Opinion ID: 716733
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Punishment Under the Ex Post Facto, Bill of Attainder,

Text: 65 and Double Jeopardy Clauses 66 We turn now to the merits of Artway's ripe challenge: that the registration provisions of Megan's Law violate the Ex Post Facto, Bill of Attainder, and Double Jeopardy Clauses. We begin by recapping the nature of those protections. The Constitution provides that [n]o state shall ... pass any ... ex post facto Law. U.S. Const. art. I, § 10. Under the Ex Post Facto Clause, the government may not apply a law retroactively that inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 386, 390, 1 L.Ed. 648 (1798). 67 The Constitution also forbids states to pass any Bill of Attainder. U.S. Const. art. I, § 10. 14 Under the Bill of Attainder Clause, legislatures are forbidden to enact [l]egislative acts, no matter what their form, that apply either to named individuals or to easily ascertainable members of a group in such a way as to inflict punishment on them without a judicial trial. United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 448-49, 85 S.Ct. 1707, 1715, 14 L.Ed.2d 484 (1965). 68 Finally, the Constitution provides: [N]or shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb. U.S. Const. amend. V. [T]he Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits, inter alia, a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction ... and multiple punishments for the same offense. United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 440, 109 S.Ct. 1892, 1897, 104 L.Ed.2d 487 (1989). The threshold question under each clause, therefore, is whether the registration provisions of Megan's Law impose punishment. If registration does not impose punishment, our inquiry with respect to the registration issue is at an end. 15 69 We must sort through several key cases involving these various provisions to derive (or, perhaps more appropriately given the confused state of the law, divine) the test for punishment. In the end, we develop a multi-part test that looks to the legislature's subjective purpose in enacting the challenged measure, its objective purpose in terms of proportionality and history, and the measure's effects.
70 We start with De Veau v. Braisted, 363 U.S. 144, 80 S.Ct. 1146, 4 L.Ed.2d 1109 (1960), in which the Supreme Court announced a subjective (or actual) legislative purpose test. In that case, the Court upheld, against bill of attainder and ex post facto challenges, a law forbidding certain unions employing former felons from collecting dues. In effect, the law barred convicted felons from working on the New York and New Jersey waterfront. The Court explained that [t]he question in each case where unpleasant consequences are brought to bear upon an individual for prior conduct, is whether the legislative aim was to punish that individual for past activity, or whether the restriction of the individual comes about as a relevant incident to a regulation of a present situation, such as the qualifications of a profession. Id. at 160, 80 S.Ct. at 1155 (emphasis added). 71 The proof is overwhelming, the Court continued, that New York sought not to punish ex-felons, but to devise what was felt to be a much-needed scheme of regulation of the waterfront, and for the effectuation of that scheme it became important whether individuals had previously been convicted of a felony. Id. This early case, emphasized by New Jersey, suggests that actual legislative purpose is the only inquiry. But subsequent cases make clear that this is no longer true. 72
73 Almost thirty years later, in United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 109 S.Ct. 1892, 104 L.Ed.2d 487 (1989), the Court articulated an objective legislative intent test----the test central to the arguments of both Artway and the State. Halper held that a sizeable fine, imposed in a civil proceeding after the defendant's conviction for Medicare fraud, violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. The Court analyzed the issue by determining whether the fine served the purposes of punishment, including retribution and deterrence, or instead satisfied a remedial purpose. Simply put, a civil as well as a criminal sanction constitutes punishment, the Court said, when the sanction as applied in the individual case serves the goals of punishment. Id. 74 We have recognized in other contexts that punishment serves the twin aims of retribution and deterrence. Furthermore, retribution and deterrence are not legitimate nonpunitive governmental objectives. From these premises, it follows that a civil sanction that cannot be fairly said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be explained as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes, is punishment, as we have come to understand that term. 75 Id. at 448, 109 S.Ct. at 1902 (citations and internal quotations omitted) (emphasis added). 76 The Court found that the fine in that case----$130,000----bore no rational relation to the legitimate remedial purpose----compensating the government for its $16,000 in costs. Id. at 449, 109 S.Ct. at 1902. Therefore, the Court held that the Double Jeopardy Clause barred the additional civil sanction after criminal punishment to the extent that the second sanction may not fairly be characterized as remedial, but only as a deterrent or retribution. Id. at 448-49, 109 S.Ct. at 1902. 16 77 Because Halper occupies such a central role in the punishment inquiry, a number of explanatory observations are in order. The first is a matter of semantics: a clear understanding of the terms retributive, deterrent, and remedial is critical to applying the Halper test. We therefore explain how we think the Supreme Court is using the terms; at least the reader will know how we are using them. Retribution is vengeance for its own sake. It does not seek to affect future conduct or solve any problem except realizing justice. Deterrent measures serve as a threat of negative repercussions to discourage people from engaging in certain behavior. Remedial measures, on the other hand, seek to solve a problem, for instance by removing the likely perpetrators of future corruption instead of threatening them (De Veau ), or compensating the government for costs incurred (Halper ). 78 Of course, as the cases point out, a measure could serve all three functions. For instance, putting someone in jail for a sex offense serves the retributive function of hurting that person, the deterrent purposes of convincing him and others not to engage in that behavior to avoid the adverse consequences, and the remedial purpose of keeping him away from others (at least outside the prison). Another complication is that measures can have one or more of these effects without having that purpose. 79 With this lexicon in mind, we turn to an explication of the Halper calculus, which evaluates the proportionality of ends to means. To recapitulate, the Halper test is whether a civil sanction that cannot be fairly said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be explained as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes, is punishment. Id. at 448, 109 S.Ct. at 1902. (emphasis added). The threshold question is thus whether a remedial purpose can explain the sanction. Only if the remedial purpose is insufficient to justify the measure, and one must resort also to retributive or deterrent justifications, does the measure become punitive. Only then can the measure only be explained as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes. 80 To illustrate with a venerable statutory interpretation hypothetical, assume that someone is sent to the store in the snow for soupmeat. The trip can be explained solely by the remedial purpose of obtaining food, even though the trip through the cold could also serve retributive purposes. See id. at 447 n. 7, 109 S.Ct. at 1901 n. 7 ([O]ur cases have acknowledged that for the defendant even remedial sanctions carry the sting of punishment.). It therefore qualifies as non-punishment under Halper. On the other hand, assume now that, without additional justification, the agent is sent without clothes. This additional aspect of the trip cannot be explained by the remedial purpose of obtaining food; this excursion can only be explained as partly serving retributive purposes. It therefore constitutes punishment under the Halper test. 17 81 Halper thus contributes an important element to our analysis: it adds an objective inquiry to supplement the actual legislative purpose test of De Veau. This constitutional protection is intrinsically personal. Its violation can be identified only by assessing the character of the actual sanctions imposed on the individual by the machinery of the state. Id. at 447, 109 S.Ct. at 1901; see also id. at 453, 109 S.Ct. at 1904 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (Today's holding, I would stress, constitutes an objective rule that is grounded in the nature of the sanction and the facts of the particular case.). 18 82 By acknowledging that civil penalties may constitute punishment, Halper departs from the practice of placing talismanic significance on the legislative labels affixed to the disputed provision and searching for the frequently unknowable and nondispositive subjective intent of the legislative body: [T]he labels 'criminal' and 'civil' are not of paramount importance .... The notion of punishment ... cuts across the division between the civil and the criminal law. Id. at 447-48, 109 S.Ct. at 1901. 19 83 The Halper objective ends-means test is a step down the road to limiting especially harsh effects, but still any sting could be permissible with a sufficient post hoc remedial purpose. For example, the need for supper could explain the trip through the snow even if the temperature were below zero. 84
85 Four years after Halper, in Austin v. United States, 509 U.S. 602, 113 S.Ct. 2801, 125 L.Ed.2d 488 (1993), the Court added yet another dimension to the punishment question: a focus on history. The Court held that civil forfeiture is punishment subject to the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment. The government had argued that forfeiture of a mobile home and body shop after the owner was convicted of a drug offense served the remedial purpose of compensating the government for its costs in investigating and prosecuting these offenses. In setting out the appropriate analysis, the Austin Court rescribed the key passage in Halper. 86 We said in Halper that a civil sanction that cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be explained as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes, is punishment, as we have come to understand the term. 87 Id. at 610, 113 S.Ct. at 2806 (quoting Halper, 490 U.S. at 448, 109 S.Ct. at 1901-02). 88 The Austin Court then took a different tack than the Halper Court: it applied the Halper test primarily by examining history, rather than proportionality. We turn, then, to consider whether, at the time the Eighth Amendment was ratified, forfeiture was understood at least in part as punishment and whether forfeiture under [the statute in question] should be so understood today. Id. Examining history, it concluded that forfeiture has traditionally been regarded as punishment. Looking to the language and legislative history of the statute as a whole, the Court determined that these factors confirmed that the forfeiture statute served a punitive purpose, regardless of the proportionality of the particular forfeiture to the government's costs. 20 Id. at 617-23, 113 S.Ct. at 2810-12. It therefore remanded for a determination whether the forfeiture, by being excessive, violated the Eighth Amendment. Id. 89 According to Austin, a measure that has historically served punitive purposes is punishment unless the text or legislative history shows a contrary purpose. Id. at 619, 113 S.Ct. at 2810 (We find nothing in these provisions or their legislative history to contradict the historical understanding of forfeiture as punishment.). Thus, even if a remedial purpose could fully explain a measure, thereby satisfying Halper, it will not pass Austin muster if it has historically been considered punishment and neither the text nor the legislative history contradicts this purpose. To draw again on our soupmeat hypothetical, sending someone out into the snow would be punishment if doing so was traditionally regarded as punitive and the sender did not make his plausible remedial purposes clear. This would be the case even though a remedial purpose----fetching soupmeat----could fully explain the action. Without a convincing counter-rationale, something understood as punishment for so long simply cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be explained as also serving retributive or deterrent purposes. Id. at 610, 113 S.Ct. at 2806. 90 The Austin objective purpose analysis also represents a move toward analyzing the effect of a provision in ascertaining whether it inflicts punishment. 21 Though it speaks of legislative purpose, the more likely and appropriate concern in a historical inquiry is the nature of the measure itself. Even the text and legislative history inquiry of Austin can be understood as going more to the nature of the provision itself rather than the subjective intent of the legislators. 91 In concluding our discussion of Austin, we must question whether, as some courts have assumed, that case establishes that punishment for purposes of one constitutional protection is necessarily punishment for another. See United States v. $405,089.23 U.S. Currency, 33 F.3d 1210, 1219 (9th Cir.1994) (We believe that the only fair reading of Austin is that it resolves the 'punishment' issue with respect to forfeiture cases for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause as well as the Excessive Fines Clause.), amended on denial of rehearing, 56 F.3d 41 (1995), cert. granted, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 763, 133 L.Ed.2d 709 (1996). This Court, noting the tension between Halper and Austin, has rejected the Ninth Circuit's reading of Austin as resolving all forfeitures under § 881 as presumptively punishment for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause. See United States v. $184,505.01 in U.S. Currency, 72 F.3d 1160 (3d Cir.1995) (rejecting holding and reasoning of United States v. $405,089.23 U.S. Currency, 33 F.3d 1210 (9th Cir.1994)). 22 92 Nevertheless, we believe that the historical methodology of Austin, as opposed to its broad language and holding, must be applicable to other punishment determinations: historical analysis is a staple of constitutional interpretation, including those guarantees dealing with punishment. Cf. Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425, 475, 97 S.Ct. 2777, 2806, 53 L.Ed.2d 867 (1977) (examining history to determine whether access restrictions on presidential papers constituted punishment for Bill of Attainder Clause); Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 590 n. 23, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1901 n. 23, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (The Supreme Court has probably relied upon historical analysis more often than on any of the other objective factors ... [to] determin[e] whether some government sanction is punitive.) (citing cases). 93
94 One year after deciding Austin, the Court added another wrinkle in Department of Revenue v. Kurth Ranch, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1937, 128 L.Ed.2d 767 (1994), announcing that the no deterrent purpose rule of Halper and Austin does not apply in all situations. Kurth Ranch held that Montana's Dangerous Drug Tax violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. The Montana law, which taxed illegal drugs and equipment at rates up to 400 percent, constituted punishment because it was a concoction of anomalies, too far removed in crucial respects from a standard tax assessment to escape characterization as punishment for the purpose of Double Jeopardy analysis. Id. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 1948. Because Montana levied this tax in a separate proceeding, after the defendants were tried and sentenced, this punishment violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. Id. 95 Kurth Ranch further expanded on the historical inquiry begun in Austin. It distinguished the rule of Halper----that any deterrent purpose makes a law punishment----on the ground that fines and forfeitures are readily characterized as sanctions whereas taxes have typically served the salutary 23 purpose of raising revenue. Id. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 1946. Thus, the Court explained, a high tax rate and even a deterrent purpose would not automatically render a tax punitive. Id. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 1947. 96 The Court then examined whether the particular tax at issue operated in the usual manner of most taxes. It differentiated among taxes with a pure revenue raising purpose, mixed-motive taxes imposed both to deter a disfavored activity and to raise revenue, and taxes imposed upon illegal activities. Pure revenue raising taxes are not punishment, the Court said, because they are imposed despite their negative effect on the taxed activity. Id. Even mixed-motive taxes, such as those imposed on cigarette sales, are not punishment because the government wishes the activity to continue to the extent that its benefits----including tax revenues----outweigh its harms. However, the Court found that these salutary justifications vanish when the taxed activity is completely forbidden, for the legitimate revenue-raising purpose that might support such a tax could be equally well served by increasing the fine imposed upon conviction. Id. The Court held that because a tax on illegal drugs did not operate in the usual manner, the historically non-punitive purposes of taxes could not insulate this tax from being considered punishment. Id. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 1948. 97 The main significance of the Kurth Ranch limitation is that, at least for measures that have historically served salutary functions, even some deterrent purpose will not render a measure punishment: We begin by noting that neither a high rate of taxation nor an obvious deterrent purpose automatically marks this tax a form of punishment. Id. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 1946 (emphasis added). In these cases, courts must examine whether the particular measure at issue operates in a usual manner consistent with its historically salutary or mixed purposes. 24 98 Kurth Ranch also reemphasizes that at least some negative effect on the defendant does not convert a measure into punishment. We note[ ], however, that whether a sanction constitutes punishment is not determined from the defendant's perspective, as even remedial sanctions carry the 'sting of punishment.'  Id. at ---- n. 14, 114 S.Ct. at 1945 n. 14 (citations omitted). 99
100 Most recently, California Department of Corrections v. Morales, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1597, 131 L.Ed.2d 588 (1995), contributed two additional elements to the punishment analysis: it further shifts the focus from a law's purpose to its effect, and it establishes that the appropriate punishment analysis is flexible and context-dependent. In Morales, the Court rejected an ex post facto challenge to a California statute that decreased a prisoner's entitlement to parole eligibility hearings. Under the law in effect at the time of the defendant's crime, he was entitled to parole suitability hearings every year after his initial parole determination. Id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1600. The California legislature subsequently amended the law to allow the review board to defer subsequent suitability hearings if (1) the prisoner has been convicted of more than one offense which involves the taking of a life, and (2) the board finds that it is not reasonable to expect that parole would be granted. Id. (citing Cal.Penal Code Ann. § 3041.5(b)(2) (West 1982)). After finding the defendant unsuitable for parole, the review board invoked this new provision to delay his next suitability hearing for three years. Id. 101 As with the other cases discussed so far, the Court framed the question as whether the measure increased the 'punishment' attached to respondent's crime. Id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1601. Rejecting the defendant's claim that this change constituted punishment, the Court distinguished cases holding that legislative changes effectively increasing jail terms violated the Ex Post Facto Clause. Id. Unlike the measures in those cases, the Court said, the statute at issue creates only the most speculative and attenuated risk of increasing the measure of punishment attached to the covered crimes. Id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1605. The likelihood of parole for those covered----double murderers----is quite remote. Id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1603. Moreover, the carefully tailored authority of the board directs it to delay hearings only when it concludes that the hearings would be of no avail to the prisoner. Id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1604. 102 Morales makes clear that a law can constitute unconstitutional punishment because of its effects. The Court leads off its discussion with the declaration that [t]he legislation at issue here effects no change in the definition of respondent's crime. Id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1601. The opinion then spends the bulk of its analysis examining the effect of the legislative change on Morales. See id. at ---- - ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1601-04. In doing so, it concedes that a measure effectively extending a sentence of imprisonment constitutes punishment, presumably regardless of the legislature's motivation. See id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1601 (citing and distinguishing Lindsey v. Washington, 301 U.S. 397, 57 S.Ct. 797, 81 L.Ed. 1182 (1937); Miller v. Florida, 482 U.S. 423, 107 S.Ct. 2446, 96 L.Ed.2d 351 (1987); Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 101 S.Ct. 960, 67 L.Ed.2d 17 (1981)). Morales concludes that the impact on the prisoner was not great enough to warrant finding an ex post facto violation. We have long held, the Court said, that the question of what legislative adjustments will be held to be of sufficient moment to transgress the constitutional prohibition must be a matter of degree. Id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1603 (internal quotations omitted) (emphasis added). 25 103 Morales also highlights the flexibility of the punishment inquiry. It makes no reference or citation to De Veau, Halper, Austin, or Kurth Ranch at all. This could be read as a rejection of those standards in the ex post facto context, but we think that the better reading of this mere omission in Morales is that the appropriate punishment analysis depends on the context. The Court said as much: [W]e have previously declined to articulate a single 'formula' for identifying those legislative changes that have a sufficient effect on substantive crimes or punishments to fall within the constitutional prohibition, and we have no occasion to do so here. Id. (citation omitted). Morales did not need to discuss Austin and its progeny because the facts in Morales involved imprisonment; the Court needed only to discuss and distinguish the most on-point cases of Lindsey, Weaver, and Miller, supra. And in doing so it looked at negative effects on Morales as a matter of degree. Id. 104 This examination of effects, like the Austin inquiry into history, is necessary to limit what would otherwise be the untenable results of the De Veau subjective purpose inquiry and the Halper means-end calculus. While even a substantial sting will not render a measure punishment, see Halper, 490 U.S. at 447 n. 7, 109 S.Ct. at 1901 n. 7; Kurth Ranch, --- U.S. at ---- n. 14, 114 S.Ct. at 1945 n. 14, at some level the sting will be so sharp that it can only be considered punishment regardless of the legislators' subjective thoughts. For example, the legislature, with the purest heart(s), could extend the prison sentences of all previously convicted sex offenders for the sole reason of protecting potential future victims. It was simply not understood how dangerous they would be when released, the legislators could truthfully explain, and society would be safe only if sex offenders were kept behind bars. This remedial purpose would thus fully explain the continued incarceration; in the other terms of Halper, the continued imprisonment would be rationally related to the goal of protecting vulnerable citizens. But no Justice has ever voted to uphold a statute that retroactively increased the term of imprisonment for a past offense. See Miller v. Florida, 482 U.S. 423, 107 S.Ct. 2446, 96 L.Ed.2d 351 (1987); Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 101 S.Ct. 960, 67 L.Ed.2d 17 (1981). 105
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