Landmark Judicial Decisions–Videos

Posted on May 24, 2012. Filed under: Blogroll, Communications, Economics | Tags: Gonzalez v. Raich (2005), Marbury v. Madison (1803), McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), Plessy v. Ferguson, Supreme Court Decisions, Wickard v. Filburn (1942) |

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Lochner v. New York (1905)

Wickard v. Filburn (1942)

Brown v. Board of Ed. (1954)

United States v. Lopez (1995)

Gonzalez v. Raich (2005)

These are all important decisions in the consideration of federalism, for one reason or another.  You should try to know at least the very broad outline of the fact situation, what the decision was and why it is important (what its significance is).

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

Marbury v. Madison 1977 Judicial Conference of the United States

Govt Project: Marbury v. Madison

Marbury v. Madison (Con Law: Judicial Review)

The Year is 1803, and Justice John Marshall authors the landmark opinion in Marbury v. Madison, which solidified the judicial branch’s authority to interpret and decide the law.  Though Justice Marshall’s justification for the power of judicial review has received some criticism for being unclear, unnecessary to decide in this case, or not properly substantiated, this power has become one of the defining tools of the judicial branch.     After John Adams lost a reelection bid to Thomas Jefferson in 1800, Adams appointed several Federalist judges and justices of the peace before Jefferson took office along with an incoming congress that would be controlled by Democratic-Republicans.  Not all of these appointees, however, received their commissions before Thomas Jefferson was sworn in as president.  As a result, President Jefferson asked his Secretary of State not to deliver any remaining commissions.     William Marbury, who had been appointed as a justice of the peace in Washington D.C. but had not received his commission, decided to sue James Madison (then-Secretary of State) directly and originally in the Supreme Court to have his commission delivered.  Marbury argued that the Judiciary Act of 1789, gave the Supreme Court the original jurisdiction to issue writs of mandamus to compel public officials to act.  Therefore the Supreme Court simply needed to decide if Marbury had a vested right in his commission and was being denied that right.     Justice Marshall, however, wrote an opinion that negated the need to answer that question.  Instead, Marshall argued that the Act of 1789 was unconstitutional because congress could not give the Supreme Court the power to issue writs of mandamus by original jurisdiction, because the Constitution did not allow for original jurisdiction in these types of cases.     Justice Marshall, a Federalist himself, seemingly rules in favor of Thomas Jefferson by refusing to compel James Madison to deliver a commission to William Marbury.  However, the greater victory for Federalists was won by Justice Marshall, because his opinion established the broad power of judicial review to void acts of congress that violated the Constitution.

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

McCulloch v. Maryland 1977 Judicial Conference of the United States

Holding

Although the Constitution does not specifically give Congress the power to establish a bank, it does delegate the ability to tax and spend, and a bank is a proper and suitable instrument to assist the operations of the government in the collection and disbursement of the revenue. Because federal laws have supremacy over state laws, Maryland had no power to interfere with the bank’s operation by taxing it. Maryland Court of Appeals reversed.

McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. The state of Maryland had attempted to impede operation of a branch of the Second Bank of the United States by imposing a tax on all notes of banks not chartered in Maryland. Though the law, by its language, was generally applicable to all banks not chartered in Maryland, the Second Bank of the United States was the only out-of-state bank then existing in Maryland, and the law was recognized in the court’s opinion as having specifically targeted the U.S. Bank. The Court invoked the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution, which allowed the Federal government to pass laws not expressly provided for in the Constitution’s list of express powers, provided those laws are in useful furtherance of the express powers of Congress under the Constitution.

This fundamental case established the following two principles:

1. The Constitution grants to Congress implied powers for implementing the Constitution’s express powers, in order to create a functional national government.
2. State action may not impede valid constitutional exercises of power by the Federal government.

The opinion was written by Chief Justice John Marshall.

Background

On April 8, 1816, the Congress of the United States passed an act titled “An Act to Incorporate the Subscribers to the Bank of the United States” which provided for the incorporation of the Second Bank of the United States. The Bank first went into full operation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1817, the Bank opened a branch in Baltimore, Maryland, and transacted and carried on business as a branch of the Bank of the United States by issuing bank notes, discounting promissory notes, and performing other operations usual and customary for banks to do and perform. Both sides of the litigation admitted that the President, directors, and company of the Bank had no authority to establish the Baltimore branch, or office of discount and deposit, other than the fact that Maryland had adopted the Constitution of the United States.

On February 11, 1818, the General Assembly of Maryland passed an act titled, “an act to impose a tax on all banks, or branches thereof, in the State of Maryland, not chartered by the legislature”:

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland that if any bank has established or shall, without authority from the State first had and obtained establish any branch, office of discount and deposit, or office of pay and receipt in any part of this State, it shall not be lawful for the said branch, office of discount and deposit, or office of pay and receipt to issue notes, in any manner, of any other denomination than five, ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred, five hundred and one thousand dollars, and no note shall be issued except upon stamped paper of the following denominations; that is to say, every five dollar note shall be upon a stamp of ten cents; every ten dollar note, upon a stamp of twenty cents; every twenty dollar note, upon a stamp of thirty cents; every fifty dollar note, upon a stamp of fifty cents; every one hundred dollar note, upon a stamp of one dollar; every five hundred dollar note, upon a stamp of ten dollars; and every thousand dollar note, upon a stamp of twenty dollars; which paper shall be furnished by the Treasurer of the Western Shore, under the direction of the Governor and Council, to be paid for upon delivery; provided always that any institution of the above description may relieve itself from the operation of the provisions aforesaid by paying annually, in advance, to the Treasurer of the Western Shore, for the use of State, the sum of $15,000.

And be it enacted that the President, cashier, each of the directors and officers of every institution established or to be established as aforesaid, offending against the provisions aforesaid shall forfeit a sum of $500 for each and every offence, and every person having any agency in circulating any note aforesaid, not stamped as aforesaid directed, shall forfeit a sum not exceeding $100, every penalty aforesaid to be recovered by indictment or action of debt in the county court of the county where the offence shall be committed, one-half to the informer and the other half to the use of the State…

James William McCulloch, head of the Baltimore Branch of the Second Bank of the United States, refused to pay the tax. The lawsuit was filed by John James, an informer who sought to collect one half of the fine as provided for by the statute. The case was appealed to the Maryland Court of Appeals where the state of Maryland argued that “the Constitution is silent on the subject of banks.” It was Maryland’s contention that because the Constitution did not specifically state that the federal government was authorized to charter a bank, the Bank of the United States was unconstitutional. The court upheld Maryland. The case was then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court decision

The court determined that Congress did have the power to create the Bank. Chief Justice Marshall supported this conclusion with four main arguments.^[1] First, he argued that historical practice established Congress’ power to create the Bank. Marshall invoked the first Bank of the United States history as authority for the constitutionality of the second bank.^[1] The first Congress enacted the bank after great debate and that it was approved by an executive “with as much persevering talent as any measure has ever experienced, and being supported by arguments which convinced minds as pure and as intelligent as this country can boast.”^[2]

Second, Chief Justice Marshall refuted the argument that states retain ultimate sovereignty because they ratified the constitution. “The powers of the general government, it has been said, are delegated by the states, who alone are truly sovereign; and must be exercised in subordination to the states, who alone possess supreme dominion.”^[3] Marshall contended that it was the people who ratified the Constitution and thus the people are sovereign, not the states.^[1]

Third, Marshall addressed the scope of congressional powers under Article I. The Court broadly described Congress’ authority before addressing the necessary and proper clause.^[1] Marshall admitted that the Constitution does not enumerate a power to create a central Bank but said that this is not dispositive as to Congress’s power to establish such an institution.^[1] Chief Justice Marshall wrote, “In considering this question, then, we must never forget, that it is a constitution we are expounding.”^[4]

Fourth, Marshall supported the Court’s opinion textually by invoking the Necessary and Proper Clause, which permits Congress to seek an objective that is within its enumerated powers so long as it is rationally related to the objective and not forbidden by the Constitution. In liberally interpreting the Necessary and Proper clause, the Court naturally rejected Maryland’s narrow interpretation of the clause, which purported that the word “necessary” in the Necessary and Proper Clause meant that Congress could only pass those laws which were absolutely essential in the execution of its enumerated powers. The Court rejected this argument, on the grounds that many of the enumerated powers of Congress under the Constitution would be useless if only those laws deemed essential to a power’s execution could be passed. Marshall also noted that the Necessary and Proper Clause is listed within the powers of Congress, not the limitations.

The Court held that for these reasons, the word “necessary” in the Necessary and Proper Clause does not refer to the only way of doing something, but rather applies to various procedures for implementing all constitutionally established powers. “Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.”

This principle had been established many years earlier by Alexander Hamilton:^[5]

Chief Justice Marshall also determined that Maryland may not tax the bank without violating the Constitution. The Court voided the tax on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. The opinion stated that Congress has implied powers that need to be related to the text of the Constitution, but need not be enumerated within the text. This case was a seminal moment in the formation of a balance between federalism, federal power, and states’ powers. Chief Justice Marshall also explained in this case that the Necessary and Proper Clause does not require that all federal laws be necessary and proper and that federal laws that are enacted directly pursuant to one of the express, enumerated powers granted by the Constitution need not comply with the Necessary and Proper Clause, holding that the clause “purport[s] to enlarge, not to diminish the powers vested in the government. It purports to be an additional power, not a restriction on those already granted.”

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

Gibbons v. Ogden

Gibbons v. Ogden (Con Law: Commerce Clause)

Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)

The Dred Scott Decision

An Unpopular Decision- The Dred Scott Decision

 The Dred Scott Decision of 1857

Dred Scott vs. Sanford 

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Plessy v. Ferguson 1896

History Project–Plessy v. Ferguson

Plessy v. Ferguson – Case Brief Summary

Facts

Plessy (P) attempted to sit in an all-white railroad car. After refusing to sit in the black railway carriage car, Plessy was arrested for violating an 1890 Louisiana statute that provided for segregated “separate but equal” railroad accommodations. Those using facilities not designated for their race were criminally liable under the statute.

At trial with Justice John H. Ferguson (D) presiding, Plessy was found guilty on the grounds that the law was a reasonable exercise of the state’s police powers based upon custom, usage, and tradition in the state. Plessy filed a petition for writs of prohibition and certiorari in the Supreme Court of Louisiana against Ferguson, asserting that segregation stigmatized blacks and stamped them with a badge of inferiority in violation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments. The court found for Ferguson and the Supreme Court granted cert.

Issue

• Can the states constitutionally enact legislation requiring persons of different races to use “separate but equal” segregated facilities?

Holding and Rule (Brown)

• Yes. The states can constitutionally enact legislation requiring persons of different races to use “separate but equal” segregated facilities.

Thirteenth Amendment issue

The statute does not conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime. Slavery implies involuntary servitude and a state of bondage. The Thirteenth Amendment however was regarded as insufficient to protect former slaves from certain laws which had been enacted in the south which imposed upon them onerous disabilities and burdens and curtailed their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty and property to such an extent that their freedom was of little value; and that the Fourteenth Amendment was devised to meet this exigency.

Fourteenth Amendment Issue

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are made citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside, and the States are forbidden from making or enforcing any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or deny to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The proper construction of this amendment involves a question of exclusive privileges rather than race. Its main purpose was to establish the citizenship of former slaves, to give definitions of citizenship of the United States and of the States, and to protect the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States from hostile legislation of the states.

It was intended to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but it was intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting and even requiring their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race. Such laws have generally been recognized as within the scope of the states’ police powers. The most common instance involves the establishment of separate schools, which has been held to be a valid exercise of the legislative power even by courts of States where the political rights of blacks have been longest and most earnestly enforced.

Disposition

Judgment for Ferguson (Plessy loses).

Note

This case is often cited incorrectly as Plessey v. Ferguson.

This case was later overruled by Brown v. Board of Education. Justice Warren wrote the opinion for a unanimous court, holding that separate facilities which segregate based on race are inherently unequal.

http://www.lawnix.com/cases/plessy-ferguson.html

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of “separate but equal.” ^[1]

The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1 with the majority opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the dissent written by Justice John Marshall Harlan. “Separate but equal” remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until its repudiation in the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. ^[2]

After the Supreme Court ruling, the New Orleans Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens), which had brought the suit and arranged for Homer Plessy‘s arrest in order to challenge Louisiana’s segregation law, replied, “We, as freemen, still believe that we were right and our cause is sacred.”^[3]

In 1890, the State of Louisiana passed a law (the “Separate Car Act”) that required separate accommodations for blacks and whites on railroads, including separate railway cars. ^[4] Concerned, a group of prominent black, creole, and white New Orleans residents formed the Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens) dedicated to repeal the law.^[3] They eventually persuaded Homer Plessy to participate in an orchestrated test case. Plessy was born a free man and was an “octoroon” (someone of seven-eighths Caucasian descent and one-eighth African descent). However, under Louisiana law, he was classified as black, and thus required to sit in the “colored” car.^[5]

On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a first class ticket at the Press Street Depot and boarded a “whites only” car of the East Louisiana Railroad in New Orleans, Louisiana, bound for Covington, Louisiana. ^[6] The railroad company, which opposed the law on the grounds that it would require the purchase of more railcars, had been informed already as to Plessy’s racial lineage.^[7] Additionally, the committee hired a private detective with arrest powers to detain Plessy, to ensure he was charged for violating the Separate Car Act, as opposed to a vagrancy or some other offense.^[7] After Plessy had taken a seat in the whites-only railway car, he was asked to vacate it and sit instead in the blacks-only car. Plessy refused and was arrested immediately by the detective.^[8] As planned, the train was stopped and Plessy was taken off the train at Press and Royal streets.^[7] Plessy was remanded for trial in Orleans Parish.

In his case, Homer Adolph Plessy v. The State of Louisiana, Plessy argued that the state law which required East Louisiana Railroad to segregate trains had denied him his rights under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. ^[9] However, the judge presiding over his case, John Howard Ferguson, ruled that Louisiana had the right to regulate railroad companies as long as they operated within state boundaries. Plessy was convicted and sentenced to pay a $25 fine. He immediately sought a writ of prohibition.

The Committee of Citizens took Plessy’s appeal to the Supreme Court of Louisiana, where he again found an unreceptive ear, as the state Supreme Court upheld Judge Ferguson’s ruling. ^[7] Undaunted, the Committee appealed to the United States Supreme Court in 1896. ^[10]Two legal briefs were submitted on Plessy’s behalf. One was signed by Albion W. Tourgée and James C. Walker and the other by Samuel F. Phillips and his legal partner F. D. McKenney. Oral arguments were held before the Supreme Court on April 13, 1896. Tourgée and Phillips appeared in the courtroom to speak on behalf of Plessy.

Tourgée built his case upon violations of Plessy’s rights under the Thirteenth Amendment, prohibiting slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees the same rights to all citizens of the United States, and the equal protection of those rights, against the deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Tourgee argued that the reputation of being a black man was “property,” which, by the law, implied the inferiority of African-Americans as compared to whites. ^[11]

The Decision

In a 7 to 1 decision handed down on May 18, 1896 (Justice David Josiah Brewer did not participate, due to the death of his daughter),^[12] the Court rejected Plessy’s arguments based on the Fourteenth Amendment, seeing no way in which the Louisiana statute violated it. ^[7] In addition, the majority of the Court rejected the view that the Louisiana law implied any inferiority of blacks, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, it contended that the law separated the two races as a matter of public policy. ^[13]

When summarizing, Justice Brown declared, “We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff’s argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.” ^[14]

While the Court did not find a difference in quality between the whites-only and blacks-only railway cars, this was manifestly untrue in the case of most other separate facilities, such as public toilets, cafés, and public schools, where the facilities designated for blacks were poorer than those designated for whites. ^[15]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson

Wickard v. Filburn (1942)

Andrew Napolitano – A Clause for Any Cause

Mark Levin – unconstitutional government & the commerce clause

Holding

Production quotas under the Agricultural Adjustment Act were constitutionally applied to agricultural production that was consumed purely intrastate, because its effect upon interstate commerce placed it within the power of Congress to regulate under the Commerce Clause. Southern District of Ohio reversed.

Wickard v. Filburn

“…Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942), was a United States Supreme Court decision that recognized the power of the federal government to regulate economic activity.

A farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat for on-farm consumption. The U.S. government had established limits on wheat production based on acreage owned by a farmer, in order to drive up wheat prices during the Great Depression, and Filburn was growing more than the limits permitted. Filburn was ordered to destroy his crops and pay a fine, even though he was producing the excess wheat for his own use and had no intention of selling it.

The Supreme Court interpreted the United States Constitution‘s Commerce Clause under Article 1 Section 8, which permits the United States Congress “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”. The Court decided that Filburn’s wheat growing activities reduced the amount of wheat he would buy for chicken feed on the open market, and because wheat was traded nationally, Filburn’s production of more wheat than he was allotted was affecting interstate commerce. Thus, Filburn’s production could be regulated by the federal government.

Background

The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 limited the area that farmers could devote to wheat production. The stated purpose of the act was to stabilize the price of wheat in the national market by controlling the amount of wheat produced. The motivation behind the Act was a belief by Congress that great international fluctuations in the supply and demand for wheat were leading to wide swings in the price of wheat, which were deemed to be harmful to the U.S. agricultural economy. The Supreme Court’s decision states that the parties had stipulated as to the economic conditions leading to passage of the legislation:

The parties have stipulated a summary of the economics of the wheat industry……The wheat industry has been a problem industry for some years. Largely as a result of increased foreign production and import restrictions, annual exports of wheat and flour from the United States during the ten-year period ending in 1940 averaged less than 10 percent of total production, while, during the 1920s, they averaged more than 25 percent. The decline in the export trade has left a large surplus in production which, in connection with an abnormally large supply of wheat and other grains in recent years, caused congestion in a number of markets; tied up railroad cars, and caused elevators in some instances to turn away grains, and railroads to institute embargoes to prevent further congestion. Many countries, both importing and exporting, have sought to modify the impact of the world market conditions on their own economy. Importing countries have taken measures to stimulate production and self-sufficiency. The four large exporting countries of Argentina, Australia, Canada, and the United States have all undertaken various programs for the relief of growers. Such measures have been designed, in part at least, to protect the domestic price received by producers. Such plans have generally evolved towards control by the central government. In the absence of regulation, the price of wheat in the United States would be much affected by world conditions. During 1941, producers who cooperated with the Agricultural Adjustment program received an average price on the farm of about $1.16 a bushel, as compared with the world market price of 40 cents a bushel.

Roscoe Filburn was a farmer who admitted producing wheat in excess of the amount permitted. He maintained, however, that the excess wheat was produced for his private consumption on his own farm. Since it never entered commerce at all, much less interstate commerce, he argued that it was not a proper subject of federal regulation under the Commerce Clause.

In July 1940, pursuant to the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of 1938, Filburn’s 1941 allotment was established at 11.1 acres (4.5 ha) and a normal yield of 20.1 bushels of wheat per acre. Filburn was given notice of the allotment in July 1940 before the Fall planting of his 1941 crop of wheat, and again in July 1941, before it was harvested. Despite these notices, Filburn planted 23 acres (9.3 ha) and harvested 239 bushels from his 11.9 acres (4.8 ha) of excess area.^[1]

The Federal District Court ruled in favor of Filburn. The Act required an affirmative vote of farmers by plebiscite in order to implement the quota. Much of the District Court decision related to the way in which the Secretary of Agriculture had campaigned for passage: The District Court had held that the Secretary’s comments were improper. The government then appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which called the District Court’s holding against the campaign methods which led to passage of the quota by farmers a “manifest error.” The court then went on to uphold the Act under the Interstate Commerce Clause.

Opinion of the Court

The intended rationale of the Agricultural Adjustment Act was to stabilize the price of wheat on the national market. The federal government has the power to regulate interstate commerce through the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. In Filburn the Court unanimously reasoned that the power to regulate the price at which commerce occurs was inherent in the power to regulate commerce.

Filburn argued that since the excess wheat he produced was intended solely for home consumption it could not be regulated through the interstate Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court rejected this argument, reasoning that if Filburn had not used home-grown wheat he would have had to buy wheat on the open market. This effect on interstate commerce, the Court reasoned, may not be substantial from the actions of Filburn alone but through the cumulative actions of thousands of other farmers just like Filburn its effect would certainly become substantial. Therefore Congress could regulate wholly intrastate, non-commercial activity if such activity, viewed in the aggregate, would have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, even if the individual effects are trivial.

Some of the parties’ argument had focused on prior decisions, especially dormant Commerce Clause decisions, in which the Court had tried to focus on whether a commercial activity was local or not local. Justice Robert H. Jackson‘s decision rejects that approach as too formulaic:

The Government’s concern lest the Act be held to be a regulation of production or consumption rather than of marketing is attributable to a few dicta and decisions of this Court which might be understood to lay it down that activities such as ‘production,’ ‘manufacturing,’ and ‘mining’ are strictly ‘local’ and, except in special circumstances which are not present here, cannot be regulated under the commerce power because their effects upon interstate commerce are, as matter of law, only ‘indirect.’ Even today, when this power has been held to have great latitude, there is no decision of this Court that such activities may be regulated where no part of the product is intended for interstate commerce or intermingled with the subjects thereof. We believe that a review of the course of decision under the Commerce Clause will make plain, however, that questions of the power of Congress are not to be decided by reference to any formula which would give controlling force to nomenclature such as ‘production’ and ‘indirect’ and foreclose consideration of the actual effects of the activity in question upon interstate commerce.

The issue was not how one characterized the activity as local, but rather whether the activity “exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce”:

Whether the subject of the regulation in question was ‘production,’ ‘consumption,’ or ‘marketing’ is, therefore, not material for purposes of deciding the question of federal power before us. That an activity is of local character may help in a doubtful case to determine whether Congress intended to reach it…. But even if appellee’s activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as ‘direct’ or ‘indirect.’

Here, the regulation of local production of wheat was rationally related to Congress’s goal: to stabilize prices by limiting the total supply of wheat produced and consumed. It was clear, the Court held,

“that a factor of such volume and variability as home-consumed wheat would have a substantial influence on price and market conditions. ….. Home-grown wheat in this sense competes with wheat in commerce. The stimulation of commerce is a use of the regulatory function quite as definitely as prohibitions or restrictions thereon. This record leaves us in no doubt that Congress may properly have considered that wheat consumed on the farm where grown, if wholly outside the scheme of regulation, would have a substantial effect in defeating and obstructing its purpose to stimulate trade therein at increased prices.”

Wickard arguably marked the end to any limits on Congress’s Commerce Clause powers. The Court’s own decision, however, emphasizes the role of the democratic electoral process in confining the abuse of the Congressional power, stating that, “At the beginning Chief Justice Marshall described the Federal commerce power with a breadth never yet exceeded. He made emphatic the embracing and penetrating nature of this power by warning that effective restraints on its exercise must proceed from political rather than from judicial processes.”

Subsequent developments

United States v. Lopez (1995) was the first decision in six decades to invalidate a federal statute on the grounds that it exceeded the power of the Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The opinion described Wickard v. Filburn as “perhaps the most far reaching example of Commerce Clause authority over intrastate commerce.” Lopez held that while Congress had broad lawmaking authority under the Commerce Clause, the power was limited, and did not extend so far from “commerce” as to authorize the regulation of the carrying of handguns, especially when there was no evidence that carrying them affected the economy on a massive scale.^[2]

The Supreme Court has since relied heavily on Filburn in upholding the power of the federal government to prosecute individuals who grow their own medicinal marijuana pursuant to state law. The Supreme Court subsequently held that, as with the home grown wheat at issue in the present case, home grown marijuana is a legitimate subject of federal regulation because it competes with marijuana that moves in interstate commerce. As the Court explained in Gonzales v. Raich (2005):

“Wickard thus establishes that Congress can regulate purely intrastate activity that is not itself ‘commercial’, in that it is not produced for sale, if it concludes that failure to regulate that class of activity would undercut the regulation of the interstate market in that commodity.”

One commentator has written that “In the wake of New Deal era Supreme Court jurisprudence it has become clear that Congress has acquired the authority to regulate private economic activity in a manner near limitless in its purview.”^[3] Justice Rehnquist’s opinion in United States v. Lopez explains:

Jones & Laughlin Steel, Darby, and Wickard ushered in an era of Commerce Clause jurisprudence that greatly expanded the previously defined authority of Congress under that Clause. In part, this was a recognition of the great changes that had occurred in the way business was carried on in this country. Enterprises that had once been local or at most regional in nature had become national in scope. But the doctrinal change also reflected a view that earlier Commerce Clause cases artificially had constrained the authority of Congress to regulate interstate commerce

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

United States v. Lopez (1995)

Holding

Possession of a gun near school is not an economic activity that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce. A law prohibiting guns near schools is a criminal statute that does not relate to commerce or any sort of economic activity

United States v. Alfonso Lopez, Jr., 514 U.S. 549 (1995) was the first United States Supreme Court case since the New Deal to set limits to Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

Background

Alfonso Lopez, Jr. was a 12th grade student at Edison High School in San Antonio, Texas. On March 10, 1992 he carried a concealed .38 caliber revolver, along with five cartridges, into the school. The pistol was not loaded; Lopez claimed that he was to deliver the weapon to another person, a service for which he would receive $40.^[1] He was confronted by school authorities — the school had received anonymous tips that Lopez was carrying the weapon — and admitted to having the weapon. The next day, he was charged with violation of the federal^[2] Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (the “Act”), 18 U.S.C. § 922(q)^[3]

Lopez moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that §922(q) of the Act was “unconstitutional as it is beyond the power of Congress to legislate control over our public schools.” The trial court denied the motion, ruling that §922(q) was “a constitutional exercise of Congress’ well defined power to regulate activities in and affecting commerce, and the ‘business’ of elementary, middle and high schools… affects interstate commerce.”

Lopez was tried and convicted. He appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, claiming that §922(q) exceeded Congress’ power to legislate under the Commerce Clause. The Fifth Circuit agreed and reversed his conviction, holding that “section 922(q), in the full reach of its terms, is invalid as beyond the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause.” The Court of Appeals noted that the findings and evidence presented before Congress to justify the passage of the Act pursuant to the federal Commerce Clause power was simply insufficient to uphold the Act, in effect ruling that the Government had simply not made its case that the Act was justified as an exercise of the Commerce Clause power of Congress; this of course left the door open for a later Congress, with more complete evidence and justification, to enact a valid Act, based upon a more complete showing of evidence of interstate commerce being sufficiently “affected” to justify the exercise of the federal Commerce power.^[4]

The United States government filed a petition for certiorari, whereby the Court has discretion to hear or to decline a particular case, for Supreme Court review and the Court accepted the case.

To sustain the Act, the Government was obligated^[5] to show that §922(q) was a valid exercise of the Congressional Commerce Clause power, i.e. that the section regulated a matter which “affected” (or “substantially affected”^[6]) interstate commerce.^[7]

The Government’s principal argument was that the possession of a firearm in an educational environment would most likely lead to a violent crime, which in turn would affect the general economic condition in two ways. First, because violent crime causes harm and creates expense, it raises insurance costs, which are spread throughout the economy; and second, by limiting the willingness to travel in the area perceived to be unsafe. The Government also argued that the presence of firearms within a school would be seen as dangerous, resulting in students’ being scared and disturbed; this would, in turn, inhibit learning; and this, in turn, would lead to a weaker national economy since education is clearly a crucial element of the nation’s financial health.

The Court, however, found these arguments to create a dangerous slippery slope: what would prevent the federal government from then regulating any activity that might lead to violent crime, regardless of its connection to interstate commerce, because it imposed social costs? What would prevent Congress from regulating any activity that might bear on a person’s economic productivity?^[8]

Supreme Court decision

In a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals. It held that while Congress had broad lawmaking authority under the Commerce Clause, the power was limited, and did not extend so far from “commerce” as to authorize the regulation of the carrying of handguns, especially when there was no evidence that carrying them affected the economy on a massive scale.^[9]

Chief Justice Rehnquist, delivering the opinion of the Court, identified the three broad categories of activity that Congress could regulate under the Commerce Clause:

• the channels of interstate commerce,
• the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce,^[10] and
• activities that substantially affect or substantially relate to interstate commerce^[11]

The Court summarily dismissed any consideration of the first two categories and concluded that the resolution of the case depended only on consideration of the third category—regulation of activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. The Court essentially concluded that in no way was the carrying of handguns a commercial activity or even related to any sort of economic enterprise, even under the most extravagant definitions.^[12]

The opinion rejected the government’s argument that because crime negatively impacted education Congress might have reasonably concluded that crime in schools substantially affects commerce.

The Court reasoned that if Congress could regulate something so far removed from commerce, then it could regulate anything, and since the Constitution clearly creates Congress as a body with enumerated powers, this could not be so. Rehnquist concluded:

To uphold the Government’s contentions here, we have to pile inference upon inference in a manner that would bid fair to convert congressional authority under the Commerce Clause to a general police power of the sort retained by the States. Admittedly, some of our prior cases have taken long steps down that road, giving great deference to congressional action. The broad language in these opinions has suggested the possibility of additional expansion, but we decline here to proceed any further. To do so would require us to conclude that the Constitution’s enumeration of powers does not presuppose something not enumerated, and that there never will be a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local. This we are unwilling to do.

The Court specifically looked to four factors in determining whether legislation represents a valid effort to use the Commerce Clause power to regulate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce:

1. Whether the activity was non-economic as opposed to economic activity; previous cases involved economic activity.
2. Jurisdictional element: whether the gun had moved in interstate commerce.
3. Whether there had been Congressional findings of an economic link between guns and education.
4. How attenuated the link was between the regulated activity and interstate commerce.

It is important to note that although the ruling stopped a decades-long trend of inclusiveness under the commerce clause, it did not reverse any past ruling about the meaning of the clause. Later, Rehnquist stated that the Court had the duty to prevent the legislative branch from usurping state powers over policing the conduct of their citizens. He admitted that the Supreme Court had upheld certain governmental steps towards taking power away from the states, and cited Lopez as a decision that finally stepped in to check the government’s authority by defining clearly between state and federal powers.^[13]

The dissent

Justice Breyer authored the principal dissenting opinion.^[14] He applied three principles that he considered basic:

1. The Commerce Clause included the power to regulate local activities so long as those “significantly affect” interstate commerce.
2. In considering the question, a court must consider not the individual act being regulated (a single instance of gun possession) but rather the cumulative effect of all similar acts (i.e., the effect of all guns possessed in or near schools).
3. A court must specifically determine not whether the regulated activity significantly affected interstate commerce, but whether Congress could have had a “rational basis” for so concluding.^[15]

With these principles in mind, Justice Breyer asked if Congress could have rationally found that the adverse effect of violent crime in school zones, acting through the intermediary effect of degrading the quality of education, could significantly affect interstate commerce. Based on the existence of empirical studies, he answered this question affirmatively.^[16] He pointed out the growing importance of education in the job market, noting that increased global competition made primary and secondary education more important.^[17] He also observed that US firms make location decisions, in part, on the presence or absence of an educated work force.^[18]

Thus, Justice Breyer concluded that it was obvious that gun related violence could have an effect on interstate commerce. The only question remaining, then, was whether Congress could have rationally concluded that the effect could be “substantial.” Congress could have rationally concluded, in Justice Breyer’s judgment, that the linkage from gun violence to an impaired learning environment, and from this impaired environment to the consequent adverse economic effects, was sufficient to create a risk to interstate commerce that was “substantial.”^[19]

Congress, in Justice Breyer’s view, had a rational basis “for finding a significant connection between guns in or near schools and (through their effect on education) the interstate and foreign commerce they threaten.” In his opinion, no more than this was required to find sufficient supporting power for the challenged law under the Commerce Clause, and he consequently believed that the Court of Appeals had erred and should be reversed.

Justice Souter’s opinion warned that the distinction between “commercial” and “non-commercial” activity was not tenable and he echoed the “rational basis” theme of the Breyer dissent.^[20]

Justice Stevens, in his dissent, iterated his agreement with the Breyer dissent that found ample Congressional power under the Commerce Clause to regulate the possession of firearms in schools, in the same way that Congress may act to protect the school environment from alcohol or asbestos. He also agreed with Justice Souter’s “exposition of the radical character of the Court’s holding and its kinship with the discredited, pre-Depression version of substantive due process.”^[21]

 The impact of the decision

Lopez raised serious questions as to how far the Court might be willing to go in implementing judicial safeguards against federal encroachments on state sovereignty.^[22] This precedent takes special significance in cases where the federal government is attempting to limit private conduct.^[22] Commentators are still postulating its possible effects on other established federal laws enacted pursuant to the Commerce Power, such as the Clean Water Act. The argument can be made that this significant limiting of federal power is necessary to establish a greater threshold for governmental accountability and revitalizes the role of the states in public policymaking.^[23] United States v. Lopez has been followed by the Supreme Court in limiting Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause in the 2000 case of United States v. Morrison^[24] and under other enumerated powers in the 2001 case of Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. United States Army Corps of Engineers (“SWANCC”).^[25][26] Lopez has also been cited as a potentially crucial precedent in the legal battle over the 2010 health care reform legislation.^[27]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Lopez

Gonzalez v. Raich (2005)

Holding

Congress may ban the use of marijuana even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes

Angel Raich At MMJ Conference

Medical Marijuana Patient & Activist, Angel Raich 

Gonzales v. Raich (previously Ashcroft v. Raich), 545 U.S. 1 (2005), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court ruling that under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, the United States Congress may criminalize the production and use of home-grown cannabis even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes.

Factual background

California voters passed Proposition 215 in 1996, legalizing the medical use of marijuana. The United States Federal Government has limited the use of marijuana since the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act came into effect. Defendant Angel Raich used homegrown medical marijuana, which was legal under California law, but illegal under federal law. On August 15, 2002, Butte County Sheriff’s Department officers and agents from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) destroyed all six of California resident Diane Monson’s marijuana plants, facing light resistance. The marijuana plants were illegal Schedule I drugs under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA). CSA is Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. Monson and Angel Raich sued, claiming that enforcing the CSA against them would violate the Commerce Clause, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the doctrine of medical necessity.

Angel Raich’s physician has stated that, without marijuana, Angel’s life is threatened by excruciating pain. California was one of fourteen states that allowed medicinal use of marijuana. California’s Compassionate Use Act allows limited use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Legal background

The United States has a federal structure, with power divided between the states and the federal government. The state governments can act in any sphere not prohibited to them (10th Amendment, U.S. Constitution) but the federal government can pass laws only in areas specifically delegated to it.^[1] The state governments have general police power. The federal government does not have general police power and is a government body of limited, enumerated powers granted by the Constitution. Consequently, a substantial amount of U.S. federal law regulating numerous areas, including economic legislation and criminal law, are legally premised on an exercise of the Commerce Clause. The Commerce Clause, along with the Fourteenth Amendment and the spending power, allows Congress to do things that affect states. For more information, see States’ rights and the Rehnquist Court.

The case of Raich and Monson against the government

Angel Raich of Oakland, California, Diane Monson of Oroville, California, and two anonymous caregivers sued the government for injunctive and declaratory relief on October 9, 2002 to stop the government from interfering with their right to produce and use medical marijuana claiming that the Controlled Substances Act was not constitutional as applied to their conduct.

Angel Raich claimed she used marijuana to keep herself alive. She and her doctor claimed to have tried dozens of prescription medicines for her numerous medical conditions, and that she was allergic to most of them. Her doctor declared under oath that Raich’s life was at stake if she could not continue to use marijuana. Diane Monson suffered from chronic pain due to a car accident a decade before the case. She used marijuana to relieve the pain and muscle spasms around her spine.

 The government’s case

The Controlled Substances Act does not recognize the medical use of marijuana. Agents from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) were assigned to break up California’s medical marijuana co-ops and seize their assets. This activity was the result of the belief that federal law preempted that of California. The government argued that if a single exception were made to the Controlled Substances Act, it would become unenforceable in practice. The government also contended that consuming one’s locally grown marijuana for medical purposes affects the interstate market of marijuana, and hence that the federal government may regulate—and prohibit—such consumption. This argument stems from the landmark New Deal case Wickard v. Filburn, which held that the government may regulate personal cultivation and consumption of crops, due to the aggregate effect of individual consumption on the government’s legitimate statutory framework governing the interstate wheat market.

 Litigation

On December 16, 2003, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a preliminary injunction to prevent the federal government from interfering with Raich and Monson. In their ruling, they declared: “We find that the appellants have demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on their claim that, as applied to them, the Controlled Substances Act is an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’ Commerce Clause authority…”

Organizations involved

Partnership for a Drug-Free America, several other anti-drug organizations,^[2] alliance of seven congressmen including Mark Souder and Katherine Harris filed amicus brief for the side of federal government.^[3] The environmentalist group Community Rights Council also filed a brief for the government, fearing limitation of federal power would undermine their agenda.^[4]

The Cato Institute,^[5] Institute for Justice,^[6] many libertarian organizations, and NORML, along with other groups opposing the War on Drugs, filed briefs for Raich and Monson. The governments of California, Maryland, and Washington also filed briefs supporting Raich. The attorneys general of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, three strongly anti-drug states from the usually conservative South, filed a brief supporting Raich on the grounds of states’ rights.^[7]

 The decision

The starting point for the Court’s opinion was the fact that it was conceded that Congress had the power to control or ban marijuana for non-medical uses:

Respondents in this case do not dispute that passage of the CSA, as part of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, was well within Congress’ commerce power. Nor do they contend that any provision or section of the CSA amounts to an unconstitutional exercise of congressional authority. Rather, respondents’ challenge is actually quite limited; they argue that the CSA’s categorical prohibition of the manufacture and possession of marijuana as applied to the intrastate manufacture and possession of marijuana for medical purposes pursuant to California law exceeds Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause.

Banning the growing of marijuana for medical use, the Court reasoned, was a permissible way of preventing or limiting access to marijuana for other uses:

Even respondents acknowledge the existence of an illicit market in marijuana; indeed, Raich has personally participated in that market, and Monson expresses a willingness to do so in the future. More concretely, one concern prompting inclusion of wheat grown for home consumption in the 1938 Act was that rising market prices could draw such wheat into the interstate market, resulting in lower market prices. Wickard, 317 U.S., at 128. The parallel concern making it appropriate to include marijuana grown for home consumption in the CSA is the likelihood that the high demand in the interstate market will draw such marijuana into that market. While the diversion of homegrown wheat tended to frustrate the federal interest in stabilizing prices by regulating the volume of commercial transactions in the interstate market, the diversion of homegrown marijuana tends to frustrate the federal interest in eliminating commercial transactions in the interstate market in their entirety. In both cases, the regulation is squarely within Congress’ commerce power because production of the commodity meant for home consumption, be it wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply and demand in the national market for that commodity.

The relevant precedents for the Court’s analysis are Wickard v. Filburn (1942), United States v. Lopez (1995) and United States v. Morrison (2000).

Scalia’s opinion

Justice Scalia wrote a separate concurrence that had the effect of differentiating the decision from the previous results of United States v. Lopez and United States v. Morrison. Although Scalia voted in favor of limits on the Commerce Clause in the Lopez and Morrison decisions, he said that his understanding of the Necessary and Proper Clause caused him to vote for the Commerce Clause with Raich for the following reason:

Unlike the power to regulate activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, the power to enact laws enabling effective regulation of interstate commerce can only be exercised in conjunction with congressional regulation of an interstate market, and it extends only to those measures necessary to make the interstate regulation effective. As Lopez itself states, and the Court affirms today, Congress may regulate noneconomic intrastate activities only where the failure to do so “could … undercut” its regulation of interstate commerce. … This is not a power that threatens to obliterate the line between “what is truly national and what is truly local.”^[8]