Court Opinion

ID: 9425378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:33.597342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:55.211030
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
with whom Mr. Justice Powell joins, concurring.
Respondents brought this action in 1970 seeking broad-ranging declaratory and injunctive relief. But the issue presently before the Court relates only to a portion of the relief sought in 1970. Under the Court of Appeals’ remand order the District Court was limited in its review to determining the existence of a pattern of “training, weaponry and orders in the Ohio National Guard which *13singly or together require or make inevitable” the unjustifiable use of lethal force in suppressing civilian disorders. 456 F. 2d 608, 612. The Ohio use-of-force rules have now been changed, and are identical to the Army use-of-force rules. Counsel for respondents stated at oral argument that the use-of-force rules now in effect provide satisfactory safeguards against unwarranted use of lethal force by the Ohio National Guard. Tr. of Oral Arg. 31. And, as of 1971, special civil-disturbance-control training had been provided for the various National Guard units.
It is in this narrowly confined setting that we are asked to decide the issues presented in this case. Respondents have informed us that they seek no change in the current National Guard regulations; rather, they wish to assure their continuance through constant judicial surveillance of the orders, training, and weaponry of the Guard.
Were it not for the continuing surveillance respondents seek, I would have little difficulty concluding that the controversy is now moot. Except for that aspect of the case, all relief requested by respondents has been obtained. While one might argue that the likelihood of future changes in the rules is so attenuated that even the claim for continuing review by the District Court is moot, this issue need not be reached, as the District Court is clearly without power to grant the relief now sought.
Respondents’ complaint rests upon a single, isolated, and tragic incident at Kent State University. The conditions that existed at the time of the incident no longer prevail. And respondents’ complaint contains nothing suggesting that they are likely to suffer specific injury in the future as a result of the practices they challenge. See Laird v. Tatum, 408 U. S. 1, 14 (1972). A complaint based on a single past incident, containing allega*14tions of unspecified, speculative threats of uncertain harm that might occur at some indefinite time in the future, cannot support respondents’ standing to maintain this action. See Complaint, par. 11, App. 5-6; Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 128 (1973).
The relief sought by respondents, moreover, is beyond the province of the judiciary. Respondents would have the District Court, through continuing surveillance, evaluate and pass upon the merits of the Guard’s training programs, weapons, use of force, and orders. The relief sought is prospective only; an evaluation of those matters in the context of a particular factual setting as a predicate to relief in the form of an injunction against continuing activity or for damages would present wholly different issues. This case relates to prospective relief in the form of judicial surveillance of highly subjective and technical matters involving military training and command. As such, it presents an "[inappropriate] . . . subject matter for judicial consideration,” for respondents are asking the District Court, in fashioning that prospective relief, “to enter upon policy determinations for which judicially manageable standards are lacking.” Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 198, 226 (1962).
For these reasons the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be reversed. On the understanding that this is what the Court’s opinion holds, I join that opinion.