Court Opinion

ID: 9488979
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:01:22.420853+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:13.541900
License: Public Domain

MINER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result:
I am of the opinion that Sheriff Frank lacked standing to maintain this action and therefore see no need to pass on the constitutional claims that he advances. Accordingly, I agree with my colleagues only to the extent that judgment should be entered for appellant.
There are three requirements that must be met to establish a case or controversy calling for the exercise of federal judicial power under Article III of the Constitution: first, the plaintiff must have suffered an injury in fact — an injury that is actual or imminent, not hypothetical or conjectural, is concrete and is seen to “affect the plaintiff in a personal and individual way,” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 & n. 1, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 2136 & n. 1, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992); second, the injury must be fairly traceable to the defendant’s challenged action and not caused by the independent action of a third party, id. at 560, 112 S.Ct. at 2136; and third, it must be likely, not just possible, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable court ruling, id. at 561, 112 S.Ct. at 2136-37.
I cannot perceive how the Brady Act has caused Sheriff Frank to suffer any injury in fact within the meaning of Lujan. My colleagues properly decide that a Chief Law Enforcement Officer (“CLEO”) can be a state official as well as a local official within the intendment of the Brady Act. The Act does not appear to impose CLEO duties upon anyone unwilling to undertake them. A locality may have any number of officers who fit the definition of CLEO — Chief of Police, Sheriff or State Commissioner of Public Safety. Sheriff Frank voluntarily took on the CLEO function, apparently for the sole purpose of challenging the Brady Act. His instigation of this lawsuit impelled Commissioner Watson of the Vermont Department of Public Safety to conclude that Sheriff Frank really did not desire to perform the duties of a CLEO. Accordingly, the Commissioner requested the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to change the CLEO designation in Orange County, where Sheriff Frank holds forth. The Bureau has agreed to treat Lieutenant Contois of the Vermont State Police as the CLEO for Orange County because of the Sheriff’s apparent unwillingness to act. What actual injury has the Sheriff suffered? How has he been affected in a personal and individual way?
My colleagues say that “administrative burdens” constitute the concrete injury contemplated by the standing requirement. The administrative burdens, they say, consist of working together with state and local officials to determine which agency would perform the CLEO function. Because Sheriff Frank is responsible for participating in this decision-making process, he must “undertake an *835analysis” of Ms own procedures and capabilities, supposedly an onerous administrative burden. It just does not seem to me that a simple decision to pass up the CLEO job constitutes any sort of a “burden,” let alone one that amounts to an injury in fact.
There is yet another “burden,” according to my colleagues, that justifies a finding of the requisite actual or imminent injury — that the state police may at some time in the future decide to discontinue CLEO duties in Orange County and Sheriff Frank might then have to assume those duties. Accordingly, it is said, the Sheriff must so structure his operations as to be ready for tMs eventuality. However, there is no suggestion whatsoever that the state police have any intention of giving up the CLEO function in Orange County. It certainly cannot be said that any such action is “imminent.” Also, there is nothing to say that some other law enforcement agency will not take up the duties in the event the state police gives them up. In any event, it is sheer speculation to say that the duties might someday be imposed on Sheriff Frank. The administrative burdens cited constitute a very thin reed upon wMch to rest a finding of injury sufficient to confer standing.
I very much disagree with the proposition that Friends of the Earth v. Carey, 552 F.2d 25 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 902, 98 S.Ct. 296, 54 L.Ed.2d 188 (1977), supports Sheriff Frank’s standing claim. In Friends, we were presented with the question of whether the City of New York (the “City”) had standing to claim that enforcement of a pollution control plan, promulgated by the State of New York pursuant to the Federal Clean Air Act, represented an invasion of the City’s sovereignty in violation of the Tenth Amendment. Id. at 33. The pollution control plan at issue in Friends was promulgated in accordance with a federal statutory scheme that provided states with the choice of promulgating their own pollution control plans or submitting to a plan promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency. Id. at 30. New York State, with the assistance of the City, promulgated a plan (the “Plan”) to meet the federal air quality standards in the City, and the Plan became binding upon and enforceable against both the state and the City.
The City, a defendant in the action that sought to compel it to enforce the Plan, claimed that “a judgment directing it to enforce the Plan would interfere with its governmental interests in allocating funds, police resources and in making policy decisions.” Id. at 33. We held that “the City’s claim satisfies traditional notions of standing since the City is allegedly threatened with injury to its governmental interests and is within the class of entities wMch the Supreme Court has held to be protected from incursions of federal power.” Id.
The City in Friends suffered a far more concrete and particularized injury than Sheriff Frank presents in the instant case. First of all, while the City in Friends was the subject of an action seeking to compel it to enforce the Plan, Sheriff Frank has not been compelled to comply with the requirements of the Brady Act. Indeed, the sheriff volunteered to assume CLEO duties and was relieved of Ms responsibilities immediately after he objected to performing those responsibilities. Moreover, Sheriff Frank cannot demonstrate that it is even remotely possible that he would be required to perform the CLEO duties in the future. Therefore, his claim of injury is merely “hypothetical” and “conjectural.”
In Friends, the City sustained a severe invasion of a legally protected interest. The City there was faced with the possibility of being compelled to enforce a plan to meet federal air quality standards for carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, oxidants, and mtrogen dioxide. Here, Sheriff Frank was required to work with other law enforcement officials to decide who would assume the CLEO duties. This really cannot be compared with the burden of complymg with federal air pollution standards in the New York City metropolitan area. Sheriff Frank cannot point to any concrete injury. Accordingly, he has no standing to put forward his constitutional challenges to the Brady Act.