Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-1233.pdf
Page Number: 59.0

Cite as:  563 U. S. ____ (2011) 

1 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

_________________ 

No. 09–1233 
_________________ 

EDMUND G. BROWN, JR., GOVERNOR OF CAL- 

IFORNIA, ET AL., APPELLANTS v. MARCIANO 

PLATA ET AL. 

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTS 

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT AND THE NORTHERN

DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

[May 23, 2011] 

JUSTICE  SCALIA,  with  whom  JUSTICE  THOMAS  joins,

dissenting. 

Today the Court affirms what is perhaps the most radi-
cal injunction issued by a court in our Nation’s history: an
order  requiring  California  to  release  the  staggering  num-
ber of 46,000 convicted criminals. 

There  comes  before  us,  now  and  then,  a  case  whose 
proper  outcome  is  so  clearly  indicated  by  tradition  and
common  sense,  that  its  decision  ought  to  shape  the  law, 
rather  than  vice  versa.    One  would  think  that,  before 
allowing  the  decree  of  a  federal  district  court  to  release 
46,000 convicted felons, this Court would bend every effort 
to read the law in such a way as to avoid that outrageous
result.  Today, quite to the contrary, the Court disregards
stringently drawn provisions of the governing statute, and 
traditional  constitutional  limitations  upon  the  power  of  a 
federal judge, in order to uphold the absurd.

The  proceedings  that  led  to  this  result  were  a  judicial 
travesty.    I  dissent  because  the  institutional  reform  the 
District Court has undertaken violates the terms of the gov-
erning  statute,  ignores  bedrock  limitations  on  the  power 
of  Article  III  judges,  and  takes  federal  courts  wildly 
beyond their institutional capacity.