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Gundy v. United States
 | |
| Gundy v. United States | |
| Term: 2018 | |
| Important Dates | |
| Argument: October 2, 2018 Decided: June 20, 2019 | |
| Outcome | |
| Affirmed | |
| Vote | |
| 5-3 | |
| Majority | |
| Elena Kagan • Ruth Bader Ginsburg • Stephen Breyer • Sonia Sotomayor | |
| Concurring | |
| Samuel Alito | |
| Dissenting | |
| Neil Gorsuch • Chief Justice John G. Roberts • Clarence Thomas | |
Gundy v. United States is a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court case about whether the U.S. attorney general's authority to issue regulations under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) violated the nondelegation doctrine.[1] The court upheld the delegation of power to the attorney general in SORNA, saying that it did not violate the doctrine.[1] In a concurring opinion, Justice Alito wrote that he would be willing to reconsider the way the court approaches nondelegation cases if a majority of the justices agreed.[1] Justice Kavanaugh did not participate in the case because he joined the court after oral argument.
Why it matters: The United States Supreme Court has not invalidated a congressional action on nondelegation grounds since its 1935 decisions in A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States and Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan. For more information about historical applications of the nondelegation doctrine, click here.
Timeline
The following timeline details key events in this case:
- June 20, 2019: U.S. Supreme Court decision announced
- October 2, 2018: Oral argument
- March 5, 2018: U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear case
- September 20, 2017: Petition filed with U.S. Supreme Court
- June 22, 2017: The Second Circuit Court affirmed the lower court's ruling
Background
| Administrative State |
|---|
|
| Five Pillars of the Administrative State |
| • Judicial deference • Nondelegation • Executive control • Procedural rights • Agency dynamics |
| Click here for more coverage of the administrative state on Ballotpedia |
Case background
After pleading guilty to federal drug charges in Pennsylvania, Herman Gundy was on supervised release in Maryland when he was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He served his sentence for sexual assault and was transferred to a federal facility in Pennsylvania to serve his sentence for violating his supervised release. Gundy was later transferred from the Pennsylvania facility to a halfway house in New York. As part of the transfer, Gundy received permission from the Federal Bureau of Prisons to travel unsupervised by bus from Pennsylvania to New York.[2][3]
Gundy was indicted in January 2013 on a charge that he had failed to register as a sex offender after arriving in New York as required by SORNA. He was convicted and sentenced to time served and five years of supervised release. Gundy appealed the conviction and argued that he had not been advised of the registration requirements. He also claimed that his case predated SORNA, which was passed in 2006, and that the legislation was silent regarding its application to preexisting cases. Gundy claimed that Congress had violated the nondelegation doctrine by delegating the interpretation of SORNA's application to preexisting cases to the U.S. attorney general without providing guidance. The United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit affirmed Gundy's conviction, and he appealed to the United States Supreme Court.[2][4]
You can review the lower court's opinion here.[5]
The case arrived on a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.[1] The Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case but stated that it would not consider the full scope of Gundy's petition for review. Instead, the court's review focused on the question of whether Congress improperly delegated the authority to interpret and regulate SORNA's application to preexisting cases to the U.S. attorney general.[4] Oral argument in the case happened on October 2, 2018.[4]
What is the nondelegation doctrine?
- See also: Nondelegation doctrine
The nondelegation doctrine is a principle in constitutional and administrative law that holds that Congress cannot delegate its legislative powers to executive agencies or private entities. It is derived from an interpretation of Article I of the United States Constitution and the separation of powers principle. Although congressional delegation to the executive branch has been an issue in federal court cases since at least the early 19th century, the legal test used by the Supreme Court to apply the nondelegation doctrine was established in its 1928 decision in J.W. Hampton Jr. & Company v. United States.[6][3][7][8]
Question presented
| Question presented: "Whether the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act’s delegation of authority to the attorney general to issue regulations under 42 U.S.C. § 16913 violates the nondelegation doctrine."[4] |
Petitioner's challenge
The petitioner, Gundy, challenged the holding of the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. Gundy argued that SORNA's delegation of authority to the U.S. attorney general to interpret and regulate SORNA's application to preexisting cases violates the nondelegation doctrine.[4][9][2]
Oral argument
Oral arguments were held October 2, 2018.[4]
Audio
- Audio of the oral argument:[10]
Transcript
- Transcript of the oral argument:[11]
Outcome
With a 5-3 vote, the court upheld the provision of SORNA that empowered the U.S. attorney general to decide how the law applied to sex offenders who were convicted before the law passed.[1] The court ruled that the law did not violate the nondelegation doctrine.[1] Justice Kavanaugh did not participate in the case.[1]
Justice Kagan announced the judgment of the court and Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor joined her plurality opinion. Justice Alito filed a concurring opinion. Justice Gorsuch wrote a dissenting opinion joined by Roberts and Thomas.
Justice Kavanaugh did not participate in the case.[1]
Opinions
Plurality opinion
In her opinion, Justice Kagan, wrote that the delegation made in SORNA "fell well within constitutional bounds" because Congress set out an intelligible principle for the attorney general to follow while executing the law.[1] Previous court decisions allowed even broader delegations of authority with less guidance from Congress. The court held that SORNA required the attorney general to "register pre-Act offenders as soon as feasible," which limited the extent of his delegated authority.[1]
Kagan wrote that "if SORNA’s delegation is unconstitutional, then most of Government is unconstitutional" because Congress relies on executive branch discretion to implement laws.[12]
Concurring opinion
Justice Alito voted with the majority but wrote a separate opinion saying he would be willing to reconsider the court's approach to nondelegation questions if a majority of the justices agreed.[1]
Dissenting opinion
Justice Gorsuch, joined by Roberts and Thomas, argued that the delegation of authority from Congress to the attorney general in SORNA was unconstitutional.[1] He argued, "The Constitution promises that only the people’s elected representatives may adopt new federal laws restricting liberty. Yet the statute before us scrambles that design. It purports to endow the nation’s chief prosecutor with the power to write his own criminal code governing the lives of a half-million citizens. Yes, those affected are some of the least popular among us. But if a single executive branch official can write laws restricting the liberty of this group of persons, what does that mean for the next?"[1]
Text of the opinion
Read the full opinion here.
Commentary about the case
Pre-decision commentary
Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Mark Miller wrote in The Hill before oral argument that "our Founding Fathers delegated the lawmaking authority to Congress, and then made legislators responsible to the people by allowing the people to vote them in or out of office every two years, according to how Congress abused or properly used its lawmaking power. Congress insulates itself from this accountability by shirking its lawmaking responsibility and handing it off to bureaucrats. The Supreme Court should use the Gundy case to put a stop to this purposeful avoidance of accountability.”[13]
Courts writer for Slate Mark Joseph Stern said many “progressives fear that, once resuscitated, the [nondelegation doctrine] could be used to strike down all manner of economic regulations [...] These days, Congress hands off most regulatory authority to a slew of federal agencies situated in the executive branch. A court concerned about nondelegation could strike down a vast range of liberal legislation under the doctrine. Labor laws and environmental protections would be especially vulnerable, since Congress gives agencies a broad mandate to interpret and implement these measures. If the Supreme Court renders that mandate unconstitutional, federal rules that protect workers’ rights, collective bargaining, clean air, and endangered species would fall.”[14]
The Cato Institute argued in its amicus brief that, “The Vesting Clauses in the Constitution’s first three articles establish a tripartite government of divided authority. While these may overlap at the margins, each branch retains a core set of powers such that it may check and balance the others. To permit delegation from one to another—for purported efficiency gains—undermines that original design. After all, why should Congress deliberate, make judgments, and stand accountable for each determination when it can license the executive to apply purportedly greater wisdom or technocratic expertise?”[15]
Post-decision commentary
A majority of justices decided that SORNA did not violate the nondelegation doctrine, but several signaled that they would oppose congressional delegations of power to agencies in the future. "For the nondelegation doctrine, the significance of Gundy lies not in what the Supreme Court did today, but in what the dissent and the concurrence portend for tomorrow," according to law professor Mila Sohoni, writing for SCOTUSblog.[16]
Justice Gorsuch's dissenting opinion in Gundy, joined by Roberts and Thomas, "argued that nondelegation doctrine honors the Constitution’s original text and design, and that it promotes stability, fair notice, the protection of minority rights, political accountability, and broad social consensus in lawmaking," according to Sohoni.[16] Gorsuch's dissent also "called into question the whole project of American governance" and supports the idea that "most of government is unconstitutional," according to law professor Nicholas Bagley.[17] Bagley argued that Justice Kavanaugh, who did not participate in Gundy, is "no friend of agency power" and might give Alito the majority he said he would need to reconsider how the court approaches nondelegation cases.[17]
Lawyer David French, writing for National Review, argued that Gorsuch's dissent in Gundy "heralded a potential major correction in American constitutional jurisprudence" that might force Congress to "write laws that clearly and constitutionally specify Americans’ legal obligations."[18]
See also
- Nondelegation doctrine
- Supreme Court of the United States
- Whitman v. American Trucking Associations
- Mistretta v. United States
- A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States
- Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan
- Wayman v. Southard
- Ballotpedia's administrative state coverage
External links
- Full-text of the opinion from JUSTIA (petitions, motions, briefs, opinions, and attorneys)
- Case resources from SCOTUSblog
- Supreme Court of the United States
- Search Google News for this topic
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 Supreme Court of the United States, "Gundy v. United States, accessed June 20, 2019
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Cato Institute, Gundy v. United States, accessed July 12, 2018
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 SCOTUSblog, "Justices grant review in two new cases," March 5, 2018 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "blog" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 SCOTUSblog, "Gundy v. United States," accessed July 13, 2018
- ↑ United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, "Gundy v. United States" Opinion, June 22, 2017
- ↑ Legal Information Institute, "Nondelegation Doctrine," accessed September 5, 2017
- ↑ FindLaw, "Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc.," February 27, 2001
- ↑ Justia, "Delegation and Individual Liberties," accessed September 10, 2017
- ↑ Oyez, "Gundy v. United States," accessed July 12, 2018
- ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, Gundy v. United States, argued October 2, 2018
- ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "Gundy v. U.S. Transcript of Oral Argument," argued October 2, 2018
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedpaper - ↑ The Hill, "Will Supreme Court push Congress to get back to its job of making law?" June 4, 2018
- ↑ Slate, "The Supreme Court May Revive a Legal Theory Last Used to Strike Down New Deal Laws," March 5, 2018
- ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "Brief for the Cato Institute and Cause of Action Institute as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioner," May 24, 2018
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 SCOTUSblog, "Opinion analysis: Court refuses to resurrect nondelegation doctrine," June 20, 2019
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 The New York Times, "'Most of Government is Unconstitutional,'" Nicholas Bagley, June 21, 2019
- ↑ National Review, "Justice Gorsuch Wages War for the Constitutional Order," David French. June 25, 2019
