Opinion ID: 410185
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Claimed Determination of Outcome.

Text: 19 The district court supported its first argument by reference to United States v. Klein, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 128, 20 L.Ed. 519 (1871). There the Supreme Court struck down a federal statute providing that no Presidential pardon accorded former noncombatant rebels should be admitted as evidence of loyalty to the United States, and, further, that a person's acceptance of such a pardon without written protest should be conclusive evidence of disloyalty. The statute also purported to deprive the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over pending claims based on such pardons. The Court held that the statute violated the separation of powers in that it inadvertently passed the limit which separates the legislative from the judicial power by forbidd(ing) (the Court) to give an effect to evidence which, in its own judgment, such evidence should have, and (by directing the Court) to give it an effect precisely contrary. The Court also noted that that statute impair(ed) the effect of a pardon, and thus infring(ed) the constitutional power of the Executive. Id. at 146-47. 20 Klein includes sweeping dicta casting doubt on Congress' power to prescribe rules of decision to the judicial department of the government in cases pending before it. Id. at 146. Such dicta, however, are troublesome inasmuch as the prescription of general rules of substantive law lies at the heart of the legislative function, and courts are obliged to apply the positive law in effect at the time of the judgment. See P. Bator, D. Shapiro, P. Mishkin & H. Wechsler, Hart & Wechsler's The Federal Courts and the Federal System, 316 n.4 (2d ed. 1973). Hence the better reading of Klein is quite narrow and construes the case as holding only that Congress violates the separation of powers when it presumes to dictate how the Court should decide an issue of fact (under threat of loss of jurisdiction) and purports to bind the Court to decide a case in accordance with a rule of law independently unconstitutional on other grounds. Id. at 316. 7 Thus confined, Klein does not support the district court's decision in the instant case. 21 We assume that the application of existing law to the facts of a case properly before the courts is a judicial function which the legislature may not constitutionally usurp. Klein is nevertheless inapposite, since the Speedy Trial Act lays down no rules of decision, but only rules of practice and procedure. Many cases have upheld the power of Congress to prescribe rules of practice and procedure for the federal courts. 8 See Hanna v. Plumer, 380 U.S. 460, 472, 85 S.Ct. 1136, 1144, 14 L.Ed.2d 8 (1965); Palermo v. United States, 360 U.S. 343, 353 n.11, 79 S.Ct. 1217, 1225 n.11, 3 L.Ed.2d 1287 (1959); Tot v. United States, 319 U.S. 463, 467, 63 S.Ct. 1241, 1244, 87 L.Ed. 1519 (1943); Sibbach v. Wilson & Co., 312 U.S. 1, 9, 61 S.Ct. 422, 424, 85 L.Ed. 479 (1941); Wayman v. Southard, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 1, 43, 6 L.Ed. 253 (1825). As a matter of facial constitutionality, we see no difference between the time constraints and dismissal sanction of the Speedy Trial Act and the host of other procedural requirements of unquestioned validity by which Congress regulates the courts of its creation-such measures as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, the Federal Rules of Evidence, and statutes prescribing who may sue and where and for what. 22 The district court's characterization of the Act as arrogating the judicial function of determining guilt or innocence, 515 F.Supp. at 636, simply cannot be sustained. Statutes of limitation provide perhaps the closest analogy. Few would suggest that such statutes intrude upon the judiciary's substantive decisional role. The suggestion rings just as hollow when applied to the time limits and dismissal sanction of the Speedy Trial Act, which dispose of cases solely on the procedural ground of undue delay and without regard to the guilt or innocence of the accused. 23