MORALES v. TURMAN et al.
No. 76-5881.
Decided March 21, 1977
Per Curiam.
The motion of American Orthopsychiatric Association et al. for leave to file a brief as amici curiae is granted.
This case from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit involves the proper scope of three-judge-court jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 2281. Petitioners brought suit challenging allegedly unconstitutional punitive and inhumane conditions in Texas institutions housing juvenile delinquents, and the failure to provide juveniles with the rehabilitation or treatment that justified their confinement. A single District Judge determined that the juveniles’ constitutional rights had been violated, and ordered the parties to submit a curative plan. The Court of Appeals vacated the District Court’s decision on the ground that a three-judge court should have been convened in accordance with § 2281. 535 F. 2d 864 (1976).
The appellate court reasoned that the challenged, unwritten practices of the juvenile institutions administered by the Texas Youth Council were revealed during trial to be statewide in impact and that therefore they were equivalent to a statute with statewide applicability within the meaning of § 2281. Under the Court of Appeals’ analysis, the necessity of convening a three-judge court was thus not properly apparent until considerable factual development of the breadth and content of the Texas Youth Council’s administrative practices had taken place.
In construing § 2281, this Court has concluded that the three-judge court procedure is brought into play in any “suit which seeks to interpose the Constitution against enforcement of a state policy, whether such policy is defined in a state constitution or in an ordinary statute or through the delegated legislation of an ‘administrative board or commission.’ ” Phillips v. United States, 312 U. S. 246, 251 (1941). We have never, however, considered the generalized, unwritten practices of administration to be equivalent to the “delegated legislation” of an administrative board. In fact that approach was specifically rejected in Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U. S. 308 (1976), involving a challenge brought in a single-judge court to the Rhode Island prison system’s unwritten rule forbidding counsel at disciplinary hearings. In rejecting the argument that a three-judge court was necessary to resolve that challenge, we noted that the complaint did not meet the threshold requirements of § 2281 jurisdiction; it “did not mention or challenge any rule or regulation of the Authority; nor did it seek an injunction against the enforcement of any identified rule.” 425 U. S., at 313 n. 2. That description applies equally to the complaint in this case.
The ruling in Baxter merely reflected the consistent recognition that the three-judge court procedure is not “a measure of broad social policy to be construed with great liberality, but . . . an enactment technical in the strict sense of the term and to be applied as such.” Phillips v. United States, supra, at 251; see also Gonzalez v. Automatic Employees Credit Union, 419 U. S. 90, 98 (1974). The Court of Appeals' ruling improperly deviated from that understanding, and in addition it effectively transformed the jurisdictional inquiry from a threshold question to one depending upon the shifting proof during litigation, injecting intolerable uncertainty and potential delay into important litigation.
Accordingly we hold that the single District Judge properly exercised jurisdiction to decide this case, and that his judgment is reviewable on the merits in the Court of Appeals. See 28 U. S. C. § 1291. The petition for a writ of certiorari and the motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis are granted, the judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Public Law 94-381, Aug. 12, 1976, 90 Stat. 1119, prospectively repealed 28 U. S. C. § 2281. For cases pending at the time of repeal, § 2281 still governs jurisdiction, and provides:
“An interlocutory or permanent injunction restraining the enforcement, operation or execution of any State statute by restraining the action of any officer of such State in the enforcement or execution of such statute or of an order made by an administrative board or commission acting under State statutes, shall not be granted by any district court or judge thereof upon the ground of the unconstitutionality of such statute unless the application therefor is heard and determined by a district court of three judges under section 2284 of this title.”
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine whether the decision of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed was itself liberal or conservative. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. The lower court's decision direction is unspecifiable if the manner in which the Supreme Court took jurisdiction is original or certification; or if the direction of the Supreme Court's decision is unspecifiable and the main issue pertains to private law or interstate relations