Opinions
Opinions
Supreme Court
Sandra Day O'Connor served as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1981 to 2006. This page lists the opinions she wrote during her time on the court.
Post Retirement Opinions
After her retirement from the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor continued to hear cases in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit as a designated judge.
Arizona Appellate Court Opinions
Sandra Day O'Connor served as a judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals from 1980 to 1981. This page lists the opinions she wrote during her time on the state bench.
Filters
Filters
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I agree with JUSTICES KENNEDY and THOMAS that a plaintiff cannot maintain a § 2 vote dilution challenge to the size of a governing authority, though I reach that conclusion by a somewhat different rationale. JUSTICE THOMAS rejects the notion that § 2 covers any dilution challenges, and would hold that § 2 is limited to “state enactments that regulate citizens’ access to the ballot or the processes for counting a ballot.” Post, at 945. As JUSTICE STEVENS points out, however, stare decisis concerns weigh heavily here. Post, at 963-966 (opinion of STEVENS, J.); see also Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 84 (1986) (O’CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment) (“We know that Congress intended to allow vote dilution claims to be brought under § 2”); id., at 87 (“I agree with the Court that proof of vote dilution can establish a violation of § 2”). These concerns require me to reject JUSTICE THOMAS’ suggestion that we overhaul our established reading of §2.
I also agree with JUSTICE BLACKMUN, see post, at 946950, that our precedents compel the conclusion that the size of the Bleckley County Commission is both a “standard, practice, or procedure” under § 2 and a “standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting” under § 5. See, e. g., Presley v. Etowah County Comm’n, 502 U. S. 491, 503 (1992) (change in size is a change in a “standard, practice, or procedure” because the change “increase[s] or diminish[es] the number
JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court. This case asks us to consider whether 21 U. S. C. § 846, the drug conspiracy statute, requires the Government to prove that a conspirator committed an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. We conclude that it does not.
I
According to the grand jury indictment, Reshat Shabani participated in a narcotics distribution scheme in Anchorage, Alaska, with his girlfriend, her family, and other associates. Shabani was allegedly the supplier of drugs, which he arranged to be smuggled from California. In an undercover operation, federal agents purchased cocaine from distributors involved in the conspiracy.
Shabani was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U. S. C. § 846. He moved to dismiss the indictment because it did not allege the commission of an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy, which act, he argued, was an essential element of the offense. The United States District Court for the District of Alaska, Hon. H. Russel Holland, denied the motion, and the case proceeded to trial. At the close of evidence, Shabani again raised the issue and asked the court to instruct the jury that proof of an overt act was required for conviction. The District Court noted that Circuit precedent did not require the allegation of an overt act in the indictment but did require proof of such an act at trial in order to state a violation of § 846. Recognizing that such a result was “totally illogical,” App. 29,
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE SCALIA, and JUSTICE THOMAS join, dissenting.
The Court’s opinion, as I read it, makes two different points. First, an interstate compact entity is presumptively not entitled to immunity under the Eleventh Amendment, because the States surrendered any such entitlement “[a]s part of the federal plan prescribed by the Constitution.” Ante, at 41. When States act in concert under the Interstate Compact Clause, they cede power to each other and to the Federal Government, which, by consenting to the state compact, becomes one of the compact entity’s creators. As such, each individual State lacks meaningful control over the entity, and suits against the entity in federal court pose no affront to a State’s “dignity.” Ibid. Second, in place of the various factors recognized in Lake Country Estates, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U. S. 391 (1979), for determining arm-of-the-state status, we may now substitute a single overriding criterion, vulnerability of the state treasury. If a State does not fund judgments against an entity, that entity is not within the ambit of the Eleventh Amendment, and suits in federal court may proceed unimpeded. By the Court’s reckoning, the state treasury is not implicated on these facts. Neither, it follows, is the Eleventh Amendment.
I disagree with both of these propositions and with the ultimate conclusion the Court draws from them. The Eleventh Amendment, in my view, clothes this interstate
JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
In a long line of cases, this Court has established that due process requires a “clear and certain” remedy for taxes collected in violation of federal law. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. O’Connor, 223 U. S. 280, 285 (1912) (Holmes, J.). A State has the flexibility to provide that remedy before the disputed taxes are paid (predeprivation), after they are paid (postdeprivation), or both. But what it may not do, and what Georgia did here, is hold out what plainly appears to be a “clear and certain” postdeprivation remedy and then declare, only after the disputed taxes have been paid, that no such remedyexists.
I
For many years, numerous States, including Georgia, exempted from state personal income tax retirement benefits paid by the State, but not retirement benefits paid by the Federal Government (or any other employer). In March 1989, this Court held that such a tax scheme violates the constitutional intergovernmental tax immunity doctrine, which dates back to McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819), and has been generally codified at 4 U. S. C. § 111. See Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803 (1989).
In the aftermath of Davis, most of these States, Georgia included, repealed their special tax exemptions for state retirees, but few offered federal retirees any refunds for the unconstitutional taxes they had paid in the years before Davis was decided. Not surprisingly, a great deal of litigation ensued in
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins as to all but Part I-B, concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.
In permitting respondents’ contract action to go forward, the Court arrives at what might be a reasonable policy judgment as to when state law actions against airlines should be pre-empted if we were free to legislate it. It is not, however, consistent with our controlling precedents, and it requires some questionable assumptions about the nature of contract law. I would hold that none of respondents’ actions may proceed.
I A
The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 (ADA) says that “no State… shall enact or enforce any law, rule, regulation, standard, or other provision having the force and effect of law relating to rates, routes, or services of any air carrier.” 49 U. S. C. App. § 1305(a)(1).1 We considered the scope of that provision in Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U. S. 374 (1992). We noted the similarity of § 1305’s language to the pre-emption provision in ERISA, 29 U. S. C. § 1144(a), and said that, like ERISA’s § 1144, § 1305’s words “express a broad pre-emptive purpose.” 504 U. S., at 383. We concluded that “State enforcement actions having a connection with, or reference to, airline ‘rates, routes, or services’ are pre-empted.” Id., at 384.
Applying Morales to this case, I agree with the Court that respondents’ consumer fraud and contract claims are “related to” airline “rates” and “services.” See ante, at 226. The Court says,
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring.
I agree with the Court’s construction of § 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act. As applied in federal courts, the Court’s interpretation comports fully with my understanding of congressional intent. A more restrictive definition of “evidencing” and “involving” would doubtless foster pre arbitration litigation that would frustrate the very purpose of the statute. As applied in state courts, however, the effect of a broad formulation of § 2 is more troublesome. The reading of § 2 adopted today will displace many state statutes carefully calibrated to protect consumers, see, e. g., Mont. Code Ann. § 27-5-114(2)(b) (1993) (refusing to enforce arbitration clauses in consumer contracts where the consideration is $5,000 or less), and state procedural requirements aimed at ensuring knowing and voluntary consent, see, e. g., S. C. Code Ann. § 15-48-10(a) (Supp. 1993) (requiring that notice of arbitration provision be prominently placed on first page of contract). I have long adhered to the view, discussed below, that Congress designed the Federal Arbitration Act to apply only in federal courts. But if we are to apply the Act in state courts, it makes little sense to read § 2 differently in that context. In the end, my agreement with the Court’s construction of § 2 rests largely on the wisdom of maintaining a uniform standard. I continue to believe that Congress never intended the Federal Arbitration Act to apply in state courts, and that this Court has strayed
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring.
I write to explain, in light of the dissenting opinions, what I understand the Court to decide and what it does not.
The Court holds that, in order to have an abusive or successive habeas claim heard on the merits, a petitioner who cannot demonstrate cause and prejudice “must show that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted him” in light of newly discovered evidence of innocence. Ante, at 327. This standard is higher than that required for prejudice, which requires only “a reasonable probability that, absent the errors, the factfinder would have had a reasonable doubt respecting guilt,” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 695 (1984). Instead, a petitioner does not pass through the gateway erected by Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478 (1986), if the district court believes it more likely than not that there is any juror who, acting reasonably, would have found the petitioner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And the Court’s standard, which focuses the inquiry on the likely behavior of jurors, is substantively different from the rationality standard of Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979). Jackson, which emphasizes the authority of the factfinder to make conclusions from the evidence, establishes a standard of review for the sufficiency of record evidence-a standard that would be ill suited as a burden of proof, see Concrete Pipe & Products of Cal., Inc. v. Construction Laborers Pension Trust for Southern
ON APPLICATIONS FOR STAY
The applications for stay addressed to JUSTICE O’CONNOR and referred to the Court are denied.
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE BREYER joins, dissenting.
Wrenching factual circumstances such as these have arrived on our doorstep twice in as many years. See DeBoer by Darrow v. DeBoer, 509 U.S. (1993). Baby Richard is nearly four years old. He has lived his entire life in the care of the Does, a couple who believed, at least initially, that he was legally their child. Otakar Kirchner, the boy’s biological father, was told for the first 57 days of the boy’s life that his son was dead. When Kirchner learned that Baby Richard had instead been put up for adoption by his biological mother, Kirchner immediately asserted his rights and sought the boy’s return. Last year, after finding Kirchner a fit parent and determining that he had adequately pursued his interest in the child, the Illinois Supreme Court invalidated the adoption, see In re Petition of Doe, 159 Ill. 2d 347, 638 N. E. 2d 181 (1994). We denied the petition for certiorari seeking review of that judgment, see 513 U.S. (1994). To date, Otakar Kirchner has never met his son.
One week ago, four hours after concluding oral argument on Kirchner’s habeas petition, the Illinois Supreme Court issued a one-line order directing the Does “to surrender forthwith custody of the child known as Baby Boy Richard” to Otakar Kirchner. In so doing, the court evidently did not apply a recent amendment to the state adoption
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, dissenting.
The Court holds that Amtrak is a Government entity and therefore all of its actions are subject to constitutional challenge. Lebron, however, expressly disavowed this argument below, and consideration of this broad and unexpected question is precluded because it was not presented in the petition for certiorari. The question on which we granted certiorari is narrower: Whether the alleged suppression of Lebron’s speech by Amtrak, as a concededly private entity, should be imputed to the Government. Because Amtrak’s decision to reject Lebron’s billboard proposal was a matter of private business judgment and not of Government coercion, I would affirm the judgment below.
I
This Court’s Rule 14.1(a) provides: “Only the questions set forth in the petition, or fairly included therein, will be considered by the Court.” While “[t]he statement of any question
to common stock. This subsection was originally enacted in 1970, and has not since been amended. It is irreconcilable with the revised provision for a nine-member board, § 543(a)(1). presented will be deemed to comprise every subsidiary question,” ibid., questions that are merely “related” or “complementary” to the question presented are not “fairly included therein.” Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519, 537-538 (1992) (emphasis deleted). In Yee, we held that a regulatory taking argument, while subsidiary to the umbrella question whether a taking had occurred, was only complementary to the physical taking
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.
Although I agree that aspects of the honoraria ban run afoul of the First Amendment, I write separately for two reasons. First, I wish to emphasize my understanding of how our precedents, beginning with Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township High School Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U. S. 563 (1968), and culminating in its most recent application, Waters v. Churchill, 511 U. S. 661 (1994), direct the Court’s conclusion. Second, I write to express my disagreement with the Court’s remedy, which in my view paints with too broad a brush.
I
The time-tested Pickering balance, most recently applied in Waters, provides the governing framework for analysis of all manner of restrictions on speech by the government as employer. Under Pickering, the Court must balance “the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the [government], as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” 391 U. S., at 568. In contrast to some of our prior decisions, this case presents no threshold question whether the speech is of public, or merely private, concern. Respondents challenge the ban as it applies to off-hour speech bearing no nexus to Government employment-speech that by definition does not relate to “internal office affairs” or the employee’s status as an employee. Cf. Connick v. Myers, 461 U. S. 138, 149 (1983).
JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court. Alabama law vests capital sentencing authority in the trial judge, but requires the judge to consider an advisory jury verdict. We granted certiorari to consider petitioner’s argument that Alabama’s capital sentencing statute is unconstitutional because it does not specify the weight the judge must give to the jury’s recommendation and thus permits arbitrary imposition of the death penalty.
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring.
I concur in the Court’s judgment and opinion. The Court properly holds that, when a court is faced with a case involving multiple tortfeasors, some of whom may not be maritime actors, if one of the putative tortfeasors was engaged in traditional maritime activity alleged to have proximately caused the incident, then the supposedly wrongful activity “involves” traditional maritime activity. The possible involvement of other, nonmaritime parties does not affect the jurisdictional inquiry as to the maritime party. Ante, at 541. I do not, however, understand the Court’s opinion to suggest that, having found admiralty jurisdiction over a particular claim against a particular party, a court must then exercise admiralty jurisdiction over all the claims and parties involved in the case. Rather, the court should engage in the usual supplemental jurisdiction and impleader inquiries. See 28 U. S. C. § 1367 (1988 ed., Supp. V); Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 14; see also ante, at 531. I find nothing in the Court’s opinion to the contrary.
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE SOUTER and JUSTICE BREYER join, concurring.
The evidence in this case strongly suggests that it was a court employee’s departure from established recordkeeping procedures that caused the record of respondent’s arrest warrant to remain in the computer system after the warrant had been quashed. Prudently, then, the Court limits itself to the question whether a court employee’s departure from such established procedures is the kind of error to which the exclusionary rule should apply. The Court holds that it is not such an error, and I agree with that conclusion and join the Court’s opinion. The Court’s holding reaffirms that the exclusionary rule imposes significant costs on society’s law enforcement interests and thus should apply only where its deterrence purposes are “most efficaciously served,” ante, at 11.
In limiting itself to that single question, however, the Court does not hold that the court employee’s mistake in this case was necessarily the only error that may have occurred and to which the exclusionary rule might apply. While the police were innocent of the court employee’s mistake, they mayor may not have acted reasonably in their reliance on the recordkeeping system itself Surely it would not be reasonable for the police to rely, say, on a recordkeeping system, their own or some other agency’s, that has no mechanism to ensure its accuracy over time and that routinely leads to false arrests, even years after the probable cause
JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court. Section 402(b)(3) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 875, 29 U. S. C. § l102(b)(3), requires that every employee benefit plan provide “a procedure for amending such plan, and for identifying the persons who have authority to amend the plan.” This case presents the question whether the standard provision in many employer-provided benefit plans stating that “The Company reserves the right at any time to amend the plan” sets forth an amendment procedure that satisfies § 402(b)(3). We hold that it does.
I
For many years, petitioner Curtiss-Wright voluntarily maintained a postretirement health plan for employees who had worked at certain Curtiss-Wright facilities; respondents are retirees who had worked at one such facility in WoodRidge, New Jersey. The specific terms of the plan, the District Court determined, could be principally found in two plan documents: the plan constitution and the Summary Plan Description (SPD), both of which primarily covered active employee health benefits.
In early 1983, presumably due to the rising cost of health care, a revised SPD was issued with the following new provision: “TERMINATION OF HEALTH CARE BENEFITS…. Coverage under this Plan will cease for retirees and their dependents upon the termination of business operations of the facility from which they retired.” App. 49. The two main authors of the new SPD provision, CurtissWright’s director of benefits
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE SCALIA, JUSTICE SOUTER, and JUSTICE THOMAS join, dissenting.
Unlike the Court, I believe that general Medicare reporting and reimbursement regulations require provider costs to be treated according to “generally accepted accounting principles.” As a result, I would hold that contrary guidelines issued by the Secretary of Health and Human Services in an informal policy manual and applied to determine the timing of reimbursement in this case are invalid for failure to comply with the notice and comment procedures established by the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 553. Because the Court holds to the contrary, I respectfully dissent.
I
It is undisputed, as the Court notes, ante, at 90, that respondent, Guernsey Memorial Hospital (Hospital), is entitled to reimbursement for the reasonable advance refunding costs it incurred when it refinanced its capital improvement bonds in 1985. The only issue here is one of timing: whether reimbursement is to be made in a lump sum in the year of the refinancing, in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (known in the accounting world as GAAP), or in a series of payments over the remaining life of the original bonds, as the Secretary ultimately concluded after applying § 233 of the Medicare Provider Reimbursement Manual (PRM). The Hospital challenged the Secretary’s reimbursement decision under the Medicare Act, 42 U. S. C. § 139500(f), which incorporates the Administrative Procedure
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE BREYER joins, concurring.
Margaret Whitecotton was born in 1975 with a condition known as microcephaly, defined commonly (but not universally) as a head size smaller than two standard deviations below the norm. At the age of four months, she received a diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (DPT) vaccination. Prior to receiving her vaccine, Margaret had never had a seizure. The day after receiving her vaccine, she suffered a series of seizures that required three days of hospitalization. Over the next five years, Margaret had intermittent seizures. She now has cerebral palsy and hip and joint problems and cannot communicate verbally. In 1990, Margaret’s parents applied for compensation for her injuries under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. The Special Master denied compensation, and the Court of Federal Claims agreed. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed, 17 F.3d 374 (1994), finding that the Whitecottons had made out a prima facie case for compensation.
Although I join the Court’s opinion rejecting the Court of Appeals’ reading of the pertinent statutory provision, I write separately to make two points. First, I wish to indicate an additional factor supporting my conclusion that the Court of Appeals’ reading of 42 U. S. C. § 300aa-ll(c)(1)(C)(i) is inconsistent with congressional intent. Second, I wish to underscore the limited nature of the question the Court decides. Examining the language of § 300aa-ll(c)(1)(C)(i
JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court. This case asks whether the discretionary standard set forth inBrillhartv.Excess Ins. Co. of America,316 U. S. 491(1942), or the “exceptional circumstances” test developed inColorado River Water Conservation Dist.v.United States,424 U. S. 800(1976), andMoses H. Cone Memorial Hospitalv.Mercury Constr. Corp.,460 U. S. 1(1983), governs a district court’s decision to stay a declaratory judgment action during the pendency of parallel state court proceedings, and under what standard of review a court of appeals should evaluate the district court’s decision to do so.
I
In early 1992, a dispute between respondents (the Hill Group) and other parties over the ownership and operation of oil and gas properties in Winkler County, Texas, appeared likely to culminate in litigation. The Hill Group asked petitioners (London Underwriters) 1 to provide them with coverage under several commercial liability insurance policies. London Underwriters refused to defend or indemnify the Hill Group in a letter dated July 31, 1992. In September 1992, after a 3-week trial, a Winkler County jury entered a verdict in excess of $100 million against the Hill Group on various state law claims.
The Hill Group gave London Underwriters notice of the verdict in late November 1992. On December 9, 1992, Lon
* Laura A. Foggan, Daniel E. Troy, and Thomas W Brunner filed a brief for the Insurance Environmental Litigation Association as amicus curiae urging reversal.
Edwar
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring.
Because “[t]he mere fact that one question must be answered before another does not insulate the former from Rule 14.1(a),” Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 513 U. S. 374, 404 (1995) (O’CONNOR, J., dissenting), I reject the State’s contention that the propriety of the District Court’s remedy is fairly included in the question whether student achievement is a valid measure of partial unitary status as to the quality education program, Brief for Petitioners 18.
The State, however, also challenges the District Court’s order setting salaries for all but 3 of the 5,000 persons employed by the Kansas City, Missouri, School District (KCMSD). In that order, the court stated: “[T]he basis for this Court’s ruling is grounded in remedying the vestiges of segregation by improving the de segregative attractiveness of the KCMSD. In order to improve the de segregative attractiveness of the KCMSD, the District must hire and retain high quality teachers, administrators and staff.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A-90. The question presented in the petition for certiorari asks whether the order comports with our cases requiring that remedies “address and relate to the constitutional violation and be tailored to cure the condition that offends the Constitution,” Pet. for Cert. i. Thus, the State asks not only whether salary increases are an appropriate means to achieve the District Court’s goal of de segregative attractiveness, but also whether that goal
JUSTICE O’CONNOR announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion with respect to Parts I, II, III-A, III-B, III-D, and IV, which is for the Court except insofar as it might be inconsistent with the views expressed in JUSTICE SCALIA’S concurrence, and an opinion with respect to Part III-C in which JUSTICE KENNEDY joins.
Petitioner Adarand Constructors, Inc., claims that the Federal Government’s practice of giving general contractors on Government projects a financial incentive to hire subcontractors controlled by “socially and economically disadvantaged individuals,” and in particular, the Government’s use of race-based presumptions in identifying such individuals, violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. The Court of Appeals rejected Adarand’s claim. We conclude, however, that courts should analyze cases of this kind under a different standard of review than the one the Court of Appeals applied. We there
Black Caucus by H. Russell Frisby, Jr., and Thomas J. Madden; for the Equality in Enterprise Opportunities Association, Inc., by Kenneth A. Martin; for the Latin American Management Association by Pamela J. Mazza; for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law et al. by John Payton, John H. Pickering, Michael A. Cooper, Herbert J. Hansell, Thomas J. Henderson, Richard T. Seymour, Sharon R. Vinick, Steven R. Shapiro, Donna R. Lenhoff, and Marcia D. Greenberger; for the Minority Business Enterprise Legal Defense
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
For the reasons given in Parts I-III of the Court’s opinion, which I join, I agree with the Court (and the Attorney General) that the Attorney General’s scope-of-employment certifications in Westfall Act cases should be judicially reviewable. I do not join Part IV of the opinion, however. That discussion all but conclusively resolves a difficult question of federal jurisdiction that, as JUSTICE GINSBURG notes, is not presented in this case. Ante, at 435. In my view, we should not resolve that question until it is necessary for us to do so.
Of course, I agree with the dissent, post, at 441, that we ordinarily should construe statutes to avoid serious constitutional questions, such as that discussed in Part IV of the Court’s opinion, when it is fairly possible to do so. See United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U. S. 64, 78 (1994); Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U. S. 173, 223-225 (1991) (O’CONNOR, J., dissenting). And I recognize that reversing the Court of Appeals’ judgment in this case may make it impossible to avoid deciding that question in a future case. But even such an important canon of statutory construction as that favoring the avoidance of serious constitutional questions does not always carry the day. In this case, as described in detail by the Court, ante, at 423-434, several other important legal principles, including the presumption in favor of judicial review of executive action, ante, at 424,
JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.t The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits successive prosecution or multiple punishment for “the same offence.” This case, which involves application of the United States Sentencing Guidelines, asks us to consider whether a court violates that proscription by convicting and sentencing a defendant for a crime when the conduct underlying that offense has been considered in determining the defendant’s sentence for a previous conviction.
I
In June 1990, petitioner Steven Kurt Witte and several co-conspirators, including Dennis Mason and Tom Pokorny, arranged with Roger Norman, an undercover agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration, to import large amounts of marijuana from Mexico and cocaine from Guatemala. Norman had the task offiying the contraband into the United States, with Witte providing the ground transportation for the drugs once they had been brought into the country. The following month, the Mexican marijuana source advised the conspiracy participants that cocaine might be added to the
*Peter Goldberger and Scott A. Srebnick filed a brief for the National Association of Legal Defense Lawyers as amicus curiae urging reversal. tTHE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE KENNEDY join all but Part III of this opinion, and JUSTICE STEVENS joins only Part III. first shipment if there was room on the plane or if an insufficient quantity of marijuana was available. Norman was informed
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins, and with whom JUSTICE SOUTER joins with respect to Part II, dissenting.
Age discrimination inflicts a personal injury. Even under the principles set forth in United States v. Burke, 504 U. S. 229 (1992), the damages received from a claim of such discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) are received “on account of” that personal injury and therefore excludable from taxable income under 26 U. S. C. § 104(a)(2). Unless the Court reads § 104(a)(2) to permit exclusion only of damages received for tangible injuries (i. e., physical and mental injuries)-a reading rejected by eight Members of the Court in Burke and contradicted by an agency’s reasonable interpretation of the statute it administers-the inescapable conclusion is that ADEA damages awards, are excludable.
I
It is not disputed that the damages received by respondents constitute gross income under 26 U. S. C. § 61(a) unless excluded elsewhere; the question is whether such damages fall within § 104(a)(2), which excludes from taxable income “the amount of any damages received (whether by suit or agreement and whether as lump sums or periodic payments) on account of personal injuries or sickness…. ” What constitutes “damages received on account of personal injuries” is not obvious from the text or history of the statute, and since 1960 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulations have defined the phrase with reference to traditional tort
JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court. This case asks us to clarify what “employment-related connection to a vessel in navigation,”McDermott Int’Z, Inc.v.
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the City of New York by Paul A. Crotty and Leonard J. Koerner; and for TECO Transport & Trade Corp. et al. by Robert B. Acomb, Jr., and Robert T. Lemon II.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Association of Trial Lawyers of America by Stevan C. Dittman and Larry S. Stewart; and for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America by John R. Hillsman. Wilander, 498 U. S. 337, 355 (1991), is necessary for a maritime worker to qualify as a seaman under the Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. App. § 688(a). In Wi lander, we addressed the type of activities that a seaman must perform and held that, under the Jones Act, a seaman’s job need not be limited to transportation-related functions that directly aid in the vessel’s navigation. We now determine what relationship a worker must have to the vessel, regardless of the specific tasks the worker undertakes, in order to obtain seaman status.
I
In May 1989, respondent Antonios Latsis was employed by petitioner Chandris, Inc., as a salaried superintendent engineer. Latsis was responsible for maintaining and updating the electronic and communications equipment on Chandris’ fleet of vessels, which consisted of six passenger cruise ships. Each ship in the Chandris fleet carried between 12 and
JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring in the judgment.
I agree with what I understand to be the two basic points made in the Court’s opinion. First, I agree that the language of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act (COGSA), 46 U. S. C. App. § 1300 et seq., and our decision in Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. v. Shute, 499 U. S. 585 (1991), preclude a holding that the increased cost of litigating in a distant forum, without more, can lessen liability within the meaning of COGSA § 3(8). Ante, at 534-536. Second, I agree that, because the District Court has retained jurisdiction over this case while the arbitration proceeds, any claim of lessening of liability that might arise out of the arbitrators’ interpretation of the bill of lading’s choice-of-Iaw clause, or out of their application of COGSA, is premature. Ante, at 539-541. Those two points suffice to affirm the decision below.
Because the Court’s opinion appears to do more, however, I concur only in the judgment. Foreign arbitration clauses of the kind presented here do not divest domestic courts of jurisdiction, unlike true foreign forum selection clauses such as that considered in lndussa Corp. v. S. S. Ranborg, 377 F. 2d 200 (CA2 1967) (en banc). That difference is an important one-it is, after all, what leads the Court to dismiss much of petitioner’s argument as premature-and we need not decide today whether lndussa, insofar as it relied on considerations other than the increased cost of litigating in a distant forum, retains any vitality
JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court. Rules of the Florida Bar prohibit personal injury lawyers from sending targeted direct-mail solicitations to victims and their relatives for 30 days following an accident or disaster. This case asks us to consider whether such Rules violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. We hold that in the circumstances presented here, they do not.
I
In 1989, the Florida Bar (Bar) completed a 2-year study of the effects of lawyer advertising on public opinion. After conducting hearings, commissioning surveys, and reviewing extensive public commentary, the Bar determined that several changes to its advertising rules were in order. In late 1990, the Florida Supreme Court adopted the Bar’s proposed amendments with some modifications. The Florida Bar:
Petition to Amend the Rules Regulating the Florida BarAdvertising Issues, 571 So. 2d 451 (Fla. 1990). Two of these amendments are at issue in this case. Rule 4-7.4(b)(1) provides that “[a] lawyer shall not send, or knowingly permit to be sent,… a written communication to a prospective client for the purpose of obtaining professional employment if: (A) the written communication concerns an action for personal injury or wrongful death or otherwise relates to an accident or disaster involving the person to whom the communication is addressed or a relative of that person, unless the accident or disaster occurred more than 30 days prior to the mailing of the communication.”