Opinion ID: 716733
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez: The Inquiry for the Nature of Proceedings

Text: 106 Finally, before attempting a synthesis, we must briefly discuss the test employed by the district court----which was based on Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144, 83 S.Ct. 554, 9 L.Ed.2d 644 (1963)----and explain why we find its approach inappropriate. In that case, the Court held that divesting American citizenship for draft evasion or military desertion was punishment requiring the procedural protections of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments: [T]he Fifth and Sixth Amendments mandate that this punishment cannot be imposed without a prior criminal trial and all its incidents, including indictment, notice, confrontation, jury trial, assistance of counsel, and compulsory process for obtaining witnesses. Id. at 167, 83 S.Ct. at 567 (emphasis added). 107 Mendoza-Martinez set forth a multi-factor analysis to determine whether a measure constitutes punishment triggering criminal process guarantees: 108 whether the sanction involves an affirmative disability or restraint, whether it has historically been regarded as punitive, whether it comes into play only on a finding of scienter, whether its operation will promote the traditional aims of punishment--retribution and deterrence, whether the burden to which it applies is already a crime, whether an alternative purpose to which it may rationally be connected is assignable for it, whether it appears excessive in relation to the alternative purpose. 109 Id. at 168-69, 83 S.Ct. at 567-68. The district court applied this test in holding that notification under Megan's Law was unconstitutional. 110 However, the Supreme Court has made clear that the Mendoza-Martinez test is not controlling for the issues in this case. See Austin, 509 U.S. at 610 n. 6, 113 S.Ct. at 2806 n. 6. Although Mendoza-Martinez used the word punishment, Austin explains that the seven factors are properly used to determine whether a proceeding is so punitive that the proceeding must reasonably be considered criminal for purposes of Sixth Amendment trial protections. Id. In addressing the separate question whether punishment is being imposed, the Court has not employed the tests articulated in Mendoza-Martinez and Ward. Id. 111 Amicus American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) makes a clever argument on this point. The Supreme Court has said that Mendoza-Martinez does not control for determinations of whether a civil measure is punishment. The ACLU contends that this is because the Mendoza-Martinez test----which analyzes whether something is so punitive as to invoke criminal trial protections----is harder to prove than the test for mere punishment. Logically, if a measure is so punitive to satisfy the higher Mendoza-Martinez threshold, amicus argues, it should also be punishment for purposes of the challenges Artway brings, even if the reverse is not true. 112 Nevertheless, like the New Jersey Supreme Court in Doe, 142 N.J. at 63-73, 662 A.2d 367, we think it wise to heed the Supreme Court's advice: Mendoza-Martinez is inapplicable outside the context of determining whether a proceeding is sufficiently criminal in nature to warrant criminal procedural protections of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. 26 See Austin, 509 U.S. at 610 n. 6, 113 S.Ct. at 2806 n. 6. Even when the Court has recited the Mendoza-Martinez factors, including in Mendoza-Martinez itself, it has played them down. See Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. at 167, 83 S.Ct. at 566-67 (declining to apply its own factors). It has consistently insisted that these factors, really a grab-bag of many individual tests, are neither controlling nor dispositive. See United States v. Ward, 448 U.S. 242, 249, 100 S.Ct. 2636, 2641-42, 65 L.Ed.2d 742 (1980) ([T]his list of considerations, while certainly neither exhaustive nor dispositive, has proved helpful in our own consideration of similar questions and provides some guidance.) (emphasis added). Finally, we think that a seven factor balancing test--with factors of unknown weight that may often point in differing directions, Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. at 169, 83 S.Ct. at 568--is too indeterminate and unwieldy to provide much assistance to us here. 27 113