Source: https://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/421/21/case.php
Timestamp: 2020-05-28 12:18:51
Document Index: 591635185

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2282', 'Art. 134', '§ 1252', '§ 839', 'Art. 134', 'Art. 134', '§ 2281', 'Art. 134', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 1253', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', 'Art. 134']

US Supreme Court Decisions On-Line> Volume 421 > MCLUCAS V. DECHAMPLAIN, 421 U. S. 21 (1975)
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1. Whether a three-judge district court was or was not required under 28 U.S.C. § 2282 as to appellee's Art. 134 claim, the case is properly before this Court on appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1252, since it is a civil action, appellants are officers of the United States chanrobles.com-red
POWELL, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J.,and STEWART, WHITE, BLACKMUN, and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which DOUGLAS and MARSHALL, JJ., joined, post, p. 421 U. S. 34.
The District Court for the District of Columbia preliminarily enjoined appellants, the Secretary of the Air Force and five Air Force officers, [Footnote 1] from proceeding with chanrobles.com-red
This clause of the article is an assimilative crimes provision, conferring court-martial jurisdiction over service-connected, noncapital federal offenses not covered by specific provisions of the Code. [Footnote 2] In 1971, court-martial charges were preferred chanrobles.com-red
The military authorities then prepared to retry DeChamplain before a general court-martial on substantially the same charges. The charges were amended, however, to delete all allegations pertaining to three of the classified documents, the Air Force choosing to forgo prosecution as to these documents, rather than compromise their confidentiality. The Air Force also decided not to introduce chanrobles.com-red
At a pretrial hearing conducted pursuant to 10 U.S.C. § 839, DeChamplain challenged these restrictions. The presiding military judge sustained the restrictions, but granted the civilian defense team access to portions of the original record pertaining to the nine documents still at issue, subject to the restrictions applicable to the documents themselves. DeChamplain also moved to dismiss the charges on various grounds, claiming, inter alia, that Art. 134 was unconstitutional. The presiding judge denied the motion. DeChamplain made the same claims in three petitions to the Court of Military Appeals for extraordinary relief. That court denied the petitions, [Footnote 5] stating chanrobles.com-red
The District Court further concluded that DeChamplain had satisfied the requirements for a preliminary injunction. It ruled that the unconstitutionality of Art. 134 was clear from the decisions of the Courts of Appeals in Avrech v. Secretary of the Navy, 155 U.S.App.D.C. 352, 477 F.2d 1237 (1973), and Levy v. Parker, chanrobles.com-red
The case comes to us in a most unusual posture. Insofar as the complaint sought an injunction against enforcement chanrobles.com-red
The District Court here, however, obviously did not consider DeChamplain's constitutional claim insubstantial; on the contrary, the court denied the motion to dismiss and went on to grant a preliminary injunction. According to DeChamplain, a three-judge court was deemed unnecessary at the time the complaint was filed not because his claim was insubstantial, but because the unconstitutionality of the statute appeared settled by the Court of Appeals decision in Avrech v. Secretary of the Navy, supra, a decision binding on the District Court. chanrobles.com-red
On its face, this provision would seem to allow a direct appeal to this Court if a single district judge grants or denies an injunction, when, under 28 U.S.C. § 2281 or 2282, the case was "required . . . to be heard and determined" by a three-judge court. This Court has read the statute, however, as allowing direct appeals only from chanrobles.com-red
The requisites of this provision are met in this case. This is a civil action; the appellant military authorities are, of course, officers of the United States, acting in their official capacities; and Art. 134 is an "Act of Congress." It might be argued that, in deciding to issue the preliminary injunction, the District Court made only an interlocutory determination of appellee's probability of success on the merits, and did not finally "hold" the article unconstitutional. By its terms, however, § 1252 applies to interlocutory, as well as final, judgments, decrees, and orders, and this Court previously has found the section properly invoked when the court below has made only an interlocutory determination of unconstitutionality, at least if, as here, that determination forms the necessary predicate to the grant or denial of preliminary equitable relief. Fleming v. Rhodes, 331 U. S. 100 (1947). In chanrobles.com-red
In his motion to dismiss, appellee argued that § 1252 should be subject to the limitations placed on direct appeals to this Court under § 1253. In other words, § 1252 should not be read as allowing a direct appeal from an injunctive order erroneously entered by a single district judge, and instead appeal should be allowed only when the district court acted within its jurisdiction. [Footnote 11] Such a gloss on § 1252 perhaps would be "consonant with the overriding policy, historically encouraged by Congress, of minimizing the mandatory docket of this Court. . . ." Gonzalez v. Automatic Employees Credit Union, supra, at 419 U. S. 98. We think, however, that, in § 1252, Congress unambiguously mandated an exception to this policy in the narrow circumstances that the section identifies. The language of the statute sufficiently demonstrates its purpose: to afford immediate review in this Court in civil actions to which the United States or its officers are parties and thus will be bound by a holding of unconstitutionality. The purpose of § 1252 is too plain to allow circumvention, whatever doubts may be entertained about the wisdom of mandatory direct review in other circumstances. Our previous cases have recognized that this Court's jurisdiction under § 1252 in no way depends on whether the district court had jurisdiction. On the contrary, an appeal under § 1252 brings before us, not only the constitutional question, but the whole case, e.g., United States v. Raines, supra at 362 U. S. 27 n. 7; see 9 J. Moore, Federal Practice ¦ 110.03 [5], chanrobles.com-red
Proper disposition of the case does not require extended discussion. Appellants argue that, in fact, DeChamplain's constitutional claim was always insubstantial. The Courts of Appeals decisions in Levy v. Parker and Avrech v. Secretary of the Navy, which concluded that Art. 134 suffered from unconstitutional vagueness, concerned only the first two clauses of that article making punishable "all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces" and "all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces." DeChamplain, however, was charged under the assimilative crimes clause of the article, and was accused of having committed specific federal offenses. Thus, any possible vagueness in other parts of the article could not have affected DeChamplain. At this point, however, no purpose could be served by our deciding whether, when the complaint was filed, DeChamplain's constitutional claim was or was not substantial. Under our decisions in Levy and Avrech, DeChamplain's claim is, as he concedes, [Footnote 13] clearly insubstantial now, and must be dismissed. [Footnote 14] chanrobles.com-red
The "unlimited access" aspect chanrobles.com-red