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Page Number: 70.0

10 

SEC v. JARKESY 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

constitutional, the Court said, because “public rights” were
at issue.  Id., at 284.  In other words, the dispute arose be-
tween the Government and the customs collector in connec-
tion  with  the  Government’s  exercise  of  its  constitutional 
power to collect revenue.  Congress could have brought such
claims, if it wanted, “within the cognizance of the courts of 
the United States, as it may deem proper.”  Ibid.  The Court 
thus endorsed that constitutional balance: Congress could 
decide whether to assign a public-rights dispute to the Ex-
ecutive for initial adjudication subject to judicial review or
to an Article III federal court for resolution. 

Fast forward half a century.  In Oceanic Steam Nav. Co. 
v. Stranahan, 214 U. S. 320, 338–340 (1909), the Court up-
held a customs official’s imposition of a penalty on a steam-
ship  company  that  violated  immigration  laws  barring  the 
entry of certain classes of people into the country.  The cus-
toms  official  determined  the  facts,  adjudicated  the  viola-
tion, and enforced the statutory prohibition on immigration 
through the assessment of a monetary penalty.  See id., at 
329.  The Court noted the breadth of Congress’s immigra-
tion power and held that the civil-penalty statutory scheme 
at  issue  was  “beyond  all  question  constitutional.”    Id.,  at 
342.  Yet, far from restricting the public-rights doctrine to
this particular exercise of congressional power or to specific
prerogatives,  the  Stranahan  Court  went  out  of  its  way  to 
explain  that  the  “settled  judicial  construction”  that  civil-
penalty  claims  brought  by  the  Government  could  be  as-
signed  to  the  Executive  for  initial  adjudication  extended 
“not only as to tariff, but as to internal revenue, taxation,
and other subjects,” including the regulation of foreign com-
merce.  Id., at 339; see also id., at 334–335. 

Importantly,  Stranahan  rejected  the  “proposition”  that,
in “cases of penalty or punishment, . . . enforcement must 
depend upon the exertion of judicial power, either by civil 
or criminal process.”  Id., at 338.  In words that could have