Court Opinion

ID: 9486162
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:39:41.409229+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:33.514418
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment of the court. The plurality opinion writes more broadly than is necessary to decide the case before us, and I believe that it would be prudent for the court to wait until another day when those issues are presented more starkly and more fully than they have been in this case. For the present, it is sufficient to conclude that this court’s decision in Evans v. City of Chicago, 873 F.2d 1007 (7th Cir.1989) (Evans II), changed the prevailing law to such a degree as to make further enforcement of the consent decree by the district court inappropriate under the standards set forth by the Supreme Court in Rufo v. Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail, — U.S. -,- - -, 112 S.Ct. 748, 762-64, 116 L.Ed.2d 867 (1992). Although Evans II addressed only the equal protection issue, that was the only issue tendered to the court on appeal by the plaintiffs. Certainly, as the plurality opinion points out, the merits of the due process argument, as presented in earlier stages of the litigation, could not have survived the holding of Evans II had it been presented for decision by the plaintiffs. Indeed, given the history of this litigation, it is fair to say that it did not survive. See Evans II, 873 F.2d at 1012 n. 11. On this basis, I concur in the judgment of the court.