Opinion ID: 769703
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Terminating Final Judgments

Text: 48 Many of the courts to rule on the termination provisions have concluded that the statute requires nothing less than the termination of consent decrees, and have then proceeded to asddress the grave constitutional question whether Congress can command the courts retroactively to terminate a final judgment. See Dougan, 129 F.3d at 1425-26 (Section 3626(b)(2) requires a court to terminate prospective relief, which includes existing consent decrees. . . . The consent decrees that the PLRA requires courts to review under the statute's more stringent standards are not final judgments for separation-of-powers purposes.); Rouse, 129 F.3d at 654-55 ([O]nce defendants or intervenors show their entitlement to terminate prospective relief, the Act seemingly requires termination of the consent decree itself. . . . We are therefore duty bound to interpret the PLRA as mandating the termination of extant consent decrees altogether . . . .); Gavin, 122 F.3d at 1084, 1087 ( `Prospective relief' is defined broadly to include all relief other than compensatory damages; it expressly includes consent decrees. . . . In a continuing case, a consent decree is not the `last word' of the courts in the case, even after the decree has become final for purposes of appeal. Rather a consent decree is an executory form of relief that remains subject to later developments.); Plyler, 100 F.3d at 369, 371 (same); see also Imprisoned Citizens , 169 F.3d at 182 (section 3626(b)(2) requires a court to terminate jurisdiction) 16 . 49 Although the statute does define relief to include consent decrees, it defines consent decree narrowly. Our sister circuits have not attended to this narrow definition in their construction of the termination provisions. See id. In its ordinary usage, a consent decree is both a contract of settlement and a final judgment. 17 Thus, although it provides for injunctiverelief according to terms agreed to by the parties, 18 a consent decree is not merely a form of relief. The PLRA, however, defines a consent decree exclusively in terms of the relief it provides; specifically, the statute states that  `consent decree' means any relief entered by the court that is based in whole or in part upon the consent or acquiescence of the parties but does not include private settlement agreements. 18 U.S.C. S 3626(g)(1) (emphasis added). 19 50 We are bound to give effect to this explicit statutory definition even though it deviates from common usage. See Meese v. Keene, 481 U.S. 465, 484-85 (1987); Western Union Tel. Co. v. Lenroot, 323 U.S. 490, 502 (1945). Reading the statute as such, the termination provisions do not require the termination of consent decrees or any other final judgments of Article III courts. The provisions apply exclusively to prospective relief, limiting the scope of federal jurisdiction to enforce the prospective aspect of final judgments in prison conditions cases. 51 Under this saving construction, the separation of powers question is relatively straight forward namely, whether Congress may set a new and retroactively applicable standard for obtaining relief from final judgments which impose forward-looking injunctive remedies. This, Congress certainly may do. Although Plaut stands for the proposition that Congress may not enact retroactive legislation requiring an Article III court to setaside a final judgment, 514 U.S. at 240, that case involved a legislative attempt to reopen the dismissal of suits for money damages under federal securities laws, and the Court was very careful to distinguish legislation that merely alter[s] the prospective effect of injunctions entered by Article III courts. Id. at 232 (citing Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 59 U.S. (18 How.) 421 (1856) (Wheeling Bridge II), and noting that nothing in our holding today calls [Wheeling Bridge II] into question). 52 The legislative action at issue in Wheeling Bridge II is not directly analogous to the PLRA, but the case nicely demonstrates the applicable rule. In Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 54 U.S. (13 How.) 518 (1852) (Wheeling Bridge I), the Supreme Court held that a bridge across the Ohio River was an obstruction of navigation and ordered the bridge raised or removed. Congress responded by enacting legislation establishing the bridge as a post road for U.S. mail service and declaring that the bridge company was authorized to maintain the bridge at its existing height. Nature intervened and the bridge was destroyed by a storm. When the state of Pennsylvania sued to enjoin reconstruction of the bridge, it challenged the post road statute as an unconstitutional attempt to annul the Court's decision in Wheeling Bridge I. The bridge company prevailed on the theory that the statute merely changed the law underlying the permanent injunction granted in Wheeling Bridge I: 53 Now, we agree, if the remedy in this case had been an action at law, and a judgment rendered in favor of the plaintiff for damages, the right to these would have passed beyond the reach of the power of congress. It would have depended, not upon the public right of the free navigation of the river, but upon the judgment of the court. The decree before us, so far as it respect[s] the costs adjudged, stands upon the same principles, and is unaffected by the subsequent law. But that part of the decree, directing the abatement of the obstruction, is executory, a continuing decree, which requires not only the removal of the bridge, but enjoins the defendants against any reconstruction or continuance. Now, whether it is a future existing or a continuing obstruction depends upon the question whether or not it interferes with the right of navigation. If, in the mean time, since the decree, this right has been modified by the competent authority, so that the bridge is no longer an unlawful obstruction, it is quite plain the decree of this court can no longer be enforced. 54 Wheeling Bridge II, 59 U.S. at 431-32. 55 Although the post road statute in Wheeling Bridge II directly changed the underlying substantive law (whether the bridge was an unlawful obstruction of navigation), Congress is clearly without power to modify the underlying constitutional rights at stake in prison conditions cases. Congress cannot, for instance, declare whether certain prison conditions violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. See Dickerson v. United States, U.S. __, 120S.Ct. 2326, __, L.Ed.2d__ (U.S. June 26, 2000) (holding that Congress cannot overrule prophylactic remedy designed to prevent violation of constitutional rights); id. at ___, 120 S.Ct. at 2332 (Congress may not legislatively supercede our decisions interpreting and applying the Constitution.); City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507, 524, 529 (1997) (The power to interpret the Constitution in a case or controversy remains in the judiciary. . . . If Congress could define its own powers by altering the Fourteenth Amendment's meaning, no longer would the Constitution be `superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means.' ) (quoting Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 177 (1803)); see also Gavin, 122 F.3d at 1086-87. But Congress is free to alter the standard that determines the scope of prospective relief for unconstitutional prison conditions so long as the restrictions on the remedy do not prevent vindication ofthe right. See id.; see also infra, S B.2.i & note 23. And just as in Wheeling Bridge II, the intervening change in the standard applies to all continuing decrees. See Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 273 (1994) (When the intervening statute authorizes or affects the propriety of prospective relief, application of the new provision is not retroactive.). Conceived therefore as a change in the underlying law, the PLRA simply amends Rule 60(b) -the rule that otherwise governs courts' power to modify or terminate relief granted pursuant to a final judgment. As the Court put it in French: 56 By establishing new standards for the enforcement of prospective relief in S3626(b), Congress has altered the relevant underlying law. The PLRA has restricted courts' authority to issue and enforce prospective relief concerning prison conditions, requiring that such relief be supported by findings and precisely tailored to what is needed to remedy the violation of a federal right . . . . As Plaut and Wheeling Bridge II instruct, when Congress changes the law underlying a judgment awarding prospective relief, that relief is no longer enforceable to the extent it is inconsistent with the new law. 57 ___U.S. at ___ 120 S.Ct. at 2258 (citations omitted); see also Rufo, 502 U.S. at 388 (A consent decree must of course be modified if, as it later turns out, one or more of the obligations placed upon the parties has become impermissible under federal law.); Wright, 364 U.S. at 652 (The parties have no power to require of the court continuing enforcement of rights the statute no longer gives.). 58 A more serious question would obviously be presented under Plaut if we were to conclude that the termination provisions do more -i.e., that they destroy the underlying contract which is the basis of a consent decree, automatically terminate the jurisdiction of federal courts, or deprive a final judgment (whether rendered by consent or following adjudication) of any collateral effects it may have apart from the prospective relief it enforces. As Judge Calabresi noted in Benjamin, where a final judgment awards only prospective relief, the distinction between requiring a court to terminate such relief if certain conditions are met, and ordering a court to terminate the judgment itself, may seem trivial or formalistic. 172 F.3d at 179-80 (concurring opinion). In both cases, the court is rendered powerless to enforce a remedy it has granted. But in the latter scenario Congress impermissibly arrogates the judicial power to say what the law is in particular cases and controversies. Marbury, 5 U.S. at 177 (1803) 20 . Thus, although formalistic, the distinction between changing the standard for modifying a judgment and terminating a judgment outright is seminal for purposes of separation of powers analysis. As the Supreme Court has noted in another setting: 59 Much of the Constitution is concerned with setting forth the form of our government, and the courts have traditionally invalidated measures deviating from that form. The result may appear formalisticin a given case . . . [b]ut the Constitution protects us from our own best intentions: It divides power among sovereigns and among branches of government precisely so that we may resist the temptation to concentrate power in one location as an expedient solution to the crisis of the day. 60 New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 187 (1992); see also Plaut, 514 U.S. at 239 (separation of powers is a structural safeguard); Benjamin, 172 F.3d at 180 (Calabresi, J., concurring) ([H]ow something is done (i.e., whether a judgment is directly altered or whether the underlying law is changed in such a way as to lead the courts to modify their judgments) can be at least as important as the result that is achieved.). Without doing violence to the text or undermining Congress' intent, our reading of the termination provisions permits the conclusion that the PLRA preserves this important distinction and the allocation of powers it safeguards.