Court Opinion

ID: 9480786
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:58:14.608915+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:54.174696
License: Public Domain

PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Carmelo Hernandez’s encounter with petty officiousness, unfortunately a frequent attendant of bureaucracies, is most unfortunate. I share the majority’s concern for his ill treatment and apparent denial of his constitutional rights. Our courts are open to remedy Hernandez’s unfortunate and episodic encounter. It does not follow, however, that the superintending injunction issued by the district court should be affirmed.
This case is controlled by City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 103 S.Ct. 1660, 75 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983). Whether Hernandez will encounter this treatment again is highly speculative and remote, and that is the inquiry required by the Lyons decision. With deference, I cannot agree that Lyons is distinguishable because Hernandez was engaged in constitutionally protected conduct. Lyons also enjoyed a constitutional right not to be subjected to the excessive force of the choke-hold. The decision in Lyons does not rest on the legality or constitutional protection of the plaintiff’s conduct. Lyons instead mandates an inquiry into the likelihood that the single plaintiff will incur the difficulty again. Such an inquiry is compelled by basic notions of Article III standing as well as by fundamental equitable principles controlling the issuing of injunctions.
The matter of immigration and entry into the United States is largely the business of the Executive Branch of government. We should be cautious in issuing superintending injunctions that supplant its primary regulatory responsibility. Although we must not shrink from ruling upon constitutional issues, we must remain ever sensitive to the limited judicial role. The superintending injunction, escaping the adversarial contest of plaintiff versus defendant, quickly becomes a contest between the judiciary and a coordinate branch of government, with the judge acting less and less as a referee and more and more as a regulator.
It is no accident that Hernandez did not bring a class action. On these facts, the district court could not have properly certified a class under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The record is bereft of any suggestion that Hernandez’s experience was shared by others. I would reverse the district court’s grant of an injunction.