Supreme Court Lacks Authority to Vacate

Great Debates
1

Ok, I rarely start threads here, but today’s opinion motivates me to proffer a hypothesis and see what the legal eagles think.

I have read the text of Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, issued today by the Supreme Court of the United States. I read the opinion with interest, because I wanted to see what the middle would do with the arguments the extremes were offering. I had predicted a punt, and news reports made it sound like a punt.

But I have to admit to consternation at the actual outcome. The Court specifically declined to address the federal issues upon which the original Petition for Writ of Certiorari had been granted. Nevertheless, the Court, without making one single legal determination vacated the opinion of the Florida Supreme Court and remanded the case. In so doing, it relied upon a decision issued in Minnesota v. National Tea Company, 309 U.S. 551 (1940), a case in which the Supreme Court established a principle that, when the Court is uncertain whether or not its jurisdiction actually exists to review a state supreme court opinion, it will vacate the opinion and ask the lower court for clarification as to whether or not federal law is involved (the USSC isn’t able to review state supreme court decisions that don’t have federal statutory or constitutional law ramifications).

In this case, though, the Court isn’t saying it is unsure that it has jurisdiction. It is saying instead that it isn’t sure the Florida Supreme Court thought about the possible federal law ramifications of its holding and opinion. So, the Court isn’t saying: tell us whether or not federal law actually played a part in your decision, and in the meantime your decision is vacated because we aren’t sure if your reference to federal law was controlling. It is saying: did you pay any attention to the fact we might have to deal with the mess you left?

I assert that, under these facts, the Court has no authority to overturn the decision of the Florida Supreme Court. IF Florida’s decision actually violates federal law, either statutory or constitutional, then the Supreme Court of the United States has the duty to determine that to be the case, and vacate the opinion for further procedings consistent with that determination. But it does NOT have the authority to tell Florida “we can’t tell if you thought about what this means, so we are killing your decision and making you try again.” Absent a determination that the decision of the Florida court COULD have violated federal law, the Court simply has no valid reason under federal v state court relations in our system to vacate an otherwise valid opinion of the Florida Supreme Court.
Thoughts?
(And yes, I know the PRACTICAL reason this decision issued, and let’s debate THAT elsewhere, please :slight_smile: )

{Fixed link. --Gaudere}

[Edited by Gaudere on 12-04-2000 at 03:49 PM]

2

Moderator, please fix the url link for Minnesota v. National Tea Company. Thanks :slight_smile:

3

I got a completely different impression from reading the same decision. From what I’ve seen, the USSC is saying that if the FSC is basing its decision solely on their determination of the true meaning of the legislative statute, they will look at it in that context (and possibly give their interpretation a cartain amount of deference). But the problem is that the FSC seemed to base their reasoning on the Florida State Constitution, which established the paramount principle of the right to vote, that they used in guiding their decision. That would represent a problem, as they would be using Florida constitutional principles in an election case with federal implications. If this interpretation is indeed the case, the decision does not represent solely an interpretation of the legislative intent, but rather an interpretation guided by a certain amount of judicial import derived from the principles enunciated in the Florida constitution. In that case, the USSC would give them less (or no) deference.
While I have you here, I’d like to re-ask a question that I asked in another thread:

4

I thought it was fairly clear that the Court was saying it needed to know whether

a) the state law was being changed by the ruling in the opinion (no pun) of the FSC.

or

b) The law really wasn’t being changed if the FSC was saying the Constitution of Florida gave the FSC the right to over right the existing law.

in order to make a valid ruling.

If (a) then the Court’s hands are tied and it would be up to the US Congress to determine, since the law changed, whether a new slate of electors would be accepted by congress since Florida didn’t tow the line of the Federal guidelines for choosing electors in a way that would be acceptable to the US Congress.

If (b) then the USSC perhaps would come into play and be able to make a ruling one way or the other.

That the FSC’s original decision made logical leap that the USSC couldn’t make heads or tails out of shouldn’t mean the USSC has to just shrug it off.

5

I should add that the OP highlights one of the central issues surrounding the matter of judicial legislation/power. There is not much a check on what powers a court has. A court has pretty much whatever power it declares itself to have. (The very idea of a court striking down a law is not derived from the US Constitution, but from a declaration by the Court itself that it had such power). A lower court might be reversed by a higher court, but the Supreme Court is the final word.

So this entire thread is purely theoretical. One can discuss what right a court should or should not have, but once a court assumes power to do something, it automatically aquires that power. (IOW, what are you going to DO about it, huh?)

Ed Meese tried to make an issue of similar matters when he was AG, but was shouted down in a chorus of condemnation.

6

Here’s another question: when an appeals court takes on an appeal, do they look at the issue from a completely fresh perspective (legally, at least - I am aware that findings of fact are not part of the appeals process), or do they typically give some deference to the ruling of the trial judge? My understanding is that they only correct egregious errors, but is this true, and if so, is it followed? (The FSC seemed to ignore the trial judge’s ruling entirely in their first ruling). This is significant, in weighing the likelihood of a reversal of the Sauls ruling.

7

Since the answer to this question really depends on what the law says and not what we think should happen, and I don’t have much knowledge of the law, my opinion doesn’t matter much. But MHO is that unless the appealing (actually, both parties seem rather unappealing but that’s a different matter) party cites a specific federal law or priciple in their appeal, the USSC should leave the ruling alone.

That’s clearly not true. A court may declare itself to have the power to create matter out of pure energy, but that doesn’t mean it does.

You might want to review American history. Specifacally, the Jackson administration.

Umm… ignore it?

8

To summarize, the USSC basically ruled that the SCOFLAw decision pushing the certification back was to vague for them to rule on. They sent the case back down to them to clarify how they made their decision. While the SCOFLA writes it’s clarification, they will have in mind the fact that if they stray from laws written before the election, the USSC will just overturn them.

My read on this is that the USSC did a little back room negotiating among themselves. I think they felt a 9-0 decision was important to the country, and sending it back down to give the SCOFLA another chance to get it right was the only way a 9-0 decision was going to come out of this case.

I think the USSC agreed in advance to two future outcomes if they see this case again. If the SCOFLA can write a clarification that obeys the laws written by the FL legislature and the US Constitution, then the USSC will rule 9-0 in favor of Gore if it reaches them again. Of course, since this isn’t possible, they will either have to reverse themselves or they will get slapped down 9-0 by the USSC.

This is of course, only my partisan take on the matter.

9

Except perhaps for the “this isn’t possible” sentence, I think I basically have to agree with Freedom2. [Let thunderbolts come down from the Heavens and Rapture begin. ;)]

In particular, I think their decision is a sure-sign that they were hopelessly split on what to do and this was a compromise they came up with that they all could agree on. (“Let’s make them clarify the basis of their decision to see if they can come up with something we might agree on better as either being correct reasoning or incorrect reasoning.”)

10

is this:

Haven’t they basically TOLD the Florida SC what they need to say in order to PREVENT SCOTUS from taking the case back and deciding it? Seems plain as day to me that they have, for all intents and purposes, said: " Take this back and tell us that you decided this as a matter of statutory interpretation, and we will leave it alone." Although this whole business of vacating their decision without making any meaningful findings is weird.

But I’ll be stunned if the SFC says anything other than what I’ve said above. Why would they? Isnt’ that an invitation to be overturned?

stoid

11

I must admit I read the decision in the same way Izzy did.

My question is: didn’t the FL State Constitution get passed by the FL state legislature, at some point? And as such, isn’t it part of the “laws enacted prior” to the election that 3 USC 5 says must be applied to the resolution of the election?

If this is so, then it would seem to me that the USSC is making a false distinction between the FL statutes and the FL Constitution. Any comment, legal eagles?

12

Gee, I don’t know. Maybe there are people that consider discharging their duties as they interpret them to be more important than being overruled by the USSC. Maybe there are people that put integry before pride. Is that really too difficult for you to imagine?

13

Yikes, folks, PLEASE take the political discussion to ANOTHER THREAD!!!

To take the post of jmullaney, since it actually addresses the issue raised by my OP:

I agree that the Court was not sure whether or not the Florida court was mucking about in an impermissible way (impermissible meaning in a way that violates either federal statutory law or the US Constitution). But that doesn’t justify a reversal.

In past cases of similar nature where the Court vacated an opinion and remanded for further proceedings, the basis of that decision was a determination that it was impossible to tell if the state court was applying federal law (providing the USSC with jurisdiction) or applying state and federal law (in which case the Court refuses to review the correctness of the federal issue since the state law issues are equally dispositive and beyond the reach of the USSC). Here, we don’t have that. Here, we have the Court saying it can’t tell if it should address the questions presented because it can’t tell if the Florida court knew it was treading ON federal law. That is a FAR different case. Either the court did or did not tread impermissibly on federal law. Whether it KNEW it did or not is irrelevant.

So, at its heart, the decision says: we don’t know what you did, so we are vacating it and making you do it again in light of the fact we may have to act on what you do. THAT is a completely new view of the relevant powers of the federal and state courts. Vacating a state opinion that attempts to apply federal law but fails to clarify that it is relying solely on such law is a reasonable view of the power of the Supreme Court to set the rules of relative jurisdiction on such issues. But here, the Court is asserting the power of the Supreme Court to vacate a state court decision because one of the parties frames a federal law question and the Court can’t decide if the state court properly applied ANY federal law. It is, in essence, a slap on the wrist of the Florida Court for failing to do what it is supposed to do as a STATE court, not for failing to properly do what it is supposed to do when it borrows the jurisdiction of the federal courts.

Some in this thread have opined that the Court can do what it wants. This isn’t quite correct. The Court can do what the rest of the government allows it to do. Andrew Jackson ignored the Supreme Court in a famous case, and wasn’t punished, nor was the Court’s decision implemented. If the Court does what the rest of the various parts of our government (federal and state) won’t agree it has the power to do, then arguably it won’t do it again.

I think it would be interesting if the Florida Supreme Court stated, basically, that it refused to accept the order vacating its opinion. THEN we would have a Constitutional ‘crisis’, one of very interesting dimensions.

14

I continue to disagree with this. The ruling says

What this is saying is that these passages seem to indicate that the FSC was to an extent, circumscribing the power of the legislature based on principles of the state constitution. They are free to do this with ordinary state laws, but not with elections which are the sole prerogative of the legislature (consistent with Art. II, §1, cl. 2). To the extent that FSC realized that they could not make new law and were merely interpreting existing laws, the USSC would give them more leeway. I don’t see where you’ve culled your interpretation from.

I also agree with the point made by stoidela. What will almost certainly happen now is that the FSC will rewrite the opinion to remove the offending passages, and present it as being purely a legitimate interpretation of state law. The real significance of the USSC action is to serve notice to the activist FSC that they do not have free rein.

BTW, Andrew Jackson lived a long time ago. The powers of the SC were not as commonly accepted in his time. I’d like to see someone try that now. As one example, you will notice that the FSC will not take up your idea of ignoring the USSC ruling. This discussion is theoretical.

15

The standard of review in an appeal is a very important question and one which varies greatly depending on the status of the case and the type of question being reviewed. My answer is of necessity a bit general and oversimplified, but should cover the gist of many situations.

Consider an appeal of a jury verdict. In a jury trial (or any other action, actually), there are two elements: what is the applicable law, and how do the facts of the case come out under the applicable law. In a jury trial, the judge’s responsiblilty is to determine the applicable law and instruct the jury as to that law, and the jury’s responsibility is to take the law given by the judge and, using the facts they find from the evidence presented, apply the facts to the law and arrive at a verdict.

When a jury verdict is reviewed by an appeals court, the two elements are reviewed under different standards. The appeals court will look at the law given by the trial judge in his or her instructions and review it de novo, that is to say take a fresh look at the law. On the other hand, because the jury is considered the finder of fact, an appeals court will generally limit their review of facts found by a jury to examining whether the evidence presented can rationally support the facts that they found.

This dichotomy between facts and law is continued in appellate review of non-jury trials. If a case is tried before a judge only, the appeals court will generally give deference to the judge’s findings of fact, but freely review the judge’s findings of law.

There are also certain matters in which a trial judge is considered to have great discretion, and in those matters matters an appeals court is required to give deference to the trial court. For example, a trial judge has considerable leeway in the way the judge controls his or her courtroom, and in most matters of scheduling, time limits, and the like, an appeals court will not overturn the judge’s rulings on such matters unless the appeals court finds the trial judge has abused his or her discretion.

On the other hand, in the review of certain pretrial rulings, an appeals court will review the entire matter de novo. For instance in a summary judgment or dismissal motion, the trial judge is usually deciding whether to allow a case to continue toward trial based on the papers before him or her. The appeals court will take a fresh look at the papers and other evidence before the trial judge at the time of his or her decision, and freely substitute its judgment for that of the trial court.

Though the decision of Judge Saul in the Leon County Presidential vote case included both determinations of both law and fact, but the most important issue will likely be whether Judge Saul applied the proper legal standard in coming to his decision. Accordingly, the Florida Supreme Court’s review of the case will concentrate on the proper legal standard in this type of contest, a matter which they will review de novo. If they find that Judge Saul used the proper legal standard, it is unlikely that the Florida Supremes would overturn his conclusion that the evidence presented by the Gore camp was insufficent to show that the results of the election would be changed.

16

Here’s how the NY Times summed it up:

17

On shakier ground here, but I’ll try. The distinction between a constitution and a law, is that a constitution grants and limits powers to make laws, as opposed to actually creating a law itself. Thus, the Florida State Constitution can grant and limit the powers of the Florida Legislature in what manner of election laws they can enact. The bar on “unreasonable and unnecessary restraints on the rights of suffrage” is not an election law, it is a limit on the ability of the legislature to pass certain types of election laws. These limitations cannot stand up against the US Constitution which has granted the legislature powers that are not fettered in this manner.

18

So does this mean the Florida legislature can (hypothetically, at least) pass election laws which are in direct violation of the Florida constitution?

19

It appears that you are responding to me, but I’m not sure, because I never suggested that the FSC ignore the USSC. I simply said that if we really think that the USSC is overstepping its power, we can just ignore it.

20

I think it would go something like this…
If the Florida legislature passed a law that was unconstitutional in FLORIDA, thenthe SCOFLA could strike down the law. As long as all this happened before an election, no harm no foul.

If someone was contesting the state constitutionality of an election law AFTER the election, I guess it becomes much more tricky. Maybe if they invalidated it then the law would revert to the old law, or maybe not. It seems the only way to get into this mess is to have the law contested after the election and while the result is still up in the air. And of course…it would have to be a Federal election like this one.