Court Opinion

ID: 9472426
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:59:53.691493+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:55.789979
License: Public Domain

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge, joined by LAY, Chief Judge, and BOWMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part.
This Court now joins the First, Second, Third, and Ninth Circuits in holding that Congress has not violated Article III by empowering United States Magistrates, with the consent of the parties, to enter judgments with the same force and effect as United States District Judges. In the face of this increasing weight of authority, it requires more than the normal amount of temerity to disagree. Nevertheless, because the issue seems to me so clear and simple, so basic to the whole theory of a written Constitution interpreted by independent judges, I respectfully dissent.
Article III, Section 1, provides:
The 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. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
Magistrates are appointed by the district courts for a term of years. They are not appointed by the President. They are not confirmed by the Senate. They do not hold office during good behavior. They have only a statute to protect their salaries, and even that protection is good only for the magistrate’s current term. They are not, in short, protected from popular disaffection to the extent required by Article III for judges. Yet, the Court today holds that they may decide whether to enter judgment, and for whom, in this diversity case arising under the law of Missouri, a case that undeniably falls within the “judicial Power of the United States.”
The reasoning employed to justify this result is an attempt to make a simple case complex. For whatever may be said about “adjuncts” of the district courts, however hopeful one may be that Congress will not in practice attempt to curtail the independence of magistrates, the fact remains that officers without Article III protection are exercising the judicial power in the most basic sense. They are deciding who should win cases, and entering judgments accordingly.1 What need is there of any more United States District Judges, if this expedient is upheld?
I am not satisfied with the answer that all is cured by the parties’ consent. Article III is concerned with more than fairness to the parties in any given case. It goes to the heart of our form of government, which is based in part on the conviction that there are some things that a majority of the people cannot do, and that cases should turn on the law, the facts, and the conscience of the judge, and on nothing else.
All of this is not to deprecate in any way the talent and diligence of our magistrates. *1320They do tremendous service in the cause of justice every day. (Indeed, perhaps they should be given Article III status, in which event the present issue would disappear.) But the facts of human nature, so well known and thoroughly distrusted by the Framers of our Constitution, require the conclusion that officers so exposed to outside pressure may be unduly tempted to avoid unpopular decisions. And if there is any lesson that is plain from our constitutional history, it is that judges who conscientiously apply a written Constitution are not always popular. It was Alexander Hamilton who said:
The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited constitution.
The Federalist No. 78, at 525 (Cooke ed. 1961).
Much has been written on both sides of this question. A fuller argument in this dissenting opinion would unduly cumber the pages of the reports. I content myself by referring the reader to Judge Schroeder’s excellent dissenting opinion in Pacemaker II, 725 F.2d at 547-55.
I respectfully dissent.2

. The Magistrates Act is limited to civil cases, and even there does not include the contempt power. 28 U.S.C. § 636(e). But there is nothing in today's decision that would prevent Congress from assigning contempt proceedings and criminal cases also to magistrates. As the United States conceded at the oral argument in this case, Article III, Section 1, contains no language that would justify a distinction between civil diversity cases and prosecutions for federal felonies.

. I agree with the Court’s holding on the merits of this appeal, and join that portion of its opinion.