Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-1233.pdf
Page Number: 79

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

5 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

77a.  Instead,  it  based  its  remedy  on  constitutional  defi-
ciencies  that,  in  its  own  words,  were  found  “years  ago.” 
Ibid.2 

The three-judge court justified its refusal to receive up-
to-date evidence on the ground that the State had not filed 
a motion to terminate prospective relief under a provision
of  the  PLRA,  §3626(b).  See  Juris.  App.  77a.  Today’s
opinion for this Court endorses that reasoning, ante, at 26. 
But  the  State’s  opportunity  to  file  such  a  motion  did  not
eliminate the three-judge court’s obligation to ensure that 
its  relief  was  necessary  to  remedy  ongoing  violations.3 
Moreover,  the  lower  court’s  reasoning  did  not  properly
take into account the potential significance of the evidence
that the State sought to introduce.  Even if that evidence 
did  not  show  that  all  violations  had  ceased—the  showing 
needed  to  obtain  the  termination  of  relief  under 
§3626(b)—that  evidence  was  highly  relevant  with  respect 
to the nature and scope of permissible relief.4 
—————— 

2 For  this  reason,  it  is  simply  not  the  case  that  “evidence  of  current
conditions . . . informed every aspect of the judgment of the three-judge
court,” as the majority insists, ante, at 25. 

3 Because  the  Ninth  Circuit  places  the  burden  on  the  State  to  prove 
the  absence  of  an  ongoing  violation  when  it  moves  to  terminate  pro-
spective  relief,  see  Gilmore  v.  California,  220  F. 3d  987,  1007  (CA9
2000),  even  if  the  State  had  unsuccessfully  moved  to  terminate  pro-
spective relief under 18 U. S. C. §3626(b), there would still have been no
determination that plaintiffs had carried their burden under the PLRA 
to  establish  by  clear  and  convincing  evidence  that  a  prisoner  release 
order is necessary to correct an ongoing rights violation. 

4 It is also no answer to say, as the Court now does, ante, at 26, that 
the State had the opportunity to resist the convening of the three-judge
court  on  the  ground  that  there  were  no  unremedied  constitutional 
violations  as  of  that  date.    See  §3626(a)(3)(A)(i).  The  District  Courts 
granted plaintiffs’ motions to convene a three-judge court in 2007, three
years before the remedial decree here was issued.  Thus, the conditions 
in the prison system as of the date when the decree was issued were not 
necessarily the same as those that existed before the three-judge court
proceedings  began.  Moreover,  as  noted  above,  even  if  all  of  the  viola-
tions  in  the  system  had  not  been  cured  at  the  time  of  the  remedial