Opinion ID: 557986
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Proper Measure of Compliance.

Text: 69 In deciding the matters before it, the court below wisely abjured the constitutional issues which plaintiffs labored to raise. It was unnecessary to consider constitutional standards, the court reasoned, because the existing consent decrees require[d] the provision of adequate treatment for patients at a level beyond that required by any applicable constitutional minima. Accord Twelve John Does v. District of Columbia, 855 F.2d 874, 878 n. 30 (D.C.Cir.1988). Hence, a finding that the commonwealth was in substantial compliance with the decrees would perforce establish the absence of any constitutional abridgement and thus eliminate the need for a separate constitutional inquiry. We think that the trial judge's skirting of the constitutional thicket was appropriate. It has been long settled that if a court can resolve a dispute without confronting an unsettled constitutional issue, it should proceed in that fashion. See, e.g., Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682, 692, 99 S.Ct. 2545, 2553, 61 L.Ed.2d 176 (1979); Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 547, 94 S.Ct. 1372, 1384, 39 L.Ed.2d 577 (1974); Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288, 341, 346-48, 56 S.Ct. 466, 482-84, 80 L.Ed. 688 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring). 70 Acknowledging that the consent decrees set a higher standard than the Constitution, plaintiffs do not seriously dispute the correctness of the district court's announced methodology. Rather, they argue that the court, despite its avowed intention of using the decrees as a yardstick, did the opposite, in reality eschewing the more demanding criterion and measuring defendants' performance by reference solely to constitutional minima. Warming to this theme, the plaintiffs tell us that the court's application of a less rigorous standard can be seen in its articulation of the cardinal question as involving whether available treatment was adequate in light of the populations' clinical needs. Because Judge Mazzone's framing of this inquiry focused on the needs of the patients, not the requirements of the consent decrees, plaintiffs perceive the court's very choice of words to be a telltale for fundamental error. See supra note 6. In the same vein, the plaintiffs pounce upon the district court's use of a statement from Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 102 S.Ct. 2452, 73 L.Ed.2d 28 (1982), a case admittedly involving constitutional rights, in the course of arriving at its determination that defendants' provision of therapeutic programs was sufficient. 15 71 Having read Judge Mazzone's opinion with care, we fail to see any transposition of the applicable standards. The defendants' performance was measured against the imperatives of the consent decrees. While the court at times employed language reminiscent of a constitutional analysis, the burden of its findings left no doubt that its primary concern was with the decrees' mandates and the commonwealth's compliance therewith. Indeed, the court's step-by-step delineation of the decree-required programs and its painstaking survey of defendants' efforts to implement them bears reliable witness to the court's unswerving focus on the decrees as its polestar. Plaintiffs' contrary argument represents at best a triumph of hope over reason. 72