PrawfsBlawg

Time to Channel Madison

Alexander Hamilton has been fashionable of late, but for a solution to our extreme political polarization, we should look to James Madison. As Madison recognized, people are not angels. We cannot rely on the virtue of government officers to do the right thing. Rather, we need to design our political system in a way that creates the proper incentives for public-spirited conduct by elected officials.

To be sure, Madison didn’t get it all right. While he was correct on theory and many of the practicalities, he came up short on implementation. The critical structural flaw in our political system lies in its “winner-take-all” nature. That feature does much to fuel our high levels of partisan conflict. My experience as a state legislator made this clear.

Like many first-time candidates, I pledged to judge ideas by whether they were good or bad, not by whether they were Democratic or Republican. And as a three-term legislator, I worked across party lines regularly. But I also found that try as one might to stay above the partisan fray, one inevitably gets sucked in. That’s because each side understands that if it gains control of the levers of government power, it can promote its agenda, while if the other side gains control of government power, there is little that can be done to achieve one's own goals or to stop the other side from achieving its goals. Recent Supreme Court appointments are illustrative.

Our political system has many winner-take-all features. For example, whoever prevails in the battle for the presidency gains 100% of the executive power even if the victor triumphs by the barest of margins. This denies meaningful representation to half of the public in the most important policymaking office in the world, and as a result, it invites levels of competition and conflict that are intense, excessive, and harmful to social welfare. Winner-take-all politics also dominates elections for Congress and a judiciary where major decisions can be decided by a conservative or liberal majority.

Instead of cooperation for the overall good, we get tit-for-tat politics that escalates rather than resolves conflict. Thus, for example, Senate Democrats eliminated the filibuster for lower court appointments, and Republicans responded by eliminating the filibuster for Supreme Court appointments. 

In a winner-take-all world, we also see candidates increasingly promoting agendas that will mobilize their bases rather than appeal across party lines. It’s no surprise that U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg concluded that a more moderate campaign would face stiff headwinds in a race for the Democratic nomination.

To address winner-take-all politics, we should look across the Atlantic to countries where power is shared across partisan lines, and elected officials from both sides of the political spectrum have a say in the making of governmental policy. For example, in Switzerland, all of the major parties hold seats in the executive branch (the cabinet), and the cabinet ministers decide by consensus. Power-sharing makes for better representation and less conflict. It also makes for better policy—two heads really are better than one. If we want to bridge societal divides, we need to ensure that everyone’s voice is heard in the halls of power.

More right-wing snowflakes are outraged

This story about calls by some UC-Davis students and California Republicans for the firing of a Davis professor who called (on Twitter, several years ago) for the killing of police officers reminds me of a comment I made last summer about calls by the Broward County Police Benevolent Association to boycott the Miami Dophins for not forcing players to stand. The political right, on and off campus, has as little patience for objectionable speech as the political left and is as ready to call for boycotts and firing of speakers who say mean things they do not like.

The Davis situation and the Dolphin situation share another similarity (as does the ongoing controversy at Sarah Lawrence College, which has gotten far greater attention but is still a call to sanction a professor for "expressing his views"). As one person put it on Twitter: "[T]erms that absolutely no one in the media has used so far to describe this episode include snowflakes, call-out culture, victimhood culture, outrage culture, cancelled, coddled, PC run amok, censorship, self-censorship, fragility, identity politics, or micro-aggressions."

And just to head-off a response: The prof's speech, while obnoxious, is constitutionally protected and comes nowhere close to incitement.

Another right is clearly established--flipping cops the bird

So says the Sixth Circuit (h/t: Volokh). At least for the moment--the court only affirmed denial of defendant's 12(c) motion.

Michael Cohen and Prosecutorial Overreach

As the House Oversight Committee hearing this week reminded us, Donald Trump has given special counsel Robert Mueller and the Department of Justice plenty of reason to investigate him and his aides for misconduct. The Trump campaign’s ties with Russia may have compromised the integrity of our elections. Trump’s business dealings in Russia may have led him to sacrifice U.S. foreign policy interests in favor of his personal financial interests. And Trump’s efforts to hide all of this may constitute obstruction of justice.

But while we should welcome efforts to hold the President accountable for his misdeeds, we should reject the prosecutorial overreach that has occurred in the plea agreement with Michael Cohen. It was wrong for federal prosecutors to use campaign finance law to bring charges over the “hush money” payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. And it would be wrong to go after the President because of the payments.

The prosecutors’ campaign finance allegations are dubious. Indeed, similar charges were unsuccessful when filed against John Edwards after his failed bid for the presidency in 2008.

Under the prosecutors’ theory of the case, Trump should have made the payments directly to Daniels and McDougal and disclosed the payments on his campaign finance reports. That would have been legal.

But if Trump had taken that path, it would have become clear very quickly that he paid the two women not to reveal his affairs with them. Trump needed to funnel his payments through Cohen to keep his intimate relationships private. So while the charges against Cohen alleged violations of campaign contribution limits, the charges ultimately boiled down to the idea that Trump could not maintain his privacy about his sex life once he announced his candidacy.

Prosecutors should not interpret election law in a way that requires candidates to open for public scrutiny their consensual, intimate relationships. Candidates lose much of their privacy when they run for office. Their financial status and their health status are fair game. But hiding Trump’s affairs did not deny voters any information that was a legitimate matter of public concern during the 2016 presidential campaign. Neither Daniels nor McDougal has alleged sexual harassment, sexual assault, or other abuse by Trump. This was not a #MeToo moment. Voters do not have a meaningful interest in knowing about a candidate’s consensual, intimate relationships.

Some observers have argued that we were entitled to know whether Trump cheated on his spouses because it spoke to his fitness to serve. But there is no good evidence connecting marital infidelity with quality of service. Jimmy Carter was faithful, JFK was not.

In any event, we do not have to worry that the public was misinformed about Trump regarding his sex life. Anyone who cared about his marital infidelity already knew he cheated on his spouses. They also already knew he engaged in much worse sexual conduct—the sexual assaults that he described in the Access Hollywood tapes. Voters who cared about marital fidelity knew what they were getting in Trump, and they either voted against him for that and other reasons, or they voted for him because they felt the advantages of a Trump presidency outweighed his personal failings.

There are serious downsides to prosecuting candidates who try to hide information about consensual, intimate relationships. When the government starts policing the bedroom, it does more harm than good. Suppose a candidate for office is running in a community unfriendly to the LGTBQ community, and the candidate is secretly gay. A former lover threatens to disclose their relationship, and the candidate pays hush money. Is it a good idea to bring criminal charges against the candidate for violating campaign finance laws?

These kinds of charges may discourage many desirable candidates from running. It is already true that many worthy candidates do not run for office because of the intrusive scrutiny on their personal lives. Potential candidates with an adulterous affair in the past may decide against a campaign to spare their spouses and children of the publicity that will ensue.

We should know lots more information about President Trump’s relationships with Russia and how their ties may have influenced our elections and our foreign policies. But we should not turn consensual intimate relationships into criminal violations.

Lawyers, counselors, and wrongdoing

Scott Greenfield of Simple Justice takes strong issue with Adam Benforado's criticism of the lawyers in "hiding abuse, silencing + further harming victims, and protecting abusers." Greenfield cannot understand how a law professor does not realize that "even members of the clergy accused of abuse are entitled to constitutional rights, including the right to effective assistance of counsel." To "decide beforehand that a defendant is unworthy of lawyers honoring their oath and respecting the constitutional rights of their clients . . . is to make the ends justify the means."

It seems to me that this is too narrow a view of the lawyer's role, particularly the lawyers for the Church, as opposed to the lawyers for any priests charged with a crime. Greenfield is right with respect to the lawyers representing priests charged with crimes and defending them in a criminal prosecution.

The scandal was the Church's failure to do stop the misconduct by its priests--moving them to different parishes, allowing them to continue working with children, threatening and manipulating would-be accusers. The scandal was the institution's internal management where it identified and recognized wrongdoing and not only did not stop or punish it, but affirmatively enabled it to continue. And the lawyers for the Church helped that. I read  Adam as criticizing those lawyers. One vision of the attorney role is as counselor, helping that institutional client do the "right" thing in response to that identified wrongdoing, rather than helping the institution to further enable it. If for no other reason than that when the wrongdoing is exposed--and it always is exposed--the fallout for the client will be even worse and more costly, so helping the client do the right thing also protects the client's interests.

Everyone needs a lawyer

So argues Ken White (of Popehat fame) about yesterday's Michael Cohen hearing. Everyone needed the unique skills that trial lawyers provide about how to behave as a witness (Cohen), how to handle a sleazeball witness who helps you (Committee Democrats), and how to conduct cross examination without just loudly attacking the witness (Committee Republicans). It dovetails with this argument that real oversight requires the hiring of skilled lawyers to conduct the questioning, not grandstanding political figures.

Paying for Public Records

Much to the delight of legal reporters and researchers who study the courts, PACER fees are under attack.  A lawsuit challenging the fees is pending in the Federal Circuit, and the media coverage of the suit is decidedly in favor of the plaintiffs. PACER allows the public to electronically access motions, complaints, briefs, and other documents filed in federal cases.  It charges a fee of $0.10 per page, which is far more than what it costs the courts to store these documents and make them available to the public.  By one estimate, “the cost of retrieving a document from PACER—including the cost  of  data  storage with a  secure  service  used  by many  federal  agencies—[is] only $0.0000006 per page.”  As the New Republic reported: “The PACER system itself brought in more than $146 million in fees during the 2016 fiscal year, even though it cost just over $3 million to operate.”  The courts use the extra money to fund other projects, such as courtroom technology needs, that would otherwise be paid for by funds appropriated by Congress.

It appears that the PACER litigation will ultimately turn on a question of statutory interpretation involving the legislation that created the program and allowed for the collection of these fees.  But I’m interested in the case because it raises larger issues about access to public documents.

You see, for the past year, I’ve been conducting a massive research project in which I collect the campaign finance documents for every candidate who ran for district attorney and enter information about the campaign contributions into a database.  (You can learn more about the project here. You can see a summary of our data here.  And our raw data is being compiled here.)

Because we are collecting information from all 46 states that elect their local prosecutors, I’ve been dealing with dramatically different public records regimes while collecting this data.  Some states are fantastic—they put this information online in a centralized state database.  Some even fully digitize that information, allowing you to search not only by candidate, but also by donor.  Other states have decided to leave the collection of campaign finance information to the counties.  And some counties do a terrible job providing access to that information.

More than one county has informed me that they have been unable to locate these records.  Some can’t find the records because they do not have a formal filing system.  Some can’t find them because they keep only paper copies of these records, which were damaged through some sort of accident.

Other counties do a perfectly good job retaining these records.  But they refuse to allow access to the records without significant payment.  For example, one county in North Dakota insisted that I send a check for $50 before they would even look for the responsive documents.  And while I can understand why counties would need to charge for making physical copies and mailing those copies, some counties insist on charging fees for emailing documents—treating email pages no differently than physical copies for fee purposes.  (Here is a recent op ed that I co-authored with a student that describes some specific problems in Kansas.)

I have even encountered counties that charge fees higher than what is permitted by their state open records laws.  One county has a posted fee schedule of $1.00 per page, even though state law only permits charges of 25 cents.  When I asked about the discrepancy, the county clerk responded by waiving the fee.  Another county in different state with a 25 cent per page cap invoiced me for 50 cents per page.  When asked about the cap, the county insisted it had made a mistake—of course they only meant to charge me the statutorily-permitted fees. 

Because I work for a public institution, I routinely asked that these fees be waived.  A small number of counties granted those requests.  But most didn’t.

The responses that I received when I asked for a waiver were interesting.  Some counties said that they never grant waivers—even though the state statutes specifically give them the power to waive—because they want to treat everyone the same.  Several county officials told me that they were unable to grant waivers because their offices depended on these fees to stay operational.  Their state and local governments have cut their tax revenues to such a degree that they cannot afford to operate their county offices without charging people fees.  In other words, the offices were charging these fees not only to support the time an effort of responding to individual requests, but also to offset the ordinary costs of running their government office.  They were using these fees to make up the shortfalls in their budgets.

I find that state of affairs very troubling.  I appreciate that user fees are quite popular, and that they are touted as an efficient way to ensure that those who are actually benefiting from services are the ones paying for them. But even if you might ordinarily support user fees for some government services, I don’t think it is a good idea to depend on fees to run your government.  Governments aren’t business; they are governments.  And we should make sure that they operate even when people don’t “buy” their goods and services.

I am especially troubled at the idea of charging fees for information like campaign finance data.  That is because we make campaign finance data publicly available in order to ensure transparency and accountability.  For example, if my DA failing to indict officers involved shootings of civilians, I need to know if she is also taking money from police unions.  I need to know because it helps me to evaluate her charging decisions.  And if I disagree with my DAs charging decisions, my only recourse is to vote her out of office.  But I need to understand those decisions in order to make an informed decision at the ballot box.  But if my county clerk is going to charge me $50 before even trying to locate those documents, then I am less likely to request them and thus less likely to find out about the donations.  What’s worse, the people who aren’t going to spend $50 to check the campaign finance records of their elected officials are also the same people who are unlikely to be donating to campaigns.  Put differently, it seems bizarre that one of the most important checks we have on money in politics—transparency about that money—can be frustrated by requiring people to pay additional money in order to get access to that transparency.

I am glad that PACER fees are facing scrutiny.  And I am hopeful that they will be lowered.  But I hope that our conversation about document access fees can extend beyond the federal courts.  Some state courts charge even higher fees than PACER.  More importantly, if we decide to deal with issues like corruption through disclosures rather than direct regulation—i.e., making campaign finance information publicly available rather than outlawing campaign contributions—then we shouldn’t charge fees to see those disclosures.

More personal jurisdiction on the internet

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the threatened defamation lawsuits by the students at Covington Catholic against journalists who tweeted about the incident. I wondered whether there would be personal jurisdiction in Kentucky--whether there was enough Kentuckiness (beyond the plaintiffs being from there) to satisfy Walden/Calder.

An analytical hint (from within the Sixth Circuit) comes from the Eastern District of Michigan in an action brought by two men wrongly reported as the driver and owner of the car that struck and killed Heather Heyer in Charlottesville in 2017; defendants were a news organization and bunch of individuals who tweeted or circulated the news reports. Three individuals (one in California, one in Wisconsin, and one in Indiana) challenged personal jurisdiction. The court explored cases (including Clemens v. McNamee) to establish the principle that the defamatory statements must involve the forum state in some way other than being about someone from that forum.

The California defendant was subject to jurisdiction because she had doxed the plaintiffs, republishing information about their physical home in Michigan. This allowed the inference that she was attempting to cause action in Michigan or to catch the attention of people in Michigan.* By contrast, the two defendants who had merely retweeted or circulated a news article identifying the plaintiffs as the driver did not satisfy the effects test, because there was "nothing 'Michigan'" about circulating the article identifying a Michigander as the driver.

[*] The "traditional notions" prong carried some heft as to the California defendant, a disabled elderly woman living on social security. The court recognized the hardship, but found the state interest to prevail in the balance.

So where does this analysis leave the potential defendants as to Covington Catholic? Were the tweets identifying the students as from Kentucky, criticizing and calling on the Kentucky-based school to take action "sufficiently 'Kentucky'"? That will be the question.

Your new civ pro exam question

A lawyer in Kentucky is threatening to sue a whole lot of people for defamation for commenting on the videos of the Covington Catholic students at the Lincoln Memorial. He was excited by the fact that, because the kids were initially not public figures, he only has to prove negligence rather than actual malice. I believe he is going to have a hard time showing falsity or negligence, since much of the commentary was based on the speaker's interpretation of multiple videos from multiple angles that painted an at-least ambiguous picture. There also is a group-libel angle--one group of potential plaintiffs are Covington Catholic alumni, who claim they have been defamed by the negative comments about their school.

For now, I have a different question: Is there personal jurisdiction in Kentucky (where I assume he plans to sue) over reporters and others on Twitter who saw and commented on the video? Under an effects test, the statements must be directed at Kentucky. That the plaintiffs are from Kentucky is not enough, standing alone. The events being commented on occurred in Washington. The statements were sent to the world, not specifically (or primarily) to Kentucky. Many of the potential defendants have never set foot in Kentucky, certainly not as part of these events.

The counter might be that the students' "Kentuckiness" was part of the public commentary about them--everyone quickly knew and talked about where they were from and where they went to school and the connection of their homes to their presence in DC. And criticism of the school and Covington was part of the criticism of the students. Perhaps that is sufficient to establish purposeful direction at Kentucky.

The legal fiction of "clearly established"

Orin Kerr flags this Third Circuit decision holding that a Fourth Amendment right was not clearly established where a binding circuit decision was handed down two days before the events at issue. That was too short a time for the government to read and understand the case, develop new policies to reflect that case, and communicate those policies to the officer. Kerr ponders some interesting questions arising from the case about determining how long it takes for a right to become clearly established and what the government and/or the officer must do to learn the law.

It seems to me this exposes two problems in qualified-immunity law. One is the essentially fictitious nature of tying qualified immunity to factually similar case law--law-enforcement officers do not read or follow case law and they do not perform their daily functions thinking about how the instant situation compares or contrasts with a situation in other cases. Talking about "the law of which the officer would be aware" in terms of case law does not reflect how law enforcement operates.

Second is how the Third Circuit's focus on policymakers establishing policy to reflect the new decision and communicating that policy to the officers. This appears to collapse into municipal-liability analysis (in a case involving a municipality, as opposed to the federal or state governments, such as this one)--government policy and government training of officers is necessary to clearly establish, both hallmarks of municipal liability. So does this suggest that a right is clearly established only if a municipality would be liable for having policies contrary to law or for failing to train on those policies?

What is a "State of the Union Address"?

Nancy Pelosi has disinvited President Trump from coming the House of Representatives to deliver the State of the Union Address, given the "security concerns" created by the government shutdown. She proposes that they find another suitable date once the government has reopened or that he deliver the address in writing (as Pelosi notes was done prior to Woodrow Wilson) on the planned date of January 29.

But what is required for the President to "give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union"? Must the address be presented to Congress through the President's personal appearance in Congress or delivery of a written message to Congress? If the President gives a televised address from the Oval Office (or Mar-a-Lago or anywhere else) about the state of the union that everyone in Congress sees, has he given Congress that information?

And what is the inevitable next step in this escalation? Does Speaker McCarthy choose not to invite President Warren to the House at all, forcing her to deliver the address in writing only?

Indivisibility, incidentality, and universality

A judge in the Southern District of New York universally enjoined Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross from adding to the census a question about citizenship. The court addressed the government's attempts to squeeze the case into the debate over universal injunctions and to limit the injunction only to the plaintiffs, but found it an "odd fit." The court explained that "these cases do not involve the case-by-case enforcement of a particular policy or statute. Instead, it concerns a single decision about a single questionnaire, to be used on a single census throughout the nation." The alternative for Ross would be to use two census forms (one as to the people covered by the injunction, one as to everyone else), but that might violate both federal statutes and the Constitution and cause the harms (in terms of funding and representation) that the state plaintiffs complain about.

Without saying so, the court is describing a situation of an indivisible right and indivisible remedy. The only remedy protecting the named plaintiffs necessarily protects non-plaintiffs, because the proper census form is issued to everyone, plaintiff and non-plaintiff. This case is analogous to a gerrymander challenge to a congressional district--the remedy of redrawing the district cannot be limited to the plaintiff, but must protect everyone within the district. Or a challenge to a religious display--the remedy of removing the display cannot be limited to the plaintiff, but must protected everyone who also would come in contact with the display.

But such injunctions should not be understood as universal, in the sense of protecting non-parties. They are better understood as protecting the plaintiffs while incidentally benefiting non-parties. The difference may seem semantic, but it is procedurally significant. A person protected by an injunction can seek to enforce the injunction through a motion to enforce and a motion to hold the government in contempt. But that power should be limited to the parties who control the litigation. My framing does not change much about the injunction in this case--Ross is prohibited from issuing a census form containing a citizenship question. What changes is if Ross tried to make the two-form move: Only the parties could move to stop that as violating the injunction, not the non-parties incidentally protected.

Universal in name only

Sam Bray analyzes the recent split decisions over universal preliminary injunctions in challenges to the new ACA contraception rules--the Northern District of California limited the injunction to the plaintiff states, while the Eastern District of Pennsylvania made the injunction universal (labeling it nationwide, over course). Sam argues that the latter court offers the best justification for universality, with a particular focus on how the states cannot obtain complete relief from a limited injunction. For example, the court offered the problem of a NJ resident who works (and gets her insurance) from an entity in another state where the new regs apply and where the resident cannot get contraceptive coverage, causing her to turn to New Jersey to pay for it. Like Sam, I am not convinced by the analysis, although I agree it is one of the first courts to defend universality without defaulting to vague principles that make universality the norm.

I was struck by one thing at the end of the opinion. The court identifies the criticism that universal injunctions foreclose adjudication by a number of courts, but insists that is not a problem here, as shown by the contemporaneous N.D. California decision. And that has been true of much of the major constitutional litigation of recent years--multiple courts are adjudicating multiple challenges brought by multiple parties. We are getting percolation.

But that suggests that no court is serious in labeling its injunction universal. No court intends to enforce it as universal by holding the government in contempt, no court recognizes the purported universality of another court's injunction as a basis to stay its hand because its decision is unnecessary, and the government does not appear to treat any one injunction as the universal bar to enforcement. In other words, the government will not enforce the contraception regs in California because of the N.D. Cal particularized injunction, not the E.D. Pa. universal injunction. The latter is universal in name, but not in effect.

If I am right about that, the question becomes why bother. Why are courts going out on a controversial legal ledge to assert a controversial power with no intent to actually exercise it?

2018 Year-End Report

Chief Justice Roberts issued his 2018 Year-End Report. This year focused on the results of the investigation Federal Judiciary Workplace Conduct Working Group into the working conditions for law clerks and other judiciary employees and what is happening to implement those proposals with the Judicial Conference. As is his wont, the Chief began with a historical anecdote--the influence that law clerk Henry Friendly had on Justice Brandeis' dissent in Olmstead--and a paean to the work of law clerks and the symbiotic relationship between judges and clerks ("relationship is one of close association, candid intellectual exchange, and confidentiality"), on the centennial of Congress allocating funds for "legally trained assistants" for federal judges.

The report also briefly thanked court employees for keeping the courts operating in the face of another years of natural disasters--flooding in Florida and North Carolina, a typhoon in the Northern Marianas Islands, an earthquake in Alaska, and California fires.

The report closes with workload statistics for the year. Filings in the courts of appeals dropped two percent, while civil filings in district courts rose six percent. District courts saw a 17 percent increase in diversity cases with a 23 percent increase in personal-injury cases--the report does not say, but it would be interesting to see how much of the increase is tied to mass-tort cases going to federal court under CAFA's minimal-diversity requirement.

Judge in ACA case still needs to retake Fed Courts

District Judge O'Connor on Sunday paved the way for an appeal of his decision declaring all of ACA constitutionally invalid, issuing a Final Judgment on Count I in accordance with FRCP 54(b) and a separate Order of a Stay and Partial Final Judgment pending appeal. The latter document gives reasons for certifying partial final judgment and for granting the stay. As to the latter, the court goes to great lengths to explain why the intervenor-defendant states are unlikely to succeed on the merits on appeal, reiterating its standing, merits, and severability analyses from the original order, but concluding that the equities favor a stay.

As has been the case all along, Judge O'Connor continues to make jurisdictional errors.

Standing

Jonathan Adler has a good takedown of the expanded standing analysis, in which Judge O'Connor continues to find injury from the existence of a law absent any risk that the law could be enforced against the plaintiffs. The court relies on the correct principle that a person need not violate a law to have standing, but ignores that those cases required the plaintiff to show at least a genuine threat that the law would be enforced against him and that some penalty would result. He insists that no case requires an assessment of whether the plaintiff is injured by "disregarding" the law. It is true that courts do not put it in those terms, but that is implicit in the requirement of a threat of enforcement, which is triggered by someone disregarding the law.

O'Connor relies on Steffel v. Thompson, in which standing derived from Steffel's stated intention to resume handbilling and the express threat of the police to arrest him for trespassing (as they had his friend) if he did so. He also relies on Clements v. Fashing, in which the plaintiffs (challenging a state law that deemed candidacy for one office as resignation of an existing office) did not announce their candidacy for office, because that announcement would be deemed a resignation. That is, the plaintiffs in both cases would be subject to some mechanism for enforcing the law and it was that enforcement mechanism that caused the injury. In no case did the court find injury based on a statutory obligation that provided for no means of enforcement and no consequences.

O'Connor also tried to get cute, noting that "Chief Justice Marshall never asked whether William Marbury would be injured if he ignored the law and began serving as a justice of the peace without an official commission from James Madison." But that is because Marshall recognized that had Marbury done so, court personnel would have ignored him, not given him a courtroom in which to work, not carried out his orders, and perhaps asked the the Marshals physically remove him from the premises. All of which reflects the enforcement of the challenged law.

Two additional thoughts on standing. First, in a prior post, Adler analogizes the mandate-with-no-penalty to 4 U.S.C. § 8, which provides that "no disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America" and enumerates what civilians and civilian groups cannot do with the flag. Obviously, the law is unenforceable under Texas v. Johnson. But we never get there, because the U.S. Code provides no mechanism for enforcement and imposes no penalties for failing to follow those rules. No court would accord standing to a plaintiff who argues "I want to use the flag as a covering for a ceiling (prohibited by § 4(f)), but I am refraining from doing so because I do not want to break the law," because the plaintiff would suffer no enforcement and sanction for using the flag to cover the ceiling.

Second, standing was established in part because the ban, even if not enforced to keep these plaintiffs out of the United States, sent a message of religious exclusion and made them feel less than full members of the community because of their religion. Some critics of those decisions derided this as "snowflake standing"--the plaintiffs feel bad and are hurt in their delicate snowflake sensibilities. But that does not sound much different than what the plaintiffs are arguing here-they will feel bad (their delicate sensibilities undone) if they have to act contrary to what the written law, otherwise unenforceable, requires them to do.

Appellate Review

The point of these orders was to pave the way for immediate review of the declaratory judgment. All parties had asked for certification of interlocutory review under § 1292(b), but Judge O'Connor instead certified a final judgment on one-but-less-than-all claims. But on the Con Law listserv, Marty Lederman identified a problem--it is not clear that the court finally resolved even one claim. The plaintiffs asked for a declaration that the mandate is invalid and a permanent injunction prohibiting implementation or enforcement of ACA; the court granted the former, but never addressed or reached a conclusion as to the latter remedy. A judgment, even on one claim, may not be final if remedial issues remain on that count.

Another commenter on the listserv suggested two possible outs. One would be to deem the certification of finality as the denial of the injunction. A second would be to treat the improper Rule 54(b) certification as a § 1292(b) certification and proceed that way. Otherwise, the court would have to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction and send the case back to the district court to enter the injunction (thereby creating appellate jurisdiction under § 1292(a)(1)) or to certify under § 1292(b).

One question is why Judge O'Connor proceeded this way, since the parties all requested a § 1292(b) certification and not a 54(b) certification. One thought is that he did not want to certify that there could be "substantial ground for difference of opinion" as to constitutional validity or severability. O'Connor has gone to great rhetorical lengths in all of his opinions and orders to make this seem like an obvious, not-at-all-close case with one obvious result, in which defendants can prevail only by demanding that courts acts in an invalid, unlawful, illegitimate, impermissible activist way. Section 1292(b) would require Judge O'Connor to declare that it might be possible for a court, acting in a legitimate way, to reach a different conclusion. That he does not want to certify.

Standing in the ACA case

Good analysis from Nicholas Bagley (Michigan) about the standing problems for the two individual plaintiffs in the ACA litigation. A few additional thoughts.

• This illustrates how enforcement is the trigger for constitutional litigation, not the existence of a constitutionally defective law. An invalid legal obligation that will not be enforced cannot be the subject of litigation. An invalid legal obligation that will be enforced through a tax penalty of $ 0 is, functionally, a legal obligation that cannot be enforced. It still would be better if we discussed this as a question of merits and not jurisdictional thresholds. If these plaintiffs are not injured because the law cannot be enforced against them in any way, then their substantive constitutional rights are not being violated.

• The plaintiffs' argument that they are injured because they believe following the law is the right thing to do (even when that law is not enforceable) is the flip side of requiring government officials to act lawfully  or refrain from acting unlawfully (e.g., reservists in Congress, non-natural born citizens serving as President). Neither is a basis for standing.

• I have not seen any good argument that the 20+ States have standing. But the court skirted that question through the "one good plaintiff" rule--because someone had standing, the case could proceed without having to consider anyone else's standing. Update: In a companion piece, Bagley doubts that the 20 states have standing, which should mean the court cannot enjoin the Administration from enforcing the law as to him; in Bagley's words, the judge has "tied his own hands."

• Standing and jurisdiction have always been dicey in the ACA litigation; this case represents the latest and weakest effort. I wonder if the Fifth Circuit (or SCOTUS if it gets that far) will use that as the basis to get rid of this case, without having to touch the bizarre merits.

• Bagley describes standing doctrine as "near and dear to the hearts of the conservative legal establishment," so that even conservative judges on the Fifth Circuit (and Roberts and Kavanaugh on SCOTUS) will be unlikely to allow this sort of case to go forward. But the doctrine developed when the conservative legal establishment was trying to stop environmentalists from preserving the Nile crocodile, lawyers from challenging unwarranted surveillance of their foreign clients, and atheists from challenging states' creative ways to give government funds to parochial schools. This is the ideological drift of standing--the doctrine may not be so near and dear when it prevents "two guys from Texas" from taking down the nation's health-care system.

Deepening split on SLAPP laws in federal court

Earlier this month, SCOTUS denied cert in a case out of the Tenth Circuit holding that a state anti-SLAPP law does not apply in federal court under an Erie/Hanna analysis. This week, the Eleventh Circuit weighed in, agreeing that Georgia's law does not apply in an action action CNN.

If you are scoring at home, that is three circuits (1st, 5th, 9th) holding that SLAPP laws apply in federal court and three circuits (DC, 10th, 11th) holding they do not. The Ninth Circuit position is why Stormy Daniels owes Donald Trump $ 300,000 in attorney's fees. But the most recent cases are the three rejecting application.

I was surprised SCOTUS denied cert in the Tenth Circuit case, which had the benefit of using such egregiously incorrect analysis that it begged for correction, even if the Court agreed on the conclusion as to application. Maybe the Court will see the new case as a better vehicle, although because it involves reporting by a major-media outlet, it is less the paradigm SLAPP suit. Regardless, SCOTUS must weigh-in on this at some point.

Update: I have not hit this point in many posts on the subject, but in response to a few email queries: I believe the non-application side has the better argument. Rules 12 and 56 provide mechanisms and standards for weeding-out insufficiently pleaded or supported claims; they "answer the questions in dispute," leaving no room for state law to operate. And both rules are valid because arguably procedural and not abridging, enlarging, or modifying substantive rights. The issue is close and therefore makes a good exam or class hypothetical (I have used it for both).

9th Circuit taps the brakes (slightly) on universality

The ever-harrowed Ninth Circuit tapped the brakes slightly on district courts issuing universal injunctions. In affirming on the merits an injunction barring enforcement of religious opt-out rules from the contraception mandate in an action brought by five states, the court held that the district court abused its discretion in having the injunction extend beyond the plaintiffs.

The court hit a few important notes. It emphasized that universality is generally disfavored and especially disfavored absent class certification. It highlighted the problems with universal injunctions, including the loss of percolation of issues, the effects on non-plaintiffs, and the risks of forum shopping. And it applied the "complete relief" principle to conclude that a particularized injunction gives states complete relief from the economic harms the opt-out rule would impose on them. That other states may suffer similar harms did not affect the plaintiff states.

The court made clear that universal injunctions are not prohibited, but must be limited to cases in which broad relief is necessary. And it said the issue (as with an earlier case rejecting universality as to sanctuary cities) was a failure to develop the record as to other states, suggesting that building a better record may justify universality. 

But the court grappled with the scope question, a step back from recent hints from that court that universal injunctions were becoming the default, at least in certain cases.

The limits of civil litigation for exposing truth

The past week has brought to light the story of Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire hedge-fund manager and alleged sexual predator and child rapist. Epstein pleaded guilty to two state felony counts and served 13 months in unusually forgiving conditions, with a federal investigation and prosecution stopped in its tracks by a broad non-prosecution agreement.*

[*] Full disclosure; The former US Attorney at the center of the controversy, now Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta, was my dean from 2009-17.

The story has exploded now for two reasons. First is the Miami Herald's multi-part in-depth reporting on the case. Second is ongoing civil litigation--one case  by Epstein's victims in federal court claiming the federal settlement violated the Crime Victims Rights Act (which gives crime victims certain notice and other rights) and one case in state court by attorney Bradley Edwards. The latter began as a suit by Epstein against Edwards and his former partner, claiming the latter committed fraud, racketeering, and other crimes in investigating Epstein; Edwards filed a counterclaim for malicious prosecution, which remained alive after Epstein dropped his lawsuit. Trial on the counterclaim was scheduled to begin today, with Edwards expected to call at least seven of Epstein's victims to testify. But the case settled as the jury was being selected, with Epstein paying an undisclosed sum, conceding that he attempted to damage Edwards' professional reputation, and apologizing.

This illustrates the limits of civil litigation for exposing misconduct and revealing truth. The victim stories were tangential to this case, which was really about Epstein's conduct in filing the original lawsuit and Edwards' professional reputation. A settlement offer that resolves that central dispute is irresistible, even if it denies the victims the opportunity to tell their stories (the opportunity they claim they were denied by the actions of the U.S. Attorney's office). One perhaps might criticize Edwards for accepting the settlement rather than giving the victims the chance to testify, since that is what he was promoting as the point of the suit. (Following the settlement, he held a press conference outside the courthouse standing in front of the boxes of evidence he said he planned to present). But I doubt there was any way to avoid that. The judge would have pushed Edwards to accept a settlement that included the defending party admitting wrongdoing (as to Edwards, not as to the women) and apologizing. And had Edwards refused to settle, Epstein might have confessed judgment, rendering a trial on liability, and the women's testimony, unnecessary.

The next step is the federal action by the victims themselves. News reports indicate the plaintiffs hope the court will revoke the federal plea deal and allow the government to prosecute Epstein.

Backing off universality, at least for sanctuary cities

Judge Ramos Southern District of New York enjoined DOJ's sanctuary-city policies in an action brought by New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Washington, Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York City.  (H/T: Ilya Somin, who analyzes the substance of the decision).

Ramos declined to make the injunction universal, although not per se rejecting universality. He emphasized that no sanctuary-city injunctions have remained universal through appellate review and that recent decisions have stayed any non-particular application. The court did extend the injunction to each state's municipal subdivisions, concluding that subdivisions suffer the same injuries described earlier, which necessarily flow to the States by virtue of the subdivisions’ position within the States’ geographic boundaries and political systems, and which are compounded insofar as the States must make and monitor compliance with subdivisions’ subgrants with unlawful conditions." This is the converse of the  Ninth Circuit extending an injunction from party San Francisco to non-party California, because some grant funds sent to California were then distributed to San Francisco. Here, I presume, the state would have to cover any budgetary shortfall caused by the municipality's loss of DOJ funds. Either direction is consistent with the complete-relief requirement. But the court did not accept or apply the broader argument that some states and cities have urged (and that one AG presented during Q&A) that because DOJ has a limited pool of money and the size of the grants varies with the number of applicants, the injunction must be universal so that funds are not disproportionately allocated to non-sanctuary jurisdictions in a way that leaves nothing for sanctuary jurisdictions by the end of litigation.

In any event, this court's approach is a far cry from that of the Ninth Circuit in the DACA litigation, where the court seemed to approach universality as the default.

Guest Post: Come On, Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh! Doctrinal (and Intemperate) Error in the Timbs v. Indiana Oral Argument

The following post is from Rory Little (UC-Hastings and SCOTUSBlog).

It’s bad enough when a Supreme Court Justice expresses sarcastic impatience with an advocate; even experienced advocates are on edge when they appear in the nation’s highest court. Perhaps even worse when the advocate is a sovereign state’s Solicitor General.  But it really is inexcusable when the sarcasm is based on doctrinal error and thus wrong.  Here’s why that happened in last week’s oral argument in Timbs v. Indiana.

Background on the Timbs case and the Doctrine of Incorporation

The State of Indiana sought to forfeit Tyson Timbs’ $42,000 Land Rover after Timbs use it to transport small amounts of heroin to drug deals.  The Indiana Supreme Court declined to consider whether this violated the Eighth Amendment’s “no Excessive Fines” clause, because the U.S. Supreme Court has never definitively said that that clause is “incorporated” against the states (via the Fourteenth Amendment’s “no state shall” deny Due Process clause).  Whether or not Timbs should lose his vehicle, the Question presented in Timbs may seem easy: the doctrine of incorporation, developed only in the 20^th Century, is well-accepted. Most recently the Court ruled in 2010 in McDonald that the Second Amendment’s “right … to keep and bear arms” is incorporated and thereby governs state as well is federal actions.  Although it is surprising to many, the Bill of Rights was originally intended to apply only against the federal government, and for our first 100 years or more it was said to have no application to state actions.  However, after a century of litigation, all rights that are found to be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” “so as to be ranked as fundamental,” are now said (McDonald) to be “incorporated” against state action as part of due process.  This includes most – but see below, not all – of the Bill of Rights provisions.

The “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and traditions” test might be well-satisfied by the Eighth Amendment’s command that “excessive fines” shall not be “imposed” -- although the common practice in the early days of our Union of forfeiting entire ships used to run contraband might give an Originalist pause regarding whether a rule against the forfeiture of vessels of crime is in fact so “deeply rooted.”  (As Chief Justice Roberts noted at the Timbs argument “I certainly understand the argument that … with respect to forfeiting instrumentalities of the crime, … [i]t’s always proportionate since it’s the way the crime is accomplished.”)

But one thing is doctrinally clear: not all the rights specified in the Bill of Rights have been incorporated against the States.  For some rights, like the “no Excessive Fines” clause, this might merely be an accident of history.  (One can find a good discussion of “why hasn’t the excessive fines clause already been incorporated?” in the November 26 episode of “First Mondays” with Professors Beth Colgan and Dan Epps”)

The Fifth Amendment’s Grand Jury right has, and for good reason, not been incorporated

But for one Bill of Rights provision in particular – the Fifth Amendment’s right to be charged by a Grand Jury for any “capital or otherwise infamous crime” – the decision to not incorporate is long-standing and quite considered.  Every student and professor of Constitutional Criminal Procedure understands this intentional anomaly.  Yet, as recounted below, it appears to be a “blank spot” in the doctrinal understanding of the Court’s two newest Justices, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.

By way of quick summary, in 1884 in Hurtado v. California, the Supreme Court ruled in no uncertain terms that the Fifth Amendment’s grand jury provision need not bind the states.  The progressive 1879 Constitution of the young state of California had provided a new system, one viewed as more protective than the old grand jury system, permitting the charging of criminal defendants by a prosecutorial “information.”  California’s then-new Penal Code -- unlike secret, non-judicial, one-sided grand jury proceedings -- permitted the prosecution’s information to be immediately tested by a preliminary hearing, presided over by a judge, providing counsel for the defendant and allowing for cross-examination.  When Joseph Hurtado was charged with murder (and ultimately sentenced to death) based upon an information rather than grand jury indictment, the U.S. Supreme Court viewed it as a “question … of grave and serious import” whether the Fifth Amendment’s grand jury rule should be required, under the Fourteenth Amendment, to apply against the state.  In a thorough opinion (while certainly sounding different in some ways from today), the Court ruled that “progress [and] improvement” is not forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment, and that California’s information system, with all its additional protections for a defendant, was at least as protective of “principles of liberty and justice” as the grand jury system.

Hurtado has well stood the test of time.  Critics of the federal grand jury system are many.  Meanwhile, over half the states allow criminal charging by information rather than grand jury; and two states (Pennsylvania and Connecticut) have abolished the use of criminal charging grand juries entirely.)  Thus the respected NACDL (National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers), which has filed amicus on Timbs’ behalf regarding Excessive Fines, would surely oppose (as would others on all sides of the criminal justice aisle) incorporation of the Grand Jury clause.

Intemperate Doctrinal Error at the Timbs oral argument

This brings us, finally, to Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh at the Timbs oral argument (transcript is here).  Justice Gorsuch lit into Indian’s Solicitor General Thomas Fisher (who I do not know) from the start.  He demanded agreement that “the Excessive Fines Clause is incorporated against the states.”  When Fisher resisted (unsurprisingly, since that is the Question Presented), Justice Gorsuch persisted:

 I mean, most of the incorporation cases took place in like the 1940s.” [– this is an erroneous account in itself as virtually all the criminal procedure incorporation case were products of the 1960s Warren Court –]  And here we are in 2018 still litigating incorporation of the Bill of Rights.  Really?  Come on, General.

The audio on this last statement (audio of the argument is here) is undeniably harsh: Justice Gorsuch’s tone is, frankly, unbecoming.

Fisher politely stood his ground, and Justice Kavanaugh took up Gorsuch’s point -- although he at least had the courtesy to pose his view as questions, a fortunate method since in fact he and Justice Gorsuch were wrong:        

Isn’t it too late in the day to argue that any of the Bill of Rights is not incorporated? … [A]ren’t all the Bill of Rights at this point in our conception of what they stand for, the history of each of them, incorporated?

As you now know, these rhetorical questions and accusations – “Come on, General” -- are flatly, doctrinally, incorrect.  Hurtado stands in their way, fully and after 134 years of careful consideration. 

Conclusion

Why does any other this matter, you may wonder?  Errors must happen all the time even in Supreme Court arguments, right?  Why single these four pages of transcript out?

Two reasons.  First, my perhaps old-fashioned view is that a little bit of humility is a good thing for at least new Supreme Court Justices, especially regarding areas of the law in which they may not have deep experience.  Neither Justice Gorsuch or Kavanaugh has any substantial background in criminal law, and at the D.C. Circuit at least Justice Kavanaugh’s criminal law exposure was not extensive.

Second, and far more important, one must point out doctrinal errors if one can before they leak into published Supreme Court opinions, not after.  It would be a grave error to say, sarcastically or otherwise, that all the rights in the Bill of Rights have been incorporated.  And it would be a far more serious error to suggest that a carefully considered procedure such as criminal information-followed-by-preliminary-hearing charging is somehow in danger of being wiped out by slapdash dicta in a Supreme Court case not even presenting the question.  It is for that reason, and with all respect for the understandably challenging task of being elevated to the Nation’s highest court, that the foregoing is published.

"10,000 mostly drunk people" and "contempt of cop"

Here is my SCOTUSBlog recap of Monday's argument in Nieves v. Bartlett. I genuinely am not sure how this comes out, as no one on the Court was blatantly leaning in one direction and everyone seemed determined to find a middle ground between the government's extreme that would let no claims go forward and the respondent's extreme that would let too many claims go forward.

The argument will be best remembered for the Chief describing Arctic Man as "10,000 mostly drunk people in the middle of nowhere," a description that thrilled the journalist who wrote the leading story about the festival.

Universal injunction in asylum-point-of-entry (corrected)

These are coming too quickly to process. The District Court for the Northern District of California issued a universal preliminary injunction (styled a TRO, but done adversarially and scheduled to last more than 14 days) prohibiting the government from enforcing new regulations denying asylum to any persons who present themselves at places other than lawful points of entry.

Unlike the Ninth Circuit in the DACA case, which Sam Bray analyzed, the court did not explain its scope ruling, other than by pointing to three things: facial unconstitutionality; the cert grant in the second travel ban case that allowed the preliminary injunction to stand as to people "similarly situated" to the plaintiffs (before the whole thing became moot); and the relevance of the APA. Sam discusses (with links) the third point and whether the APA really demands universality. The first point relies on Califano v. Yamasaki's "extent of the violation" language, ignoring that Califano involved a nationwide class (and thus a violation of the rights of the class), not the permissible scope of an injunction in an action brought by an individual. The second point continues to get far too much mileage out of loose language in a decision on a stay and granting cert. I have been accused of undervaluing that language, and perhaps I have. But courts are treating it as SCOTUS precedential imprimatur for universal injunctions, which is wait it cannot bear.

Sam argues that courts are close to making universal injunctions the default remedy in cases under APA, immigration cases, and cases with entity plaintiffs. This case supports that position.

SCOTUSBlog Preview: First Amendment retaliatory arrests

I have a SCOTUSBlog preview of  Nieves v. Bartlett (to be argued November 26), considering whether a plaintiff seeking damages for a First Amendment retaliatory arrest must show absence of probable cause. The Court last term punted on the question in Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, because the case involved a retaliatory municipal policy, not only one officer's single retaliatory decision

I describe this as a sneaky-important case, because it involves a collision of two Roberts Court commitments--protecting First Amendment rights and immunizing law enforcement from damages suit and liability. The last part of the petitioner's brief downplays the constitutional importance of talking back to, challenging, criticizing, or insulting police officers performing official functions, insisting it is not speech on matters of public concern that should be protected against retaliatory motives; this eliminates the need for damages liability to vindicate that speech. The brief also argues that police departments will discipline rogue officers who engage in retaliatory arrests, especially in an age of body cameras and citizen video, when departments are more committed to internal accountability. The second point is laughable as an empirical matter. The first is correct on free-speech principle only if the First Amendment does not extend to the rough-and-tumble of ugly public protest or if police officers, the public officials with whom the public has the most direct contact, are above rhetorical challenge and criticism. But both are ideas I could see this Court majority buying, with the second commitment prevailing over the first.

The limits of Spiderman

Ilya Somin has an interesting post wielding the Spiderman Principle--"With great power comes greats responsibility"--to argue against judicial deference to the executive and supposed executive expertise in those areas, such as immigration and national security, in which the executive is believed to have the greatest power. Under the Spiderman Principle, the fact that executive power is so great in these areas requires greater judicial scrutiny and greater justification from the executive, to ensure that this power is used responsibly and not abused.

I agree with Ilya that excessive judicial deference is a problem. But it seems to me the Spiderman Principle does not get us very far, because it cuts both ways. The courts would argue that deference and referral to expertise is compelled by the Spiderman Principle--it is how they bring some responsibility to temper the exercise of their great power to declare invalid the executive's conduct.

What sovereign immunity has wrought (Update)

Steve writes at SCOTUSBlog about a motion in a pending cert case asking the Court to decide on the validity of Matthew Whitaker's appointment as AG, in order to figure out who should be substituted (for Jeff Sessions) as respondent in the petition. This is happening while lower courts consider the validity of the Whitaker appointment in more substantive contexts. (Gerard Magliocca believes that a Court order compelling briefing will compel Whitaker to withdraw or compel the President to nominate a new AG).

This is another example of how much time is wasted by sovereign immunity, rather than being honest about the fact that the government, and not any individual officer, is the real defendant in a challenge to a constitutionally invalid law.

Update: There is a discussion on the Civ Pro/Fed Courts Prof listserv about why plaintiffs ever sue the officer by name rather than office. FRCP 17(d) provides that "A public officer who sues or is sued in an official capacity may be designated by official title rather than by name, but the court may order that the officer's name be added," so it is permissible to sue the title. And since an EPY action is against the officer in his official capacity, it is against the office/title, so we end up in the same place. This gets me to my original point--if we just sued the office (and thus the U.S.), it would remain more straight-forward.

White House must return Acosta credentials

According to news reports, District Judge Timothy Kelly ruled from the bench, granting a TRO based on the failure to provide process, without reaching the First Amendment question.

It will be interesting to see if the White House appeals. Although the order was styled as a TRO, the court would treat it as an appealable preliminary injunction should the government choose to appeal. But the court never reached whether the First Amendment in any way limits control over press access. And the due process focus means that, in theory, the White House and Secret Service could give him process tomorrow and reach the same decision. There is a motive to return the credential and let the litigation play out in the district court first.

Update: Garrett Epps (Baltimore) at The Atlantic ties Kelly's decision to the unsung decision in Island Trees v. Pico, in which SCOTUS held that the school district had unfettered power to select books to place on the shelves, but the First Amendment imposed limits on the district removing books already placed (based on objections to content. I highlighted Pico as an important example of why Brennan was the heir to Holmes in protecting free speech, although a decision that gained little traction, including in debates over internet filters in libraries. I agree with Garrett that it would be nice to see a revival of the decision, including in a new context.

C.J. Cregg = Sarah Sanders (Updated)

Attorney David Lurie argues in Slate that CNN should sue the Secret Service over revocation of reporter Jim Acosta's press credentials. He argues that CNN has a good case. D.C. Circuit precedent holds that reporters must receive process in the denial or revocation of credentials and that the basis for revocation cannot be that the reporter criticized the President or anyone else in the White House. And the President admitted that Acosta's credentials were revoked because he did not treat the presidency with "respect" and that he might do the same to other reporters.

Update: CNN and Acosta, represented by Gibson Dunn, has filed suit, claiming violations of the First and Fifth Amendments and the APA; named defendants are Trump, Kelly, Sanders, William Shine (Deputy Chief of Staff, the Secret Service, and the head of the Secret Service.

The incident brought to mind S3E4 of The West Wing, titled "On the Day Before." Press secretary C.J. Cregg gets pissed at a reporter who inaccurately reported on something that C.J. had done. C.J. tells the reporter that she is having the reporter's credentials revoked and that the reporter must call C.J.'s office every day so C.J. can decide if the reporter will be allowed into the press room. And this was played with C.J. as the hero, standing up and justly sanctioning the vapid, dishonest, and unethical reporter.

This is another illustration of Aaron Sorkin writing the Trump Administration in the Bartlet Administration,  with much of the behavior and norm-breaking that we have seen the past two years; the difference is that Sorkin's characters did it in service of a liberal Democratic agenda, while the Trump Administration has done it in service of a very different agenda. There is no difference between Trump and Sarah Sanders stripping Acosta of his credential and C.J. doing the same to that fictional reporter--both are mad because the reporter treated them unfairly.

Judicial departmentalism and birthright citizenship

The President announced plans to issue an executive order that would deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents. Assume: 1) Trump (or the attorneys and aides advising him) genuinely believes this is constitutionally valid, on the best understanding of § 1; 2) § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship (i.e., Trump and his attorneys are wrong); and 3) the Court has given no signals of intent to move from its current interpretation of § 1.

So how should we speak about what Trump is proposing? Should we say he is acting unconstitutionally? Is that fair, given that he is an independent constitutional actor who believes in the validity of what he is doing? How might we otherwise describe it? If we accept the President's independent constitutional interpretive authority, can he exercise it even if he knows he will lose once the dispute reaches court? Or is his power more limited, to those situations in which he has reason to believe (from some judicial hints) that the Court may move off the judicial interpretation, so defeat in court is not guaranteed?

Flipping the burden on voluntary cessation

This decision from the Fifth Circuit seems wrong, at least in its analysis. The court found moot a challenge to the New Orleans Public Defender's wait list for non-capital cases, because the state legislature allocated the PD's office sufficient funds and the office eliminated the wait list. The court stated:

we are justified in treating a voluntary governmental cessation of possibly wrongful conduct with some solicitude." Absent evidence to the contrary, we are to presume public-spiritedness, says the Supreme Court. Government officials "in their sovereign capacity and in the exercise of their official duties are accorded a presumption of good faith because they are public servants, not self-interested private parties." So, "[w]ithout evidence to the contrary, we assume that formally announced changes to official governmental policy are not mere litigation posturing.

But this seems to flip the burden of persuasion on voluntary cessation, presuming the government will not resume unlawful conduct (because the government is public-spirited) absent evidence from the plaintiff to the contrary. But this seems inconsistent with SCOTUS' insistence that "the defendant claiming that its voluntary compliance moots a case bears the formidable burden of showing that it is absolutely clear the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur."

It does not seem possible to reconcile this case with Nike, at least in terms of the stated standard. The unprincipled explanation is that the Fifth Circuit was suspicious of the entire case and so was looking for a way to dump it. The plaintiffs and the defendant (the PD Office) agreed that the wait list was constitutionally invalid and the PD enacted the policy only because the lack of legislative funding tied its hands. The court hints that the entire action is "a coordinated public-relations effort to force funding" rather than a genuine attempt to enforce constitutional rights.

Suspicion aside, this agreed-upon conclusion meant it was unlikely that the PD would reenact the challenged policy on its own. Which may be true and may justify finding the case moot. But the burden remains on the PD to show that, not on the plaintiffs to rebut the assumption.

Might progressives adopt judicial departmentalism?

Slate is running a debate between Daniel Hemel (Chicago) and Christopher Jon Sprigman (NYU) about whether progressives should abandon judicial supremacy and a belief in the Court and what it should replace that with. Hemel is more in favor of retaining faith in a (modified) Court, while Sprigman is more pessimistic.

Sprigman points to a clause in the Canadian Constitution that allows a national or provincial legislature to override a Supreme Court decision, by allowing a law to operate "notwithstanding" a court decision to the contrary. He proposes a law that allows Congress to override a Supreme Court decision (made in its appellate jurisdiction), then strip the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear cases resisting the overrides.

But I wonder if judicial departmentalism, which allows the other branches to ignore precedent and act on their own constitutional interpretations, gets us to the same place. Under a judicial departmentalist regime, Congress could reenact and the executive could continue to enforce a law that the Court had declared constitutionally invalid against anyone other than the party to the original case (who is protected by a judgment). Under judicial departmentalism, there is no need for an "override" of SCOTUS's decision, because the only binding effect of SCOTUS' decision on the other branches is its judgment prohibiting enforcement against the plaintiffs in that case. The problem remains that the courts must apply SCOTUS precedent in the challenge to the new law or subsequent enforcement efforts, so the result of new litigation over the same constitutional issue will be the same. But Sprigman's jurisdiction-stripping proposal may address that concern. Or the executive's repeated reassertion of the law's validity may cause the Court to yield to the other branches in the exchange, as happened during the New Deal (although for slightly different reasons, the idea remains the same).

I would also note Hemel's post arguing that "the court’s worst moments have been moments of weakness, not overexertions of strength." This echoes the argument by Suzanna Sherry (and subsequent micro-symposium) that the Court's greatest failures are when it is inactivist, standing by and declaring laws constitutionally valid.

Yes, please sue

Where to begin with this suggestion that Justice Kavanaugh should sue Christine Ford and the Washington Post for $ 20 million each and that the suit would be successful? This is a new talking point among conservative commentators.

I go point by point after the jump, because there is so much wrong here.

Ford has clearly libeled Kavanaugh. Libel is a published false statement that is damaging to a person’s reputation. Ford gave uncorroborated information to the Washington Post, which published it and damaged Kavanaugh’s reputation.

Uncorroborated does not mean false. Perhaps Ford's allegations are false; that they are uncorroborated has nothing to do with their falsity.

This has been a recurring theme. There is no requirement in the legal system (putting aside whether a confirmation process should be treated as a legal proceeding) that a claim be corroborated; the plaintiff's testimony is evidence. Whether it is sufficient to prove a case depends on the type of proceeding and the standard of persuasion. Perhaps a victim's statement is not alone enough to satisfy beyond a reasonable doubt, but this never was a criminal procedure. On a lesser standard such as what governs whether a person should receive a lifetime appointment to a powerful job (whatever that standard may be), uncorroborated testimony may be sufficient, depending on whether the factfinder believes that uncorroborated statement.

In a court of law, . . . the burden of proving the truth of a derogatory statement is on the defendant.

No. Kavanaugh is a public official and Ford's speech was a on a matter of public concern, whether that public figure engaged in criminal or inappropriate conduct. The burden of persuasion is on the plaintiff to prove the statement was false. And he must do so by clear and convincing evidence.

New York Times Company v. Sullivan is ripe for being overruled. Yes, the Supreme Court can overturn prior cases. See Plessy vs. Ferguson.

Justice Antonin Scalia said he abhorred the New York Times case:

NYT is not going anywhere. Not least because Justice Scalia no longer is on the Court--the event that has pushed us down the current hole. Justice Kavanaugh certainly would never vote to overrule NYT because, as Sen. Collins reminds us, he reveres precedent. So does Justice Gorsuch, who wrote a book about it. Unless NYT is not "settled law." Anyway, NYT is a cornerstone of the modern First Amendment and exists precisely so public officials cannot use civil suits to silence critics.

This belief/assumption/preference that NYT be overruled might explain the above error about the burden of persuasion as to truth. NYT shifts the burden from common law (where statements are presumed false and truth is a defense); if NYT is overruled, that shift goes with it. Which is why NYT will not be overruled.

A court should hold that Ford, dredging up a 36-year-old uncorroborated claim, is guilty of constructive malice — reckless disregard of the truth.

Reckless disregard of the truth is the NYT actual-malice standard that the author just said should be (and will be) overruled. So what he is really saying is that Ford is liable even under NYT. Maybe she is, but this contradicts the prior paragraph. And, again, I am not sure why the age of the claim or its lack of corroboration say anything about Ford's statement of mind.

(There is an interesting question whether actual malice has any place with respect to the first-person source of information talking about her own experience, as opposed to the media republishing it. Ford either believed her statement true or knew it false; I doubt there is an in-between.)

It would be poetic justice if Justice Kavanaugh could be the deciding vote — on his own case!

It would be the height of irony, actually. The author begins the piece decrying the Democrats' abandonment of the presumption of innocence, "a hallmark of Anglo-American jurisprudence and of Western Civilization." Putting aside whether the presumption of innocence (which is merely about the allocation of burden of production) has a meaningful role in a job interview, I doubt it is more of a jurisprudential hallmark than nemo iudex in sua causa--no one should be a judge in his own case.

Anyway, the real reason Kavanaugh will not sue (and that perhaps Ford,WaPo, or others might wish he would) is not that it would be "unseemly for a judge to sue." It is unseemly for a judge to spew conspiratorial Fox News talking points, but that did not stop Kavanaugh from writing and giving that prepared statement. Kavanaugh will not sue because a lawsuit will trigger a meaningful discovery process designed to get at the truth of Ford's statements. Kavanaugh would be subject to a sworn deposition taken by a competent questioner. Discovery would include depositions and interviews of numerous witnesses, not limited by the preferences of the White House or an artificial one-week deadline. The author assumes Ford is lying (and WaPo knowingly reprinted a lie). I do not know, because I have not seen anything resembling a fact-finding process. Kavanaugh suing would create that very process.

President Trump is famous for threatening to sue critics (even thought it would appear equally unseemly for the President to sue) and never following through. Even after some outlets egged him on. Apparently some members of conservative media have decided to make the same move on behalf of Justice Kavanaugh.

Half measure on universal injunction in sanctuary cities case

On Thursday, District Judge Orrick of the Northern District of California enjoined enforcement of DOJ regulations denying law enforcement funds to sanctuary cities. Judge Orrick previously enjoined enforcement of a presidential order denying funds to sanctuary cities. Judge Orrick made that prior injunction universal, although the Ninth Circuit narrowed it to protect only San Francisco and non-party California, concluding that the record did not support universality.

Undeterred, Judge Orrick made this injunction universal, although with several pages of analysis and justification. That analysis ultimately comes down to this--when a narrow law or regulation (or at least a federal law or regulation) is constitutionally invalid, a universal injunction is proper. And despite the rhetoric of "careful consideration," that principle is unbounded and always applicable.

The court acknowledges (and purports to share) the concerns that universality preempts percolation of issues. But then he offers two points in response: 1) the issues here are the same as in the Seventh and Third Circuits, so percolation is occurring and 2) this is a "narrow constitutional issue," so it "does not seem to be the type of situation in which allowing more cases to percolate in federal courts would be of much benefit." The second point is simply wrong. Pure and narrow legal issues benefit from percolation, from multiple sets of eyes considering and analyzing legal questions; this is the first time I have heard it suggested otherwise. The first point misses the main issue: The first court to enter a universal injunctions ends (or should end) all litigation on the issue,; this renders litigation in other courts either moot (because any party to the second action is already protected by the original universal injunction) or dangerous (because the second court issues an order conflicting with the original universal injunction, potentially imposing conflicting obligations on the defendant).

But the court hedged slightly, staying the universality pending appellate review of a narrower alternative holding about the scope of the underlying federal statute (which applied only to the parties and thus did not warrant universality). This may become a common move between district courts, who seem to like universality, and courts of appeals, who are more circumspect about scope--make the injunction universal, but stay it. Judge Leinenweber of the Northern District of Illinois made the same move.

Slate discovers judicial departmentalism

Slate's Mark Joseph Stern contemplates the "full-blown constitutional crisis" that will arise if the Democrats regain control of the White House and Congress and attempt to resist an illegitimate Supreme Court. While finding the tools of segregationists "appalling," he suggests Democrats and progressives may find this the only option.

In reality, Stern is describing judicial departmentalism. But he fails to recognize the judgment/precedent distinction that makes this not a constitutional crisis but how the interbranch constitutional conversation should function. This conversation can produce two outcomes. One is that the judicial view will prevail because of the incentives (loss of qualified immunity, attorney's fees, repeated losses) for the executive to voluntarily comply. The other is that executive non-compliance with precedent (while following individual judgments) may cause the judiciary to change course.

"Nationwide" Injunctions Are Really "Universal" Injunctions and they are Never Appropriate (Final)

I am pleased that the final version of my article on universal injunctions has been published in Lewis & Clark Law Review. The editing process over the summer was quite adventurous. I added four or five different updates and sets of changes to account for new developments, including resolution of the travel ban (and Justice Thomas' concurring opinion), the court of appeals decisions on scope-of-injunction in both sanctuary-city cases, and the class action in the unaccompanied-minor abortion litigation.

Arguing about the right issue

Bloomberg reports on oral argument in Hargan v. Garza, the challenge to HHS policy surrounding pregnant unaccompanied immigrant teens seeking abortions. (Marty Lederman analyzes the arguments). The district court certified a class of all pregnant immigrant teens in HHS detention, then issued a class-wide injunction. According to the report, the plaintiffs' attorney received some pushback on the scope of that class, because it includes pregnant teens who are not seeking abortions (counsel responded that the issue also was access to abortion counseling).

The point is that the plaintiffs in this action followed the right procedures--define and redefine the class, then have the injunction match the class. Universal injunctions in individual cases allow plaintiffs to skip that step--no one would take on the difficult work of defining and certifying a class if the court is willing to leap to an injunction that protects the universe based on a complaint by one person.

Can you say "Speech or Debate"?

I am a Democrat. But this may be the dumbest thing I have seen. Even if a court could enjoin executive branch officials to turn over documents (questionable on political question grounds), the Speech or Debate Clause makes about as clear as anything in the Constitution that a court cannot enjoin legislative officials from taking a fundamental legislative action such as a vote. As one commentator put it, that's just not how any of this works. I also doubt Merkley has standing to sue the executive, but there is no reason to even reach that issue.

Kavanaugh and the burden of proof

In The Atllantic, Benjamin Wittes addresses the issues of burden and standard of proof with respect to Brett Kavanaugh, the allegations against him, and his confirmation. A lot of people have been talking about these issues (often under the catchphrase "presumption of innocence") in the abstract, without diving into what they mean or how they apply.

Wittes argues that Kavanaugh bears the burden of persuasion because he wants the factfinder (50 Senators) to do something--confirm him to the Court; he is not entitled to that unless he can affirmatively convince them that he should be on the Court. The burden of persuasion is understood as the risk of non-persuasion--who bears the risk of losing and of not getting something if the factfinder is not persuaded. In other words, what is the status quo, who must change the status quo to prevail, and who loses if the status quo remains the same. If Kavanaugh were being prosecuted for sexual assault or sued by Ford for sexual assault, the burden would be on the state or Ford to change the status quo and show that he did what is alleged. If Kavanaugh was impeached and facing a Senate trial to remove him from the D.C. Circuit, the burden would be on the impeachers to show that he should be removed from the bench because he committed the disqualifying act. In each of those, the status quo is that Kavanaugh is free, not liable, and on the court of appeals. Here, the status quo is that he is not on the Supreme Court, so he bears the burden of showing that he should be, including whatever relevance the incident in 1982 may have to his qualifications.

Wittes also considers the standard of persuasion as the more-interesting question, because there is no agreed-upon or meaningful standard for this proceeding. One possibility is there is none, that the standard is ideological and nothing more. Wittes suggests two standards from Kavanaugh's standpoint--"minimally convincing" (enough to convince the few Republican stragglers to join the already-declared Republicans to confirm him) or "no asterisks," meaning enough evidence that a reasonable person will not doubt Kavanaugh's integrity or fitness for the position. Wittes argues that meeting something somewhere in the middle will not be sufficient for Kavanaugh to not only serve on the the Court, but to serve meaningfully or effectively.

Guest Post: Would Appointment of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court be Constitutional?

If the Senate votes Judge Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court, it seems pretty clear that he will solidify a staunchly conservative majority on the Court. This new majority will stake out firmly conservative positions on a range of critical issues, including voting rights, reproductive rights, and corporate rights. With a Justice Kavanaugh on board, the Supreme Court will bring a strong ideological bias to its decision making. While that is highly controversial, it’s one of the features of our judicial appointment process.

Or is it? We ought to consider the constitutional implications of ideological bias on the Supreme Court. In particular, principles of due process and the framers’ original intent provide good reason to think that neither a conservative nor liberal majority should be able to impose its views on the Court.  

The Due Process Clause promises litigants that they will receive an impartial hearing before a neutral court. And a neutral court decides cases without any personal, political, or other bias. Once Judge Kavanaugh joins the Supreme Court, it won’t be a neutral court. Any party promoting a liberal viewpoint before the Justices would not be able to count on a fair shot at prevailing.

Because it is unfair for litigants to have their cases decided by an ideologically-biased court, other countries and some U.S. states have designed their highest courts so decisions reflect a broad range of ideological views. Arguably, due process requires something similar for the Supreme Court.

A strong view of due process would demand ideological moderation for each Justice, an approach taken in some European countries. In Germany, for example, nominees to the Constitutional Court must receive a two-thirds vote of approval and therefore must appeal to legislators on both sides of the partisan aisle. Instead of getting judges who are either strongly conservative or liberal, German litigants get judges who are moderate. Like Germany, Portugal and Spain require supermajority votes for appointments to their constitutional courts. So we might say that due process requires restoration of a strong filibuster rule in the Senate or a strong supermajority on final voting for judicial nominations. That would force presidents to nominate Justices acceptable to both parties.

A less demanding view of due process would focus on overall balance on the Court rather than the ideologies of individual Justices. While there are different ways to achieve overall balance, the simplest path for the Supreme Court would be to follow the example of a couple of states and a number of countries. In many European countries, high court decisions are made by consensus or at least a supermajority vote, so justices on both sides of the ideological spectrum have to support the courts’ opinions. State constitutions in North Dakota and Nebraska also employ this path to ideological balance. The North Dakota Supreme Court can declare a legislative enactment unconstitutional only with the support of at least four out of the five justices.  In Nebraska, five out of seven justices are needed to hold a legislative act unconstitutional.

How large should a supermajority be? Since there may be times when six Justices are either conservative or liberal, it probably would be necessary to require more than a two-thirds supermajority to ensure that decisions always reflect the perspectives of both sides of the philosophical divide. Likely, it would make most sense to require decision making by consensus of the entire Court.

What would the framers think about this? On one hand, they didn’t include in the Constitution a requirement for ideological balance on the Supreme Court. On the other hand, they recognized the need to amend the Constitution with a Bill of Rights that includes the Due Process Clause’s guarantee of impartial courts.

With ideological balance, the Supreme Court would be more faithful to the framers’ intentions for our constitutional system. The founding fathers worried greatly about “factions” pursuing their self-interest to the detriment of the overall public good. Accordingly, the constitutional drafters designed a system that they thought would block factional control of the national government. But the framers did not anticipate the extent to which political parties would form dominant factions that could gain command of government power. For example, the framers did not anticipate how partisan ties between presidents and members of Congress would limit the legislative branch's checking and balancing of the executive branch. Similarly, the framers did not expect—nor did they want—a Supreme Court that would reflect the views of only one side of the political spectrum. Indeed, when Alexander Hamilton explained the Constitution’s appointment provisions in The Federalist Papers, he emphasized the need to avoid nominations that reflect partiality instead of the overall public interest.

Supermajority voting on the Supreme Court fits well with constitutional principle in other ways. As the Supreme Court regularly observes, legislation passed by Congress carries a strong presumption of constitutionality. Requiring a supermajority to override reinforces that presumption. The Court does not exercise the same level of deference to state government action, but in those cases, the Supreme Court is interpreting the Constitution and effectively amending our understanding of the Constitution. Accordingly, it makes sense for the Justices to do so by supermajority vote, just as amendments to the Constitution require supermajority support from Congress and the states.

To be sure, the Supreme Court has observed that constitutional concerns are not raised when a judge favors one or another ideological view. Anyone with the appropriate training and experience for the judiciary will have developed opinions on important legal issues. According to the Court, due process prohibits judicial bias against a party to a proceeding, not bias against a legal view that the party might advocate.

But the fact that we must accept individual judges with ideological leanings does not prevent us from seeking moderate rather than strongly ideological Justices or from ensuring an overall ideological balance on the Court. Under a fair reading of the Constitution, litigants ought to be able to ensure that their cases are decided in an ideologically-balanced way.

And ensuring balance might address the declining level of public approval of the Supreme Court. A majority of Americans once expressed strong confidence in the court. According to a July Gallup poll, only 37 percent do now.

Mark up of Injunction Authority Clarification Act

The House Judiciary Committee marked-up the Injunction Authority Clarification Act, the bill that would eliminate universal injunctions. No word on what happened, although it did start a conversation on the CivProProf Listserv.

In addition, Jeff Sessions announced litigation guidelines for DOJ attorneys in litigating the scope of injunctions. Interestingly, Sessions' statement shows he still does not understood the issue fully, because he twice rails about "single (unelected) district judges" issuing these injunctions. But the problem of universal injunctions improperly protecting non-parties has nothing to do with the number of judges on the case or the level of court. SCOTUS cannot issue (or affirm) universal injunctions any more than a district court can enter universal injunctions. SCOTUS only can affirm a particularized injunction and thereby prohibit enforcement of the challenged law against the named plaintiff, on threat of contempt; the judgment and injunction go no further. SCOTUS's decision may halt future enforcement against non-parties, but purely as a matter of binding precedent, not as a matter of the injunction itself.

Yet evading review

Mootness can be overcome* if the claim is capable of repetition yet evading review. One important limitation on this doctrine, that often gets confused or overlooked, is that the harm must be reasonably likely to recur as to this plaintiff, not generally and not as to someone else.

[*] I do not like to speak of it as an "exception" to mootness because I subscribe to Scalia's argument that a case that is C/R/E/R is simply not moot.

The Eighth Circuit held that a an action by a Democratic elector challenging Minnesota's faithless-elector law was not C/R/E/R. The court held that it did not evade review because the plaintiff waited too long to file suit, thereby shortening the time period. Rather than suing on November 8 (right after the election) or November 29 (when the results were certified), he waited until December 19, the day his vote (for Bernie Sanders) was discounted and he was removed as an elector. That left only 2 1/2 weeks to litigate, whereas a lawsuit on December 8 would have allowed almost two months for expedited litigation in both the trial court and court of appeals.

But that assumes the court would have found standing and ripeness on November 8, which is not certain. The plaintiff would have argued then that he intended to vote for Sanders and that the faithless-elector law would disqualify his vote. But courts are so inconsistent about standing that it is hard to know whether that would work. Moreover, the evading-review applies when the time is too short to litigate the issue fully, which must included SCOTUS review. So while the "district court plainly was prepared to resolve the matter with dispatch (it convened a hearing within three days and ruled on the fourth), and this court has demonstrated that it can expedite appeals in time-sensitive cases," that does not account for SCOTUS, which may have wanted a crack at a case declaring invalid a faithless-elector law. The notion that two months would have been enough time to fully litigate this issue, had the plaintiff only not sat on his rights, seems dubious.

It also is unnecessary, because the better argument is that this is not reasonably capable of repetition as to this person. The plaintiff could not show a "reasonable expectation" that he would be subject to this law again. It is doubtful the Minnesota Democratic Party will appoint him as an elector. And he cannot show that he plans to vote for someone other than the popular-vote winner so as to have the law enforced against him; that is too unknown to constitute a remediable injury at this point.

Injunction Authority Clarification Act of 2018

Introduced by House Judiciary Chair Bob Goodlatte (who miraculously discovered the constitutional command for particularized injunctions on January 20, 2017), the bill prohibits "an order that purports to restrain the enforcement against a non-party of any statute, regulation, order, or similar authority, unless the non-party is represented by a party acting in a representative capacity pursuant to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure."

Goodlatte's conversion of partisan convenience aside, it is a good bill. It addresses and eliminates the real problem of non-party protection, without conflating distinct and non-problematic issues of geographic scope (by controlling venue) or source (by pushing cases to three-judge district courts). It leaves broad relief available through 23(b)(2) injunctive class actions. And it does not purport to change the Court's standard for the scope of an injunction--commensurate with the violation and no more burdensome than necessary to provide complete relief; the bill thus should continue to allow broad systemic injunctions where remedies are indivisible (e.g., legislative redistricting or religious displays) or where relief to the non-party is necessary for the plaintiff to obtain complete relief.

And on one old scholarly note--I am glad the bill does not speak of jurisdiction but of remedy, which should be a non-jurisdictional merits-related issue.

Elected Prosecutors and Non-Prosecution Policies

Rachel Rollins is likely to be the next district attorney in Suffolk County, Massachusetts.  She recently won the democratic primary, and she is not facing a Republican challenger in the general election.  Rollins is a reform-minded candidate, and so her win has caused a bit of a stir.  Rollins is also causing a stir because she recently released a list of crimes that she says she will decline to prosecute if elected.  The list includes larceny under $250, receiving stolen property, disorderly conduct, and other charges.

If you had asked me ten years ago what I thought about a prosecutor making a public announcement about all of the crimes she would not prosecute, I would have been extremely critical.  In particular, I would have said that prosecutors have a duty is to enforce the laws, and policies of non-enforcement conflict with that duty.  Just as decisions about what to criminalize belong to legislatures, I would have said, so too do decriminalization decisions belong to legislatures, not prosecutors.  But having spent time studying the relationship between criminal justice institutions, I am much less critical of Rollins’ announcement.  In particular, I no longer think that decriminalization decisions are reserved for the legislature.

To be clear, my point about decriminalization is a descriptive one, not necessarily a normative one.  Legislatures have—to a significant extent—delegated the scope of criminal law to prosecutors.  Legislatures have done so by writing overly broad criminal laws.  Legislatures write overly broad laws knowing that prosecutors will not prosecute all behavior that falls within the statutory text.  Prosecutors will make their own decisions about the circumstances under which to prosecute crimes.  In other words, prosecutors are free to decide what conduct to treat as legal and what to treat as permissible.  We got a glimpse of that decision-making when James Comey explained to Congress that, even if Hillary Clinton’s behavior fell within the text of a federal criminal statute, it did not meet the criteria that DOJ uses for actually bringing charges in such cases.

The sheer number of crimes also delegates questions about the scope of criminal law to prosecutors.  Resource constraints make it impossible for prosecutors to bring charges against everyone who commits a crime.  As a result, district attorneys have to make decisions about which crimes to prioritize and which crimes to deprioritize.

Some might respond that there is a difference between making enforcement decisions in the context of individual cases and making enforcement decisions ex ante about an entire category of cases.  But I don’t see the appeal of that argument.  The elected district attorney is the individual who has been empowered to make these important decisions.  So one hopes that she is making those decisions in the context of a general office-wide policy, rather than leaving the decision to line prosecutors in individual cases.  Line prosecutors may have different priorities, and case-by-case decisions would doubtlessly lead to inconsistent decisions.

Some might also object that, even if an elected prosecutor has formal policies about what charges not to bring, she should not announce those policies to the public.  If I know, for example, that my district attorney is not going to prosecute larceny of goods under $250, then (so the argument goes) I will feel free to steal items that cost less.  (Meir Dan-Cohen fans will recognize that argument as one of acoustic separation.)

Even assuming that such public announcements decrease deterrence—and I am uncertain whether they do—public announcements have a significant benefits  :  For example, public announcements can help ensure that law enforcement won’t enforce these laws in an arbitrary or discriminatory fashion.  One major problem with overly broad laws or rarely enforced laws is that they can be used as a pretext for racial discrimination or other animus.  In this respect, overly broad laws and rarely enforced laws are similar to vague laws. 

Most importantly, public announcements make prosecutors democratically accountable for their enforcement policies.  Unannounced policies do not allow the public to make informed voting decisions or to give feedback to elected prosecutors about how they have chosen to enforce the criminal laws.  But in announcing this list of crimes, Rollins has ensured some measure of legitimacy and accountability for her decisions. 

I am sure that at least some people will read this post and think that it has failed to fully justify or defend a practice of categorical non-enforcement.  There are very intelligent people who have argued against categorical non-enforcement.   In an ideal world, I would probably agree that legislatures should make all criminalization and decriminalization decisions.  In such a world, legislatures would write narrowly targeted criminal laws and would not criminalize more behavior than the system could reasonably prosecute and punish.  But that is not the world we live in.  Since legislatures have decided to delegate significant questions about the scope of criminal law to prosecutors, prosecutors should answer those questions in a transparent and accountable fashion.  That is what Rachel Rollins has done here.

Ministerial exemption as a mandatory merits defense

I have thought much about the jurisdictional status of the ministerial exemption since SCOTUS decided (correctly) in Hosanna-Tabor that the exemption was a merits-based affirmative defense and not a limit on the court's jurisdiction.

But that makes footnote 4 of this Third Circuit case a bit strange. The court held that the ministerial exemption barred a pastor's breach-of-contract claim, granting summary judgment for the Church on exemption grounds, even though the pastor was the one who moved for summary judgment and the Church never raised the defense. The court noted the following:

The ministerial exception is an affirmative defense. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & Sch. v. E.E.O.C., 565 U.S. 171 , 195 n.4, 132 S. Ct. 694 , 181 L. Ed. 2d 650 (2012) (stating that the ministerial exception "operates as an affirmative defense to an otherwise cognizable claim, not a jurisdictional bar"). Although the District Court, not the Church, first raised the ministerial exception, the Church is not deemed to have waived it because the exception is rooted in constitutional limits on judicial authority. See EEOC v. R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc., 884 F.3d 560 , 581-82 (6th Cir. 2018) (holding that a defendant "has not waived the ministerial-exception by failing to raise it . . . because '[t]his constitutional protection is . . . structural'" (citation omitted)); Conlon v. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 777 F.3d 829 , 836 (6th Cir. 2015) (explaining that Hosanna-Tabor's rationale for recognizing the ministerial exception establishes that "the Constitution does not permit private parties to waive the First Amendment 's ministerial exception" because "[t]he constitutional protection is not only a personal one; it is a structural one that categorically prohibits federal and state governments from becoming involved in religious leadership disputes"). Moreover, Lee did not argue before the District Court that the Church waived the defense. Therefore, it was appropriate for the District Court to consider the ministerial exception.

Hosanna stated that the ministerial exemption is not a jurisdictional bar. But the second sentence contradicts that by describing it as "rooted in constitutional limits on judicial authority"--which is the definition of a jurisdictional bar. Rather, we should think of the exemption as a  mandatory merits defense--although a limit on substantive merits, it has a structural basis and thus cannot be waived. As Scott Dodson has argued, mandatoriness or non-waivability is a consequence, not a defining characteristic--some defenses can be so important as to be non-waivable, even if they go to merits and have nothing to do with adjudicative jurisdiction.

In search of Deep Throat

The greatest disappointment about the anonymous NYT op-ed? We have a corrupt and scandal-plagued administration and an anonymous source talking publicly, but no good porn movies after which to name that anonymous source. Perhaps something off Stormy Daniels' IMDB page.

Judge Willett questions qualified immunity

Fifth Circuit Judge Don Willett, a conservative and Trump long-lister for SCOTUS, "concurred dubitante" to question qualified-immunity doctrine in this case. (H/T: Volokh Conspiracy, HTing Josh Blackman). The court found that the Texas Medical Board violated the rights of the plaintiff doctor and two patients in issuing and enforcing administrative subpoenas, but that the right was not clearly established.

Willett derides qualified immunity as a deus ex machina that smacks of "unqualified impunity" by letting officers behave badly so long as they are the first to behave badly. He emphasizes two problems with current doctrine--the inconsistency over how factually similar precedent must be to clearly establish a right and the continued tendency of courts to skip merits and decide the right is not clearly established, thereby depriving plaintiffs of precedent that can be used to clearly establish the right. Requiring a plaintiff to produce identical precedent as courts create less precedent is a catch-22, an Escherian Stairwell, and a heads-defendans-win-tails-plaintiffs-lose situation. Willett joins the growing cross-ideological chorus of judges (including Justices Thomas and Sotomayor, as well as Judge Jack Weinstein) and scholars (Will Baude and Joanna Schwartz) urging recalibration of the doctrine.

On that cross-ideological consensus, it is telling that Willett's statement comes in an ideologically unique case--a regulatory body allegedly overstepping its authority in investigating a licensed professional sounding in the the regulatory over-zealousness that libertarian judges dislike. It does not come in the more frequent (and ideologically different) qualified immunity case case arising from a police officer using excessive force against an unarmed person of color.

Two free expression stories for Labor Day

First, Nike is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its Just Do It campaign. Here is the opening image, with the tag line "Believe in Something. Even if it means sacrificing everything." Good for Nike, which has always mixed its product advertising with political messages. I assume the company calculated the lost sales from the more than half the country that seems to oppose the player protests. Or it has more corporate courage than the NFL.

 

Second, a group called USA Latinx raised almost $ 10,000 in one day to rent this billboard for about $6000. The fundraising effort was helped by Parkland survivor David Hogg, who tweeted about the campaign. The billboard is a response to President Trump's announced plan to come to Texas to hold a rally in a big stadium in support of Ted Cruz's re-election campaign. Several contributors to the GoFundMe campaign urged the group to raise more money to put these ads all over the state.

I presume USA Latinx believes that money is not speech, that corporations have no speech rights, and that Citizens United is the fourth-worst SCOTUS decision ever. Do its leaders realize that this is a campaign expenditure and that they are a corporation or other entity? Do they realize that if money were not speech, there would be no limit on government halting such expenditures? Do they realize that a $ 5000 expenditure limit or a bar on expenditures within 90 days of an election (all perfectly lawful if money is not speech) renders this unlawful?

Lawyering up in the Kavanaugh hearings

I have no intention of watching the national travesty of the Kavanaugh hearings, because nothing he says or does this week will make any difference to his confirmation. (I have in the past employed the common description of this as Kabuki, but I was told by a Japanese scholar that Kabuki, while stylized, is not empty or devoid of meaning, which is what the term is used to describe with respect to hearing).

I am, however, intrigued by this idea of hiring counsel to handle questioning, getting a lawyer with the skill and expertise to ask meaningful questions of witnesses and force them to give answers, rather than the word salad that passes for dialogue between Senators who lack the knowledge, training, and skill to perform the task and witnesses with no desire (or practical obligation) to answer. The historical examples the article provides (Watergate, Iran-Contra, Army-McCarthy) were investigatory hearings rather than confirmation hearings, so the need for cross examination and adverseness was clear. But the point remains--hired counsel would be much better able to perform the task. How much better might the exchange be if the Democrats hired Marty Lederman or Seth Waxman or Republicans in the future were to hire David Bernstein or Paul Clement to have a genuine constitutional dialogue?

Update: The author of the article is David A. Kaplan, author of the new book The Most Dangerous Branch: Inside the Supreme Court's Assault on the Constitution and a guest on this week's First Mondays podcast. Kaplan argues that the Court should be less interventionist (he interviewed several Justices, who referred to him as "Felix"), including urging the argument that the public should understood SCOTUS decisions as resolving a case for past parties but not necessarily for future parties. I like the second part of that.

Damnatio memoriae

This is an interesting case from the Sixth Circuit (H/T: Volokh Conspiracy). Plaintiff sued the recorders of deeds throughout Ohio, alleging that continued maintenance of deeds, plat maps, and other property documents containing (unenforceable) racially restrictive covenants violated equal protection and the FHA. The court held that the plaintiff lacked standing. He suffered no economic injury because he offered no evidence that he had been unable to purchase property. Any non-economic injury of a feeling of not belonging was not particularized to him, but undifferentiated and generalized.

The majority opinion, written by Judge Boggs, ends on the following:

In ancient Rome, the practice of damnatio memoriae, or the condemnation of memory, could be imposed on felons whose very existence, including destruction of their human remains, would literally be erased from history for the crimes they had committed. Land title documents with racially restrictive covenants that we now find offensive, morally reprehensible, and repugnant cannot be subject to damnatio memoriae, as those documents are part of our living history and witness to the evolution of our cultural norms. Mason’s feeling of being unwelcomed may be real. A feeling cannot be unfelt. But Mason’s discomfort at the expression of historical language does not create particularized injury. The language in question is purely historical and is unenforceable and irrelevant in present-day land transactions.

This prompted a two-paragraph concurrence from Judge Clay:

I concur in the judgment and, for the most part, in the opinion’s analysis, but I do not entirely agree with the majority’s suggestion that we cannot, under appropriate circumstances, modify or dispense with documents that are “part of our living history and witness to the evolution of our cultural norms.” Justice may require us to repudiate or revise elements of our “living history” if those elements—whether they be public records, flags, or statues—are shown to encourage or perpetuate discrimination or the badges and incidents of slavery; indeed, racial epithets that were once accepted as commonplace have not been preserved, and they have sometimes been stricken from our modern vernacular. We apply an even stricter standard where, as here, the government is the source of, or has ratified, language that has the purpose or effect of encouraging racial animus. We need not erase our history in order to disarm its harmful legacy, but victims of invidious discrimination who have suffered particularized injury as a result of the application of historical language should be able to seek redress, consistent with the context and the factual circumstances of their cases.

I also fear that the majority’s statement that “Mason’s discomfort at the expression of historical language does not create particularized injury” could be misunderstood or taken out of context to suggest that feelings of discomfort with racially discriminatory language could never create a cognizable injury. I do not, however, read the majority opinion as foreclosing a properly pleaded claim arising out of such racially discriminatory language, especially under circumstances that implicate governmental instrumentalities. Rather, I read the opinion to hold that the plaintiff in this action has simply failed to plead sufficient facts to demonstrate a legally cognizable injury. If and when a plaintiff shows such an injury, this Court will have to reconcile the importance of maintaining our recorded history with our vision of government speech that promotes—not hinders—a free and equal society. I do, however, respectfully concur.

 This dispute gets at an important piece of the model of my model of constitutional litigation. There is no judicially remediable constitutional harm coming from legal documents disconnected from actual or threatened executive or private enforcement. The dispute here is over real-estate documents. But the same arguments surround outmoded laws (e.g., anti-miscegination laws or prohibitions on same-sex marriage) that remain on the books but could not be successfully enforced in court. The legislature could repeal these statutes, while it would take much more to undo these sorts of legal documents. But the idea is the same--law (apart from enforcement) cannot and should not be erased by a court because of the "message" it sends from continuing to exist or having existed in the past. The court framed this as lack of standing; a good Fletcherian would call this the lack of remediable substantive constitutional rights.

Judicial departmentalism adds an extra wrinkle, because an executive could attempt to enforce such a law in the face of contrary precedent. That effort will fail once the dispute reaches a court, which is bound by precedent; it also will result in attorney's fees and potential Rule 11 sanctions. But it justifies recent efforts to get legislatures to repeal anti-miscegination laws. The arguments have focused on the symbolism of retaining these laws and the message they send. Departmentalism adds a substantive reason-- repeal avoids the spectacle of even unsuccessful efforts at enforcement. But this case confirms that the conversation must be a legislative one, not a judicial one.

There is a property question to which I do not know the answer. Could the legislature or recorder do anything about these documents or their problematic provisions? Can the government amend long-standing deeds to remove objectionable covenants? Can it issue a new, superseding deed, stripped of the objectionable covenants, controlling the property going forward?

Avoiding dueling universal injunctions

Judge Hanen of the Southern District of Texas* on Friday refused to preliminarily enjoin DACA, where such an injunction would have created a direct conflict with injunctions enjoining the Trump Administrations rescission of DACA. Although the court held that the states have standing and were likely to succeed on the merits (because DACA violates APA and the Take Care Clause), the balance of equities weighed against the injunction, as the injunction would undo the status quo by undoing rights and reliance interests that had attached to DACA recipients since 2012. So we again avoid the clash of injunctions and impossibly conflicting obligation only by a bit of restraint from one court.**

[*] Whose universal injunction in the DAPA litigation in 2015 was the starting point for the recent trend.

[**] Note the clash comes even if the injunction issued was particularized and non-universal. The existence of one universal injunction by definition collides with all future injunctions. A particularized injunction in this case would have forced the federal government to act inconsistent with the earlier universal injunctions prohibiting rescission.

In a separate order, Hanen certified the case for interlocutory review under § 1292(b), finding the validity of DACA is a novel and unique controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion and that an immediate appeal from the order may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation. This seems weird in two respects. First, while there is a controlling question of pure law within this order, the decision turned on the balancing of equities, an application issue that is not reviewable under § 1292(b). The court said that a Fifth Circuit declaration of DACA's validity would speed termination of the case, but it is not clear why, because that would not alter the purported balance of equities on which the district court denied relief, at least not at the preliminary injunction stage. I guess if the Fifth Circuit declares DACA invalid, the district court could summarily convert to a permanent injunction. But that assumes the Fifth Circuit takes on DACA directly and does not address the legal issue in context, saying only that DACA is likely invalid, but limiting the decision to the case's preliminary posture.

Second and in any event, certification was unnecessary to obtain review. A decision denying a preliminary injunction is immediately reviewable under § 1292(a)(1). Although the text of the statute only enumerates orders refusing to dissolve or modify an injunction as appealable, every circuit, including the Fifth, reads § (a)(1) to allow immediate review of the denial of the initial preliminary injunction. And § 1292(a)(1) appeals do not require leave of court and are not limited to controlling questions of law.

Update: Other conversations on the subject suggest that Hanen blew the procedure in another way. If he wanted to declare DACA invalid, tee-up the issue for appellate review, and avoid the chaos that would come with a preliminary injunction, he should have ordered the parties to file cross motions for summary judgment and issued a declaratory judgment. A D/J is a final judgment, appealable as such under § 1291. This stuff matters.