Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Civil Rights, Clarence Thomas, David Souter, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Majority, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, William Rehnquist

Florence County School Dist. Four v. Carter

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Civil Rights, Clarence Thomas, David Souter, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Majority, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA or Act), 84 Stat. 175, as amended, 20 U. S. C. § 1400et seq. (1988ed. and Supp. IV), requires States to provide disabled children with a “free appropriate public education,” § 1401(a)(18). This case presents the question whether a court may order reimbursement for parents who unilaterally withdraw their child from a public school that provides an inappropriate education under IDEA and put the child in a private school that provides an education that is otherwise proper under IDEA, but does not meet all the requirements of § 1401(a)(18). We

*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Arizona et al. by J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General of Maryland, and Andrew H. Baida and Joann Goedert, Assistant Attorneys General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows:

Grant Woods of Arizona, Michael J. Bowers of Georgia, Richard Ieyoub of Louisiana, Michael E. Carpenter of Maine, Joseph P. Mazurek of Montana, Robert J. Del Tufo of New Jersey, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Michael F. Easley of North Carolina, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Theodore R. Kulongoski of Oregon, T. Travis Medlock of South Carolina, Mark Barnett of South Dakota, Charles Burson of Tennessee, R. Paul Van Dam of Utah, Stephen D. Rosenthal of Virginia, and Joseph B. Meyer of Wyoming; for the National League of Cities et al. by Richard Ruda; and for the

Byron White, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Judicial Power, Lewis Powell, Majority, Thurgood Marshall, Warren Burger, William Brennan, William Rehnquist

Flanagan v. United States

Byron White, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Judicial Power, Lewis Powell, Majority, Thurgood Marshall, Warren Burger, William Brennan, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.

In Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Risjord, 449 U. S. 368 (1981), the Court held that a pretrial denial of a motion to disqualify counsel in a civil case is not appealable prior to trial under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 as a final collateral order. The Court reserved the questions of the immediate appealability of pretrial denials of disqualification motions in criminal cases and of pretrial grants of disqualification motions in both criminal and civil cases. Id. at 372, n. 8. We decide today that a District Court’s pretrial disqualification of defense counsel in a criminal prosecution is not immediately appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

I

Petitioners are four police officers who formed a “grandpop” decoy squad in the Philadelphia Police Department. Petitioner Flanagan would pose as an aged derelict, a likely target for street criminals. When Flanagan gave the standard alarm, the other members of the decoy team would move in to make an arrest.

A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania indicted petitioners in September, 1981. The indictment alleged that petitioners had conspired to make arrests without probable cause and had unlawfully arrested and abused eight people. One count of the indictment charged petitioners with conspiring to deprive citizens of their civil rights in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241. The remaining 12 counts charged petitioners, in various combinations, with committing substantive civil rights

Anthony Kennedy, Byron White, Economic Activity, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Majority, Thurgood Marshall, William Brennan, William Rehnquist

Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch

Anthony Kennedy, Byron White, Economic Activity, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Majority, Thurgood Marshall, William Brennan, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents two questions concerning the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 829, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq. First, we address the appropriate standard of judicial review of benefit determinations by fiduciaries or plan administrators under ERISA. Second, we determine which persons are “participants” entitled to obtain information about benefit plans covered by ERISA.

I

Late in 1980, petitioner Firestone Tire and Rubber Company (Firestone) sold, as going concerns, the five plants composing its Plastics Division to Occidental Petroleum Company (Occidental). Most of the approximately 500 salaried employees at the five plants were rehired by Occidental and continued in their same positions without interruption and at the same rates of pay. At the time of the sale, Firestone maintained three pension and welfare benefit plans for its employees: a termination pay plan, a retirement plan, and a stock purchase plan. Firestone was the sole source of funding for the plans, and had not established separate trust funds out of which to pay the benefits from the plans. All three of the plans were either “employee welfare benefit plans” or “employee pension benefit plans” governed (albeit in different ways) by ERISA. By operation of law, Firestone itself was the administrator, 29 U.S.C. § 1002(16)(A)(ii), and fiduciary, § 1002(21)(A), of each of these “unfunded” plans. At the time of the sale

Civil Rights, Concurrence

Firefighters v. Stotts

Civil Rights, Concurrence / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring.

The various views presented in the opinions in these cases reflect the unusual procedural posture of the cases and the difficulties inherent in allocating the burdens of recession and fiscal austerity. I concur in the Court’s treatment of these difficult issues, and write separately to reflect my understanding of what the Court holds today.

I

To appreciate the Court’s disposition of the mootness issue, it is necessary to place these cases in their complete procedural perspective. The parties agree that the District Court and the Court of Appeals were presented with a “case or controversy” in every sense contemplated by Art. III of the Constitution. Respondents, as trial plaintiffs, initiated the dispute, asking the District Court preliminarily to enjoin the City from reducing the percentage of minority employees in various job classifications within the Fire Department. Petitioners actively opposed that motion, arguing that respondents had waived any right to such relief in the consent decree itself and, in any event, that the reductions in force were bona fide applications of the city-wide seniority system. When the District Court held against them, petitioners followed the usual course of obeying the injunction and prosecuting an appeal. They were, however, unsuccessful on that appeal.

Respondents now claim that the cases have become moot on certiorari to this Court. The recession is over, the employees who were laid off or demoted have been

Civil Rights, Concurrence

Firefighters v. City of Cleveland

Civil Rights, Concurrence / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring.

I join the Court’s opinion. I write separately to emphasize that the Court’s holding is a narrow one. The Court holds that the relief provided in a consent decree need not conform to the limits on court-ordered relief imposed by § 706(g), whatever those limits may be. Rather, the validity of race-conscious relief provided in a consent decree is to be assessed for consistency with the provisions of § 703, such as § 703(a) and § 703(d), which were at issue in Steelworkers v. Weber, 443 U. S. 193 (1979), and, in the case of a public employer, for consistency with the Fourteenth Amendment. As the Court explains, nonminority employees therefore remain free to challenge the race-conscious measures contemplated by a proposed consent decree as violative of their rights under § 703 or the Fourteenth Amendment. Even if nonminority employees do not object to the consent decree, a court should not approve a consent decree that, on its face, provides for racially preferential treatment that would clearly violate § 703 or the Fourteenth Amendment. Finally, the Court refrains from deciding

what showing [an] employer would be required to make concerning prior discrimination on its part against minorities in order to defeat a challenge by nonminority employees based on § 703.

Ante at 478 U. S. 517, n. 8.

It is clear, then, that the Court’s opinion does not hold or otherwise suggest that there is no “necessary predicate for race-conscious practices… favoring

Concurrence, Federalism

Fidelity Fed. S. & L. v. De la Cuesta

Concurrence, Federalism / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring.

I join in the Court’s opinion, but write separately to emphasize that the authority of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board to preempt state laws is not limitless. * Although Congress delegated broad power to the Board to ensure that federally chartered savings and loan institutions “would remain financially sound,” ante at 458 U. S. 168, it is clear that HOLA does not permit the Board to preempt the application of all state and local laws to such institutions. Nothing in the language of § 5(a) of HOLA, which empowers the Board to “provide for the organization, incorporation, examination, operation, and regulation” of federally chartered savings and loans, remotely suggests that Congress intended to permit the Board to displace local laws, such as tax statutes and zoning ordinances, not directly related to savings and loan practices. Accordingly, in my view, nothing in the Court’s opinion should be read to the contrary.

Notes

* At one point in today’s opinion, the Court states that “we need not decide whether the HOLA or the Board’s regulations occupy… the entire field of federal savings and loan regulation.” Ante at 458 U. S. 159, n. 14.

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Criminal Procedure, David Souter, John Paul Stevens, Majority, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, William Rehnquist

Fellers v. United States

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Criminal Procedure, David Souter, John Paul Stevens, Majority, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, William Rehnquist / By

Justice O’Connor delivered the opinion of the Court.
After a grand jury indicted petitioner John J. Fellers, police officers arrested him at his home. During the course of the arrest, petitioner made several inculpatory statements. He argued that the officers deliberately elicited these statements from him outside the presence of counsel, and that the admission at trial of the fruits of those statements therefore violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Petitioner contends that in rejecting this argument, the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit improperly held that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel was “not applicable” because “the officers did not interrogate [petitioner] at his home.” 285 F. 3d 721, 724 (2002). We granted the petition for a writ of certiorari, 538 U. S. 905 (2003), and now reverse.
I
On February 24, 2000, after a grand jury indicted petitioner for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, Lincoln Police Sergeant Michael Garnett and Lancaster County Deputy Sheriff Jeff Bliemeister went to petitioner’s home in Lincoln, Nebraska, to arrest him. App. 111. The officers knocked on petitioner’s door and, when petitioner answered, identified themselves and asked if they could come in. Ibid. Petitioner invited the officers into his living room. Ibid.
The officers advised petitioner they had come to discuss his involvement in methamphetamine distribution. Id.,at 112. They informed petitioner that they had a federal warrant for his arrest and that a grand jury had indicted him for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.Ibid. The officers told petitioner that the indictment referred to his involvement with certain individuals, four of whom they named.Ibid. Petitioner then told the officers that he knew the four people and had used methamphetamine during his association with them.Ibid.
After spending about 15 minutes in petitioner’s home, the officers transported petitioner to the Lancaster County jail. Ibid. There, the officers advised petitioner for the first time of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), and Patterson v. Illinois, 487 U. S. 285 (1988). App. 112 . Petitioner and the two officers signed a Miranda waiver form, and petitioner then reiterated the inculpatory statements he had made earlier, admitted to having associated with other individuals implicated in the charged conspiracy, App. 29–39, and admitted to having loaned money to one of them even though he suspected that she was involved in drug transactions, id., at 34.
Before trial, petitioner moved to suppress the inculpatory statements he made at his home and at the county jail. A Magistrate Judge conducted a hearing and recommended that the statements petitioner made at his home be suppressed because the officers had not informed petitioner of his Miranda rights. App. 110–111. The Magistrate Judge found that petitioner made the statements in response to the officers’ “implici[t] questions,” noting that the officers had told petitioner that the purpose of their visit was to discuss his use and distribution of methamphetamine. Id., at 110. The Magistrate Judge further recommended that portions of petitioner’s jailhouse statement be suppressed as fruits of the prior failure to provide Miranda warnings. App. 110–111.
The District Court suppressed the “unwarned” statements petitioner made at his house but admitted petitioner’s jailhouse statements pursuant to Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U. S. 298 (1985), concluding petitioner had knowingly and voluntarily waived his Miranda rights before making the statements. App. 112–115.
Following a jury trial at which petitioner’s jailhouse statements were admitted into evidence, petitioner was convicted of conspiring to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Petitioner appealed, arguing that his jailhouse statements should have been suppressed as fruits of the statements obtained at his home in violation of the Sixth Amendment. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 285 F. 3d 721 (CA8 2002). With respect to petitioner’s argument that the officers’ failure to administer Miranda warnings at his home violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel under Patterson, supra, the Court of Appeals stated: “ Patterson is not applicable here … for the officers did not interrogate [petitioner] at his home.” 285 F. 3d, at 724. The Court of Appeals also concluded that the statements from the jail were properly admitted under the rule of Elstad, supra. 285 F. 3d, at 724 (“ ‘Though Miranda requires that the unwarned admission must be suppressed, the admissibility of any subsequent statement should turn in these circumstances solely on whether it is knowingly and voluntarily made’ ” (quoting Elstad, supra, at 309)).
Judge Riley filed a concurring opinion. He concluded that during their conversation at petitioner’s home, officers “deliberately elicited incriminating information” from petitioner. 285 F. 3d, at 726–727. That “post-indictment conduct outside the presence of counsel,” Judge Riley reasoned, violated petitioner’s Sixth Amendment rights. Id., at 727. Judge Riley nevertheless concurred in the judgment, concluding that the jailhouse statements were admissible under the rationale of Elstad in light of petitioner’s knowing and voluntary waiver of his right to counsel. 285 F. 3d, at 727.
II
The Sixth Amendment right to counsel is triggered “at or after the time that judicial proceedings have been initiated … ‘whether by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information, or arraignment.’ ” Brewer v. Williams, 430 U. S. 387, 398 (1977) (quoting Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U. S. 682, 689 (1972)). We have held that an accused is denied “the basic protections” of the Sixth Amendment “when there [is] used against him at his trial evidence of his own incriminating words, which federal agents … deliberately elicited from him after he had been indicted and in the absence of his counsel.” Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201, 206 (1964); cf. Patterson v. Illinois, supra (holding that the Sixth Amendment does not bar postindictment questioning in the absence of counsel if a defendant waives the right to counsel).
We have consistently applied the deliberate-elicitation standard in subsequent Sixth Amendment cases, see United States v. Henry, 447 U. S. 264, 270 (1980) (“The question here is whether under the facts of this case a Government agent ‘deliberately elicited’ incriminating statements … within the meaning of Massiah ”); Brewer, supra, at 399 (finding a Sixth Amendment violation where a detective “deliberately and designedly set out to elicit information from [the suspect]”), and we have expressly distinguished this standard from the Fifth Amendment custodial-interrogation standard, see Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U. S. 625, 632, n. 5 (1986) (“[T]he Sixth Amendment provides a right to counsel … even when there is no interrogation and no Fifth Amendment applicability”); Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U. S. 291, 300, n. 4 (1980) (“The definitions of ‘interrogation’ under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, if indeed the term ‘interrogation’ is even apt in the Sixth Amendment context, are not necessarily interchangeable”); cf. United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218 (1967) (holding that the Sixth Amendment provides the right to counsel at a postindictment lineup even though the Fifth Amendment is not implicated).
The Court of Appeals erred in holding that the absence of an “interrogation” foreclosed petitioner’s claim that the jailhouse statements should have been suppressed as fruits of the statements taken from petitioner at his home. First, there is no question that the officers in this case “deliberately elicited” information from petitioner. Indeed, the officers, upon arriving at petitioner’s house, informed him that their purpose in coming was to discuss his involvement in the distribution of methamphetamine and his association with certain charged co-conspirators. 285 F. 3d, at 723; App. 112. Because the ensuing discussion took place after petitioner had been indicted, outside the presence of counsel, and in the absence of any waiver of petitioner’s Sixth Amendment rights, the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the officers’ actions did not violate the Sixth Amendment standards established in Massiah, supra, and its progeny.
Second, because of its erroneous determination that petitioner was not questioned in violation of Sixth Amendment standards, the Court of Appeals improperly conducted its “fruits” analysis under the Fifth Amendment. Specifically, it applied Elstad, supra, to hold that the admissibility of the jailhouse statements turns solely on whether the statements were “ ‘knowingly and voluntarily made.’ ” 285 F. 3d, at 724 (quoting Elstad, supra, at 309). The Court of Appeals did not reach the question whether the Sixth Amendment requires suppression of petitioner’s jailhouse statements on the ground that they were the fruits of previous questioning conducted in violation of the Sixth Amendment deliberate-elicitation standard. We have not had occasion to decide whether the rationale of Elstad applies when a suspect makes incriminating statements after a knowing and voluntary waiver of his right to counsel notwithstanding earlier police questioning in violation of Sixth Amendment standards. We therefore remand to the Court of Appeals to address this issue in the first instance.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.

Dissent, Federalism, William Rehnquist

Felder v. Casey

Dissent, Federalism, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE joins, dissenting.

A state statute cannot be considered ‘inconsistent’ with federal law merely because the statute causes the plaintiff to lose the litigation.

Robertson v. Wegmann, 436 U. S. 584, 436 U. S. 593 (1978). Disregarding this self-evident principle, the Court today holds that Wisconsin’s notice of claim statute is preempted by federal law as to actions under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 filed in state court. This holding is not supported by the statute whose preemptive force it purports to invoke, or by our precedents. Relying only on its own intuitions about “the goals of the federal civil rights laws,” ante at 487 U. S. 138, the Court fashions a new theory of preemption that unnecessarily and improperly suspends a perfectly valid state statute. This Court has said that “unenacted approvals, beliefs, and desires are not laws.” Puerto Rico Dept. of Consumer Affairs v. Isla Petroleum Corp., 485 U. S. 495, 485 U. S. 501 (1988). Today’s exercise departs not only from that unquestionable proposition, but even from the much more obvious principle that unexpressed approvals, beliefs, and desires are not laws.

Wisconsin’s notice of claim statute, which imposes a limited exhaustion of remedies requirement on those with claims against municipal governments and their officials, serves at least two important purposes apart from providing municipal defendants with a special affirmative defense in litigation. First, the statute helps ensure

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Byron White, David Souter, Economic Activity, John Paul Stevens, Majority, Thurgood Marshall, William Rehnquist

Feist Pubs. Inc. v. Rural Tel. Svc. Co. Inc

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Byron White, David Souter, Economic Activity, John Paul Stevens, Majority, Thurgood Marshall, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case requires us to clarify the extent of copyright protection available to telephone directory white pages.

I

Rural Telephone Service Company is a certified public utility that provides telephone service to several communities in northwest Kansas. It is subject to a state regulation that requires all telephone companies operating in Kansas to issue annually an updated telephone directory. Accordingly, as a condition of its monopoly franchise, Rural publishes a typical telephone directory, consisting of white pages and yellow pages. The white pages list in alphabetical order the names of Rural’s subscribers, together with their towns and telephone numbers. The yellow pages list Rural’s business subscribers alphabetically by category, and feature classified advertisements of various sizes. Rural distributes its directory free of charge to its subscribers, but earns revenue by selling yellow pages advertisements.

Feist Publications, Inc., is a publishing company that specializes in area-wide telephone directories. Unlike a typical directory, which covers only a particular calling area, Feist’s area-wide directories cover a much larger geographical range, reducing the need to call directory assistance or consult multiple directories. The Feist directory that is the subject of this litigation covers 11 different telephone service areas in 15 counties and contains 46,878 white pages listings -compared to Rural’s approximately

Concurrence, First Amendment

FEC v. Mass. Cit. for Life

Concurrence, First Amendment / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

I join Parts I, II, III-B, and III-C, and I concur in the Court’s judgment that § 316 of the Federal Election Campaign Act (Act), 2 U.S.C. § 441b, is unconstitutional as applied to the conduct of appellee Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc. (MCFL), at issue in this case. I write separately, however, because I am concerned that the Court’s discussion of the Act’s disclosure requirements may be read as moving away from the teaching of Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976); see ante at 479 U. S. 254 -255. In Buckley, the Court was concerned not only with the chilling effect of reporting and disclosure requirements on an organization’s contributors, 424 U.S. at 424 U. S. 66 -68, but also with the potential burden of disclosure requirements on a group’s own speech. Id. at 424 U. S. 74 -82. The Buckley Court concluded that disclosure of a group’s independent campaign expenditures serves the important governmental interest of “shed[ding] the light of publicity” on campaign financing, thereby helping voters to evaluate the constituencies of those who seek federal office. Id. at 424 U. S. 81. As a result, the burden of disclosing independent expenditures generally is “a reasonable and minimally restrictive method of furthering First Amendment values by opening the basic processes of our federal election system to public view.” Id. at 424 U. S. 82.

In my view, the significant burden on MCFL in this case comes not from