Court Opinion

ID: 9479206
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:11:28.279464+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:53.189368
License: Public Domain

SILBERMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I.
I agree with the majority that the Attorney General may constitutionally implement his drug-testing plan as applied to all employees who hold top security clearances. I also agree that employees covered by the plan because they have access to grand jury information unrelated to investigation or prosecution of drug offenses may not be tested. Virtually all government employees are privy to some confidential information, and if that factor were deemed sufficient to justify drug testing the Supreme Court in National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 1384, 103 L.Ed.2d 685 (1989), would have adopted a broader rationale. We judges and lawyers tend to be particularly sensitive to the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, but with regard to the government’s interest in preserving confidentiality, it is hard for me to distinguish between a grand jury and, for instance, the Department of Agriculture’s annual crop estimates or the Department of Labor’s (and Commerce’s) monthly consumer price indic-es. Like the majority, I do not think the Court’s conclusion that employees with access to “truly sensitive information” can be tested permits testing of those with access to confidential information, at least on these grounds.
I further believe the majority quite correct in suggesting that under Von Raab, the government can test federal prosecutors and their support staff engaged in drug prosecutions. Maj. op. at 491. My reading of Von Raab convinces me that the government has the constitutional authority to test all of its employees involved in the investigation and prosecution of drug-related offenses. Central to that conclusion is my appraisal of the government’s interest in so doing in light of Von Raab’s analysis. The Customs Service personnel involved in Von Raab were, to be sure, described by the majority as the “first line of defense,” 109 S.Ct. at 1392, and “front-line interdiction personnel,” id. at 1393, *497who are “often exposed to th[e] criminal element and to the controlled substances they seek to smuggle into the country,” id. at 1392. It might be thought, therefore, that prosecutors and their support staff, who are somewhat more removed from direct contact with the criminal element, are in less danger of contamination. But I think the key sentence in Von Raab is the following:
This national interest in self-protection could be irreparably damaged if those charged with safeguarding it were, because of their own drug use, unsympathetic to their mission of interdicting narcotics.
Id. at 1393.
Justice Scalia, in a strong dissent, argued that the government’s true interest — upon which he accused the majority of being unwilling to rely — was mere symbolism rather than concern that any significant number of Customs Service officials would be corrupted through contact with illegal drug purveyors. Although the majority did not respond to the dissent — which makes it more difficult for us to understand the scope and rationale of the opinion —it seems to me Justice Scalia must have a point, although not quite so broad as he contends.
The majority clearly accepted the government’s argument that its efforts to stop drug trafficking and use in the United States were best analogized to a war; the adoption of its metaphors (“front-line interdiction personnel” and “first line of defense”) makes that quite obvious. In time of war the morale of a nation’s civilians is almost as important as that of its fighting troops. Any indication that members of the armed forces are sympathetic to the enemy, or to practices characteristic of the enemy, is so destructive of both military and civilian morale that it cannot be tolerated. Can one imagine, for instance, the U.S. government remaining indifferent during World War II to an open display of fealty to Nazi tenets or symbols on the part of even a single soldier? Any such development, no matter how isolated, would have been perceived as enormously dangerous— much more so than if it had occurred (which it occasionally did) among the civilian population. The American people expect that those entrusted with the responsibility of fighting our nation’s enemies do so with absolute loyalty and full commitment to the struggle. Anything less would risk the nation’s survival. Thus, even an isolated departure from that commitment threatens to have a disproportionate negative impact on the nation’s morale.
The analogy may not be precise, but the federal government’s efforts to contain and beat back the drug scourge that affects our society depend importantly on convincing all Americans that drug use is as much a danger to them and to our country as is an external enemy. Obviously, millions of Americans are not yet persuaded. That appears to explain why the Supreme Court —notwithstanding the lack of evidence that a substantial number of Customs Service personnel use drugs — approved the drug-testing program. If even one Customs agent were discovered to be a drug user, the ensuing publicity, both within the agency and without, would likely have a far more corrosive impact on the government’s effort to fight drug use than would the conduct of that one agent.
Federal prosecutors and their support staff engaged in drug prosecution are no less committed to the war against drugs than are the Customs Service personnel. They are, in this sense, drug warriors. The down-side risk of having even one of them discovered as an apostate, as a traitor who consorts with and aids the government’s and society’s mortal enemy, is, as with the soldier in wartime, disproportionately large. For that reason, I think that all those employees in the Justice Department whose responsibilities are related to drug prosecution may be tested under the Attorney General’s program.1
Nor do I think it matters, as the majority suggests, how “substantial” or how frequent an employee’s involvement is in the *498investigation and prosecution of drug crimes. Just as the Court in Von Raab thought testing of Customs Service employees was constitutionally reasonable even if very few had even manifested any drug corruption, so I think that it cannot matter constitutionally whether an attorney is spending five or fifty percent of his working time prosecuting drug cases.2 If, as I read Von Raab, the real government interest is the avoidance of any indication that a government employee enlisted in the war against drugs is himself corrupted by the evil sought to be contained, it matters not whether that employee is a part-time or full-time warrior. The harm to the government caused by a defection is virtually the same in either event. And, of course, it is hard to imagine a principled constitutional line that could be drawn between the two. As with those carrying top-secret clearance —whom the majority permits to be tested regardless of their actual access to classified materials, see Maj. op. at 491 — the Justice Department needs the freedom and flexibility to deploy attorneys and support staff within those criminal investigations and prosecution units that, inter alia, have responsibility for attacking drug-related crimes.
As a practical matter, my reading of Von Raab would probably authorize testing of all employees in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, depending on its present organization, as well as employees in the criminal sections of the U.S. Attorney's offices and related bureaus and offices (including, of course, the Bureau of Prisons). The more difficult question for me is the permissibility of testing those employees in the criminal sections of other litigating divisions of the Department who are engaged in criminal investigation and prosecution, but never involved with drug-related crime. It could be argued that the government has a powerful interest in preventing drug use by all criminal-law-enforcement personnel, whether or not certain of such persons are ever involved in the fight against drug distribution. It might be thought that crime itself, like the law, is a seamless web. Still, I do not think Von Raab can be stretched that far, although I am by no means confident of that. I therefore concur in the majority’s refusal to authorize drug testing of employees (like those in the Antitrust or Civil Rights Division) who are not responsible for drug-related criminal investigations and prosecutions.
II.
I disagree, however, with the majority’s unwillingness to hold that drug warriors may be tested. What is characterized by the majority as judicial self-restraint, in my view, is really an impermissible exercise of judicial power: authorizing the continuance of an unlawful injunction without assuming the responsibility of justifying it. Refusing to decide the question presented, the majority purports to avoid reaching a constitutional issue. By allowing the injunction to continue, however, it has actually decided the question. Its position is not unlike permitting the execution of a prisoner while reserving the issue of whether capital punishment is constitutional. Perhaps the most important principle of judicial restraint governing the Anglo-American system is that judges are obliged to justify, in accordance with law, the exercise of — or the refusal to exercise — judicial power.
This case does not come to us on review of an agency regulation. Indeed, despite the majority’s equating of the drug-testing program with a regulation, it was announced in a policy statement issued by the Attorney General, which was not issued as a declaration or interpretation of law. Accordingly, we are not reviewing the policy statement against administrative-law challenges. Appellees do not argue, for instance, that the policy statement was not adopted in accordance with proper procedures, that it is arbitrary and capricious because over- or under-inclusive, or that it is outside the Attorney General’s statutory authority. The statement is relevant only *499insofar as it manifests the undisputed intention of the Attorney General to test the named plaintiffs.3 For purposes of the lawsuit that intention could just as well have been demonstrated by a speech by the Attorney General. (The case would be ripe in that event because the threat to an arguable constitutional right would be undisputed.) The majority’s discussion of administrative-law principles is, therefore, quite irrelevant.4 Its reliance on SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 63 S.Ct. 454, 87 L.Ed. 626 (1942), in particular, is totally misplaced. The Chenery doctrine — that a court reviewing an agency action will not entertain arguments not relied upon by the agency — is designed, as we have recently recognized, to prevent judicial usurpation of future agency adjudication or regulatory policymaking. See Women Involved in Farm Economics, 876 F.2d 994, 998-1000, (1989) [hereinafter “WIFE”]. That concern is not implicated here.
The Attorney General’s lawyers were entitled to make any arguments they wished in order to respond to the plaintiffs’ challenge to the constitutionality of any application of his program. The Attorney General, for his part, never stated his reasons for believing his program constitutional when he announced it — nor was he obliged to do so by any law. See WIFE, 876 F.2d at 998; cf. Baylor Univ. Med. Ctr. v. Heckler, 758 F.2d 1052, 1060 (5th Cir.1985); Holy Cross Hosp.-Mission Hills v. Heckler, 749 F.2d 1340, 1346 (9th Cir.1984). Of course, we rely on the government to explain its interest justifying the search involved in drug testing, but there is no legal barrier to that being done by the litigating lawyers. And although the argument the government presented in its post- Von Raab supplemental briefs sought to justify its entire program on the basis of, inter alia, the integrity rationale (not drawing a legal distinction between those engaged in drug prosecutions and those solely involved in prosecution of non-drug-related crimes), that litigating strategy is hardly surprising. It may even ultimately prevail. If we believe, as I do, that the government was partially correct, I see no legal grounds for our refusing to so acknowledge. The Supreme Court indicated in Von Raab that this is our responsibility: “it is appropriate to remand the case to the court of appeals for such proceedings as may be necessary to clarify the scope of th[e] category of employees subject to testing.” 109 S.Ct. at 1397.
After oral argument, we dissolved the injunction as it related to presidential ap*500pointees and employees whose duties include storing, maintaining and safeguarding controlled substances, because no plaintiffs fell within those categories. Accordingly, plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge drug testing of those employees. In modifying the injunction, we recognized that the Attorney General’s “program” was not an undifferentiated whole. We held the rest of the case in abeyance until the Supreme Court decided Skinner and Von Raab. Now we conclude that the injunction must be vacated as it applies to those who have top-secret clearance. Again, therefore, the majority necessarily acknowledges that we must dissolve the injunction insofar as it is unauthorized by law — whether or not we have been told that the Attorney General intends to implement his program to the extent that we permit. The injunction, in my view, must be further modified insofar as it prevents drug testing of those Justice Department employees who are engaged in the investigation and prosecution of drug cases. “[A] court does not abdicate its power to revoke or modify its mandate if satisfied that what it has been doing has been turned through changing circumstances into an instrument of wrong.” United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U.S. 106, 114-15, 52 S.Ct. 460, 462-463, 76 L.Ed. 999 (1932). Whether and how the Attorney General chooses to continue with the drug testing program — to the extent he legally can — is a policy matter for him to decide. But it is our responsibility to direct the district court to modify the injunction and thus to remove a judicial barrier which, in light of Von Raab, has proven to be improperly constructed. By so doing we would not even implicitly be suggesting that the Attorney General is obliged to test all employees that he may constitutionally test.
As I have explained, we are not reviewing the “plan” to determine whether it is arbitrarily over- or under-inclusive. I therefore understand neither the majority’s suggestion that “DOJ, of course, remains free to promulgate new, narrower regulations,” Maj. op. at 495, nor its statement that “agency reformulation of its policy ... is the preferable next step,” id. at 495. It would appear that the majority wishes the Attorney General to take an administrative action that he is under no legal obligation to perform: restructuring his program in accordance with a constitutional standard the majority is unwilling to define.5 Furthermore, the majority suggests that the Attorney General’s constitutional obligation is to draw the program’s boundaries to encompass “federal prosecutors who could plainly be subjected to random testing.” Maj. op. at 493 (emphasis added). Such a formulation implies that doubtful cases are to be resolved against the constitutionality of testing. I am aware of no legal authority that supports this proposition. That there may be close cases is all the more reason for the district court to follow governing law and consider those situations only insofar as named plaintiffs present them. See supra n. 3.
* * * * * *
The majority’s opinion, at the very least, delays drug testing it is unwilling to declare unconstitutional. If the Executive Branch — presumably supported by Congress — is conducting a war against drugs, the majority’s position, vis-a-vis the Executive Branch, strikes me as a form of judicial guerrilla warfare: placing a maximum number of impediments in the way of the Justice Department’s program at minimum risk of Supreme Court review. With all due respect to my colleagues, I believe the approach they have adopted is an abuse of judicial power.

. I confess to grave doubts that the criminal law is the most effective way of dealing with our drug problem — but that question is, of course, not for judges to decide.

. To be sure, there may be close cases among the plaintiffs or those similarly situated to a plaintiff, see infra n. 3, but they are for the district court to resolve.

. I do not think the injunction was properly extended to other than named plaintiffs. It is generally thought that nonparties may benefit from the granting of an injunction only "if such breadth is necessary to give prevailing parties the relief to which they are entitled.” Bresgal v. Brock, 843 F.2d 1163, 1170-71 (9th Cir.1987). See also Professional Ass’n of College Educators v. El Paso County Community College District, 730 F.2d 258, 273-74 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 881, 105 S.Ct. 248, 83 L.Ed.2d 186 (1984); Zepeda v. United States I.N.S., 753 F.2d 719, 728 n. 1 (9th Cir.1983); id. at 733-34 (dissenting opinion); Gregory v. Litton Sys., Inc., 472 F.2d 631, 633-34 (9th Cir.1972). But see Soto-Lopez v. New York City Civil Service Comm'n, 840 F.2d 162, 168-69 (2d Cir.1988). And plaintiffs’ claim is that they have a constitutional right not to be tested, not that they are somehow injured by the Department’s testing of other employees. It is true, as the majority observes, Maj. op. at 496 n. 23, that the government did not challenge the scope of the injunction on appeal on the grounds that it extended beyond named plaintiffs. In light of the district court's broad view that the program was unconstitutional as applied to any employee, however, one can understand the Attorney General’s reluctance to perform testing of other than named plaintiffs until he gained a reversal of the district court’s declaration of constitutional law. After Von Raab the situation is quite different.
Injunctions against the government are perfectly appropriate when necessary to prevent harm to specific individuals. But we ought not forget that an injunction is the most powerful civil order available to the judiciary and should not be used merely as a device to shape desirable administrative action. "The District Court, exercising its equitable powers, is bound to give serious weight to the obviously disruptive effect which the grant of ... relief ... [i]s likely to have on the administrative process.” Sampson v. Murray, 415 U.S. 61, 83, 94 S.Ct. 937, 949, 39 L.Ed.2d 166 (1974).

. Even were this a case properly analyzed as an administrative-law challenge, the majority is in error, for the Administrative Procedure Act requires that "the reviewing court shall decide all relevant questions of law,” 5 U.S.C. § 706, something the majority is unwilling to do.

. I take the majority, however, to leave the question open to the sound judgment of the district judge. Maj. op. at 495.