Opinion ID: 197630
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the constitutionality of the plra

Text: 16 Having construed the PLRA, we next must essay a de novo determination of whether it passes constitutional muster. The plaintiffs say that the Act's termination provision violates the Constitution three times over by transgressing (1) the separation of powers principle, (2) the Due Process Clause, and (3) the Equal Protection Clause. Though ably presented, none of these assertions carries the day. 17
18 Few tenets are more central to the genius of our constitutional system than the separation of powers principle. See O'Donoghue v. United States, 289 U.S. 516, 530, 53 S.Ct. 740, 743, 77 L.Ed. 1356 (1933) (describing separation of powers as basic and vital to our scheme of government). This principle has many incarnations. In one such configuration, it insulates the judiciary from unwarranted legislative intrusions. 19 The courts' historic independence has its roots in the Constitution, which explicitly provides that [t]he judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. U.S. Const. art. III, § 1. This delegation of power serves to safeguard litigants' right to have claims decided before judges who are free from potential domination by other branches of government. Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Schor, 478 U.S. 833, 848, 106 S.Ct. 3245, 3255, 92 L.Ed.2d 675 (1986) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The due administration of justice demands that this separation remain inviolate. The plaintiffs lament that the PLRA infringes upon the courts' guaranteed separateness in two distinct ways. 20 1. Reopening Final Judgments. The separation of powers principle forbids Congress from reopening the final judgments of Article III courts. See Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U.S. 211, 240, 115 S.Ct. 1447, 1463, 131 L.Ed.2d 328 (1995). After all, if the judiciary's power to render definitive judgments were subject to congressional control, then the judiciary would become, within its own sphere, subordinate to the legislature. 21 Moving from the general to the particular, the plaintiffs maintain that the PLRA offends this principle by requiring a district court to rescind relief that the court already has seen fit to award. In mounting this argument, the plaintiffs rely heavily on the Justices' observation, made in an earlier round of this litigation, that a consent decree is a final judgment that may be reopened only to the extent that equity requires. Rufo, 502 U.S. at 391, 112 S.Ct. at 764. From this thread, the plaintiffs weave a syllogism: Congress cannot order the reopening of final judgments without offending the separation of powers principle, a consent decree is a final judgment, and therefore Congress cannot mandate the reopening of consent decrees. 22 This reasoning frays because consent decrees of the type at issue here are not final judgments for the purpose of a separation of powers analysis. In a recent articulation of the rule that the legislature cannot interfere with final judgments of Article III courts, the Supreme Court carefully carved out an exception and endorsed a line of cases sanctioning legislation that altered the prospective effect of injunctions entered by Article III courts. Plaut, 514 U.S. at 232, 115 S.Ct. at 1459. This exception did not spring full-blown from Justice Scalia's brow. To the contrary, its roots burrow deep into our constitutional soil. An early exemplar is Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 59 U.S. (18 How.) 421, 15 L.Ed. 435 (1855). That hoary case established that, although a judgment at law is impervious to legislative assault, a forward-looking judgment in equity can succumb to legislative action if the legislature alters the underlying rule of law. See id. 59 U.S. (18 How.) at 431-32. More recent examples also exist. See, e.g., Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 273, 114 S.Ct. 1483, 1501, 128 L.Ed.2d 229 (1994); System Fed'n No. 91 v. Wright, 364 U.S. 642, 651-52, 81 S.Ct. 368, 373-74, 5 L.Ed.2d 349 (1961). 23 Lower courts sometimes are required to follow precedent for precedent's sake, no matter how much the yoke chafes. Here, however, our burden is light, for the Wheeling Bridge exception is not only mandated by precedent but also makes logical sense. The legitimacy of prospective equitable relief rests upon the presumed persistence of the conditions that originally justified the relief. If forward-looking judgments in equity were inviolate, then one of two scenarios would develop: either the legislature would be stripped of the ability to change substantive law once an injunction had been issued pursuant to that law, or an issued injunction would continue to have force after the law that originally gave the injunction legitimacy had been found wanting (and, hence, altered). The first of these possible results would work an undue judicial interference with the legislative process, while the second would create an intolerable tangle in which some laws applied to some persons and not to others. Since the separation of powers principle is a two-way street, courts must be careful not to embrace a legal regime that promotes such awkward scenarios. 24 To recapitulate, consent decrees are final judgments, but they are final judgments subject to revision to the extent that equity requires. Rufo, 502 U.S. at 391, 112 S.Ct. at 764. Plaut and Wheeling Bridge, read together, teach that equity requires, and the separation of powers principle permits, legislatures to direct that courts respond to changes in substantive law by revisiting forward-looking injunctions. See Plyler v. Moore, 100 F.3d 365, 371 (4th Cir.1996). The Court stated the point with great clarity earlier in this litigation: A consent decree must of course be modified if, as it later turns out, one or more of the obligations [it imposes] has become impermissible under federal law. Rufo, 502 U.S. at 388, 112 S.Ct. at 762. 25 The plaintiffs try to turn these verities to their advantage by asserting that the underlying law here--the Eighth Amendment--has not changed. This is resupinate reasoning. The relevant underlying law in this case is not the Eighth Amendment, as there has been no finding of an ongoing constitutional violation. Rather, the relevant underlying law relates to the district court's authority to issue and maintain prospective relief absent a violation of a federal right, and the PLRA has truncated that authority. See Benjamin v. Jacobson, 124 F.3d 162, 172 (2d Cir.1997). The termination of a consent decree in response to the PLRA, therefore, merely effectuates Congress's decision to divest district courts of the ability to construct or perpetuate prospective relief when no violation of a federal right exists. Given this shift in the relevant underlying law, the termination of prospective relief pursuant to the PLRA does not amount to a legislative reopening of a final judgment. 26 2. Rules of Decision. The plaintiffs next contend that the PLRA's termination provision violates a different aspect of the separation of powers principle, articulated in United States v. Klein, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 128, 20 L.Ed. 519 (1871). Klein had its genesis in the aftermath of the Civil War, when Congress passed a statute that permitted noncombatant Confederate landowners to recover confiscated goods upon proof of their loyalty to the Union. Klein, the administrator of the estate of Wilson, a Confederate sympathizer, attempted to recover Wilson's goods pursuant to this statute. Mindful that the Supreme Court had previously declared that a presidential pardon was conclusive proof of loyalty, see United States v. Padelford, 76 U.S. (9 Wall.) 531, 19 L.Ed. 788 (1869), Klein tendered evidence that Wilson had received such a pardon. While the case was pending, Congress passed a statute which declared that a presidential pardon was proof of disloyalty and directed the dismissal of any pending recovery action brought on behalf of a pardon recipient. See Klein, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) at 131-34. 27 The Supreme Court invalidated the new statute on separation of powers grounds. It ruled that if the law were allowed to stand, then the trial court would have jurisdiction of the cause to a given point; but when it ascertains that a certain state of things exists, its jurisdiction is to cease and it is required to dismiss the cause for want of jurisdiction. Id., 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) at 146. Such a requirement is not an exercise of the acknowledged power of Congress to make exceptions and prescribe regulations to the appellate power and thus passe[s] the limit which separates the legislative from the judicial power. Id., 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) at 146-47. The Klein Court distinguished Wheeling Bridge as a situation in which the court was left to apply its ordinary rules to the new circumstances created by the act [whereas in Klein ] no new circumstances have been created by legislation. But the court is forbidden to give the effect to evidence which, in its own judgment, such evidence should have, and is directed to give it an effect precisely contrary. Id., 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) at 147. 28 The plaintiffs argue that the case at hand resembles Klein more than Wheeling Bridge because the law underlying the consent decree--the Eighth Amendment--remains constant, yet the PLRA imposes a rule of decision by instructing courts to terminate prospective relief. This argument misapprehends the situation. As noted above, the relevant underlying law for present purposes is not the Eighth Amendment, but the power of federal courts to grant prospective relief absent a violation of a federal right. Thus, the PLRA does not run afoul of Klein because it does not tamper with courts' decisional rules--that is, courts remain free to interpret and apply the law to the facts as they discern them. Because the PLRA leaves the courts' adjudicatory processes intact, it does not transgress the Klein doctrine. See Gavin v. Branstad, 122 F.3d 1081, 1088, 1089 (8th Cir.1997). 29
30 The plaintiffs base their next two objections on the Due Process Clause. The first rests on the postulate that the consent decree is a final judgment, the existence of which vests property rights in the parties that cannot be alienated by Congress. By purporting to terminate consent decrees, this thesis runs, the PLRA not only reopens final judgments but also robs the judgments' beneficiaries of rights secured to them thereunder. The plaintiffs' second objection posits that the 1979 consent decree constitutes a contract and that due process limits the extent to which the federal government can enact legislation that has a deleterious effect on preexisting contracts. Both objections lack force. 31 1. Vested Rights. The plaintiffs' first objection fails because, at least in the absence of exceptional circumstances well beyond any that are present here, frankly modifiable decrees cannot create vested rights. See Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 273, 114 S.Ct. at 1501 (noting that relief by injunction operates in futuro, and that [a party] ha[s] no vested right in the decree entered by the trial court) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). As we have already pointed out, consent decrees are not merely final judgments, but a special species of that genre--final judgments that can be reopened ... to the extent that equity requires. Rufo, 502 U.S. at 391, 112 S.Ct. at 764. In the instant case, equity requires termination of the 1979 decree because Congress has withdrawn the power that animated the decree. See 18 U.S.C.A. § 3626(a)(1)(A), (b)(2). 32 To be sure, the plaintiffs argue that this reasoning is circular. But, given the tenuous nature of consent decrees, that argument will not wash. There is a basic difference between a money judgment and a consent decree: the former is fixed, whereas the latter is necessarily impermanent. Thus, insofar as a consent decree has prospective effect, it must on motion be adjusted to accommodate material changes of fact or law germane to its issuance. 3 See Rufo, 502 U.S. at 393, 112 S.Ct. at 764-65. Here, the PLRA has altered the standard by which courts can continue forward-looking relief, and this profound change in the relevant underlying law entitles the defendants to termination of the decree. 33 2. Contract Rights. The plaintiffs' second due process objection is equally unavailing. Even if we make two broad assumptions that are integral to their position--namely, that the consent decree is a contract and that the PLRA impairs that contract--the objection founders. The Supreme Court delineated the standard of review for federal legislation that impairs contractual relations in National R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co., 470 U.S. 451, 105 S.Ct. 1441, 84 L.Ed.2d 432 (1985). If a substantial impairment of a contract right is found or assumed, the reviewing court next determines whether the impairment is of constitutional dimension. Id. at 472, 105 S.Ct. at 1455. It engages in this analysis by examining the statute and identifying the parties to the contract. See id. When the contract is a private one, and when the impairing statute is a federal one, this next inquiry is especially limited, and the judicial scrutiny quite minimal. The party asserting a Fifth Amendment due process violation must overcome a presumption of constitutionality and establish that the legislature has acted in an arbitrary and irrational way. Id. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). 34 Even though the federal government is not a party to the contract in issue here (the consent decree), the plaintiffs seek to upgrade the level of scrutiny. Their gambit depends upon the Court's opinion in Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Transit Auth., 469 U.S. 528, 105 S.Ct. 1005, 83 L.Ed.2d 1016 (1985), which, they say, stands for the proposition that the states have sufficient representation in the federal government to influence its actions, and that, by extension, the federal sovereign's actions should be attributed to the states. From this coign of vantage, they argue that, since federal laws are enacted by a government organized for the benefit of the several states, a federal act that impairs a contract to which a state is a party should receive the same degree of scrutiny as a federal act that impairs a contract to which the United States is a party. 35 This ratiocination is predicated on a strained reading of Garcia. The Garcia Court held that state participation in the federal government provides a sufficient safeguard to prevent federal overreaching vis-a-vis the states. See id. at 552, 105 S.Ct. at 1018. There is, however, no basis in Garcia or elsewhere to suggest that federal legislation which benefits state governments is tantamount to self-dealing and thus subject to heightened scrutiny. We therefore summarily reject the plaintiffs' reading of Garcia and the attendant claim that the federal government somehow became a constructive party to the 1979 consent decree. 36 This gets the grease from the goose. Because the federal sovereign is not a party to the consent decree, either in fact or by indirection, we need only subject the PLRA to a rational basis review. See National Passenger, 470 U.S. at 471-72, 105 S.Ct. at 1454-55; see also United States Trust Co. v. New Jersey, 431 U.S. 1, 22, 97 S.Ct. 1505, 1518, 52 L.Ed.2d 92 (1977) (holding that [l]egislation adjusting the rights and responsibilities of contracting parties must be [based] upon reasonable conditions and of a character appropriate to the public purpose justifying its adoption). 37 Stressing that the PLRA abrogates existing responsibilities, the plaintiffs make the obligatory argument that the law is arbitrary and irrational. But these animadversions vastly overstate the case. The PLRA only affects agreements that have at all times remained subject to modification should circumstances change. And, moreover, by facilitating termination, the PLRA's termination provision forges a practical, commonsense linkage between a changed circumstance--the district courts' newfound inability to grant or enforce prospective relief absent a violation of a federal right--and an existing consent decree. Consequently, section 3626(b)(2) survives rational basis scrutiny. 38
39 The plaintiffs also advance a pair of arguments based on the Equal Protection Clause. First, they note that pretrial detainees, by definition, have not yet been convicted of the crime(s) with which they have been charged. Thus, they enjoy both the presumption of innocence, see In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970), and the right not to be punished prematurely, see Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). Building on this foundation, the plaintiffs assert that the PLRA is subject to strict scrutiny (which it fails) because it abridges these fundamental rights. In the alternative, they claim that the Act violates core principles of equal protection because it has no rational relationship to legitimate state interests. 40 1. Fundamental Rights. Although the PLRA circumscribes a district court's ability to provide prospective relief to pretrial detainees (as well as all other prisoners) absent a violation of a federal right, we conclude that this feature of the Act does not abridge the pretrial detainees' right to be free from punishment. Prison conditions either violate fundamental rights (in which event they also violate federally secured rights) or they do not violate fundamental rights (in which event they do not violate federally secured rights). In the former case, the PLRA permits relief to redeem the fundamental right. In the latter case, the PLRA does not permit relief, but as no violation exists, the PLRA's denial of relief does not imperil pretrial detainees' fundamental rights. 41 It is also possible to argue that the PLRA implicates the fundamental right of access to the courts, see Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 578, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2985-86, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), and that, by withdrawing the power to grant inmates prospective relief in a manner available to other classes of people, the PLRA trammels inmates' rights of access. This line of reasoning does not withstand close examination. Under the PLRA, the courthouse doors remain open and the withdrawal of prospective relief--above and beyond what is necessary to correct the violation of federally protected rights--does not diminish the right of access. In a nutshell, while there is a constitutional right to court access, there is no complementary constitutional right to receive or be eligible for a particular form of relief. See Crowder v. Sinyard, 884 F.2d 804, 814 (5th Cir.1989), abrogated on other grounds by Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 110 S.Ct. 2301, 110 L.Ed.2d 112 (1990). 42 2. Rational Basis. The plaintiffs' final constitutional challenge suggests that the PLRA violates the Equal Protection Clause because it singl[es] out a certain class of citizens for disfavored legal status or general hardship[ ]. Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, ----, 116 S.Ct. 1620, 1628, 134 L.Ed.2d 855 (1996). This suggestion is ill-conceived. A statute that neither abridges a fundamental right nor operates against a suspect class receives rational basis review when it is challenged under the Equal Protection Clause. See Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 318-19, 113 S.Ct. 2637, 2641-42, 125 L.Ed.2d 257 (1993). The PLRA is such a statute: as we already have explained, it does not impair a fundamental right, and the plaintiffs do not assert that pretrial detainees are a suspect class. Thus, rational basis review applies. 43 A statute survives rationality review if it bear[s] a rational relationship to an independent and legitimate legislative end. Romer, at ----, 116 S.Ct. at 1627. The PLRA's legislative history indicates that the drafters intended the Act to address the alarming explosion in the number of frivolous lawsuits filed by State and Federal prisoners, to mak[e] it much more difficult for Federal judges to issue orders directing the release of convicted criminals from prison custody, 141 Cong. Rec. 14,413 (1995) (statement of Sen. Dole), and to wrest control of state penitentiaries from federal courts so that states will be able to run prisons as they see fit unless there is a constitutional violation, id. at 14,419 (statement of Sen. Abraham). These purposes are clearly legitimate. They involve the allocation of public resources, the maintenance of public safety, and the desire to institutionalize a state-centric conception of our federal system. The means chosen to effect these ends are stern, but they certainly bear a reasonable relationship to the announced legislative goals. From this perspective, the PLRA easily passes rational basis review. 44 The plaintiffs try to undermine this appraisal by asserting that an anti-inmate animus drove Congress's approval of the PLRA. They claim that such an invidiously discriminatory intent violates the Court's admonition that a legislature cannot construct legislation for the purpose of disadvantaging the group burdened by the law. Romer, at ----, 116 S.Ct. at 1628; see also United States Dep't of Agric. v. Moreno, 413 U.S. 528, 534, 93 S.Ct. 2821, 2826, 37 L.Ed.2d 782 (1973) ([I]f the constitutional conception of 'equal protection of the laws' means anything, it must at the very least mean that a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest.). 45 We need not grapple with the intriguing question of whether the Romer Court meant to add a new animus test to the armamentarium of rationality review. The short, entirely dispositive answer to the plaintiffs' supplication is that the evidence in the record simply does not show that the legislature inappropriately sought to disadvantage the plaintiff class. 46 The only proof that the plaintiffs offer consists of political rhetoric, such as the statement on the Senate floor that criminals, while they must be accorded their constitutional rights, deserve to be punished. Obviously, they should not be tortured or treated cruelly. At the same time, they also should not have all the rights and privileges the rest of us enjoy. Rather, their lives should, on the whole, be describable by the old concept known as 'hard time.'  141 Cong. Rec. 14,419 (1995) (statement of Sen. Abraham). Passing the obvious point that such rhetoric must be taken with a grain of salt--elected officials, after all, have been known to strike poses for public consumption--the most that fairly can be said is that oratory of this sort may evince a philosophical shift; it hardly betokens an impermissible animus. In all events, the state is well within its right to punish persons convicted of crimes, and a retributive desire to effect such punishment consequently does not offend any supposed animus test. Furthermore, the plaintiffs are not criminals, but pretrial detainees; they have not been found guilty of any crimes. Thus, even if the political rhetoric spotlighted by the plaintiffs qualified as animus directed at criminals, it would not constitute cognizable animus for present purposes. 47 In sum, an objective reading of the legislative history demonstrates that the plaintiffs' inability to obtain prospective relief does not spring from Congress's wish to do them harm, but from its desire to minimize the occasion for federal courts to administer state prisons. Consequently, the PLRA does not succumb to any theoretical animus test contained within the Equal Protection Clause.