Supreme Court Opinions

Anthony Kennedy, Byron White, Concurrence, Criminal Procedure

Payne v. Tennessee

Anthony Kennedy, Byron White, Concurrence, Criminal Procedure / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE WHITE and JUSTICE KENNEDY join, concurring.

In my view, a State may legitimately determine that victim impact evidence is relevant to a capital sentencing proceeding. A State may decide that the jury, before determining whether a convicted murderer should receive the death penalty, should know the full extent of the harm caused by the crime, including its impact on the victim’s family and community. A State may decide also that the jury should see “a quick glimpse of the life petitioner chose to extinguish,” Mills v. Maryland, 486 U. S. 367, 486 U. S. 397 (1988) (REHNQUIST, C.J., dissenting), to remind the jury that the person whose life was taken was a unique human being.

Given that victim impact evidence is potentially relevant, nothing in the Eighth Amendment commands that States treat it differently than other kinds of relevant evidence.

The Eighth Amendment stands as a shield against those practices and punishments which are either inherently cruel or which so offend the moral consensus of this society as to be deemed ‘cruel and unusual.’

South Carolina v. Gathers, 490 U. S. 805, 490 U. S. 821 (1989) (O’CONNOR, J., dissenting). Certainly there is no strong societal consensus that a jury may not take into account the loss suffered by a victim’s family or that a murder victim must remain a faceless stranger at the penalty phase of a capital trial. Just the opposite is true. Most States have enacted legislation enabling judges and juries

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Attorneys, Byron White, David Souter, Majority, William Rehnquist

Ardestani v. INS

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Attorneys, Byron White, David Souter, Majority, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioner RafehRafie Ardestani prevailed in an administrative deportation proceeding brought by respondent Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). She sought attorney’s fees and costs under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 5 U. S. C. § 504 and 28 U. S. C. § 2412, which provides that prevailing parties in certain adversarial proceedings may recover attorney’s fees from the Government. We now consider whether the EAJA authorizes the award of attorney’s fees and costs for administrative deportation proceedings before the INS. We conclude that it does not.

I

Ardestani is an Iranian woman of the Bahai faith who entered the United States as a visitor in December 1982. She remained in this country lawfully until the end of May 1984 and then sought asylum. The United States Department of State informed the INS that Ardestani’s fear of persecution upon return to Iran was well founded. In February 1986, however, the INS denied Ardestani’s asylum application on the ground that, before entering the United States, she had reached a “safe haven” in Luxembourg and had established residence there. Ardestani advised the INS that she had been in Luxembourg only three days en route to the United States, that she had stayed in a hotel, and that she had never applied for residency in that country. Nonetheless, the following month, the INS issued an order to show cause why she should not be deported.

At the deportation hearing,

Anthony Kennedy, Dissent, Economic Activity

Lampf Pleva Lipkind. v. Gilbertson

Anthony Kennedy, Dissent, Economic Activity / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE KENNEDY joins, dissenting.

I agree that predictability and judicial economy counsel the adoption of a uniform federal statute of limitations for actions brought under § 10(b) and Rule 10b-5. For the reasons stated by JUSTICE KENNEDY, however, I believe we should adopt the “1 year from discovery rule,” but not the 3-year period of repose. I write separately only to express my disagreement with the Court’s decision in 501 U. S. In holding that respondent’s suit is time-barred under a limitations period that did not exist before today, the Court departs drastically from our established practice and inflicts an injustice on the respondents. The Court declines to explain its unprecedented decision, or even to acknowledge its unusual character.

Respondents, plaintiffs below, filed this action in Federal District Court in 1986. Everyone agrees that, at that time, their claims were governed by the state statute of limitations for the most analogous state cause of action. This was mandated by a solid wall of binding Ninth Circuit authority dating back more than 30 years. [ Footnote 3/1 ] See ante at 501 U. S. 353. The case proceeded in the District Court and the Court of Appeals for almost four years. During that time, the law never changed; the governing limitations period remained the analogous state statute of limitations. [ Footnote 3/2 ] Notwithstanding respondents’ entirely proper reliance on this limitations period, the Court now holds that

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Byron White, David Souter, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Judicial Power, Majority, Thurgood Marshall, William Rehnquist

Melkonyan v. Sullivan

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Byron White, David Souter, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Judicial Power, Majority, Thurgood Marshall, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.

A party that prevails against the United States in a civil action is entitled, in certain circumstances, to an award of attorney’s fees, court costs, and other expenses. Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 28 U.S.C. § 2412. Among other requirements, the prevailing party must submit to the court an application for fees and expenses “within thirty days of final judgment in the action.” § 2412(d)(1)(B). This case requires us to decide whether an administrative decision rendered following a remand from the District Court is a “final judgment” within the meaning of EAJA.

I

In May, 1982, petitioner Zakhar Melkonyan filed an application for disability benefits under the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program established by Title XVI of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1381 et seq. Following a hearing, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) concluded that petitioner was not disabled within the meaning of the Act. The Appeals Council denied review of the ALJ’s decision. In June, 1984, petitioner timely filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Central District of California seeking judicial review pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1383(c)(3), which incorporates the review provisions of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g).

On May 30, 1984, shortly before filing the complaint, petitioner filed a second application for SSI disability benefits accompanied by new evidence of disability. In August, 1984, petitioner’s second application was

Antonin Scalia, Civil Rights, Dissent, William Rehnquist

Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co. Inc

Antonin Scalia, Civil Rights, Dissent, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE SCALIA join, dissenting.

The Court concludes that the action of a private attorney exercising a peremptory challenge is attributable to the government, and therefore may compose a constitutional violation. This conclusion is based on little more than that the challenge occurs in the course of a trial. Not everything that happens in a courtroom is state action. A trial, particularly a civil trial, is, by design, largely a stage on which private parties may act; it is a forum through which they can resolve their disputes in a peaceful and ordered manner. The government erects the platform; it does not thereby become responsible for all that occurs upon it. As much as we would like to eliminate completely from the courtroom the specter of racial discrimination, the Constitution does not sweep that broadly. Because I believe that a peremptory strike by a private litigant is fundamentally a matter of private choice, and not state action, I dissent.

I

In order to establish a constitutional violation, Edmonson must first demonstrate that Leesville’s use of a peremptory challenge can fairly be attributed to the government. Unfortunately, our cases deciding when private action might be deemed that of the state have not been a model of consistency. Perhaps this is because the state action determination is so closely tied to the “framework of the peculiar facts or circumstances present.” See Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority,

Concurrence, Criminal Procedure

Mu’Min v. Virginia

Concurrence, Criminal Procedure / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, concurring.

No one doubts that Dawud Majid Mu’Min’s brutal murder of Gladys Nopwasky attracted extensive media coverage. For days on end, the case made headlines because it involved a macabre act of senseless violence and because it added fuel to an already heated political controversy about the wisdom of inmate work-release programs. But the question we decide today is not whether the jurors who ultimately convicted Mu’Min had previously read or heard anything about the case; everyone agrees that eight of them had. Nor is the question whether jurors who read that Mu’Min had confessed to the murder should have been disqualified as a matter of law. See post at 500 U. S. 441 -442, 500 U. S. 444. This claim is squarely foreclosed by Patton v. Yount, 467 U. S. 1025 (1984), where we upheld a trial court’s decision to seat jurors who had read about the case notwithstanding that the defendant’s written confessions, which were not admissible at trial, were widely reported in the press. See id. 467 U.S. at 467 U. S. 1029 ; id. at 467 U. S. 1047 (STEVENS, J., dissenting). The only question before us is whether the trial court erred by crediting the assurances of eight jurors that they could put aside what they had read or heard and render a fair verdict based on the evidence.

The dissent insists that the trial judge could not have assessed realistically the jurors’ credibility without first identifying the information to which each individual juror had been exposed.

Antonin Scalia, Civil Rights, Concurrence

Hernandez v. New York

Antonin Scalia, Civil Rights, Concurrence / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR, with whom JUSTICE SCALIA joins, concurring in the judgment.

I agree with the plurality that we review for clear error the trial court’s finding as to discriminatory intent, and agree with its analysis of this issue. I agree also that the finding of no discriminatory intent was not clearly erroneous in this case. I write separately because I believe that the plurality opinion goes farther than it needs to in assessing the constitutionality of the prosecutor’s asserted justification for his peremptory strikes.

Upon resolution of the factfinding questions, this case is straightforward. Hernandez asserts an equal protection violation under the rule of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986). In order to demonstrate such a violation, Hernandez must prove that the prosecutor intentionally discriminated against Hispanic jurors on the basis of their race. The trial court found that the prosecutor did not have such intent, and that determination is not clearly erroneous. Hernandez has failed to meet his burden.

An unwavering line of cases from this Court holds that a violation of the Equal Protection Clause requires state action motivated by discriminatory intent; the disproportionate effects of state action are not sufficient to establish such a violation. In Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 426 U. S. 239 (1976), we explained that

our cases have not embraced the proposition that a law or other official act, without regard to whether it reflects a racially discriminato

Anthony Kennedy, Byron White, Criminal Procedure, David Souter, Majority, William Rehnquist

County of Riverside v. McLaughlin

Anthony Kennedy, Byron White, Criminal Procedure, David Souter, Majority, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.

In Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103 (1975), this Court held that the Fourth Amendment requires a prompt judicial determination of probable cause as a prerequisite to an extended pretrial detention following a warrantless arrest. This case requires us to define what is “prompt” under Gerstein.

I

This is a class action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 challenging the manner in which the County of Riverside, California (County), provides probable cause determinations to persons arrested without a warrant. At issue is the County’s policy of combining probable cause determinations with its arraignment procedures. Under County policy, which tracks closely the provisions of Cal.Penal Code Ann. § 825 (West 1985), arraignments must be conducted without unnecessary delay and, in any event, within two days of arrest. This two-day requirement excludes from computation weekends and holidays. Thus, an individual arrested without a warrant late in the week may, in some cases, be held for as long as five days before receiving a probable cause determination. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, a 7-day delay is possible.

The parties dispute whether the combined probable cause/arraignment procedure is available to all warrantless arrestees. Testimony by Riverside County District Attorney Grover Trask suggests that individuals arrested without warrants for felonies do not receive a probable cause determination until the preliminary hearing, which

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Byron White, David Souter, First Amendment, John Paul Stevens, Majority, William Rehnquist

Leathers v. Medlock

Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Byron White, David Souter, First Amendment, John Paul Stevens, Majority, William Rehnquist / By

JUSTICE O’CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.

These consolidated cases require us to consider the constitutionality of a state sales tax that excludes or exempts certain segments of the media, but not others.

I

Arkansas’ Gross Receipts Act imposes a 4% tax on receipts from the sale of all tangible personal property and specified services. Ark.Code Ann. §§ 26-52-301, 26-52-302 (1987 and Supp.1989). The Act exempts from the tax certain sales of goods and services. § 26-52-401 (Supp.1989). Counties within Arkansas impose a 1% tax on all goods and services subject to taxation under the Gross Receipts Act, §§ 26-74-307, 26-74-222 (1987 and Supp.1989), and cities may impose a further 1/2 or 1% tax on these items, § 26-75-307 (1987).

The Gross Receipts Act expressly exempts receipts from subscription and over-the-counter newspaper sales and subscription magazine sales. See §§ 26-52-401(4), (14) (Supp.1989); Revenue Policy Statement 1988-1 (Mar. 10, 1988), reprinted in CCH Ark.Tax Rep. 1169-415. Before 1987, the Act did not list among those services subject to the sales tax either cable television [ Footnote 1 ] or scrambled satellite broadcast television services to home dish-antennae owners. [ Footnote 2 ] See § 26-52-301 (1987). In 1987, Arkansas adopted Act 188, which amended the Gross Receipts Act to impose the sales tax on cable television. 1987 Ark.Gen.Acts, No. 188, § 1.

Daniel L. Medlock, a cable television subscriber, Community Communications Co., a cable television

Dissent, Economic Activity

Pac. Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip

Dissent, Economic Activity / By

Justice O’CONNOR, dissenting.

Punitive damages are a powerful weapon. Imposed wisely and with restraint, they have the potential to advance legitimate state interests. Imposed indiscriminately, however, they have a devastating potential for harm. Regrettably, common law procedures for awarding punitive damages fall into the latter category. States routinely authorize civil juries to impose punitive damages without providing them any meaningful instructions on how to do so. Rarely is a jury told anything more specific than “do what you think best.” See Browning-Ferris Industries v. Kelco Disposal, Inc., 492 U. S. 257, 492 U. S. 281 (1989) (Brennan, J., concurring).

In my view, such instructions are so fraught with uncertainty that they defy rational implementation. Instead, they encourage inconsistent and unpredictable results by inviting juries to rely on private beliefs and personal predilections. Juries are permitted to target unpopular defendants, penalize unorthodox or controversial views, and redistribute wealth. Multi-million dollar losses are inflicted on a whim. While I do not question the general legitimacy of punitive damages, I see a strong need to provide juries with standards to constrain their discretion so that they may exercise their power wisely, not capriciously or maliciously. The Constitution requires as much.

The Court today acknowledges that dangers may lurk, but holds that they did not materialize in this case. See ante at 499 U. S. 18 -24. They did