,” with certain exceptions not applicable here, “unless the petition is filed . . . within two (2) years after the issuance of the certificate of judgment by the Court of Criminal Appeals.” The Rule has since been amended to provide for a 1-year limitations period, but is otherwise unchanged. See Ala. Rule Crim. Proc. 32.2(c) (2007-2008).
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which
Mr. Justice Murphy and Mr. Justice Rutledge join.
Although the Constitution puts protection against crime predominantly in the keeping of the States, the Fourteenth Amendment severely restricted the States in their administration of criminal justice. Thus, while the State courts have the responsibility for securing the rudimentary requirements of a civilized order, in discharging that responsibility there hangs over them the reviewing power of this Court. Power of such delicacy and import must, of course, be exercised with the greatest forbearance. When, however, appeal is made to it, there is no escape. And so this Court once again must meet the uncongenial duty of testing the validity of a conviction by a State court for a State crime by what is to be found in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This case is here because the Supreme Court of Indiana rejected petitioner’s claim that confessions elicited from him were procured under circumstances rendering their admission as evidence against him a denial of due process of law. 226 Ind. 655, 82 N. E. 2d 846. The grounds on which our review was sought seemed sufficiently weighty to grant the petition for certiorari. 336 U. S. 917.
On review here of State convictions, all those matters which are usually termed issues of fact are for conclusive determination by the State courts and are not open for reconsideration by this Court. Observance of this restriction in our review of State courts calls for the utmost scruple. But “issue of fact” is a coat of many colors. It does not cover a conclusion drawn from uncontroverted happenings, when that conclusion incorporates standards of conduct or criteria for judgment which in themselves are decisive of constitutional rights. Such standards and criteria, measured against the requirements drawn from constitutional provisions, and their proper applications, are issues for this Court’s adjudication. Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, 324 U. S. 652, 659, and cases cited. Especially in cases arising under the Due Process Clause is it important to distinguish between issues of fact that are here foreclosed and issues which, though cast in the form of determinations of fact, are the very issues to review which this Court sits. See Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587, 589-90; Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501, 510.
In the application of so embracing a constitutional concept as “due process,” it would be idle to expect at all times unanimity of views. Nevertheless, in all the cases that have come here during the last decade from the courts of the various States in which it was claimed that the admission of coerced confessions vitiated convictions for murder, there has been complete agreement that any conflict in testimony as to what actually led to a contested confession is not this Court’s concern. Such conflict comes here authoritatively resolved by the State’s adjudication. Therefore only those elements of the events and circumstances in which a confession was involved that are unquestioned in the State’s version of what happened are relevant to the constitutional issue here. But if force has been applied, this Court does not leave to local determination whether or not the confession was voluntary. There is torture of mind as well as body; the will is as much affected by fear as by force. And there comes a point where this Court should not be ignorant as judges of what we know as men. See Taft, C. J., in the Child Labor Tax Case, 259 U. S. 20, 37.
This brings us to the undisputed circumstances which must determine the issue of due process in this case. Thanks to the forthrightness of counsel for Indiana, these circumstances may be briefly stated.
On November 12, 1947, a Wednesday, petitioner was arrested and held as the suspected perpetrator of an alleged criminal assault earlier in the day. Later the same day, in the vicinity of this occurrence, a woman was found dead under conditions suggesting murder in the course of an attempted criminal assault. Suspicion of murder quickly turned towards petitioner and the police began to question him. They took him from the county jail to State Police Headquarters, where he was questioned by officers in relays from about 11:30 that night until sometime between 2:30 and 3 o’clock the following morning. The same procedure of persistent interrogation from about 5:30 in the afternoon until about 3 o’clock the following morning, by a relay of six to eight officers, was pursued on Thursday the 13th, Friday the 14th, Saturday the 15th, Monday the 17th. Sunday was a day of rest from interrogation. About 3 o’clock on Tuesday morning, November 18, the petitioner made an incriminating statement after continuous questioning since 6 o’clock of the preceding evening. The statement did not satisfy the prosecutor who had been called in and he then took petitioner in hand. Petitioner, questioned by an interrogator of twenty years’ experience as lawyer, judge and prosecutor, yielded a more incriminating document.
Until his inculpatory statements were secured, the petitioner was a prisoner in the exclusive control of the prosecuting authorities. He was kept for the first two days in solitary confinement in a cell aptly enough called “the hole” in view of its physical conditions as described by the State’s witnesses. Apart from the five night sessions, the police intermittently interrogated Watts during the day and on three days drove him around town, hours at a time, with a view to eliciting identifications and other disclosures. Although the law of Indiana required that petitioner be given a prompt preliminary hearing before a magistrate, with all the protection a hearing was intended to give him, the petitioner was not only given no hearing during the entire period of interrogation but was without friendly or professional aid and without advice as to his constitutional rights. Disregard of rudimentary needs of life — opportunities for sleep and a decent allowance of food — are also relevant, not as aggravating elements of petitioner’s treatment, but as part of the total situation out of which his confessions came and which stamped their character.
A confession by which life becomes forfeit must be the expression of free choice. A statement to be voluntary of course need not be volunteered. But if it is the product of sustained pressure by the police it does not issue from a free choice. When a suspect speaks because he is overborne, it is immaterial whether he has been subjected to a physical or a mental ordeal. Eventual yielding to questioning under such circumstances is plainly the product of the suction process of interrogation and therefore the reverse of voluntary. We would have to shut our minds to the plain significance of what here transpired to deny that this was a calculated endeavor to secure a confession through the pressure of unrelenting interrogation. The very relentlessness of such interrogation implies that it is better for the prisoner to answer than to persist in the refusal of disclosure which is his constitutional right. To turn the detention of an accused into a process of wrenching from him evidence which could not be extorted in open court with all its safeguards, is so grave an abuse of the power of arrest as to offend the procedural standards of due process.
This is so because it violates the underlying principle in our enforcement of the criminal law. Ours is the accusatorial as opposed to the inquisitorial system. Such has been the characteristic of Anglo-American criminal justice since it freed itself from practices borrowed by the Star Chamber from the Continent whereby an accused was interrogated in secret for hours on end. See Ploscowe, The Development of Present-Day Criminal Procedures in Europe and America, 48 Harv. L. Rev. 433, 457-58, 467-473 (1935). Under our system society carries the burden of proving its charge against the accused not out of his own mouth. It must establish its case, not by interrogation of the accused even under judicial safeguards, but by evidence independently secured through skillful investigation. “The law will not suffer a prisoner to be made the deluded instrument of his own conviction.” 2 Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, c. 46, § 34 (8th ed., 1824). The requirement of specific charges, their proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the protection of the accused from confessions extorted through whatever form of police pressures, the right to a prompt hearing before a magistrate, the right to assistance of counsel, to be supplied by government when circumstances make it necessary, the duty to advise an accused of his constitutional rights — these are all characteristics of the accusatorial system and manifestations of its demands. Protracted, systematic and uncontrolled subjection of an accused to interrogation by the police for the purpose of eliciting disclosures or confessions is subversive of the accusatorial system. It is the inquisitorial system without its safeguards. For while under that system the accused is subjected to judicial interrogation, he is protected by the disinterestedness of the judge in the presence of counsel. See Keedy, The Preliminary Investigation of Crime in France, 88 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 692, 708-712 (1940).
In holding that the Due Process Clause bars police procedure which violates the basic notions of our accusatorial mode of prosecuting crime and vitiates a conviction based on the fruits of such procedure, we apply the Due Process Clause to its historic function of assuring appropriate procedure before liberty is curtailed or life is taken. We are deeply mindful of the anguishing problems which the incidence of crime presents to the States. But the history of the criminal law proves overwhelmingly that brutal methods of law enforcement are essentially self-defeating, whatever may be their effect in a particular case. See, e. g., Radzinowicz, A History of English Criminal Law and its Administration from 1750, passim (1948). Law triumphs when the natural impulses aroused by a shocking crime yield to the safeguards which our civilization has evolved for an administration of criminal justice at once rational and effective.
We have examined petitioner’s other contentions and do not sustain them.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Black concurs in the judgment of the Court on the authority of Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227; Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143.
On the record before us and in view of the consideration given to the evidence by the state courts and the conclusion reached, The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Burton believe that the judgment should be affirmed.
Of course this Court does not have the corrective power over State courts that it has over the lower federal courts. See, e. g., McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332. In the main, the proper administration of the criminal law of the States rests with the State courts. The nature of the Due Process Clause, however, potentially gives wide range to the reviewing power of this Court over State-court convictions.
In the petitioner’s statements there was acknowledgment of the possession of an incriminating gun, the existence of which the police independently established. But a coerced confession is inadmissible under the Due Process Clause even though statements in it may be independently established as true. See Lisenba v. California, 314 U. S. 219, 236-237.
The validity of a conviction because an allegedly coerced confession was used has been called into question in the following cases:
(A) Confession was found to be procured under circumstances violative of the Due Process Clause in Haley v. Ohio, 332 U. S. 596; Malinski v. New York, 324 U. S. 401; Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143; Ward v. Texas, 316 U. S. 547; Lomax v. Texas, 313 U. S. 544; Vernon v. Alabama, 313 U. S. 547; White v. Texas, 310 U. S. 530; Canty v. Alabama, 309 U. S. 629; White v. Texas, 309 U. S. 631; Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227; Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278; and see Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 327 U. S. 274.
(13) Confession was found to have been procured under circumstances not violative of the Due Process Clause in Lyons v. Oklahoma, 322 U. S. 596, and Lisenba v. California, 314 U. S. 219.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Two questions relating to a criminal defendant’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination are presented to us. The first is whether, in the federal criminal system, a guilty plea waives the privilege in the sentencing phase of the case, either as a result of the colloquy preceding the plea or by operation of law when the plea is entered. We hold the plea is not a waiver of the privilege at sentencing. The second question is whether, in determining facts about the crime which bear upon the severity of the sentence, a trial court may draw an adverse inference from the defendant’s silence. We hold a sentencing court may not draw the adverse inference.
1 — 4
Petitioner Amanda Mitchell and 22 other defendants were indicted for offenses arising from a conspiracy to distribute cocaine in Allentown, Pennsylvania, from 1989 to 1994. According to the indictment, the leader of the conspiracy, Harry Riddick, obtained large quantities of cocaine and resold the drug through couriers and street sellers, including petitioner. Petitioner was charged with one count of conspiring to distribute five or more kilograms of cocaine, in violation of 21 U. S. C. §846, and with three counts of distributing cocaine within 1,000 feet of a school or playground, in violation of § 860(a). In 1995, without any plea agreement, petitioner pleaded guilty to all four counts. She reserved the right to contest the drug quantity attributable to her under the conspiracy count, and the District Court advised her the drug quantity would be determined at her sentencing hearing.
Before accepting the plea, the District Court made the inquiries required by Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Informing petitioner of the penalties for her offenses, the District Judge advised her, “the range of punishment here is very complex because we don’t know how much cocaine the Government’s going to be able to show you were involved in.” App. 39. The judge told petitioner she faced a mandatory minimum of one year in prison under § 860 for distributing cocaine near a sehool or playground. She also faced “serious punishment depending on the quantity involved” for the conspiracy, with a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison under §841 if she could be held responsible for at least 5 kilograms but less than 15 kilograms of cocaine. Id., at 42. By pleading guilty, the District Court explained, petitioner would waive various rights, including "the right at trial to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment.” Id., at 45.
After the Government explained charges, the judge, having put petitioner under oath, asked her, “Did you do that?” Petitioner answered, "Some of it.” Id., at 47. She indicated that, although present for one of the transactions charged as a substantive cocaine distribution count, she had not herself delivered the cocaine to the customer. The Government maintained she was liable nevertheless as an aider and abettor of the delivery by another courier. After discussion with her counsel, petitioner reaffirmed her intention to plead guilty to all the charges. The District Court noted she might have a defense to one count on the theory that she was present but did not aid or abet the transaction. Petitioner again confirmed her intention to plead guilty, and the District Court accepted the plea.
In 1996, to trial. Three other codefendants had pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the Government. They testified petitioner was a regular seller for ringleader Riddick. At petitioner’s sentencing hearing, the three adopted their trial testimony, and one of them furnished additional information on the amount of cocaine petitioner sold. According to him, petitioner worked two to three times a week, selling llA to 2 ounces of cocaine a day, from April 1992 to August 1992. Then, from August 1992 to December 1998 she worked three to five times a week, and from January 1994 to March 1994 she was one of those in charge of cocaine distribution for Riddick. On cross-examination, the codefendant conceded he had not seen petitioner on a regular basis during the relevant period.
Both petitioner and mony by one Alvitta Mack, who had made a series of drug buys under the supervision of law enforcement agents, including three purchases from petitioner totaling two ounces of cocaine in 1992. Petitioner put on no evidence at sentencing, nor did she testify to rebut the Government’s evidence about drug quantity. Her counsel argued, however, that the three documented sales to Mack constituted the only evidence of sufficient reliability to be credited in determining the quantity of cocaine attributable to her for sentencing purposes.
After this testimony at the sentencing hearing the District Court ruled that, as a consequence of her guilty plea, petitioner had no right to remain silent with respect to the details of her crimes. The court found credible the testimony indicating petitioner had been a drug courier on a regular basis. Sales of VA to 2 ounces twiee a week for a year and a half put her over the 5-kilogram threshold, thus mandating a minimum sentence of 10 years. “One of the things” persuading the court to rely on the testimony of the codefend-ants was petitioner’s “not testifying to the contrary.” Id., at 95.
The District Judge told petitioner:
“ T held it against you that you didn’t come forward today and tell me that you really only did this a couple of times. . . . I’m taking the position that you should come forward and explain your side of this issue.
counsel’s taking the position that you have a Fifth Amendment right not to.... If he’s — if it’s determined by a higher Court that he’s right in that regard, I would be willing to bring you back for resentencing. And if you — if—and then I might take a closer look at the [codefendants’3 testimony.’ ” Id., at 98-99.
The District Court sentenced petitioner to the statutory minimum of 10 years of imprisonment, 6 years of supervised release, and a special assessment of $200.
for the Third Circuit affirmed the sentence. 122 F. 3d 185 (1997). According to the Court of Appeals: “By voluntarily and knowingly pleading guilty to the offense Mitchell waived her Fifth Amendment privilege.” Id., at 189. The court acknowledged other Circuits have held a witness can “claim the Fifth Amendment privilege if his or her testimony might be used to enhance his or her sentence,” id., at 190 (citing United States v. Garcia, 78 F. 3d 1457, 1463, and n. 8 (CA10), cert. denied, 517 U. S. 1239 (1996)), but it said this rule “does not withstand analysis,” 122 F. 3d, at 191. The court thought it would be illogical to “fragment the sentencing process,” retaining the privilege against self-incrimination as to one or more components of the crime while waiving it as to others. Ibid. Petitioner’s reservation of the right to contest the amount of drugs attributable to her did not change the court’s analysis. In the Court of Appeals’ view:
“Mitchell opened herself up to the full range of possible sentences for distributing cocaine when she was told during her plea colloquy that the penalty for conspiring to distribute cocaine had a maximum of life imprisonment. While her reservation may have put the government to its proof as to the amount of drugs, her declination to testify on that issue could properly be held against her.” Ibid.
The court acknowledged a defendant may plead guilty and retain the privilege with respect to other crimes, but it observed: “Mitchell does not claim that she could be implicated in other crimes by testifying at her sentencing hearing, nor could she be retried by the state for the same offense.” Ibid, (citing 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 111 (1998), a statute that bars, with certain exceptions, a state prosecution following a federal conviction based on the same conduct).
Judge Michel concurred, reasoning that any error District Court in drawing an adverse factual inference from petitioner’s silence was harmless because “the evidence amply supported [the judge’s] finding on quantity” even without consideration of petitioner’s failure to testify. 122 F. 3d, at 192.
Other Circuits to have confronted the issue have held that a defendant retains the privilege at sentencing. See, e. g., United States v. Kuku, 129 F. 3d 1435, 1437-1438 (CA11 1997); United States v. Garcia, 78 F. 3d 1457, 1463 (CA10 1996); United States v. De La Cruz, 996 F. 2d 1307, 1312-1313 (CA1 1993); United States v. Hernandez, 962 F. 2d 1152, 1161 (CA5 1992); Bank One of Cleveland, N. A. v. Abbe, 916 F. 2d 1067, 1075-1076 (CA6 1990); United States v. Lugg, 892 F. 2d 101, 102-103 (CADG 1989); United States v. Paris, 827 F. 2d 395, 398-399 (CA9 1987). We granted certiorari to resolve the apparent Circuit conflict created by the Court of Appeals’ decision, 524 U. S. 925 (1998), and we now reverse.
II
The Government maintains that petitioner’s guilty plea was a waiver of the privilege against compelled self-incrimination with respect to all the crimes comprehended in the plea. We hold otherwise and rule that petitioner retained the privilege at her sentencing hearing.
A
established that a witness, in a single proceeding, may not testify voluntarily about a subject and then invoke the privilege against self-incrimination when questioned about the details. See Rogers v. United States, 340 U. S. 367, 373 (1951). The privilege is waived for the matters to which the witness testifies, and the scope of the “waiver is determined by the scope of relevant cross-examination,” Brown v. United States, 356 U. S. 148, 154-155 (1958). “The witness himself, certainly if he is a party, determines the area of disclosure and therefore of inquiry,” id., at 155. Nice questions will arise, of course, about the extent of the initial testimony and whether the ensuing questions are comprehended within its scope, but for now it suffices to note the general rule.
The justifications context are evident: A witness may not pick and choose what aspects of a particular subject to discuss without casting doubt on the trustworthiness of the statements and diminishing the integrity of the factual inquiry. As noted in Rogers, a contrary rule “would open the way to distortion of facts by permitting a witness to select any stopping place in the testimony,” 340 U. S., at 371. It would, as we said in Brown, “make of the Fifth Amendment not only a humane safeguard against judicially coerced self-disclosure but a positive invitation to mutilate the truth a party offers to tell,” 356 U. S., at 156. The illogic of allowing a witness to offer only self-selected testimony should be obvious even to the witness, so there is no unfairness in allowing cross-examination when testimony is given without invoking the privilege.
We may assume for purposes petitioner had pleaded not guilty and, having taken the stand at a trial, testified she did “some of it,” she could have been cross-examined on the frequency of her drug deliveries and the quantity of cocaine involved. The concerns which justify the cross-examination when the defendant testifies are absent at a plea colloquy, however. The purpose of a plea colloquy is to protect the defendant from an unintelligent or involuntary plea. The Government would turn this constitutional shield into a prosecutorial sword by having the defendant relinquish all rights against compelled self-incrimination upon entry of a guilty plea, including the right to remain silent at sentencing.
no the plea colloquy should entail such an extensive waiver of the privilege. Unlike the defendant taking the stand, who “cannot reasonably claim that the Fifth Amendment gives him ... an immunity from cross-examination on the matters he has himself put in dispute,” id., at 155-156, the defendant who pleads guilty puts nothing in dispute regarding the essentials of the offense. Rather, the defendant takes those matters out of dispute, often by making a joint statement with the prosecution or confirming the prosecution’s version of the facts. Under these circumstances, there is little danger that the court will be misled by selective disclosure. In this respect a guilty plea is more like an offer to stipulate than a decision to take the stand. Here, petitioner’s statement that she had done “some of” the proffered conduct did not pose a threat to the integrity of factfinding proceedings, for the purpose of the District Court’s inquiry was simply to ensure that petitioner understood the charges and that there was a factual basis for the Government’s case.
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11, which governs pleas, contemplate the broad waiver the Government envisions. Rule 11 directs the district court, before accepting a guilty plea, to ascertain the defendant understands he or she is giving up “the right to be tried by a jury and at that trial . . . the right against compelled self-incrimination.” Rule 11(c)(3). The transcript of the plea colloquy in this case discloses that the District Court took care to comply with this and the other provisions of Rule 11. The District Court correctly instructed petitioner: “You have the right at trial to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment, or at your option, you can take the stand and tell the jury your side of this controversy.... If you plead guilty, all of those rights are gone.” App. 45.
nor Court’s explication of it indicates that the defendant consents to take the stand in the sentencing phase or to suffer adverse consequences from declining to do so. Both the Rule and the District Court’s admonition were to the effect that by entry of the plea petitioner would surrender the right “at trial” to invoke the privilege. As there was to be no trial, the warning would not have brought home to petitioner that she was also waiving the right to self-incrimination at sentencing. The purpose of Rule 11 is to inform the defendant of what she loses by forgoing the trial, not to elicit a waiver of the privilege for proceedings still to follow. A waiver of a right to trial with its attendant privileges is not a waiver of the privileges which exist beyond the confines of the trial.
Of course, a court may factual basis for a plea by “questioning] the defendant under oath, on the record, and in the presence of counsel about the offense to which the defendant has pleaded.” Rule 11(c)(5). We do not question the authority of a district court to make whatever inquiry it deems necessary in its sound discretion to assure itself the defendant is not being pressured to offer a plea for which there is no factual basis. A defendant who withholds information by invoking the privilege against self-incrimination at a plea colloquy runs the risk the district court will find the factual basis inadequate. At least once the plea has been accepted, statements or admissions made during the preceding plea colloquy are later admissible against the defendant, as is the plea itself. A statement admissible against a defendant, however, is not necessarily a waiver of the privilege against self-incrimination. Rule 11 does not prevent the defendant from relying upon the privilege at sentencing.
Treating a guilty plea as a sentencing would be a grave encroachment on the rights of defendants. At oral argument, we asked counsel for the United States whether, on the facts of this ease, if the Government had no reliable evidence of the amount of drugs involved, the prosecutor “could say, well, we can’t prove it, but we’d like to put her on the stand and cross-examine her and see if we can’t get her to admit it.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 45. Counsel answered: “[T]he waiver analysis that we have put forward suggests that at least as to the facts surrounding the conspiracy to which she admitted, the Government could do that.” Ibid. Over 90% of federal criminal defendants whose cases are not dismissed enter pleas of guilty or nolo contendere. U. S. Dept, of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1996, p. 448 (24th ed. 1997). Were we to accept the Government’s position, prosecutors could indict without specifying the quantity of drugs involved, obtain a guilty plea, and then put the defendant on the stand at sentencing to fill in the drug quantity. The result would be to enlist the defendant as an instrument in his or her own condemnation, undermining the long tradition and vital principle that criminal proceedings rely on accusations proved by the Government, not on inquisitions conducted to enhance its own prosecutorial power. Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U. S. 534, 541 (1961) (“[0]urs is an accusator-ial and not an inquisitorial system”).
that either petitioner’s guilty plea or her statements at the plea colloquy functioned as a waiver of her right to remain silent at sentencing.
B
The centerpiece of the Third Circuit’s opinion is the idea that the entry of the guilty plea completes the incrimination of the defendant, thus extinguishing the privilege. Where a sentence has yet to be imposed, however, this Court has already rejected the proposition that “ ‘incrimination is complete once guilt has been adjudicated,’ ” Estelle v. Smith, 451 U. S. 454, 462 (1981), and we reject it again today.
Appeals cited Wigmore on Evidence for the proposition that upon conviction ‘“criminality ceases; and with criminality the privilege.’” 122 F. 3d, at 191 (citing 8 J. Wigmore, Evidence §2279, p. 481 (J. McNaughton rev. 1961)). The passage relied upon does not support the Third Circuit’s narrow view of the privilege. The full passage is as follows: “Legal criminality consists in liability to the law’s punishment. When that liability is removed, criminality ceases; and with the criminality the privilege.” Ibid. It could be argued that liability for punishment continues until sentence has been imposed, and so does the privilege. Even if the Court of Appeals’ interpretation of the treatise were correct, however, and it means the privilege ceases upon conviction but before sentencing, we would respond that the suggested rule is simply wrong. A later supplement to the treatise, indeed, states the proper rule that, “[although the witness has pleaded guilty to a crime charged but has not been sentenced, his constitutional privilege remains unimpaired.” J. Wigmore, Evidence §2279, p. 991, n. 1 (A. Best ed. Supp. 1998).
It is true, as a general rule, that further incrimination, there is no basis for the assertion of the privilege. We conclude that principle applies to eases in which the sentence has been fixed and the judgment of conviction has become final. See, e.g., Reina v. United States, 364 U. S. 507, 518 (1960). If no adverse consequences can be visited upon the convicted person by reason of further testimony, then there is no further incrimination to be feared.
Where the sentence may have a legitimate fear of adverse consequences from further testimony. As the Court stated in Estelle: “Any effort by the State to compel [the defendant] to testify against his will at the sentencing hearing clearly would contravene the Fifth Amendment.” 451 U. S., at 463. Estelle was a capital case, but we find no reason not to apply the principle to noncapital sentencing hearings as well. “The essence of this basic constitutional principle is ‘the requirement that the State which proposes to convict and punish an individual produce the evidence against him by the independent labor of its officers, not by the simple, cruel expedient of forcing it from his own lips.’ ” Id., at 462 (emphasis in original) (quoting Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U. S. 568, 581-582 (1961)). The Government itself makes the implicit concession that the acceptance of a guilty plea does not eliminate the possibility of further incrimination. In its brief to the Court, the Government acknowledges that a defendant who awaits sentencing after having pleaded guilty may assert the privilege against self-incrimination if called as a witness in the trial of a codefendant, in part because of the danger of responding “to questions that might have an adverse impact on his sentence or on his prosecution for other crimes.” Brief for United States 31.
by its terms prevents a person from being “compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” U. S. Const., Arndt. 5. To maintain that sentencing proceedings are not part of “any criminal ease” is contrary to the law and to common sense. As to the law, under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, a court must impose sentence before a judgment of conviction can issue. See Rule 32(d)(1) (“A judgment of conviction must set forth the plea... and the sentence”); cf. Mempa v. Rhay, 389 U. S. 128, 134 (1967). As to common sense, it appears that in this case, as is often true in the criminal justice system, the defendant was less concerned with the proof of her guilt or innocence than with the severity of her punishment. Petitioner faced imprisonment from one year upwards to life, depending on the circumstances of the crime. To say that she had no right to remain silent but instead could be compelled to cooperate in the deprivation of her liberty would ignore the Fifth Amendment privilege at the precise stage where, from her point of view, it was most important. Our rule is applicable whether or not the sentencing hearing is deemed a proceeding separate from the Rule 11 hearing, an issue we need not resolve.
Ill
The Government suggests in a footnote that even if petitioner retained an unwaived privilege against self-incrimination in the sentencing phase of her case, the District Court was entitled, based on her silence, to draw an adverse inference with regard to the amount of drugs attributable to her. Brief for United States 31-32, n. 18. The normal rule in a criminal case is that no negative inference from the defendant’s failure to testify is permitted. Griffin v. California, 380 U. S. 609,614 (1965). We decline to adopt an exception for the sentencing phase of a criminal ease with regard to factual determinations respecting the circumstances. and details of the crime.
This Fifth Amendment does not forbid adverse inferences against parties to civil actions when they refuse to testify in response to probative evidence offered against them,” Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U. S. 308, 318 (1976), at least where refusal to waive the privilege does not lead “automatically and without more to [the] imposition of sanctions,” Lefkowitz v. Cunningham, 431 U. S. 801, 808, n. 5 (1977). In ordinary civil eases, the party confronted with the invocation of the privilege by the opposing side has no capacity to avoid it, say, by offering immunity from prosecution. The rule allowing invocation of the privilege, though at the risk of suffering an adverse inference or even a default, accommodates the right not to be a witness against oneself while still permitting civil litigation to proceed. Another reason for treating civil and criminal eases differently is that “the stakes are higher” in criminal eases, where liberty or even life may be at stake, and where the government’s “sole interest is to convict.” Baxter, 425 U. S., at 318-319.
Baxter itself which, as the Court noted, “are not criminal proceedings” and “involve the correctional process and important state interests other than conviction for crime.” Id., at 316, 319. Cf. Ohio Adult Parole Authority v. Woodard, 523 U. S. 272 (1998) (adverse inference permissible from silence in clemency proceeding, a nonjudicial postconviction process which is not part of the criminal case). Unlike a prison disciplinary proceeding, a sentencing hearing is part of the criminal case — the explicit concern of the self-incrimination privilege. In accordance with the text of the Fifth Amendment, we must accord the privilege the same protection in the sentencing phase of “any criminal case” as that which is due in the trial phase of the same ease, see Griffin, supra.
concerns mandate the rule against negative inferences at a criminal trial apply with equal force at sentencing. Without question, the stakes are high: Here, the inference drawn by the District Court from petitioner’s silence may have resulted in decades of added imprisonment. The Government often has a motive to demand a severe sentence, so the central purpose of the privilege — to protect a defendant from being the unwilling instrument of his or her own condemnation — remains of vital importance.
today is a product of existing precedent, not only Griffin but also by Estelle v. Smith, in which the Court could “discern no basis to distinguish between the guilt and penalty phases of respondent’s capital murder trial so far as the protection of the Fifth Amendment privilege is concerned.” 451 U. S., at 462-463. Although Estelle was a capital case, its reasoning applies with full force here, where the Government seeks to use petitioner’s silence to infer commission of disputed criminal acts. See supra, at 326. To say that an adverse factual inference may be drawn from silence at a sentencing hearing held to determine the specifics of the crime is to confine Griffin by ignoring Estelle. We are unwilling to truncate our precedents in this way.
from a defendant’s silence in criminal proceedings, including sentencing, is of proven utility. Some years ago the Court expressed concern that “[t]oo many, even those who should be better advised, view this privilege as a shelter for wrongdoers. They too readily assume that those who invoke it are either guilty of crime or commit perjury in claiming the privilege.” Ullmann v. United States, 350 U. S. 422, 426 (1956). Later, it quoted with apparent approval Wigmore’s observation that “ ‘[t]he layman’s natural first suggestion would probably be that the resort to privilege in each instance is a clear eonfession of crime,’ ” Lakeside v. Oregon, 435 U. S. 333, 340, n. 10 (1978) (quoting 8 Wigmore, Evidence §2272, at 426). It is far from clear that citizens, and jurors, remain today so skeptical of the principle or are often willing to ignore the prohibition against adverse inferences from silence. Principles once unsettled can find general and wide acceptance in the legal culture, and there can be little doubt that the rule prohibiting an inference of guilt from a defendant’s rightful silence has become an essential feature of our legal tradition. This process began even before Griffin. When Griffin was being considered by this Court, some 44 States did not allow a prosecutor to invite the jury to make an adverse inference from the defendant’s refusal to testify at trial. See Griffin, swpra, at 611, n. 3. The rule against adverse inferences is a vital instrument for teaching that the question in a criminal case is not whether the defendant committed the acts of which he is accused. The question is whether the Government has carried its burden to prove its allegations while respecting the defendant’s individual rights. The Government retains the burden of proving facts relevant to the crime at the sentencing phase and cannot enlist the defendant in this process at the expense of the self-incrimination privilege. Whether silence bears upon the determination of a lack of remorse, or upon acceptance of responsibility for purposes of the downward adjustment provided in §3E1.1 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines (1998), is a separate question. It is not before us, and we express no view on it.
By holding petitioner’s silence against her in determining the facts of the offense at the sentencing hearing, the District Court imposed an impermissible burden on the exercise of the constitutional right against compelled self-incrimination. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is s
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted the writ to review the action of the Court of Appeals holding that the decision of the Regional Solicitor, acting for the Secretary of the Interior, disapproving the will of a Comanche Indian constitutes final and unreviewable agency action. We conclude that such decision is subject to judicial review.
George Chahsenah, a Comanche Indian, died on October 11, 1963, unmarried and without a surviving father, mother, brother, or sister. His estate consisted of interests in three Comanche allotments situated in Oklahoma under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior. Shortly after Chahsenah’s death, the value of those interests was fixed at $34,867. On March 14, 1963, Chahsenah had made a will devising and bequeathing his estate to a niece, Viola Atewooftakewa Tate, and her three children, these devisees or their representatives being the petitioners herein. Chahsenah had resided with this niece a considerable portion of the later years of his life. His will made no mention of a surviving daughter, but stated that he was leaving nothing to his “heirs at law ... for the reason that they have shown no interest in me.”
The beneficiaries under the will sought to have it approved by the Secretary of the Interior, as required by 25 U. S. C. § 373. A hearing was had before an Examiner of Inheritance, Office of the Solicitor, Department of the Interior. Dorita High Horse, claiming as sole surviving issue, and certain nieces and nephews of the testator contended that the will was not entitled to departmental approval, arguing that due to the effects of chronic alcoholism, cirrhosis of the liver, and diabetes, George Chahsenah was incompetent to make a will. Pursuant to the provisions of § 5 of the Act of February 28, 1891, 26 Stat. 795, 25 U. S. C. § 371, if Chah-senah had died intestate his putative daughter, Dorita High Horse, would have been an heir at law, whether or not her parents were married.
The Examiner found that the will of March 14, 1963, drawn on a form printed by the Department of the Interior for that purpose, was Chahsenah’s last will and testament and that it had been prepared by an attorney employed by the Department of the Interior who advised the testator concerning the will. He also found that at the time the will was made the attorney and the witnesses executed an affidavit attesting that the will was properly made and executed, and that the decedent was of sound and disposing mind and memory and not acting under undue influence, fraud, duress, or coercion at the time of its execution. The Examiner found that Dorita High Horse was George Chahsenah’s illegitimate daughter and his sole heir at law. He concluded, however, that the evidence presented by the contestants was not sufficient to outweigh the presumption of correctness attaching to a properly executed will, in addition to which were the unimpeached statements of the draftsman and witnesses that Chahsenah possessed testamentary capacity. The Examiner concluded that the testator’s failure to provide for Dorita High Horse was not unnatural since there was no evidence of any close relationship between the two during any part of their lives. The will was approved and distribution in accordance with its provisions was ordered.
A petition for rehearing, contending that the evidence did not support the Examiner’s conclusion regarding the decedent’s competency, was denied. An appeal was taken to the Regional Solicitor, Department of the Interior, an officer having authority to make a final decision in the matter on behalf of the Secretary. He concluded that although the evidence supported the Examiner’s finding that decedent’s will met the technical requirements for a valid testamentary instrument, 25 U. S. C. § 373 vested in the Secretary broad authority to approve or disapprove the will. In exercising that discretion, the Regional Solicitor viewed his authority as requiring him to examine all the circumstances to determine whether “approval will most nearly achieve just and equitable treatment of the beneficiaries thereunder and the decedent’s heirs-at-law.” Under this standard he concluded that the decedent, an unemployed person addicted to alcohol and living on the income he received from his inherited land allotments, had not fulfilled his obligations to his illegitimate daughter and had ceased cohabiting with her mother shortly before Dorita’s birth, thus failing to provide her with a “normal home life during her childhood.” The Regional Solicitor concluded that although the daughter was a married adult and could not legally claim support monies from her father or his estate, “it is inappropriate that the Secretary perpetuate this utter disregard for the daughter’s welfare . . . .” Accordingly, he found that under the circumstances the Examiner’s approval of the will was not a reasonable exercise of the discretionary responsibility vested in the Secretary. He thereupon set aside the Examiner’s action, disapproved the will, and ordered the entire estate distributed by intestate succession to Dorita High Horse as sole heir at law.
The beneficiaries under the will brought an action against the Secretary of the Interior in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma contending that the action of the Regional Solicitor was arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion, and that it exceeded the authority conferred upon the Secretary by 25 U. S. C. § 373. The plaintiffs sought to have the District Court review the Regional Solicitor’s action in accord with the standards of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. §§ 701-706 (1964 ed., Supp. IV), arguing that the District Court had jurisdiction over the matter by virtue of either that Act or 28 U. S. C. § 1361. Dorita High Horse was allowed to intervene as a party defendant. Both the Secretary and Dorita High Horse moved for summary judgment, contending that the action of the Regional Solicitor was within the authority conferred upon the Secretary, and, as such, is made final and unreviewable by 25 U. S. C. § 373. They also contended that the Regional Solicitor’s decision was in accordance with the evidence, was not arbitrary or capricious, and did not involve an abuse of discretion. Although the Secretary conceded that the District Court had jurisdiction to review the action of the Regional Solicitor, Dorita High Horse contended that neither the Administrative Procedure Act nor 28 U. S. C. § 1361 allowed judicial review.
The District Court held that while there was some question as to whether jurisdiction existed under the Administrative Procedure Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1361 did provide a basis for jurisdiction, “in order to effectuate the purposes of the Administrative Procedure Act by providing the review function which the act contemplates.” 277 F. Supp. 464, 465 n. 1. The court then reasoned that, unlike § 1 of the Act of June 25, 1910, 36 Stat. 855, 25 U. S. C. § 372, § 2, 36 Stat. 856, as amended by the Act of February 14, 1913, 37 Stat. 678, 25 U. S. C. § 373, contains no language conferring unreviewable finality upon a decision of the Secretary approving or disapproving an Indian’s will. The District Judge concluded that the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 701 (1964 ed., Supp. IV), does not preclude judicial review of the Regional Solicitor’s action. On the merits he held that Congress had conferred upon adult Indians the right to make a will, limited only by the requirement that it be approved by the Secretary.
The District Court held that the review powers of the Secretary are not so broad as to defeat a plainly expressed and rationally based distribution by one who possessed testamentary capacity. The court concluded that the Regional Solicitor incorrectly viewed the Secretary's powers as authorizing disapproval of any will thought unwise or inequitable, and stated: “Congress has conferred the right to make a will upon the Indian and not upon the Secretary. The Secretary can no more use his approval powers to substitute his will for that of the Indian than he can dictate its terms.” 277 F. Supp., at 468. The case was remanded to the Secretary with directions to approve the will and distribute the estate in accordance with its provisions.
On appeal the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed the District Court, holding that the Secretary’s action under 25 U. S. C. § 373 was unreviewable.
Two basic questions are presented here: First, whether the Secretary’s action is subject to judicial review; and second, if judicial review is available, whether on this record the Secretary’s decision on the validity of the will was within the scope of authority vested in him under 25 U. S. C. § 373.
I
The Administrative Procedure Act contemplates judicial review of agency action “except to the extent that— (1) statutes preclude judicial review; or (2) agency action is committed to agency discretion by law. . . .” 6 U. S. C. § 701 (1964 ed., Supp. IV). Earlier in this Term in City of Chicago v. United States, 396 U. S. 162, 164 (1969), relying on Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 140 (1967), we noted that “we start with the presumption that aggrieved persons may obtain review of administrative decisions unless there is ‘persuasive reason to believe' that Congress had no such purpose.” Section 2 of the Act of 1910 contains no language displaying a congressional intention to make unreviewable the Secretary’s approval or disapproval of an Indian’s will.
The respondents argue that we should follow the course taken by the Court of Appeals, reading into § 2 the language of the first section of the 1910 Act, which declares that the Secretary’s decisions ascertaining the legal heirs of deceased Indians are “final and conclusive.” Cf. First Moon v. White Tail, 270 U. S. 243, 244 (1926). The respondents contend that §§ 1 and 2 of the 1910 Act must be read in pari materia because both deal with the Secretary’s power over the devolution of lands held in trust by the United States and both vest in the Secretary broad managerial and supervisory power over allotted lands.
We find this unpersuasive. First, while § 1 of the 1910 Act applies only to Indians possessed of allotments, § 2, as amended in 1913, also applies to all Indians having individual Indian monies or other properties held in trust by the United States. Thus, the coverage of these sections is not identical. Second, the 1910 Act is composed of some 33 sections, virtually all of which deal with the Secretary’s managerial and supervisory powers over Indian lands. Many of these provisions vest in the Secretary discretionary authority. For example, § 3 of the Act permits transfers of beneficial ownership of allotments by providing that allottees can relinquish allotments to their unallotted children if the Secretary “in his discretion” approves. 25 U. S. C. § 408. Yet neither this section nor any of the others in the enactment contains language cloaking the Secretary's actions with immunity from judicial review. If the respondents’ position were accepted and we implied the finality language of § 1 into § 2, it would be difficult to justify on a reading of the statute a later refusal to extend the “final and conclusive” clause to other sections, such as § 3. Congress quite plainly stated that the Secretary’s action under § 1 was not to be subject to judicial scrutiny. Similar language in § 2 would have made clear that Congress desired to work a like result under that section. Cf. City of Chicago v. United States, supra.
II
The Regional Solicitor accepted the findings and conclusions of the Examiner of Inheritance that the testator had testamentary capacity when he executed the instrument, that he was not unduly influenced in its execution, and that it was executed in compliance with the prescribed formalities. This removes from the case before us all questions except the scope of the Secretary’s power to grant or withhold approval of the instrument under 25 U. S. C. § 373.
The Regional Solicitor’s view of the scope of the Secretary’s power is reflected in his statement:
“When a purported will is submitted for approval and it has been determined that it meets the technical requirements for a valid will, further consideration must be given before approving or disapproving it to determine whether approval will most nearly achieve just and equitable treatment of the beneficiaries thereunder and the decedent’s heirs-at-law.” App. 84-85. (Emphasis added.)
The basis of the Regional Solicitor’s action emerges most clearly from his reliance on the legal relationship of the testator to his daughter and his failure to support her. From this he concluded that failure to provide for the daughter in the will did not meet the just and equitable “standard” that he considered the Secretary was authorized to apply in passing on an Indian will. The Regional Solicitor related the failure to support the daughter in her childhood to the absence of provision for her in the will and declared that the decedent “had an obligation to his daughter which was not discharged either during his lifetime or under the terms of his purported will. For this reason it is inappropriate that the Secretary perpetuate this utter disregard for the daughter’s welfare . . . .” (Emphasis added.) While thus stressing the natural ties with Dorita High Horse, the Regional Solicitor neither challenged nor gave weight to the predicate of the Examiner's determination which was that the decedent had a close and sustained familial relationship with his niece and had resided in her home, while, in contrast, he had virtually no contact with his natural daughter.
To sustain the administrative action performed on behalf of the Secretary would, on this record, be tantamount to holding that a public officer can substitute his preference for that of an Indian testator. We need not here undertake to spell out the scope of the Secretary’s power, but we cannot assume that Congress, in giving testamentary power to Indians respecting their allotted property with the one hand, was taking that power away with the other by vesting in the Secretary the same degree of authority to disapprove such a disposition.
In reaching our conclusions it is not necessary to accept the contention of the petitioners that the Secretary's authority is narrowly limited to passing on the formal sufficiency of a document claimed to be a will. The power to make testamentary dispositions arises by statute; here we deal with a special kind of property right under allotments from the Government. The right is not absolute; the allottee is the beneficial owner while the Government is trustee. 25 U. S. C. § 348. The Indian’s right to make inter vivos dispositions is limited and requires approval of the Secretary. The legislative history reflects the concern of the Government to protect Indians from improvident acts or exploitation by others, and comprehensive regulations govern the process of such inter vivos dispositions. No comparable regulations govern the right to make testamentary dispositions, and from this one might argue that the power of an Indian relating to testamentary disposition of allotted property is uninhibited. The legislative history on this score is perhaps no more or less reliable an indicator of what Congress intended than is usual when the scope of administrative discretion is in question.
Whatever may be the scope of the Secretary’s power to grant or withhold approval of a will under 25 U. S. C. § 373, we perceive nothing in the statute or its history or purpose that vests in a governmental official the power to revoke or rewrite a will that reflects a rational testamentary scheme with a provision for a relative who befriended the testator and omission of one who did not, simply because of a subjective feeling that the disposition of the estate was not “just and equitable.” The Regional Solicitor’s action was based on nothing more that we can discern than his concept of equity and in our view this was not the kind or degree of discretion Congress vested in him. Cf. Attocknie v. Udall, 261 F. Supp. 876 (D. C. W. D. Okla. 1966), reversed on other grounds, 390 F. 2d 636 (C. A. 10th Cir.), cert. denied, 393 U. S. 833 (1968).
The Secretary’s task is not always an easy one and perhaps is rendered more difficult by the absence of regulations giving guidelines. It is not difficult to conceive of dispositions so lacking in rational basis that the Secretary’s approval could reasonably be withheld under § 373 even though the same scheme of disposition by a non-Indian of unrestricted property might pass muster in a conventional probate proceeding; on this record, however, we see no basis for the decision of the Regional Solicitor and must hold it arbitrary and capricious. There being no suggestion that the record need or could be supplemented by added factual material, the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals with directions to reinstate the judgment of the District Court.
Reversed and remanded.
Me. Justice Black, for the reasons set forth by the Court of Appeals in this case, 407 F. 2d 394, and in Heffelman v. Udall, 378 F. 2d 109 (C. A. 10th Cir. 1967), would affirm the judgments below.
The Court of Appeals decision, which held that the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma had erred in reviewing the Regional Solicitor’s action, is reported as High Horse v. Tate, 407 F. 2d 394.
The General Allotment Act of February 8, 1887, 24 Stat. 388, as amended by Act of February 28, 1891, 26 Stat. 794, as amended by Act of June 25, 1910, 36 Stat. 855, 25 U. S. C. § 331 et seq., provides, inter alia, for the. allotment to individual Indians of parcels of land. The title to these lands is held by the United States in trust for the allottee, or his heirs, during the trust period, or any extension thereof. Chahsenah had inherited the interests he held at his death.
Section 2 of the Act of June 25, 1910, 36 Stat. 856, as amended by Act of February 14, 1913, 37 Stat. 678, 25 U. S. C. § 373, provides in pertinent part:
“Any persons of the age of twenty-one years having any right, title, or interest in any allotment held under trust or other patent containing restrictions on alienation or individual Indian moneys or other property held in trust by the United States shall have the right prior to the expiration of the trust or restrictive period, and before the issuance of a fee simple patent or the removal of restrictions, to dispose of such property by will, in accordance with regulations to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior: Provided, however, That no will so executed shall be valid or have any force or effect unless and until it shall have been approved by the Secretary of the Interior: Provided further, That the Secretary of the Interior may approve or disapprove the will either before or after the death of the testator .... Provided also, That this section and section 372 of this title shall not apply to the Five Civilized Tribes or the Osage Indians.”
Reference to Chahsenah’s supposed alcohol addiction carries an intimation that the Regional Solicitor saw some want of testamentary capacity, a notion contrary to his approval of the Examiner’s finding of testamentary capacity and absence of undue influence.
The Regional Solicitor gratuitously volunteered that if any of the five previous wills made by the testator between 1956 and 1963 were presented he would disapprove them because they made no provision for Dorita High Horse. The record discloses no inquiry by him into the circumstances of the execution of those wills, the testator’s state of health at the time of their execution or his reasons for omitting provision for Dorita High Horse.
The plaintiffs supporting the will appear to have relied upon 5 U. S. C. §702 (1964 ed., Supp. IV), which provides:
“A person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute, is entitled to judicial review thereof.”
28 U. S. C. §1361 provides:
“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any action in the nature of mandamus to compel an officer or employee of the United States or any agency thereof to perform a duty owed to the plaintiff.”
We express no opinion as to the correctness of this determination. The complaint alleged that the amount in dispute was in excess of $10,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and that the dispute arose under the laws of the United States. Independently of the District Court’s ruling, it had jurisdiction over the complaint under 28 U. S. C. § 1331. Cf. Machinists v. Central Airlines, 372 U. S. 682, 685 n. 2 (1963); AFL v. Watson, 327 U. S. 582, 589-591 (1946).
That section provides in pertinent part:
“When any Indian to whom an allotment of land has been made, or may hereafter be made, dies before the expiration of the trust period and before the issuance of a fee simple patent, without having made a will disposing of said allotment as hereinafter provided, the Secretary of the Interior, upon notice and hearing, under such rules as he may prescribe, shall ascertain the legal heirs of such decedent, and his decision thereon shall be final and conclusive. . . .” (Emphasis added.)
There is a conflict in the circuits on this point. Compare Hayes v. Seaton, 106 U. S. App. D. C. 126, 128, 270 F. 2d 319, 321 (1959); Homovich v. Chapman, 89 U. S. App. D. C. 150, 153, 191 F. 2d 761, 764 (1951), with Heffelman v. Udall, 378 F. 2d 109 (C. A. 10th Cir.), cert. denied, 389 U. S. 926 (1967); Attocknie v. Udall, 390 F. 2d 636 (C. A. 10th Cir.), cert. denied, 393 U. S. 833 (1968).
See also Association of Data Processing Service Organizations v. Camp, ante, p. 150; Barlow v. Collins, ante, p. 159.
This is borne out by the Secretary’s interpretation of § 373 in an arguably “improvident” testamentary disposition. As to a will naming a Caucasian as a beneficiary, a memorandum, dated May 10, 1941, from the Solicitor’s Office to the Assistant Secretary of the Interior, stated, inter alia,
“Whatever discretion the Secretary may have in the matter of approving or disapproving the will, it is clear that this discretion should not be exercised to the extent of substituting his will for that of the testator. . . .”
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Illinois Department of Public Aid (IDPA) filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill., on October 30, 1974, against appellees Juan and Maria Hernandez, alleging that they had fraudulently concealed assets while applying for and receiving public assistance. Such conduct is a crime under Illinois law, Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 23, § 11-21 (1973). The IDPA, however, proceeded civilly and sought only return of the money alleged to have been wrongfully received. The IDPA simultaneously instituted an attachment proceeding against appellees’ property. Pursuant to the Illinois Attachment Act, Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 11 (1973) (Act), the IDPA filed an affidavit setting forth the nature and amount of the underlying claim and alleging that the appellees had obtained money from the IDPA by fraud. The writ of attachment was issued automatically by the clerk of the court upon receipt of this affidavit. The writ was then given to the sheriff who executed it, on November 5, 1974, on money belonging to appellees in a credit union. Appellees received notice of the attachment, freezing their money in the credit union, on November 8, 1974, when they received the writ, the complaint, and the affidavit in support of the writ. The writ indicated a return date for the attachment proceeding of November 18, 1974. Appellees appeared in court on November 18, 1974, and were informed that the matter would be continued until December 19, 1974. Appellees never filed an answer either to the attachment or to the underlying complaint. They did not seek a prompt hearing, nor did they attempt to quash the attachment on the ground that the procedures surrounding its issuance rendered it and the Act unconstitutional. Instead appellees filed the instant lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on December 2, 1974, seeking, inter alia, return of the attached money. The federal complaint alleged that the appellees’ property had been attached pursuant to the Act and that the Act was unconstitutional in that it provided for the deprivation of debtors’ property without due process of law. Appellees as plaintiffs sought to represent a class of those “who have had or may have their property attached without notice or hearing upon the creditor’s mere allegation of fraudulent conduct pursuant to the Illinois Attachment Act.” App. 6-7. They named as defendants appellants Trainor and O’Malley, officials of the IDPA, and sought declaration of a' defendant class made up of all the court clerks in the Circuit Courts of Illinois, and of another defendant class of all sheriffs in Illinois. They sought an injunction against Trainor and O’Malley forbidding them to seek attachments under the Act and an injunction against the clerks and sheriffs forbidding them to issue or serve writs of attachment under the Act. Appellees also sought preliminary relief in the form of an order directing the Sheriff of Cook County to release the property which had been attached. Finally, appellees sought the convening of a three-judge court pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2284.
The District Court declined to rule on the request for preliminary relief because the parties had agreed that one-half of the money in the credit union would be returned. A three-judge court was convened. It certified the suit as a plaintiff and defendant class action as appellees had requested. App. 63. In an opinion dated December 19, 1975, almost one year after the return date of the attachment in state court, it declined to dismiss the case under the doctrine of Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), and Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S. 592 (1975), stating:
“In Huffman, the State of Ohio proceeded under a statute which gave an exclusive right of action to the state. By contrast, the Illinois Attachment Act provides a cause of action for any person, public or private. It is mere happenstance that the State of Illinois was the petitioner in this attachment proceeding. It is likewise coincidental that the pending state proceedings may arguably be quasi-criminal in nature; under the Illinois Attachment Act, they need not be. These major distinctions preclude this Court from extending the principles of Younger, based on considerations of equity, comity and federalism, beyond the quasi-criminal situation set forth in Huffman.” Hernandez v. Danaher, 405 F. Supp. 757, 760 (1975).
Proceeding to the merits, it held §§ 1, 2, 2a, 6, 8, 10, and 14 of the Act to be “on [their face] patently violative of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” 405 F. Supp., at 762. It ordered the clerk of the court and the Sheriff of Cook County to return to appellees the rest of their attached property; it enjoined all clerks and all sheriffs from issuing or serving attachment writs pursuant to the Act and ordered them to release any currently held attached property to its owner; and it enjoined appellants Trainor and O’Malley from authorizing applications for attachment writs pursuant to the Act. App. 65-66. Appellants appealed to this Court under 28 U. S. C. § 1253, claiming that under Younger and Huffman principles the District Court should have dismissed the suit without passing on the constitionality of the Act and that the Act is in any event constitutional. Since we agree with appellants that Younger and Huffman principles do apply here, we do not reach their second claim.
Because our federal and state legal systems have overlapping jurisdiction and responsibilities, we have frequently inquired into the proper role of a federal court, in a case pending before it and otherwise within its jurisdiction, when litigation between the same parties and raising the same issues is or apparently soon will be pending in a state court. • More precisely, when a suit is filed in a federal court challenging the constitutionality of a state law under the Federal Constitution and seeking to have state officers enjoined from enforcing it, should the federal court proceed to judgment when it appears that the State has already instituted proceedings in the state court to enforce the challenged statute against the federal plaintiff and the latter could tender and have his federal claims decided in the state court?
Younger v. Harris, supra, and Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U. S. 66 (1971), addressed, these questions where the already pending state proceeding was a criminal prosecution and the federal plaintiff sought to invalidate the statute under which the state prosecution was brought. In these circumstances, the Court ruled that the Federal District Court should issue neither a declaratory judgment nor an injunction but should dismiss the case. The first justification the Court gave for this rule was simply the “basic doctrine of equity jurisprudence that courts of equity should not act, and particularly should not act to restrain a criminal prosecution, when the moving party has an adequate remedy at law and will not suffer irreparable injury if denied equitable relief.” Younger v. Harris, supra, at 43-44.
Beyond the accepted rule that equity will ordinarily not enjoin the prosecution of a crime, however, the Court voiced a “more vital consideration,” 401 U. S., at 44, namely, that in a Union where both the States and the Federal Government are sovereign entities, there are basic concerns of federalism which counsel against interference by federal courts, through injunctions or otherwise, with legitimate state functions, particularly with the operation of state courts. Relying on cases that declared that courts of equity should give “scrupulous regard [to] the rightful independence of state governments,” Beal v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 312 U. S. 45, 50 (1941), the Court held, that in this intergovernmental context, the two classic preconditions for the exercise of equity jurisdiction assumed new dimensions. Although the existence of an adequate remedy at law barring equitable relief normally would be determined by inquiring into the remedies available in the federal rather than in the state courts, Great Lakes Co. v. Huffman, 319 U. S. 293, 297 (1943), here the inquiry was to be broadened to focus on the remedies available in the pending state proceeding. “ 'The accused should first set up and rely upon his defense in the state courts, even though this involves a challenge of the validity of some statute, unless it plainly appears that this course would not afford adequate protection.’ ” Younger v. Harris, supra, at 45, quoting Fenner v. Boykin, 271 U. S. 240, 243-244 (1926). Dismissal of the federal suit “naturally presupposes the opportunity to raise and have timely decided by a competent state tribunal the federal issues involved.” Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U. S. 564, 577 (1973). “The policy of equitable restraint ... is founded on the premise that ordinarily a pending state prosecution provides the accused a fair and sufficient opportunity for vindication of federal constitutional rights.” Kugler v. Helfant, 421 U. S. 117, 124 (1975).
The Court also concluded that the other precondition for equitable relief — irreparable injury — would not be satisfied unless the threatened injury was both great and immediate. The burden of conducting a defense in the criminal prosecution was not sufficient to warrant interference by the federal courts with legitimate state efforts to enforce state laws; only extraordinary circumstances would suffice. As the Court later explained, to restrain a state proceeding that afforded an adequate vehicle for vindicating the federal plaintiff’s constitutional rights “would entail an unseemly failure to give effect to the principle that state courts have the solemn responsibility equally with the federal courts” to safeguard constitutional rights and would “reflec[t] negatively upon the state court’s ability” to do so. Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452, 460-461, 462 (1974). The State would be prevented not only from “effectuating its substantive policies, but also from continuing to perform the separate function of providing a forum competent to vindicate any constitutional objections interposed against those policies.” Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S., at 604.
Huffman involved the propriety of a federal injunction against the execution of a judgment entered in a pending state-court suit brought by the State to enforce a nuisance statute. Although the state suit was a civil rather than a criminal proceeding, Younger principles were held to require dismissal of the federal suit. Noting that the State was a party to the nuisance proceeding and that the nuisance statute was “in aid of and closely related to criminal statutes,” the Court concluded that a federal injunction would be “an offense to the State’s interest in the nuisance litigation [which] is likely to be every bit as great as it would be were this a criminal proceeding.” 420 U. S.,“ at 604. Thus, while the traditional maxim that equity will not enjoin a criminal prosecution strictly speaking did not apply to the nuisance proceeding in Huffman, the “ 'more vital consideration’ ” of comity, id., at 601, quoting Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S., at 44, counseled restraint as strongly in the context of the pending state civil enforcement action as in the context of a pending criminal proceeding. In these circumstances, it was proper that the federal court stay its hand.
We have recently applied the analysis of Huffman to proceedings similar to state civil enforcement actions — judicial contempt proceedings. Juidice v. Vail, 430 U. S. 327 (1977). The Court again stressed the “more vital consideration” of comity underlying the Younger doctrine and held that the state interest in vindicating the regular operation of its judicial system through the contempt process — whether that process was labeled civil, criminal, or quasi-criminal — was sufficiently important to preclude federal injunctive relief unless Younger standards were met.
These cases control here. An action against appellees was pending in state court when they filed their federal suit. The state action was a suit by the State to recover from appellees welfare payments that allegedly had been fraudulently obtained. The writ of attachment issued as part of that action. The District Court thought that Younger policies were irrelevant because suits to recover money and writs of attachment were available to private parties as well as the State; it was only because of the coincidence that the State was a party that the suit was “arguably” in aid of the criminal law. But the fact remains that the State was a party to the suit in its role of administering its public-assistance programs. Both the suit and the accompanying writ of attachment were brought to vindicate important state policies such as safeguarding the fiscal integrity of those programs. The state authorities also had the option of vindicating these policies through criminal prosecutions. See supra, at 435. Although, as in Juidice, the State’s interest here is “[pjerhaps . . . not quite as important as is the State’s interest in the enforcement of its criminal laws ... or even its interest in the maintenance of a quasi-criminal proceeding 430 U. S., at 335, the principles of Younger and Huffman are broad enough to apply to interference by a federal court with an ongoing civil enforcement action such as this, brought by the State in its sovereign capacity.
For a federal court to proceed with its case rather than to remit appellees to their remedies in a pending state enforcement suit would confront the State with a choice of engaging in duplicative litigation, thereby risking a temporary federal injunction, or of interrupting its enforcement proceedings pending decision of the federal court at some unknown time in the future. It would also foreclose the opportunity of the state court to construe the challenged statute in the face of the actual federal constitutional challenges that would also be pending for decision before it, a privilege not wholly shared by the federal courts. Of course, in the case before us the state statute was invalidated and a federal injunction prohibited state officers from using or enforcing the attachment statute for any purpose. The eviscerating impact on many state enforcement actions is readily apparent. This disruption of suits by the State in its sovereign capacity, when combined with the negative reflection' on the State’s ability to adjudicate federal claims that occurs whenever a federal court enjoins a pending state proceeding, leads us to the conclusion that the interests of comity and federalism on which Younger and Samuels v. Mackell primarily rest apply in full force here. The pendency of the state-court action called for restraint by the federal court and for the dismissal of appellees’ complaint unless extraordinary circumstances-were present warranting federal interference or unless their state remedies were inadequate to litigate their federal due process claim.
No extraordinary circumstances warranting equitable relief were present here. There is no suggestion that the pending state action was brought in bad faith or for the purpose of harassing appellees. It is urged that this case comes within the exception that we said in Younger might exist where a state 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.’ ” 401 U. S., at 53-54, quoting Watson v. Buck, 313 U. S. 387, 402 (1941). Even if such a finding was made below, which'we doubt (see supra, at 439), it would not have been warranted in light of our cases. Compare North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U. S. 601 (1975), with Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600 (1974).
As for whether appellees could have presented their federal due process challenge to the attachment statute in the pending state proceeding, that question, if presented below, was not addressed by the District Court, which placed its rejection of Younger and Huffman on broader grounds. The issue is heavily laden with local law, and we do not rule on it here in the first instance.
The grounds on which the District Court refused to apply the principles of Younger and Huffman were infirm; it was therefore error, on those grounds, to entertain the action on behalf of either the named or the unnamed plaintiffs and to reach the issue of the constitutionality of the Illinois attachment statute.
The judgment is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Stewart substantially agrees with the views expressed in the dissenting opinions of Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Stevens. Accordingly, he respectfully dissents from the opinion and judgment of the Court.
Under § 1 of the Act, a writ will issue only upon allegation in the affidavit of one of the following nine grounds:
“First: Where the debtor is not a resident of this State.
“Second: When the debtor conceals himself or stands in defiance of an officer, so that process cannot be served upon him.
“Third: Where the debtor has departed from this State with the intention of having his effects removed from this State.
“Fourth: Where the debtor is about to depart from this State with the intention of having his effects removed from this State.
“Fifth: Where the debtor is about to remove his property from this State to the injury of such creditor.
“Sixth: Where the debtor has within 2 years preceding the filing of the affidavit required, fraudulently conveyed or assigned his effects, or a part thereof, so as to hinder or delay his creditors.
“Seventh: Where the debtor has, within 2 years prior to the filing of such affidavit, fraudulently concealed or disposed of his property so as to hinder or delay his creditors.
“Eighth: Where the debtor is about fraudulently to conceal, assign, or otherwise dispose of his property or effects, so as to hinder or delay his creditors.
“Ninth: Where the debt sued for was fraudulently contracted on the part of the debtor: Provided, the statements of the debtor, his agent or attorney, which constitute the fraud, shall have been reduced to writing, and his signature attached thereto, by himself, agent or attorney.”
Under § 2 of the Act, in eases sounding in tort the writ is. not issued until a judge has examined the plaintiff under oath and determined that the damages suffered exceed the amount of the attachment.
Section 2 of the Act provides in part:
“2. Affidavit — Statement—Examination under oath. § 2. To entitle a creditor to such a writ of attachment, he or his agent or attorney shall make and file with the clerk of the circuit court, an affidavit setting forth the nature and amount of the claim, so far as practicable, after allowing all just credits and set-offs, and any one or more of the causes mentioned in section 1, and also stating the place of residence of the defendants, if known, and if not known, that upon diligent inquiry the affiant has not been able to ascertain the same together with a written statement, either embodied in such affidavit or separately in writing, executed by the attorney or attorneys representing the creditor, to the effect that the attachment action invoked by such affidavit does or does not sound in tort, also a designation of the return day for the summons to be issued in said action.”
Since the State was a party, the normal requirement that the plaintiff post a bond in an amount equal to twice the amount sued for, did not apply and no bond was posted. See § 4a of the Act.
Section 6 of the Act provides:
“The writ of attachment required in the preceding section shall be directed to the sheriff (and, for purpose only of service of summons, to any person authorized to serve writs of summons), or in case the sheriff is interested, or otherwise disqualified or prevented from acting, to the coroner of the county in which the suit is commenced, and shall be made returnable on a return day designated by the plaintiff, which day shall not be less than ten days or more than sixty days after its date.”
Section 27 of the Act provides:
“The defendant may answer, traversing the facts stated in the affidavit upon which the attachment issued, which answer shall be verified by affidavit; and if, upon the trial thereon, the issue shall be found for the plaintiff, the defendant may answer the complaint or file a motion directed thereto as in other cases, but if found for the defendant, the attachment shall be quashed, and the costs of the attachment shall be adjudged against the plaintiff, but the suit shall proceed to final judgment as though commenced by summons.”
Appellees argue that the sheriffs and clerks have .not perfected their appeals and that the IDPA officials cannot litigate in connection with their appeals the validity of the injunction directing the clerk of the court to return appellees’ property in the credit union. The argument is merit-less. The IDPA officials were parties below; the order directing the clerk to return the property attached for the benefit of IDPA affects their interests in a vital way; and their ability to obtain review of such an order cannot depend on whether the clerk — over whom IDPA has no control— chooses to perfect his appeal.
See Kugler v. Helfant, 421 U. S. 117, 124-125 (1975):
“Although the cost, anxiety, and inconvenience of having to defend against a single criminal prosecution alone do not constitute ‘irreparable injury’ in the ‘special legal sense of that term,’ [Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S.,] at 46, the Court in Younger left room for federal equitable intervention in a state criminal trial where there is a showing of ‘bad faith’ or ‘harassment’ by state officials responsible for the prosecution, id., at 54, where the state law to be applied in the criminal proceeding is ' “flagrantly and patently violative of express constitutional prohibitions,”’ id., at 53, or where there exist other ‘extraordinary circumstances in which the necessary irreparable injury can be shown even in the absence of the usual prerequisites of bad faith and harassment.’ Ibid. In the companion case of Perez v. Ledesma, 401 U. S. 82, the Court explained that ‘[o]nly in cases of proven harassment or prosecutions undertaken by state officials in bad faith without hope of obtaining a valid conviction and perhaps in other extraordinary circumstances where irreparable injury can be shown is federal injunctive relief against pending state prosecutions appropriate.’ Id., at 85. See Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 230-231.
“The policy of equitable restraint expressed in Younger v. Harris, in short, is founded on the premise that ordinarily a pending state prosecution provides the accused a fair and sufficient opportunity for vindication of federal constitutional rights. See Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452, 460. Only if ‘extraordinary circumstances’ render the state court incapable of fairly and fully adjudicating the federal issues before it, can there be any relaxation of the deference to be accorded to the state criminal process. The very nature of ‘extraordinary circumstances,’ of course, makes it impossible to anticipate and define every situation that might create a sufficient threat of such great, immediate, and irreparable injury as to warrant intervention in state criminal proceedings. [Footnote omitted.] But whatever else is required, such circumstances must be ‘extraordinary’ in the sense of creating an 'extraordinarily pressing need for immediate federal equitable relief, not merely in the sense of presenting a highly unusual factual situation.”
Title 28 U. S. C. §2283 provides that “[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.” The section is not applicable here because this 42 U. S. C. § 1983 action is an express statutory exception to its application, Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225 (1972); but it is significant for present purposes that the section does not discriminate between civil and criminal proceedings pending in state courts. Furthermore, 28 U. S. C. § 1341 provides that district courts shall not enjoin, suspend, or restrain the levy or collection of any tax under state law where there are adequate remedies available in state tribunals.
Prior cases in this Court that at the time counseled restraint in actions seeking to enjoin state officials from enforcing state statutes or implementing public policies, did not necessarily distinguish between the type of proceedings — civil or criminal- — pending or contemplated by state officers. Wilson v. Schnettler, 365 U. S. 381, 384-385 (1961); Allegheny County v. Mashuda Co., 360 U. S. 185, 189-190 (1959); Alabama Public Service Comm’n v. Southern R. Co., 341 U. S. 341, 349-350 (1951); Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315, 317-318 (1943); Great Lakes Co. v. Huffman, 319 U. S. 293, 297-298 (1943); Brillhart v. Excess Ins. Co., 316 U. S. 491, 494-495 (1942); Watson v. Buck, 313 U. S. 387, 400-401 (1941); Beal v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 312 U. S. 45, 49-50 (1941); Spielman Motor Sales Co. v. Dodge, 295 U. S. 89, 95-97 (1935); Pennsylvania v. Williams, 294 U. S. 176, 185 (1935); Hawks v. Hamill, 288 U. S. 52, 60-61 (1933); Matthews v. Rodgers, 284 U. S. 521, 525-526 (1932); Massachusetts State Grange v. Benton, 272 U. S. 525, 527 (1926); Fenner v. Boykin, 271 U. S. 240, 243 (1926).
As in Juidice v. Vail, 430 U. S. 327, 336 n. 13 (1977), we have no occasion to decide whether Younger principles apply to all civil litigation.
Appellees argue that the injunction issued below in no way interfered with a pending state case. They point to the fact that only the attachment proceeding was interfered with — the underlying fraud action may continue unimpeded — and claim that the attachment proceeding is not a court proceeding within the doctrine of Younger and Huffman. In this regard they rely on Lynch v. Household Finance Corp., 405 U. S. 538 (1972); Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67 (1972); and Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103 (1975). None of these cases control here.
In this case the attachment was issued by a court clerk and is very much a part of the underlying action for fraud. Moreover, the attachment in this case contained- a return date on which the parties were to appear in court and at which time the appellees would have had an opportunity to contest the validity of the attachment. Thus the attachment proceeding was “pending” in the state courts within the Younger and Huffman doctrine at the time of the federal suit.
The parties are in disagreement on this issue, the State squarely asserting, and the appellees denying, that the federal due process claim could have been presented and decided in the pending attachment proceeding. Mr. Justice Stevens, in dissent, offers additional reasons — not relied on by appellees and not addressed by the State — for concluding that the state suit did not offer an adequate forum for litigating the federal claim. We do not resolve these conflicting views.
Appellees have argued here that the relief granted in favor of other class members is not barred by Younger and Huffman because state cases were not pending against some of them. Since the class should never have been certified, we need not address this argument.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These consolidated cases are about the meaning of vote dilution and the facts required to show it, when §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is applied to challenges to single-member legislative districts. See 79 Stat. 437, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1973. We hold that no violation of § 2 can be found here, where, in spite of continuing discrimination and racial bloc voting, minority voters form effective voting majorities in a number of districts roughly proportional to the minority voters’ respective shares in the voting-age population. While such proportionality is not dispositive in a challenge to single-member districting, it is a relevant fact in the totality of circumstances to be analyzed when determining whether members of a minority group have “less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.” Ibid.
I
On the first day of Florida’s 1992 legislative session, a group of Hispanic voters including Miguel De Grandy (De Grandy plaintiffs) complained in the United States District Court against the speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives, the president of its Senate, the Governor, and other state officials (State). The complainants alleged that the districts from which Florida voters had chosen their state senators and representatives since 1982 were malapportioned, failing to reflect changes in the State’s population during the ensuing decade. The State Conference of NAACP Branches and individual black voters (NAACP plaintiffs) filed a similar suit, which the three-judge District Court consolidated with the De Grandy case.
Several months after the first complaint was filed, on April 10, 1992, the state legislature adopted Senate Joint Resolution 2-G (SJR 2-G), providing the reapportionment plan currently at issue. The plan called for dividing Florida into 40 single-member Senate, and 120 single-member House, districts based on population data from the 1990 census. As the Constitution of Florida required, the state attorney general then petitioned the Supreme Court of Florida for a declaratory judgment that the legislature’s apportionment plan was valid under federal and state law. See Fla. Const., Art. Ill, § 16(c). The court so declared, while acknowledging that state constitutional time constraints precluded full review for conformity with §2 of the Voting Rights Act and recognizing the right of any interested party to bring a §2 challenge to the plan in the Supreme Court of Florida. See In re Constitutionality of Senate Joint Resolution 2G, Special Apportionment Session 1992, 597 So. 2d 276, 285-286 (1992).
The De Grandy and NAACP plaintiffs responded to SJR 2-G by amending their federal complaints to charge the new reapportionment plan with violating § 2. They claimed that SJR 2-G “ ‘unlawfully fragments cohesive minority communities and otherwise impermissibly submerges their right to vote and to participate in the electoral process/” and they pointed to areas around the State where black or Hispanic populations could have formed a voting majority in a politically cohesive, reasonably compact district (or in more than one), if SJR 2-G had not fragmented each group among several districts or packed it into just a few. De Grandy v. Wetherell, 815 F. Supp. 1550, 1559-1560 (ND Fla. 1992).
The Department of Justice filed a similar complaint, naming the State of florida and several elected officials as defendants and claiming that SJR 2-G diluted the voting strength of blacks and Hispanics in two parts of the State in violation of § 2. The Government alleged that SJR 2-G diluted the votes of the Hispanic population in an area largely covered by Dade County (including Miami) and the black population in an area covering much of Escambia County (including Pensacola). App. 75. The District Court consolidated this action with the other two and held a 5-day trial, followed immediately by an hours-long hearing on remedy.
At the end of the hearing, on July 1, 1992, the District Court ruled from the bench. It held the plan’s provisions for state House districts to be in violation of §2 because “more than [SJR 2-G’s] nine Hispanic districts may be drawn without having or creating a regressive effect upon black voters,” and it imposed a remedial plan offered by the De Grandy plaintiffs calling for 11 majority-Hispanic House districts. App. to Juris. Statement 2a, 203a. As to the Senate, the court found that a fourth majority-Hispanic district could be drawn in addition to the three provided by SJR 2-G, but only at the expense of black voters in the area. Id., at 202a; 815 F. Supp., at 1560. The court was of two minds about the implication of this finding, once observing that it meant the legislature’s plan for the Senate was a violation of §2 but without a remedy, once saying the plan did not violate §2 at all. In any event, it ordered elections to be held using SJR 2-G’s senatorial districts.
In a later, expanded opinion the court reviewed the totality of circumstances as required by § 2 and Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30 (1986). In explaining Dade County’s “tripartite politics,” in which “ethnic factors... predominate over all other[s]...,” 815 F. Supp., at 1572, the court found political cohesion within each of the Hispanic and black populations but none between the two, id., at 1569, and a tendency of non-Hispanic whites to vote as a bloc to bar minority groups from electing their chosen candidates except in a district where a given minority makes up a voting majority, id., at 1572. The court further found that the nearly one million Hispanics in the Dade County area could be combined into 4 Senate and 11 House districts, each one relatively compact and with a functional majority of Hispanic voters, id., at 1568-1569, whereas SJR 2-G created fewer majority-Hispanic districts; and that one more Senate district with a black voting majority could have been drawn, id., at 1576. Noting that Florida’s minorities bore the social, economic, and political effects of past discrimination, the court concluded that SJR 2-G impermissibly diluted the voting strength of Hispanics in its House districts and of both Hispamos and blacks in its Senate districts. Id., at 1574. The findings of vote dilution in the senatorial districts had no practical effect, however, because the court held that remedies for the blacks and the Hispanics were mutually exclusive; it consequently deferred to the state legislature’s work as the “fairest” accommodation of all the ethnic communities in south Florida. Id., at 1580.
We stayed the judgment of the District Court, 505 U. S. 1232 (1992), and noted probable jurisdiction, 507 U. S. 907 (1993).
II
Before going to the issue at the heart of these cases, we need to consider the District Court’s refusal to give preclusive effect to the decision of the State Supreme Court validating SJR 2-G. The State argues that the claims of the De Grandy plaintiffs should have been dismissed as res judicata because they had a full and fair opportunity to litigate vote dilution before the State Supreme Court, see In re Constitutionality of Senate Joint Resolution 2G, Special Apportionment Session 1992, 597 So. 2d, at 285. The premise, however, is false, exaggerating the review afforded the De Grandy plaintiffs in the state court and ignoring that court’s own opinion of its judgment’s limited scope. Given the state constitutional mandate to review apportionment resolutions within 30 days, see Fla. Const., Art. Ill, § 16(c), the Supreme Court of Florida accepted briefs and evidentiary submissions, but held no trial. In that court’s own words, it was “impossible... to conduct the complete factual analysis contemplated by the Voting Rights Act... within the time constraints of article III,” and its holding was accordingly “without prejudice to the right of any protestor to question the validity of the plan by filing a petition in this Court alleging how the plan violates the Voting Rights Act.” 597 So. 2d, at 282, 285-286.
The State balks at recognizing this express reservation by blaming the De Grandy plaintiffs for not returning to the State Supreme Court with the § 2 claims. But the plaintiffs are free to litigate in any court with jurisdiction, and their choice to forgo further, optional state review hardly converted the state constitutional judgment into a decision following “full and fair opportunity to litigate,” Allen v. McCurry, 449 U. S. 90, 104 (1980), as res judicata would require. For that matter, a federal court gives no greater preclusive effect to a state-court judgment than the state court itself would do, Marrese v. American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 470 U. S. 373, 384-386 (1985), and the Supreme Court of Florida made it plain that its preliminary look at the vote dilution claims would have no preclusive effect under Florida law.
The State does not, of course, argue that res judicata bars the claims of the United States, which was not a party in the Florida Supreme Court action. It contends instead that the Federal Government’s §2 challenge deserved dismissal under this Court’s Rooker!Feldman abstention doctrine, under which a party losing in state court is barred from seeking what in substance would be appellate review of the state judgment in a United States district court, based on the losing party’s claim that the state judgment itself violates the loser’s federal rights. See District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U. S. 462, 482 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U. S. 413, 416 (1923). But the invocation of Rooker/Feldman is just as inapt here, for unlike Rooker or Feldman, the United States was not a party in the state court. It was in no position to ask this Court to review the state court’s judgment and has not directly attacked it in this proceeding. Cf. Feldman, supra, at 468, and n. 2, 472, and n. 8 (suing District of Columbia Court of Appeals); Rooker, supra, at 414 (seeking to have state court’s judgment declared null and void). The United States merely seeks to litigate its § 2 case for the first time, and the Government’s claims, like those of the private plaintiffs, are properly before the federal courts.-
Ill
On the merits of the vote dilution claims covering the House districts, the crux of the State’s argument is the power of Hispanics under SJR 2-G to elect candidates of their choice in a number of districts that mirrors their share of the Dade County area’s voting-age population (i. e., 9 out of 20 House districts); this power, according to the State, bars any finding that the plan dilutes Hispanic voting strength. The District Court is said to have missed that conclusion by mistaking our precedents to require the plan to maximize the number of Hispanic-controlled districts.
The State’s argument takes us back to ground covered last Term in two cases challenging single-member districts. See Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U. S. 146 (1993); Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25 (1993). In Growe, we held that a claim of vote dilution in a single-member district requires proof meeting the same three threshold conditions for a dilution challenge to a multimember district: that a minority group be “ ‘sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district’”; that it be “‘politically cohesive’ ”; and that “ ‘the white majority vot[e] sufficiently as a bloc to enable it... usually to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate.’ ” Id., at 40 (quoting Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S., at 50-51). Of course, as we reflected in Voinovich and amplify later in this opinion, “the Gingles factors cannot be applied mechanically and without regard to the nature of the claim.” 507 U. S., at 158.
In Voinovich we explained how manipulation of district lines can dilute the voting strength of politically cohesive minority group members, whether by fragmenting the minority voters among several districts where a bloc-voting majority can routinely outvote them, or by packing them into one or a small number of districts to minimize their influence in the districts next door. See id., at 153-154. Section 2 prohibits either sort of line-drawing where its result, “ ‘inter-netting] with social and historical conditions,’ impairs the ability of a protected class to elect its candidate of choice on an equal basis with other voters.” Ibid, (quoting Gingles, supra, at 47).
Plaintiffs in Growe and Voinovich failed to show vote dilution because the former did not prove political cohesiveness of the minority group, Growe, supra, at 41-42, and the latter showed no significant white bloc voting, Voinovich, supra, at 158. Here, on the contrary, the District Court found, and the' State does not challenge, the presence of both these Gingles preconditions. The dispute in this litigation centers on two quite different questions: whether Hispanics are sufficiently numerous and geographically compact to be a majority in additional single-member districts, as required by the first Gingles factor; and whether, even with all three Gingles conditions satisfied, the circumstances in totality support a finding of vote dilution when Hispanics can be expected to elect their chosen representatives in substantial proportion to their percentage of the area’s population.
A
When applied to a claim that single-member districts dilute minority votes, the first Gingles condition requires the possibility of creating more than the existing number of reasonably compact districts with a sufficiently large minority population to elect candidates of its choice. The District Court found the condition satisfied by contrasting SJR 2-G with the De Grandy plan for the Dade County area, which provided for 11 reasonably compact districts, each with a voting-age population at least 64 percent Hispanic. 815 F. Supp., at 1580. While the percentage figures are not disputed, the parties disagree about the sufficiency of these supermajorities to allow Hispanics to elect representatives of their choice in all 11 districts. The District Court agreed with plaintiffs that the supermajorities would compensate for the number of voting-age Hispanics who did not vote, most commonly because they were recent immigrants who had not become citizens of the United States. Id., at 1567-1568. The State protests that fully half of the Hispanic voting-age residents of the region are not citizens, with the result that several districts in the De Grandy plan lack enough Hispanic voters to elect candidates of their choice without cross-over votes from other ethnic groups. On these assumptions, the State argues that the condition necessary to justify tinkering with the State’s plan disappears.
We can leave this dispute without a winner. The parties’ ostensibly factual disagreement raises an issue of law about which characteristic of minority populations (e. g., age, citizenship) ought to be the touchstone for proving a dilution claim and devising a sound remedy. These cases may be resolved, however, without reaching this issue or the related question whether the first Gingles condition can be satisfied by proof that a so-called influence district may be created (that is, by proof that plaintiffs can devise an additional district in which members of a minority group are a minority of the voters, but a potentially influential one). As in the past, we will assume without deciding that even if Hispanics are not an absolute majority of the relevant population in the additional districts, the first Gingles condition has been satisfied in these cases. See Voinovich, supra, at 154; see also Growe, supra, at 41-42, n. 5 (declining to reach the issue); Gingles, supra, at 46-47, n. 12 (same).
B
We do, however, part company from the District Court in assessing the totality of circumstances. The District Court found that the three Gingles preconditions were satisfied, and that Hispanics had suffered historically from official discrimination, the social, economic, and political effects of which they generally continued to feel, 815 F. Supp., at 1573-1574. Without more, and on the apparent assumption that what could have been done to create additional Hispanic supermajority districts should have been done, the District Court found a violation of § 2. But the assumption was erroneous, and more is required, as a review of Gingles will show.
1
Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30 (1986), prompted this Court’s first reading of §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 after its 1982 amendment. Section 2(a) of the amended Act prohibits any “standard, practice, or procedure... which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color [or membership in a language minority group]....” Section 2(b) provides that a denial or abridgment occurs where,
“based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) of this section in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered: Provided, That nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.” 42 U. S. C. § 1973(b).
Gingles provided some structure to the statute’s “totality of circumstances” test in a case challenging multimember legislative districts. See 478 U. S., at 46-51. The Court listed the factors put forward as relevant in the Senate Report treating the 1982 amendments, and held that
“[w]hile many or all of [them] may be relevant to a claim of vote dilution through submergence in multimember districts, unless there is a conjunction of the following circumstances, the use of multimember districts generally will not impede the ability of minority voters to elect representatives of their choice. Stated succinctly, a bloc voting majority must usually be able to defeat candidates supported by a politically cohesive, geographically insular minority group.” Id., at 48-49 (footnote omitted) (emphasis in original).
The Court thus summarized the three now-familiar Gingles factors (compactness/numerousness, minority cohesion or bloc voting, and majority bloc voting) as “necessary preconditions,” id., at 50, for establishing vote dilution by use of a multimember district.
But if Gingles so clearly identified the three as generally necessary to prove a §2 claim, it just as clearly declined to hold them sufficient in combination, either in the sense that a court’s examination of relevant circumstances was complete once the three factors were found to exist, or in the sense that the three in combination necessarily and in all circumstances demonstrated dilution. This was true not only because bloc voting was a matter of degree, with a variable legal significance depending on other facts, id., at 55-58, but also because the ultimate conclusions about equality or inequality of opportunity were intended by Congress to be judgments resting on comprehensive, not limited, canvassing of relevant facts. Lack of electoral success is evidence of vote dilution, but courts must also examine other evidence in the totality of circumstances, including the extent of the opportunities minority voters enjoy to participate in the political processes. Id., at 46, 79-80; id., at 98-99 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment). To be sure, some § 2 plaintiffs may have easy cases, but although lack of equal electoral opportunity may be readily imagined and unsurprising when demonstrated under circumstances that include the three essential Gingles factors, that conclusion must still be addressed explicitly, and without isolating any other arguably relevant facts from the act of judgment.
2
If the three Gingles factors may not be isolated as sufficient, standing alone, to prove dilution in every multimember district challenge, a fortiori they must not be when the challenge goes to a series of single-member districts, where dilution may be more difficult to grasp. Plaintiffs challenging single-member districts may claim, not total submergence, but partial submergence; not the chance for some electoral success in place of none, but the chance for more success in place of some. When the question thus comes down to the reasonableness of drawing a series of district lines in one combination of places rather than another, judgments about inequality may become closer calls. As facts beyond the ambit of the three Gingles factors loom correspondingly larger, factfinders cannot rest uncritically on assumptions about the force of the Gingles factors in pointing to dilution.
The cases now before us, of course, fall on this more complex side of the divide, requiring a court to determine whether provision for somewhat fewer majority-minority districts than the number sought by the plaintiffs was dilution of the minority votes. The District Court was accordingly required to assess the probative significance of the Gingles factors critically after considering the further circumstances with arguable bearing on the issue of equal political opportunity. We think that in finding dilution here the District Court misjudged the relative importance of the Gingles factors and of historical discrimination, measured against evidence tending to show that in spite of these facts, SJR 2-G would provide minority voters with an equal measure of political and electoral opportunity.
The District Court did not, to be sure, commit the error of treating the three Gingles conditions as exhausting the, enquiry required by § 2. Consistently with Gingles, the court received evidence of racial relations outside the immediate confines of voting behavior and found a history of discrimination against Hispanic voters continuing in society generally to the present day. But the District Court was not critical enough in asking whether a history of persistent discrimination reflected in the larger society and its bloc-voting behavior portended any dilutive effect from a newly proposed districting scheme, whose pertinent features were majority-minority districts in substantial proportion to the minority’s share of voting-age population. The court failed to ask whether the totality of facts, including those pointing to proportionality, showed that the new scheme would deny minority voters equal political opportunity.
Treating equal political opportunity as the focus of the enquiry, we do not see how these district lines, apparently providing political effectiveness in proportion to voting-age numbers, deny equal political opportunity. The récord establishes that Hispanics constitute 50 percent of the voting-age population in Dade County and under SJR 2-G would make up supermajorities in 9 of the 18 House districts located primarily within the county. Likewise, if one considers the 20 House districts located at least in part within Dade County, the record indicates that Hispanics would be an effective voting majority in 45 percent of them (i e., nine), and would constitute 47 percent of the voting-age population in the area. 815 F. Supp., at 1580; App. to Juris. Statement 180a-183a. In other words, under SJR 2-G Hispanics in the Dade County area would enjoy substantial proportionality. On this evidence, we think the State’s scheme would thwart the historical tendency to exclude Hispanics, not encourage or perpetuate it. Thus in spite of that history and its legacy, including the racial cleavages that characterize Dade County politics today, we see no grounds for holding in these cases that SJR 2-G’s district lines diluted the votes cast by Hispanic voters.
The De Grandy plaintiffs urge us to put more weight on the District Court’s findings of packing and fragmentation, allegedly accomplished by the way the State drew certain specific lines: “[T]he line of District 116 separates heavily Hispanic neighborhoods in District 112 from the rest of the heavily Hispanic Kendall Lakes area and the Kendall area,” so that the line divides “neighbors making up the... same housing development in Kendall Lakes,” and District 114 “packs” Hispanic voters, while Districts 102 and 109 “fragment” them. 815 F. Supp., at 1569 (internal quotation marks omitted). We would agree that where a State has split (or lumped) minority neighborhoods that would have been grouped into a single district (or spread among several) if the State had employed the same line-drawing standards in minority neighborhoods as it used elsewhere in the jurisdiction, the inconsistent treatment might be significant evidence of a §2 violation, even in the face of proportionality. The District Court, however, made no such finding. Indeed, the propositions the court recites on this point are not even phrased as factual findings, but merely as recitations of testimony offered by plaintiffs’ expert witness. While the District Court may well have credited the testimony, the court was apparently wary of adopting the witness’s conclusions as findings. But even if one imputed a greater significance to the accounts of testimony, they would boil down to findings that several of SJR 2-G’s district lines separate portions of Hispanic neighborhoods, while another district line draws several Hispanic neighborhoods into a single district. This, however, would be to say only that lines could have been drawn elsewhere, nothing more. But some dividing by district lines and combining within them is virtually inevitable and befalls any population group of substantial size. Attaching the labels “packing” and “fragmenting” to these phenomena, without more, does not make the result vote dilution when the minority group enjoys substantial proportionality.
3
It may be that the significance of the facts under § 2 was obscured by the rule of thumb apparently adopted by the District Court, that anything short of the maximum number of majority-minority districts consistent with the Gingles conditions would violate §2, at least where societal discrimination against the minority had occurred and continued to occur. But reading the first Gingles condition in effect to define dilution as a failure to maximize in the face of bloc voting (plus some other incidents of societal bias to be expected where bloc voting occurs) causes its own dangers, and they are not to be courted.
Assume a hypothetical jurisdiction of 1,000 voters divided into 10 districts of 100 each, where members of a minority group make up 40 percent of the voting population and voting is totally polarized along racial lines. With the right geographic dispersion to satisfy the compactness requirement, and with careful manipulation of district lines, the minority voters might be placed in control of as many as 7 of the 10 districts. Each such district could be drawn with at least 51 members of the minority group, and whether the remaining minority voters were added to the groupings of 51 for safety or scattered in the other three districts, minority voters would be able to elect candidates of their choice in all seven districts. The point of the hypothetical is not, of course, that any given district is likely to be open to such extreme manipulation, or that bare majorities are likely to vote in full force and strictly along racial lines, but that reading § 2 to define dilution as any failure to maximize tends to obscure the very object of the statute and to run counter to its textually stated purpose. One may suspect vote dilution from political famine, but one is not entitled to suspect (much less infer) dilution from mere failure to guarantee a political feast. However prejudiced a society might be, it would be absurd to suggest that the failure of a districting scheme to provide a minority group with effective political power 75 percent above its numerical strength indicates a denial of equal participation in the political process. Failure to maximize cannot be the measure of § 2.
4
While, for obvious reasons, the State agrees that a failure to leverage minority political strength to the maximum possible point of power is not definitive of dilution in bloc-voting societies, it seeks to impart a measure of determinacy by applying a definitive rule of its own: that as a matter of law no dilution occurs whenever the percentage of single-member districts in which minority voters form an effective majority mirrors the minority voters’ percentage of the relevant population. Proportionality so defined, see n. 11, supra, would thus be a safe harbor for any districting scheme.
The safety would be in derogation of the statutory text and its considered purpose, however, and of the ideal that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 attempts to foster. An inflexible rule would run counter to the textual command of § 2, that the presence or absence of a violation be assessed “based on the totality of circumstances.” 42 U. S. C. § 1973(b). The need for such “totality” review springs from the demonstrated ingenuity of state and local governments in hobbling minority voting power, McCain v. Lybrand, 465 U. S. 236, 243-246 (1984), a point recognized by Congress when it amended the statute in 1982: “[S]ince the adoption of the Voting Rights Act, [some] jurisdictions have substantially moved from direct, over[t] impediments to the right to vote to more sophisticated devices that dilute minority voting strength,” Senate Report 10 (discussing §5). In modifying §2, Congress thus endorsed our view in White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755 (1973), that “whether the political processes are ‘equally open’ depends upon a searching practical evaluation of the ‘past and present reality,’” Senate Report 30 (quoting 412 U. S., at 766, 770). In a substantial number of voting jurisdictions, that past reality has included such reprehensible practices as ballot box stuffing, outright violence, discretionary registration, property requirements, the poll tax, and the white primary; and other practices censurable when the object of their use is discriminatory, such as at-large elections, runoff requirements, anti-single-shot devices, gerrymandering, the impeachment of officeholders, the annexation or deannexation of territory, and the creation or elimination of elective offices. Some of those expedients could occur even in a jurisdiction with numerically demonstrable proportionality; the harbor safe for States would thus not be safe for voters. It is, in short, for good reason that we have been, and remain, chary of entertaining a simplification of the sort the State now urges upon us. Cf. Gingles, 478 U. S., at 77 (“[Pjersistent proportional representation... [may] not accurately reflect the minority group’s ability to elect its preferred representatives”).
Even if the State’s safe harbor were open only in cases of alleged dilution by the manipulation of district lines, however, it would rest on an unexplored premise of highly suspect validity: that in any given voting jurisdiction (or portion of that jurisdiction under consideration), the rights of some minority voters under §2 may be traded off against the rights of other members of the same minority class. Under the State’s view, the most blatant racial gerrymandering in half of a county’s single-member districts would be irrelevant under §2 if offset by political gerrymandering in the other half, so long as proportionality was the bottom line. But see Baird v. Consolidated City of Indianapolis, 976 F. 2d 357, 359 (CA7 1992) (“A balanced bottom line does not foreclose proof of discrimination along the way”); Richmond v. United States, 422 U. S. 358, 378-379 (1975) (territorial annexation aimed at diluting black votes forbidden by § 5, regardless of its actual effect).
Finally, we reject the safe harbor rule because of a tendency the State would itself certainly condemn, a tendency to promote and perpetuate efforts to devise majority-minority districts even in circumstances where they may not be necessary to achieve equal political and electoral opportunity. Because in its simplest form the State’s rule would shield from §2 challenge a districting scheme in which the number of majority-minority districts reflected the minority’s share of the relevant population, the conclusiveness of the rule might be an irresistible inducement to create such districts. It bears recalling, however, that for all the virtues of majority-minority districts as remedial devices, they rely on a quintessentially race-conscious calculus aptly described as the “politics of second best,” see B. Grofman, L. Handley, & R. Niemi, Minority Representation and the Quest for Voting Equality 136 (1992). If the lesson of Gingles is that society’s racial and ethnic cleavages sometimes necessitate majority-minority districts to ensure equal political and electoral opportunity, that should not obscure the fact that there are communities in which minority citizens are able to form coalitions with voters from other racial and ethnic groups, having no need to be a majority within a single district in order to elect candidates of their choice. Those candidates may not represent perfection to every minority voter, but minority voters are not immune from the obligation to pull, haul, and trade to find common political ground, the virtue of which is not to be slighted in applying a statute meant to hasten the waning of racism in American politics.
It is enough to say that, while proportionality in the sense used here is obviously an indication that minority voters have an equal opportunity, in spite of racial polarization, “to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice,” 42 U. S. C. § 1973(b), the degree of probative value assigned to proportionality may vary with other facts. No single statistic provides courts with a shortcut to determine whether a set of single-member districts unlawfully dilutes minority voting strength.
5
While the United States concedes the relevance of proportionality to a § 2 claim, it would confine proportionality to an affirmative defense, and one to be made only on a statewide basis in cases that challenge districts for electing a body with statewide jurisdiction. In this litigation, the United States would have us treat any claim that evidence of proportionality supports the State’s plan as having been waived because the State made no argument in the District Court that the proportion of districts statewide in which Hispanics constitute an effective voting majority mirrors the proportion of statewide Hispanic population.
The argument has two flaws. There is, first, no textual reason to segregate some circumstances from the statutory totality, to be rendered insignificant unless the defendant pleads them by way of affirmative defense. Second, and just as importantly, the argument would recast these cases as they come to us, in order to bar consideration of proportionality except on statewide scope, whereas up until now the dilution claims have been litigated on a smaller geographical scale. It is, indeed, the plaintiffs themselves, including the United States, who passed up the opportunity to frame their dilution claim in statewide terms. While the United States points to language in its complaint alleging that the redistricting plans dilute the votes of “Hispanic citizens and black citizens in the State of Florida,” App. 77, the complaint identifies “se
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the Social Security Act a married woman whose husband retires or becomes disabled is granted benefits if she has a minor or other dependent child in her care. A divorced woman whose former husband retires or becomes disabled does not receive such benefits. The issue in the present case is whether this difference in the statutory treatment of married and divorced women is permissible under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
I
Section 202 (b)(1) of the Social Security Act, 49 Stat. 623, as added and amended, 42 U. S. C. § 402 (b) (1) (1970 ed. and Supp. V), provides for the payment of “wife's insurance benefits.” To qualify under this section a woman must be the wife or “divorced wife” of an individual entitled to old-age or disability benefits. Then, assuming that she meets the other statutory requirements, the woman is eligible to receive a monthly payment if she “has attained age 62 or (in the case of a wife) has in her care (individually or jointly with [her husband]) a child entitled to a child’s insurance benefit. . . .” 42 U. S. C. § 402 (b) (1) (B) (emphasis supplied). As the italicized phrase indicates, a woman under 62 who has in her care an entitled child must currently be married to the wage earner in order to be eligible to receive benefits. A divorced woman receives monthly payments if she is 62 or over and her ex-husband retires or becomes disabled, but if she is under 62, she receives no benefits even if she has a young or disabled child in her care.
The appellee, Helen De Castro, was divorced from her husband in 1968, after more than 20 years of marriage. She cares for a disabled child who is eligible for and receives child’s insurance benefits under the Act. In May 1971 her former husband applied for and later was granted old-age insurance benefits. Mrs. De Castro applied for wife’s insurance benefits shortly thereafter. At the time of her ■application she was 56 years old. Her application was denied by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare because no wife’s benefits are payable to a divorced wife under 62 years of age.
Mrs. De Castro then filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, seeking judicial review of the Secretary’s decision. Her complaint alleged that § 202 (b) (1) (B) of the Social Security Act “operates to arbitrarily discriminate against divorced wives,” and prayed for an order directing the Secretary to pay benefits to her, a declaration that § 202 (b)(1)(B) is unconstitutional, and an injunction against that section’s application.
A three-judge court was convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §§ 2281, 2282. The court considered the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment and granted the relief prayed for in the complaint, holding that the wife’s benefits provision “invidiously discriminates against divorced wives . . . in violation of the Fifth Amendment.” De Castro v. Weinberger, 403 F. Supp. 23, 30. Central to the court’s ruling was its determination that “there is no rational basis for concluding that a married wife having a dependent child in her care has a greater economic need than a divorced wife caring for such a child.” Id., at 28. The Secretary appealed directly to this Court under 28 U. S. C. § 1252, and we noted probable jurisdiction, 425 U. S. 957.
II
The basic principle that must govern an assessment of any constitutional challenge to a law providing for governmental payments of monetary benefits is well established. Governmental decisions to spend money to improve the general public welfare in one way and not another are “not confided to the courts. The discretion belongs to Congress, unless the choice is clearly wrong, a display of arbitrary power, not an exercise of judgment.” Helvering v. Davis, 301 U. S. 619, 640. In enacting legislation of this kind a government does not deny equal protection “merely because the classifications made by its laws are imperfect. If the classification has some 'reasonable basis/ it does not offend the Constitution simply because the classification 'is not made with mathematical nicety or because in practice it results in some inequality.' ” Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471, 485.
To be sure, the standard by which legislation such as this must be judged “is not a toothless one,” Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U. S. 495, 510. But the challenged statute is entitled to a strong presumption of constitutionality. “So long as its judgments are rational, and not invidious, the legislature's efforts to tackle the problems of the poor and the needy are not subject to a constitutional straitjacket.” Jefferson v. Hackney, 406 U. S. 535, 546. It is with this principle in mind that we consider the specific constitutional issue presented by this litigation.
The old-age and disability insurance aspects of the Social Security system do not purport to be general public assistance laws that simply pay money to those who need it most. That was not the predominant purpose of these benefit provisions when they were enacted or when they were amended. Rather, the primary objective was to provide workers and their families with basic protection against hardships created by the loss of earnings due to illness or old age.
The wife’s insurance benefit at issue here is consistent with this overriding legislative aim: It enables a married woman already burdened with dependent children to meet the additional need created when her husband reaches old age or becomes disabled. Accordingly, the District Court’s observation that many divorced women receive inadequate child-support payments, while undoubtedly true, is hardly in point. The same can be said of the District Court’s statement that “there is no rational basis for concluding that a married wife having a dependent child in her care has a greater economic need than a divorced wife caring for such a child.” For whatever relevance these observations might have in a case involving a constitutional attack on a statute that gave monetary benefits to women based on their general overall need, that is not this case.
Section 202 (b)(1)(B) of the Act addresses the particular consequences for his family of a wage earner’s old age or disability. Congress could rationally have decided that the resultant loss of family income, the extra expense that often attends illness and old age, and the consequent disruption in the family’s economic well-being that may occur when the husband stops working justify monthly payments to a wife who together with her husband must still care for a dependent child.
Indeed, Congress took note of exactly these kinds of factors when it amended the Social Security Act in 1958. Between 1950 and 1958 wives under retirement age with dependent children received benefits only when their husbands became entitled to old-age insurance payments. Social Security Act Amendments of 1950, § 101 (a), 64 Stat. 482. Congress then amended the Act to provide the same benefits when the wage earner becomes disabled. Social Security Amendments of 1958, § 205 (b)(1), 72 Stat. 1021. Both the House and Senate Committee reports accompanying the proposed legislation explained that the purpose of the monthly payments was to give “recognition to the problems confronting families whose breadwinners” stop work. The focus was specifically on “adequate protection for [the husband’s] family,” and the reports mentioned the high medical expenses often associated with disability and the possibility that the wife might have to forgo work in order to care for her disabled husband. H. R. Rep. No. 2288, 85th Cong,, 2d Sess., 12-13 (1958); S. Rep. No. 2388, 85th Cong.,, 2d Sess., 10-11 (1958).
In view of the legislative purpose, it is hardly surprising that the congressional judgment evidently was a different one with respect to divorced women. Divorce by its nature works a drastic change ■ in the economic and personal relationship between a husband and wife. Ordinarily it means that they will go their separate ways. Congress could have rationally assumed that divorced husbands and wives depend less on each other for financial and other support than do couples who stay married. The problems that a divorced wife may encounter when her former husband becomes old or disabled may well differ in kind and degree from those that a woman married to a retired or disabled husband must face. For instance, a divorced wife need not forgo work in order to stay at home to care for her disabled husband. She may not feel the pinch of the extra expenses accompanying her former husband’s old age or disability. In short, divorced couples typically live separate lives. It was not irrational for Congress to recognize this basic fact in deciding to defer monthly payments to divorced wives of retired or disabled wage earners until they reach the age of 62.
This is not to say that a husband’s old age or disability may never affect his divorced wife. Many women receive alimony or child support after divorce that their former husbands might not be able to pay when they stop work. But even for this group' — which does not include the appellee in the present case — Congress was not constitutionally obligated to use the Social Security Act to subsidize support payments. It could rationally decide that the problems created for divorced women remained less pressing than those faced by women who continue to live with their husbands.
In any event, the constitutional question “is not whether a statutory provision precisely filters out those, and only those, who are in the factual position which generated the congressional concern reflected in the statute.” Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749, 777. We conclude, accordingly, that the statutory classifications involved in this case are not of such an order as to infringe upon the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The judgment is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Marshall concurs in the judgment.
It is well settled that the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause encompasses equal protection principles. See, e. g., Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749, 768-770.
Title 42 U. S. C. § 402 (b) (1) (1970 ed. and Supp. V) provides in full:
"(b) Wife’s insurance benefits.
“(1) The wife (as defined in section 416 (b) of this title) and every divorced wife (as defined in section 416 (d) of this title) of an individual entitled to old-age or disability insurance benefits, if such wife or such divorced wife—
“(A) has filed application for wife’s insurance benefits,
“(B) has attained age 62 or (in the case of a wife) has in her care (individually or jointly with such individual) at the time of filing such application a child entitled to a child’s insurance benefit on the basis of the wages and self-employment income of such individual,
“ (C) in the case of a divorced wife, is not married, and
“(D) is not entitled to old-age or disability insurance benefits, or is entitled to old-age or disability insurance benefits based on a primary insurance amount which is less than one-half of the primary insurance amount of such individual,
“shall (subject to subsection (s) of this section) be entitled to a wife’s insurance benefit for each month, beginning with the first month in which she becomes so entitled to such insurance benefits and ending with the month preceding the first month in which any of the following occurs—
“(E) she dies,
“(F) such individual dies,
“(G) in the case of a wife, they are divorced and either (i) she has not attained age 62, or (ii) she has attained age 62 but has not been married to such individual for a period of 20 years immediately before the date the divorce became effective,
“(H) in the case of a divorced wife, she marries a person other than such individual,
“(I) in the case of a wife who has not attained age 62, no child of such individual is entitled to a child’s insurance benefit,
“(J) she becomes entitled to an old-age or disability insurance benefit based on a primary insurance amount which is equal to or exceeds one-half of the primary insurance amount of such individual, or
“(K) such individual is not entitled to disability insurance benefits and is not entitled to old-age insurance benefits.”
The Act defines “divorced wife” as “a woman divorced from an individual, but only if she had been married to such individual for a period of 20 years immediately before the date the divorce became effective.” 42 U. S. C. §416 (d)(1). The term “divorce” refers to a divorce a vinculo matrimonii. § 416 (d) (4).
The conditions upon which a child is entitled to receive “child’s insurance benefits” are set out in § 202 (d) of the Act, 42 U. S. C. § 402 (d) (1970 ed. and Supp. V). Generally, the child must be dependent on the wage earner and either under 18 years old (or a full-time student under 22 years old) or under a disability.
The Act also provides for the payment of “widow’s insurance benefits” and “mother’s insurance benefits.” 42 U. S. C. §§402 (e), (g) (1970 ed. and Supp. V). Divorced and married women, with or without dependent children, are eligible to receive monthly payments under these sections in certain circumstances not pertinent here.
The old-age and disability insurance programs are distinct from the provisions for public assistance to the aged and disabled also contained in the Social Security Act. 42 U. S. C. §§ 301-306, 1351-1355, partially repealed by Pub. L. No. 92-603, §§303 (a), (b), 86 Stat. 1484; 42 U. S. C. §§ 1381 — 1383c (1970 ed., Supp. V). The insurance programs are contributory in nature and are designed to prevent public dependency by protecting workers and their families against common economic hazards. Congress in 1935 contemplated that the old-age insurance benefits would be “payable wholly regardless of the need of the recipient.” H. R. Rep. No. 615, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1935). The public-assistance-for-the-aged program, on the other hand, was designed “to provide for old people who are dependent upon the public for support . . . ,” id., at 4, and the statute specifically referred to “aged needy individuals.” Social Security Act, § 1, 49 Stat. 620. See also H. R. Rep. No. 615, supra, at 3-6; S. Rep. No. 628, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 4r-7 (1935); Message of the President Recommending Legislation on Economic Security, H. R. Doc. No. 81,74th Cong,, 1st Sess., 20-28 (1935).
In 1950 the Act was amended to provide for grants-in-aid to the States so that assistance could be furnished “to needy individuals eighteen years of age or older who are permanently and totally disabled.” Social Security Act Amendments of 1950, § 351, 64 Stat. 555. In 1956 Congress created a program for disability insurance benefits. Social Security Amendments of 1956, § 103 (a), 70 Stat. 815. Again, the insurance program, unlike the public assistance provisions, was not need based, but instead was designed to protect against the specific economic hardships created by involuntary, premature retirement. See H. R. Rep. No. 1300, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 27-28, 53-54 (1949); Recommendations for Social Security Legislation, Reports of the Advisory Council on Social Security, S. Doc. No. 208, 80th Cong., 2d Sess., 69-70, 95-97 (1949); S. Rep. No. 2133, 84th Cong., 2d Sess., 3-4 (1956); H. R. Rep. No. 1189, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 3-6 (1955).
“Wife’s insurance benefits” first became part of the Social Security-Act in 1939. Amendments enacted that year provided for monthly payments to wives 65 years or older whose husbands were entitled to old-age benefits. Social Security Act Amendments of 1939, § 201, 53 Stat. 1362. In 1950 Congress dropped the age requirement for women with retired husbands and entitled children in their care. Social Security Act Amendments of 1950, § 101 (a), 64 Stat. 482. In 1958 Congress extended similar benefits to wives of any age who had entitled children and disabled husbands. Social Security Amendments of 1958, §205 (b)(1), 72 Stat. 1021. While the legislative history of the 1950 amendments is sparse, the congressional purpose presumably was to recognize a family need created when the husband reaches old age and stops working. Certainly the sole purpose could not have been to allow the wife to remain at home to take care of the child, as the appellee suggests, because the presence of the retired husband at home ordinarily would ensure parental supervision. Similarly, when Congress provided benefits in 1958 to wives with disabled husbands, it had purposes beyond the mere encouragement of the wife to stay home and take care of the children. See H. R. Rep. No. 2288, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., 12-13 (1958); S. Rep. No. 2388, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., 10-11 (1958).
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A District Court of three judges enjoined in part an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the case is here on appeal under 28 U. S. C. §§ 47, 47a, and 345. The Commission order specifically relates to the railroad rate for grain transported from Chicago, Illinois, to New York and other eastern points, after that grain has been transported to Chicago from the west by connecting rail or water carriers on through bills of lading. In such through shipments the through rate is a combination of distinctly separate rates charged respectively for shipments from the west to Chicago and from Chicago to the east. The charge fixed for the last leg of the shipment is called, in railroad parlance, a “reshipping” or “proportional” rate. It is lower from Chicago to the east than a “local” rate charged for a shipment from Chicago to the east which originates in Chicago. See Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. United States, 279 U. S. 768, 771.
For many years eastern railroads have carried grain east from Chicago at reshipping rates 8% cents per hundred pounds lower than local rates. Up to 1939 this Chicago-to-the-east reshipping rate had been identical for grain, whether brought to Chicago by a connecting railroad, connecting lake steamer, or connecting barge. Although barge lines were much slower than railroads, they were less expensive to operate and therefore could afford to transport freight much more cheaply than railroads. The result was that the barge-rail rate from a point in the west to eastern destinations was considerably cheaper than the all-rail rate from that point—the difference being measured by the relative cheapness of shipping over the barge leg of the through route. Because of the cheaper barge rates, much of the railroads’ grain freight business from localities which could be served by either barge or rail shifted to the barges after 1933 when barge service from western grain localities to Chicago was resumed. This was the barge versus rail competitive situation which existed when in 1939 the eastern railroads filed schedules with the Commission which imposed on ex-barge grain the local rate from Chicago east, but allowed ex-rail and ex-lake grain the benefit of the 8% cent lower “reshipping” rates on the eastern haul. The result of this rate schedule would have been that, although barge lines could still have carried grain from the west to Chicago much more cheaply than the railroads could, by the time the grain had been reshipped to New York or other eastern points, the barge-rail carriage would have been more expensive to the shipper than all-rail carriage. This would have put the barge lines at a competitive disadvantage with railroads in barge-served localities. At the Commission hearing to test the validity of the higher ex-barge grain rates, a railroad representative candidly stated that the purpose of the proposal was to “drive this business off the water and back onto the rails where it belongs.” 248 I. C. C. 307, 321. This purpose would most probably have been accomplished had the high ex-barge reshipping rates gone into effect.
The Commission, after a hearing, made an order which left the railroad-proposed higher rates in effect, but stated that “in a proper proceeding we might prescribe proportional rates on the ex-barge traffic lower than local rates or joint barge-rail rates lower than the combinations.” 248 I. C. C. 307, 311. A District Court set aside the Commission’s order on the ground that fixing higher rates for ex-barge grain than for ex-rail and ex-lake grain “discriminates against water competition by the users of barges.” Cargill, Inc. v. United States, 44 F. Supp. 368, 375. On appeal this Court reversed, saying that its decision carried “no implication of approval of any rates here involved.” Interstate Commerce Commission v. Inland Waterways Corp., 319 U. S. 671, 691. It reserved for future consideration in a proceeding before the Commission the amount, if any, which the eastern railroads could increase “reshipping” rates for ex-barge over those for ex-lake and ex-rail grain. Id. at 687-688, 691.
The Commission has now considered and decided that question in a proper proceeding. 262 I. C. C. 7. It found the originally proposed 8% cent higher rates for ex-barge grain to be unlawful and required the eastern roads to cancel the schedules fixing those increased reshipping rates. This part of the Commission’s order has not been challenged. But it also concluded that ex-barge grain rates east from Chicago would be reasonable and lawful even though they were 3 cents per hundred pounds higher than rates for ex-rail and ex-lake grain. Consequently, the Commission provided that its order cancelling the scheduled reshipping rate increase was “without prejudice to the filing of new schedules in conformity with the findings herein.” Thus, the effect of the whole order was to permit, if not require, the railroads to charge higher reshipment rates for ex-barge than for ex-lake and ex-rail grain. Under these rates, barge-rail grain shipments would be a trifle less expensive than all-rail transportation between the same points. But the through barge-rail transportation would cost more than it would have if the through rates had accurately reflected the cheaper in-bound barge rates. The Commission considered these higher rates for ex-barge grain, which resulted in higher through rates, justified so long as there remained to ex-barge grain “a fair opportunity to move in competition with lake-rail and all-rail traffic.”
Appellees then filed this action in the District Court against the Commission and the United States to cancel, annul, and enjoin enforcement of the order, insofar as it permitted the railroads to put these new higher ex-barge grain rates into effect. The complaints charged that the order was in violation of the Interstate Commerce Act as amended by the Transportation Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 898. It was contended that the order was void because it approved railroad rates which penalized ex-barge grain to the extent of 3 cents per hundred pounds, solely because the grain had been transported to Chicago in barges, and without evidence or adequate findings that it cost the railroads 3 cents more to transport ex-barge than it cost to transport ex-rail or ex-lake grain. The United States, represented by the Department of Justice, appearing as a defendant, admitted these allegations. The Interstate Commerce Commission intervened and defended the order. After a hearing, the District Court found that the allegations were sustained. Accordingly, it set aside and enjoined enforcement of the order to the extent that it permitted the 3-cent extra charge. The result of the District Court’s judgment was to leave in effect the long-existing eastern railroad rates which provide the same rates for carrying ex-barge, ex-lake, and ex-rail grain east from Chicago.
Judicial review of the findings of fact and the expert judgments of the Interstate Commerce Commission where the Commission acts within its statutory authority is extremely limited. And § 307 (d) of the 1940 Act authorizes the Commission “in the case of a through route” to “prescribe such reasonable differentials as it may find to be justified between all-rail rates and the joint rates in connection with such common carrier by water.” Cf. United States v. Chicago Heights Trucking Co., 310 U. S. 344, 352-353; Board of Trade of Kansas City v. United States, 314 U. S. 534, 546. But the congressional debates and committee reports on the 1940 Act and the statutory provisions which emerged from this legislative background show that Congress enunciated positive policies and specific limiting standards which it expected the Commission to follow in fixing rates, including “differentials” between all-rail and water-rail rates. The provisions of the Transportation Act of 1940 which brought water carriers under Interstate Commerce Commission jurisdiction were vigorously opposed in Congress by those who feared that the Commission might raise barge rates in order to enable railroads better to compete with inherently cheaper water transportation. These opponents were repeatedly assured by sponsors of the 1940 Act who advocated Commission regulation of water transportation that the questioned legislation unequivocally required the Commission to fix rates which would preserve for shippers the inherent advantages of barge transportation: lower cost of equipment, operation, and therefore service. As Senator Wheeler, spokesman of the Interstate Commerce Committee of which he was chairman, pointed out on the floor of the Senate, the 1940 Act contains at least three separate provisions, a prime purpose of which is to protect the water carrier’s natural advantages. The Act’s declaration of policy emphasizes that the Act must be “so administered as to recognize and preserve the inherent advantages” of “all modes of transportation subject to . . . this Act.” 54 Stat. 898, 899, 49 U. S. C. notes preceding §§ 1, 301, 901. In order that the inherent advantages might be preserved § 305 (c), 54 Stat. 898, 935, 49 U. S. C. § 905 (c), provided that “Differences in . . . rates . . . and practices of a water carrier in respect of water transportation from those in effect by a rail carrier with respect to rail transportation shall not be deemed to constitute unjust discrimination ... or an unfair or destructive competitive practice . . . .” And § 307 (f), 54 Stat. 898, 938, 49 U. S. C. §907 (f), requiring the Commission, in fixing rates, to consider “the effect of rates upon the movement of traffic by the . . . carriers for which the rates are prescribed,” emphasized that the Commission must consider in fixing rates “. . . the need, in the public interest, of adequate and efficient water transportation service at the lowest cost consistent with the furnishing of such service . . . .” In addition § 3 (4) of the pre-existing Act which forbade carriers to “discriminate in their rates, fares, and charges between connecting lines,” 41 Stat. 479, was amended by the 1940 Act specifically to include water carriers, such as these barge lines, within the definition of connecting carriers. 54 Stat. 898, 903-904, 49 U. S. C. § 3 (4). Finally § 2 of the pre-existing Act has long forbidden the Commission to authorize railroads to charge one person more than another for “a like and contemporaneous service in the transportation of a like kind of traffic under substantially similar circumstances and conditions 24 Stat. 379, 380, 40 U. S. C. § 2.
The foregoing provisions flatly forbid the Commission to approve barge rates or barge-rail rates which do not preserve intact the inherent advantages of cheaper water transportation, but discriminate against water carriers and the goods they transport. Concretely, the provisions mean in this case that Chicago-to-the-east railroads cannot lawfully charge more for carrying ex-barge than for carrying ex-lake or ex-rail grains to and from the same localities, unless the eastern haul of the ex-barge grain costs the eastern railroads more to haul than does ex-rail or ex-lake grain. And § 307 (d), authorizing the Commission to fix differentials as between through water-rail and through all-rail rates, does not authorize the Commission to neutralize the effective prohibitions of the other provisions which were strengthened in 1940 expressly to prevent a discrimination against water carriers.
The basic error of the Commission here is that it seemed to act on the assumption that the congressional prohibitions of railroad rate discriminations against water carriers were not applicable to such discriminations if accomplished by through rates. But this assumption would permit the destruction or curtailment of the advantages to shippers of cheap barge transportation whenever the transported goods were carried beyond the end of the barge line. This case proves that. For while Chicago is a great grain center, it cannot consume all barge-transported grain. That grain, like other grain coming to Chicago for marketing or processing, is reshipped to distant destinations. To penalize its transportation in barges by charging discriminatory rates from Chicago to its final destination has precisely the same consequence as would follow from raising barge rates inbound to Chicago. Recognizing that it could not require these barge carriers to raise these inbound rates which it accepted as reasonable, the Commission has here approved an order which would bring about the same prohibited result by raising the railroad rates charged by eastern roads for ex-barge grain shipments east from Chicago. Congress has forbidden this.
The Commission did not approve increases in these reshipping rates on the ground that the eastern roads were not receiving a fair return for carrying ex-barge grain. And the grounds on which the Commission rested its order do not support the rates approved. Most of the argument of the Commission in support of its conclusions and order treated matters which had no relation to what the reshipping rates from Chicago should be. The length of the total barge-rail haul emphasized by the Commission, however significant it might be under other circumstances, has no relevance here. For the lower rates allowed ex-rail and ex-lake grains include carriage for distances identical with the ex-barge hauls. Nor is the Commission’s order supported by its conclusion that it is “inequitable” for the barges to charge a much lower rate for the inbound grain haul than the competitive western railroads can afford to charge for the same haul, resulting in barge-rail rates lower than all-rail rates from the same localities. For this is no reason for authorizing a higher rate to eastern railroads which do not compete with the barges at all. If the western railroads need relief from the competition of barges, that is a question wholly unrelated to the rates of eastern roads. Furthermore, Congress has decided this question of equitable rates as between railroads and barges. It has declared in unmistakable terms that the “inherent advantage” of the lower cost of barge carriage as compared with that of railroads must be passed on to those who ship by barge. It is therefore not within the province of the Commission to adjust rates, either to equalize the transportation cost of barge shippers with that of shippers who do not have access to barge service or to protect the traffic of railroads from barge competition. For Congress left the Commission no discretionary power to approve any type of rates which would reduce the “inherent advantage” of barge transportation in whole or in part. Cf. Mitchell v. United States, 313 U. S. 80, 97.
Related to the question just discussed, is the Commission’s contention here that permitting reshipping rates for ex-barge grain to remain equal to the rates for ex-rail and ex-lake grain will cause “incurable chaos” in and disrupt the national rail rate structure which reflects many interrelated conditions governing the transportation of grain from west of Chicago to eastern markets. The Commission does not show how any possible disruption of railroad rate structure arises from giving shippers the full inherent advantage of cheaper barge rates, other than that competing railroads have lost traffic to the barge lines. As we have pointed out, Congress knew that barge line rates were cheaper than rail rates, wanted the shippers to get full benefit of them, and left the Commission no power to take that benefit away from shippers by adjusting rail-barge traffic competition or rates. But we note incidentally that these rates had been equal prior to 1939 without any apparent disruption of the total structure. The possibility of such a disruption does not remotely justify discriminations against barge traffic which actually deprive shippers and the barge companies of the inherent advantages of water transportation guaranteed to them by Congress. See United States v. Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co., 294 U. S. 499, 506-510. Nor is the fact that barge-rail rates, from certain places in the west through Chicago to the east, are less than local rail rates from Chicago east, an adequate reason for increasing the east-of-Chicago part of the through barge-rail rate. The initiation of new rates with such a disparity in through rail rates as compared with local rail rates would, of course, be forbidden by § 4 of the Act as amended in the absence of Commission approval. But, insofar as the inherent cheapness of the barge leg of the through route produces a disparity between barge-rail rates and local rail rates, Congress has said that the Act must be so administered as to preserve, not eliminate or reduce the disparity.
Carriage of ex-barge grain by eastern roads may conceivably entail more service and therefore greater costs than are involved in carrying ex-rail or ex-lake grain. If so, the eastern roads may, in certain circumstances, be justified in receiving an extra charge for that extra service wherever it is rendered. But the extra service must fit the extra charge and cannot justify lump sum rate increases which cut into the inherent advantages of cheaper barge transportation which Congress intended to guarantee to shippers. Here the Commission found in broad general terms, without limitation to the localities where barge and rail compete, that “on the average” ex-rail grain from all the west requires less terminal and transit service east of Chicago than does grain moving by barge from the relatively few barge terminals. As to terminal service, it noted that some rail grain traffic going through Chicago without stopping receives no terminal service at all, whereas all barge grain shipments must be unloaded in Chicago and reloaded on freight cars. But all ex-lake grain reshipped from Chicago and an unspecified amount of ex-rail grain stopped in Chicago for processing requires exactly the same terminal service as is rendered there for ex-barge grain. Yet there is no greater rate charged for ex-barge and ex-rail grain which receives this same terminal service. The formula used here which lumps all through rail grain rates, irrespective of the services rendered, to give rail-carried grain a preferred rate over barge-carried grain, is indistinguishable in cause and consequence from an order which directly raises barge rates to relieve the railroads from barge competition. In any event, there has been no showing by the Commission as to how much, if any, of the 3-cent reshipping rate increase is attributable to the fact that ex-barge grain requires more terminal service on the average than does ex-rail grain.
The Commission also pointed out in its decision that rail rates from the west to Chicago (which we must assume on this record are fair and reasonable for the services performed) permit three transit stops west of Chicago without extra charge. Thus some ex-rail grain, unlike ex-barge and ex-lake grain, has already been processed en route to or in Chicago before it ever reaches the eastern lines, reducing the likelihood that it will require further transit service on the route from Chicago to the east. But ex-lake grain which enjoys the proportional rates with the approval of the Commission apparently is not processed before arriving at Chicago, or before reshipment on the eastern lines, and consequently requires the same transit service on the eastern haul as is required by ex-barge grain. Similar transit service is required for the unspecified amounts of ex-rail grain not processed east of Chicago. But the Commission made no finding that the eastern reshipping rates permit transit service east of Chicago without extra charge. Probably the reason that it did not make such a finding is that carriers usually make a specific extra charge for transit service. See Central R. Co. of N. J. v. United States, 257 U. S. 247; Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. United States, supra, 777, 780. And the record here shows that eastern railroads make extra charges for transit service rendered ex-barge grain east of Chicago. The Commission makes no showing why, if the existing railroad charges for each individual transit operation is insufficient to cover that operation’s costs, those charges cannot be adjusted alike for the ex-rail, ex-lake, and ex-barge shipments which require this service. In any event, partial compensation of eastern roads for additional transit costs cannot be made in a manner which singles out ex-barge grain for discriminatory treatment in violation of the Interstate Commerce Act.
To justify increasing the reshipping rates of ex-barge grain the Commission would have to make findings supported by evidence to show how much greater is the cost to the eastern roads of reshipping ex-barge grain than of reshipping ex-lake or ex-rail grain moving from the same localities and requiring the same service as does the ex-barge grain. Cf. Florida v. United States, 282 U. S. 194, 212; North Carolina v. United States, 325 U. S. 507, 520. The unsifted averages put forward by the Commission do not measure the allegedly greater costs nor indeed show that they exist.
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter would sustain the order of the Interstate Commerce Commission, because he deems it amply supported by adequate findings of the Commission differentiating the average circumstances and conditions surrounding all-rail and lake-rail transportation from those affecting barge-rail transportation, 262 I. C. C. 27-28, and these findings are not without support in evidence.
The eastern points are in New York and adjacent states and in New England. It is around shipments from Chicago to this territory that this rate controversy chiéfly revolves. The proposed new rate increases also related to grain shipments from Chicago to the so-called central territory. The reasons supporting the conclusion we reach apply equally to the central territory increases, and consequently we need not treat them separately.
See 246 I. C. C. 353, 361, 364, 383; 262 I. C. C. 7, 41.
There was barge service from the grain section west of Chicago to that city from 1886 to 1907 when it was discontinued. Such barge service was resumed in 1933. See 262 I. C. C. 7, 20.
The ex-barge proportionals fixed by the Commission were uniformly 5.5 cents lower than local rates from Chicago to the east and 3 cents higher than ex-barge and ex-lake proportionals.
Appellees are (1) A. L. Mechling, a barge water carrier between Chicago and points in Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa; (2) Inland Waterways Corporation which transports grain by barges between, among other points, Kansas City and Chicago; (3) the Secretary of Agriculture, who is authorized by statute to make complaints to the Interstate Commerce Commission, and to seek judicial relief with respect to rates and charges for the transportation of farm products.
Two procedural points are raised by the Commission which need not be discussed at length. The first is that the District Court’s preliminary injunction was too broad because it enjoined the Commission from permitting the controversial rates to become effective. This question is now moot, but see Inland Steel Co. v. United States, 306 U. S. 153, 159-160. The second procedural point urged relates to the District Court’s order requiring the Commission to serve notice of appeal on the United States. We see no error in this, and even if there were, it could not be prejudicial in connection with the Commission’s rights on this appeal. Since the United States was necessarily a party in the District Court, 28 U. S. C. 46; Lambert Run Coal Co. v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 258 U. S. 377, 382, we think the District Court cannot be held in error for requiring service of the notice of the Commission’s appeal.
54 Stat. 898, 937 ; 49 U. S. C. § 907d. In the original proceedings before the Commission, the last evidence was heard and the record was closed before the 1940 Transportation Act became a law. Interstate Commerce Commission v. Inland Waterways Cory., 319 U. S. 671, 678. The present proceedings are fully governed by the 1940 Act.
Illustrative of the attitude of Congress is this exchange between Senator Lucas and Senator Wheeler, Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Committee :
“Mr. Lucas. . . . The town in which I live is a focal point for the transportation of wheat and corn down the Illinois. The price of wheat and corn at the elevator there is always 2 or 3 cents higher than it is at elevators some 25 or 30 miles farther inland because of the difference between the rates by rail and those by water.
“Under the bill, as I understand it, the Interstate Commerce Commission would have the power, and it would be its duty, to fix rates on the Illinois River with respect to the transportation of that wheat and corn. Would it be possible for .the Interstate Commerce Commission to fix the rate the same as the railroad rate from that point to St. Louis?
“Mr. Wheeler. Not if the Commission does its duty, because the bill specifically provides that it must take into consideration the inherent advantages of the water carrier. Everyone agrees that goods can be shipped more cheaply by water than by rail.” 84 Cong. Rec. 5879 (1939).
Chairman Lea of the House Committee on Interstate Commerce stated in debate that:
“The bill very plainly, about as plainly as language can be written, provides for the protection of the inherent advantages of water transportation as contrasted with other means of transportation. In fixing rates the water carrier is assured the advantages of the cheaper rate at which he can transport property.” 84 Cong. Rec. 9862 (1939).
See also 84 Cong. Rec. 5883, 6125-6128, 6131, 6149 (1939), and Conference Report, 86 Cong. Rec. 10172 (1940).
84 Cong. Rec. 5873-5876, 5883, 6131 (1939).
The Commission stated that “The barge rates yield fair returns to the barge carriers, and, for the purpose of this proceeding, may be accepted as reasonable.” 262 I. C. C. 7, 19.
The Commission expressed concern that “the barge-rail rates are far below the all-rail rates from the same and other Illinois origins. This is an inequitable situation giving rise to requests for reductions in the all-rail rates from the Illinois and central territory origins, and it is difficult to see, with such extreme disparities, how such requests could properly be denied. . . . there is a substantial production of corn in central territory. While the farmers therein did not appear at the hearing to show that they were hurt by this situation, such evidence was adduced by others in the same relative position . . . This is what is meant by the statement . . . that the present ex-barge proportionals from Chicago jeopardize the all-rail rate structure.” 262 I. C. C. at 20. In United States v. Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co., 294 U. S. 499, 509, this Court said of an earlier Commission rate decision made on the basis of preserving the over-all rate structure from disruption: “We are warned . . , that a change once permitted has a tendency to spread. The acceptance of the new schedule for Milwaukee will lead, it is said, to requests for proportionate reductions by other lines in Indiana ... in Illinois and even in Kentucky, the outcome being characterized in the argument of counsel, though not in the report, as a rate war between the roads. . . . The point of the decision is not that present rates are sound, but that they must be maintained, even if unsound, for fear of a rate war which might spread beyond control. The danger is illusory. The whole situation is subject to the power of the Commission, which may keep the changes within bounds.”
See § 6, Transportation Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 898, 904, 49 U. S. C. § 4.
The Commission stated that “on the average, as compared with the ex-barge grain, the movement under the ex-rail proportionals . . . requires less terminal service at the gateway . . . less transit service at intermediate points in official territory, and less line-haul service to the southern portion." 262 I. C. C. at 28.
The Commission’s statement was that, “Like the lake-rail traffic, the barge-rail traffic requires transfer of lading and a full origin terminal service at the interchange port. ... it never moves in continuous through transportation.” 262 I. C. C. 7, 21.
A similar precise statement does not appear in the Commission’s decision with reference to terminal services rendered ex-rail grain. It assumed throughout its discussion, however, as shown by its reliance on averages, that a large but unspecified amount of all-rail grain shipments receive the same terminal services as does ex-barge grain.
There is apparently no processing of barge-carried grain in Chicago. The railroads there charge 3.25-4.5 cents per hundred lbs. to switch barge grain at Chicago from riverside elevators to processing plants. 262 I. C. C. 7, 24.
It is noteworthy that in its previous consideration of these same ex-barge grain reshipment rates, the Commission was satisfied that “the physical carriage beyond the reshipping point is substantially the same” in ex-rail, ex-lake, and ex-barge shipments. 248 I. C. C. 307, 311.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
These are motions for stay of an injunction by a three-judge District Court which nullified a series of enactments of the State of Louisiana. The scope of these enactments and the basis on which they were found in conflict with the Constitution of the United States are not matters of doubt. The nub of the decision of the three-judge court is this:
“The conclusion is clear that interposition is not a constitutional doctrine. If taken seriously, it is illegal defiance of constitutional authority.” United States v. Louisiana, 188 F. Supp. 916, 926.
The main basis for challenging this ruling is that the State of Louisiana “has interposed itself in the field, of public education over which it has exclusive control.” This objection is without substance, as we held, upon full consideration, in Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1. The others are likewise without merit.
Accordingly, the motions for stay are denied.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
The judgment below is affirmed by an equally divided Court.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
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sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question here is whether Art. I, § 26, of the California Constitution denies “to any person . . . the equal protection of the laws” within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Section 26 of Art. I, an initiated measure submitted to the people as Proposition 14 in a statewide ballot in 1964, provides in part as follows:
“Neither the State nor any subdivision or agency thereof shall deny, limit or abridge, directly or indirectly, the right of any person, who is willing or desires to sell, lease or rent any part or all of his real property, to decline to sell, lease or rent such property to such person or persons as he, in his absolute discretion, chooses.”
The real property covered by § 26 is limited to residential property and contains an exception for state-owned real estate.
The issue arose in two separate actions in the California courts, Mulkey v. Reitman and Prendergast v. Snyder. In Reitman, the Mulkeys, who are husband and wife and respondents here, sued under § 51 and § 52 of the California Civil Code alleging that petitioners had refused to rent them an apartment solely on account of their race. An injunction and damages were demanded. Petitioners moved for summary judgment on the ground that §§51 and 52, insofar as they were the basis for the Mulkeys’ action, had been rendered null and void by the adoption of Proposition 14 after the filing of the complaint. The trial court granted the motion and respondents took the case to the California Supreme Court.
In the Prendergast case, respondents, husband and wife, filed suit in December 1964 seeking to enjoin eviction from their apartment; respondents alleged that the eviction was motivated by racial prejudice and therefore would violate § 51 and § 52 of the Civil Code. Petitioner Snyder cross-complained for a judicial declaration that he was entitled to terminate the month-to-month tenancy even if his action was based on racial considerations. In denying petitioner’s motion for summary judgment, the trial court found it unnecessary to consider the validity of Proposition 14 because it concluded that judicial enforcement of an eviction based on racial grounds would in any event violate the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. The cross-complaint was dismissed with prejudice and petitioner Snyder appealed to the California Supreme Court which considered the case along with Mulkey v. Reitman. That court, in reversing the Reitman case, held that Art. I, § 26, was invalid as denying the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. 64 Cal. 2d 529, 413 P. 2d 825. For similar reasons, the court affirmed the judgment in the Prendergast case. 64 Cal. 2d 877, 413 P. 2d 847. We granted certiorari because the eases involve an important issue arising under the Fourteenth Amendment. 385 U. S. 967.
We affirm the judgments of the California Supreme Court. We first turn to the opinion of that court in Reitman, which quite properly undertook to examine the constitutionality of § 26 in terms of its “immediate objective,” its “ultimate effect” and its “historical context and the conditions existing prior to its enactment.” Judgments such as these we have frequently undertaken ourselves. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356; McCabe v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. Co., 235 U. S. 151; Lombard v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 267; Robinson v. Florida, 378 U. S. 153; Turner v. City of Memphis, 369 U. S. 350; Anderson v. Martin, 375 U. S. 399. But here the California Supreme Court has addressed itself to these matters and we should give careful consideration to its views because they concern the purpose, scope, and operative effect of a provision of the California Constitution.
First, the court considered whether § 26 was concerned at all with private discriminations in residential housing. This involved a review of past efforts by the California Legislature to regulate such discriminations. The Unruh Act, Civ. Code §§ 51-52, on which respondents based their cases, was passed in 1959. The Hawkins Act, formerly Health & Safety Code §§ 35700-35741, followed and prohibited discriminations in publicly assisted housing. In 1961, the legislature enacted proscriptions against restrictive covenants. Finally, in 1963, came the Rum-ford Fair Housing Act, Health & Safety Code §§ 35700-35744, superseding the Hawkins Act and prohibiting racial discriminations in the sale or rental of any private dwelling containing more than four units. That act was enforceable by the State Fair Employment Practice Commission.
It was against this background that Proposition 14 was enacted. Its immediate design and intent, the California court said, were “to overturn state laws that bore on the right of private sellers and lessors to discriminate,” the Unruh and Rumford Acts, and “to forestall future state action that might circumscribe this right.” This aim was successfully achieved: the adoption of Proposition 14 “generally nullifies both the Rumford and Unruh Acts as they apply to the housing market,” and establishes “a purported constitutional right to privately discriminate on grounds which admittedly would be unavailable under the Fourteenth Amendment should state action be involved.”
Second, the court conceded that the State was permitted a neutral position with respect to private racial discriminations and that the State was not bound by the Federal Constitution to forbid them. But, because a significant state involvement in private discriminations could amount to unconstitutional state action, Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715, the court deemed it necessary to determine whether Proposition 14 invalidly involved the State in racial discriminations in the housing market. Its conclusion was that it did.
To reach this result, the state court examined certain prior decisions in this Court in which discriminatory state action was identified. Based on these cases, Robinson v. Florida, 378 U. S. 153, 156; Anderson v. Martin, 375 U. S. 399; Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U. S. 249, 254; McCabe v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. Co., 235 U. S. 151, it concluded that a prohibited state involvement could be found “even where the state can be charged with only encouraging,” rather than commanding discrimination. Also of particular interest to the court was Mr. Justice Stewart’s concurrence in Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715, 726, where it was said that the Delaware courts had construed an existing Delaware statute as “authorizing” racial discrimination in restaurants and that the statute was therefore invalid. To the California court “[t]he instant case presents an undeniably analogous situation” wherein the State had taken affirmative action designed to make private discriminations legally possible. Section 26 was said to have changed the situation from one in which discrimination was restricted “to one wherein it is encouraged, within the meaning of the cited decisions”; § 26 was legislative action “which authorized private discrimination” and made the State “at least a partner in the instant act of discrimination . . . .” The court could “conceive of no other purpose for an application of section 26 aside from authorizing the perpetration of a purported private discrimination . . . .” The judgment of the California court was that § 26 unconstitutionally involves the State in racial discriminations and is therefore invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment.
There is no sound reason for rejecting this judgment. Petitioners contend that the California court has misconstrued the Fourteenth Amendment since the repeal of any statute prohibiting racial discrimination, which is constitutionally permissible, may be said to “authorize” and “encourage” discrimination because it makes legally permissible that which was formerly proscribed. But, as we understand the California court, it did not posit a constitutional violation on the mere repeal of the Unruh and Rumford Acts. It did not read either our cases or the Fourteenth Amendment as establishing an automatic constitutional barrier to the repeal of an existing law prohibiting racial discriminations in housing; nor did the court rule that a State may never put in statutory form an existing policy of neutrality with respect to private discriminations. What the court below did was first to reject the notion that the State was required to have a statute prohibiting racial dis-criminations in housing. Second, it held the intent of § 26 was to authorize private racial discrimina-tions in the housing market, to repeal the Unruh and Rumford Acts and to create a constitutional right to discriminate on racial grounds in the sale and leasing of real property. Hence, the court dealt with § 26 as though it expressly authorized and constitutionalized the private right to discriminate. Third, the court assessed the ultimate impact of § 26 in the California environment and concluded that the section would encourage and significantly involve the State in private racial discrimination contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment.
The California court could very reasonably conclude that § 26 would and did have wider impact than a mere repeal of existing statutes. Section 26 mentioned neither the Unruh nor Rumford Act in so many words. Instead, it announced the constitutional right of any person to decline to sell or lease his real property to anyone to whom he did not desire to sell or lease. Unruh and Rumford were thereby pro tanto repealed. But the section struck more deeply and more widely. Private dis-criminations in housing were now not only free from Rumford and Unruh but they also enjoyed a far different status than was true before the passage of those statutes. The right to discriminate, including the right to discriminate on racial grounds, was now embodied in the State’s basic charter, immune from legislative, executive, or judicial regulation at any level of the state government. Those practicing racial discriminations need no longer rely solely on their personal choice. They could now invoke express constitutional authority, free from censure or interference of any kind from official sources. All individuals, partnerships, corporations and other legal entities, as well as their agents and representatives, could now discriminate with respect to their residential real property, which is defined as any interest in real property of any kind or quality, “irrespective of how obtained or financed,” and seemingly irrespective of the relationship of the State to such interests in real property. Only the State is excluded with respect to property owned by it.
This Court has never attempted the “impossible task” of formulating an infallible test for determining whether the State “in any of its manifestations” has become significantly involved in private discriminations. “Only by sifting facts and weighing circumstances” on a case-by-case basis can a “nonobvious involvement of the State in private conduct be attributed its true significance.” Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715, 722. Here the California court, armed as it was with the knowledge of the facts and circumstances concerning the passage and potential impact of § 26, and familiar with the milieu in which that provision would operate, has determined that the provision would involve the State in private racial discriminations to an unconstitutional degree. We accept this holding of the California court.
The assessment of § 26 by the California court is similar to what this Court has done in appraising state statutes or other official actions in other contexts. In McCabe v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. Co., 235 U. S. 151, the Court dealt with a statute which, as construed by the Court, authorized carriers to provide cars for white persons but not for Negroes. Though dismissal of the complaint on a procedural ground was affirmed, the Court made it clear that such a statute was invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment because a carrier refusing equal service to Negroes would be “acting in the matter under the authority of a state law.” This was nothing less than considering a permissive state statute as an authorization to discriminate and as sufficient state action to violate the Fourteenth Amendment in the context of that case. Similarly, in Nixon v. Condon, 286 U. S. 73, the Court was faced with a statute empowering the executive committee of a political party to prescribe the qualifications of its members for voting or for other participation, but containing no directions with respect to the exercise of that power. This was authority which the committee otherwise might not have had and which was used by the committee to bar Negroes from voting in primary elections. Reposing this power in the executive committee was said to insinuate the State into the self-regulatory, decision-making scheme of the voluntary association; the exercise of the power was viewed as an expression of state authority contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment.
In Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715, the operator-lessee of a restaurant located in a building owned by the State and otherwise operated for public purposes, refused service to Negroes. Although the State neither commanded nor expressly authorized or encouraged the discriminations, the State had “elected to place its power, property and prestige behind the admitted discrimination” and by “its inaction . . . has . . . made itself a party to the refusal of service . . which therefore could not be considered the purely private choice of the restaurant operator.
In Peterson v. City of Greenville, 373 U. S. 244, and in Robinson v. Florida, 378 U. S. 153, the Court dealt with state statutes or regulations requiring, at least in some respects, segregation in facilities and services in restaurants. These official provisions, although obviously unconstitutional and unenforceable, were deemed in themselves sufficient to disentitle the State to punish, as trespassers, Negroes who had been refused service in the restaurants. In neither case was any proof required that the restaurant owner had actually been influenced by the state statute or regulation. Finally, in Lombard v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 267, the Court interpreted public statements by New Orleans city officials as announcing that the city would not permit Negroes to seek desegregated service in restaurants. Because the statements were deemed to have as much coercive potential as the ordinance in the Peterscm case, the Court treated the city as though it had actually adopted an ordinance forbidding desegregated service in public restaurants.
None of these cases squarely controls the case we now have before us. But they do illustrate the range of situations in which discriminatory state action has been identified. They do exemplify the necessity for a court to assess the potential impact of official action in determining whether the State has significantly involved itself with invidious discriminations. Here we are dealing with a provision which does not just repeal an existing law forbidding private racial discriminations. Section 26 was intended to authorize, and does authorize, racial discrimination in the housing market. The right to discriminate is now one of the basic policies of the State. The California Supreme Court believes that the section will significantly encourage and involve the State in private discriminations. We have been presented with no persuasive considerations indicating that these judgments should be overturned.
Affirmed.
Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides as follows:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
The following is the full text of § 26: “Neither the State nor any subdivision or agency thereof shall deny, limit or abridge, directly or indirectly, the right of any person, who is willing or desires to sell, lease or rent any part or all of his real property, to decline to sell, lease or rent such property to such person or persons as he, in his absolute discretion, chooses.
“ ‘Person’ includes individuals, partnerships, corporations and other legal entities and their agents or representatives but does not include the State or any subdivision thereof with respect to the sale, lease or rental of property owned by it.
“ ‘Real property’ consists of any interest in real property of any kind or quality, present or future, irrespective of how obtained or financed, which is used, designed, constructed, zoned or otherwise devoted to or limited for residential purposes whether as a single family dwelling or as a dwelling for two or more persons or families living together or independently of each other.
“This Article shall not apply to the obtaining of property by eminent domain pursuant to Article I, Sections 14 and 14% of this Constitution, nor to the renting or providing of any accommodations for lodging purposes by a hotel, motel or other similar public place engaged in furnishing lodging to transient guests.
“If any part or provision of this Article, or the application thereof to any person or circumstance, is held invalid, the remainder of the Article, including the application of such part or provision to other persons or circumstances, shall not be affected thereby and shall continue in full force and effect. To.this end the provisions of this Article are severable.” (Cal. Const., Art. I, § 26.)
Cal. Civ. Code §§ 51 and 52 provide in part as follows:
“All persons within the jurisdiction of this State are free and equal, and no matter what their race, color, religion, ancestry, or national origin are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.
“Whoever denies, or who aids, or incites such denial, or whoever makes any discrimination, distinction or restriction on account of color, race, religion, ancestry, or national origin, contrary to the provisions of Section 51 of this code, is liable for each and every such offense for the actual damages, and two hundred fifty dollars ($250) in addition thereto, suffered by any person denied the rights provided in Section 51 of this code.”
The trial court considered the case to be controlled by Abstract Investment Co. v. Hutchinson, 204 Cal. App. 2d 242, 22 Cal. Rptr. 309, which in turn placed major reliance on Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1, and Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U. S. 249.
Respondents’ complaint was dismissed without prejudice based on the trial court’s finding that petitioner would not seek eviction without the declaratory relief he had requested.
See n. 3, supra.
In addition to the ease we now have before us, two other cases decided the same day by the California Supreme Court are instructive concerning the range and impact of Art. I, § 26, of the California Constitution. In Hill v. Miller, 413 P. 2d 852, on rehearing, 64 Cal. 2d 757, 415 P. 2d 33, a Negro tenant sued to restrain an eviction from a leased, single-family dwelling. The notice to quit served by the owner had expressly recited: “The sole reason for this notice is that I have elected to exercise the right conferred upon me by Article I Section 26, California Constitution, to rent said premises to members of the Caucasian race.” Although the California court had invalidated § 26, the court ruled against the Negro plaintiff because the Unruh Act did not cover single-family dwellings. Thus the landlord’s reliance on § 26 was superfluous.
In Peyton v. Barrington Plaza Corp., 64 Cal. 2d 880, 413 P. 2d 849, a Negro physician sued to require the defendant corporation to lease him an apartment in Barrington Plaza which was described in the opinion as follows:
“that defendant received a $17,000,000, low interest rate loan under the National Housing Act to construct Barrington Plaza; that such sum represents 90 percent of the construction costs of the plaza; that the development is a part of the urban redevelopment program undertaken by the City of Los Angeles; that Barrington Plaza is the largest apartment development in the western United States, providing apartment living for 2,500 people; that it includes many retail shops and professional services within its self-contained facilities; that it provides a fall-out shelter, completely stocked by the federal government with emergency supplies; that the plaza replaced private homes of both Caucasians and non-Caucasians; that the city effected zoning changes to accommodate the development; that the defendant’s securities were sold, its construction contracts were let, its building permits were issued and its shops and professional services established all pursuant to state or local approval, cooperation and authority.”
The defendant defended the action and moved for judgment on the pleadings based on Art. I, § 26, of the California Constitution. The motion was granted but the judgment was reversed based on the decision in Mulkey v. Reitman.
This ease was a sequel to Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536, which outlawed statutory disqualification of Negroes from voting in primary elections.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
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sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an action to recover damages for injury to goods in the course of an export shipment by rail. The Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company delivered to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in Sharon, Pennsylvania, goods ultimately destined for the Mexican Light and Power Company. According to the bill of lading issued by the Pennsylvania Railroad the goods were consigned to
The Mexican Light & Power Co. Ltd.,
c/o Fausto Trevino, Customs Agent,
(National Railways of Mexico).
The destination was Laredo, Texas, with the further notation
“For Export to: El Oro, Estado de Mexico via Acambaro via Laredo.”
The transportation charges were prepaid at the export rate, less than the domestic, and they covered shipment not merely into Laredo but up to the international boundary.
The Texas-Mexican Railway was the last of the series of connecting carriers over which the machinery was routed by the Pennsylvania. The former, having received the shipment at Alice, Texas, continued the carriage to its yards at Laredo. At Laredo, there was issued to Fausto Trevino, the agent, what formally appears to be a bill of lading consigning the shipment to petitioner at El Oro. The record is silent as to the circumstances that brought this document into existence, but it is admitted that the respondent received no payment for transporting the goods other than its share in the export rate prepaid to the Pennsylvania under the Sharon bill of lading. Trevino did use the second bill of lading for clearing the shipment with the Mexican customs, but there is no showing that the first bill of lading would not have served as documentation for this purpose. The respondent railroad then moved the goods, still in the original cars, from its yards to the international boundary. There, the shipment passed to the National Railways of Mexico and it was on its lines, in Mexico, that the machinery was injured.
Petitioner brought this suit in one of the district courts of Texas. Judgment went for the railroad. The Texas Court of Civil Appeals reversed, 190 S. W. 2d 838, but was in turn reversed by the Supreme Court of Texas. 145 Tex. 50, 193 S. W. 2d 964. We granted certiorari, 329 U. S. 697, because important issues affecting the carrier’s liability under the Interstate Commerce Act were pressed upon us.
On full consideration of the case it falls within a very narrow compass. The goods consigned to Laredo moved on the bill of lading issued at Sharon with the indicated connections, including the Texas-Mexican. By virtue of the Carmack Amendment, 34 Stat. 584, amended, 38 Stat. 1196, that bill of lading determines the rights of the consignee. While each connecting carrier is, of course, liable for damage occurring on its line, only the initial carrier is liable for damage on any of the connections. Unless, therefore, the Texas-Mexican Railway was an initial carrier with reference to the Mexican Railroad it cannot be responsible for injuries on that road. And it did not become an initial carrier merely by force of what purported to be a bill of lading issued at Laredo unless the so-called second bill of lading represents the initiation of a new shipment on the Texas-Mexican.
We agree with the Texas Supreme Court that nothing happened at Laredo to displace the duty which was created at Sharon for the carriage of the goods by the Texas-Mexican to the international boundary, or to modify the terms of its undertaking when, at Alice, it received the goods under the Sharon bill of lading.
What was said of the shipment of cattle in Missouri, Kansas & Texas R. Co. v. Ward, 244 U. S. 383, 387, is precisely applicable to the shipment of machinery in this case:
“The terms of the original bill of lading were not altered by the second issued by the connecting carrier. As appellants were already bound to transport the cattle at the rate and upon the terms named in the original bill of lading, the acceptance by the shipper of the second bill was without consideration and was void.”
No matter what the convenience which a consignee may derive from a bill of lading issued by a connecting carrier on a through shipment, unless the connecting carrier has received a consideration for the bill of lading in addition to that which flowed under the bill of lading issued by the initiating carrier, the Carmack Amendment makes such second bill of lading void. It can neither enlarge the liability of the connecting carrier nor contract that of the initiating carrier. That is what was meant when the Ward case said that the purpose of the Carmack Amendment was “to create in the initial carrier unity of responsibility for the transportation to destination.” Missouri, Kansas & Texas R. Co. v. Ward, supra, at 386. This is an even stronger case for the application of this principle. For in the Ward case the Court found the second bill of lading void for lack of consideration although it was “alleged to have been issued in consideration of a special reduced rate theretofore duly filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission” because there was nothing to indicate that that special rate “affected the through rate already agreed upon in the original bill of lading.” 244 U. S. at 385-86.
Properly finding that the so-called bill of lading did not evidence any new and independent undertaking, when judged by the rigid requirements by which bills of lading are valid under the Carmack Amendment, the Texas Supreme Court was right in holding that the shipment over the Texas-Mexican legally moved only under the original bill of lading, that the Pennsylvania was never displaced as the initial carrier, and that therefore the Texas-Mexican was not liable for damage that occurred on the Mexican Railroad.
Judgment affirmed.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the Truth in Lending Act, 82 Stat. 146, 16 U. S. C. § 1601 et seq., when a loan made in a consumer credit transaction is secured by the borrower’s principal dwelling, the borrower may rescind the loan agreement if the lender fails to deliver certain forms or to disclose important terms accurately. See 15 U. S. C. § 1635. Under § 1635(f) of the statute, this right of rescission “shall expire” in the usual case three years after the loan eloses or upon the sale of the secured property, whichever date is earlier. The question here is whether a borrower may assert this right to rescind as an affirmative defense in a collection action brought by the lender more than three years after the consummation of the transaction. We answer no and hold that § 1635(f) completely extinguishes the right of rescission at the end of the 3-year period.
I
The declared purpose of the Act is “to assure a meaningful disclosure of credit terms so that the consumer will be able to compare more readily the various credit terms available to him and avoid the uninformed use of credit, and to protect the consumer against inaccurate and unfair credit billing and credit card practices.” 15 U. S. C. § 1601(a); see Mourning v. Family Publications Service, Inc., 411 U. S. 356, 363-368 (1973). Accordingly, the Act requires creditors to provide borrowers with clear and accurate disclosures of terms dealing with things like finance charges, annual percentage rates of interest, and the borrower’s rights. See §§1631, 1632, 1635, 1638. Failure to satisfy the Act subjects a lender to criminal penalties for noncompliance, see § 1611, as well as to statutory and actual damages traceable to a lender’s failure to make the requisite disclosures, see §1640. Section 1640(e) provides that an action for such damages “may be brought” within one year after a violation of the Act, but that a borrower may assert the right to damages “as a matter of defense by recoupment or set-off” in a collection action brought by the lender even after the one year is up.
Going beyond these rights to damages, the Act also authorizes a borrower whose loan is secured with his “principal dwelling,” and who has been denied the requisite disclosures, to rescind the loan transaction entirely “until midnight of the third business day following the consummation of the transaction or the delivery of the information and rescission forms required under this section together with a statement containing the material disclosures required under this subchapter, whichever is later.” § 1635(a). A borrower who exercises this right to rescind “is not liable for any finance or other charge, and any security interest given by [him], including any such interest arising by operation of law, becomes void” upon rescission. § 1635(b). Within 20 days after receiving notice of rescission, the lender must “return to the [borrower] any money or property given as earnest money, downpayment, or otherwise, and shall take any action necessary or appropriate to reflect the termination of any security interest created under the transaction.” Ibid. The Act provides, however, that the borrower’s right of rescission “shall expire three years after the date of consummation of the transaction or upon the sale of the property, whichever occurs first,” even if the required disclosures have never been made. § 1685(f). The Act gives a borrower no express permission to assert the right of rescission as an affirmative defense after the expiration of the 3-year period.
The borrowers in this case, petitioners David and Linda Beach, built a house in Jupiter, Florida, in 1986 with a secured $85,000 construction loan from Fidelity Federal Savings Bank of Florida. In the same year, the Beaches refinanced the house with a loan from Great Western Bank. In 1991, the Beaches stopped making mortgage payments, and in 1992 the bank began this foreclosure proceeding. The Beaches acknowledged their default but raised affirmative defenses, alleging that the bank’s failure to make disclosures required by the Act gave them rights under §§1635 and 1640 to rescind the mortgage agreement and to reduce the bank’s claim by the amount of their actual and statutory damages.
The Circuit Court of the 15th Judicial Circuit of Florida agreed that under § 1640 the Beaches were entitled to “offset the amount owed to Great Western” by $896 in actual damages and $1,000 in statutory damages because the bank had overstated the monthly mortgage payment by $0.58 and the finance charge by $201.84. But the court rejected the Beaches’ effort to rescind the mortgage under § 1685, holding that the loan at issue was immune to rescission as part of a “residential mortgage transaction” (defined in § 1602(w)) and, in the alternative, that any right to rescind had expired after three years, in 1989. The court found it telling that Congress had included no saving clause to revive an expired right of rescission as a defense in the nature of recoupment or setoff.
The State’s intermediate appellate court affirmed, Beach v. Great Western Bank, 670 So. 2d 986 (Fla. 4th Dist. Ct. App. 1996), and so did the Supreme Court of Florida, which addressed only the issue of rescission as a defense, Beach v. Great Western Bank, 692 So. 2d 146 (1997). That court remarked on the plain language of § 1685(f) as evidence of unconditional congressional intent to limit the right of rescission to three years and explained that its prior cases permitting a defense of recoupment by an ostensibly barred elaim were distinguishable because, among other things, they involved statutes of limitation, not statutes extinguishing rights defensively asserted.
Because the reading of § 1635(f) given by the Supreme Court of Florida conflicts with the decisions of several other courts, we granted certiorari, 522 U. S. 912 (1997), to determine whether under federal law the statutory right of rescission provided by §1635 may be revived as an affirmative defense after its expiration under § 1635(f). We affirm.
II
The Beaches concede that any right they may have had to institute an independent proceeding for rescission under § 1635 lapsed in 1989, three years after they closed the loan with the bank, but they argue that the restriction to three years in § 1635(f) is a statute of limitation governing only the institution of suit and accordingly has no effect when a borrower claims a § 1635 right of rescission as a “defense in recoupment” to a collection action. They are, of course, correct that as a general matter a defendant’s right to plead “recoupment,” a “ ‘defense arising out of some feature of the transaction upon which the plaintiff’s action is grounded,’ ” Rothensies v. Electric Storage Battery Co., 329 U. S. 296, 299 (1946) (quoting Bull v. United States, 295 U. S. 247, 262 (1935)), survives the expiration of the period provided by a statute of limitation that would otherwise bar the recoupment claim as an independent cause of action. So long as the plaintiff’s action is timely, see ibid., a defendant may raise a claim in recoupment even if he could no longer bring it independently, absent “‘the clearest congressional language’ ” to the contrary. Reiter v. Cooper, 507 U. S. 258, 264 (1993) (quoting United States v. Western Pacific R. Co., 352 U. S. 59, 71 (1956)). As we have said before, the object of a statute of limitation in keeping “stale litigation out of the courts,” id., at 72, would be distorted if the statute were applied to bar an otherwise legitimate defense to a timely lawsuit, for limitation statutes “are aimed at lawsuits, not at the consideration of particular issues in lawsuits,” ibid.
The Beaches come up short, however, on the question whether this is a case for the general rule at all. The issue here is not whether limitation statutes affect recoupment rights, but whether § 1635(f) is a statute of limitation, that is, “whether [it] operates, with the lapse of time, to extinguish the right which is the foundation for the claim” or “merely to bar the remedy for its enforcement.” Midstate Horticultural Co. v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 320 U. S. 356, 358-359, and n. 4 (1943). The “ultimate question” is whether Congress intended that “the right shall be enforceable in any event after the prescribed time,” id., at 360; accord, Burnett v. New York Central R. Co., 380 U. S. 424 (1965), and in this instance, the answer is apparent from the plain language of § 1635(f). See Good Samaritan Hospital v. Shalala, 508 U. S. 402, 409 (1993).
The terms of a typical statute of limitation provide that a cause of action may or must be brought within a certain period of time. So, in Reiter v. Cooper, supra, at 263-264, we concluded that 49 U. S. C. § 11706(c)(2), providing that a shipper “‘must begin a civil action to recover damages under [§ 11705(b)(3)] within two years after the claim accrues,’” was a statute of limitation raising no bar to a claim made in recoupment. See Note, Developments in the Law: Statutes of Limitations, 63 Harv. L. Rev, 1177, 1179 (1950) (most statutes of limitation provide either that “all actions . . . shall be brought within” or “no action ... shall be brought more than” so many years after “the cause thereof accrued” (internal quotation marks omitted)); H. Wood, 1 Limitation of Actions § 1, pp. 2-3 (4th ed. 1916) (“[Statutes which provide that no action shall be brought, or right enforced, unless brought or enforced within a certain time, are . . . statutes of limitation”).
To be sure, a limitation provision may be held to be nothing more than a bar to bringing suit, even though its terms are ostensibly more ambitious than the language of the classic formulations cited above. Thus, for example, in Distribution Servs., Ltd. v. Eddie Parker Interests, Inc., 897 F. 2d 811 (1990), the Fifth Circuit concluded that §3(6) of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act is a statute of limitation permitting counterclaim brought by way of recoupment, despite its fierce-sounding provision that “the carrier and the ship shall be discharged from all liability in respect of loss or damage unless suit is brought within one year after delivery of the goods,” 46 U. S. C. App. § 1303(6).
Section 1635(f), however, takes us beyond any question whether it limits more than the time for bringing a suit, by governing the life of the underlying right as well. The subsection says nothing in terms of bringing an action but instead provides that the “right of rescission [under the Act] shall expire” at the end of the time period. It talks not of a suit’s commencement but of a right’s duration, which it addresses in terms so straightforward as to render any limitation on the time for seeking a remedy superfluous. There is no reason, then, even to resort to the canons of construction that we use to resolve doubtful cases, such as the rule that the creation of a right in the same statute that provides a limitation is some evidence that the right was meant to be limited, not just the remedy. See Midstate Horticultural Co., supra, at 360; Burnett, supra, at 427, n. 2; Davis v. Mills, 194 U. S. 451, 454 (1904).
The Act, however, has left even less to chance (if that is possible) than its “expire” provision would allow, standing alone. It is useful to look ahead to § 1640 with its provisions for recovery of damages. Subsection (e) reads that the 1-year limit on actions for damages “does not bar a person from asserting a violation of this subchapter in an action to collect the debt which was brought more than one year from the date of the occurrence of the violation as a matter of defense by recoupment or set-off in such action, except as otherwise provided by State law.” 15 U. S. C. § 1640(e). Thus the effect of the 1-year limitation provision on damages actions is expressly deflected from recoupment claims. The quite different treatment of rescission stands in stark contrast to this, however, there being no provision for rescission as a defense that would mitigate the uncompromising provision of § 1635(f) that the borrower’s right “shall expire” with the running of the time. Indeed, when Congress amended the Act in 1995 to soften certain restrictions on rescission as a defense in §8, 109 Stat. 275-276, 15 U. S. C. §§1635(i)(1) and (2) (1994 ed., Supp. I), it took care to provide that any such liberality was “subject to the [three year] time period provided in subsection (f),” ibid., and it left a borrower’s only hope for further recoupment in the slim promise of § 1635(i)(3), that “[n]othing in this subsection affects a consumer’s right of rescission in recoupment under State law.” § 8,109 Stat. 276. Thus, recoupment of damages and rescission-in the nature of recoupment receive unmistakably different treatments, which under the normal rule of construction are understood to reflect a deliberate intent on the part of Congress. See Bates v. United States, 522 U. S. 23, 29-30 (1997) (““‘[W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion” ’ ”) (quoting Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 23 (1983), in turn quoting United States v. Wong Kim Bo, 472 F. 2d 720, 722 (CA5 1972)). And the distinction thus indicated makes -perfectly good sense. Since a statutory right of rescission could cloud a bank’s title on foreclosure, Congress may well have chosen to circumscribe that risk, while permitting recoupment damages regardless of the date a collection action may be brought. See Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System, Annual Report to Congress on Truth in Lending for the Year 1971, p. 19 (Jan. 3, 1972); National Commission on Consumer Finance, Consumer Credit in the United States 189-190 (Dee. 1972).
We respect Congress’s manifest intent by concluding that the Act permits no federal right to rescind, defensively or otherwise, after the 3-year period of § 1635(f) has run. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida.
It is so ordered.
The Act provides a limited extension of this 3-year time period when "(1) any agency empowered to enforce the provisions of this subchapter institutes a proceeding to enforce the provisions of this section within three years after the date of consummation of the transaction, (2) such agency finds a violation of this section, and (3) the obligor’s right to rescind is based in whole or in part on any matter involved in such proceeding.” 15 U. S. C. § 1635(f). Under such circumstances, “the obligor’s right of rescission shall expire three years after the date of consummation of the transaction or upon the earlier sale of the property, or upon the expiration of one year following the conclusion of the proceeding, or any judicial review or period for judicial review thereof, whichever is later.” Ibid.
Ocwen Federal Bank was substituted as the plaintiff while this case was pending in the trial court.
Specifically, the Beaches claimed that the bank had failed to disclose properly and accurately (1) the amount financed, in violation of § 1638(a)(3); (2) the finance charge, in violation of § 1638(a)(3); (3) the annual percentage rate, in violation of § 1638(a)(4); (4) the number, amounts, and timing of payments scheduled to repay the obligation, in violation of § 1638(a)(6); and (5) the total of payments, in violation of § 1638(a)(5).
Although the per curiam opinion posed the question as one “[u]nder Florida law," 692 So. 2d, at 147, it distinguished cases based on state law as inapposite and held that a defense of rescission was unavailable under the Act after three years.
See, e. g., In re Barsky, 210 B. R. 683 (Bkrtcy. Ct. ED Pa. 1997); In re Botelho, 195 B. R. 558 (Bkrtcy. Ct. Mass. 1996); In re Shaw, 178 B. R. 380 (Bkrtcy. Ct. NJ 1994); Federal Deposit Ins. Corp. v. Ablin, 177 Ill. App. 3d 390, 532 N. E. 2d 379 (1988); Community Nat. Bank & Trust Co. of N. Y. v. McClammy, 525 N. Y. S. 2d 629, 138 App. Div. 2d 339 (1988); Dawe v. Merchants Mortgage and Trust Corp., 683 P. 2d 796 (Colo. 1984) (en bane).
Since there is no claim before us that Florida law purports to provide any right to rescind defensively on the grounds relevant under the Act, we have no occasion to explore how state recoupment law might work when raised in a foreclosure proceeding outside the 8-year period.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has certified to this Court the following three questions:
“(1) Has Congress created in the Court of Appeals, as a court, the jurisdiction to issue a certificate of probable cause, sought from the court, as a court, by the provisions of 28 U. S. C. § 2253, replacing the repealed 28 U. S. C. § 466?
“(2) If the Supreme Court holds that Congress has not given the Courts of Appeal such jurisdiction, did the Supreme Court create that jurisdiction, by its per curiam opinion, rendered without argument, which failed to consider 28 U. S. C. § 2253 and was based on the repealed 28 U. S. C. § 466 and House v. Mayo, 324 U. S. 42, 48 (1945), and its remand to this court ‘so that the petitioner’s application for a certificate of probable cause may be entertained on its merits’?
“(3) If the Supreme Court holds that Congress or the Court creates such jurisdiction by 28 U. S. C. § 2253 and that House v. Mayo applies, does its mandate mean that all the judges, as judges, or some individual judge, or the court as a court shall consider the petition for a certificate of probable cause?”
Earlier this Term we were constrained to find that the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was in error in deeming itself without jurisdiction to entertain applications for certificates of probable cause, under 28 U. S. C. § 2253, addressed to that court instead of to a judge or judges thereof. Accordingly, we reversed the judgments in these cases. Burwell v. Teets, 350 U. S. 808; Rogers v. Teets, 350 U. S. 809. Each of these cases was reversed “so that the petitioner’s application for a certificate of probable cause may be entertained on its merits.”
We did not attempt to lay down a procedure for the Court of Appeals to follow for the entertainment of such applications on their merits. We shall not do so now. It is for the Court of Appeals to determine whether such an application to the court is to be considered by a panel of the Court of Appeals, by one of its judges, or in some other way deemed appropriate by the Court of Appeals within the scope of its powers. Cf. Western Pacific R. Corp. v. Western Pacific R. Co., 345 U. S. 247. It is not for this Court to prescribe how the discretion vested in a Court of Appeals, acting under 28. U. S. C. § 2253, should be exercised. See United States v. Rosenburgh, 7 Wall. 580. As long, as that court keeps within the bounds of judicial discretion, its action is not reviewable.
The entire certificate in each of these cases must be
Dismissed.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under review here is a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit holding that private parties may sue under the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899 to enforce § 10 of that Act. An environmental organization and two private citizens (hereafter respondents) seek to enjoin the construction and operation of water diversion facilities which are part of the California Water Project (CWP). They rely upon § 10 of the Act, which prohibits “[t]he creation of any obstruction not affirmatively authorized by Congress, to the navigable capacity of any of the waters of the United States . ...” Since the Act does not explicitly create a private enforcement mechanism, the initial question presented by these consolidated cases is whether such a private right of action can be implied on behalf of those allegedly injured by a claimed violation of § 10. Petitioner State of California also asks us to decide whether the Act requires permits for the state water allocation projects involved in these cases.
I
The California Water Project consists of a series of water storage and transportation facilities designed primarily to transport water from the relatively moist climate of northern California to the more arid central and southern portions of the State. The water which will be used by the CWP is initially stored behind dams on the Sacramento River and, as needed, released into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The CWP then diverts a quantity of this water from the Delta and directs it into canals and aqueducts which will carry it south. The project has both federal and state components. The federal component, the Central Valley Project, is designed in part to provide a constant source of water for irrigation to the Central Valley of California. Water for this project is diverted from the Delta by the Tracy Pumping Plant into the 115-mile Delta-Mendota Canal which transports the water to the Mendota Pool in California’s Central Valley. The State Water Project supplies water to both central and southern California by way of the California Aqueduct. Water for this project is drawn from the Delta by the Delta Pumping Plant and deposited in the northern terminus of the California Aqueduct, through which it flows to its destinations in central and southern California.
Under the present system the quality of water captured in the north and released into the Delta may be degraded by intruding salt waters from the Pacific Ocean. As a consequence the water which is diverted from the Delta to the Delta-Mendota Canal or the California Aqueduct is potentially of a lesser quality than is the water which is transported to the Delta from storage facilities in the north and from there deposited in the Delta. The State of California has proposed the construction of a 42-mile Peripheral Canal along the eastern edge of the Delta area, which would avoid any mixing of the water from the north with the saline water of the Delta. Instead of depositing water in the Delta, the canal would carry high quality water directly to the Tracy and Delta Pumping Plants.
Respondents commenced the present action in 1971 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Sierra Club v. Morton, 400 P. Supp. 610 (1975). Named as defendants were the various federal and state officials who administer the agencies responsible for overseeing the operation, construction, and regulation of the CWP facilities in question. Petitioner water agencies, which had contracted with the State for water from the Delta and which had incurred extensive financial obligations in reliance thereon, were permitted to intervene. The respondents alleged that present and proposed diversions of water from the Delta degraded the quality of Delta water, and that such diversion violated § 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899. They sought to enjoin further operation or construction of water diversion facilities until the consent of the Army Corps of Engineers was obtained as required by the Act.
The District Court concluded that respondents could avail themselves of a “private cause of action” to enforce § 10 of the Act, and ruled on the merits that approval of the Corps of Engineers was required by § 10 for the Tracy and Delta Pumping Plants and the Peripheral Canal. Sierra, Club v. Morton, supra. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed that a private cause of action to enforce the Act existed. Sierra Club v. Andrus, 610 F. 2d 581 (1979). It reversed the District Court as to the Tracy Pumping Plant, however, ruling that Congress has consented to its construction and operation. We granted petitions for certiorari filed by the water agencies and the State of California. 449 U. S. 818 (1980).
II
Cort v. Ash, 422 U. S. 66 (1975), outlined a “preferred approach for determining whether a private right of action should be implied from a federal statute . . . .” Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U. S. 11, 26 (1979) (White, J., dissenting); see Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677 (1979). This approach listed four factors thought to be relevant to the inquiry:
“First, is the plaintiff 'one of the class for whose especial benefit the statute was enacted/ . . . —that is, does the statute create a federal right in favor of the plaintiff? Second, is there any indication of legislative intent, explicit or implicit, either to create such a remedy or to deny one? . . . Third, is it consistent with the underlying purposes of the legislative scheme to imply such a remedy for the plaintiff? . . . And finally, is the cause of action one traditionally relegated to state law, in an area basically the concern of the States, so that it would be inappropriate to infer a cause of action based solely on federal law?” 422 U. S., at 78.
Combined, these four factors present the relevant inquiries to pursue in answering the recurring question of implied causes of action. Cases subsequent to Cort have explained that the ultimate issue is whether Congress intended to create a private right of action, see Universities Research Assn., Inc. v. Coutu, 450 U. S. 754, 771-772 (1981); Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, supra, at 23-24; Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, 442 U. S. 560, 568, 575-576 (1979); but the four factors specified in Cort remain the “criteria through which this intent could be discerned.” Davis v. Passman, 442 U. S. 228, 241 (1979); Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, supra, at 27 (White, J., dissenting).
Under Cort, the initial consideration is whether the plaintiff is a -member of a class for “ 'whose especial benefit the statute was enacted.’ ” Cort v. Ash, supra, at 78, 80-82; see Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, supra, at 569-570; Cannon v. University of Chicago, supra, at 689-694. Without analyzing either the language or legislative history of the Act, the Court of Appeals here concluded that the Act was designed for the especial benefit of private parties who may suffer “special injury” caused by an unauthorized obstruction to a navigable waterway. It was apparently reasoned that since Congress enacted a statute that forbids such obstructions in navigable waters, any person who would be “especially harmed” by an unauthorized obstruction was an especial beneficiary of the Act. But such a definition of “especial” beneficiary makes this factor meaningless. Under this view, a victim of any crime would be deemed an especial beneficiary of the criminal statute’s proscription. Cort did not adopt such a broad-gauge approach. Cort v. Ash, supra, at 80-82. The question is not simply who would benefit from the Act, but whether Congress intended to confer federal rights upon those beneficiaries. See Cannon, supra, at 690-693, n. 13.
In ascertaining this intent, the first consideration is the language of the Act. Here, the statute states no more than a general proscription of certain activities; it does not unmistakably focus on any particular class of beneficiaries whose welfare Congress intended to further. Such language does not indicate an intent to provide for private rights of action. “There would be far less reason to infer a private remedy in favor of individual persons if Congress, instead of drafting Title IX [of the Education Amendments of 1972] with an unmistakable focus on the benefited class, had written it simply as a ban on discriminatory conduct by recipients of federal funds or as a prohibition against the disbursement of public funds to educational institutions engaged in discriminatory practices.” Cannon v. University of Chicago, supra, at 690-693; see also Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, supra, at 569; Cort v. Ash, supra, at 80-82. Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act is the kind of general ban which carries with it no implication of an intent to confer rights on a particular class of persons.
Neither the Court of Appeals nor respondents have identified anything in the legislative history suggesting that § 10 was created for the especial benefit of a particular class. On the contrary, the legislative history supports the view that the Act was designed to benefit the public at large by empowering the Federal Government to exercise its authority over interstate commerce with respect to obstructions on navigable rivers caused by bridges and similar structures. In part, the Act was passed in response to this Court’s decision in Willamette Iron Bridge Co. v. Hatch, 125 U. S. 1 (1888). There the Court held that there was no federal common law “which prohibits obstructions and nuisances in navigable rivers.” Id., at 8. Although Willamette involved private parties, the clear implication of the Court’s opinion was that in the absence of specific legislation no party, including the Federal Government, would be empowered to take any action under federal law with respect to such obstructions. The Act was intended to enable the Secretary of War to take such action. See 21 Cong. Rec. 8603, 8605, and 8607 (1890); see also United States v. Pennsylvania Industrial Chemical Corp., 411 U. S. 655, 663-664 (1973); United States v. Standard Oil Co., 384 U. S. 224, 227-229 (1966); United States v. Republic Steel Corp., 362 U. S. 482, 485-488, 499-500 (1960). Congress was not concerned with the rights of individuals.
It is not surprising, therefore, that there is no “indication of legislative intent, explicit or implicit, either to create such a remedy or to deny one.” Cort v. Ash, 422 U. S., at 78, 82-84; Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, 442 U. S., at 571; Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S., at 694-703. The Court of Appeals recognized as much: “The legislative history of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 does not reflect a congressional intent either to afford a private remedy or to deny one.” 610 F. 2d, at 588. This silence on the remedy question serves to confirm that in enacting the Act, Congress was concerned not with private rights but with the Federal Government’s ability to respond to obstructions on navigable waterways.
As recently emphasized, the focus of the inquiry is on whether Congress intended to create a remedy. Universities Research Assn., Inc. v. Coutu, 450 U. S., at 771-772; Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U. S., at 23-24; Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, supra, at 575-576. The federal judiciary will not engraft a remedy on a statute, no matter how salutary, that Congress did not intend to provide. Here consideration of the first two Cort factors is dispositive. The language of the statute and its legislative history do not suggest that the Act was intended to create federal rights for the especial benefit of a class of persons but rather that it was intended to benefit the public at large through a general regulatory scheme to be administered by the then Secretary of War. Nor is there any evidence that Congress anticipated that there would be a private remedy. This being the case, it is unnecessary to inquire further to determine whether the purpose of the statute would be advanced by the judicial implication of a private action or whether such a remedy is within the federal domain of interest. These factors are only of relevance if the first two factors give indication of congressional intent to create the remedy. Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, supra, at 574-576. There being no such indication, the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be reversed.
Ill
Petitioner the State of California urges that we reach the merits of these cases — whether permits are required for the state water allocation projects — regardless of our disposition of the private-cause-of-action issue. This we decline to do. Our ruling that there is no private cause of action permitting respondents to commence this action disposes of the cases: we cannot consider the merits of a claim which Congress has not authorized respondents to raise.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly reversed, and the cases are remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The Sierra Club is a nonprofit California corporation; Hank Schramm is a commercial fisherman active in the San Francisco Bay and Pacific Ocean; and William Dixon is a Saeramento-San Joaquin Delta landowner. See 400 F. Supp. 610, 619 (ND Cal. 1975).
Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899 provides:
“The creation of any obstruction not affirmatively authorized by Congress, to the navigable capacity of any of the waters of the United States is prohibited; and it shall not be lawful to build or commence the building of any wharf, pier, dolphin, boom, weir, breakwater, bulkhead, jetty, or other structures in any port, roadstead, haven, harbor, canal, navigable river, or other water of the United States, outside established harbor lines, or where no harbor lines have been established, except on plans recommended by the Chief of Engineers and authorized by the Secretary of the Army; and it shall not be lawful to excavate or fill, or in any manner to alter or modify the course, location, condition, or capacity of, any port, roadstead, haven, harbor, canal, lake, harbor or refuge, or inclosure within the limits of any breakwater, or of the channel of any navigable water of the United States, unless the work has been recommended by the Chief of Engineers and authorized by the Secretary of the Army prior to beginning the same.” 30 Stat. 1151, 33 U. S. C. § 403.
The federal defendants were the Secretary of the Interior, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, the Secretary of the Army, the Chief of Engineers of the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Division Engineer of the Corps’ South Pacific Division. The state defendants were the Secretary for Resources and the Director of the Department of Water Resources. 400 F. Supp., at 620.
According to affidavits filed in 1974 in support of motions to intervene, Kern County Water Agency has contracted to purchase up to 1,153,000 acre-feet annually, which is resold primarily to agricultural users. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has contracted to purchase up to 2,011,500 acre-feet annually to serve the water needs of an area of some 4,900 square miles with 10 million inhabitants. The Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District and the Santa Clara Valley Water District have contracted to purchase lesser amounts. See App. 99a-112a.
Judge Tang wrote separately to explain why the conclusion that the Tracy Pumping Plant had been authorized by Congress did not conflict with the Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in Libby Rod & Gun Club v. Poteat, 594 F. 2d 742 (1979). 610 F. 2d, at 607.
In addition, § 12 of the Act, 33 U. S. C. § 406, provides criminal penalties for violations of the provisions .of various sections of the Act, including the provisions of § 10; and, § 17 of the Act, 33 U. S. C. §413, provides that “[t]he Department of Justice shall conduct the legal proceedings necessary to enforce the provisions of [§ 10].” The creation of one explicit mode of enforcement is not dispositive of congressional intent with respect to other complementary remedies. See Cort v. Ash, 422 U. S. 66, 82-83, n. 14 (1975); Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U. S. 11, 29, n. 6 (1979) (White, J., dissenting). However, here, considering the clear focus of the legislative history on the need to enable the Government to respond to obstructions in navigable waterways, the creation of this enforcement mechanism and the absence of the remedy sought by respondents, certainly reinforces the view that Congress was not concerned with private rights or remedies in designing this legislation.
Respondents suggest that the legislative history of the Act must be read in light of the historical context during which the measure was being considered. See Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 698-699 (1979). That context, they argue,'included a general awareness that the obstruction of any navigable stream could have been addressed through the common law of nuisance and that this private remedy had been recognized at one time as federal in nature. Furthermore, they argue that the contemporary legal climate recognized that the abrogation of this federal remedy in cases such as Willamette Iron Bridge Co. v. Hatch, 125 U. S. 1 (1888), did not undermine the accepted view that the enactment of any federal prohibition of obstructions on navigable streams would resurrect the federal private right of action. Congressional silence as to private remedies should be interpreted, therefore, as acquiescing in the accepted view.
For both of these positions respondents rely heavily upon Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 13 How. 518 (1852). There, the State of Pennsylvania sought equitable relief from the construction of a bridge across the Ohio River. The Court took the case under its original jurisdiction, a State being the plaintiff, and, having done so, held that it was empowered to consider all issues presented by the parties, state as well as federal. Respondents suggest that the Wheeling Court held that federal courts were regularly available to entertain actions for nuisance brought by private parties with respect to obstructions on navigable rivers. But nothing in the opinion supports that view. The discussion in that case of the common law of nuisance is based on the Court’s position that it was entitled to consider state as well as federal issues in the cause before it. Indeed, that the opinion did not establish a general federal law of nuisance with respect to navigable waterways was a point reiterated in Willamette, supra, at 15-17. In short, although there may have been a common-law nuisance cause of action for obstructions of navigable waterways, Wheeling Bridge did not federalize that law. Respondents have cited no decision by this Court that did.
Equally unavailing is respondents’ assertion that Wheeling Bridge stands for the broad proposition that if Congress legislated in this area, any prohibition of obstructions would automatically support a private right of action. This position is extrapolated from discussions of the law of nuisance in both Wheeling Bridge, supra, at 604-607 and the subsequent Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713, 722-724 (1866). In both cases the Court merely expressed agreement with the proposition that a court of equity could enjoin a public nuisance in a case brought by a private person who had sustained specific injury. Whether a congressional enactment prohibiting obstructions would automatically give rise to a private right of action was not an issue raised or discussed in either case.
The most that may be legitimately concluded as to legislative understanding of the law preceding the enactment of this statute is that Congress was aware that the Supreme Court had held that there was no federal law which empowered anyone to contest obstructions to navigable rivers. See 21 Cong. Rec. 8604r-8607 (1890). We cannot assume from legislative silence on private rights of action, that Congress anticipated that a general regulatory prohibition of obstructions to navigable streams would provide an automatic basis for a private remedy in the nature of common-law nuisance. The Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899 was no doubt in part a legislative response to the Willamette decision. But there is nothing to suggest that that response was intended to do anything more than empower the Federal Government to respond to obstructions on navigable rivers. The broad view supported by respondents is without support.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
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 ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a suit for a declaratory judgment (Judicial Code § 274d, 28 U. S. C. § 400) and an injunction, instituted by respondent for the determination of the legality and enforceability of a provision of a patent license agreement. The District Court, whose jurisdiction was based on diversity of citizenship (Judicial Code § 24 (1), 28 U. S. C. §41 (1)), entered judgment for petitioner, holding the provision valid. The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed by a divided vote, 156 F. 2d 198, being of the opinion that the provision in question was illegal under the line of decisions represented by Mercoid Corporation v. Mid-Continent Co., 320 U. S. 661. The case is here on a petition for a writ of certiorari which we granted because of the public importance of the question presented and of the apparent conflict between the decision below and Allbright-Nell Co. v. Stanley Hiller Co., 72 F. 2d 392, decided by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Petitioner, organized in 1934, has patents on a machine which bears the trade-mark “Transwrap.” This machine makes transparent packages, simultaneously fills them with such articles as candy, and seals them. In 1937 petitioner sold and respondent acquired the Transwrap business in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, the right to use the trade-mark “Transwrap,” and an exclusive license to manufacture and sell the Transwrap machine under the patents petitioner then owned or might acquire. The agreement contained a formula by which royalties were to be computed and paid. The term of the agreement was ten years with an option in respondent to renew it thereafter for five-year periods during the life of the patents covered by the agreement. The agreement could be terminated by petitioner on notice for specified defaults on respondent’s part. The provision of the agreement around which the present controversy turns is a covenant by respondent to assign to petitioner improvement patents applicable to the machine and suitable for use in connection with it.
The parties had operated under the agreement for several years when petitioner ascertained that respondent had taken out certain patents on improvements in the machine. Petitioner notified respondent that its failure to disclose and assign these improvements constituted a breach of the agreement and called on respondent to remedy the default. When that did not occur, petitioner notified respondent that the agreement would be terminated on a day certain. Thereupon respondent instituted this action asking that the provisions respecting the improvement patents be declared illegal and unenforceable and that petitioner be enjoined from terminating the agreement.
In a long and consistent line of cases the Court has held that an owner of a patent may not condition a license so as to tie to the use of the patent the use of other materials, processes or devices which lie outside of the monopoly of the patent. Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Universal Film Mfg. Co., 243 U. S. 502; Carbice Corp. v. American Patents Dev. Corp., 283 U. S. 27; Leitch Mfg. Co. v. Barber Co., 302 U. S. 458; Morton Salt Co. v. Suppiger Co., 314 U. S. 488; B. B. Chemical Co. v. Ellis, 314 U. S. 495; Mercoid Corporation v. Mid-Continent Co., supra; Mercoid Corp. v. Honeywell Co., 320 U. S. 680. As stated in Morton Salt Co. v. Suppiger Co., supra, p. 492, “. . . the public policy which includes inventions within the granted monopoly excludes from it all that is not embraced in the invention. It equally forbids the use of the patent to secure an exclusive right or limited monopoly not granted by the Patent Office and which it is contrary to public policy to grant.” If such practices were tolerated, ownership of a patent would give the patentee control over unpatented articles which but for the patent he would not possess. “If the restraint is lawful because of the patent, the patent will have been expanded by contract. That on which no patent could be obtained would be as effectively protected as if a patent had been issued. Private business would function as its own patent office and impose its own law upon its licensees.” Mercoid Corp. v. Mid-Continent Co., supra, p. 667. The requirement that a licensee under a patent use an unpat-ented material or device with the patent might violate the anti-trust laws but for the attempted protection of the patent. Id. The condemnation of the practice, however, does not depend on such a showing. Though control of the unpatented article or device falls short of a prohibited restraint of trade or monopoly, it will not be sanctioned. Morton Salt Co. v. Suppiger Co., supra. For it is the tendency in that direction which condemns the practice and which, if approved by a court either through enjoining infringement or enforcing the covenant, would receive a powerful impetus. Id.
The Circuit Court of Appeals was of the view that the principle of those cases was applicable here and rendered illegal and unenforceable the covenant to assign the improvement patents to petitioner. It stated, 156 F. 2d, p. 202, “The owner of all property, by withholding it upon any other terms, may, if he can, force others to buy from him; land is the best example and every parcel of land is a monopoly. But it is precisely in this that a patent is not like other property; the patentee may not use it to force others to buy of him things outside its four corners. If the defendant gets the plaintiff’s patents, it will have put itself in that position, in part at any rate, by virtue of the compulsion of its own patents.”
It went on to note that since all improvement patents would not expire until after expiration of petitioner’s patents on the machine, the arrangement put respondent at a competitive disadvantage. For respondent would lose the negative command over the art which ownership of the improvement patents would have given it. Moreover, respondent, though able to renew the license on conditions stated in the agreement, would be irretrievably tied to it so as to be “forced, either to cease all efforts to patent improvements, or to keep renewing the contract in order to escape the consequences of its own ingenuity.” Id., p. 203.
First. The first difficulty we have with the position of the Circuit Court of Appeals is that Congress has made all patents assignable and has granted the assignee the same exclusive rights as the patentee. “Every application for patent or patent or any interest therein shall be assignable in law by an instrument in writing, and the applicant or patentee or his assigns or legal representatives may in like manner grant and convey an exclusive right under his application for patent or patent to the whole or any specified part of the United States.” R. S. § 4898, 35 U. S. C. Supp. V § 47. The statute does not limit the consideration which may be paid for the assignment to any species or kind of property. At least so far as the terms of the statute are concerned, we see no difference whether the consideration is services (cf. Standard Parts Co. v. Peck, 264 U. S. 52) or cash, or the right to use another patent.
An improvement patent may, like a patent on a step in a process, have great strategic value. For it may, on expiration of the basic patent, be the key to a whole technology. One who holds it may therefore have a considerable competitive advantage. And one who assigns it and thereby loses negative command of the art may by reason of his assignment have suffered a real competitive handicap. For thereafter he will have to pay toll to the as-signee, if he practices the invention. But the competí-tive handicap or disadvantage which he suffers is no greater and no less whether the consideration for the assignment be the right to use the basic patent or something else of value. That is to say, the freedom of one who assigns a patent is restricted to the same degree whether the assignment is made pursuant to a license agreement or otherwise.
If Congress, by whose authority patent rights are created, had allowed patents to be assigned only for a specified consideration, it would be our duty to permit no exceptions. But here Congress has made no such limitation. A patent is a species of property. It gives the patentee or his assignee the “exclusive right to make, use, and vend the invention or discovery” for a limited period. R. S. § 4884, 35 U. S. C. § 40. That is to say, it carries for the statutory period “a right to be free from competition in the practice of the invention.” Mercoid Corporation v. Mid-Continent Co., supra, p. 665. That exclusive right, being the essence of the patent privilege, is, for purposes of the assignment statute, of the same dignity as any other property which may be used to purchase patents.
Second. What we have said is not, of course, a complete answer to the position of the Circuit Court of Appeals. For the question remains whether here, as in Mercoid Corporation v. Mid-Continent Co., supra, and its predecessors, the condition in the license agreement violates some other principle of law or public policy. The fact that a patentee has the power to refuse a license does not mean that he has the power to grant a license on such conditions as he may choose. United States v. Masonite Corp., 316 U. S. 265, 277.
As we have noted, such a power, if conceded, would enable the patentee not only to exploit the invention but to use it to acquire a monopoly not embraced in the patent. Thus, if he could require all licensees to use his unpatented materials with the patent, he would have, or stand in a strategic position to acquire, a monopoly in the unpatented materials themselves. Beyond the “limited monopoly” granted by the patent, the methods by which a patent is exploited are “subject to the general law.” United States v. Masonite Corp., supra, p. 277. Protection from competition in the sale of unpatented materials is not granted by either the patent law or the general law. He who uses his patent to obtain protection from competition in the sale of unpatented materials extends by contract his patent monopoly to articles as respects which the law sanctions neither monopolies nor restraints of trade.
It is at precisely this point that our second difficulty with the view of the Circuit Court of Appeals is found. An improvement patent, like the basic patent to which it relates, is a legalized monopoly for a limited period. The law permits both to be bought and sold. One who uses one patent to acquire another is not extending his patent monopoly to articles governed by the general law and as respects which neither monopolies nor restraints of trade are sanctioned. He is indeed using one legalized monopoly to acquire another legalized monopoly.
Mercoid Corporation v. Mid-Continent Co., supra, and its predecessors, by limiting a patentee to the monopoly found within the four corners of the grant, outlawed business practices which the patent law unaided by restrictive agreements did not protect. Take the case of the owner of an unpatented machine who leases it or otherwise licenses its use on condition that all improvements which the lessee or licensee patents should be assigned. He is using his property to acquire a monopoly. But the monopoly, being a patent, is a lawful one. The general law would no more make that acquisition of a patent unlawful than it would the assignment of a patent for cash. Yet a patent is a species of property; and if the owner of an unpatented machine could exact that condition, why may not the owner of a patented machine?
It is true that for some purposes the owner of a patent is under disabilities with which owners of other property are not burdened. Thus where the use of unpatented materials is tied to the use of a patent, a court will not lend its aid to enforce the agreement though control of the un-patented article falls short of a prohibited restraint of trade or monopoly. Morton Salt Co. v. Suppiger Co., supra. There is a suggestion that the same course should be followed in this case since the tendency of the practice we have here would be in the direction of concentration of economic power that might run counter to the policy of the anti-trust laws. The difficulty is that Congress has not made illegal the acquisition of improvement patents by the owner of a basic patent. The assignment of patents is indeed sanctioned. And as we have said, there is no difference in the policy of the assignment statute whatever consideration may be used to purchase the improvement patents. And apart from violations of the anti-trust laws to which we will shortly advert, the end result is the same whether the owner of a basic patent uses a license to obtain improvement patents or uses the wealth which he accumulates by exploiting his basic patent for that purpose. In sum, a patent license may not be used coercively to exact a condition contrary to public policy. But what falls within the terms of the assignment statute is plainly not per se against the public interest.
It is, of course, true that the monopoly which the licensor obtains when he acquires the improvement patents extends beyond the term of his basic patent. But as we have said, that is not creating by agreement a monopoly which the law otherwise would not sanction. The grant of the improvement patent itself creates the monopoly. On the facts of the present case the effect on the public interest would seem to be the same whether the licensee or the licensor owns the improvement patents.
There is a suggestion that the enforcement of the condition gives the licensee less incentive to make inventions when he is bound to turn over to the licensor the products of his inventive genius. Since the primary aim of the patent laws is to promote the progress of science and the useful arts (United States v. Masonite Corp., supra, p. 278 and cases cited), an arrangement which diminishes the incentive is said to be against the public interest. Whatever force that argument might have in other situations, it is not persuasive here. Respondent pays no additional royalty on any improvement patents which are used. By reason of the agreement any improvement patent can be put to immediate use and exploited for the account of the licensee. And that benefit continues so long as the agreement is renewed. The agreement thus serves a function of supplying a market for the improvement patents. Whether that opportunity to exploit the improvement patents would be increased but for the agreement depends on vicissitudes of business too conjectural on this record to appraise.
Third. We are quite aware of the possibilities of abuse in the practice of licensing a patent on condition that the licensee assign all improvement patents to the licensor. Conceivably the device could be employed with the purpose or effect of violating the anti-trust laws. He who acquires two patents acquires a double monopoly. As patents are added to patents a whole industry may be regimented. The owner of a basic patent might thus perpetuate his control over an industry long after the basic patent expired. Competitors might be eliminated and an industrial monopoly perfected and maintained. Through the use of patent pools or multiple licensing agreements the fruits of invention of an entire industry might be systematically funneled into the hands of the original patentee. See United Shoe Machinery Co. v. La Chapelle, 212 Mass. 467, 99 N. E. 289.
A patent may be so used as to violate the anti-trust laws. Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co. v. United States, 226 U. S. 20; United Shoe Machinery Corp. v. United States, 258 U. S. 451; Ethyl Gasoline Corp. v. United States, 309 U. S. 436; United States v. Masonite Corp., supra. Such violations may arise through conditions in the license whereby- the licensor seeks to control the conduct of the licensee by the fixing of prices (Ethyl Gasoline Corp. v. United States, supra; United States v. Masonite Corp., supra) or by other restrictive practices. United Shoe Machinery Corp. v. United States, supra. Moreover, in the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 730, 731, 15 U. S. C. § 14, Congress made it unlawful to condition the sale or lease of one article on an agreement not to use or buy a competitor’s article (whether either or both are patented), where the effect is “to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly.” See International Business Machines Corp. v. United States, 298 U. S. 131. Congress, however, has made no specific prohibition agains't conditioning a patent license on the assignment by the licensee of improvement patents. But that does not mean that the practice we have here has immunity under the anti-trust laws. Indeed, the recent case of Hartford-Empire Co. v. United States, 323 U. S. 386, 324 U. S. 570, dramatically illustrates how the use of a condition or covenant in a patent license that the licensee will assign improvement patents may give rise to violations of the anti-trust laws.
The District Court found no violation of the anti-trust laws in the present case. The Circuit Court of Appeals did not reach that question. Hence it, as well as any other questions which may have been preserved, are open on our remand of the cause to the Circuit Court of Appeals.
We only hold that the inclusion in the license of the condition requiring the licensee to assign improvement patents is not per se illegal and unenforceable.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Rutledge, and Mr. Justice Burton would affirm the judgment for the reasons set forth in the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals.
The relevant portions of this provision read as follows:
“If the Licensee shall discover or invent an improvement which is applicable to the Transwrap Packaging Machine and suitable for use in connection therewith and applicable to the making and closing of the package, but not to the filling nor to the contents of the package, it shall submit the same to the Licensor, which may, at its option, apply, for Letters Patent covering the same. In the event of the failure of the Licensor so to apply for Letters Patent covering such additional improvements, inventions or patentable ideas, the Licensee may apply for the same. In the event that such additional Letters Patent are applied for and are granted to the Licensor, they shall be deemed covered by the terms of this License Agreement and may be used by the Licensee hereunder without any further consideration, license fee or royalty as above provided. In the event that any such additional improvements are patented by the Licensee for use in connection with Transwrap Packaging Machines, (after the refusal or failure of the Licensor to apply for Patents thereon), the Licensor may, nevertheless, have the use but not the exclusive use of the same outside of the several territories covered by this License Agreement. The expenses of obtaining any such Patents shall be paid by the party applying therefor.”
By another provision of the agreement, likewise challenged, it was provided that during the term of the license all improvement patents, whether secured by petitioner or by respondent, were to be included in the terms of the license without payment of an additional royalty. The petitioner, however, was to have the right to use and license the use of any such improvements outside the territories covered by the agreement.
Petitioner joined issue and filed a counterclaim asking that the improvement patents be assigned, that the agreement be held terminated and that respondent be enjoined from using the original or improvement patents. The District Court dismissed the complaint, declared the agreement terminated, and ordered respondent to assign the petitioner the improvement patents. The Circuit Court of Appeals, on reversing, held not only that the provision for the assignment of the improvement patents was unlawful but also that petitioner was excused from any further performance because respondent had repudiated its agreement to assign those patents. It remanded the cause to the District Court to determine whether petitioner was entitled to restitution.
See James v. Campbell, 104 U. S. 356, 358; Hollister v. Benedict Mfg. Co., 113 U. S. 59, 67; Cramp & Sons Co. v. International Curtis Co., 246 U. S. 28, 39-40; United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp., 289 U. S. 178, 187.
See Patents and Free Enterprise, Monograph No. 31, Investigation of Concentration of Economic Power, Temporary National Economic Committee, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., chs. V & VII; Wood, Patents and Antitrust Law (1941), chs. 3 & 4; Marcus, Patents, Antitrust Law and Antitrust Judgments through Hartford-Empire, (1945-46) 34 Georgetown L. J. 1.
See note 45 Col. L. Rev. 601.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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A
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
The judgment of the District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District, is affirmed by an equally divided Court.
Justice O’Connor took no part in the decision of this case.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue before us is whether, consistently with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, an Oklahoma court may exercise in personam jurisdiction over a nonresident automobile retailer and its wholesale distributor in a products-liability action, when the defendants’ only connection with Oklahoma is the fact that an automobile sold in New York to New York residents became involved in an accident in Oklahoma.
I
Respondents Harry and Kay Robinson purchased a new Audi automobile from petitioner Seaway Volkswagen, Inc. (Seaway), in Massena, N. Y., in 1976. The following year the Robinson family, who resided in New York, left that State for a new home in Arizona. As they passed through the State of Oklahoma, another car struck their Audi in the rear, causing a fire which severely burned Kay Robinson and her two children.
The Robinsons subsequently brought a products-liability action in the District Court for Creek County, Okla., claiming that their injuries resulted from defective design and placement of the Audi’s gas tank and fuel system. They joined as defendants the automobile’s manufacturer, Audi NSU Auto Union Aktiengesellschaft (Audi); its importer, Volkswagen of America, Inc. (Volkswagen); its regional distributor, petitioner World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. (World-Wide); and its retail dealer, petitioner Seaway. Seaway and World-Wide entered special appearances, claiming that Oklahoma’s exercise of jurisdiction over them would offend the limitations on the State’s jurisdiction imposed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The facts presented to the District. Court showed that World-Wide is incorporated and has its business office in New York. It distributes vehicles, parts, and accessories, under contract with Volkswagen, to retail dealers in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Seaway, one of these retail dealers, is incorporated and has its place of business in New York. Insofar as the record reveals, Seaway and World-Wide are fully independent corporations whose relations with each other and with Volkswagen and Audi are contractual only. Respondents adduced no evidence that either World-Wide or Seaway does any business in Oklahoma, ships or sells any products to or in that State, has an agent to receive process there, or purchases advertisements in any media calculated to reach Oklahoma. In fact, as respondents’ counsel conceded at oral argument, Tr. of Oral Arg. 32, there was no showing that any automobile sold by World-Wide or Seaway has ever entered Oklahoma with the single exception of the vehicle involved in the present case.
Despite the apparent paucity of contacts between petitioners and Oklahoma, the District Court rejected their constitutional claim and reaffirmed that ruling in denying petitioners’ motion for reconsideration. Petitioners then sought a writ of prohibition in the Supreme Court of Oklahoma to restrain the District Judge, respondent Charles S. Woodson, from exercising in personam jurisdiction over them. They renewed their contention that, because they had no “minimal contacts,” App. 32, with the State of Oklahoma, the actions of the District Judge were in violation of their rights under the Due Process Clause.
The Supreme Court of Oklahoma denied the writ, 585 P. 2d 351 (1978), holding that personal jurisdiction over petitioners was authorized by Oklahoma’s “long-arm” statute, Okla. Stat., Tit. 12, § 1701.03 (a)(4) (1971). Although the court noted that the proper approach was to test jurisdiction against both statutory and constitutional standards, its analysis did not distinguish these questions, probably because § 1701.03 (a) (4) has been interpreted as conferring jurisdiction to the limits permitted by the United States Constitution. The court’s rationale was contained in the following paragraph, 585 P. 2d, at 354:
“In the case before us, the product being sold and distributed by the petitioners is by its very design and purpose so mobile that petitioners can foresee its possible use in Oklahoma. This is especially true of the distributor, who has the exclusive right to distribute such automobile in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The evidence presented below demonstrated that goods sold and distributed by the petitioners were used in the State of Oklahoma, and under the facts we believe it reasonable to infer, given the retail value of the automobile, that the petitioners derive substantial income from automobiles which from time to time are used in the State of Oklahoma. This being the case, we hold that under the facts presented, the trial court was justified in con-eluding that the petitioners derive substantial revenue from goods used or consumed in this State.”
We granted certiorari, 440 U. S. 907 (1979), to consider an important constitutional question with respect to state-court jurisdiction and to resolve a conflict between the Supreme Court of Oklahoma and the highest courts of at least four other States. We reverse.
II
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limits the power of a state court to render a valid personal judgment against a nonresident defendant. Kulko v. California Superior Court, 436 U. S. 84, 91 (1978). A judgment rendered in violation of due process is void in the rendering State and is not entitled to full faith and credit elsewhere. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714, 732-733 (1878). Due process requires that the defendant be given adequate notice of the suit, Mullane v. Central Hanover Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 313-314 (1950), and be subject to the personal jurisdiction of the court, International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U. S. 310 (1945). In the present case, it is not contended that notice was inadequate; the only question is whether these particular petitioners were subject to the jurisdiction of the Oklahoma courts.
As has long been settled, and as we reaffirm today, a state court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant only so long as there exist “minimum contacts” between the defendant and the forum State. International Shoe Co. v. Washington, supra, at 316. The concept of minimum contacts, in turn, can be seen to perform two related, but distinguishable, functions. It protects the defendant against the burdens of litigating in a distant or inconvenient forum. And it acts to ensure that the States, through their courts, do not reach out beyond the limits imposed on them by their status as coequal sovereigns in a federal system.
The protection against inconvenient litigation is typically described in terms of “reasonableness” or “fairness.” We have said that the defendant’s contacts with the forum State must be such that maintenance of the suit “does not offend 'traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.’ ” International Shoe Co. v. Washington, supra, at 316, quoting Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U. S. 457, 463 (1940). The relationship between the defendant and the forum must be such that it is “reasonable ... to require the corporation to defend the particular suit which is brought there.” 326 U. S., at 317. Implicit in this emphasis on reasonableness is the understanding that the burden on the defendant, while always a primary concern, will in an appropriate case be considered in light of other relevant factors, including the forum State’s interest in adjudicating the dispute, see McGee v. International Life Ins. Co., 355 U. S. 220, 223 (1957); the plaintiff’s interest in obtaining convenient and effective relief, see Kulko v. California Superior Court, supra, at 92, at least when that interest is not adequately protected by the plaintiff’s power to choose the forum, cf. Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U. S. 186, 211, n. 37 (1977); the interstate judicial system’s interest in obtaining the most efficient resolution of controversies; and the shared interest of the several States in furthering fundamental substantive social policies, see Kulko v. California Superior Court, supra, at 93, 98.
The limits imposed on state jurisdiction by the Due Process Clause, in its role as a guarantor against inconvenient litigation, have been substantially relaxed over the years. As we noted in McGee v. International Life Ins. Co., supra, at 222-223, this trend is largely attributable to a fundamental transformation in the American economy:
“Today many commercial transactions touch two or more States and may involve parties separated by the full continent. With this increasing nationalization of commerce has come a great increase in the amount of business conducted by mail across state lines. At the same time modern transportation and communication have made it much less burdensome for a party sued to defend himself in a State where he engages in economic activity.”
The historical developments noted in McGee, of course, have only accelerated in the generation since that case was decided.
Nevertheless, we have never accepted the proposition that state lines are irrelevant for jurisdictional purposes, nor could we, and remain faithful to the principles of interstate federalism embodied in the Constitution. The economic interdependence of the States was foreseen and desired by the Framers. In the Commerce Clause, they provided that the Nation was to be a common market, a “free trade unit” in which the States are debarred from acting as separable economic entities. H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U. S. 525, 538 (1949). But the Framers also intended that the States retain many essential attributes of sovereignty, including, in particular, the sovereign power to try causes in their courts. The sovereignty of each State, in turn, implied a limitation on the sovereignty of all of its sister States — a limitation express or implicit in both the original scheme of the Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment.
Hence, even while abandoning the shibboleth that “[t]he authority of every tribunal is necessarily restricted by the territorial limits of the State in which it is established,” Pennoyer v. Neff, supra, at 720, we emphasized that the reasonableness of asserting jurisdiction over the defendant must be assessed “in the context of our federal system of government,” International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U. S., at 317, and stressed that the Due Process Clause ensures not only fairness, but also the “orderly administration of the laws,” id., at 319. As we noted in Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U. S. 235, 250-251 (1958):
“As technological progress has increased the flow of commerce between the States, the need for jurisdiction over nonresidents has undergone a similar increase. At the same time, progress in communications and transportation has made the defense of a suit in a foreign tribunal less burdensome. In response to these changes, the requirements for personal jurisdiction over nonresidents have evolved from the rigid rule of Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714, to the flexible standard of International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U. S. 310. But it is a mistake to assume that this trend heralds the eventual demise of all restrictions on the personal jurisdiction of state courts. [Citation omitted.] Those restrictions are more than a guarantee of immunity from inconvenient or distant litigation. They are a consequence of territorial limitations on the power of the respective States.”
Thus, the Due Process Clause “does not contemplate that a state may make binding a judgment in personam against an individual or corporate defendant with which the state has no contacts, ties, or relations.” International Shoe Co. v. Washington, supra, at 319. Even if the defendant would suffer minimal or no inconvenience from being forced to litigate before the tribunals of another State; even if the forum State has a strong interest in applying its law to the controversy; even if the forum State is the most convenient location for litigation, the Due Process Clause, acting as an instrument of interstate federalism, may sometimes act to divest the State of its power to render a valid judgment. Hanson v. Denckla, supra, at 251, 254.
III
Applying these principles to the ease at hand, we find in the record before us a total absence of those affiliating circumstances that are a necessary predicate to any exercise of state-court jurisdiction. Petitioners carry on no activity whatsoever in Oklahoma. They close no sales and perform no services there. They avail themselves of none of the privileges and benefits of Oklahoma law. They solicit no business there either through salespersons or through advertising reasonably calculated to reach the State. Nor does the record show that they regularly sell cars at wholesale or retail to Oklahoma customers or residents or that they indirectly, through others, serve or seek to serve the Oklahoma market. In short, respondents seek to base jurisdiction on one, isolated occurrence and whatever inferences can be drawn therefrom: the fortuitous circumstance that a single Audi automobile, sold in New York to New York residents, happened to suffer an accident while passing through Oklahoma.
It is argued, however, that because an automobile is mobile by its very design and purpose it was “foreseeable” that the Robinsons’ Audi would cause injury in Oklahoma. Yet “foreseeability” alone has never been a sufficient benchmark for personal jurisdiction under the Due Process Clause. In Hanson v. Denckla, supra, it was no doubt foreseeable that the settlor of a Delaware trust would subsequently move to Florida and seek to exercise a power of appointment there; yet we held that Florida courts could not constitutionally exercise jurisdiction over a Delaware trustee that had no other contacts with the forum State. In Kulko v. California Superior Court, 436 U. S. 84 (1978), it was surely “foreseeable” that a divorced wife would move to California from New York, the domicile of the marriage, and that a minor daughter would live with the mother. Yet we held that California could not exercise jurisdiction in a child-support action over the former husband who had remained in New York.
If foreseeability were the criterion, a local California tire retailer could be forced to defend in Pennsylvania when a blowout occurs there, see Erlanger Mills, Inc. v. Cohoes Fibre Mills, Inc., 239 F. 2d 502, 507 (CA4 1956); a Wisconsin seller of a defective automobile jack could be haled before a distant court for damage caused in New Jersey, Reilly v. Phil Tolkan Pontiac, Inc., 372 F. Supp. 1205 (NJ 1974); or a Florida soft-drink concessionaire could be summoned to Alaska to account for injuries happening there, see Uppgren v. Executive Aviation Services, Inc., 304 F. Supp. 165, 170-171 (Minn. 1969). Every seller of chattels would in effect appoint the chattel his agent for service of process. His amenability to suit would travel with the chattel. We recently abandoned the outworn rule of Harris v. Balk, 198 U. S. 215 (1905), that the interest of a creditor in a debt could be extinguished or otherwise affected by any State having transitory jurisdiction over the debtor. Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U. S. 186 (1977). Having interred the mechanical rule that a creditor’s amenability to a quasi in rem action travels with his debtor, we are unwilling to endorse an analogous principle in the present case.
This is not to say, of course, that foreseeability is wholly irrelevant. But the foreseeability that is critical to due process analysis is not the mere likelihood that a product will find its way into the forum State. Rather, it is that the defendant’s conduct and connection with the forum State are such that he should reasonably anticipate being haled into court there. See Kulko v. California Superior Court, supra, at 97-98; Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U. S., at 216; and see. id., at 217-219 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment). The Due Process Clause, by ensuring the “orderly administration of the laws,” International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U. S., at 319, gives a degree of predictability to the legal system that allows potential defendants to structure their primary conduct with some minimum assurance as to where that conduct will and will not render them liable to suit.
When a corporation “purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State,” Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U. S., at 253, it has clear notice that it is subject to suit there, and can act to alleviate the risk of burdensome litigation by procuring insurance, passing the expected costs on to customers, or, if the risks are too great, severing its connection with the State. Hence if the sale of a product of a manufacturer or distributor such as Audi or Volkswagen is not simply an isolated occurrence, but arises from the efforts of the manufacturer or distributor to serve, directly or indirectly, the market for its product in other States, it is not unreasonable to subject it to suit in one of those States if its allegedly defective merchandise has there been the source of injury to its owner or to others. The forum State does not exceed its powers under the Due Process Clause if it asserts personal jurisdiction over a corporation that delivers its products into the stream of commerce with the expectation that they will be purchased by consumers in the forum State. Cf. Gray v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 22 Ill. 2d 432, 176 N. E. 2d 761 (1961).
But there is no such or similar basis for Oklahoma jurisdiction over World-Wide or Seaway in this case. Seaway’s sales are made in Massena, N. Y. World-Wide’s market, although substantially larger, is limited to dealers in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. There is no evidence of record that any automobiles distributed by World-Wide are sold to retail customers outside this tristate area. It is foreseeable that the purchasers of automobiles sold by World-Wide and Seaway may take them to Oklahoma. But the mere “unilateral activity of those who claim some relationship with a nonresident defendant cannot satisfy the requirement of contact with the forum State.” Hanson v. Denckla, supra, at 253.
In a variant on the previous argument, it is contended that jurisdiction can be supported by the fact that petitioners earn substantial revenue from goods used in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Supreme Court so found, 585 P. 2d, at 354-355, drawing the inference that because one automobile sold by petitioners had been used in Oklahoma, others might have been used there also. While this inference seems less than compelling on the facts of the instant case, we need not question the court’s factual findings in order to reject its reasoning.
This argument seems to make the point that the purchase of automobiles in New York, from which the petitioners earn substantial revenue, would not occur but for the fact that the automobiles are capable of use in distant States like Oklahoma. Respondents observe that the very purpose of an automobile is to travel, and that travel of automobiles sold by petitioners is facilitated by an extensive chain of Volkswagen service centers throughout the country, including some in Oklahoma. However, financial benefits accruing to the defendant from a collateral relation to the forum State will not support jurisdiction if they. do not stem from a constitutionally cognizable contact with that State. See Kulko v. California Superior Court, 436 U. S., at 94-95. In our view, whatever marginal revenues petitioners may receive by virtue of the fact that their products are capable of use in Oklahoma is far too attenuated a contact to justify that State’s exercise of in per-sonam jurisdiction over them.
Because we find that petitioners have no “contacts, ties, or relations” with the State of Oklahoma, International Shoe Co. v. Washington, supra, at 319, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma is
Reversed.
The driver of the other automobile does not figure in the present litigation.
Kay Robinson sued on her own behalf. The two children sued through Harry Robinson as their father and next friend.
Volkswagen also entered a special appearance in the District Court, but unlike World-Wide and Seaway did not seek review in the Supreme Court of Oklahoma and is not a petitioner here. Both Volkswagen and Audi remain as defendants in the litigation pending before the District Court in Oklahoma.
The papers filed by the petitioners also claimed that the District Court lacked “venue of the subject matter,” App. 9, or “venue over the subject matter,” id., at 11.
The District Court’s rulings are unreported, and appear at App. 13 and 20.
Five judges joined in the opinion. Two concurred in the result, without opinion, and one concurred in part and dissented in part, also without opinion.
This subsection provides:
“A court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a person, who acts directly or by an agent, as to a cause of action or claim for relief arising from the person’s . . . causing tortious injury in this state by an act or omission outside this state if he regularly does or solicits business or engages in any other persistent course of conduct, or derives substantial revenue from goods used or consumed or services rendered, in this state. . . .”
The State Supreme Court rejected jurisdiction based on § 1701.03 (a)(3), which authorizes jurisdiction over any person “causing tortious injury in this state by an act or omission in this state.” Something in addition to the infliction of tortious injury was required.
Fields v. Volkswagen of America, Inc., 555 P. 2d 48 (Okla. 1976); Carmack v. Chemical Bank New York Trust Co., 536 P. 2d 897 (Okla. 1975) ; Hines v. Clendenning, 465 P. 2d 460 (Okla. 1970).
Cf. Tilley v. Keller Truck & Implement Corp., 200 Kan. 641, 438 P. 2d 128 (1968); Granite States Volkswagen, Inc. v. District Court, 177 Colo. 42, 492 P. 2d 624 (1972); Pellegrini v. Sachs & Sons, 522 P. 2d 704 (Utah 1974); Oliver v. American Motors Corp., 70 Wash. 2d 875, 425 P. 2d 647 (1967).
Respondents argue, as a threshold matter, that petitioners waived any objections to personal jurisdiction by (1) joining with their special appearances a challenge to the District Court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, see n. 4, supra, and (2) taking depositions on the merits of the ease in Oklahoma. The trial court, however, characterized the appearances as “special,” and the Oklahoma Supreme Court, rather than finding jurisdiction waived, reached and decided the statutory and constitutional questions. Cf. Kulko v. California Superior Court, 436 U. S. 84, 91, n. 5 (1978).
Respondents’ counsel, at oral argument, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 19-22, 29, sought to limit the reach of the foreseeability standard by suggesting that there is something unique about automobiles. It is true that automobiles are uniquely mobile, see Tyson v. Whitaker & Son, Inc., 407 A. 2d 1, 6, and n. 11 (Me. 1979) (MeKusick, C. J.), that they did play a crucial role in the expansion of personal jurisdiction through the fiction of implied consent, e. g., Hess v. Pawloski, 274 U. S. 352 (1927), and that some of the cases have treated the automobile as a “dangerous instrumentality.” But today, under the regime of International Shoe, we see no difference for jurisdictional purposes between an automobile and any other chattel. The “dangerous instrumentality” concept apparently was never used to support personal jurisdiction; and to the extent it has relevance today it bears not on jurisdiction but on the possible desirability of imposing substantive principles of tort law such as strict liability.
As we have noted, petitioners earn no direct revenues from these service centers. See supra, at 289.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
The petition for writ of certiorari is granted and the judgment is reversed. Hamm v. City of Rock Hill and Lupper v. Arkansas, 379 U. S. 306.
Mr. Justice Stewart would vacate the judgment and remand the case to the Supreme Court of Georgia for reconsideration in the light of supervening federal legislation, in accordance with the views expressed in his dissenting opinion in Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 379 U. S. 306, 326.
Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Harlan, and Mr. Justice White would affirm the judgment of the Supreme Court of Georgia for the reasons stated in their dissenting opinions in Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 379 U. S. 306, 318, 322, 327.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner was convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut under two indictments which charged violations of the federal wagering tax statutes. The first indictment averred that petitioner and others conspired to evade payment of the annual occupational tax imposed by 26 U. S. C. § 4411. The second indictment included two counts: the first alleged a willful failure to pay the occupational tax, and the second a willful failure to register, as required by 26 U. S. C. § 4412, before engaging in the business of accepting wagers.
After verdict, petitioner unsuccessfully sought to arrest judgment, in part on the basis that the statutory obligations to register and to pay the occupational tax violated his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed, 352 F. 2d 848, on the authority of United States v. Kahriger, 345 U. S. 22, and Lewis v. United States, 348 U. S. 419.
We granted certiorari to re-examine the constitutionality under the Fifth Amendment of the pertinent provisions of the wagering tax statutes, and more particularly to consider whether Kahriger and Lewis still have vitality. 383 U. S. 942. For reasons which follow, we have concluded that these provisions may not be employed to punish criminally those persons who have defended a failure to comply with their requirements with a proper assertion of the privilege against self-incrimination. The judgment below is accordingly reversed.
I.
The provisions in issue here are part of an interrelated statutory system for taxing wagers. The system is broadly as follows. Section 4401 of Title 26 imposes upon those engaged in the business of accepting wagers an excise tax of 10% on the gross amount of all wagers they accept, including the value of chances purchased in lotteries conducted for profit. Parimutuel wagering enterprises, coin-operated devices, and state-conducted sweepstakes are expressly excluded from taxation. 26 U. S. C. §4402 (1964 ed., Supp. II). Section 4411 imposes in addition an occupational tax of $50 annually, both upon those subject to taxation under § 4401 and upon those who receive wagers on their behalf.
The taxes are supplemented by ancillary provisions calculated to assure their collection. In particular, § 4412 requires those liable for the occupational tax to register each year with the director of their local internal revenue district. The registrants must submit Internal Revenue Service Form 11-C, and upon it must provide their residence and business addresses, must indicate whether they are engaged in the business of accepting wagers, and must list the names and addresses of their agents and employees. The statutory obligations to register and to pay the occupational tax áre essentially inseparable elements of a single registration procedure; Form 11-C thus constitutes both the application for registration and the return for the occupational tax.
In addition, registrants are obliged to post the revenue stamps which denote payment of the occupational tax “conspicuously” in their principal places of business, or, if they lack such places, to keep the stamps on their persons, and to exhibit them upon demand to any Treasury officer. 26 U. S'. C. § 6806 (c). They are required to preserve daily records indicating the gross amount of the wagers as to which they are liable for taxation, and to permit inspection of their books of account. 26 U. S. C. §§ 4403, 4423. Moreover, each principal internal revenue office is instructed to maintain for public inspection a listing of all who have paid the occupational tax, and to provide certified copies of the listing upon request to any state or local prosecuting officer. 26 U. S. C. § 6107. Finally, payment of the wagering taxes is declared not to “exempt any person from any penalty provided by a law of the United States or of any State for engaging” in any taxable activity. 26 U. S. C. § 4422.
II.
The issue before us is not whether the United States may tax activities which a State or Congress has declared unlawful. The Court has repeatedly indicated that the unlawfulness of an activity does not prevent its taxation, and nothing that follows is intended to limit or diminish the vitality of those cases. See, e. g., License Tax Cases, 5 Wall. 462. The issue is instead whether the methods employed by Congress in the federal wagering tax statutes are, in this situation, consistent with the limitations created by the privilege against self-incrimination guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. We must for this purpose first examine the implications of these statutory provisions.
Wagering and its ancillary activities are very widely prohibited under both federal and state law. Federal statutes impose criminal penalties upon the interstate transmission of wagering information, 18 U. S. C. § 1084; upon interstate and foreign travel or transportation in aid of racketeering enterprises, defined to include gambling, 18 U. S. C. § 1952; upon lotteries conducted through use of the mails or broadcasting, 18 U. S. C. §§ 1301-1304; and upon the interstate transportation of wagering paraphernalia, 18 U. S. C. § 1953.
State and local enactments are more comprehensive. The laws of every State, except Nevada, include broad prohibitions against gambling, wagering, and associated activities. Every State forbids, with essentially minor and carefully circumscribed exceptions, lotteries. Even Nevada, which permits many forms of gambling, retains criminal penalties upon lotteries and certain other wagering activities taxable under these statutes. Nev. Rev. Stat. §§ 293.603, 462.010-462.080, 465.010 (1957).
Connecticut, in which petitioner allegedly conducted his activities, has adopted a variety of measures for the punishment of gambling and wagering. It punishes “[a]ny person, whether as principal, agent or servant, who owns, possesses, keeps, manages, maintains or occupies” premises employed for purposes of wagering or pool selling. Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. § 53-295 (1958). It imposes criminal penalties upon any person who possesses, keeps, or maintains premises in which policy playing occurs, or lotteries are conducted, and upon any person who becomes the custodian of books, property, appliances, or apparatus employed for wagering. Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. § 53-298 (1958). See also §§ 53-273, 53-290, 53-293. It provides additional penalties for those who conspire to organize or conduct unlawful wagering activities. Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. § 54 — 197 (1958). Every aspect of petitioner’s wagering activities thus subjected him to possible state or federal prosecution. By any standard, in Connecticut and throughout the United States, wagering is “an area permeated with criminal statutes,” and those engaged in wagering are a group “inherently suspect of criminal activities.” Albertson v. SACB, 382 U. S. 70, 79.
Information obtained as a consequence of the federal wagering tax laws is readily available to assist the efforts of state and federal authorities to enforce these penalties. Section 6107 of Title 26 requires the principal internal revenue offices to provide to prosecuting officers a listing of those who have paid the occupational tax. Section 6806 (c) obliges taxpayers either to post the revenue stamp “conspicuously” in their principal places of business, or to keep it on their persons, and to produce it on the demand of Treasury officers. Evidence of the possession of a federal wagering tax stamp, or of payment of the wagering taxes, has often been admitted at trial in state and federal prosecutions for gambling offenses; such evidence has doubtless proved useful even more frequently to lead prosecuting authorities to other evidence upon which convictions have subsequently been obtained. Finally, we are obliged to notice that a former Commissioner of Internal Revenue has acknowledged that the Service “makes available” to law enforcement agencies the names and addresses of those who have paid the wagering taxes, and that it is in “full cooperation” with the efforts of the Attorney General of the United States to suppress organized gambling. Caplin, The Gambling Business and Federal Taxes, 8 Crime & Delin. 371, 372, 377.
In these circumstances, it can scarcely be denied that the obligations to register and to pay the occupational tax created for petitioner “real and appreciable,” and not merely “imaginary and unsubstantial,” hazards of self-incrimination. Reg. v. Boyes, 1 B. & S. 311, 330; Brown v. Walker, 161 U. S. 591, 599-600; Rogers v. United States, 340 U. S. 367, 374. Petitioner was confronted by a comprehensive system of federal and state prohibitions against wagering activities; he was required, on pain of criminal prosecution, to provide information which he might reasonably suppose would be available to prosecuting authorities, and which would surely prove a significant “link in a chain” of evidence tending to establish his guilt. Unlike the income tax return in question in United States v. Sullivan, 274 U. S. 259, every portion of these requirements had the direct and unmistakable consequence of incriminating petitioner; the application of the constitutional privilege to the entire registration procedure was in this instance neither “extreme” nor “extravagant.” See id., at 263. It would appear to follow that petitioner’s assertion of the privilege as a defense to this prosecution was entirely proper, and accordingly should have sufficed to prevent his conviction.
Nonetheless, this Court has twice concluded that the privilege against self-incrimination may not appropriately be asserted by those in petitioner’s circumstances. United States v. Kahriger, supra; Lewis v. United States, supra. We must therefore consider whether those cases have continuing force in light of our more recent decisions. Moreover, we must also consider the relevance of certain collateral lines of authority; in particular, we must determine whether either the “required records” doctrine, Shapiro v. United States, 335 U. S. 1, or restrictions placed upon the use by prosecuting authorities of information obtained as a consequence of the wagering taxes, cf. Murphy v. Waterfront Commission, 378 U. S. 52, should be utilized to preclude assertion of the constitutional privilege in this situation. To these questions we turn.
III.
The Court's opinion in Kahriger suggested that a defendant under indictment for willful failure to register under § 4412 cannot properly challenge the constitutionality under the Fifth Amendment of the registration requirement. For this point, the Court relied entirely upon Mr. Justice Holmes’ opinion for the Court in United States v. Sullivan, supra. The taxpayer in Sullivan was convicted of willful failure to file an income tax return, despite his contention that the return would have obliged him to admit violations of the National Prohibition Act. The Court affirmed the conviction, and rejected the taxpayer’s claim of the privilege. It concluded that most of the return’s questions would not have compelled the taxpayer to make incriminating disclosures, and that it would have been “an extreme if not an extravagant application” of the privilege to permit him to draw within it the entire return. 274 U. S., at 263.
The Court in Sullivan was evidently concerned, first, that the claim before it was an unwarranted extension of the scope of the privilege, and, second, that to accept a claim of privilege not asserted at the time the return was due would “make the taxpayer rather than a tribunal the final arbiter of the merits of the claim.” Albertson v. SACB, 382 U. S. 70, 79. Neither reason suffices to prevent this petitioner’s assertion of the privilege. The first is, as we have indicated, inapplicable, and we find the second unpersuasive in this situation. Every element of these requirements would have served to incriminate petitioner; to have required him to present his claim to Treasury officers would have obliged him “to prove guilt to avoid admitting it.” United States v. Kahriger, supra, at 34 (concurring opinion). In these circumstances, we cannot conclude that his failure to assert the privilege to Treasury officials at the moment the tax payments were due irretrievably abandoned his constitutional protection. Petitioner is under sentence for violation of statutory requirements which he consistently asserted at and after trial to be unconstitutional; no more can here be required.
The Court held in Lewis that the registration and occupational tax requirements do not infringe the constitutional privilege because they do not compel self-incrimination, but merely impose on the gambler the initial choice of whether he wishes, at the cost of his constitutional privilege, to commence wagering activities. The Court reasoned that even if the required disclosures might prove incriminating, the gambler need not register or pay the occupational tax if only he elects to cease, or never to begin, gambling. There is, the Court said, “no constitutional right to gamble.” 348 U. S., at 423.
We find this reasoning no longer persuasive. The question is not whether petitioner holds a “right” to violate state law, but whether, having done so, he may be compelled to give evidence against himself. The constitutional privilege was intended to shield the guilty and imprudent as well as the innocent and foresigh ted; if such an inference of antecedent choice were alone enough to abrogate the privilege’s protection, it would be excluded from the situations in which it has historically been guaranteed, and withheld from those who most require it. Such inferences, bottomed on what must ordinarily be a fiction, have precisely the infirmities which the Court has found in other circumstances in which implied or uninformed waivers of the privilege have been said to have occurred. See, e. g., Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U. S. 506. Compare Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458; and Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S. 60. To give credence to such “waivers” without the most deliberate examination of the circumstances surrounding them would ultimately license widespread erosion of the privilege through “ingeniously drawn legislation/’ Morgan, The Privilege against Self-Incrimination, 34 Minn. L. Rev. 1, 37. We cannot agree that the constitutional privilege is meaningfully waived merely because those “inherently suspect of criminal activities” have been commanded either to cease wagering or to provide information incriminating to themselves, and have ultimately elected to do neither.
The Court held in both Kahriger and Lewis that the registration and occupational tax requirements are entirely prospective in their application, and that the constitutional privilege, since it offers protection only as to past and present acts, is accordingly unavailable. This reasoning appears to us twice deficient: first, it overlooks the hazards here of incrimination as to past or present acts; and second, it is hinged upon an excessively narrow view of the scope of the constitutional privilege.
Substantial hazards of incrimination as to past or present acts plainly may stem from the requirements to register and to pay the occupational tax. See generally McKee, The Fifth Amendment and the Federal Gambling Tax, 5 Duke B. J. 86. In the first place, satisfaction of those requirements increases the likelihood that any past or present gambling offenses will be discovered and successfully prosecuted. It both centers attention upon the registrant as a gambler, and compels “injurious disclosure [s]” which may provide or assist in the collection of evidence admissible in a prosecution for past or present offenses. These offenses need not include actual gambling; they might involve only the custody or transportation of gambling paraphernalia, or other preparations for future gambling. Further, the acquisition of a federal gambling tax stamp, requiring as it does the declaration of a present intent to commence gambling activities, obliges even a prospective gambler to accuse himself of conspiracy to violate either state gambling prohibitions, or federal laws forbidding the use of interstate facilities for gambling purposes. See, e. g., Acklen v. State, 196 Tenn. 314, 267 S. W. 2d 101.
There is a second, and more fundamental, deficiency in the reasoning of Kahriger and Lewis. Its linchpin is plainly the premise that the privilege is entirely inapplicable to prospective acts; for this the Court in Kahriger could vouch as authority only a generalization at 8 Wig-more, Evidence § 2259c (3d ed. 1940). We see no warrant for so rigorous a constraint upon the constitutional privilege. History, to be sure, offers no ready illustrations of the privilege’s application to prospective acts, but the occasions on which such claims might appropriately have been made must necessarily have been very infrequent. We are, in any event, bid to view the constitutional commands as “organic living institutions,” whose significance is “vital not formal.” Gompers v. United States, 233 U. S. 604, 610.
The central standard for the privilege’s application has been whether the claimant is confronted by substantial and “real,” and not merely trifling or imaginary, hazards of incrimination. Rogers v. United States, 340 U. S. 367, 374; Brown v. Walker, 161 U. S. 591, 600. This principle does not permit the rigid chronological distinction adopted in Kahriger and 'Lewis. We see no reason to suppose that the force of the constitutional prohibition is diminished merely because confession of a guilty purpose precedes the act which it is subsequently employed to evidence. Yet, if the factual situations in which the privilege may be claimed were inflexibly defined by a chronological formula, the policies which the constitutional privilege is intended to serve could easily be evaded. Moreover, although prospective acts will doubtless ordinarily involve only speculative and insubstantial risks of incrimination, this will scarcely always prove true. As we shall show, it is not true here. We conclude that it is not mere time to which the law must look, but the substantiality of the risks of incrimination.
The hazards of incrimination created by §§4411 and 4412 as to future acts are not trifling or imaginary. Prospective registrants can reasonably expect that registration and payment of the occupational tax will significantly enhance the likelihood of their prosecution for future acts, and that it will readily provide evidence which will facilitate their convictions. Indeed, they can reasonably fear that registration, and acquisition of a wagering tax stamp, may serve as decisive evidence that they have in fact subsequently violated state gambling prohibitions. Compare Ala. Code, Tit. 14, §§ 302 (8)-(10) (1958); Ga. Code Ann. § 26-6413 (Supp. 1967). Insubstantial claims of the privilege as to entirely prospective acts may certainly be asserted, but such claims are not here, and they need only be considered when a litigant has the temerity to pursue them.
We conclude that nothing in the Court’s opinions in Kahriger and Lewis now suffices to preclude petitioner’s assertion of the constitutional privilege as a defense to the indictments under which he was convicted. To this extent Kahriger and Lewis are overruled.
IY.
We must next consider the relevance in this situation of the “required records” doctrine, Shapiro v. United States, 335 U. S. 1. It is necessary first to summarize briefly the circumstances in Shapiro. Petitioner, a wholesaler of fruit and produce, was obliged by a regulation issued under the authority of the Emergency Price Control Act to keep and “preserve for examination” various records “of the same kind as he has customarily kept....” Maximum Price Regulation 426, § 14, 8 Fed. Reg. 9546, 9548-9549 (1943). He was subsequently directed by an administrative subpoena to produce certain of these records before attorneys of the Office of Price Administration. Petitioner complied, but asserted his constitutional privilege. In a prosecution for violations of the Price Control Act, petitioner urged that the records had facilitated the collection of evidence against him, and claimed immunity from prosecution under § 202 (g) of the Act, 56 Stat. 30. Petitioner was nonetheless convicted, and his conviction was affirmed. 159 E. 2d 890.
On certiorari, this Court held both that § 202 (g) did not confer immunity upon petitioner, and that he could not properly claim the protection of the privilege as to records which he was required by administrative regulation to preserve. On the second question, the Court relied upon the cases which have held that a custodian of public records may not assert the privilege as to those records, and reiterated a dictum in Wilson v. United States, 221 U. S. 361, 380, suggesting that “the privilege which exists as to private papers cannot be maintained in relation to ‘records required by law to be kept in order that there may be suitable information of transactions which are the appropriate subjects of governmental regulation and the enforcement of restrictions validly estab-lushed.’ ” 335 U. S., at 33. The Court considered that “it cannot be doubted” that the records in question had “public aspects,” and thus held that petitioner, as their custodian, could not properly assert the privilege as to them. Id., at 34.
We think that neither Shapiro nor the cases upon which it relied are applicable here. Compare generally Note, Required Information and the Privilege against Self-Incrimination, 65 Col. L. Rev. 681; and McKay, Self-Incrimination and the New Privacy, 1967 Sup. Ct. Rev. 193, 214r-217. Moreover, we find it unnecessary for present purposes to pursue in detail the question, left unanswered in Shapiro, of what “limits... the Government cannot constitutionally exceed in requiring the keeping of records....” 335 U. S., at 32. It is enough that there are significant points of difference between the situations here and in Shapiro which in this instance preclude, under any formulation, an appropriate application of the “required records” doctrine.
Each of the three principal elements of the doctrine, as it is described in Shapiro, is absent from this situation. First, petitioner Marchetti was not, by the provisions now at issue, obliged to keep and preserve records “of the same kind as he has customarily kept”; he was required simply to provide information, unrelated to any records which he may have maintained, about his wagering activities. This requirement is not significantly different from a demand that he provide oral testimony. Compare McKay, supra, at 221. Second, whatever “public aspects” there were to the records at issue in Shapiro, there are none to the information demanded from Marchetti. The Government’s anxiety to obtain information known to a private individual does not without more render that information public; if it did, no room would remain for the application of the constitutional privilege. Nor does it stamp information with a public character that the Government has formalized its demands in the attire of a statute; if this alone were sufficient, the constitutional privilege could be entirely abrogated by any Act of Congress. Third, the requirements at issue in Shapiro were imposed in “an essentially non-criminal and regulatory area of inquiry” while those here are directed to a “selective group inherently suspect of criminal activities.” Cf. Albertson v. SACB, 382 U. S. 70, 79. The United States’ principal interest is evidently the collection of revenue, and not the punishment of gamblers, see United States v. Calamaro, 354 U. S. 351, 358; but the characteristics of the activities about which information is sought, and the composition of the groups to which inquiries are made, readily distinguish this situation from that in Shapiro. There is no need to explore further the elements and limitations of Shapiro and the cases involving public papers; these points of difference in combination preclude any appropriate application of those cases to the present one.'
y.
Finally, we have been urged by the United States to permit continued enforcement of the registration and occupational tax provisions, despite the demands of the constitutional privilege, by shielding the privilege’s claimants through the imposition of restrictions upon the use by federal and state authorities of information obtained as a consequence of compliance with the wagering tax requirements. It is suggested that these restrictions might be similar to those imposed by the Court in Murphy v. Waterfront Commission, 378 U. S. 52.
The Constitution of course obliges this Court to give full recognition to the taxing powers and to measures reasonably incidental to. their exercise. But we are equally obliged to give full effect to the constitutional restrictions which attend the exercise of those powers. We do not, as we have said, doubt Congress’ power to tax activities which are, wholly or in part, unlawful. Nor can it be doubted that the privilege against self-incrimination may not properly be asserted if other protection is granted which “is so broad as to have the same extent in scope and effect” as the privilege itself. Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547, 585. The Government’s suggestion is thus in principle an attractive and apparently practical resolution of the difficult problem before us. Compare Mansfield, The Albertson Case: Conflict Between the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination and the Government’s Need for Information, 1966 Sup. Ct. Rev. 103, 159; and McKay, supra, at 232. Nonetheless, we think that it would be entirely inappropriate in the circumstances here for the Court to impose such restrictions.
The terms of the wagering tax system make quite plain that Congress intended information obtained as a consequence of registration and payment of the occupational tax to be provided to interested prosecuting authorities. See 26 U. S. C. § 6107. This has evidently been the consistent practice of the Revenue Service. We must therefore assume that the imposition of use-restrictions would directly preclude effectuation of a significant element of Congress’ purposes in adopting the wagering taxes. Moreover, the imposition of such restrictions would necessarily oblige state prosecuting authorities to establish in each case that their evidence was untainted by any connection with information obtained as a consequence of the wagering taxes; the federal requirements would thus be protected only at the cost of hampering, perhaps seriously, enforcement of state prohibitions against gambling. We cannot know how Congress would assess the competing demands of the federal treasury and of state gambling prohibitions; we are, however, entirely certain that the Constitution has entrusted to Congress, and not to this Court, the task of striking an appropriate balance among such values. We therefore must decide that it would be improper for the Court to impose restrictions of the kind urged by the United States.
VI.
We are fully cognizant of the importance for the United States’ various fiscal and regulatory functions of timely and accurate information, compare Mansfield, supra, and Meltzer, Required Records, the McCarran Act, and the Privilege against Self-Incrimination, 18 U. Chi. L. Rev. 687; but other methods, entirely consistent with constitutional limitations, exist by which Congress may obtain such information. See generally Counselman v. Hitchcock, supra, at 585; compare Murphy v. Waterfront Commission, supra. Accordingly, nothing we do today will prevent either the taxation or the regulation by Congress of activities otherwise made unlawful by state or federal statutes.
Nonetheless, we can only conclude, under the wagering tax system as presently written, that petitioner properly asserted the privilege against self-incrimination, and that his assertion should have provided a complete defense to this prosecution. This defense should have reached both the substantive counts for failure to register and to pay the occupational tax, and the count for conspiracy to evade payment of the tax. We emphasize that we do not hold that these wagering tax provisions are as such constitutionally impermissible; we hold only that those who properly assert the constitutional privilege as to these provisions may not be criminally punished for failure to comply with their requirements. If, in different circumstances, a taxpayer is not confronted by substantial hazards of self-incrimination, or if he is otherwise outside the privilege’s protection, nothing we decide today would shield him from the various penalties prescribed by the wagering tax statutes.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
[For concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Brennan, see post, p. 72.]
[For concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Stewart, see post, p. 76.]
[For dissenting opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Warren, see post, p. 77.]
Certiorari was originally granted in Costello v. United States, 383 U. S. 942, to consider these issues. Upon Costello’s death, certiorari was granted in the present ease. 385 U. S. 1000. Mar-chetti and Costello, with others, were convicted at the same trial of identical offenses, arising from the same series of transactions. Certiorari both here and in Costello was limited to the following questions: “Do not the federal wagering tax statutes here involved violate the petitioner’s privilege against self-incrimination guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment? Should not this Court, especially in view of its recent decision in Albertson v. Subversive Activities Control Board, 382 U. S. 70 (1965), overrule United States v. Kahriger, 345 U. S. 22 (1953), and Lewis v. United States, 348 U. S. 419 (1955)?” After argument, the case was restored to the calendar, and set for reargument at the 1967 Term. 388 U. S. 903. Counsel were asked to argue, in addition to the original questions, the following: “(1) What relevance, if any, has the required records doctrine, Shapiro v. United States, 335 U. S. 1, to the validity under the Fifth Amendment of the registration and special occupational tax requirements of 26 U. S. C. §§4411, 4412? (2) Can an obligation to pay the special occupational tax required by 26 U. S. C. § 4411 be satisfied without filing the registration statement provided for by 26 U. S. C. §4412?”
A July 1963 revision of Form 11-C modified the form of certain of its questions. The record does not indicate which version of the return was available to petitioner at the time of the omissions for which he was convicted. The minor verbal variations between the two do not affect the result which we reach today.
The Treasury Regulations provide that a stamp, evidencing payment of the occupational tax, may not be issued unless the taxpayer both submits Form 11-C and tenders the full amount of the tax. 26 CFR §44.4901-1 (c). Accordingly, the Revenue Service has refused to accept the $50 tax unless it is accompanied by the completed registration form; and it has consistently been upheld in that practice. See United States v. Whiting, 311 F. 2d 191; United States v. Mungiole, 233 F. 2d 204; Combs v. Snyder, 101 F. Supp. 531, aff’d, 342 U. S. 939. The United States has in this case acknowledged that the registration and occupational tax provisions are not realistically severable. Brief on Reargument 37-41.
In his trial testimony in Grosso v. United States, decided herewith, post, p. 62, W. Dean Struble, technical advisor to the District Director of Internal Revenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, described Form 11-C as follows: “A Form 11-C serves two purposes. The first is an application for registry for a wagering tax stamp. After the application is properly filed and the tax paid, at that time the Form 11-C becomes a special tax return.” Transcript of Record 90.
The following illustrate the state gambling and wagering statutes under which one engaged in activities taxable under the federal provisions at issue here might incur criminal penalties. Ala. Code, Tit. 14, c. 46 (1958); Alaska Laws, Tit. 65, e. 13 (1949); Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-438 (1956); Ark. Stat. Ann., Tit. 41, e. 20 (1947); Cal. Pen. Code §§ 330-337a (1956); Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann., c. 40, Art. 10 (1963); Del. Code Ann., Tit. 11, §§ 665-669 (1953); D. C. Code Ann. §§ 22-1504 to 22-1511 (1967); Fla. Stat., c. 849 (1965); Ga. Code Ann., c. 26-64 (1953); Hawaii Rev. Laws, e. 288 (1955); Idaho Code Ann., Tit. 18, c. 38 (1948); Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 38, Art. 28 (1965); Ind. Ann. Stat., Tit. 10, e. 23 (1956); Iowa Code, e. 726 (1966); Kan. Stat. Ann., c. 21, Art. 15 (1964); Ky. Rev. Stat. §436.200 (1962); La. Rev. Stat. § 14:90 (1950); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 17, c. 61 (1964); Md. Ann. Code, Art, 27, §§237-242 (1957); Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., c. 271 (1959); Mich. Stat. Ann. §28.533 (1954); Minn. Stat. §609.755 (1965); Miss. Code Ann. §§ 2190-2202 (1942); Mo. Rev. Stat. § 563.350 (1959); Mont. Rev. Codes Ann., Tit. 94, c. 24 (1947); Neb. Rev. Stat. §28-941 (1943); Nev. Rev. Stat. §§293.603, 465.010 (1957); N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann., e. 577 (1955); N. J. Rev. Stat., Tit. 2A, c. 112 (1953); N. M. Stat. Ann., c. 40A, Art. 19 (1953); N. Y. Pen. Law, Art. 225 (1967); N. C. Gen. Stat. §§ 14 — 292 to 14-295 (1953); N. D. Cent. Code Ann., c. 12-23 (1959); Ohio Rev. Code Ann., c. 2915 (1953); Okla. Stat. Ann., Tit. 21, c. 38 (1958); Ore. Rev. Stat. § 167.505 (1965); Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 18, §§ 4603-4607 (1963); R. I. Gen. Laws Ann., Tit. 11, c. 19 (1956); S. C. Code Ann., Tit. 16, c. 8, Art. 1 (
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Once again the Court is required to consider the impact of New York’s motion picture licensing law upon First Amendment liberties, protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from infringement by the States. Cf. Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495.
The New York statute makes it unlawful “to exhibit, or to sell, lease or lend for exhibition at any place of amusement for pay or in connection with any business in the state of New York, any motion picture film or reel [with certain exceptions not relevant here], unless there is at the time in full force and effect a valid license or permit therefor of the education department. . . .” The law provides that a license shall issue “unless such film or a part'thereof is obscene, indecent, immoral, inhuman, sacrilegious, or is of such a character that its exhibition would tend to corrupt morals or incite to crime----” A recent statutory amendment provides that, “the.term ‘immoral’ and the phrase ‘of such a character that its exhibition woúld tend to corrupt morals’ shall denote a motion picture film or part thereof, the dominant purpose or effect of which is erotic or pornographic; or which portrays acts of sexual immorality, perversion, or lewdhess, or which expressly or impliedly presents such.acts as desirable, acceptable or proper patterns of behavior.”
As the distributor of a motion picture entitled “Lady Chatterley’s Lover/’ the appellant Kingsley submitted that film to the Motion Picture Division of the New York Education Department for a license. Finding three isolated scenes in the film “ ‘immoral’ within the intent of our Law,” the Division refused to issue a license until the scenes in question were deleted. The distributor petitioned the Regents of the University of the State of New York for a review of that ruling. The Regents upheld the denial of a license, but on the broader ground that “the whole theme of this motion picture is immoral under said law, for that theme is the presentation of adultery as a desirable, acceptable and proper pattern of behavior.”
Kingsley sought judicial review of the Regents’ determination. The Appellate Division unanimously annulled the action of the Regents and directed that a license be issued. 4 App. Div. 2d 348, 165 N. Y. S. 2d 681. A sharply divided Court of Appeals, however, reversed the Appellate Division and upheld the Regents’ refusal to license the film for exhibition. 4 N. Y. 2d 349, 151 N. E. 2d 197, 175 N. Y. S. 2d 39.
The Court of Appeals unanimously and explicitly rejected any notion that the film is obscene. See Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476. Rather, the court found that the picture as a whole “alluringly portrays adultery as proper behavior.” As Chief Judge Conway’s prevailing opinion emphasized, therefore, the only portion' of the statute involved in this case is that part of §§122 and 122-a of the Education Law requiring the denial of a license to' motion pictures “which are immoral in that they portray ‘acts of sexual immorality ... as desir.able, acceptable or proper patterns of behavior.’ ” 4 N. Y. 2d, at 351, 151 N. E. 2d, at 197, 175 N. Y. S. 2d, at 40. A majority of the Court of Appeals ascribed to that language a precise purpose of the New York Legislature to require the denial of a license to a motion picture “because its subject matter is adultery presented as being right and desirable for certain people under certain circumstances.” 4 N. Y. 2d, at 369, 151 N. E. 2d, at 208, 175 N. Y. S. 2d, at 55 (concurring opinion).
' We accept the premise that the motion picture here in question, can be so characterized. We accept too, as we must, the construction- of the New York Legislature’s language which the Court of Appeals has put upon it. Albertson v. Millard, 345 U. S. 242; United States v. Burnison, 339 U. S. 87; Aero Mayflower Transit Co. v. Board of R. R. Comm’rs, 332 U. S. 495. That construction, we emphasize, gives to the term “sexual immorality” a concept entirely different from the- concept embraced in words like “obscenity” or “pornography.” Moreover, it is not suggested-that the film would itself operate as an incitement to illegal action. Rather, the New York Court of Appeals tells us that the relevant portion of the New York Education Law requires the denial of a license to. any motion picture which approvingly portrays an adulterous relationship, quite without reference to the manner of its portrayal.
What New York has done, therefore, is to prevent the exhibition of a motion picture because that picture advocates an idea — that adultery under certain circumstances may be proper behavior. Yet the First Amendment’s basic guarantee is of freedom to advocate ideas. The State, quite simply, has thus struck at the very heart of constitutionally protected liberty.
It is contended that the State’s action was justified because the motion picture attractively portrays a relationship which is contrary to the moral standards, the religious precepts, and the legal code of its citizenry. This argument misconceives what it is that the Constitution protects. Its guarantee is not confined to. the expression of ideas that are conventional or shared by a majority. It protects advocacy of the opinion that adultery may sometimes be proper, no less than advocacy of socialism or the single tax. ■ And in the realm of ideas it protects expression which is eloquent no less than that which is unconvincing.
Advocacy of conduct proscribed by law is not, as Mr. Justice Brandéis long ago pointed out, “a justification for denying free speech whére the advocacy, falls short of incitement and there is nothing to indicate that the advocacy would be immediately acted on.” Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, at 376 (concurring opinion). “Among free men, the deterrents ordinarily to be applied, to prevent crime are education and punishment for violations of the law, not abridgment of thé rights of free speech. . . Id., at 378.
The inflexible command which the New Fork Court of Appeals has attributed to the State'Legislature thus cuts so close to the core of constitutional freedom as to make it quite needless in this case to examine the periphery. Specifically, there is no occasion to consider the appellant’s contention that the State is entirely without power to require films of any kind to be licensed prior to their exhibition. Nor need we here determine'whether, despite problems peculiar to motion pictures, the controls which a State may impose upon this medium of expression are precisely coextensive with those allowable for newspapers, books, or individual speech'. It is enough for the present case to reaffirm that motion pictures are within the First and Fourteenth Amendments’ basic protection. Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495.
Reversed.
McKinney’s N. Y. Laws, 1953, Education Law, § 129.
McKinney’s N. Y. Laws, 1953, Education Law, § 122.
McKinney’s N. Y. Laws, 1953 (Cum. Supp. 1958), Education Law, §122-a.
“An applicant for a. license or permit, in case his application be denied by the director of the division or by the officer authorized to issue the same, shall have the right of review by the regents.” McKinney’s N. Y. Laws, 1953, Education Law, § 124.
The proceeding was brought under Art. 78 of the New York Civil Practice Act, Gilbert-Bliss’ N. Y. Civ. Prac., Vol. 6B, 1944, 1949 Supp., § 1283 et seg. See also, McKinney’s N. Y. Laws, 1953, Education Law, § 124.
Although four of the seven judges of the Court of Appeals voted to reverse the order of the Appellate Division, only three of them were of the clear opinion that denial of a license was permissible under the Constitution. Chief Judge Conway wrote an opinion in' which Judges Froessel and Burke concurred, concluding that denial of the license was constitutionally permissible. Judge Desmond wrote a separate concurring opinion in which he stated: “I Confess doubt as to the validity of such a statute but I do not know how that doubt can be resolved unless we reverse here and let the Supreme Court have the final say.” 4 N. Y. 2d, at 369, 151 N. E. 2d, at 208, 175 N. Y. S. 2d, at 55. Judge Dye, Judge Fuld, and Judge Van Voorhis wrote separate dissenting opinions.
The opinion written by Chief Judge Conway stated: “[I]t is curious indeed to say in one breath, as some do, that obscene motion pictures may be censored, and then in another breath that motion pictures which alluringly portray adultery as proper and desirable may not be censored. As stated above, ‘The law is concerned with effect, not merely with but one means of producing it.’ It must be firmly borne in mind .that to give obscenity, as defined, the stature of the only constitutional limitation is to extend an invitation to corrupt the public morals by methods of presentation which craft will insure do not fall squarely within the definition of that term. Precedent, just as sound principle, will not support a statement that motion pictures must be ‘out and out’ obscene before they may be censored.” 4 N. Y. 2d, at 364, 151 N. E. 2d, at 205, 175 N. Y. S. 2d, at 51.
Judge Desmond’s concurring opinion stated: “[It is not] necessarily determinative that this film is not obscene in the dictionary sense. . . 4 N. Y. 2d, at 369, 151 N. E. 2d, at 208, 175 N. Y. S. 2d, at 55. Judge Dye’s dissenting opinion stated: “No one contends that the film in question is obscene within the narrow legal limits of obscenity as recently defined by the Supreme Court. ...” 4 N. Y. 2d, at 371, 151 N. E. 2d, at 210, 175 N. Y. S. 2d, at 57. Judge Van Voorhis’ dissenting opinion'stated: “[I]t is impossible to write off this entire drama as ‘mere pornography’ Judge Van Voorhis, however, would have remitted the case to the Board of Regents to consider whether certain “passages” in the film “might have been eliminated as ‘obscene’ without doing violence to constitutional liberties.” 4 N. Y. 2d, at 375, 151 N. E. 2d, at 212, 175 N. Y. S. 2d, at 60.
This is also emphasized in the brief of counsel for the Regents,, which states, “The full definition is not before this Court — only these parts of the definition as cited — and any debate as to whether other parts of the definition are a proper standard has no bearing in this case.”
In concurring, Judge Desmond agreed that this was the meaning of the statutory language in question, and that “the theme and content of this film fairly deserve that characterization. ...” 4 N. Y. 2d, at 366, 151 N. E. 2d, at 206, 175 N. Y. S. 2d, at 52.
See by way of contrast, Swearingen v. United States, 161 U. S. 446; United States v. Limehouse, 285 U. S. 424.
Thomas Jefferson wrote more than a hundred and fifty years ago, f‘But we have nothing to fear from the demoralizing reasonings of some, if others are left free to demonstrate their errors. And especially when the law stands ready to punish the first criminal act produced by the false reasoning. These are safer correctives than the conscience of- a judge.” Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Elijah Boardman, July 3, 1801, Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, Vol. 115, folio 19761.
Cf. Near v. Minnesota, 283 U. S. 697.
Cf. Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown, 354 U. S. 436; Alberts v. California, 354 U. S. 476.
Cf. Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516; Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (Act) sets forth employment rules concerning minimum wages, maximum hours, and overtime pay. 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U. S. C. § 201 et seq. The Act contains an antiretaliation provision that forbids employers
“to discharge or in any other manner discriminate against any employee because such employee has filed any complaint or instituted or caused to be instituted any proceeding under or related to [the Act], or has testified or is about to testify in such proceeding, or has served or is about to serve on an industry committee.” § 215(a)(3) (emphasis added).
We must decide whether the statutory term “filed any complaint” includes oral as well as written complaints within its scope. We conclude that it does.
I
The petitioner, Kevin Kasten, brought this antiretaliation lawsuit against his former employer, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corporation. Kasten says that Saint-Gobain located its timeclocks between the area where Kasten and other workers put on (and take off) their work-related protective gear and the area where they carry out their assigned tasks. That location prevented workers from receiving credit for the time they spent putting on and taking off their work clothes — contrary to the Act’s requirements. In a related suit the District Court agreed with Kasten, finding that Saint-Gobain’s “practice of not compensating ... for time spent donning and doffing certain required protective gear and walking to work areas” violated the Act. Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., 556 F. Supp. 2d 941, 954 (WD Wis. 2008). In this suit Kasten claims unlawful retaliation. He says that Saint-Gobain discharged him because he orally complained to Saint-Gobain officials about the timeclocks.
In particular, Kasten says that he repeatedly called the unlawful timeclock location to Saint-Gobain’s attention — in accordance with Saint-Gobain’s internal grievance-resolution procedure. See Brief for Petitioner 4 (quoting SaintGobain’s Code of Ethics and Business Conduct as imposing upon every employee “the responsibility to report . . . suspected violations of . . . any applicable law of which he or she becomes aware”); id., at 4-5 (quoting Saint-Gobain’s Employee Policy Handbook as instructing employees with “questions, complaints, and problems” to “[c]ontact” their “supervisor^] immediately” and if necessary “take the issue to the next level of management,” then to the “local Human Resources Manager,” then to “Human Resources” personnel at the “Regional” or “Headquarters” level).
Kasten adds that he “raised a concern” with his shift supervisor that “it was illegal for the time clocks to be where they were” because of Saint-Gobain’s exclusion of “the time you come in and start doing stuff”; he told a human resources employee that “if they were to get challenged on” the location in court, “they would lose”; he told his lead operator that the location was illegal and that he “was thinking about starting a lawsuit about the placement of the time clocks”; and he told the human resources manager and the operations manager that he thought the location was illegal and that the company would “lose” in court. Record in No. 3:07-cv-00686-bbc (WD Wis.), Doe. 87-3, pp. 31-34 (deposition of Kevin Kasten). This activity, Kasten concludes, led the company to discipline him and, in December 2006, to dismiss him.
Saint-Gobain presents a different version of events. It denies that Kasten made any significant complaint about the timeelock location. And it says that it dismissed Kasten simply because Kasten, after being repeatedly warned, failed to record his comings and goings on the timeelock.
For present purposes we accept Kasten’s version of these contested events as valid. See Scott v. Harris, 550 U. S. 372, 380 (2007). That is because the District Court entered summary judgment in Saint-Gobain’s favor. 619 F. Supp. 2d 608, 610 (WD Wis. 2008). And it did so, not because it doubted Kasten’s ability to prove the facts he alleged, but because it thought the Act did not protect oral complaints. Id., at 611-613. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit agreed with the District Court that the Act’s antiretaliation provision does not cover oral complaints. 570 F. 3d 834, 838-840 (2009).
Kasten sought certiorari. And in light of conflict among the Circuits as to whether an oral complaint is protected, we granted Kasten’s petition. Compare Hagan v. Echostar Satellite, L. L. C., 529 F. 3d 617, 625-626 (CA5 2008) (antiretaliation provision covers oral complaints); Lambert v. Ackerley, 180 F. 3d 997, 1007 (CA9 1999) (en banc) (same), with Lambert v. Genesee Hospital, 10 F. 3d 46, 55-56 (CA2 1993) (antiretaliation provision does not cover informal complaints to supervisors). See also Pacheco v. Whiting Farms, Inc., 365 F. 3d 1199, 1206 (CA10 2004) (antiretaliation provision covers unofficial assertion of rights); EEOC v. White & Son Enterprises, 881 F. 2d 1006, 1011-1012 (CA11 1989) (same); Moore v. Freeman, 355 F. 3d 558, 562-563 (CA6 2004) (assuming without discussion that oral complaints are covered); Brennan v. Maxey’s Yamaha, Inc., 513 F. 2d 179, 181 (CA8 1975) (same).
II
The sole question presented is whether “an oral complaint of a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act” is “protected conduct under the [Act’s] anti-retaliation provision.” Pet. for Cert. i. The Act protects employees who have “filed any complaint,” 29 U. S. C. § 215(a)(3), and interpretation of this phrase “depends upon reading the whole statutory text, considering the purpose and context of the statute, and consulting any precedents or authorities that inform the analysis,” Dolan v. Postal Service, 546 U. S. 481, 486 (2006). This analysis leads us to conclude that the language of the provision, considered in isolation, may be open to competing interpretations. But considering the provision in conjunction with the purpose and context leads us to conclude that only one interpretation is permissible.
A
We begin with the text of the statute. The word “filed” has different relevant meanings in different contexts. Some dictionary definitions of the word contemplate a writing. See, e. g., Webster’s New International Dictionary 945 (2d ed. 1934) (def. 4(a)) (to file is to “deliver (a paper or instrument) to the proper officer so that it is received by him to be kept on file, or among the records of his office” (emphasis added)); Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 462 (1983) (def. 2(a)) (one definition of “file” is “to place among official records as prescribed by law”).
But other dictionaries provide different definitions that permit the use of the word “file” in conjunction with oral material. One can, for example, file an oral statement that enters a matter “into the order of business.” 1 Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary of the English Language 920 (rev. ed. 1938) (def. 2) (to file is to “present in the regular way, as to a judicial or legislative body, so that it shall go upon the records or into the order of business”). This possibility is significant because it means that dictionary meanings, even if considered alone, do not necessarily limit the scope of the statutory phrase to written complaints. Cf. Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson Cty., 555 U. S. 271, 277 (2009) (looking for the “limits” of a linguistic phrase rather than what “exemplifies]” its application).
In addition to the dictionary definitions, we have found that legislators, administrators, and judges have all sometimes used the word “file” in conjunction with oral statements. Thus state statutes sometimes contemplate oral filings. See, e. g., Alaska Stat. § 47.32.090(a) (2008) (“file a verbal or written complaint”); Cal. Health & Safety Code Ann. § 17055(a) (West 2006) (“file an administrative complaint orally or in writing”); D. C. Code § 7-1231.12(a)(2)(B) (2001) (“filing his or her grievance, orally or in writing”); Ga. Code Ann. §§31-8-124(a), (c), 31-8-134(b) (2009) (“to file a grievance,” a person may “submit an oral or written complaint”); Ind. Code § 27-8-28-14(a) (2009) (“file a grievance orally or in writing”); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 34-B, §5604(3)(B) (2009) (“filed through an oral request”); Miss. Code Ann. § 69-47-23(4) (2005) (“file a written or oral complaint”); Mo. Rev. Stat. § 198.088.3(3) (2009) (to have a complaint “filed,” a person “shall write or cause to be written his grievance or shall state it orally”); Nev. Rev. Stat. §§618.336(2)(a), 618.341(l)(a) (2009) (“oral or written complaint filed”); N. J. Stat. Ann. § 30:4C-12 (West 2008) (“written or oral complaint may be filed”); N. Y. Ins. Law Ann. §§ 3217-a(a)(7), 4324(a)(7) (West 2006) (“file a grievance orally”); N. Y. Pub. Health Law Ann. § 4408(l)(g) (West Supp. 2010) (“file a grievance orally”); Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 40, §§991.2141(a)-(b) (Purdon 1999) (“file a . . . written or oral complaint”); Tex. Ins. Code Ann. §§ 1305.401(a)-(b) (West 2009) (“oral or written complaint” must be “file[d]”); Wash. Rev. Code §§90.64.030(3), (5) (2008) (“complaints have been filed ... as the result of either an oral or a written complaint”).
Regulations promulgated by various federal agencies sometimes permit complaints to be filed orally. See, e. g., 32 CFR §842.20 (2010) (“[fjiling a claim” may proceed “orally or in writing”); 42 CFR § 422.564(d)(1) (2009) (“file a grievance . . . either orally or in writing”); § 423.564(d)(1) (same); §438.402(b)(3)(i) (“file a grievance either orally or in writing”); § 494.180(e) (“file an oral or written grievance”); 49 CFR § 1503.629(c) (2009) (“[f]iling of motions .. . must be in writing or orally on the record” (emphasis deleted)); 42 CFR § 438.402(b)(3)(ii) (2009) (“file an appeal either orally or in writing”).
And a review of contemporaneous judicial usage, cf. Utah v. Evans, 536 U. S. 452, 475 (2002), shows that oral filings were a known phenomenon when the Act was passed. See, e. g., Reed Oil Co. v. Cain, 169 Ark. 309, 312, 275 S. W. 333, 334 (1925) (“appellee filed ... an oral complaint”); Tingler v. Lahti, 87 W. Va. 499, 503, 105 S. E. 810, 812 (1921) (“complaint subsequently filed, either oral or written”); Ex parte Mosgrove, 47 Okla. Crim. 40, 287 P. 795 (1930) (only “complaint ... filed against him” was “oral complaint of the town marshal”); Indian Fred v. State, 36 Ariz. 48, 52-53, 282 P. 930, 932 (1929) (“filed an oral motion to quash”); Dunn v. State, 60 Okla. Crim. 201, 203, 63 P. 2d 772, 773 (1936) (“filed an oral demurrer”); Morrison v. Lewis, 58 Ga. App. 677, 199 S. E. 782 (1938) (“filed an oral motion” demurring); Brock v. Cullum Bros., 263 S. W. 335 (Tex. Civ. App. 1924) (“filed an oral motion to quash”); Fike v. Allen, 269 S. W. 179, 180 (Tex. Civ. App. 1925) (“filed oral pleadings”).
Filings may more often be made in writing. See, e.g., Ritter v. United States, 28 F. 2d 265, 267 (CA3 1928) (finding words “file a claim'for refund” to require a written request in context of Tax Code). But we are interested in the filing of “any complaint.” So even if the word “filéd,” considered alone, might suggest a narrow interpretation limited to writings, the phrase “any complaint” suggests a broad interpretation that would include an oral complaint. See, e. g., Republic of Iraq v. Beaty, 556 U. S. 848, 856 (2009). The upshot is that the three-word phrase, taken by itself, cannot answer the interpretive question.
We can look further to other appearances of the word “filed” in the Act. See MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., 512 U. S. 218, 226 (1994) (examining “contextual indications” of the meaning of a term). That word (or a variant) appears in numerous other provisions. But its appearance elsewhere in the Act does not resolve the linguistic question before us. Some of those other provisions (1) involve filed material that, unlike a complaint, is of a kind that is virtually always in writing. See, e. g., 29 U. S. C. §203(Z) (employers must “have on file an unexpired certificate” (emphasis added)); § 210(a) (Secretary must “file in the court the record of the industry committee” (emphasis added)); ibid, (industry committee must “file” its findings and recommendations). Others (2) specifically require a writing, see, e. g., § 214(c)(5)(A) (requiring employee's “consent in writing” to join collective action to be “filed” (emphasis added)); § 216(b) (same). And the remainder (3) leave the oral/written question unresolved — just as does the provision before us. See, e. g., § 210(b) (prohibiting a stay unless movant “file[s] in court an undertaking” (emphasis added)); § 214(c)(5)(A) (employee “may file ... a petition” for review of a special wage rate (emphasis added)).
Looking beyond the Act, we find other statutes that contain antiretaliation provisions. Those statutes, however, use somewhat different language. See, e. g., § 158(a)(4) (protecting an employee who has “filed charges or given testimony”); § 623(d) (protecting those who “opposed any [unlawful] practice” (emphasis added)); 42 U. S. C. §§2000e-3(a), 12203(a) (same); 29 U. S. C. § 2615(a)(2) (similar). See also, e.g., 15 U.S.C. § 2087(a)(1) (2006 ed., Supp. Ill) (“provided ... to the employer . . . information relating to any violation” (emphasis added)); § 2651(a) (2006 ed.) (similar); 30 U. S. C. § 815(c)(1) (“filed or made a complaint” (emphasis added)); 42 U. S. C. § 5851(a)(1)(A) (“notified his employer” (emphasis added)); 49 U. S. C. § 42121(a)(1) (“provided . . . information” (emphasis added)); § 60129(a)(1) (same). Some of this language is broader than the phrase before us, but, given the fact that the phrase before us lends itself linguistically to the broader, “oral” interpretation, the use of broader language elsewhere may mean (1) that Congress wanted to limit the scope of the phrase before us to writings, or (2) that Congress did not believe the different phraseology made a significant difference in this respect. The language alone does not tell us whether Congress, if intending to protect orally expressed grievances elsewhere, did or did not intend to leave those oral grievances unprotected here.
The bottom line is that the text, taken alone, cannot provide a conclusive answer to our interpretive question. The phrase “filed any complaint” might, or might not, encompass oral complaints. We must look further.
B
1
Several functional considerations indicate that Congress intended the antiretaliation provision to eover oral, as well as written, “complaint[s].” First, an interpretation that limited the provision’s coverage to written complaints would undermine the Act’s basic objectives. The Act seeks to prohibit “labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers.” 29 U. S. C. § 202(a). It does so in part by setting forth substantive wage, hour, and overtime standards. It relies for enforcement of these standards, not upon “continuing detailed federal supervision or inspection of payrolls,” but upon “information and complaints received from employees seeking to vindicate rights claimed to have been denied.” Mitchell v. Robert DeMario Jewelry, Inc., 361 U. S. 288, 292 (1960). And its antiretaliation provision makes this enforcement scheme effective by preventing “fear of economic retaliation” from inducing workers “quietly to accept substandard conditions.” Ibid.
Why would Congress want to limit the enforcement scheme’s effectiveness by inhibiting use of the Act’s complaint procedure by those who would find it 'difficult to reduce their complaints to writing, particularly illiterate, less educated, or overworked workers? President Franklin Roosevelt pointed out at the time that these were the workers most in need of the Act’s help. See Message to Congress, May 24,1937, H. R. Doc. No. 255, 75th Cong, 1st Sess., 4 (seeking a bill to help the poorest of “those who toil in factory”).
In the years prior to the passage of the Act, illiteracy rates were particularly high among the poor. See E. Gordon & E. Gordon, Literacy in America 273 (2003) (one-quarter of World War I conscripts were illiterate); Dept, of Commerce, Bureau of Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, Population: The Labor Force (Sample Statistics): Occupational Characteristics 60 (1943) (20.8% of manufacturing laborers in 1940 had less than five years of schooling). Those rates remained high in certain industries for many years after the Act’s passage. In 1948, for example, the National War Labor Board wrote:
“In many plants where there is a high degree of illiteracy, the writing of grievances by employees works a substantial hardship. In other plants where there is considerable dirt and special clothes must be worn, it is often not practicable to write up grievances during work hours.” 1 The Termination Report of the National War Labor Board, p. 122.
To limit the scope of the antiretaliation provision to the filing of written complaints would also take needed flexibility from those charged with the Act’s enforcement. It could prevent Government agencies from using hotlines, interviews, and other oral methods of receiving complaints. And insofar as the antiretaliation provision covers complaints made to employers (a matter we need not decide, see infra, at 16-17), it would discourage the use of desirable informal workplace grievance procedures to secure compliance with the Act. Cf. Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U. S. 742, 764 (1998) (reading Title YII to encourage the development of effective grievance procedures to deter misconduct); D. McPherson, C. Gates, & K. Rogers, Resolving Grievances: A Practical Approach 38-40 (1983) (describing the significant benefits of unwritten complaints).
Given the need for effective enforcement of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), this Court has broadly interpreted the language of the NLRA’s antiretaliation provision — “filed charges or given testimony,” 29 U. S. C. § 158(a)(4) — as protecting workers who neither filed charges nor were “called formally to testify” but simply “participate[d] in a [National Labor Relations] Board investigation.” NLRB v. Scrivener, 405 U. S. 117, 123 (1972) (emphasis added). The similar enforcement needs of this related statute argue for an interpretation of the word “complaint” that would provide “broad rather than narrow protection to the employee,” id., at 122 (and would do so here without pressing statutory language to its limit). See also Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 U. S. 590, 597 (1944) (the Act’s “remedial and humanitarian . . . purpose” cautions against “narrow, grudging” interpretations of its language).
Saint-Gobain replies that worker protection is not the only relevant statutory objective. The Act also seeks to establish an enforcement system that is fair to employers. To do so, the employer must have fair notice that an employee is making a complaint that could subject the employer to a later claim of retaliation. If oral complaints suffice, Saint-Gobain adds, employers too often will be left in a state of uncertainty about whether an employee (particularly an employee who seems unusually angry at the moment) is in fact making a complaint about an Act violation or just letting off steam.
We agree with Saint-Gobain that the statute requires fair notice. Although the dictionary definitions, statutes, regulations, and judicial opinions we considered, see supra, at 7-10, do not distinguish between writings and oral statements, they do suggest that a “filing” is a serious occasion, rather than a triviality. As such, the phrase “filed any complaint” contemplates some degree of formality, certainly to the point where the recipient has been given fair notice that a grievance has been lodged and does, or should, reasonably understand the matter as part of its business concerns.
Moreover, the statute prohibits employers from discriminating against an employee “because such employee has filed any complaint.” §215(a)(3) (emphasis added). And it is difficult to see how an employer who does not (or should not) know an employee has made a complaint could discriminate because of that complaint. But we also believe that a fair notice requirement does not necessarily mean that notice must be in writing.
At oral argument, the Government said that a complaint is “filed” when “a reasonable, objective person would have understood the employee” to have “put the employer on notice that [the] employee is asserting statutory rights under the [Act].” Tr. of Oral Arg. 23, 26. We agree. To fall within the scope of the antiretaliation provision, a complaint must be sufficiently clear and detailed for a reasonable employer to understand it, in light of both content and context, as an assertion of rights protected by the statute and a call for théir protection. This standard can be met, however, by oral complaints, as well as by written ones.
2
Second, given Congress’ delegation of enforcement powers to federal administrative agencies, we also give a degree of weight to their views about the meaning of this enforcement language. See 29 U. S. C. § 216(c) (vesting enforcement power in Secretary of Labor); Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1978, 5 U. S. C. App. § 1, p. 664 (transferring to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforcement of this antiretaliation provision as part of its Equal Pay Act enforcement responsibilities); Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134, 140 (1944) (giving weight to a persuasive articulation of views within an agency’s area of expertise).
The Secretary of Labor has consistently held the view that the words “filed any complaint” cover oral,, as well as written, complaints. The Department of Labor articulated that view in an enforcement action filed many years ago, Goldberg v. Zenger, 43 CCH LC ¶ 31,155, pp. 40,985, 40,986 (D Utah 1961). It has subsequently reaffirmed that view in briefs. See, e. g., Brief for Secretary of Labor as Amicus Curiae Supporting Petition for Rehearing With Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc in Lambert v. Ackerley, No. 96-36017 etc. (CA9), pp. 6-7. And more recently it has acted in accordance with that view by creating a hotline to receive oral complaints, see Dept, of Labor, Compliance Assistance by Law— The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), http://www.dol.gov/ compliance/laws/comp-flsa.htm (as visited Mar. 18, 2011, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file) (directing participants who wish to “file a complaint” to contact a local office “or call the Department’s Toll-Free Wage and Hour Help Line at 1-866-4-U S-WAGE ”).
The EEOC has set forth a similar view in its Compliance Manual, Vol. 2, § 8-II(B)(l), p. 8-3, and n. 12 (1998), and in multiple briefs, see, e. g., Brief for EEOC as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petition for Rehearing With Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc in Lambert v. Ackerley, No. 96-36017 etc. (CA9), pp. 8-13; Brief for Appellee in EEOC v. White & Son Enterprises, Inc., No. 88-7658 (CA11), pp. 29-30.
These agency views are reasonable. They are consistent with the Act. The length of time the agencies have held them suggests that they reflect careful consideration, not “post hoc rationalization].” Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Assn, of United States, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co., 463 U. S. 29, 50 (1983). And they consequently add force to our conclusion. Skidmore, supra, at 140; cf. United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 229, 234-235 (2001) (Court sometimes finds judicial deference intended even in absence of rulemaking authority); Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter, Communities for Great Ore., 515 U. S. 687, 703-704, and n. 18 (1995) (agency views, where the law counsels deference, can clarify otherwise ambiguous statutory provisions).
3
Finally, we note that Saint-Gobain invokes the “rule of lenity” in support of its “written complaint” interpretation. That rule applies primarily to the interpretation of criminal statutes. It leads us to favor a more lenient interpretation of a criminal statute “when, after consulting traditional canons of statutory construction, we are left with an ambiguous statute.” United States v. Shabani, 513 U. S. 10, 17 (1994). We agree with Saint-Gobain that those who violate the anti-retaliation provision before us are subject to criminal sanction, 29 U. S. C. § 216(a). And we have said that the rule of lenity can apply when a statute with criminal sanctions is applied in a noncriminal context. See Leocal v. Ashcroft, 543 U. S. 1, 11, n. 8 (2004). But after engaging in traditional methods of statutory interpretation, we cannot find that the statute remains sufficiently ambiguous to warrant application of the rule of lenity here.
C
Alternatively, Saint-Gobain claims that it should prevail because Kasten complained to a private employer, not to the Government; and, in Saint-Gobain’s view, the antiretaliation provision applies only to complaints filed with the Government. Saint-Gobain advanced this claim in the lower courts, which held to the contrary. 570 F. 3d, at 837-838; 619 F. Supp. 2d, at 613. But Saint-Gobain said nothing about it in response to Kasten’s petition for certiorari. Indeed, it did not mention the claim in this Court until it filed its brief on the merits.
We do not normally consider a separate legal question not raised in the certiorari briefs. See this Court’s Rule 15.2; Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61, 75, n. 13 (1996). We see no reason to make an exception here. Resolution of the Government/private employer question is not a “ ‘ “predicate to an intelligent resolution”’” of the oral/written question that we granted certiorari to decide. See ibid, (quoting Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U. S. 33, 38 (1996)). That is to say, we can decide the oral/written question separately — on its own. And we have done so. Thus, we state no view on the merits of Saint-Gobain’s alternative claim. Cf. post, at 18-21 (Scalia, J., dissenting).
* * *
We conclude that the Seventh Circuit erred in determining that oral complaints cannot fall within the scope of the phrase “filed any complaint” in the Act’s antiretaliation provision. We leave it to the lower courts to decide whether Kasten will be able to satisfy the Act’s notice requirement. We vacate the Circuit’s judgment and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Kagan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case has a long history. It must be told with some particularity in order to unravel issues ensnarled in protracted litigation in both state and federal courts, turning essentially on the admissibility of confessions.
The Trial. — Petitioner was found guilty of murder by a jury in the Superior Court, New Haven County, Connecticut. The undisputed evidence leading to the conviction may be briefly told. On January 9, 1954, New Haven, Connecticut, police arrested petitioner on charges of committing attempted robbery and other crimes on that day at a local hotel. At the time of his arrest petitioner had in his possession a revolver. Subsequent ballistic tests tended to show that this weapon, which had been reported stolen from the home of petitioner’s nephew, was used in a fatal shooting during a liquor store robbery in West Haven, Connecticut, on November 21, 1953, the same day its disappearance was discovered.
Petitioner was lodged in the New Haven County Jail pending trial on the charges that prompted his arrest. On January 30, 1954, he was transported without court order from the jail to the office of the State’s Attorney for questioning in connection with the West Haven killing. The interrogation commenced at approximately 2 p. m. of that day and continued throughout the afternoon and evening. During the interrogation petitioner was allowed to smoke, was brought a sandwich and coffee, and was at no time subjected to violence or threat of violence.
After petitioner had been intermittently questioned without success by a team of at least three police officers from 2 p. m. to 8 p. m., New Haven Assistant Chief of Police Eagan was called in to conduct the investigation. When petitioner persisted in his denial that he had done the shooting, Chief Eagan pretended, in petitioner’s hearing, to place a telephone call to police officers, directing them to stand in readiness to bring in petitioner’s wife for questioning. After the passage of approximately one hour, during which petitioner remained silent, Chief Eagan indicated that he was about to have petitioner’s wife taken into custody. At this point petitioner announced his willingness to confess and did confess in a statement which .was taken down in shorthand by an official óourt reporter.
The following morning the Coroner of New Haven County issued an order that petitioner be held incommunicado at the jail. When a lawyer associated with counsel whom petitioner had previously retained to defend him on the attempted robbery charge called at the jail to see petitioner, he was turned away on the authority of the Coroner’s order. Petitioner was then transported to the County Court House for interrogation by the Coroner, who had been informed of his confession of the previous night. There he was put on oath to tell the truth but warned that he might refuse to say anything further and advised that he might obtain the assistance of counsel. Petitioner again confessed to the shooting in a statement recorded by the same official court reporter.
Petitioner’s defense at the trial was directed toward discrediting the confessions as the product of coercion. In accordance with Connecticut practice, see, e. g., State v. Willis, 71 Conn. 293, 41 A. 820; State v. Guastamachio, 137 Conn. 179, 75 A. 2d 429, the trial judge heard the evidence bearing on admissibility of the confessions without the jury present. At this hearing petitioner testified that shortly after the commencement of the interrogation he asked to see a lawyer but was never permitted to do so. He also testified, with reference to Chief Eagan’s pretense of bringing petitioner’s wife in for questioning, that this move took the form of a threat to do so unless he confessed and that in making this threat Chief Eagan told him that he would be “less than a man” if he failed to confess and thereby caused her to be taken into custody. According to petitioner his wife suffered from arthritis, and he confessed to spare her being transported to the scene of the interrogation.
The State met petitioner’s account with the testimony of Chief Eagan. He testified that petitioner made no request to see a lawyer dhring his presence in the room. However, it will be recalled that Chief Eagan did not arrive until the questioning had run a course of six hours and that petitioner claimed to have requested counsel during that period. Chief Eagan also denied that he had framed his remarks about bringing petitioner’s wife in for questioning as a threat or that he had suggested that petitioner would be “less than a man,” etc.
On the basis of the evidence summarized, the trial judge concluded that the confessions were voluntary and allowed them to go to the jury for consideration of the weight to be given them under all the circumstances that led to them. Conviction of petitioner for murder followed.
Review by the Connecticut Supreme Court. — On appeal, the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, finding no error in the trial judge’s admission of the confessions, affirmed the conviction, State v. Rogers, 143 Conn. 167, 120 A. 2d 409.
First Federal Habeas Corpus Proceeding. — In August of 1956, after satisfying the rule of Darr v. Burford, 339 U. S. 200, petitioner sought a federal writ of habeas corpus, basically on the ground that since the confessions were secured under circumstances rendering them constitutionally inadmissible, he was denied due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment. The United States District Court for the District of Connecticut held a hearing based on the evidence' offered by the parties. This evidence included excerpts from the record of the state proceedings as well as testimony of petitioner and various state officials. Neither petitioner nor respondent submitted the entire transcript of the state proceedings and the district judge did not call for it. Petitioner again testified that before he confessed he had requested an opportunity to confer with his lawyer. His testimony was flatly contradicted by three police officers called by the State’s Attorney, none of whom had testified at the trial.
On the testimony before him, the district judge made findings which differed from those of the state trial judge in several important respects. He accepted petitioner’s testimony that during the police interrogation he had asked to see his lawyer before he yielded to Chief Eagan’s efforts to have him confess. He also found that the confession before the Coroner was the product of fear that repudiation of the earlier confession would lead the police to take his wife and foster children into custody. Accordingly, he concluded that “The confessions were the result of pressure overcoming Rogers’ powers of resistance and were not voluntary on his part.” United States ex rel. Rogers v. Cummings, 154 F. Supp. 663, 665. He therefore set aside the judgment of conviction.
First Court of Appeals Review. — On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated the District Court’s judgment, finding that it was error to hold a hearing de novo on issues of basic evidentiary fact that had been considered and adjudicated by the state courts. Relying on Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, the Court of Appeals concluded that the district judge should have called for the entire state record before reaching his decision. It held
“that in the case now before us the nature of the issues presented and proper regard for the delicate balance of federal-state relationships required the District Judge to obtain and examine the State proceedings .... Only on an adequate state record can the District Court determine “if a vital flaw exists which warrants correction by extrinsic evidence.” United States ex rel. Rogers v. Richmond, 252 F. 2d 807, 810, 811.
The Court of Appeals remanded the case to the District Court with the following instructions:
“Unless the judge below shall find in the record thus before him material which he deems to constitute ‘vital flaws’ and ‘unusual circumstances’ within the meaning of Brown v. Allen, we hold that he should make the necessary constitutional determinations exclusively on the basis of the historical facts as found by the State trial court.” 252 F. 2d, at 811.
Certiorari Proceeding. — The petitioner sought certi-orari here and we denied the petition with this per curiam opinion:
“The petition for writ of certiorari is denied. We read the opinion of the Court of Appeals as holding that while the District Judge may, unless he finds a vital flaw in the State Court proceedings, accept the determination in such proceedings, he need not deem such determination binding, and may take testimony. See Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 506, et seq.” Rogers v. Richmond, 357 U. S. 220.
Second Federal Habeas Corpus Proceeding. — On remand, the district judge had before him the entire transcript of the state proceedings and on the basis of it dismissed the petition. United States ex rel. Rogers v. Richmond, 178 F. Supp. 69. While he adhered to his belief in petitioner’s testimony in the first habeas corpus hearing, he now considered himself obliged to accept the state court’s “Findings,” rather than his own, on all points of historical fact “unless some vital flaw or unusual circumstance exists or some other basis appears for consideration of testimony outside the record.” 178 F. Supp., at 71-72. The district judge found no such “flaw” or “circumstance” to permit retrial of the issue of the volun-tariness of the confessions. He thus stated his position:
“The issue of whether request for counsel was made and the issue of voluntary character of the confessions were fully and conscientiously tried by an experienced judge. Subsequent disagreement with his weighing of essentially similar evidence is not in itself sufficient under the limitations now imposed in the interest of proper balance in our dual court system, to permit consideration of the matter heard at the trial of the issue de novo here.” 178 F. Supp., at 73.
On this basis the district judge could not find that the confessions were the product of coercion.
Second Court of Appeals Review. — The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed this judgment, one judge dissenting. United States ex rel. Rogers v. Richmond, 271 F. 2d 364. The court held that the district judge was correct in restricting himself to the state court’s “Findings” regarding petitioner’s request to see his lawyer before confessing, and agreed with him that the facts in the record did not justify the conclusion that petitioner’s confessions were not voluntary.
Because issues concerning the appropriate procedure for dealing with petitions for federal habeas corpus in relation to state convictions were urged, we brought the case here. 361 U. S.959.
A critical analysis of the Connecticut proceedings leads to disposition of the case on a more immediate issue. For it compels the conclusion that the trial judge in admitting the confessions as “voluntary,” and the Supreme Court of Errors in affirming the conviction into which the confessions entered, failed to apply the standard demanded by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment for determining the admissibility of a confession.
Our decisions under that Amendment have made clear that convictions following the admission into evidence of confessions which are involuntary, i. e., the product of coercion, either physical or psychological, cannot stand. This is so not because such confessions are unlikely to be true but because the methods used to extract them offend an underlying principle in the enforcement of our criminal law: that ours is an accusatorial and not an inquisitorial system — a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured and may not by coercion prove its charge against an accused out of his own mouth. See Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227; Lisenba v. California, 314 U. S. 219, 236; Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165, 172-174; Spano v. New York, 360 U. S. 315, 320-321; Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U. S. 199, 206-207. And see Watts v. Indiana, 338 U. S. 49, 54-55. To be sure, confessions cruelly extorted may be and have been, to an unascertained extent, found to be untrustworthy. But the constitutional principle of excluding confessions that are not-voluntary does not rest on this consideration. Indeed, in many of the cases in which the command of the Due Process Clause has compelled us to reverse state convictions involving the use of confessions obtained by impermissible methods, independent corroborating evidence left little doubt of the truth of what the defendant had confessed. Despite such verification, confessions were found to be the product of constitutionally impermissible methods in their inducement. Since a defendant had been subjected to pressures to which, under our accusatorial system, an accused shoúld not be subjected, we were constrained to find that the procedures leading to his conviction had failed to afford him that due process of law which the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees.
In the present case, while the trial judge ruled that each of petitioner’s confessions was “freely and voluntarily made and accordingly was admissible in evidence,” he reached that conclusion on the basis of considerations that undermine its validity. He found that the pretense of bringing petitioner’s wife in for questioning “had no tendency to produce a confession that was not in accord with the truth.” Again, in his charge to the jury, he thus enunciated the reasoning which had guided him in admitting the confessions for its consideration:
“No confession or admission of an accused is admissible in evidence unless made freely and voluntarily and not under the influence of promises or threats. The fact that a confession was procured by the employment of some artifice or deception does not exclude the confession if it was not calculated, that is to say, if the artifice or deception was not calculated to procure an untrue statement. The motive of a person in confessing is of no importance provided the particular confession does not result from threats, fear or promises made by persons in actual or seeming authority. The object of evidence is to get •at the truth, and a trick or device which has no tendency to produce a confession except one in accordance with the truth does not render the confession inadmissible .... The rules which surround the use of a confession are designed and put into operation because of the desire expressed in the law that the confession, if used, be probably a true confession.”
The same view — that the probable reliability of a confession is a circumstance of weight in determining its vol-untariness — entered the opinion of the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut in sustaining the trial judge’s admission of the confession:
“If we concede that this [petitioner’s claims of illegal removal from jail and incommunicado detention] was all true and that such conduct was unlawful, it does not, standing alohe, render the defendant’s confessions inadmissible. The question is whether, under these and other circumstances of the case, that conduct induced the defendant to confess falsely that he had committed the crime being investigated. Unless it did, it cannot be said that its illegality vitiated his confessions.” 143 Conn., at 173; 120 A. 2d, at 412.
And again :
“Proper court authorization should have been secured before the defendant was removed from the jail. There is nothing about his illegal removal, however, to demonstrate that he was thereby forced to make an untrue statement. The same can be said concerning the refusal to admit counsel to see the defendant on the morning of January 31 before he was brought before the coroner.” 143 Conn., at 173-174; 120 A. 2d, at 412.
Concerning the feigned phone call that petitioner’s wife be brought in to headquarters, the Supreme Court concluded:
“Here again, the question for the court to decide was whether this conduct induced the defendant to make an involuntary and hence untrue statement.” 143 Conn., at 174; 120 A. 2d, at 412.
From a fair reading of these expressions, we cannot but conclude that the question whether Rogers’ confessions were admissible into evidence was answered by reference to a legal standard which took into account the circumstance of probable truth or falsity. And this is not a permissible standard under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The attention of the trial judge should have been focused, for purposes of the Federal Constitution, on the question whether the behavior of the State’s law enforcement officials was such as to overbear petitioner’s will to resist and bring about confessions not freely self-determined — a question to be answered with complete disregard of whether or not petitioner in fact spoke the truth. The employment instead, by the trial judge and the Supreme Court of Errors, of a standard infected by the inclusion of references to probable reliability resulted in a constitutionally invalid conviction, pursuant to which Rogers is now detained “in violation of the Constitution.” A defendant has the right to be tried according to the substantive and procedural due process requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment. This means that a vital confession, such as is involved in this case, may go to the jury only if it is subjected to screening in accordance with correct constitutional standards. To the extent that in the trial of Rogers evidence was allowed to go to the jury on the basis of standards that departed from constitutional requirements, to that extent he was unconstitutionally tried and the conviction was vitiated by error of constitutional dimension.
It is not for this Court, any more than for a Federal District Court, in habeas corpus proceedings, to make an independent appraisal of the legal significance of facts gleaned from the record after such a conviction. We are barred from speculating — it would be an irrational process — about the weight attributed to the impermissible consideration of truth and falsity which, entering into the Connecticut trial court’s deliberations concerning the admissibility of the confessions, may well have distorted, by putting in improper perspective, even its findings of historical fact. Any consideration of this “reliability” element was constitutionally precluded, precisely because the force which it carried with the trial judge cannot be known.
As a matter of abstract logic it is arguable that Rogers may not have been deprived of a constitutional right, nor held in custody in violation of the Constitution, within 28 U. S. C. § 2241 (c)(3), solely because the Connecticut trial court applied an impermissible constitutional standard in admitting his confession — that Rogers was not so deprived, or so held, unless “in fact” his confession was coerced, a “fact” to be ascertained from the state record on direct review here, or de novo by a federal district judge in habeas corpus proceedings. Such a view ignores both the volatile and amorphous character of “fact” as fact is found by courts, and the distributive functions of the dual judicial system in our federalism for the finding of fact and the application of law to fact. In coerced confession cases coming directly to this Court from the highest court of a State in which review may be had, we look for “fact” to the undisputed, the uncontested evidence of record. See Watts v. Indiana, 338 U. S. 49, 50-52. This is all that we may look to, in the absence of detailed state-court findings of historical fact, because this Court cannot sit as a trial tribunal to hear and assess the credibility of witnesses. Of course, so-called facts and their constitutional significance may be so blended that they cannot be severed in consideration. And in any event, there must be a foundation in fact for the legal result. See Thompson v. Louisville, 362 U. S. 199. With due regard to these considerations, it would be manifestly unfair, and afford niggardly protection for federal constitutional rights, were we to sustain a state conviction in which the trial judge or trial jury — whichever is charged by state law with the duty of finding fact pertinent to a claim of coercion — passes upon that claim under an erroneous standard of constitutional law. In such a case, to look to the wholly undisputed evidence, in the event conflicting evidence is presented, would deprive the state criminal defendant of the benefit of whatever credit his testimony might have been given by the state judge or the state jury, had the judge or jury employed a proper legal standard. Nor, in a case where specific findings are made concerning the allegedly coercive circumstances, can those findings be fairly looked to for the “facts,” since findings of fact may often be (to what extent, in a particular case, cannot be known) influenced by what the finder is looking for. Historical facts “found” in the perspective framed by an erroneous legal standard cannot plausibly be expected to furnish the basis for correct conclusions if and merely because a correct standard is later applied to them.
Of course, where the issue of coercion is raised not on direct review in this Court but by petition for habeas corpus in a Federal District Court, one alternative method of proceeding impossible on direct review is available. The District Court might conceivably hold a hearing de novo on the issue of coercion. But such a procedure would neither adequately protect the federal rights of state criminal defendants nor duly take account of the large leeway which must be left to the States in their administration of their own criminal justice. A state defendant should have the opportunity to have all issues which may be determinative of his guilt tried by a state judge or a state jury under appropriate state procedures which conform to the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment. Where he has not had that opportunity he should not be required to establish in a Federal District Court, before a federal district judge who must consider the issue of the voluntariness of the confession in a certain abstraction from the whole, living complex of a criminal trial, and perhaps many years after the occurrence of the events surrounding the confession, facts establishing coercion. On the other hand, the State, too, has a weighty interest in having valid federal constitutional criteria applied in the administration of its criminal law by its own courts and juries. To require a federal judge exercising habeas corpus jurisdiction to attempt to combine within himself the proper functions of judge and jury in a state trial — to ask him to approximate the sympathies of the defendant’s peers or to make the rulings which the state trial judge might make, within the exercise of his discretion concerning the admission of evidence at the borderline of constitutional permissibility — is potentially to prejudice state defendants claiming federal rights and to pre-empt functions that belong to state machinery in the administration of state criminal law.
In view, therefore, of the constitutionally inadequate test applied by the Connecticut courts for determining whether the confessions were voluntarily given, we need not, on this record, consider whether the circumstances of the interrogation and the manner in which it was pressed barred admissibility of the confessions as a matter of federal law. In the case before us, the state trial court misconstrued the applicable law of the Constitution and was sustained in doing so by Connecticut’s Supreme Court. It was error for the court below to affirm the District Court’s denial of petitioner’s application for habeas corpus. The case is remanded, to the Court of Appeals to be held in order to give the State opportunity to retry petitioner, in light of this opinion, within a reasonable time. In default thereof the petitioner is to be discharged.
Reversed.
We find support for this conclusion in a line of Connecticut cases, some of which are cited by the Supreme Court of Errors in Rogers. See State v. Willis, 71 Conn. 293, 307-312, 41 A. 820, 824-826; State v. Cross, 72 Conn. 722, 727, 46 A. 148, 150; State v. DiBattista, 110 Conn. 549, 563, 148 A. 664, 669; State v. Palko, 121 Conn. 669, 680, 186 A. 657, 662; State v. Tomassi, 137 Conn. 113, 127-128, 75 A. 2d 67, 74; State v. Guastamachio, 137 Conn. 179, 182, 75 A. 2d 429, 431; State v. Lorain, 141 Conn. 694, 700, 109 A. 2d 504, 507. But see State v. Wakefield, 88 Conn. 164, 90 A. 230; State v. Castelli, 92 Conn. 58, 101 A. 476; State v. Zukauskas, 132 Conn. 450, 45 A. 2d 289; State v. Buteau, 136 Conn. 113, 68 A. 2d 681; State v. Malm, 142 Conn. 113, 111 A. 2d 685, containing no reference to a “truth-falsity” test. Connecticut case law regarding the admissibility of confessions allegedly secured under circumstances which render them involuntary, or by means of promises, “artifices,” “deception” or illegal police practices not amounting to coercion, is not free from uncertainty. We need not now endeavor to ascertain the extent to which, or the circumstances under which, Connecticut courts generally look to reliability as the criterion, alone or in conjunction with other criteria, of admissibility. If petitioner in the present case has been convicted through the use of a constitutionally impermissible standard, it is indifferent that Connecticut law, in its operation in other cases, may be unimpeachable. What that law does reveal of relevance here is that conceptions of probable truth or probable falsity have had and appear still to have a place in the reasoning of Connecticut judges in classes of cases having similarities to Rogers and relied on therein. Without meaning to consider the validity of such reasoning, under the Fourteenth Amendment, in any applications but the one now before us, we do derive from its currency in a continuing line of Connecticut decisions confirmation of our conclusion that the language of the trial judge and of the Supreme Court of Errors in the Rogers case is not the product of mere verbal inadvertence or unreflective phraseology, but an accurate embodiment of the mode of reasoning which led to holding that petitioner’s confessions were admissible as “voluntary.”
28 U. S. C. § 2241 (c)(3).
Determination of the admissibility of confessions is, of course, a matter of local procedure. But whether the question of admissibility is left to the jury or is determinable by the trial judge, it must be determined according to constitutional standards satisfying the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. If the question of admissibility is left to the jury, they must not be misdirected by wrong constitutional standards; if the question is decided by the trial judge, he must not misdirect himself.
A different question was implicitly presented in Stroble v. California, 343 U. S. 181. In that case the trial judge permitted the confessions to go to the jury under instructions which told it to disregard them if it found that they were not voluntarily made, and which adequately defined the “voluntariness” required by due process. See Lyons v. Oklahoma, 322 U. S. 596, 601. Thus, there was no flaw in the verdict as rendered. An erroneous legal standard for determining the admissibility of allegedly coerced confessions was interjected into the proceeding only at the level of the Supreme Court of California. Had the State Supreme Court, under similar circumstances reversed the conviction, not on the basis of local law but solely by reason of a misinterpretation of this Court’s principles governing coerced confessions, and had the case been brought here for review on certiorari, the jury’s verdict would have had to be reinstated. In any event, the question presented in Stroble was not faced squarely, and in illuminating isolation, in that case. Compare Lee v. Mississippi, 332 U. S. 742, with Stroble.
We do not deal in this case with a situation in which the record— taking all of petitioner’s evidence, and the inferences reasonably to be drawn from it, in the light most favorable to him — nevertheless fails to make out a claim of coercion. Since the issue of voluntariness might fairly have gone either way on the whole of the testimony, petitioner has clearly been prejudiced by the application of an-erroneous standard to his federal claim by the state trial judge in allowing the confessions to go to the jury.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent attempted to enter the United States by car ferry at Port Angeles, Washington. Hidden in the trunk of his rental car were explosives that he intended to detonate at the Los Angeles International Airport. After the ferry docked, respondent was questioned by a customs official, who instructed him to complete a customs declaration form; respondent did so, identifying himself on the form as a Canadian citizen (he is Algerian) named Benni Noris (his name is Ahmed Ressam). Respondent was then directed to a secondary inspection station, where another official performed a search of his car. The official discovered explosives and related items in the car’s spare tire well.
Respondent was subsequently convicted of a number of crimes, including the felony of making a false statement to a United States customs official in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1001 (1994 ed., Supp. V) (Count 5) and carrying an explosive “during the commission of” that felony in violation of § 844(h)(2) (1994 ed.) (Count 9). The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit set aside his conviction on Count 9 because it read the word “during,” as used in § 844(h)(2), to include a requirement that the explosive be carried “in relation to” the underlying felony. 474 F. 3d 597, 601 (2007). Because that construction of the statute conflicted with decisions of other Courts of Appeals, we granted certiorari. 552 U. S. 1074 (2007).
I
The most natural reading of the relevant statutory text provides a sufficient basis for reversal. That text reads:
“Whoever—
“(1) uses fire or an explosive to commit any felony which may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, or
“(2) carries an explosive during the commission of any felony which may be prosecuted in a court of the United States,
“including a felony which provides for an enhanced punishment if committed by the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon or device shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such felony, be sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years.” 18 U. S. C. §844(h).
It is undisputed that the items hidden in respondent’s car were “explosives.” It is also undisputed that respondent was “carr[ying]” those explosives when he knowingly made false statements to a customs official, and that those statements violated § 1001 (1994 ed., Supp. V).
There is no need to consult dictionary definitions of the word “during” in order to arrive at the conclusion that respondent engaged in the precise conduct described in § 844(h)(2) (1994 ed.). The term “during” denotes a temporal link; that is surely the most natural reading of the word as used in the statute. Because respondent’s carrying of the explosives was contemporaneous with his violation of § 1001, he carried them “during” that violation.
II
The history of the statute we construe today further supports our conclusion that Congress did not intend to require the Government to establish a relationship between the explosive carried and the underlying felony. Congress originally enacted § 844(h)(2) as part of its “Regulation of Explosives” in Title XI of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, 84 Stat. 957. The provision was modeled after a portion of the Gun Control Act of 1968, § 102,82 Stat. 1224, codified, as amended, at 18 U. S. C. § 924(c) (2000 ed. and Supp. V). The earlier statute mandated at least 1 and no more than 10 years’ imprisonment for any person who “carries a firearm unlawfully during the commission of any felony which may be prosecuted in a court of the United States.” 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(2) (1964 ed., Supp. IV). Except for the word “explosive” in § 844(h)(2), instead of the word “firearm” in § 924(c)(2), the two provisions as originally enacted were identical.
In 1984, Congress redrafted the firearm statute; it increased the penalties attached to the provision and, most significantly for our purposes, deleted the word “unlawfully” and inserted the words “and in relation to” immediately after the word “during.” § 1005(a), 98 Stat. 2138. Reviewing a conviction for an offense that was committed before the amendment but not decided on appeal until after its enactment, the Ninth Circuit held that the original version of the firearm statute had implicitly included the “in relation to” requirement that was expressly added while the case was pending on appeal. As then-judge Kennedy explained:
“The statute as written when Stewart committed the offense provided in pertinent part that it was a crime to (carr[y] a firearm unlawfully during the commission of any felony____’ 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(2) (1982). In 1984, Congress revised section 924(c).... The 1984 amendment substituted for the word ‘during’ the phrase ‘during and in relation to.’ 18 U. S. C. A. § 924(c) (West Supp. 1985) (emphasis added). Our study of the legislative history of the amendment... indicates the ‘in relation to’ language was not intended to create an element of the crime that did not previously exist, but rather was intended to make clear a condition already implicit in the statute. The legislative history reveals that because the amendment eliminated the requirement that the firearm be carried unlawfully, 18 U. S. C. A. § 924(c) (West Supp. 1985), the ‘in relation to’ language was added to allay explicitly the concern that a person could be prosecuted under section 924(e) for committing an entirely unrelated crime while in possession of a firearm. Though the legislative history does not say so expressly, it strongly implies that the ‘in relation to’ language did not alter the scope of the statute . . . .” United States v. Stewart, 779 F. 2d 538, 539-540 (1985) (citations omitted).
Relying on that Circuit precedent, the Court of Appeals in this case concluded that the explosives statute, like the firearm statute, implicitly included a requirement of a relationship between possession of the item in question and the underlying felony. Whatever the merits of the argument that § 924(c) as originally enacted contained a relational requirement, the subsequent changes to both statutes convince us that the Government’s reading of § 844(h) as presently written is correct.
Ill
In 1988, Congress enacted the “Explosives Offenses Amendments,” § 6474(b), 102 Stat. 4379, which modified the text of § 844(h). Those amendments increased the penalties for violating the provision, § 6474(b)(2), id., at 4380; they also deleted the word “unlawfully,” § 6474(b)(1), ibid. Unlike its earlier amendment to the firearm statute, however, Congress did not also insert the words “and in relation to” after the word “during.” While it is possible that this omission was inadvertent, that possibility seems remote given the stark difference that was thereby introduced into the otherwise similar texts of 18 U. S. C. §§ 844(h) and 924(c).
Even if the similarity of the original texts of the two statutes might have supported an inference that both included an implicit relationship requirement, their current difference virtually commands the opposite inference. While the two provisions were initially identical, Congress’ replacement of the word “unlawfully” in the firearm statute with the phrase “and in relation to,” coupled with the deletion of the word “unlawfully” without any similar replacement in the explosives statute, convinces us that Congress did not intend to introduce a relational requirement into the explosives provision, but rather intended us to accept the more straightforward reading of § 844(h). Since respondent was carrying explosives when he violated §1001, he was carrying them “during” the commission of that felony. The statute as presently written requires nothing further.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Scalia joins, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Because the plain language of the statute squarely answers the question presented in this case, I join only Part I of the Court’s opinion.
Both the Third and Fifth Circuits have declined to interpret § 844(h)(2) as requiring that the explosive be carried in relation to the underlying felony. See United States v. Rosenberg, 806 F. 2d 1169, 1178-1179 (CA3 1986) (“The plain everyday meaning of ‘during’ is ‘at the same time’ or ‘at a point in the course of’ ... . It does not normally mean ‘at the same time and in connection with----’ It is not fitting for this court to declare that the crime defined by § 844(h)(2) has more elements than those enumerated on the face of the statute”); United States v. Ivy, 929 F. 2d 147, 151 (CA5 1991) (“Section 844(h)(2)... does not include the relation element Ivy urges .... We . .. refuse to judicially append the relation element to § 844(h)(2)”).
Because respondent concedes that the items in his car were “explosives,” we have no occasion to determine the boundaries of that term as used in the statute. Specifically, we do not comment on when, if ever, “such commonplace materials as kerosene, gasoline, or certain fertilizers,” post, at 278 (Breyer, J., dissenting), might fall within the definition of “explosive.”
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellants, two natural gas pipeline companies, brought separate suits against Texas State officials, appellees here, in a state district court, seeking a determination that a Texas tax statute as applied to appellants violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution of the United States, and seeking recovery of money paid under protest in compliance with the statute. The District Court sustained appellants’ contentions and entered judgment in their favor. The Court of Civil Appeals reversed, holding that the tax statute as applied is constitutional. 255 S. W. 2d 535. The Supreme Court of Texas “refused” appellants’ applications for writs of error.
By state statute and procedural rule, the docket notation “refused” in denying application for writ of error signifies that the State Supreme Court deems the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals a correct one and the principles of law declared in the opinion correctly determined. Appellants were uncertain whether appeal to this Court was properly from the Court of Civil Appeals or the Supreme Court of Texas, as “the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had” within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 1257. Hence each appellant appealed from each of the courts. We postponed to the hearing of the cases on the merits a determination of the jurisdictional question. 346 U. S. 805.
We think that appeals in these cases were properly from the Court of Civil Appeals. In American Railway Express Co. v. Levee, 263 U. S. 19 (1923), the Supreme Court of Louisiana had refused a writ of certiorari to the State Court of Appeal “for the reason that the judgment is correct.” Mr. Justice Holmes, speaking for a unanimous Court, said:
“. . . [Ujnder the Constitution of the State the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is discretionary . . . and although it was necessary for the petitioner to invoke that jurisdiction in order to make it certain that the case could go no farther, . . . when the jurisdiction was declined the Court of Appeal was shown to be the highest Court of the State in which a decision could be had. Another section of the article cited required the Supreme Court to give its reasons for refusing the writ, and therefore the fact that the reason happened to be an opinion upon the merits rather than some more technical consideration, did not take from the refusal its ostensible character of declining jurisdiction. Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Crovo, 220 U. S. 364, 366. Norfolk & Suburban Turnpike Co. v. Virginia, 225 U. S. 264, 269. Of course the limit of time for applying to this Court was from the date when the writ of cer-tiorari was refused.” 263 U. S., at 20-21.
In Lone Star Gas Co. v. Texas, 304 U. S. 224 (1938), with the present Texas procedural provisions in effect, this Court’s mandate issued to the Court of Civil Appeals in a case where the State Supreme Court had “refused” writ of error. See also United Public Service Co. v. Texas, 301 U. S. 667 (1937).
Accordingly the appeals in Nos. 199 and 201, from the Supreme Court of Texas, are dismissed. We proceed to consider Nos. 198 and 200.
The question presented is whether the Commerce Clause is infringed by a Texas tax on the occupation of “gathering gas,” measured by the entire volume of gas “taken,” as applied to an interstate natural gas pipeline company, where the taxable incidence is the taking of gas from the outlet of an independent gasoline plant within the State for the purpose of immediate interstate transmission. In relevant part the tax statute provides that “In addition to all other licenses and taxes levied and assessed in the State of Texas, there is hereby levied upon every person engaged in gathering gas produced in this State, an occupation tax for the privilege of engaging in such business, at the rate of 9/20 of one cent per thousand (1,000) cubic feet of gas gathered.” Using a beggared definition of the term “gathering gas,” the Act further provides that “In the case of gas containing gasoline or liquid hydrocarbons that are removed or extracted at a plant within the State by scrubbing, absorption, compression or any other process, the term ‘gathering gas’ means the first taking or the first retaining of possession of such gas for other processing or transmission whether through a pipeline, either common carrier or private, or otherwise after such gas has passed through the outlet of such plant.” It also prohibits the “gatherer” as therein defined from shifting the burden of the tax to the producer of the gas, and provides that the tax shall not be levied as to gas gathered for local consumption if declared unconstitutional as to that gathered for interstate transmission.
Michigan-Wisconsin Pipe Line Company and Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Company, appellants, are Delaware corporations and are natural gas companies holding certificates of convenience and necessity under the Natural Gas Act of 1938 for the transportation and sale in interstate commerce of natural gas. The nature of their activities has been stipulated.
Michigan-Wisconsin has constructed a pipeline extending from Texas to Michigan and Wisconsin. At points in these two States and in Missouri and Iowa it sells gas to distribution companies which serve markets in those areas. It sells no gas in Texas. The company-produces no gas; it purchases its supply from Phillips Petroleum Company in Texas, under a long-term contract. Phillips collects the gas from the wells and pipes it to a gasoline plant, where certain liquefiable hydrocarbons, oxygen, sulphur, hydrogen sulphide, dust and foreign substances are removed preparatory to the transmission of the residue. As this residue gas leaves the absorbers, it flows through pipes owned by Phillips for a distance of 300 yards to the outlet of its gasoline plant, at the boundary between property of Phillips and property of Michigan-Wisconsin. Phillips has installed gas meters in its pipes at this point. The gas emerging from the outlet flows directly into two 26-inch pipelines of Michigan-Wisconsin. It is this “taking” that is made the taxable incidence of the statute. After the gas has been taken into the Michigan-Wisconsin pipes, it flows a distance of approximately 1,215 feet to a compressor station owned and operated by Michigan-Wisconsin, at which station the pressure of the gas is raised from about 200 pounds to some 975 pounds to facilitate movement to distant markets. In the course of its flow through this station the gas is compressed, cooled, scrubbed and dehydrated and then passes into a 24-inch pipeline which carries it 1.74 miles to the Oklahoma border and thence to markets outside Texas. Additional motive power is furnished by 15 other compressor stations in other states through which the gas is transported.
The entire movement of the gas, from producing wells through the Phillips gasoline plant and into the Michigan-Wisconsin pipeline to consumers outside Texas, is a steady and continuous flow. All of Michigan-Wisconsin’s gas is purchased from Phillips for transportation to points outside Texas, and is in fact so transported.
Exclusive of the tax in question, Michigan-Wisconsin pays an ad valorem tax on the value of all its facilities and leases within the State. The State also levies on producers a tax of 5.72% of the value at the well of all gas produced in the State and a special tax to cover expenses in enforcing the conservation and proration laws.
The appellees place much emphasis upon the fact that Texas through these conservation and proration measures has afforded great benefits and protection to pipeline companies. It is beyond question that the enforcement of these laws has been not only in the public interest but to the commercial advantage of the industry. But, though this be an appealing truth, these benefits are relevant here only to show that essential requirements of due process have been met sufficiently to justify the imposition of any tax on the interstate activity. No challenge is made of the validity of the tax under the Due Process Clause, the appellants basing their objections only on the Commerce Clause, and when we proceed to examine the tax under the latter its validity “depends upon other considerations of constitutional policy having reference to the substantial effects, actual or potential, of the particular tax in suppressing or burdening unduly the commerce.” Nippert v. Richmond, 327 U. S. 416, 424 (1946). We proceed, therefore, to discuss only those relevant factors involved in the testing of the tax under the Commerce Clause.
The tax here assailed applies equally to gas moving in intrastate and interstate commerce. It is levied in addition to all other licenses and taxes and is denominated an occupation tax for the privilege of engaging in the “gathering of gas.” Obviously appellants are not engaged in “gathering gas” within the meaning of that term in its ordinary usage; but the tax statute gives the term a transcendent scope; as to appellants’ operations it is defined as “the first taking ... of possession of such gas for other processing or transmission . . . after such gas has passed through the outlet” of a gasoline plant. The State Appellate Court realistically found “the taxable event described by the statute” to be “the taking or retaining of the gas at the gasoline plant outlet It thought that since this local activity was not subject to repetition elsewhere, “the sole question is whether such local activities are so closely related to and such an integral part of the interstate business of [appellants] who transport gas in interstate commerce as to be within the scope of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.” The court concluded that such taking “is just as local in nature as the production itself is local,” and held the tax valid principally on the authority of Utah Power & Light Co. v. Pfost, 286 U. S. 165 (1932), and Hope Natural Gas Co. v. Hall, 274 U. S. 284 (1927).
We accept the State court’s determination of the operating incidence of the tax, and we think the court has correctly stated the essential question presented. But we are unable to agree with its answer thereto or with its conclusion of constitutionality.
Appellants’ business is the interstate transportation and sale of natural gas. Under the Commerce Clause interstate commerce and its instrumentalities are not totally immune from state taxation, absent action by Congress. Frequently it has been said that interstate business must pay its way, Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. v. Richmond, 249 U. S. 252, 259 (1919); Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, 303 U. S. 250, 254 (1938); and the Court has done more than pay lip service to this idea. Numerous cases have upheld state levies where it is thought that the tax does not operate to discriminate against commerce or unduly burden it either directly or by the possibility of multiple taxation resulting from other taxes of the same sort being imposed by other states. The recurring problem is to resolve a conflict between the Constitution's mandate that trade between the states be permitted to flow freely without unnecessary obstruction from any source, and the state’s rightful desire to require that interstate business bear its proper share of the costs of local government in return for benefits received. Some have thought that the wisest course would be for this Court to uphold all state taxes not patently discriminatory, and wait for Congress to adjust conflicts when and as it wished. But this view has not prevailed, and the Court has therefore been forced to decide in many varied factual situations whether the application of a given state tax to a given aspect of interstate activity violates the Commerce Clause. It is now well settled that a tax imposed on a local activity related to interstate commerce is valid if, and only if, the local activity is not such an integral part of the interstate process, the flow of commerce, that it cannot realistically be separated from it. Memphis Natural Gas Co. v. Stone, 335 U. S. 80, 87 (1948); Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, supra, at 258. And if a genuine separation of the taxed local activity from the interstate process is impossible, it is more likely that other states through which the commerce passes or into which it flows can with equal right impose a similar levy on the goods, with the net effect of prejudicing or unduly burdening commerce.
The problem in this case is not whether the State could tax the actual gathering of all gas whether transmitted in interstate commerce or not, cf. Hope Natural Gas Co. v. Hall, supra, but whether here the State has delayed the incidence of the tax beyond the step where production and processing have ceased and transmission in interstate commerce has begun. Cf. Utah Power & Light Co. v. Pfost, supra. The incidence of the tax here at issue, as stated by the Texas appellate court, is appellants’ “taking” of gas from Phillips’ gasoline plant. This event, as stipulated, occurs after the gas has been produced, gathered and processed by others than appellants. The “taking” into appellants’ pipelines is solely for interstate transmission and the gas at that time is not only actually committed to but is moving in interstate commerce. What Texas seeks to tax is, therefore, more than merely the loading of an interstate carrier, which was condemned in Joseph v. Carter & Weekes Stevedoring Co., 330 U. S. 422, 427 (1947), for thé gas here simultaneously enters the pipeline carrier and moves on continuously to its outside market. “There is no break, no period of deliberation, but a steady flow ending as contemplated from the beginning beyond the state line.” United Fuel Gas Co. v. Hallanan, 257 U. S. 277, 281 (1921). As early as Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S. 196, 213 (1885), this Court said, “Receiving and landing passengers and freight is incident to their transportation.” But receipt of the gas in the pipeline is more than its “taking”; from a practical standpoint it is its “taking off” in appellants’ carrier into commerce; in reality the tax is, therefore, on the exit of the gas from the State. This economic process is inherently unsusceptible of division into a distinct local activity capable of forming the basis for the tax here imposed, on the one hand, and a separate movement in commerce, on the other. It is difficult to conceive of a factual situation where the incidence of taking or loading for transmission is more closely related to the transmission itself. This Court has held that much less integrated activity is “so closely related to interstate transportation as to be practically a part of it.” We are therefore of the opinion that the taking of the gas here is essentially a part of interstate commerce itself.
The Court of Civil Appeals, as we have stated, relied largely on Utah Power & Light Co. v. Pfost, supra. But that case involved a license tax on the generation of electricity produced in a hydraulic power plant within the State of Idaho and transmitted to Utah. The question the Court was called upon to solve was whether “the generation of electrical energy, like manufacture or production generally, [is] a process essentially local in character and complete in itself; or is it so linked with the transmission as to make it an inseparable part of a transaction in interstate commerce?” The Court thought it inaccurate to say that the entire system was purely a transferring device. “On the contrary,” it said, “the generator and the transmission lines perform different functions, with a result comparable, so far as the question here under consideration is concerned, to the manufacture of physical articles of trade and their subsequent shipment and transportation in commerce.” Cited to support this principle was Oliver Iron Mining Co. v. Lord, 262 U. S. 172 (1923), where a state tax levied on all “engaged in the business of mining or producing iron ore or other ores” was upheld since the “ore does not enter interstate commerce until after the mining is done, and the tax is imposed only in respect of the mining” (at 179); and Hope Natural Gas Co. v. Hall, supra, which upheld a tax on “producers of natural gas reckoned according to the value of that commodity at the well.” But the tax here is not levied on the capture or production of the gas, but rather on its taking into interstate commerce after production, gathering and processing.
The State Appellate Court recognized that nothing was done to the gas at the point of “taking”; its form was not changed in any way; it merely continued its journey. However, the court thought that it would be unfair to base a decision on the fluid nature of natural gas, and that there was in fact a two-step process, taking and transmission, with interference in between found in title passing and processing. But the processing, on which this tax is not imposed, was done by Phillips and took place prior to the taxable event of “taking.” As for the interference of title passing, appellees readily admit this levy was designed to avoid taxing the sale; and we think that, as a basis for finding a separate local activity, the incidence must be a more substantial economic factor than the movement of the gas from a local outlet of one owner into the connecting interstate pipeline of another. Such an aspect of interstate transportation cannot be “carve[d] out from what is an entire or integral economic process,” Nippert v. Richmond, supra, at 423, by legislative whimsy and segregated as a basis for the tax. The separation must be realistic.
Here it is perhaps sufficient that the privilege taxed, namely the taking of the gas, is not so separate and distinct from interstate transportation as to support the tax. But additional objection is present if the tax be upheld. It would “permit a multiple burden upon that commerce,” Joseph v. Carter & Weekes Stevedoring Co., supra, at 429, for if Texas may impose this “first taking” tax measured by the total volume of gas so taken, then Michigan and the other recipient states have at least equal right to tax the first taking or “unloading” from the pipeline of the same gas when it arrives for distribution. Oklahoma might then seek to tax the first taking of the gas as it crossed into that State. The net effect would be substantially to resurrect the customs barriers which the Commerce Clause was designed to eliminate. “The very purpose of the Commerce Clause was to create an area of free trade among the several States. That clause vested the power of taxing a transaction forming an unbroken process of interstate commerce in the Congress, not in the States.” McLeod v. Dilworth Co., 322 U. S. 327, 330-331 (1944).
Reversed.
Cf. Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Priester, 276 U. S. 252 (1928).
Tex. Laws 1951, c. 402, § XXIII.
The two appellants, through the distribution companies, supply gas for consumer markets with a population of about 12,000,000 people. As noted by the court below, “Except for minor variations Panhandle conducts its activities in the same manner as Michigan-Wisconsin. Panhandle loads its interstate pipeline with gas from the outlets of three gasoline plants, rather than with gas from only one plant; it produces a portion of the gas which it takes at the outlet of one of such plants; and it makes sales in Texas to three small customers, rather than sending all of its gas outside the State.” We agree with that court that for purposes of this decision Panhandle’s operations are not significantly different from those of Michigan-Wisconsin. Only the interstate aspects of the enterprise are in question. The operations of Michigan-Wisconsin, which transmits all of its gas out of Texas, most clearly present the question to be decided and will be the basis of our discussion. This approach was utilized by the State court; and appellees do not suggest that the situations of the two appellants are different for purposes of decision here.
Appellees challenge at the outset of their argument this Court’s jurisdiction to consider these appeals, on the ground that appellants present no question, federal or otherwise, for the Court’s determination. The argument is in substance that appellants’ grounds of protest in the State courts set forth a number of alleged operating incidences of the tax, none of which coincided with the operating incidence found by the Court of Civil Appeals; that the State court’s finding on this subject is conclusive and binding on this Court; that appellants, in urging that the tax is a burden on and discriminatory against interstate commerce, are advancing new grounds not considered by the State courts and hence waived under the Texas protest statute; in short, that the issue of the validity of the tax was not properly raised. We think there is no substance to this contention. In their complaints and continuously thereafter appellants specifically challenged the validity of the tax statute under the Commerce Clause. The trial court held the tax invalid as violating the Commerce Clause. The Court of Civil Appeals expressly stated that the question for its decision was whether the statute as applied to appellants “violates the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States. If so it is void, if not it is valid.” Since the State courts have clearly treated the single issue here presented as properly raised and preserved, and since appellees first suggested the contrary in their brief on argument in this Court, we think the objections to jurisdiction are not well taken.
Baltimore & Ohio S. W. R. Co. v. Burtch, 263 U. S. 540, 544 (1924) (“loading or unloading of a shipment”); also see Telegraph Co. v. Texas, 105 U. S. 460, 466 (1882) (tax on “sending” of messages outside state is a regulation of interstate commerce); Puget Bound, Stevedoring Co. v. State Tax Commission, 302 U. S. 90, 92 (1937) (“loading and discharge of cargoes” is interstate operation); Richfield Oil Corp. v. State Board, 329 U. S. 69, 83 (1946) (commerce begins “no later than the delivery of the oil into the vessel”).
286 U. S., at 180-181. The Court found that in the operation there involved it was necessary to convert the mechanical energy into electrical energy before it could be transmitted and that this transformation was completed at the generator where the interstate movement began. This is analogous to the situation here where the gas is prepared by Phillips for transmission and is then fed into appellants' lines.
Appellees also rely on Memphis Natural Gas Co. v. Stone, supra; Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, supra; Edelman v. Boeing Air Transport, 289 U. S. 249 (1933); Chassaniol v. Greenwood, 291 U. S. 584 (1934); Coverdale v. Arkansas-Louisiana Pipe Line Co., 303 U. S. 604 (1938). We think these cases are distinguishable from the present one in that in each of them the tax was imposed on a less integral part of the commerce process involved. Also distinguishable is McGoldrick v. Berwind-White Coal Mining Co., 309 U. S. 33 (1940), involving a tax on the sale of goods for consumption, imposed by the city in which the goods had come to rest. The Court there found that commerce, as to the goods, had ended prior to the taxable event, and likened the tax to an ad valorem one on property.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
During its tax year ending December 31,1958, respondent refunded $505,536.54 to two of its customers for overcharges during the six preceding years. Respondent, an Oklahoma producer of natural gas, had set its prices during the earlier years in accordance with a minimum price order of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. After that order was vacated as a result of a decision of this Court, Michigan Wisconsin Pipe Line Co. v. Corporation Comm’n of Oklahoma, 355 U. S. 425 (1958), respondent found it necessary to settle a number of claims filed by its customers; the repayments in question represent settlements of two of those claims. Since respondent had claimed an unrestricted right to its sales receipts during the years 1952 through 1957, it had included the $505,536.54 in its gross income in those years. The amount was also included in respondent’s “gross income from the property” as defined in § 613 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, the section which allows taxpayers to deduct a fixed percentage of certain receipts to compensate for the depletion of natural resources from which they derive income. Allowable percentage depletion for receipts from oil and gas wells is fixed at 27%% of the “gross income from the property.” Since respondent claimed and the Commissioner allowed percentage depletion deductions during these years, 27%% of the receipts in question was added to the depletion allowances to which respondent would otherwise have been entitled. Accordingly, the actual increase in respondent’s taxable income attributable to the receipts in question was not $505,536.64, but only $366,513.99. Yet, when respondent made its refunds in 1958, it attempted to deduct the full $505,536.54. The Commissioner objected and assessed a deficiency. Respondent paid and, after its claim for a refund had been disallowed, began the present suit. The Government won in the District Court, 255 F. Supp. 228 (D. C. N. D. Okla. 1966), but the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed, 392 F. 2d 128 (1968). Upon petition by the Government, we granted certiorari, 393 U. S. 820 (1968), to consider whether the Court of Appeals decision had allowed respondent “the practical equivalent of double deduction,” Charles Ilfeld Co. v. Hernandez, 292 U. S. 62, 68 (1934), in conflict with past decisions of this Court and sound principles of tax law. We reverse.
I.
The present problem is an outgrowth of the so-called “claim-of-right” doctrine. Mr. Justice Brandeis, speaking for a unanimous Court in North American Oil Consolidated v. Burnet, 286 U. S. 417, 424 (1932), gave that doctrine its classic formulation. “If a taxpayer receives earnings under a claim of right and without restriction as to its disposition, he has received income which he is required to return, even though it may still be claimed that he is not entitled to retain the money, and even though he may still be adjudged liable to restore its equivalent.” Should it later appear that the taxpayer was not entitled to keep the money, Mr. Justice Brandéis explained, he would be entitled to a deduction in the year of repayment; the taxes due for the year of receipt would not be affected. This approach was dictated by Congress’ adoption of an annual accounting system as an integral part of the tax code. See Burnet v. Sanford & Brooks Co., 282 U. S. 359, 365-366 (1931). Of course, the tax benefit from the deduction in the year of repayment might differ from the increase in taxes attributable to the receipt; for example, tax rates might have changed, or the taxpayer might be in a different tax “bracket.” See Healy v. Commissioner, 345 U. S. 278, 284-285 (1953). But as the doctrine was originally formulated, these discrepancies were accepted as an unavoidable consequence of the annual accounting system.
Section 1341 of the 1954 Code was enacted to alleviate some of the inequities which Congress felt existed in this area. See H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 86-87 (1954); S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 118-119 (1954). As an alternative to the deduction in the year of repayment which prior law allowed, §1341 (a)(5) permits certain taxpayers to recompute their taxes for the year of receipt. Whenever § 1341 (a)(5) applies, taxes for the current year are to be reduced by the amount taxes were increased in the year or years of receipt because the disputed items were included in gross income. Nevertheless, it is clear that Congress did not intend to tamper with the underlying claim-of-right doctrine; it only provided an alternative for certain cases in which the new approach favored the taxpayer. When the new approach was not advantageous to the taxpayer, the old law was to apply under § 1341 (a)(4).
In this case, the parties have stipulated that § 1341 (a) (5) does not apply. Accordingly, as the courts below recognized, respondent’s taxes must be computed under § 1341 (a) (4) and thus, in effect, without regard to the special relief Congress provided through the enactment of § 1341. Nevertheless, respondent argues, and the Court of Appeals seems to have held, that the language used in § 1341 requires that respondent be allowed a deduction for the full amount it refunded to its customers. We think the section has no such significance.
In describing the situations in which the section applies, § 1341 (a)(2) talks of cases in which “a deduction is allowable for the taxable year because it was established after the close of [the year or years of receipt] that the taxpayer did not have an unrestricted right to such item . . . The “item” referred to is first mentioned in § 1341 (a)(1); it is the item included in gross income in the year of receipt. The section does not imply in any way that the “deduction” and the “item” must necessarily be equal in amount. In fact, the use of the words “a deduction” and the placement of § 1341 in subchapter Q — the subchapter dealing largely with side effects of the annual accounting system — make it clear that it is necessary to refer to other portions of the Code to discover how much of a deduction is allowable. The regulations promulgated under the section make the necessity for such a cross-reference clear. Treas. Reg. on Income Tax (1954 Code) § 1.1341-1 (26 CFR § 1.1341-1). Therefore, when § 1341 (a) (4) — the subsection applicable here — speaks of “the tax . . . computed with such deduction,” it is referring to the deduction mentioned in § 1341 (a) (2); and that deduction must be determined, not by any mechanical equation with the “item” originally included in gross income, but by reference to the applicable sections of the Code and the case law developed under those sections.
II.
There is some dispute between the parties about whether the refunds in question are deductible as losses under § 165 of the 1954 Code or as business expenses under § 162. Although in some situations the distinction may have relevance, cf. Equitable Life Ins. Co. of Iowa v. United States, 340 F. 2d 9 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1965), we do not think it makes any difference here. In either case, the Code should not be interpreted to allow respondent “the practical equivalent of double deduction,” Charles Ilfeld Co. v. Hernandez, 292 U. S. 62, 68 (1934), absent a clear declaration of intent by Congress. See United States v. Ludey, 274 U. S. 295 (1927). Accordingly, to avoid that result in this case, the deduction allowable in the year of repayment must be reduced by the percentage depletion allowance which respondent claimed and the Commissioner allowed in the years of receipt as a result of the inclusion of the later-refunded items in respondent’s “gross income from the property” in those years. Any other approach would allow respondent a total of $1.27% in deductions for every $1 refunded to its customers.
Under the annual accounting system dictated by the Code, each year’s tax must be definitively calculable at the end of the tax year. “It is the essence of any system of taxation that it should produce revenue ascertainable, and payable to the government, at regular intervals.” Burnet v. Sanford & Brooks Co., supra, at 365. In cases arising under the claim-of-right doctrine, this emphasis on the annual accounting period normally requires that the tax consequences of a receipt should not determine the size of the deduction allowable in the year of repayment. There is no requirement that the deduction save the taxpayer the exact amount of taxes he paid because of the inclusion of the item in income for a prior year. See Healy v. Commissioner, supra.
Nevertheless, the annual accounting concept does not require us to close our eyes to what happened in prior years. For instance, it is well settled that the prior year may be examined to determine whether the repayment gives rise to a regular loss or a capital loss. Arrow- smith v. Commissioner, 344 U. S. 6 (1952). The rationale for the Arrowsmith rule is easy to see; if money was taxed at a special lower rate when received, the taxpayer would be accorded an unfair tax windfall if repayments were generally deductible from receipts taxable at the higher rate applicable to ordinary income. The Court in Arrowsmith was unwilling to infer that Congress intended such a result.
This case is really no different. In essence, oil and gas producers are taxed on only 72%% of their “gross income from the property” whenever they claim percentage depletion. The remainder of their oil and gas receipts is in reality tax exempt. We cannot believe that Congress intended to give taxpayers a deduction for refunding money that was not taxed when received. Cf. O’Meara v. Commissioner, 8 T. C. 622, 634—635 (1947). Accordingly, Arrowsmith teaches that the full amount of the repayment cannot, in the circumstances of this case, be allowed as a deduction.
This result does no violence to the annual accounting system. Here, as in Arrowsmith, the earlier returns are not being reopened. And no attempt is being made to require the tax savings from the deduction to equal the tax consequences of the receipts in prior years. In addition, the approach here adopted will affect only a few cases. The percentage depletion allowance is quite unusual; unlike most other deductions provided by the Code, it allows a fixed portion of gross income to go untaxed. As a result, the depletion allowance increases in years when disputed amounts are received under claim of right; there is no corresponding decrease in the allowance because of later deductions for repayments. Therefore, if a deduction for 100% of the repayments were allowed, every time money is received and later repaid the taxpayer would make a profit equivalent to the taxes on 27%% of the amount refunded. In other situations when the taxes on a receipt do not equal the tax benefits of a repayment, either the taxpayer or the Government may, depending on circumstances, be the beneficiary. Here, the taxpayer always wins and the Government always loses. We cannot believe that Congress would have intended such an inequitable result.
The parties have stipulated that respondent is entitled to a judgment for $20,932.64 plus statutory interest for claims unrelated to the matter in controversy here; the District Court entered a judgment for that amount. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded to that court with instructions that it be returned to the District Court for re-entry of the original District Court judgment.
Reversed and remanded.
Section 1341 (a) provides:
“If—
“(1) an item was included in gross income for a prior taxable year (or years) because it appeared that the taxpayer had an unrestricted right to such item;
“(2) a deduction is allowable for the taxable year because it was established after the close of such prior taxable year (or years) that the taxpayer did not have an unrestricted right to such item or to a portion of such item; and
“(3) the amount of such deduction exceeds $3,000,
“then the tax imposed by this chapter for the taxable year shall be the lesser of the following:
“(4) the tax for the taxable year computed with such deduction; or
“(5) an amount equal to—
“(A) the tax for the taxable year computed without such deduction, minus
“(B) the decrease in tax under this chapter (or the corresponding provisions of prior revenue laws) for the prior taxable year (or years) which would result solely from the exclusion of such item (or portion thereof) from gross income for such prior taxable year (or years).
“For purposes of paragraph (5)(B), the corresponding provisions of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939 shall be chapter 1 of such code (other than subchapter E, relating to self-employment income) and subchapter E of chapter 2 of such code.”
Section 1341 (b) (2) contains an exclusion covering certain eases involving sales of stock in trade or inventory. However, because of special treatment given refunds made by regulated public utilities, both parties agree that § 1341 (b) (2) is inapplicable to this case and that, accordingly, § 1341 (a) applies.
In the case of an accrual-basis taxpayer, the legislative history makes it clear that the deduction is allowable at the proper time for accrual. H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., a294 (1954); S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 451-452 (1954).
The Commissioner has long recognized that a deduction under some section is allowable. G. C. M. 16730, XV-1 Cum. Bull. 179 (1936).
The analogy would be even more striking if in Arrowsmith the individual taxpayers had not utilized the alternative tax for capital gains, as they were permitted to do by what is now § 1201 of the 1954 Code. Where the 25% alternative tax is not used, individual taxpayers are taxed at ordinary rates on 50% of their capital gains. See § 1202. In such a situation, the rule of the Arrowsmith case prevents taxpayers from deducting 100% of an item refunded when they were taxed on only 50% of it when it was received. Although Arrowsmith prevents this inequitable result by treating the repayment as a capital loss, rather than by disallowing 50% of the deduction, the policy behind the decision is applicable in this case. Here it would be inequitable to allow a 100% deduction when only 72%% was taxed on receipt.
Compare the analogous approach utilized under the “tax benefit” rule. Alice Phelan Sullivan Corp. v. United States, 180 Ct. Cl. 659, 381 F. 2d 399 (1967); see Internal Revenue Code of 1954 § 111. In keeping with the analogy, the Commissioner has indicated that the Government will only seek to reduce the deduction in the year of repayment to the extent that the depletion allowance attributable to the receipt directly or indirectly reduced taxable income. Proposed Treas. Reg. § 1.613-2 (e)(8), 33 Fed. Reg. 10702-10703 (1968).
The 10% standard deduction mentioned in Mr. Justice Stewart's dissent, post, at 697, differs in that it allows as a deduction a percentage of adjusted gross income, rather than of gross income. See § 141 ; cf. §§ 170, 213. As a result, repayments may in certain cases cause a decrease in the 10% standard deduction allowable in the year of repayment, assuming that the repayment is of the character to be deducted in calculating adjusted gross income. See § 62.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner S. Simcha Goldman contends that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution permits him to wear a yarmulke while in uniform, notwithstanding an Air Force regulation mandating uniform dress for Air Force personnel. The District Court for the District of Columbia permanently enjoined the Air Force from enforcing its regulation against petitioner and from penalizing him for wearing his yarmulke. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed on the ground that the Air Force’s strong interest in discipline justified the strict enforcement of its uniform dress requirements. We granted certiorari because of the importance of the question, 472 U. S. 1016 (1985), and now affirm.
Petitioner Goldman is an Orthodox Jew and ordained rabbi. In 1973, he was accepted into the Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarship Program and placed on inactive reserve status in the Air Force while he studied clinical psychology at Loyola University of Chicago. During his three years in the scholarship program, he received a monthly stipend and an allowance for tuition, books, and fees. After completing his Ph.D. in psychology, petitioner entered active service in the United States Air Force as a commissioned officer, in accordance with a requirement that participants in the scholarship program serve one year of active duty for each year of subsidized education. Petitioner was stationed at March Air Force Base in Riverside, California, and served as a clinical psychologist at the mental health clinic on the base.
Until 1981, petitioner was not prevented from wearing his yarmulke on the base. He avoided controversy by remaining close to his duty station in the health clinic and by wearing his service cap over the yarmulke when out of doors. But in April 1981, after he testified as a defense witness at a court-martial wearing his yarmulke but not his service cap, opposing counsel lodged a complaint with Colonel Joseph Gregory, the Hospital Commander, arguing that petitioner’s practice of wearing his yarmulke was a violation of Air Force Regulation (AFR) 35-10. This regulation states in pertinent part that “[h]eadgear will not be worn . . . [w]hile indoors except by armed security police in the performance of their duties.” AFR 35-10, ¶ l-6.h(2)(f) (1980).
Colonel Gregory informed petitioner that wearing a yarmulke while on duty does indeed violate AFR 35-10, and ordered him not to violate this regulation outside the hospital. Although virtually all of petitioner’s time on the base was spent in the hospital, he refused. Later, after petitioner’s attorney protested to the Air Force General Counsel, Colonel Gregory revised his order to prohibit petitioner from wearing the yarmulke even in the hospital. Petitioner’s request to report for duty in civilian clothing pending legal resolution of the issue was denied. The next day he received a formal letter of reprimand, and was warned that failure to obey AFR 35-10 could subject him to a court-martial. Colonel Gregory also withdrew a recommendation that petitioner’s application to extend the term of his active service be approved, and substituted a negative recommendation.
Petitioner then sued respondent Secretary of Defense and others, claiming that the application of AFR 35-10 to prevent him from wearing his yarmulke infringed upon his First Amendment freedom to exercise his religious beliefs. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia preliminarily enjoined the enforcement of the regulation, Goldman v. Secretary of Defense, 530 F. Supp. 12 (1981), and then after a full hearing permanently enjoined the Air Force from prohibiting petitioner from wearing a yarmulke while in uniform. Goldman v. Secretary of Defense, 29 EPD ¶ 32, 753 (1982). Respondents appealed to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which reversed. Goldman v. Secretary of Defense, 236 U. S. App. D. C. 248, 734 F. 2d 1531 (1984). As an initial matter, the Court of Appeals determined that the appropriate level of scrutiny of a military regulation that clashes with a constitutional right is neither strict scrutiny nor rational basis. Id., at 252, 734 F. 2d, at 1535-1536. Instead, it held that a military regulation must be examined to determine whether “legitimate military ends are sought to be achieved,” id., at 253, 734 F. 2d, at 1536, and whether it is “designed to accommodate the individual right to an appropriate degree. ” Ibid. Applying this test, the court concluded that “the Air Force’s interest in uniformity renders the strict enforcement of its regulation permissible.” Id., at 257, 734 F. 2d, at 1540. The full Court of Appeals denied a petition for rehearing en banc, with three judges dissenting. 238 U. S. App. D. C. 267, 739 F. 2d 657 (1984).
Petitioner argues that AFR 35-10, as applied to him, prohibits religiously motivated conduct and should therefore be analyzed under the standard enunciated in Sherbert v. Vemer, 374 U. S. 398, 406 (1963). See also Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707 (1981); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205 (1972). But we have repeatedly held that “the military is, by necessity, a specialized society separate from civilian society.” Parker v. Levy, 417 U. S. 733, 743 (1974). See also Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U. S. 296, 300 (1983); Schlesinger v. Councilman, 420 U. S. 738, 757 (1975); Orloff v. Willoughby, 345 U. S. 83, 94 (1953). “[T]he military must insist upon a respect for duty and a discipline without counterpart in civilian life,” Schlesinger v. Councilman, supra, at 757, in order to prepare for and perform its vital role. See also Brown v. Glines, 444 U. S. 348, 354 (1980).
Our review of military regulations challenged on First Amendment grounds is far more deferential than constitutional review of similar laws or regulations designed for civilian society. The military need not encourage debate or tolerate protest to the extent that such tolerance is required of the civilian state by the First Amendment; to accomplish its mission the military must foster instinctive obedience, unity, commitment, and esprit de corps. See, e. g., Chappell v. Wallace, supra, at 300; Greer v. Spock, 424 U. S. 828, 843-844 (1976) (Powell, J., concurring); Parker v. Levy, supra, at 744. The essence of military service “is the subordination of the desires and interests of the individual to the needs of the service.” Orloff v. Willoughby, supra, at 92.
These aspects of military life do not, of course, render entirely nugatory in the military context the guarantees of the First Amendment. See, e. g., Chappell v. Wallace, supra, at 304. But “within the military community there is simply not the same [individual] autonomy as there is in the larger civilian community.” Parker v. Levy, supra, at 751. In the context of the present case, when evaluating whether military needs justify a particular restriction on religiously motivated conduct, courts must give great deference to the professional judgment of military authorities concerning the relative importance of a particular military interest. See Chappell v. Wallace, supra, at 305; Orloff v. Willoughby, supra, 93-94. Not only are courts “‘ill-equipped to determine the impact upon discipline that any particular intrusion upon military authority might have,’” Chappell v. Wallace, supra, at 305, quoting Warren, The Bill of Rights and the Military, 37 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 181, 187 (1962), but the military authorities have been charged by the Executive and Legislative Branches with carrying out our Nation’s military policy. “[J]udicial deference ... is at its apogee when legislative action under the congressional authority to raise and support armies and make rules and regulations for their governance is challenged.” Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U. S. 57, 70 (1981).
The considered professional judgment of the Air Force is that the traditional outfitting of personnel in standardized uniforms encourages the subordination of personal preferences and identities in favor of the overall group mission. Uniforms encourage a sense of hierarchical unity by tending to eliminate outward individual distinctions except for those of rank. The Air Force considers them as vital during peacetime as during war because its personnel must be ready to provide an effective defense on a moment’s notice; the necessary habits of discipline and unity must be developed in advance of trouble. We have acknowledged that “[t]he inescapable demands of military discipline and obedience to orders cannot be taught on battlefields; the habit of immediate compliance with military procedures and orders must be virtually reflex wdth no time for debate or reflection.” Chappell v. Wallace, supra, at 300.
To this end, the Air Force promulgated AFR 35-10, a 190-page document, which states that “Air Force members will wear the Air Force uniform while performing their military duties, except when authorized to wear civilian clothes on duty.” AFR 35-10, ¶ 1-6 (1980). The rest of the document describes in minute detail all of the various items of apparel that must be worn as part of the Air Force uniform. It authorizes a few individualized options with respect to certain pieces of jewelry and hairstyle, but even these are subject to severe limitations. See AFR 35-10, Table 1-1, and ¶ l-12.b(l)(b) (1980). In general, authorized headgear may be worn only out of doors. See AFR 35-10, ¶ 1-6.h (1980). Indoors, “[hjeadgear [may] not be worn . . . except by armed security police in the performance of their duties.” AFR 35-10, ¶ 1-6.h(2)(f) (1980). A narrow exception to this rule exists for headgear worn during indoor religious ceremonies. See AFR 35-10, ¶ 1-6.h(2)(d) (1980). In addition, military commanders may in their discretion permit visible religious headgear and other such apparel in designated living quarters and nonvisible items generally. See Department, of Defense Directive 1300.17 (June 18, 1985).
Petitioner Goldman contends that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment requires the Air Force to make an exception to its uniform dress requirements for religious apparel unless the accouterments create a “clear danger” of undermining discipline and esprit de corps. He asserts that in general, visible but “unobtrusive” apparel will not create such a danger and must therefore be accommodated. He argues that the Air Force failed to prove that a specific exception for his practice of wearing an unobtrusive yarmulke would threaten discipline. He contends that the Air Force’s assertion to the contrary is mere ipse dixit, with no support from actual experience or a scientific study in the record, and is contradicted by expert testimony that religious exceptions to AFR 35-10 are in fact desirable and will increase morale by making the Air Force a more humane place.
But whether or not expert witnesses may feel that religious exceptions to AFR 35-10 are desirable is quite beside the point. The desirability of dress regulations in the military is decided by the appropriate military officials, and they are under no constitutional mandate to abandon their considered professional judgment. Quite obviously, to the extent the regulations do not permit the wearing of religious apparel such as a yarmulke, a practice described by petitioner as silent devotion akin to prayer, military life may be more objectionable for petitioner and probably others. But the First Amendment does not require the military to accommodate such practices in the face of its view that they would detract from the uniformity sought by the dress regulations. The Air Force has drawn the line essentially between religious apparel that is visible and that which is not, and we hold that those portions of the regulations challenged here reasonably and evenhandedly regulate dress in the interest of the military’s perceived need for uniformity. The First Amendment therefore does not prohibit them from being applied to petitioner even though their effect is to restrict the wearing of the headgear required by his religious beliefs.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.
Justice White took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
|
C
|
sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Opinion of the Court by
Mr. Justice Douglas,
announced by Mr. Justice Burton.
The orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission, which appellants seek to have set aside, resulted from two separate investigations instituted by the Commission on its own motion in 1939 to inquire into the lawfulness or unlawfulness of most of the then existing rate-making standards for interstate railroad class freight rates in the United States. One investigation related to classifications under which commodities move by rail freight.' The other related to class rates. The two investigations were consolidated and were covered by one report, as the problems of classification and of class rates are closely interrelated. The findings of the Commission as to classifications are not directly involved here. For the orders of the Commission under attack are interim orders which affect only class rates, increasing them in some areas and decreasing them in others. But a review and summary of the Commission’s findings both on classifications and on class rates are essential for an understanding of the problem.
While there are three major classification territories, there are five major rate territories. Official Territory, roughly speaking, lies east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio and Potomac Rivers; it also includes most of Virginia. Southern Territory lies south of Official Territory and east of the Mississippi. Western Trunk-Line Territory is located approximately between Official Territory and the Rocky Mountains. Southwestern Territory lies south of Western Trunk-Line Territory and west of the Mississippi and includes Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and part of Louisiana. Mountain-Pacific Territory includes Montana and New Mexico and all territory west of the Rockies. Only Mountain-Pacific Territory is not involved in these cases.
The three major classifications are Official, Southern and Western. But there is great lack of uniformity in the classifications. The problem is one with which the Commission has long wrestled. But prior to the present investigation its chief accomplishment in this field had been to establish classification uniformity within the separate territories. National classification uniformity was still in the main lacking. Many differences between classifications on a particular rating are matters of substance'; others are matters of nomenclature. Moreover, there has been a tendency among carriers to work against the evolution of uniform classifications by making exceptions which remove commodities from the classifications for rate-making purposes.
Section 1 (4) of the Interstate Commerce Act as amended, 24 Stat. 379, 54 Stat. 899,900,49 U. S. C. § 1 (4) provides that it shall be the duty of common carriers to establish just and reasonable classifications applicable to through freight rates and charges. Section 1(6) prohibits every unjust and unreasonable classification. Section 3 (1) prohibits discrimination. And § 15 (1) empowers the Commission to prescribe just, fair, and reasonable classifications, after a finding that existing classifications are unlawful. The Commission found that the existing classifications are unlawful and will continue to be unlawful until there is national uniformity of classification. It found that differences in the applicable classifications affect the levels of the class rates as much as or more, in some instances, than the differences in the levels of the class rate scales themselves. It found that shippers in one territory pay more than shippers in another territory on the same article because of classification differences; that territorial boundaries separating classification territories are artificial and cause serious complications; that where geographic conditions produce divergent costs, revenue requirements, or other conditions requiring rate adjustments, the adjustments should be made not in the basic classification itself but in the rate levels or by the creation of legitimate exceptions to the classification; that amongst the classifications there was no real uniformity of classification ratings although the same classification principles are applicable throughout the nation. It concluded that without such uniformity it is impossible to maintain just and reasonable relationships between class rates for competing commodities; that it is feasible for the carriers to establish a uniform classification. The Commission gave the railroads the opportunity to take the initiative in preparing the new uniform classification— an invitation which, we are advised, has been accepted.
Prior to this proceeding the Commission made four major class rate investigations — one for each of the rate territories except Mountain-Pacific. These established class rate structures on a regional basis, i. e. they established some degree of uniformity in class rates within each territory or subdivision of a territory. But they did not deal with interterritorial class rates by harmonizing regional rate adjustments one with the other. As a result there are separate interterritorial rate structures applicable to freight traffic moving from one territory into another.
These territorial class rate structures are exceedingly complicated. There is no basic uniformity amongst them and they are computed by varying formulae.
The Commission found that class rates within Southern, Southwestern and Western Trunk-Line territories, and from those territories to Official Territory, were generally much higher, article for article, than the rates within Official Territory. It found that higher class rates have impeded the development and movement of class rate freight within Southern, Southwestern and Western Trunk-Line territories and from those territories to Official Territory. It concluded that neither the comparative costs of transportation service nor variations in the consists and volume of traffic within the territories justified those differences in the class rates. The Commission also determined that equalization of class rates is not dependent on equalization of non-class rates and that interterri-torial rate problems can be solved only by establishing substantial uniformity in class ratings and rates.
Section 1 (4) and (5) (a) of the Act require rates and charges to be just and reasonable. The Commission found that the intraterritorial class rates applicable to the territories in question and the interterritorial class rates between the territories violate those provisions.
Section 3 (1) of the Act outlaws undue or unreasonable preferences or advantages to any region, district, or territory. The Commission found that the relation between the interterritorial class rates to Official Territory from the other territories in question and the intraterritorial class rates within Official Territory results in an unreasonable preference to Official Territory as a whole, and to shippers and receivers of freight located there, in violation of § 3 (1). The Commission, acting pursuant to its authority under § 15 (1) of the Act, prescribed reasonable and nondiscriminatory class rates to cure the preference found to exist, the new rates to become applicable simultaneously with the new revised classification which, as we have noted, the Commission ordered to be established.
But time will be required to formulate a uniform classification. And the Commission concluded that pending completion of that undertaking certain interim readjustments in the existing basis of class rates, based on existing classifications, could be made — readjustments which would be just and reasonable, and which would reduce to a minimum the preferences and prejudices which the Commission found to be unlawful in the existing system. It determined that the several intraterritorial freight-rate structures should be brought closer to the same level and be constructed on the same pattern or scheme. It concluded that as many differences as possible between the interterritorial rates and the intraterritorial rates should be eliminated. It accordingly ordered that existing interstate class rates applicable to freight traffic moving at the classification ratings within Southern, Southwestern, and Western Trunk-Line territories, interterritorially between those territories, and interterritorially between each of those territories and Official Territory, be reduced 10 per cent subject to qualifications not important here. It also ordered that interstate class rates for freight traffic moving at classification ratings within Official Territory be increased 10 per cent, subject to qualifications not relevant to our problem. It found the new interim class rates just and reasonable. 262 I. C. C. 447, supplemental report, 2641. C. C. 41.
The new interim rates were ordered to become effective January 1, 1946. Prior to that date, New York and other northern States, appellants in No. 343, filed their petition in the District Court to set aside the orders of the Commission. A statutory three judge court was convened and a temporary injunction was issued preventing the orders from going into effect. 38 Stat. 208, 220, 28 U. S. C. § 47. The Governors of the six New England States (three of whose successors in office have been substituted as appellants in No. 344) intervened on the side of the plaintiffs, as did most of the appellants in No. 345. The Commission and others intervened on the side of the United States. Appellants in No. 345, including most of the western railroads, also filed their petition in the District Court seeking substantially the same relief as appellants in No. 343. The cases were consolidated and tried together, the District Court receiving additional evidence offered by the western railroads. The court sustained the orders of the Commission in all respects, 65 F. Supp. 856, but continued the injunction pending appeal to this Court. Judicial Code § 210, 28 U. S. C. § 47a.
First. The principal evil at which the Interstate Commerce Act was aimed was discrimination in its various manifestations. Louisville & N. R. Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 740, 749-750. Until 1935, § 3 (1) of the Act prohibited discrimination only against a “person, company, firm, corporation, or locality, or any particular description of traffic... 24 Stat. 379, 380. The question arose whether “locality” included a port insofar as the port was not a point of origin or destination but a gateway through which shipments were made. The Court held by a closely divided vote, and contrary to the ruling of the Commission, that it did not. Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 289 U. S. 627. Thereafter Congress amended § 3 (1) so as to extend the prohibition against discrimination to include a “port, port district, gateway, transit point.” 49 Stat. 607. And see Albany Port Dis trict Commission v. Ahnapee & W. R. Co., 219 I. C. C. 151. That was in 1935. In 1940 Congress went further. By § 5 (b) of the Transportation Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 899, 902, known as the Ramspeck Resolution, it authorized and directed the Commission to institute an investigation into rates on commodities between points in one classification territory and points in another territory and into like rates within territories for the purpose of determining whether those rates were “unjust and unreasonable or unlawful in any other respect in and of themselves or in their relation to each other, and to enter such orders as may be appropriate for the removal of any unlawfulness which may be found to exist....” Congress also extended the prohibition against discriminations by adding to § 3 (1) the words “region, district, territory.”
It is now asserted that the Commission has misunderstood its duties under these 1940 amendments. It is said that the Commission has construed this mandate of Congress to mean that identical rates, mile for mile, should be established everywhere in the country, in face of a longstanding practice of rate-making (which the legislative history of the 1940 amendments shows was not intended to be changed) that allowed differences in rates which were based on differences in the length of haul, character of the terrain, density of traffic, and other elements of the cost of service. Thus it is argued that the Commission runs afoul of Ann Arbor R. Co. v. United States, 281 U. S. 658, which involved the construction of a joint resolution of Congress directing the Commission to make an investigation to determine whether existing rates and charges were unjust, unreasonable, or unjustly discriminatory so as to give undue advantage “as between the various localities and parts of the country....” 43 Stat. 801, 802. The Commission, relying on that mandate, condemned certain existing rates between California and eastern points. The Court set aside the order of the Commission, holding that the joint resolution did not purport to change the existing law but left the validity of rates to be determined by that law.
But the Commission in the present cases did not proceed on the assumption that the Ramspeck Resolution changed the substantive law. As we read its report, the Commission took the resolution only as a directive to investigate and correct violations of substantive law as it deemed that law broadened by the amendment to § 3 (1). It said:
“By the amendment to the substantive antidiscrimi-nation provisions of section 3 (1) all discriminations in the form of undue or unreasonable preference or advantage, or undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage, as between regions, districts, or territories, viewed as separate entities, were brought directly within the purview of the act along with all the other inhibitions previously included. We were then authorized and directed by the other provisions mentioned to remove any such discriminations found to exist in a proper proceeding. This means that such discriminations as those mentioned which result from differences in the methods of distributing the general rate burden in the several rate-making territories, or from any other cause, if not justified upon proper consideration of recognized elements of rate making applied in the light of the amended law are unlawful and should be corrected.” 262 I. C. C. p. 692.
From this statement it is apparent that the Commission concluded that the 1940 amendment to § 3 (1) enlarged the scope of the section. The Commission, indeed, stated that “it is clear that the main purpose which Congress had in mind was to bring about a greater degree of equalization, harmony, and uniformity in the different regional or territorial rate structures of the country.” Id. p. 692. And see id. pp. 688-691. But it is suggested that discriminations based on geographic factors were outlawed prior to the 1940 amendment to § 3 (1), as evidenced by its long-standing condemnation of “undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage” to any “locality” and, since 1935, to any “port, port district, gateway, transit point.” It is, moreover, suggested that even the prohibition of discriminations against shippers was broad enough all along to ban discriminations based on the geographic location of the shippers. The contention is that without a change in the law the present orders were unwarranted; it is pointed out that the class rates now condemned had been found by the Commission itself to be just and reasonable in recent years. And it is asserted that the Commission did not take its present action on a showing of changed circumstances since those times. The conclusion, therefore, is that the present orders are not warranted by § 3 (1).
. We need not determine whether, prior to the 1940 amendment, § 3 (1), by its ban on unlawful discrim-inations against a “locality,” would have permitted the Commission to eradicate regional discriminations in class rates. For whatever doubt may have existed in the law was removed by the 1940 amendment which made abundantly clear that Congress thought that the problem of regional discriminations had been neglected and that, if any such discriminations were found to. be present, they should be eradicated. But, as the Commission concedes, the addition of “region, district, territory” to § 3 (1) did not change the law respecting discrimination by authorizing uniform freight rates, mile for mile, without regard to differing costs of the service. Congress, by adding those words, made plain the duty of the Commission, in determining whether discriminatory practices exist, to consider the interests of regions, districts, and territories, and to eliminate territorial rate differences which are not justified by differences in territorial conditions. In other words Congress did not introduce a new standard of discrimination by its amendment to §3(1); it merely made clear its purpose that regions, districts, and territories should be the beneficiaries of the law against discrimination.
Second. It is argued, however, that the findings of the Commission concerning regional discriminations in class rates are not supported by substantial evidence.
The great differences betwen territorial class rate levels are shown by the following table. It gives a comparison (in cents per 100 pounds) between the first-class rate scale within Official Territory and that within each of the other territories:
These first-class intraterritorial rates are used as bases in formulating rates on other classes of freight in the respective territories.
The following tables compiled by Government counsel show the first-class rates for interterritorial movements to Official Territory from each of the other territories as compared with intraterritorial movements for approximately equal distances within Official Territory:
The disadvantage to the Southern or Western shipper who attempts to market his product in Official Territory is obvious. Thus the first of these tables shows that a Nashville shipper pays 39 cents more on each 100 pounds of freight moving to Indianapolis, Indiana than one who ships from Indianapolis to a point of substantially equal distance away (Kent, Ohio) in Official Territory. Similar disadvantages suffered by Southern and Western shippers are revealed in the other comparable interterritorial freight movements set forth in the tables.
That disadvantage is emphasized if the effects of classification differences on rates for identical commodities are considered. A comparison of rates in cents per 100 pounds for 200 miles shows that, even though shippers in the South and West have the same or lower classification ratings for identical commodities, they nevertheless on the whole pay higher charges than the shippers in Official Territory for equivalent service. Thus there are in class 100 (first class) for less-than-carload lots 2092 items common to the three classifications. In Official Classification all of these move at a rate of 80 cents per 100 pounds for a haul of 200 miles. In Southern, 2075 of these items are classified 100 and move at a rate of $1.12. Of the remaining 17 items 5 are classified in Southern in class 85 with a rate of 95, 2 in class 70 with a rate of 78, 7 in class 55 with a rate of 62,2 in class 45, with a rate of 50, 1 in class 40 with a rate of 45. In Western Trunk-Line Zone I, 2076 of the 2092 items are classified 100 with a rate of 97, 4 in 85 with a rate of 82, 10 in 70 with a rate of 68,2 in 55 with a rate of 53.
In class 100 for carload lots there are 213 common items. In Official Classification all of these move at a rate of 80 cents for a haul of 200 miles. In Southern, 199 of these items are classified 100 and move at a rate of $1.12 for 200 miles. Of the remaining 14, 7 are classified in Southern in class 85 with a rate of 95, 2 in 75 with a rate of 84, 5 in 70 with a rate of 78. In Western Trunk-Line Zone I, 202 of the 213 items are classified 100 with a rate of 97, 7 in 85 with a rate of 82, 3 in 70 with a rate of 68, 1 in 55 with a rate of 53. Additional illustrations are too numerous and detailed to include in this opinion. But the ones given are representative of the rest and show how disparities in the rate levels are aggravated when the effects of classification differences on rates are considered.
There is rather voluminous evidence in the record tendered to show the effect in concrete competitive situations of these class rate inequalities. The instances were in the main reviewed by the Commission. They are attacked here on various grounds — that some of them involved rates other than class rates, that others were testified to by shippers who made no complaint of class rates, that' others showed shippers paying higher rates yet maintaining their competitive positions and prospering. We do not stop to analyze them or discuss them beyond saying th,at some of the specific instances support what is plainly to be inferred from the figures we have summarized — that class rates within Southern, Southwestern and Western territories, and from those territories to Official Territory, are generally much higher, article for article, than the rates within Official Territory. That was the basic finding of the Commission; and it is abundantly supported by the evidence.
Thus discrimination in class rates in favor of Official Territory and against the Southern, Southwestern and Western Trunk Line territories is established. But that is not the end of the matter. For “mere discrimination does not render a rate illegal under § 3.” United States v. Illinois Central R. Co., 263 U. S. 515, 521. Section 3 condemns “any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage” and “any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage” to any territory. And, as we have said, the 1940 amendment to § 3, by its addition of “region, district, territory,” did not change the prevailing rules respecting unlawful discrimination; it merely enlarged the reach of § 3. Hence we must determine from the preexisting law whether a discrimination against a territory is obnoxious to § 3. The rule is stated in United States v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra, p. 524, as follows:
“To bring a difference in rates within the prohibition of § 3, it must be shown that the discrimination practiced is unjust when measured by the transportation standard. In other words, the difference in rates cannot be held illegal, unless it is shown that it is not justified by the cost of the respective services, by their values, or by other transportation conditions.”
It is on this principle that the' findings of the Commission under § 3 are both defended and attacked.
Third. The Commission’s findings under § 3 (1) are first challenged on the ground that there is no finding that the corresponding class rates are actually charged to or demanded of competing shippers in the several territories. That is to say, no unlawful discrimination in favor of a shipper in Official Territory and against a shipper in Southern Territory can be said to exist unless it is shown that the southern competitor is actually required to pay the higher interterritorial class rates. It is contended that the record negatives the existence of facts which could support such a finding and that no such finding was made. Reliance is placed on two circumstances. In the first place, reference is made to the effect of classification ratings on class rates which we briefly summarized above. It is noted, for example, that the southern shipper in some instances actually pays less for the shipment of the same commodity than the shipper in Official Territory, e. g., where the Southern Classification carries the commodity in a lower class, which in turn exacts a rate less than that required of the higher classification granted by Official. It is apparent from the illustrations we have given that such is true in some cases. But that is not the dominant pattern. In the vast majority of the instances the classification ratings, like the class rate structure, work to the benefit of Official Territory and against the others. But the greater reliance is placed on the second circumstance— that only a minor portion of freight moves by class rates and of that a greater percentage moves in Official Territory than in the others. This point requires a more extended answer.
The Commission, indeed, found that by reason of non-use the class rates have become obsolete and no longer serve the purposes for which they were designed. They move a relatively small amount of freight. The following table indicates the percentages of carload traffic carried at class rates within and between territories in 1942:
In September, 1940, for example, less-than-carload ratings on about 3,000 commodities were removed from the Southern Classification by classification exceptions. The great bulk of the freight moves on exception rates and commodity rates. This trend, according to the Commission, has been the result of competitive forces. The creation of the exceptions has “shorn the ratings in the classifications of much of their usefulness and proper function.” 262 I. C. C. p. 504. The record is replete with evidence supporting this finding of the Commission. And appellants seize on it as supporting their claim that since class rates have largely become paper rates, they are not the source of injury to shippers from the South and the West; that if the latter are prejudiced by the rate structure, the injury must flow from the exception rates and commodity rates not involved in this proceeding; and that in any event the case of unlawful discriminations in favor of Official Territory and against the other territories has not been founded on the actual use of disadvantageous class rates by shippers in the Southern, Southwestern, and Western Trunk-Line territories.
But that takes too narrow a view of the problem confronting the Commission. We start of course with some showing of actual discrimination against shippers by reason of their use of class rates. But the main case of discrimination made out by the record is one against regions and territories. We assume that a case of unlawful discrimination against shippers by reason of their geographic location would be an unlawful discrimination against the regions where the shipments originate. But an unlawful discrimination against regions or territories is not dependent on such a showing. As we stated in Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U. S. 439, 450, “Discriminatory rates are but one form of trade barriers.” Their effect is not only to impede established industries but to prevent the establishment of new ones, to arrest the development of a State or region, to make it difficult for an agricultural economy to evolve into an industrial one. Non-discriminatory class rates remove that barrier by offering that equality which the law was designed to afford. They insure prospective shippers not only that the rates are just and reasonable per se but that they are properly related to those of their competitors. Shippers are then not dependent on their ability to get exception rates or commodity rates after their industries are established and their shipments are ready to move. They have a basis for planning ahead by relying on a coherent rate structure reflecting competitive factors.
If a showing of discrimination against a territory or region were dependent on a showing of actual discrimination against shippers located in these sections, the case could never be made out where discriminatory rates had proved to be such effective trade barriers as to prevent the establishment of industries in those outlying regions. If that were the test, then the 1940 amendment to § 3 (1) would not have achieved its purpose. We cannot attribute such futility' to the effort made by Congress to make regions, districts and territories, as well as shippers, the beneficiaries of its anti-discrimination policy expressed in § 3 (1).
So far as the remedy is concerned, the present cases might' of course, be different if the Commission had ño power to prescribe classifications. But § 15 (1) of the Act grants it full power, on finding that a classification is “unjust or unreasonable or unjustly discriminatory or unduly preferential or prejudicial,” to determine and prescribe what classification will be “just, fair, and reasonable.” The Commission’s over-all conclusion was that the classifications in force and the class rates computed from them harbor inequities which result in unlawful discriminations in favor of Official Territory and against the other territories. The fact that relatively small amounts of freight move by class rates proves not that the regional and territorial discrimination is slight, but that the rate structure as constituted holds no promise of affording the various regions or territories that parity of treatment which territorial conditions warrant. The Commission in substance concluded that that result could not be achieved unless traffic was, in the main, moved on class rates. We will discuss later the appropriateness of the relief granted by the interim orders here challenged. It is sufficient here to note that the case of unlawful discrimination against these territories was chiefly founded on the absence of non-discriminatory class rates and uniform classifications which would remove the features of existing rate structures prejudicial to Southern, Southwestern, and Western Trunk-Line territories.
We are thus not primarily concerned with the adequa-cies of the Commission’s findings showing discrimination against actual shippers located in a territory (cf. Florida v. United States, 282 U. S. 194; North Carolina v. United States, 325 U. S. 507; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Mechling, 330 U. S. 567), but with prejudice to a territory as a whole.
Fourth. The inquiry of the Commission into the effect of class rates on the economic development of Southern, Southwestern, and Western Trunk-Line territories took a wide range. It concluded that prejudice to the territories in question had been established. We think that finding is supported by substantial evidence.
It is, of course, obvious that the causal connection between rate discrimination and territorial injury is not always susceptible of conclusive proof. The extent of that causal relation cannot in any case be shown with mathematical exactness. It is a matter of inference from relevant data. The Commission recognized, for example, that the fact that the South has fewer industries than the East results from a complex of causes — that the “industrial development of the East is due to many factors other than transportation services and costs, such as climate, soil, natural resources, available water power, supplies of natural gas and coal, and early settlements of population which antedated the building of railroads.” 262 I. C. C. p. 619. It noted that in 1939 freight revenues on commodities in the manufactures and miscellaneous group were but 5.3 per cent of the destination value of manufactured goods and that differences in freight charges resulting from differences in class rate levels were only a small fraction of that figure. But it nevertheless concluded that “Nearness to markets and ability to ship to markets, on a basis fairly and reasonably related to the rates of competitors, are nevertheless potent factors in the location of a manufacturing plant. In fact, rate relations are more important to the manufacturer and shipper than the levels of the rates.” 262 I. C. C. 619-620.
The great advance in industrialization of Official Territory over the other territories need not be labored, for it is obvious. Some manifestations of that development may be illustrated by the following tables:
The value added by manufacture in all industries from 1849 to 1939 is shown for all the territories by the chart on the following page.
From this chart it is apparent that Official Territory has maintained its commanding lead in spite of recent marked increases elsewhere, especially in the South. Similarly, for the period 1929 to 1939 the number of wage earners in manufacturing industries in the entire country decreased 11 per cent; in Official Territory, 12 per cent; while in the South there was an increase of 5 per cent. For the same period, values of manufactured products increased 1 per cent in the South, while they decreased 21 per cent for the entire country and 25 per cent in Official Territory. From 1930 to 1940, the number of gain-
fully occupied workers in manufacturing in Official Territory decreased from 70.5 per cent to 69.4 per cent of the nation’s total, while in the South there was an increase from 10 per cent to 11.9 per cent. A number of manufacturing activities have increased more rapidly in the South than in Official Territory, though the reverse has been true in other industries. But in spite of the growth in industrial activities in the South and West (which appellants stress heavily), the percentage comparisons are not particularly revealing because of the great disparity between the bases on which they are computed.
The fact remains that economic development in the South and West has lagged and still lags behind Official Territory. In 1940 the average annual dollar income per person employed in Official Territory was $1,988; in Southern, $940; in Southwestern, $1,177; in Western Trunk-Line, $1,411. Official has 69 per cent of all workers engaged in manufacturing in the United States and 29 per cent of all workers in extractive industries. It has, for example, a high concentration in the manufacture of steel and copper products, though less than 4 per cent of the iron ore reserves, and no reserves of metallic copper. The South and West furnish raw materials to Official and buy finished products back. They are also dependent to a great extent on the markets for their products in Official, which has over 48 per cent of the population of the country, 76 per cent of the national market for industrial machinery and raw materials, 64 per cent for all goods and sources, 62 per cent for consumer luxuries, and 53 per cent for consumer necessities. Yet the South and West suffer rate handicaps when they seek to reach those markets. One of the many illustrations will suffice. Cottonseed oil is a basic agricultural commodity. Class rates on it are 7 per cent higher from Southern to Official Territory than they are within Official Territory. If the cottonseed oil is manufactured into oleomargarine, the rates from Southern to Official Territory are 35 per cent higher than the rates within Official Territory.
It is said in reply, however, that the disparities which we have mentioned reflect only natural advantages which justify differences in rates. The great concentration of population in the East is said to show that its more favorable rates are justified by the fact that it has many more people to support the roads. The unfavorable income comparisons with the East are thought to establish one of the handicaps under which the roads in the South and West operate. It is pointed out that the heavy preponderance of the nation’s total natural resource of energy supply is located in Official Territory — 40 to 45 per cent of the total bituminous and semi-bituminous coal supply, practically all of the anthracite resources; 60 per cent of all electric energy originates there. It is said that Official Territory is the logical location for industries which use metals from other territories, since it has the natural supplies of coal. It is also pointed out that the gross income from crops and livestock in Official Territory is the highest in the country, amounting to 31 per cent of the total. From these and comparable data it is argued that the lower rates in Official Territory reflect only inherent advantages which the other territories do not enjoy. It is, therefore, argued that what the Commission has sought to do is to equalize economic advantages, to enter the field of economic planning, and to arrange a rate structure designed to relocate industries, cause a redistribution of population, and in other ways to offset the natural advantages which one territory has over another. It is asserted that such a program is unlawful under Interstate Commerce Commission v. Diffenbaugh, 222 U. S. 42, 46, where the Court held that the Act, in its condemnation of discrimination, “does not attempt to equalize fortune, opportunities or abilities.” And see United States v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra, p. 524; Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. United States, supra, pp. 637-638.
We will revert to this matter when we come to consider whether territorial conditions justify the differences in rates. It is sufficient at this point to say that the record makes out a strong case for the inference that natural disadvantages alone are not responsible for the retarded development of the South and the West, that the discriminatory rate structure has also played a part. How much a part cannot be determined, for every effect is the result of many factors. But the inference of prejudice from the discriminatory rate structure is irresistible. If this discriminatory rate structure is not justified by territorial conditions, then its continued maintenance preserves not the natural advantages of one region but man-made trade barriers which have been imposed upon the country. Such a result cannot be reconciled with the great purposes of § 3 (1) as amended in 1940.
Fifth. The Commission found that conditions peculiar to the respective territories did not justify the differences in the territorial class-rate structures. In reaching that conclusion it first inquired whether the differences in the costs of furnishing the railroad service in the several rate territories justified the existing differences in the levels and patterns of the class rate scales. The basis of its inquiry was a cost study submitted by its staff. For cost analysis purposes the United States is divided into areas roughly but not exactly approximating the
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.
Mr. Justice Stewart took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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C
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sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
We are called upon to deal with exceptions filed by Morton International, Inc., which protests the decision by our Special Master, Senior Circuit Judge J. Cullen Ganey, denying it leave to intervene as a party defendant in this original action. While we affirm the Master’s decision, we do so for reasons which are somewhat different from those advanced in the Master’s Report. Consequently, it will be necessary to describe the nature of the underlying controversy before the basis for our disposition of this matter will become clear.
This case arises out of a long-standing dispute between the United States and Utah over the ownership of the Great Salt Lake. The importance and difficulty of the controversy is magnified by the fact that, over the course of years, the lake has proceeded to shrink in size, laying bare some 600,000 acres of land which had formerly been a part of the lakebed (the so-called “relicted” lands). In 1966, Congress moved to resolve the controversy by passing a special Act, 80 Stat. 192, as amended, 80 Stat. 349, which both authorized the Secretary of the Interior to issue a quitclaim deed to the State for the entire federal interest in the lake properties and provided a mechanism by which the fair value of the federal interest could be ascertained. In consideration of the Secretary’s deed, Utah was obliged either to pay the Federal Government an amount fixed by the Secretary or bring a lawsuit in this Court so that the extent of the federal claim could be judicially determined.
Utah and the United States, however, are not alone in advancing claims to the still submerged and now-relicted portions of the lake. Morton also claims part of the property, and seeks to intervene to quiet its title. Our Special Master’s Report carefully sets out the nature of the competing claims of the two sovereigns and the private landlord:
“1. The State of Utah claims that on January 4, 1896, the date it was admitted to the Union, the Great Salt Lake was a navigable body of water. On the basis of this fact and the 'equal footing doctrine,’ it asserts that it is the owner of the Lake’s bed as delineated and determined by the official surveyed meander line and that the land (some 600,000 acres) left exposed by the recession of the Lake between the water’s edge and the meander line, known as 'public domain reliction,’ is part of that bed. . . .
"2. The United States claims, excluding those exposed lands lakeward from the upland transferred to patentees, title to a substantial portion (some 325,574 acres) of the exposed lands (known as ‘public domain reliction’ lands) claimed by Utah as part of the Lake’s bed. The basis for this claim is that it was the original owner of the uplands and for that reason it is entitled to the exposed lands under the common-law doctrine of reliction.
“3. Private vendees or patentees of the Lake’s uplands whose interest can be traced to the United States claim all the land lakeward fronting such uplands. Their claims do not stop at the water’s edge but continue to the thread of the Lake. They contend that the patents impliedly passed title to the relicted land to the owner of the adjoining uplands. The combined area of the exposed land claimed by this group amounts to approximately 275,000 acres. Morton is a good example of one of this group.
“4. In addition, however, the United States also claims the relicted land fronting the uplands of some of the patentees (or those claiming through them) under the so-called Basart doctrine. The total area claimed under this doctrine is approximately 108,780 acres, and is referred to as 'public land reliction under Basart.’ These private owners [including Morton], of course, disagree that the Basart doctrine is applicable to these lands.” Master’s Report 6-8.
The Special Master found that the claim raised by-Morton and the claims raised in the “main action have a question of law or fact in common” and that, consequently, “a district judge would exercise his discretion and permit [Morton] to intervene in the action.” Report 39. The Special Master, however, refused to take this step only because he found that the State of Utah had not waived its sovereign immunity as to Morton’s suit.
Upon careful consideration, we do not find it necessary to reach the ground adopted in the Report. For we have concluded that a Stipulation entered into between the United States and Utah, which was presented to the Master, has so limited the issues before this Court that the presence of Morton and similar property owners is neither necessary nor appropriate. Hence, in the exercise of our discretion, we find that the interests of justice and sound judicial administration will best be served if Morton’s motion is denied.
The entry of the Stipulation significantly changes the nature of the problem before us. If the Stipulation had never been filed, it is clear that Utah could have attempted to defeat the federal claim to the Basart lands by proving that private landlords like Morton had the best title to them. In such a situation, Morton’s right to intervene would have had a substantial basis. For if Utah sought to invoke Morton’s title to avoid payment to the United States, it would seem fairest to permit Morton to speak for itself. The Stipulation makes it clear, however, that Utah will not attempt to defeat the United States’ claim to the Basart lands by proving that the private landowners have the best title to this acreage. In other words, if Utah does not prove that it owns the lake properties, it has agreed to pay the United States regardless of the other clouds on the federal claim.
On its side, the United States has also taken steps to remove the Basart question from this lawsuit by means of the Stipulation. It has agreed that it will not demand payment for its Basart claims, if the Court finds that its claims to the other disputed acreage have no merit. Consequently, it will be unnecessary to consider whether the United States or the private landowners have title to the Basart lands in order to determine whether the State must pay fair value to the United States in consideration for the Secretary’s quitclaim deed. Thus, if the Stipulation is valid, the substantial need for Morton’s presence no longer exists.
Morton, however, attacks the validity of the Stipulation agreed upon by the two sovereigns. While it does not deny that the parties to an ordinary lawsuit may limit the issues they will tender to the Court for decision, Morton points out that this is no ordinary lawsuit, but one whose nature is defined by the special Act of Congress, supra, in which the United States waived its immunity in this litigation. Morton argues that the Stipulation has transformed the suit in a way that is contrary to Congress’ intention, and that consequently this Court should not accept the parties’ attempt to narrow the issues.
We cannot, however, accept the premise upon which Morton’s argument is based. We find that the Stipulation does not transform the action in a way which Congress would have disapproved. The structure of the relevant Act indicates decisively that Congress did not anticipate that this action would necessarily lead to an adjudication of the private parties’ claims to the Basart lands. Section 5 of the Act gave Utah the right to pay over an amount of money determined by the Secretary of the Interior after the Secretary had given “consideration to all factors he deems pertinent to an equitable resolution of the question of the proper consideration to be paid by the State of Utah . . . .” If the State had taken this option, the private landowners would never of course have had an opportunity to invoke the original jurisdiction of this Court since Utah would never have filed its complaint. Consequently, it is difficult to believe that the will of Congress will be frustrated if the issues tendered to this Court by the sovereigns are structured so that we may resolve their dispute without considering the additional claims advanced by the private parties.
Similarly, we do not find any merit in Morton’s challenge to that part of the Stipulation in which the United States has promised not to demand payment for its Basart claims, if its other claims are not vindicated. Morton argues that the Solicitor General is without authority to give away potentially valuable property when Congress has expressly required that the Nation receive fair value. But this argument ignores the fact that the Solicitor General has indicated in his brief that he believes he can advance no colorable argument which could conceivably vindicate the Federal Government’s Basart interest if the Government’s right to the other disputed property is not upheld. This being so, the Solicitor General, acting under his broad authority to conduct the Federal Government’s litigation in this Court, 28 U. S. C. § 518 (1964 ed., Supp. III), was surely entitled to remove the issue from the case.
Finally, Morton claims that under Rule 19 (a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure it should be permitted to intervene because its absence will “leave [one] of the persons already parties subject to a substantial risk of incurring double, multiple, or otherwise inconsistent obligations by reason of his claimed interest.” Morton contends that Utah may be obliged to pay the United States for the Basart claims in this present action, only to have another Court later find that the private landowners in fact have the best title, requiring Utah to pay again if it wishes to control the Basart lands. But Utah has never favored Morton’s motion to intervene, despite the fact that the company’s absence here may mean that the State may ultimately be obliged to pay for the lands a second time. Indeed, Utah has consistently opposed Morton’s motion. Since the Federal Rules are a guide to the conduct of original actions in this Court only “where their application is appropriate,” Rule 9 (2) of the Rules of Court, and since our original jurisdiction should be invoked sparingly, we hold that the State of Utah may properly waive the protection of Rule 19 here.
While we can perceive no compelling reason requiring the presence of Morton in this lawsuit, there are substantial reasons for denying intervention. If Morton is admitted, fairness would require the admission of any of the other 120 private landowners who wish to quiet their title to portions of the relicted lands, greatly increasing the complexity of this litigation. Moreover, if any private landlord who is a citizen of Utah should seek to intervene, we would be required to decide the difficult constitutional question as to whether this Court may retain its original jurisdiction over an action in which complete diversity of citizenship no longer exists between the contesting parties.
With the issues limited by the Stipulation, we find, as did the Special Master, that the Solicitor General may be relied upon to represent the limited interests of the private landlords in this case. While Morton doubtless wishes to have us settle its additional claims, we decline to permit intervention for the sole purpose of permitting a private party to introduce new issues which have not been raised by the sovereigns directly concerned. We are thus constrained to require the company to seek another forum which may, with greater efficiency, hear and decide its claims, together with any defenses the sovereign concerned wishes to interpose.
We also agree with the Special Master that “it is equitable and in good conscience to proceed to adjudicate the controversy between the State of Utah and the United States” in Morton’s absence, Report 47, and we hereby authorize him to proceed to the merits.
The Report of the Special Master will be placed on file and his determination denying intervention to Morton International, Inc., is approved.
r, . , , /£ iS so ordered.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Uplands are lots above and adjacent to the meander line. (This is Master Ganey’s footnote. The Master’s other footnotes have been omitted.)
The United States also advances a claim, not here detailed by the Master, to certain portions of the still submerged lands as well as the brines and minerals in the lake.
While in the original Stipulation, the two sovereigns sought to defer decision as to which of them owned the still submerged lands under the lake, as well as the lake’s brines and minerals, the Special Master ruled that the United States must contest the State’s claims to these resources in the present action. Neither the State nor the Federal Government has contested this aspect of the Master’s ruling.
Indeed, § 2 of the Act contains a proviso which declares that “the provisions of this Act shall not affect (1) any valid existing rights or interests, if any, of any person, partnership, association, corporation, or other nongovernmental entity, in or to any of the lands within and below said meander line . . . (Emphasis supplied.) This language suggests that Congress expected that the interests of the private parties would not be adjudicated here.
Thus, we need not determine the conditions under which Rule 19 (a) may properly be waived by the party it protects in an ordinary litigation in the district courts.
Before the United States and Utah entered their Stipulation, the Great Salt Lake Minerals & Chemical Corp. sought to intervene in this action. While the Master denied this motion as well as Morton’s, M&C has chosen to acquiesce in the Master’s decision so long as the Stipulation is approved. Thus, no further action on this motion is required in the light of our disposition here.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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C
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This ease presents the question whether venue in a prosecution for using or carrying a firearm “during and in relation to any crime of violence,” in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 924(e)(1), is proper in any district where the crime of violence vías committed, even if the firearm was used or carried only in a single district.
I
During a drug transaction that took place in Houston, Texas, a New York drug dealer stole 80 kilograms of a Texas drug distributor’s cocaine. The distributor hired respondent, Jacinto Rodríguez-Moreno, and others to find the dealer and to hold captive the middleman in the transaction, Ephrain Avendano, during the search. In pursuit of the dealer, the distributor and his henchmen drove from Texas to New Jersey with Avendano in tow. The group used Avendano’s New Jersey apartment as a base for their operations for a few days. They soon moved to a house in New York and then to a house in Maryland, taking Avendano with them.
Shortly after respondent and the others arrived at the Maryland house, the owner of the home passed around a .357 magnum revolver and respondent took possession of the pistol. As it became clear that efforts to find the New York drug dealer would not bear fruit, respondent told his employer that he thought they should kill the middleman and end their search for the dealer. He put the gun to the back of Avendano’s neck but, at the urging of his cohorts, did not shoot. Avendano eventually escaped through the back door and ran to a neighboring house. The neighbors called the Maryland police, who arrested respondent along with the rest of the kidnapers. The police also seized the .357 magnum, on which they later found respondent’s fingerprint.
his codefendants were tried jointly in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Respondent was charged with, inter alia, conspiring to kidnap Avendano, kidnaping Avendano, and using and carrying a firearm in relation to the kidnaping of Avendano, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1). At the conclusion of the Government’s case, respondent moved to dismiss the § 924(c)(1) count for lack of venue. He argued that venue was proper only in Maryland, the only place where the Government had proved he had actually used a gun. The District Court denied the motion, App. 54, and the jury found respondent guilty on the kidnaping counts and on the § 924(c)(1) charge as well. He was sentenced to 87 months’ imprisonment on the kidnaping charges, and was given a mandatory consecutive term of 60 months’ imprisonment for committing the § 924(c)(1) offense.
On a 2-to-l vote, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed respondent’s § 924(c)(1) conviction. United States v. Palma-Ruedas, 121 F. 3d 841 (1997). A majority of the Third Circuit panel applied what it called the “verb test” to § 924(c)(1), and determined that a violation of the statute is committed only in the district where a defendant “uses” or “carries” a firearm. Id., at 849. Accordingly, it concluded that venue for the § 924(c)(1) count was improper in New Jersey even though venue was proper there for the kidnap-ing of Avendano. The dissenting judge thought that the majority’s test relied too much “on grammatical arcana,” id., at 865, and argued that the proper approach was to “look at the substance of the statutes in question,” ibid. In his view, the crime of violence is an essential element of the course of conduct that Congress sought to criminalize in enacting § 924(e)(1), and therefore, “venue for a prosecution under [that] statute lies in any district in which the defendant committed the underlying crime of violence.” Id., at 863. The Government petitioned for review on the ground that the Third Circuit’s holding was in conflict with a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, United States v. Pomranz, 43 F. 3d 156 (1995). We granted certiorari, 524 U. S. 915 (1998), and now reverse.
b-i 5 — 1
Article III of the Constitution requires that “[t]he Trial of all Crimes . . . shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed.” Art. Ill, § 2, cl. 3. Its command is reinforced by the Sixth Amendment’s requirement that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,” and is echoed by Rule 18 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (“prosecution shall be had in a district in which the offense was committed”).
As we confirmed just last Term, the ‘“locus delicti [of the charged offense] must be determined from the nature of the crime alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting it.’ ” United States v. Cabrales, 524 U. S. 1, 6-7 (1998) (quoting United States v. Anderson, 328 U. S. 699, 703 (1946)). In performing this inquiry, a court must initially identify the conduct constituting the offense (the nature of the crime) and then discern the location of the commission of the criminal acts. See Cabrales, supra, at 6-7; Travis v. United States, 364 U. S. 631, 635-637 (1961); United States v. Cores, 356 U. S. 405, 408-409 (1958); Anderson, supra, at 703-706.
committed the offense and was tried, 18 U. S. C. § 924(e)(1) provided:
“Whoever, during and in relation to any crime of violence ... for which he may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, uses or carries a firearm, shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such crime of violence ... be sentenced to imprisonment for five years ... .”
The Third Circuit, as explained above, looked to the verbs of the statute to determine the nature of the substantive offense. But we have never before held, and decline to do so here, that verbs are the sole consideration in identifying the conduct that constitutes an offense. While the “verb test” certainly has value as an interpretative tool, it cannot be applied rigidly, to the exclusion of other relevant statutory language. The test unduly limits the inquiry into the nature of the offense and thereby creates a danger that certain conduct prohibited by statute will be missed.
In our view, the Third Circuit overlooked an essential conduct element of the § 924(c)(1) offense. Section 924(c)(1) prohibits using or carrying a firearm “during and in relation to any crime of violence ... for which [a defendant] may be prosecuted in a court of the United States.” That the crime of violence element of the statute is embedded in a prepositional phrase and not expressed in verbs does not dissuade us from concluding that a defendant’s violent acts are essential conduct elements. To prove the charged § 924(c)(1) violation in this case, the Government was required to show that respondent used a firearm, that he committed all the acts necessary to be subject to punishment for kidnaping (a crime of violence) in a court of the United States, and that he used the gun “during and in relation to” the kidnaping of Avendano. In sum, we interpret § 924(c)(1) to contain two distinct conduct elements — as is relevant to this case, the “using and carrying” of a gun and the commission of a kidnaping.
Respondent, however, argues that for venue purposes “the New Jersey kidnapping is completely irrelevant to the firearm crime, because respondent did not use or carry a gun during the New Jersey crime.” Brief for Respondent 12. In the words of one amicus, § 924(c)(1) is a “point-in-time” offense that only is committed in the place where the kidnap-ing and the use of a gun coincide. Brief for National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae 11. We disagree. Several Circuits have determined that kid-naping, as defined by 18 U. S. C. § 1201 (1994 ed. and Supp. Ill), is a unitary crime, see United States v. Seals, 130 F. 3d 451, 461-462 (CADC 1997); United States v. Denny-Shaffer, 2 F. 3d 999, 1018-1019 (CA10 1993); United States v. Godinez, 998 F. 2d 471, 473 (CA7 1993); United States v. Garcia, 854 F. 2d 340, 343-344 (CA9 1988), and we agree with their conclusion. A kidnaping, once begun, does not end until the victim is free. It does not make sense, then, to speak of it in discrete geographic fragments. Section 924(e)(1) criminalized a defendant’s use of a firearm “during and in relation to” a crime of violence; in doing so, Congress proscribed both the use of the firearm and the commission of acts that constitute a violent crime. It does not matter that respondent used the .357 magnum revolver, as the Government concedes, only in Maryland because he did so “during and in relation to” a kidnaping that was begun in Texas and continued in New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. In our view, § 924(c)(1) does not define a “point-in-time” offense when a firearm is used during and in relation to a continuing crime of violence.
As we said in United States v. Lombardo, 241 U. S. 73 (1916), “where a crime consists of distinct parts which have different localities the whole may be tried where any part can be proved to have been done.” Id., at 77; cf. Hyde v. United States, 225 U. S. 347, 356-367 (1912) (venue proper against defendant in district where co-conspirator carried out overt acts even though there was no evidence that the defendant had ever entered that district or that the conspiracy was formed there). The kidnaping, to which the § 924(c)(1) offense is attached, was committed in all of the places that any part of it took place, and venue for the kid-naping charge against respondent was appropriate in any of them. (Congress has provided that continuing offenses can be tried “in any district in which such offense was begun, continued, or completed,” 18 U. S. C. § 3287(a).) Where venue is appropriate for the underlying crime of violence, so too it is for the § 924(e)(1) offense. As the kidnaping was property tried in New Jersey, the § 924(c)(1) offense could be tried there as well.
* * *
We hold that venue for this prosecution was proper in the district where it was brought. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed.
It is so ordered.
When we first announced this test in United States v. Anderson, 328 U. S., at 703, we were comparing § 11 of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 894, in which Congress did “not indicate where [it] considered the place of committing the crime to be,” 328 U. S., at 703, with statutes where Congress was explicit with respect to venue. Title 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1), like the Selective Training and Service Act, does not contain an express venue provision.
The Government argues that venue also may permissibly be based upon the effects of a defendant’s conduct in a district other than the one in which the defendant performs the acts constituting the offense. Brief for United States 16-17. Because this ease only concerns the locus de-licti, we express no opinion as to whether the Government’s assertion is correct.
The statute recently has been amended, see Pub. L. 105-386, 112 Stat. 3469, but it is not argued that the amendment is in any way relevant to our analysis in this case.
By way of comparison, last Term in United States v. Cabrales, 524 U. S. 1 (1998), we considered whether venue for money laundering, in violation of 18 U. S. C. §§ 1956(a)(1)(B)(ii) and 1957, was proper in Missouri, where the laundered proceeds were unlawfully generated, or rather, only in Florida, where the prohibited laundering transactions occurred. As we interpreted the laundering statutes at issue, they did not proscribe “the anterior criminal conduct that yielded the funds allegedly laundered.” Cabrales, 524 U. S., at 7. The existence of criminally generated proceeds was a circumstance element of the offense but the proscribed conduct— defendant’s money laundering activity — occurred “‘after the fact’ of an offense begun and completed by others.” Ibid. Here, by contrast, given the "during and in relation to” language, the underlying crime of violence is a critical part of the § 924(c)(1) offense.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Per Curiam.
The Court is advised that, on May 26, 1951, the Oklahoma Legislature repealed Okla. Stat., 1941 (Cum. Supp. 1949), Tit. 52, §§ 286.1-286.17, the constitutionality of which is drawn in question by these appeals. The causes are therefore ordered/ continued for such period as will enable appellants with all convenient speed to secure in an appropriate state proceeding a determination as to the effect of this repeal on the matters raised in these appeals.
Cause' continued.
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the ideological "direction" of the decision ("liberal", "conservative", or "unspecifiable"). Use "unspecifiable" if the issue does not lend itself to a liberal or conservative description (e.g., a boundary dispute between two states, real property, wills and estates), or because no convention exists as to which is the liberal side and which is the conservative side (e.g., the legislative veto). Specification of the ideological direction comports with conventional usage. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. In interstate relations and private law issues, consider unspecifiable in all cases.
Mr. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
As originally enacted, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 required every employer to pay each of his employees “engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce” a certain minimum hourly wage, and to pay at a higher rate for work in excess of a certain maximum number of hours per week. The Act defined the term “employer” so as to exclude “the United States or any State or political subdivision of a State . ...” This case involves the constitutionality of two sets of amendments to the original enactment.
In 1961, Congress changed the basis of employee coverage: instead of extending protection to employees individually connected to interstate commerce, the Act now covers all employees of any “enterprise” engaged in commerce or production for commerce, provided the enterprise also falls within certain listed categories. In 1966, Congress added to the list of categories the following:
“(4) is engaged in the operation of a hospital, an institution primarily engaged in the care of the sick, the aged, the mentally ill or defective who reside on the premises of such institution, a school for the mentally or physically handicapped or gifted children, an elementary or secondary school, or an institution of higher education (regardless of whether or not such hospital, institution, or school is public or private or operated for profit or not for profit).”
At the same time, Congress modified the definition of “employer” so as to remove the exemption of the States and their political subdivisions with respect to employees of hospitals, institutions, and schools.
The State of Maryland, since joined by 27 other States and one school district, brought this action against the Secretary of Labor to enjoin enforcement of the Act insofar as it now applies to schools and hospitals -operated by the States or their subdivisions. The plaintiffs made four contentions. They argued that the expansion of coverage through the “enterprise concept” was beyond the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause. They contended that coverage of state-operated hospitals and schools was also beyond the commerce power. They asserted that the remedial provisions of the Act, if applied to the States, would conflict with the Eleventh Amendment. Finally, they urged that even if their constitutional arguments were rejected, the court should declare that schools and hospitals, as enterprises, do not have the statutorily required relationship to interstate commerce.
A three-judge district court, convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2282, declined to issue a declaratory judgment or an injunction. Three opinions were written. Judges Winter and Thomsen, constituting the majority, concluded for different reasons that the adoption of the “enterprise concept” of coverage and the extension of coverage to state institutions could not be said, on the face of the Act, to exceed Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause. Both declined to consider the Eleventh Amendment and statutory contentions. Judge Northrop dissented, concluding that the amendments exceeded the commerce power because they transgressed the sovereignty of the States.
We noted probable jurisdiction of the plaintiffs’ appeal, 389 U. S. 1031. For reasons to follow, we affirm the judgment of the District Court.
I.
We turn first to the adoption in 1961 of the “enterprise concept.” Whereas the Act originally extended to every employee “who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce,” it now protects every employee who “is employed in an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce.” Such an enterprise is defined as one which, along with other qualifications, “has employees engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce ....” Thus the effect of the 1961 change was to extend protection to the fellow employees of any employee who would have been protected by the original Act, but not to enlarge the class of employers subject to the Act.
In United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, this Court found the original Act a legitimate exercise of congressional power to regulate commerce among the States. Appellants accept the Darby decision, but contend that the extension of protection to fellow employees of those originally covered exceeds the commerce power. We conclude, to the contrary, that the constitutionality of the “enterprise concept” is settled by the reasoning of Darby itself and is independently established by principles stated in other cases.
Darby involved employees who were engaged in producing goods for commerce. Their employer contended that since manufacturing is itself an intrastate activity, Congress had no power to regulate the wages and hours of manufacturing employees. The first step in the Court’s answer was clear: “[Congress may] by appropriate legislation regulate intrastate activities where they have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.”
The next step was to discover whether such a “substantial effect” existed. Congress had found that substandard wages and excessive hours, when imposed on employees of a company shipping goods into other States, gave the exporting company an advantage over companies in the importing States. Having so found, Congress decided as a matter of policy that such an advantage in interstate competition was an “unfair” one, and one that had the additional undesirable effect of driving down labor conditions in the importing States. This Court was of course concerned only with the finding of a substantial effect on interstate competition, and not with the consequent policy decisions. In accepting the congressional finding, the Court followed principles of judicial review only recently rearticulated in Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294, 303-304:
"Of course, the mere fact that Congress has said when particular activity shall be deemed to affect commerce does not preclude further examination by this Court. But where we find that the legislators . . . have a rational basis for finding a chosen regulatory scheme necessary to the protection of commerce, our investigation is at an end.”
There was obviously a “rational basis” for the logical inference that the pay and hours of production employees affect a company’s competitive position.
The logical inference does not stop with production employees. When a company does an interstate business, its competition with companies elsewhere is affected by all its significant labor costs, not merely by the wages and hours of those employees who have physical contact with the goods in question. Consequently, it is not surprising that this Court has already explicitly recognized that Congress’ original choice to extend the Act only to certain employees of interstate enterprises was not constitutionally compelled; rather, Congress decided, at that time, “not to enter areas which it might have occupied [under the commerce power].” Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U. S. 517, 522.
The “enterprise concept” is also supported by a wholly different line of analysis. In the original Act, Congress stated its finding that substandard labor conditions tended to lead to labor disputes and strikes, and that when such strife disrupted businesses involved in interstate commerce, the flow of goods in commerce was itself affected. Congress therefore chose to promote labor peace by regulation of subject matter, wages, and hours, out of which disputes frequently arise. This objective is particularly relevant where, as here, the enterprises in question are significant importers of goods from other States.
Although the Court did not examine this second objective in Darby, other cases have found a “rational basis” for statutes regulating labor conditions in order to protect interstate commerce from labor strife. The National Labor Relations Act had been passed because
“[t]he denial by employers of the right of employees to organize and the refusal by employers to accept the procedure of collective bargaining lead to strikes and other forms of industrial strife or unrest, which have the intent or the necessary effect of burdening or obstructing commerce . . . .”
In Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin, 301 U. S. 1, this Court held that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was within the commerce power. The essence of the decision was contained in two propositions: “the stoppage of those [respondent’s] operations by industrial strife would have a most serious effect upon interstate commerce,” id., at 41; and “[experience has abundantly-demonstrated that the recognition of the right of employees to self-organization and to have representatives of their own choosing for the purpose of collective bargaining is often an essential condition of industrial peace.” Id., at 42.
The Fair Labor Standards Act, including the present “enterprise” definition of coverage, may also be supported by two propositions. One is identical with the first proposition supporting the NLRA: strife disrupting an enterprise involved in commerce may disrupt commerce. The other is parallel to the second proposition supporting the NLRA: there is a basis in logic and experience for the conclusion that substandard labor conditions among any group of employees, whether or not they are personally engaged in commerce or production, may lead to strife disrupting an entire enterprise.
Whether the “enterprise concept” is defended on the “competition” theory or on the “labor dispute” theory, it is true that labor conditions in businesses having only a few employees engaged in commerce or production may not affect commerce very much or very often. Appellants therefore contend that defining covered enterprises in terms of their employees is sometimes to permit “the tail to wag the dog.” However, while Congress has in some instances left to the courts or to administrative agencies the task of determining whether commerce is affected in a particular instance, Darby itself recognized the power of Congress instead to declare that an entire class of activities affects commerce. The only question for the courts is then whether the class is “within the reach of the federal power.” The contention that in Commerce Clause cases the courts have power to excise, as trivial, individual instances falling within a rationally defined class of activities has been put entirely to rest. Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 127-128; Polish Alliance v. Labor Board, 322 U. S. 643, 648; Katzenbach v. McClung, supra, at 301. The class of employers subject to the Act was not enlarged by the addition of the enterprise concept. The definition of that class is as rational now as it was when Darby was decided.
II.
Appellants’ second contention is that the commerce power does not afford a constitutional basis for extension of the Act to schools and hospitals operated by the States or their subdivisions. Since the argument is made in terms of interference with “sovereign state functions,” it is important to note exactly what the Act does. Although it applies to “employees,” the Act specifically exempts any “employee employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity (including any employee employed in the capacity of academic administrative personnel or teacher in elementary or secondary schools) . ...” We assume, as did the District Court, that medical personnel are likewise excluded from coverage under the general language. The Act establishes only a minimum wage and a maximum limit of hours unless overtime wages are paid, and does not otherwise affect the way in which school and hospital duties are performed. Thus appellants’ characterization of the question in this case as whether Congress may, under the guise of the commerce power, tell the States how to perform medical and educational functions is not factually accurate. Congress has “interfered with” these state functions only to the extent of providing that when a State employs people in performing such functions it is subject to the same restrictions as a wide range of other employers whose activities affect commerce, including privately operated schools and hospitals.
It is clear that labor conditions in schools and hospitals can affect commerce. The facts stipulated in this case indicate that such institutions are major users of goods imported from other States. For example:
“In the current fiscal year an estimated $38.3 billion will be spent by State and local public educational institutions in the United States. In the fiscal year 1965, these same authorities spent $3.9 billion operating public hospitals. . . .
“For Maryland, which was stipulated to be typical of the plaintiff States, 87% of the $8 million spent for supplies and equipment by its public school system during the fiscal year 1965 represented direct interstate purchases. Over 55% of the $576,000 spent for drugs, x-ray supplies and equipment and hospital beds by the University of Maryland Hospital and seven other state hospitals were out-of-state purchases.”
Similar figures were supplied for other States. Strikes and work stoppages involving employees of schools and hospitals, events which unfortunately are not infrequent, obviously interrupt and burden this flow of goods across state lines. It is therefore clear that a “rational basis” exists for congressional action prescribing minimum labor standards for schools and hospitals, as for other importing enterprises.
Indeed, appellants do not contend that labor conditions in all schools and hospitals are without the reach of the commerce power, but only that the Act may not be constitutionally applied to state-operated institutions because that power must yield to state sovereignty in the performance of governmental functions. This argument simply is not tenable. There is no general
“doctrine implied in the Federal Constitution that ‘the two governments, national and state, are each to exercise its powers so as not to interfere with the free and full exercise of the powers of the other/ ” Case v. Bowles, 327 U. S. 92, 101.
In the first place, it is clear that the Federal Government, when acting within a delegated power, may override countervailing state interests whether these be described as “governmental” or “proprietary” in character. As long ago as Sanitary District v. United States, 266 U. S. 405, the Court put to rest the contention that state concerns might constitutionally “outweigh” the importance of an otherwise valid federal statute regulating commerce. Congress had imposed statutory limits on the diversion of water from Lake Michigan. A unanimous Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Holmes, declared that the sanitary district’s alleged need for more water than federal law allowed was “irrelevant” because federal power over commerce is “superior to that of the States to provide for the welfare or necessities of their inhabitants.” Id., at 426. See Oklahoma v. Atkinson Co., 313 U. S. 508.
There remains, of course, the question whether any particular statute is an “otherwise valid regulation of commerce.” This Court has always recognized that the power to regulate commerce, though broad indeed, has limits. Mr. Chief Justice Marshall paused to recognize those limits in the course of the opinion that first staked out the vast expanse of federal authority over the economic life of the new Nation. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 194-195. Mr. Chief Justice Hughes, speaking only one Term after he delivered the opinion for the Court in Jones & Laughlin, supra, put the matter thus:
“The subject of federal power is still ‘commerce,’ and not all commerce but commerce with foreign nations and among the several States. The expansion of enterprise has vastly increased the interests of interstate commerce but the constitutional differentiation still obtains.” Santa Cruz Co. v. Labor Board, 303 U. S. 453, 466.
The Court has ample power to prevent what the appellants purport to fear, “the utter destruction of the State as a sovereign political entity.”
But while the commerce power has limits, valid general regulations of commerce do not cease to be regulations of commerce because a State is involved. If a State is engaging in economic activities that are validly regulated by the Federal Government when engaged in by private persons, the State too may be forced to conform its activities to federal regulation. This was settled by the unanimous decision in United States v. California, 297 U. S. 175. The question was whether a railroad, operated by the State, and entirely within the State, as a nonprofit venture for the purpose of facilitating transportation at a port, was nevertheless subject, like other railroads, to the Safety Appliance Act. The Court first held that although the railroad operated only between points in California, it was within the reach of federal regulation of interstate rail transportation. 297 U. S., at 181-183. The Court then proceeded to consider the claim that the State “is not subject to the federal Safety Appliance Act/’ and reasoned as follows:
“[W]e think it unimportant to say whether the state conducts its railroad in its 'sovereign’ or in its 'private’ capacity. That in operating its railroad it is acting within a power reserved to the states cannot be doubted. The only question we need consider is whether the exercise of that power, in whatever capacity, must be in subordination to the power to regulate interstate commerce, which has been granted specifically to the national government. The sovereign power of the states is necessarily diminished to the extent of the grants of power to the federal government in the Constitution.
"[W]e look to the activities in which the states have traditionally engaged as marking the boundary of the restriction upon the federal taxing power. But there is no such limitation upon the plenary power to regulate commerce. The state can no more deny the power if its exercise has been authorized by Congress than can an individual.” 297 U. S., at 183-185 (citations omitted).
See also Board of Trustees v. United States, 289 U. S. 48, where the Court rejected a claim of “state sovereignty” and held that a state university that imported scientific apparatus from abroad could be made to pay import duties imposed pursuant to the power over foreign commerce.
The principle of United States v. California is controlling here. Appellants’ argument that the statute involved there was somewhat more directly and obviously a regulation of “commerce,” and that the state activity involved there was less central to state sovereignty, misses the mark. This Court has examined and will continue to examine federal statutes to determine whether there is a rational basis for regarding them as regulations of commerce among the States. But it will not carve up the commerce power to protect enterprises indistinguishable in their effect on commerce from private businesses, simply because those enterprises happen to be run by the States for the benefit of their citizens.
III.
Appellants raise two further issues, both of which the District Court found it inappropriate to explore fully in a declaratory judgment proceeding. We agree. In each case we conclude that no showing has been made that warrants declaratory or injunctive relief. In neither instance, however, do we mean to preclude future consideration on the facts of individual cases.
The first question is whether the Act violates the States' sovereign immunity from suit guaranteed by the Eleventh Amendment. The Act provides as follows:
“Any employer who violates the provisions of section 206 [wages] or section 207 [hours] of this title shall be liable to the employee or employees affected in the amount of their unpaid minimum wages, or their unpaid overtime compensation as the case may be, and in an additional equal amount as liquidated damages. Action to recover such liability may be maintained in any court of competent jurisdiction . . . 29 U. S. C. § 216 (b).
The Act also provides for suits by the Secretary of Labor to recover unpaid minimum wages or overtime compensation, 29 U. S. C. § 216 (c) and for injunctive relief against violations, 29 U. S. C. § 217.
Percolating through each of these provisions for relief are interests of the United States and problems of immunity, agency, and consent to suit. Cf. Parden v. Terminal R. Co., 377 U. S. 184. The constitutionality of applying the substantive requirements of the Act to the States is not, in our view, affected by the possibility that one or more of the remedies the Act provides might not be available when a State is the employer-defendant. Particularly in light of the Act's “separability” provision, 29 U. S. C. § 219, we see no reason to strike down otherwise valid portions of the Act simply because other portions might not be constitutional as applied to hypothetical future cases. At the same time, we decline to be drawn into an abstract discussion of the numerous complex issues that might arise in connection with the Act’s various remedial provisions. They are almost impossible and most unnecessary to resolve in advance of particular facts, stated claims, and identified plaintiffs and defendants. Questions of state immunity are therefore reserved for appropriate future cases.
Appellants’ remaining contention presents similar problems. In order to be covered by the Act, an employer hospital or school must in fact have
“employees engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, including employees handling, selling, or otherwise working on goods that have been moved in or produced for commerce by any person . . . .” 29 U. S. C. § 203 (s) (1964 ed., Supp. II).
Appellants ask us to declare that hospitals and schools simply have no such employees. The word “goods” is elsewhere defined to exclude “goods after their delivery into' the actual physical possession of the ultimate consumer thereof other than a producer, manufacturer, or processor thereof.” 29 U. S. C. § 203 (i). Appellants contend that hospitals and schools are the ultimate consumers of the out-of-state products they buy, and hence none of their employees handles “goods” in the statutory sense.
We think the District Court was correct in declining to decide, in the abstract and in general, whether schools and hospitals have employees engaged in commerce or production. Such institutions, as a whole, obviously purchase a vast range of out-of-state commodities. These are put to a wide variety of uses, presumably ranging from physical incorporation of building materials into hospital and school structures, to over-the-counter sale for cash to patients, visitors, students, and teachers. Whether particular institutions have employees handling goods in commerce, cf. Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 317 U. S. 564, may be considered as occasion requires.
The judgment of the District Court is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
52 Stat. 1060.
§§ 6 (a), 7 (a), 52 Stat. 1062, 1063.
§ 3 (d), 52 Stat. 1060.
The minimum wage requirement, 29 U. S. C. §206 (1964 ed., Supp. II), now reads as follows: “(a) Every employer shall pay to each of his employees who in any workweek is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, or is employed in an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, wages at the following rates ...” The maximum hours requirement, 29 U. S. C. §207 (1964 ed., Supp. II), now contains a similar definition of covered employees. The term "enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce” is defined by 29 U. S. C. §203 (s) (1964 ed., Supp. II) to mean “an enterprise which has employees engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, including employees handling, selling, or otherwise working on goods that have been moved in or produced for commerce by any person, and which — [falls in any one of four listed categories] . . . .”
80 Stat. 832, 29 U. S. C. § 203 (s) (4) (1964 ed., Supp. II).
80 Stat. 831, 29 U. S. C. § 203 (d) (1964 ed., Supp. II).
29 U. S. C. §§216 (b), 216 (c), 217.
269 F. Supp. 826.
29 U. S. C. §§ 206 (a), 207 (a) (1964 ed., Supp. II).
29 U. S. C. § 203 (s) (1964 ed., Supp. II).
312 U. S., at 119. The Act prohibited both the interstate transportation of goods produced under substandard labor conditions, and the maintenance of such conditions themselves. The first prohibition, a restraint on commerce itself, was upheld against the contention that its real motive or purpose was to regulate manufacturing. The language quoted in the text answered a challenge to the second prohibition.
Section 2 of the Act, 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U. S. C. § 202, reads in part as follows:
“The Congress hereby finds that the existence, in industries engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, of labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers (1) causes commerce and the channels and instru-mentalities of commerce to be used to spread and perpetuate such labor conditions among the workers of the several States; (2) burdens commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; (3) constitutes an unfair method of competition in commerce . . . .”
In Katzenbach v. McClung, it appeared that Congress had undertaken extensive investigation of the commercial need for the statute there involved. A major contention of the appellants in the present case is that the legislative history of the amendments now before us lays no factual predicate for extensions of the original Act. To the extent that this is true, it is quite irrelevant. The original Act stated Congress’ findings and purposes as of 1938. Subsequent extensions of coverage were presumably based on similar findings and purposes with respect to the areas newly covered. We are not concerned with the manner in which Congress reached its factual conclusions.
Section 2, 29 U. S. C. § 202, declares in part that the existence of substandard labor conditions “leads to labor disputes burdening and obstructing commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce.”
See infra, at 194-195.
49 Stat. 449, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq.
§ 1, 49 Stat. 449.
312 U. S., at 120-121.
Ibid.
29 U. S. C. § 213 (1) (1964 ed., Supp. II).
See 269 F. Supp., at 832 (opinion of Judge Winter).
In the court below, Judge Thomsen was troubled by the application of the overtime provisions to school and hospital personnel, who may have different arrangements for hours of work than employees of other enterprises. 269 F. Supp., at 851. Congress indicated its attention to this problem in 29 U. S. C. § 207 (1964 ed., Supp. II), which provides special means of computing hospital overtime. That this provision may seem to some inadequate, and that no similar provision was made in the case of schools, are matters outside judicial cognizance. The Act’s overtime provisions apply to a wide range of enterprises, with differing patterns of worktime; they were intended to change some of those patterns. It is not for the courts to decide that such changes as may be required are beneficial in the case of some industries and harmful in others.
269 F. Supp., at 833 (opinion of Judge Winter).
See ibid.
See U. S. Department of Labor, Summary Release, Work Stoppages Involving Government Employees, 1966.
Both under the present Act and the National Labor Relations Act, numerous cases have held that the engagement of an enterprise in interstate commerce may consist of importation. E. g., Wirtz v. Hardin & Co., 253 F. Supp. 579, aff’d, 359 F. 2d 792 (FLSA); N. L. R. B. v. Baker Hotel, 311 F. 2d 528 (NLRA).
The dissent suggests that by use of an “enterprise concept” such as that we have upheld here, Congress could under today’s decision declare a whole State an “enterprise” affecting commerce and take over its budgeting activities. This reflects, we think, a misreading of the Act, of Wickard v. Filburn, supra, and of our decision.. The Act’s definition of “enterprise” reads in part as follows:
“ ‘Enterprise’ means the related activities performed (either through unified operation or common control) by any person or persons for a common business purpose . . . but shall not include the related activities performed for such enterprise by an independent contractor . . . .” 29 U. S. C. §203(r).
We uphold the enterprise concept on the explicit premise that an “enterprise” is a set of operations whose activities in commerce would all be expected to be affected by the wages and hours of any group of employees, which is what Congress obviously intended. So defined, the term is quite cognizant of limitations on the commerce power. Neither here nor in Wickard has the Court declared that Congress may use a relatively trivial impact on commerce as an excuse for broad general regulation of state or private activities. The Court has said only that where a general regulatory statute bears a substantial relation to commerce, the de minimis character of individual instances arising under that statute is of no consequence.
Nor is it relevant that Congress originally chose to exempt all state enterprises and later partially removed that exemption. Congress was as free to include state activities within the general regulation at a later date as it would have been to omit the exemption in the first place.
“The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.”
Question: What is the ideological direction of the decision?
A. Conservative
B. Liberal
C. Unspecifiable
Answer:
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B
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sc_decisiondirection
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