Opinion ID: 112173
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Composition of the Commission

Text: We now turn to petitioner's claim that Congress' decision to require at least three federal judges to serve on the Commission and to require those judges to share their authority with nonjudges undermines the integrity of the Judicial Branch. The Act provides in part: At least three of [the Commission's] members shall be Federal judges selected [by the President] after considering a list of six judges recommended to the President by the Judicial Conference of the United States. 28 U. S. C. § 991(a). Petitioner urges us to strike down the Act on the ground that its requirement of judicial participation on the Commission unconstitutionally conscripts individual federal judges for political service and thereby undermines the essential impartiality of the Judicial Branch. We find Congress' requirement of judicial service somewhat troublesome, but we do not believe that the Act impermissibly interferes with the functioning of the Judiciary. The text of the Constitution contains no prohibition against the service of active federal judges on independent commissions such as that established by the Act. The Constitution does include an Incompatibility Clause applicable to national legislators: No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office. U. S. Const., Art. I, § 6, cl. 2. No comparable restriction applies to judges, and we find it at least inferentially meaningful that at the Constitutional Convention two prohibitions against plural officeholding by members of the Judiciary were proposed, but did not reach the floor of the Convention for a vote. [21] Our inferential reading that the Constitution does not prohibit Article III judges from undertaking extrajudicial duties finds support in the historical practice of the Founders after ratification. Our early history indicates that the Framers themselves did not read the Constitution as forbidding extrajudicial service by federal judges. The first Chief Justice, John Jay, served simultaneously as Chief Justice and as Ambassador to England, where he negotiated the treaty that bears his name. Oliver Ellsworth served simultaneously as Chief Justice and as Minister to France. While he was Chief Justice, John Marshall served briefly as Secretary of State and was a member of the Sinking Fund Commission with responsibility for refunding the Revolutionary War debt. All these appointments were made by the President with the Advice and Consent of the Senate. Thus, at a minimum, both the Executive and Legislative Branches acquiesced in the assumption of extrajudicial duties by judges. In addition, although the records of Congress contain no reference to the confirmation debate, Charles Warren, in his history of this Court, reports that the Senate specifically rejected by a vote of 18 to 8 a resolution proposed during the debate over Jay's nomination to the effect that such extrajudicial service was contrary to the spirit of the Constitution. 1 C. Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History 119 (rev. ed. 1937). This contemporaneous practice by the Founders themselves is significant evidence that the constitutional principle of separation of powers does not absolutely prohibit extrajudicial service. See Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U. S., at 723-724 (actions by Members of the First Congress provide contemporaneous and weighty evidence about the meaning of the Constitution). [22] Subsequent history, moreover, reveals a frequent and continuing, albeit controversial, practice of extrajudicial service. [23] In 1877, five Justices served on the Election Commission that resolved the hotly contested Presidential election of 1876, where Samuel J. Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes were the contenders. Justices Nelson, Fuller, Brewer, Hughes, Day, Roberts, and Van Devanter served on various arbitral commissions. Justice Roberts was a member of the commission organized to investigate the attack on Pearl Harbor. Justice Jackson was one of the prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials; and Chief Justice Warren presided over the commission investigating the assassination of President Kennedy. [24] Such service has been no less a practice among lower court federal judges. [25] While these extrajudicial activities spawned spirited discussion and frequent criticism, and although some of the judges who undertook these duties sometimes did so with reservation and may have looked back on their service with regret, traditional ways of conducting government . . . give meaning to the Constitution. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S., at 610 (concurring opinion). Our 200-year tradition of extrajudicial service is additional evidence that the doctrine of separated powers does not prohibit judicial participation in certain extrajudicial activity. [26] Furthermore, although we have not specifically addressed the constitutionality of extrajudicial service, two of our precedents reflect at least an early understanding by this Court that the Constitution does not preclude judges from assuming extrajudicial duties in their individual capacities. In Hayburn's Case, 2 Dall. 409 (1792), the Court considered a request for a writ of mandamus ordering a Circuit Court to execute a statute empowering federal and state courts to set pensions for disabled Revolutionary War veterans. The statute authorized the courts to determine monthly disability payments, but it made those determinations reviewable by the Secretary of War. Because Congress by an amendment of the statute rendered the case moot, the Court did not pass on the constitutional issue. Mr. Dallas, in reporting the case, included in the margin three Circuit Court rulings on the statute. All three concluded that the powers conferred could not be performed by an Article III court. The judicial Power of the United States did not extend to duties more properly performed by the Executive. See Morrison v. Olson, 487 U. S., at 677-678, n. 15 (characterizing Hayburn's Case ). As this Court later observed in United States v. Ferreira, 13 How. 40 (1852), however, the New York Circuit, in 1791, with a bench consisting of Chief Justice Jay, Justice Cushing, and District Judge Duane, believed that individual judges acting not in their judicial capacities but as individual commissioners could exercise the duties conferred upon them by the statute. Neither of the other two courts expressed a definitive view whether judges acting as commissioners could make disability determinations reviewable by the Secretary of War. In Ferreira, however, this Court concluded that although the Circuit Courts were not fully in agreement as to whether the statute could be construed as conferring the duties on the judges as commissioners, if the statute was subject to that construction there seems to have been no doubt, at that time, but that they might constitutionally exercise it, and the Secretary constitutionally revise their decisions. Id., at 50. Ferreira itself concerned a statute authorizing a Federal District Court in Florida to adjudicate claims for losses for which the United States was responsible under the 1819 treaty by which Spain ceded Florida to the United States. As in Hayburn's Case, the court's determination was to be reported to an executive officer, the Secretary of the Treasury, who would exercise final judgment as to whether the claims should be paid. 13 How., at 45-47. This Court recognized that the powers conferred on the District Court were judicial in their nature, in the sense that they called for judgment and discretion. Id., at 48. Nonetheless, we concluded that those powers were not judicial . . . in the sense in which judicial power is granted by the Constitution to the courts of the United States. Ibid. Because the District Court's decision was not an exercise of judicial power, this Court found itself without jurisdiction to hear the appeal. Id., at 51-52. We did not conclude in Ferreira, however, that Congress could not confer on a federal judge the function of resolving administrative claims. On the contrary, we expressed general agreement with the view of some of the judges in Hayburn's Case that while such administrative duties could not be assigned to a court, or to judges acting as part of a court, such duties could be assigned to judges acting individually as commissioners. Although we did not decide the question, we expressed reservation about whether the District Judge in Florida could act legitimately as a commissioner since he was not appointed as such by the President pursuant to his Article II power to appoint officers of the United States. 13 How., at 51. In sum, Ferreira, like Hayburn's Case, suggests that Congress may authorize a federal judge, in an individual capacity, to perform an executive function without violating the separation of powers. Accord, United States v. Yale Todd (1794) (unreported decision discussed in the margin of the opinion in Ferreira, 13 How., at 52-53). In light of the foregoing history and precedent, we conclude that the principle of separation of powers does not absolutely prohibit Article III judges from serving on commissions such as that created by the Act. The judges serve on the Sentencing Commission not pursuant to their status and authority as Article III judges, but solely because of their appointment by the President as the Act directs. Such power as these judges wield as Commissioners is not judicial power; it is administrative power derived from the enabling legislation. Just as the nonjudicial members of the Commission act as administrators, bringing their experience and wisdom to bear on the problems of sentencing disparity, so too the judges, uniquely qualified on the subject of sentencing, assume a wholly administrative role upon entering into the deliberations of the Commission. In other words, the Constitution, at least as a per se matter, does not forbid judges to wear two hats; it merely forbids them to wear both hats at the same time. This is not to suggest, of course, that every kind of extrajudicial service under every circumstance necessarily accords with the Constitution. That the Constitution does not absolutely prohibit a federal judge from assuming extrajudicial duties does not mean that every extrajudicial service would be compatible with, or appropriate to, continuing service on the bench; nor does it mean that Congress may require a federal judge to assume extrajudicial duties as long as the judge is assigned those duties in an individual, not judicial, capacity. The ultimate inquiry remains whether a particular extrajudicial assignment undermines the integrity of the Judicial Branch. [27] With respect to the Sentencing Commission, we understand petitioner to argue that the service required of at least three judges presents two distinct threats to the integrity of the Judicial Branch. Regardless of constitutionality, this mandatory service, it is said, diminishes the independence of the Judiciary. See Brief for Petitioner 28. It is further claimed that the participation of judges on the Commission improperly lends judicial prestige and an aura of judicial impartiality to the Commission's political work. The involvement of Article III judges in the process of policymaking, petitioner asserts,  `[w]eakens confidence in the disinterestedness of the judicatory functions.'  Ibid., quoting F. Frankfurter, Advisory Opinions, in 1 Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 475, 478 (1930). In our view, petitioner significantly overstates the mandatory nature of Congress' directive that at least three members of the Commission shall be federal judges, as well as the effect of this service on the practical operation of the Judicial Branch. Service on the Commission by any particular judge is voluntary. The Act does not conscript judges for the Commission. No Commission member to date has been appointed without his consent and we have no reason to believe that the Act confers upon the President any authority to force a judge to serve on the Commission against his will. [28] Accordingly, we simply do not face the question whether Congress may require a particular judge to undertake the extrajudicial duty of serving on the Commission. In Chandler v. Judicial Council, 398 U. S. 74 (1970), we found no constitutional obstacle preventing Congress from vesting in the Circuit Judicial Councils, as administrative bodies, authority to administer  `the business of the courts within [each] circuit.'  Id., at 86, n. 7, quoting 28 U. S. C. § 332 (1970 ed.). [29] Indeed, Congress has created numerous nonadjudicatory bodies, such as the Judicial Conference, that are composed entirely, or in part, of federal judges. See 28 U. S. C. §§ 331, 332; see generally Meador, The Federal Judiciary and Its Future Administration, 65 Va. L. Rev. 1031 (1979). Accordingly, absent a more specific threat to judicial independence, the fact that Congress has included federal judges on the Commission does not itself threaten the integrity of the Judicial Branch. Moreover, we cannot see how the service of federal judges on the Commission will have a constitutionally significant practical effect on the operation of the Judicial Branch. We see no reason why service on the Commission should result in widespread judicial recusals. That federal judges participate in the promulgation of guidelines does not affect their or other judges' ability impartially to adjudicate sentencing issues. Cf. Mississippi Publishing Corp. v. Murphree, 326 U. S. 438 (1946) (that this Court promulgated the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure did not foreclose its consideration of challenges to their validity). While in the abstract a proliferation of commissions with congressionally mandated judiciary participation might threaten judicial independence by exhausting the resources of the Judicial Branch, that danger is far too remote for consideration here. We are somewhat more troubled by petitioner's argument that the Judiciary's entanglement in the political work of the Commission undermines public confidence in the disinterestedness of the Judicial Branch. While the problem of individual bias is usually cured through recusal, no such mechanism can overcome the appearance of institutional partiality that may arise from judiciary involvement in the making of policy. The legitimacy of the Judicial Branch ultimately depends on its reputation for impartiality and nonpartisanship. That reputation may not be borrowed by the political Branches to cloak their work in the neutral colors of judicial action. Although it is a judgment that is not without difficulty, we conclude that the participation of federal judges on the Sentencing Commission does not threaten, either in fact or in appearance, the impartiality of the Judicial Branch. We are drawn to this conclusion by one paramount consideration: that the Sentencing Commission is devoted exclusively to the development of rules to rationalize a process that has been and will continue to be performed exclusively by the Judicial Branch. In our view, this is an essentially neutral endeavor and one in which judicial participation is peculiarly appropriate. Judicial contribution to the enterprise of creating rules to limit the discretion of sentencing judges does not enlist the resources or reputation of the Judicial Branch in either the legislative business of determining what conduct should be criminalized or the executive business of enforcing the law. Rather, judicial participation on the Commission ensures that judicial experience and expertise will inform the promulgation of rules for the exercise of the Judicial Branch's own business  that of passing sentence on every criminal defendant. To this end, Congress has provided, not inappropriately, for a significant judicial voice on the Commission. Justice Jackson underscored in Youngstown that the Constitution anticipates reciprocity among the Branches. 343 U. S., at 635. As part of that reciprocity and as part of the integration of dispersed powers into a workable government, Congress may enlist the assistance of judges in the creation of rules to govern the Judicial Branch. Our principle of separation of powers anticipates that the coordinate Branches will converse with each other on matters of vital common interest. While we have some reservation that Congress required such a dialogue in this case, the Constitution does not prohibit Congress from enlisting federal judges to present a uniquely judicial view on the uniquely judicial subject of sentencing. In this case, at least, where the subject lies so close to the heart of the judicial function and where purposes of the Commission are not inherently partisan, such enlistment is not coercion or co-optation, but merely assurance of judicial participation. Finally, we reject petitioner's argument that the mixed nature of the Commission violates the Constitution by requiring Article III judges to share judicial power with nonjudges. As noted earlier, the Commission is not a court and exercises no judicial power. Thus, the Act does not vest Article III power in nonjudges or require Article III judges to share their power with nonjudges.