Opinion ID: 429819
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Heading: The Effect of Consensual Reference to Magistrates Upon

Text: Our Constitutional System 41 The Magistrates Act, 28 U.S.C. Secs. 631-639 (1976 and Supp. V 1981), authorizes the judicial branch to create new judicial offices, appoint those who will occupy the offices, and then delegate to appointees the authority to exercise the civil judicial power of the United States. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 636(c). The Act creates mutations in our system of government that transcend its effects on individual litigants. 42 Ours is a system of three separate departments of government, each exercising checks on the others. In the words of James Madison: 43 It is agreed on all sides, that the powers properly belonging to one of the departments, ought not to be directly and compleatly administered by either of the other departments. It is equally evident, that neither of them ought to possess directly or indirectly, an overruling influence over the others in the administration of their respective powers. It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. 44 The Federalist No. 48, at 332 (J. Cooke ed. 1961). 45 The judiciary is the principal check on the usurpation of power by the other branches. Judges are to be what Madison described as the expositors of the Laws. 2 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 73 (M. Farrand rev. ed. 1937). As Chief Justice Marshall pronounced, It is, emphatically, the province and duty of the judicial department, to say what the law is. Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 177, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803). Early legislators recognized that [s]o long as we may have an independent judiciary, the great interests of the people will be safe. 11 Annals of Cong. 739-40 (1802) (statement of John Rutledge, Jr.). 46 The judiciary's unique role in the tripartite system is to interpret both the Constitution, which is the fundamental law, and the acts of Congress: 47 The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is in fact, and must be, regarded by the judges as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. 48 The Federalist No. 78, at 525 (A. Hamilton) (J. Cooke ed. 1961). The independence of the judiciary was essential to Hamilton. In the same paper he wrote: 49 The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited constitution.... Limitations ... can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of the courts of justice; whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing. 50 Id. at 524. 51 Justice Story's commentaries emphasized the importance of independent judges for the protection of minorities from the tyranny of the majority. 52 This independence of the judges is equally requisite to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals from the effects of those ill humors which the arts of designing men or the influence of particular conjunctures sometimes disseminate among the people themselves; and which, though they speedily give place to better information and more deliberate reflection, have a tendency, in the mean time, to occasion dangerous innovations in the government, and serious oppressions of the minor party in the community. 53 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 403 (1873). 54 Article III's provisions for tenure in office and undiminishable salary were meant to ensure the independence of Article III judges. Hamilton described tenure as the best expedient ... to secure a steady, upright and impartial administration of the laws. The Federalist No. 78, at 522 (J. Cooke ed. 1961). The salary provisions, in Hamilton's view, were next in importance for the independence of the judiciary. The Federalist No. 79, at 531 (J. Cooke ed. 1961). Also important was the provision limiting removal of judges to impeachment for misbehavior by the House and trial by the Senate. This is the only provision on the point, which is consistent with the necessary independence of the judicial character .... Id. at 533. 55 The Framers thus built into the Constitution the formula for judicial independence because the role of the judiciary was to be so central to the maintenance of our system of government. They sought to make the federal judges servants ... only of their consciences. United States v. Woodley, 726 F.2d 1328, at 1332, (9th Cir. 1983). Under these standards, magistrates are not independent. They are beholden to the Article III judiciary for their appointment, retention, and authority to decide cases. They are beholden to Congress for their pay. 56 Yet the Magistrates Act contemplates that magistrates will exercise the judicial power, acting as the expositors of the laws applicable to us all. Under the Act magistrates may, among their many judicial duties, review the constitutionality of actions taken by the other branches. Any failure in execution of this duty injures the entire constitutional system by diminishing the judiciary's check on the other branches. The exercise of the judicial power by magistrates whose independence is so seriously compromised places our constitutional system at risk. 57 The loss of the independent exercise of judicial power, the principal check on encroachment by the legislative and executive branches, is not the only effect of the Magistrates Act on our system of government. The Act also interferes seriously with the legislative and executive checks on incursions by the judiciary. 58 Article III, section 1 of the Constitution vests the judicial power of the United States in one Supreme Court and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. Article I, section 8, clause 9 directly grants Congress the power To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court. In the Magistrates Act Congress has delegated to judicial councils the power to create magistrate positions and thereby has abdicated this constitutional responsibility. In practical terms, this abdication reduces the pressure on Congress to create more Article III judgeships, and increases the pressure on district courts to escalate the use of magistrates. Although the Third Circuit, in Wharton-Thomas v. United States, 721 F.2d 922, 930 (3d Cir.1983), recognized this problem forthrightly, it has ignored the constitutional significance of the force creating these practical effects. The majority in this case has ignored even the practical dilemma. 59 The Magistrates Act also undermines the appointment power of the President and the confirmation power of the Senate under Article II, Section 2. Appointment of magistrates by the judicial council deprives both the President and the Senate of any voice in the selection of individuals who are to exercise Article III powers. This too is a fundamental interference with our system of checks and balances. See the discussion in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 120-33, 96 S.Ct. 612, 682-88, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976) (Congress impermissibly encroached on President's appointment power when it gave president pro tempore of Senate power to appoint majority of Federal Election Commission's voting members). 60 The majority suggests that Article II, section 2, contemplates some authority in Congress to permit the courts to appoint magistrates as inferior officers. The inferior officers clause, however, traditionally has referred to such offices as clerks of court, Ex parte Hennen, 38 U.S. (13 Pet.) 230, 10 L.Ed. 13 (1839). See Go-Bart Co. v. United States, 282 U.S. 344, 352-53, 51 S.Ct. 153, 156-57, 75 L.Ed. 375 (1931) (commissioners may be appointed by district courts as inferior officers because their actions are preparatory and preliminary to disposition of case by judge); accord Rice v. Ames, 180 U.S. 371, 21 S.Ct. 406, 45 L.Ed. 577 (1901). Such a position is very different from that of the magistrate, who exercises Article III decision making power. Justice Story observed 150 years ago that the issue regarding the appointment of judges had been resolved as a matter of practical construction. Judges of the inferior courts, he said, are not such inferior officers. Instead, they are Officers who must be appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate. 2 J. Story, supra, at 402 n. 2. No case until this provision was passed has ever challenged this conclusion. 1 61 The lesson of the Framers is that those who exercise the judicial power of the United States under Article III must be Article III judges. The Supreme Court decisions of the last half-century confirm that consensual reference under the Magistrates Act unconstitutionally authorizes the exercise of Article III power by non-Article III officers because it authorizes the magistrates in civil cases to make final decisions as to all matters of fact and law in any case within the civil jurisdiction of the district courts. 2 Contrary to the assertions of the majority here and in Wharton-Thomas, the parties' consent does not solve the constitutional problems arising from this wholesale delegation of judicial power to non-Article III judges. Indeed, consent is simply irrelevant to the Supreme Court's analyses of the proper allocation of judicial power under the Constitution; the judicial power of the United States is conferred upon Article III judges by the Constitution, not by the parties. 62 In Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 52 S.Ct. 285, 76 L.Ed. 598 (1932), the majority upheld use of Unemployment Compensation Commissioners to make factual determinations about claims for injuries on navigable waters. The Court held that the reservation of full authority to the court to deal with matters of law provides for the appropriate exercise of the judicial function in this class of cases. Id. at 54, 52 S.Ct. at 293. More recently, in upholding on statutory grounds the power of the district courts to refer all Social Security cases to a magistrate under section 636(b) of the Magistrates Act, the majority in Mathews v. Weber, 423 U.S. 261, 96 S.Ct. 549, 46 L.Ed.2d 483 (1976), presupposed that the judge makes the final decision. The Court noted that reference of fact-finding duties would improve the judge's decision. In this narrow range of cases, reference promotes more focused, and so more careful, decisionmaking by the district judge. Id. at 274, 96 S.Ct. at 556. 63 United States v. Raddatz, 447 U.S. 667, 100 S.Ct. 2406, 65 L.Ed.2d 424 (1980), is even more to the point. That case concerned whether the district court was required to hear witnesses in reviewing a magistrate's suppression motion recommendations under section 636(b) of the Magistrates Act. Chief Justice Burger's reasoning in the majority opinion, which held that the judge who makes the final decision need not hold a hearing, is telling in the present case: 64 although the statute permits the district court to give to the magistrate's proposed findings of fact and recommendations 'such weight as [their] merit commands and the sound discretion of the judge warrants,' ... that delegation does not violate Art. III so long as the ultimate decision is made by the district court. 65 Id. at 683, 100 S.Ct. at 2416 (emphasis added), quoting Mathews v. Weber, 423 U.S. at 275, 96 S.Ct. at 556). 66 Justice Marshall's dissent in Raddatz viewed the assessment of witness credibility as an essential part of the judicial decision. 447 U.S. at 694, 100 S.Ct. at 2421. He echoed the concern of Justice Story, quoted above, that for the protection of minorities those who render judicial decisions must be independent. 67 [I]t is worth remembering that the Framers of the Constitution believed that those protections were necessary in order to guarantee that the judicial power of the United States would be placed in a body of judges insulated from majoritarian pressures and thus able to enforce constitutional principles without fear of reprisal or public rebuke. 68 Id. at 704, 100 S.Ct. at 2427. 69 In the present case, under either the majority or dissenting analyses in Raddatz, magistrates deciding entire cases exercise the judicial power in violation of constitutional commands. 70 Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50, 102 S.Ct. 2858, 73 L.Ed.2d 598 (1982), the most recent Supreme Court decision on the exercise of judicial power by non-Article III judges, compels the same conclusion as Raddatz. The question in Marathon was whether Congress constitutionally could give non-Article III officers authority to adjudicate a bankruptcy case in which a debtor in Chapter 11 proceedings sued a creditor on breaches of contract and warranty claims. Id. at 56-57, 102 S.Ct. at 2863-2864. 71 Writing for the plurality, Justice Brennan held that Congress's delegation of power to bankruptcy judges was unconstitutional. He reasoned that Congress could create legislative courts without Article III protections in only three limited settings: territorial courts, courts martial, and courts deciding disputes involving public rights that Congress created in the first instance. Id. at 64-67, 102 S.Ct. at 2868-2869. Since the bankruptcy court decided private contests between debtors and creditors, it fit into none of these exceptions and, therefore, it had to be constituted as an Article III court. Id. at 76, 102 S.Ct. at 2874. Like bankruptcy courts, magistrates do not fall within Justice Brennan's three exceptions; magistrate powers extend nationwide to every district court and to all civil cases. For the many reasons discussed thoroughly in the panel opinion in this case, Pacemaker Diagnostic Clinic v. Instromedix, Inc., 712 F.2d 1305 (9th Cir.1983), the plurality reasoning requires a holding that the consensual reference provision in the Magistrates Act is unconstitutional. 72 Justice White's dissent in Marathon looked to the scope and significance of the subject matter of the litigation to decide whether Article III judges were required. Applying a balancing test to the bankruptcy court, he focused on bankruptcy as a specialized [area] having particularized needs and warranting distinctive treatment. 458 U.S. at 115, 102 S.Ct. at 2844 (quoting Palmore v. United States, 411 U.S. 389, 407-08, 93 S.Ct. 1670, 1681-82, 36 L.Ed.2d 342 (1973)). Further, he noted that the subject matter delegated to the bankruptcy court would be of little interest to the political branches. 458 U.S. at 115, 102 S.Ct. at 2894. 73 Consensual reference under the Magistrates Act does not survive Justice White's balance any more than it survives Justice Brennan's analysis for the plurality. The reference provision applies to all civil cases, violating Justice White's concern that Article III give way only in a specialized area. The types of cases that can be decided under the reference provision are most certainly of interest to the political branches. 74 Marathon thus extends the line of cases beginning with Crowell and continuing through Raddatz which, while containing many differences, are all connected by one critical theme: Congress may not delegate away power that properly belongs in the hands of Article III judges. When the power taken from the Article III courts is the power to make final decisions in any type of civil case, as in the Magistrates Act, the reasoning of all of these decisions leads me inescapably to the conclusion that the Constitution has been violated. Just as the Constitution would not permit Congress, with the President's consent, to usurp the executive power, see Chadha v. INS, 634 F.2d 408, 424 (9th Cir.1980), aff'd, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 2764, 77 L.Ed.2d 317 (1983), so this court should not sanction any consensual abrogation of power, by Congress and litigants, that the Constitution reserves to the independent judiciary. 75