Opinion ID: 413419
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: On the Nature of Discretion

Text: 30 The discretion of a judge is said by Lord Camden to be the law of tyrants; it is always unknown, it is different in different men; it is casual, and depends upon constitution, temper, and passion. In the best, it is oftentimes caprice; in the worst, it is every vice, folly, and passion to which human nature is liable. 31 1 J. Bouvier, Bouvier's Law Dictionary 885 (F. Rawle ed. 1914). 32 Fortunately, this rather bleak view is not the only insight we have into the nature of discretion. Chief Justice Marshall said on this subject: 33 Judicial power, as contradistinguished from the power of the laws, has no existence. Courts are the mere instruments of the law and will nothing. When they are said to exercise a discretion, it is a mere legal discretion, a discretion to be exercised in discerning the course prescribed by law; and, when that is discerned, it is the duty of the court to follow it. Judicial power is never exercised for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the judge; always for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the legislature; or, in other words, to the will of the law. 34 Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 740, 866, 6 L.Ed. 204 (1824). 35 Marshall's is a much more helpful concept of discretion. Discretion does not imply complete freedom to choose a decision, but rather an area of the law that has not matured enough to provide a rule of decision. Within an area of discretion, as yet uncluttered by particular rules, a judge is charged with determining what decision is dictated by more general rules of law. 36 Holding that a type of decision is subject to discretion is not necessarily an eternal statement of the law, but rather a comment on the state of the law at that time. What was once a virgin terrain of discretion may become spotted with landmarks of rules as decisions are made. The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. O. Holmes, The Common Law 5 (M. Howe ed. 1968). As experience with an area of the law develops, what was once discretionary may become restricted by a general rule, then qualified by exceptions, and then littered with exceptions to the exceptions. Discretion in areas of the law existing due to those areas' immaturity we shall call discretion by default. 37 This progress from discretion to rule is not inevitable, however. In some cases, as courts gain experience with an area of the law, they may decide it is inappropriate to govern that area by rules. It is the nature of a rule to prescribe a uniform treatment for a class of cases; for such a rule to be useful the class of cases must share enough salient characteristics to justify being treated as a group. 4 If an area of the law is too fact-specific, if the cases do not share enough important characteristics, it would be pointless to have a rule and the courts then may affirmatively decide to leave that area permanently to discretion. This kind of discretion we shall call discretion by choice. 38 Thus, in reviewing an exercise of discretion, we must always ask an antecedent question: Is this decision truly discretionary? In the particular field of the jurisdiction of a bankruptcy court to decide collateral questions, we find some narrowing of the area of discretion in three Supreme Court decisions.