Court Opinion

ID: 9431400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:32:13.561201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:28.330549
License: Public Domain

Justice Scalia,
concurring.
I agree that every United States court has an inherent supervisory authority over the proceedings conducted before it, which assuredly includes the power to decline to proceed on the basis of an indictment obtained in violation of the law. I also agree that we have authority to review lower courts’ exercise of this supervisory authority, insofar as it affects the judgments brought before us, though I do not see the basis for any direct authority to supervise lower courts. Cf. Frazier v. Heebe, 482 U. S. 641, 651-652 (1987) (Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting). Even less do I see a basis for any court’s “supervisory powers to discipline the prosecutors of its jurisdiction,” United States v. Hasting, 461 U. S. 499, 505 (1983), except insofar as concerns their performance before the court and their qualifications to be members of the court’s bar.
I join the opinion of the Court because I understand the supervisory power at issue here to be of the first sort.