Opinion ID: 164956
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Craigmiles v. Giles

Text: 43 In so holding, we part company with the Sixth Circuit's Craigmiles decision, which struck a nearly identical Tennessee statute as violating the Equal Protection Clause and substantive due process. Our disagreement can be reduced to three points. 19 First, as noted by the District Court, Craigmiles 's analysis focused heavily on the court's perception of the actual motives of the Tennessee legislature. Craigmiles, 312 F.3d at 227 (The state could argue that the Act as a whole ... actually provides some legitimate protection for consumers from casket retailers. The history of the legislation, however, reveals a different story....). The Supreme Court has foreclosed such an inquiry. Beach Communications, 508 U.S. at 315, 113 S.Ct. 2096 ([B]ecause we never require a legislature to articulate its reasons for enacting a statute, it is entirely irrelevant for constitutional purposes whether the conceived reason for the challenged distinction actually motivated the legislature.). Second, the Craigmiles court held that protecting a discrete interest group from economic competition is not a legitimate governmental purpose. Craigmiles, 312 F.3d at 224. As discussed above, we find this conclusion unsupportable. See Fitzgerald, 539 U.S. at 109-110, 123 S.Ct. 2156 (holding, after the decision in Craigmiles, that the objective of favoring one intrastate industry over another provides a rational basis to support legislation). Third, in focusing on the actual motivation of the state legislature and the state's proffered justifications for the law, the Craigmiles court relied heavily on Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U.S. 432, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985). We find this emphasis misplaced. 44 A few additional words are in order regarding our last point of disagreement. In essence, Plaintiffs in this case ask this court to engage in what they assert to be an exacting rational-basis standard set forth by the Supreme Court in Cleburne [.] Jacobs, Visconsi & Jacobs, Co. v. City of Lawrence, 927 F.2d 1111, 1119 n. 6 (10th Cir.1991). Pursuant to their reading of Cleburne, 20 a court would be shrinking from its most basic duty if it abstained from both an analysis of the legislation's articulated objective and the method that the legislature employed to achieve that objective. Brown v. Barry, 710 F.Supp. 352, 355 (D.D.C.1989); see also Craigmiles, 312 F.3d at 227. This reading of Cleburne, however, constitutes a marked departure from traditional rational-basis review's prohibition on looking at the legislature's actual motives, see Beach Communications, 508 U.S. at 315, 113 S.Ct. 2096, and our obligation to forward every conceivable legitimate state interest on behalf of the challenged statute, see, e.g., Starlight Sugar, 253 F.3d at 146. 45 Despite the hue and cry from all sides, 21 no majority of the Court has stated that the rational-basis review found in Cleburne and Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 116 S.Ct. 1620, 134 L.Ed.2d 855 (1996), differs from the traditional variety applied above. But see Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 580, 123 S.Ct. 2472, 2485, 156 L.Ed.2d 508 (2003) (O'Connor, J., concurring in part) (When a law exhibits such a desire to harm a politically unpopular group, we have applied a more searching form of rational basis review to strike down such laws under the Equal Protection Clause.). Perhaps, as Justice O'Connor suggests, Cleburne and Romer represent the embryonic stages of a new category of equal protection review. See Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 458, 105 S.Ct. 3249 (Marshall, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (labeling Cleburne 's rational-basis review `second-order' rational-basis review). But [e]ven if we were to read Cleburne to require that laws discriminating against historically unpopular groups meet an exacting rational-basis standard, which we do not, we do not believe the class in which [Plaintiffs] assert they are a member merits such scrutiny. Jacobs, Visconsi & Jacobs, Co., 927 F.2d at 1119 n. 6. 46 On the other hand, Romer and Cleburne may not signal the birth of a new category of equal protection review. Perhaps, after considering all other conceivable purposes, the Romer and Cleburne Courts found that a bare ... desire to harm a politically unpopular group, Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U.S. 528, 534, 93 S.Ct. 2821, 37 L.Ed.2d 782 (1973), constituted the only conceivable state interest in those cases, see Clajon Production Corp. v. Petera, 70 F.3d 1566, 1581 n. 24 (10th Cir.1995) (forwarding this interpretation of Cleburne ). Under this reading, Cleburne would also not apply here because we have conceived of a legitimate state interest other than a bare desire to harm non-licensed, time-of-need, retail, casket salespersons. 47 Finally, perhaps Cleburne and Romer are merely exceptions to traditional rational basis review fashioned by the Court to correct perceived inequities unique to those cases. If so, the Court has fail[ed] to articulate [when this exception applies, thus] provid[ing] no principled foundation for determining when more searching inquiry is to be invoked. Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 460, 105 S.Ct. 3249 (Marshall, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Regardless, the Court itself has never applied Cleburne -style rational-basis review to economic issues. See, e.g., Fitzgerald, 123 S.Ct. at 2159-60; Beach Communications, 508 U.S. at 315, 113 S.Ct. 2096; Nordlinger, 505 U.S. at 11-13, 112 S.Ct. 2326. Following the Court's lead, neither will we. Thus, we need not decide how Cleburne alters, if at all, traditional rational-basis review because, even under a modified rational basis test, the outcome here would be unchanged.