USCA1 Opinion
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
_________________________
Nos. 97-1261
97-1263
INMATES OF SUFFOLK COUNTY JAIL, ETC., ET AL.,
Plaintiffs, Appellees,
v.
RICHARD J. ROUSE, ETC., ET AL.,
Defendants, Appellants.
_________________________
No. 97-1262
INMATES OF SUFFOLK COUNTY JAIL, ETC., ET AL.,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
RICHARD J. ROUSE, ETC., ET AL.,
Defendants, Appellees.
_________________________
No. 97-1334
INMATES OF SUFFOLK COUNTY JAIL, ETC., ET AL.,
Plaintiffs, Appellees,
v.
RICHARD J. ROUSE, ETC., ET AL.,
Defendants, Appellees,
_________________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Intervenor, Appellant.
_________________________
APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Robert E. Keeton, U.S. District Judge] ___________________
_________________________
Before
Selya, Circuit Judge, _____________
Aldrich and Coffin, Senior Circuit Judges. _____________________
_________________________
Max D. Stern, with whom Lynn Weissberg and Stern, Shapiro, ____________ ______________ ________________
Weissberg & Garin were on brief, for plaintiffs. _________________
John D. Hanify, with whom Robyn J. Bartlett, Owen P. Kane _______________ _________________ _____________
and Hanify & King were on brief, for defendant Richard J. Rouse, ______________
Sheriff of Suffolk County.
Douglas H. Wilkins, Assistant Attorney General, with whom __________________
Scott Harshbarger, Attorney General, and Thomas O. Bean, __________________ _________________
Assistant Attorneys General, were on brief, for defendants
Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Commissioner of Correction.
Robert M. Loeb, with whom Frank W. Hunger, Assistant ________________ _________________
Attorney General, Donald K. Stern, United States Attorney , and ________________
Barbara L. Herwig and John C. Hoyle, Attorneys, Civil Division, _________________ _____________
Department of Justice, were on brief, for the intervenor.
_________________________
November 7, 1997
_______________________
SELYA, Circuit Judge. The passage of the Prison SELYA, Circuit Judge. _____________
Litigation Reform Act, 18 U.S.C.A. 3626 (Supp. 1997) (the PLRA
or the Act), brought cheers to the lips of many prison
administrators. In its wake, the Sheriff of Suffolk County and
the Massachusetts Commissioner of Correction (collectively, the
defendants) cast their gaze toward a consent decree that has
governed important aspects of the county's handling of pretrial
detainees since 1979. Spying an opportunity to sever the
shackles of judicial oversight, the defendants invoked the new
law and asked the supervising tribunal, the United States
District Court for the District of Massachusetts, to vacate the
decree or, in the alternative, to terminate all prospective
relief under it. The plaintiffs questioned the Act's
constitutionality and raised a host of other objections to the
defendants' motions. The district court repulsed the
constitutional attack but construed the PLRA to require only the
termination of prospective relief, not the vacatur of the consent
decree itself. See Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Sheriff of ___ ______________________________ __________
Suffolk County, 952 F. Supp. 869 (D. Mass. 1997) (D. Ct. Op.). ______________ __________
After careful consideration of the meaning of the PLRA,
we vouchsafe the Act's constitutionality against the challenges
asserted here and construe it to entitle correctional officials
to the termination of existing consent decrees in civil actions
involving prison conditions (except in the presence of
statutorily prescribed conditions that forestall such
termination).
3
I. BACKGROUND I. BACKGROUND
This litigation deals almost exclusively with the
effect of the PLRA on an extant consent decree. Thus, the
history of the conflict is of minimal import, and we merely
sketch it. The shelves of any reasonably well-stocked law
library afford readers who hunger for more exegetic detail ample
opportunity to dine elsewhere. See, e.g., Inmates of Suffolk ___ ____ ___________________
County Jail v. Eisenstadt, 360 F. Supp. 676, 679-84 (D. Mass. ___________ __________
1973), aff'd, 494 F.2d 1196 (1st Cir. 1974); Inmates of Suffolk _____ __________________
County Jail v. Kearney, 734 F. Supp. 561, 562-63 (D. Mass.), ____________ _______
aff'd, 915 F.2d 1557 (1st Cir. 1990) (table), vacated, 502 U.S. _____ _______
367 (1992); Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Kearney, 928 F.2d _______________________________ _______
33, 34 (1st Cir. 1991); D. Ct. Op., 952 F. Supp. at 871-73. __________
In 1971 the plaintiff class, which consists of present
and future pretrial detainees held or to be held in the Suffolk
County jail (collectively, the plaintiffs), brought a civil
action alleging that the conditions of their confinement
particularly double bunking violated the Eighth Amendment to
the United States Constitution. After extensive skirmishing, not
relevant here, the parties reached a rapprochement, subsequently
approved by the district court and embodied in the 1979 consent
decree, in which they ratified an architectural plan for a new
facility featuring single-occupancy cells. The agreement
contemplated the phasing-out of the existing Charles Street jail
once the new structure was in place.
As the Scottish poet warned, "the best laid schemes o'
4
mice and men gang aft a-gley," Robert Burns, To a Mouse (1785), ___________
and in this case time proved a formidable opponent. Growth in
prison population and delays in construction both exceeded
expectations. The new facility (the Nashua Street jail) was not
completed until mid-1990 and was hard-pressed from the start to
cope with the Sheriff's escalating needs. In response to these
volatile conditions, the consent decree was modified by court
order in 1985, 1990, and 1994. The last of these changes
permitted limited double bunking at the Nashua Street facility
(the Sheriff having closed the Charles Street facility prior
thereto).1
In July 1996 the Sheriff initiated the current
engagement. He grasped the weapon that Congress had forged and
moved to terminate all prospective relief pursuant to the PLRA.
Not to be outdone, the Commissioner moved to vacate the consent
decree outright, thus formalizing a suggestion that the Sheriff
had omitted from his motion but had included in the memorandum
supporting the motion. When the plaintiffs indicated that they
would challenge the Act's constitutionality as part of their
opposition, the federal government intervened. After sorting out
the components of the parties' extensive asseverational array,
Judge Keeton gave the pertinent provisions of the PLRA a
narrowing construction and on that basis upheld their
constitutionality. He thereupon granted the Sheriff's motion to
____________________
1Notwithstanding the several emendations that have been made
to the original consent decree, we refer to the decree, as
modified from time to time, as the "1979 consent decree."
5
the extent that the consent decree would "no longer be enforced
by an order of specific performance," but declined either to
vacate the decree or to "terminate the obligations stated
[therein]" because those obligations represented "consensual
undertakings of the defendants with court approval." Id. at 883. ___
All parties appealed.
In an effort to cut a passable swath through this legal
thicket, we start by construing the termination provision of the
PLRA. We then test its constitutionality and, finding no merit
in the plaintiffs' constitutional challenges, apply the Act and
evaluate the extent of the remediation to which the defendants
are entitled.
II. THE PLRA II. THE PLRA
In parsing the PLRA, we afford de novo review. See ___
United States v. Gifford, 17 F.3d 462, 471-72 (1st Cir. 1994). _____________ _______
Such an exercise in statutory interpretation always begins with
the language of the statute itself. See Stowell v. Ives, 976 ___ _______ ____
F.2d 65, 69 (1st Cir. 1992). At this stage, an inquisitive court
should assume that the words of the statute, if not specially
defined, comport with their ordinary meaning, and that the words,
so read, accurately express the legislature's intent. See FMC ___ ___
Corp. v. Holliday, 498 U.S. 52, 57 (1990). In keeping with this _____ ________
principle, the court should "resort to legislative history and
other aids of statutory construction only when the literal words
of the statute create ambiguity or lead to an unreasonable
result." United States v. Charles George Trucking Co., 823 F.2d _____________ ___________________________
6
685, 688 (1st Cir. 1987) (citation and internal quotation marks
omitted).
The PLRA is not a paragon of clarity. In regard to
existing federal court orders, it declares that "in any civil
action with respect to prison conditions, a defendant or
intervenor shall be entitled to the immediate termination of any
prospective relief if the relief was approved or granted in the
absence of a finding by the court that the relief is narrowly
drawn, extends no further than necessary to correct the violation
of the Federal right, and is the least intrusive means necessary
to correct the violation of the Federal right." 18 U.S.C.A.
3626(b)(2). Such prospective relief shall not terminate,
however, "if the court makes written findings based on the record
that prospective relief remains necessary to correct a current or
ongoing violation of the Federal right, extends no further than
necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right, and that
the prospective relief is narrowly drawn and the least intrusive
means to correct the violation." Id. 3626(b)(3). With regard ___
to relief not yet obtained, the Act contains similar
proscriptions. It forbids courts from granting or approving
prospective relief "unless the court finds that such relief is
narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary to correct the
violation of the Federal right, and is the least intrusive means
necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right." Id. ___
3626(a)(1)(A).
These iterations are clear enough, but uncertainty
7
arises when we examine the Act's definitional instructions. One
such passage defines "prospective relief" to include "all relief
other than compensatory monetary damages," and then defines
"relief" to "mean[] all relief in any form that may be granted or
approved by the court . . . includ[ing] consent decrees." Id. ___
3626(g)(7), (9). "Consent decree," in turn, means "any relief
entered by the court that is based in whole or in part upon the
consent or acquiescence of the parties but does not include
private settlements." Id. 3626(b)(1). In a vacuum, the ___
interaction of the Act's mechanics and these definitions is
manageable: terminating "prospective relief" as prescribed by
section 3626(b)(2) would terminate "all relief," see section ___
3626(g)(7), which under section 3626(g)(9) "includes consent
decrees." Read literally, therefore, once defendants or
intervenors show their entitlement to terminate prospective
relief, the Act seemingly requires termination of the consent
decree itself.
As the district court astutely observed, this result is
counterintuitive in that it contradicts the usual understanding
of both "relief" and "consent decree." See D. Ct. Op., 952 F. ___ __________
Supp. at 878. The customary definition of "consent decree"
likens such decrees to judgments, see Black's Law Dictionary 410 ___ _______________________
(6th ed. 1990) (defining "consent decree" as "[a] judgment
entered by consent of the parties whereby the defendant agrees to
stop alleged illegal activity without admitting guilt or
wrongdoing"), and in ordinary usage a judgment is "[a] final
8
decision of the court resolving the dispute and determining the
rights and obligations of the parties," id. at 841-42. "Relief," ___
on the other hand, typically is equated with "remedy," id. at ___
1292, which is "the means by which a right is enforced or the
violation of a right is prevented, redressed, or compensated,"
id. at 1294. Inasmuch as a remedy effectuates the adjudication ___
expressed in a judgment, one ordinarily would assume that
"relief," by extension, effectuates the legal decision, arrived
at by consent, in a "consent decree."
Congress conflated the two terms when it described
consent decrees as a form of relief rather than as a judgment ____
that engenders relief. The PLRA's equation of "consent decree" _________
and "relief" contradicts conventional understandings and creates
a situation in which a strict, language-based construction of the
PLRA requires that commonplace legal terms be used in curious
ways. This circumstance fosters uncertainty, for a court cannot
really tell, without further inquiry, whether the linguistic
anomaly is accidental or purposeful (and, thus, whether Congress
meant to uproot consent decrees themselves or merely to vitiate
the relief attendant to them, when it directed federal courts to
facilitate "the immediate termination of any prospective relief"
at the behest of prison litigation defendants and intervenors).
This uncertainty impels us to consult extrinsic sources in search
of guidance as to Congress's intent.
In this instance, the PLRA's legislative history
persuades us to embrace the unusual. Congress passed the PLRA in
9
an effort, in part, to oust the federal judiciary from day-to-day
prison management. See 141 Cong. Rec. 14,419 (1995) (statement ___
of Sen. Abraham) ("[N]o longer will prison administration be
turned over to Federal judges for the indefinite future for the
slightest reason."); id. at 14,418 (statement of Sen. Hatch) ("I ___
believe that the courts have gone too far in micromanaging our
Nation's prisons."). This evidence of ambient intent inclines us
to interpret the statute literally (i.e., as directing courts to
terminate consent decrees outright), for it strongly suggests
that the PLRA's sponsors wanted to truncate the federal
judiciary's involvement in prison administration. The House
Conference Report provides even more powerful direction on this
score. The Report describes the "explanation of the effect of
the action agreed upon by the [legislation's] managers" and
states that, by virtue of the PLRA, "[p]rior consent decrees are
made terminable upon the motion of either party, and can be
continued only if the court finds that the imposed relief is
necessary to correct the violation of the federal right." H.R.
Conf. Rep. No. 104-378 at 166 (1995). This plain language leaves
little room for doubt that Congress intended the PLRA as a last
rite for those consent decrees that are incapable of surviving
the rigors of section 3626(b)(2).
Of course, we recognize that the plain meaning rule,
while a bedrock principle of statutory construction, may yield if
giving effect to literal meaning would produce a bizarre result.
See Sullivan v. CIA, 992 F.2d 1249, 1252 (1st Cir. 1993); Charles ___ ________ ___ _______
10
George Trucking, 823 F.2d at 688. But this exception is ________________
sparingly employed, and the circumstances of this case give it no
purchase. The result that Congress's plain language portends
here involves a somewhat unusual use of terms, but it is not
unreasonable.
We will not paint the lily. Given the congruence
between the text of the statute and the legislature's easily
discerned intent, we conclude that Congress meant precisely what
it said however deviant from ordinary usage that may be when
it wrote the PLRA and specially defined its operative terms. We
are therefore duty bound to interpret the PLRA as mandating the
termination of extant consent decrees altogether unless the
district court makes the specific findings that are necessary to
keep a particular decree alive.2
III. THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE PLRA III. THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE PLRA
Having construed the PLRA, we next must essay a de novo
determination of whether it passes constitutional muster. The
plaintiffs say that the Act's termination provision violates the
Constitution three times over by transgressing (1) the separation
of powers principle, (2) the Due Process Clause, and (3) the
____________________
2Because Congress intended the PLRA to effect the
termination of consent decrees, we need not elaborate upon what
consequences might follow from the termination of prospective
relief alone. We note, however, that the Second Circuit has
invested substantial time in exploring the potential
ramifications of terminating prospective relief while leaving a
consent decree otherwise intact. See Benjamin v. Jacobson, ___ ___ ________ ________
F.3d ___, ___ (2d Cir. 1997) [1997 WL 523896, at *15-16].
Inasmuch as our interpretation of the PLRA obviates the need for
any such exercise, we take no view of the Benjamin court's ________
conclusions.
11
Equal Protection Clause. Though ably presented, none of these
assertions carries the day.
A. Separation of Powers. A. Separation of Powers. ____________________
Few tenets are more central to the genius of our
constitutional system than the separation of powers principle.
See O'Donoghue v. United States, 289 U.S. 516, 530 (1933) ___ __________ ______________
(describing separation of powers as "basic and vital" to our
scheme of government). This principle has many incarnations. In
one such configuration, it insulates the judiciary from
unwarranted legislative intrusions.
The courts' historic independence has its roots in the
Constitution, which explicitly provides that "[t]he judicial
Power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court,
and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time
ordain and establish." U.S. Const. art. III, 1. This
delegation of power serves "to safeguard litigants' right to have
claims decided before judges who are free from potential
domination by other branches of government." Commodity Futures _________________
Trading Comm'n v. Schor, 478 U.S. 833, 848 (1986) (citation and ______________ _____
internal quotation marks omitted). The due administration of
justice demands that this separation remain inviolate. The
plaintiffs lament that the PLRA infringes upon the courts'
guaranteed separateness in two distinct ways.
1. Reopening Final Judgments. The separation of 1. Reopening Final Judgments. __________________________
powers principle forbids Congress from reopening the final
judgments of Article III courts. See Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, ___ _____ _________________
12
Inc., 514 U.S. 211, 240 (1995). After all, if the judiciary's ____
power to render definitive judgments were subject to
congressional control, then the judiciary would become, within
its own sphere, subordinate to the legislature.
Moving from the general to the particular, the
plaintiffs maintain that the PLRA offends this principle by
requiring a district court to rescind relief that the court
already has seen fit to award. In mounting this argument, the
plaintiffs rely heavily on the Justices' observation, made in an
earlier round of this litigation, that "a consent decree is a
final judgment that may be reopened only to the extent that
equity requires." Rufo, 502 U.S. at 391. From this thread, the ____
plaintiffs weave a syllogism: Congress cannot order the
reopening of final judgments without offending the separation of
powers principle, a consent decree is a final judgment, and
therefore Congress cannot mandate the reopening of consent
decrees.
This reasoning frays because consent decrees of the
type at issue here are not "final judgments" for the purpose of a
separation of powers analysis. In a recent articulation of the
rule that the legislature cannot interfere with final judgments
of Article III courts, the Supreme Court carefully carved out an
exception and endorsed a line of cases sanctioning legislation
"that altered the prospective effect of injunctions entered by
Article III courts." Plaut, 514 U.S. at 232. This exception did _____
not spring full-blown from Justice Scalia's brow. To the
13
contrary, its roots burrow deep into our constitutional soil. An
early exemplar is Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., ____________ ______________________________
59 U.S. (18 How.) 421 (1855). That hoary case established that,
although a judgment at law is impervious to legislative assault,
a forward-looking judgment in equity can succumb to legislative
action if the legislature alters the underlying rule of law. See ___
id. at 431-32. More recent examples also exist. See, e.g., ___ ___ ____
Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 273 (1994); System ________ ________________ ______
Fed'n No. 91 v. Wright, 364 U.S. 642, 651-52 (1961). ____________ ______
Lower courts sometimes are required to follow precedent
for precedent's sake, no matter how much the yoke chafes. Here,
however, our burden is light, for the Wheeling Bridge exception _______________
is not only mandated by precedent but also makes logical sense.
The legitimacy of prospective equitable relief rests upon the
presumed persistence of the conditions that originally justified
the relief. If forward-looking judgments in equity were
inviolate, then one of two scenarios would develop: either the
legislature would be stripped of the ability to change
substantive law once an injunction had been issued pursuant to
that law, or an issued injunction would continue to have force
after the law that originally gave the injunction legitimacy had
been found wanting (and, hence, altered). The first of these
possible results would work an undue judicial interference with
the legislative process, while the second would create an
intolerable tangle in which some laws applied to some persons and
not to others. Since the separation of powers principle is a
14
two-way street, courts must be careful not to embrace a legal
regime that promotes such awkward scenarios.
To recapitulate, consent decrees are final judgments,
but they are final judgments subject to revision "to the extent
that equity requires." Rufo, 502 U.S. at 391. Plaut and ____ _____
Wheeling Bridge, read together, teach that equity requires, and _______________
the separation of powers principle permits, legislatures to
direct that courts respond to changes in substantive law by
revisiting forward-looking injunctions. See Plyler v. Moore, 100 ___ ______ _____
F.3d 365, 371 (4th Cir. 1996). The Court stated the point with
great clarity earlier in this litigation: "A consent decree must
of course be modified if, as it later turns out, one or more of
the obligations [it imposes] has become impermissible under
federal law." Rufo, 502 U.S. at 388. ____
The plaintiffs try to turn these verities to their
advantage by asserting that the underlying law here the Eighth
Amendment has not changed. This is resupinate reasoning. The
relevant underlying law in this case is not the Eighth Amendment,
as there has been no finding of an ongoing constitutional
violation. Rather, the relevant underlying law relates to the
district court's authority to issue and maintain prospective
relief absent a violation of a federal right, and the PLRA has
truncated that authority. See Benjamin v. Jacobson, ___ F.3d ___ ________ ________
___, ___ (2d Cir. 1997) [1997 WL 523896, at *9]. The termination
of a consent decree in response to the PLRA, therefore, merely
effectuates Congress's decision to divest district courts of the
15
ability to construct or perpetuate prospective relief when no
violation of a federal right exists. Given this shift in the
relevant underlying law, the termination of prospective relief
pursuant to the PLRA does not amount to a legislative reopening
of a final judgment.
2. Rules of Decision. The plaintiffs next contend 2. Rules of Decision. __________________
that the PLRA's termination provision violates a different aspect
of the separation of powers principle, articulated in United ______
States v. Klein, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 128 (1871). Klein had its ______ _____ _____
genesis in the aftermath of the Civil War, when Congress passed a
statute that permitted noncombatant Confederate landowners to
recover confiscated goods upon proof of their loyalty to the
Union. Klein, the administrator of the estate of Wilson, a
Confederate sympathizer, attempted to recover Wilson's goods
pursuant to this statute. Mindful that the Supreme Court had
previously declared that a presidential pardon was conclusive
proof of loyalty, see United States v. Padelford, 76 U.S. (9 ___ ______________ _________
Wall.) 531 (1869), Klein tendered evidence that Wilson had
received such a pardon. While the case was pending, Congress
passed a statute which declared that a presidential pardon was
proof of disloyalty and directed the dismissal of any pending
recovery action brought on behalf of a pardon recipient. See ___
Klein, 80 U.S. at 131-34. _____
The Supreme Court invalidated the new statute on
separation of powers grounds. It ruled that if the law were
allowed to stand, then the trial court would have "jurisdiction
16
of the cause to a given point; but when it ascertains that a
certain state of things exists, its jurisdiction is to cease and
it is required to dismiss the cause for want of jurisdiction."
Id. at 146. Such a requirement "is not an exercise of the ___
acknowledged power of Congress to make exceptions and prescribe
regulations to the appellate power" and thus "passe[s] the limit
which separates the legislative from the judicial power." Id. at ___
146-47. The Klein Court distinguished Wheeling Bridge as a _____ ________________
situation in which "the court was left to apply its ordinary
rules to the new circumstances created by the act [whereas in
Klein] no new circumstances have been created by legislation. _____
But the court is forbidden to give the effect to evidence which,
in its own judgment, such evidence should have, and is directed
to give it an effect precisely contrary." Id. at 147. ___
The plaintiffs argue that the case at hand resembles
Klein more than Wheeling Bridge because the law underlying the _____ ________________
consent decree the Eighth Amendment remains constant, yet the
PLRA imposes a rule of decision by instructing courts to
terminate prospective relief. This argument misapprehends the
situation. As noted above, the relevant underlying law for
present purposes is not the Eighth Amendment, but the power of
federal courts to grant prospective relief absent a violation of
a federal right. Thus, the PLRA does not run afoul of Klein _____
because it does not tamper with courts' decisional rules that
is, courts remain free to interpret and apply the law to the
facts as they discern them. Because the PLRA leaves the courts'
17
adjudicatory processes intact, it does not transgress the Klein _____
doctrine. See Gavin v. Barnstad, ___ F.3d ___, ___ (8th Cir. ___ _____ ________
1997) [1997 WL 434633, at *7-8].
B. Due Process. B. Due Process. ___________
The plaintiffs base their next two objections on the
Due Process Clause. The first rests on the postulate that the
consent decree is a final judgment, the existence of which vests
property rights in the parties that cannot be alienated by
Congress. By purporting to terminate consent decrees, this
thesis runs, the PLRA not only reopens final judgments but also
robs the judgments' beneficiaries of rights secured to them
thereunder. The plaintiffs' second objection posits that the
1979 consent decree constitutes a contract and that due process
limits the extent to which the federal government can enact
legislation that has a deleterious effect on preexisting
contracts. Both objections lack force.
1. Vested Rights. The plaintiffs' first objection 1. Vested Rights. _____________
fails because, at least in the absence of exceptional
circumstances well beyond any that are present here, frankly
modifiable decrees cannot create vested rights. See Landgraf, ___ ________
511 U.S. at 273 (noting that "relief by injunction operates in
futuro, and that [a party] ha[s] no vested right in the decree
entered by the trial court") (citation and internal quotation
marks omitted). As we have already pointed out, consent decrees
are not merely final judgments, but a special species of that
genre final judgments that can be "reopened . . . to the extent
18
that equity requires." Rufo, 502 U.S. at 391. In the instant ____
case, equity requires termination of the 1979 decree because
Congress has withdrawn the power that animated the decree. See ___
18 U.S.C.A. 3626(a)(1)(A), (b)(2).
To be sure, the plaintiffs argue that this reasoning is
circular. But, given the tenuous nature of consent decrees, that
argument will not wash. There is a basic difference between a
money judgment and a consent decree: the former is fixed,
whereas the latter is necessarily impermanent. Thus, insofar as
a consent decree has prospective effect, it must on motion be
adjusted to accommodate material changes of fact or law germane
to its issuance.3 See Rufo, 502 U.S. at 393. Here, the PLRA has ___ ____
altered the standard by which courts can continue forward-looking
relief, and this profound change in the relevant underlying law
entitles the defendants to termination of the decree.
2. Contract Rights. The plaintiffs' second due 2. Contract Rights. ________________
process objection is equally unavailing. Even if we make two
broad assumptions that are integral to their position namely,
that the consent decree is a contract and that the PLRA impairs
that contract the objection founders. The Supreme Court
delineated the standard of review for federal legislation that
impairs contractual relations in National R.R. Passenger Corp. v. _____________________________
____________________
3This precept could not come as a surprise to the
plaintiffs. In the last modification of the consent decree,
under date of June 14, 1994, the district court advised the
parties that it would entertain future motions to modify "upon a
showing of good cause . . . or upon a showing of material change
in circumstances."
19
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co., 470 U.S. 451 (1985). If a ____________________________________
substantial impairment of a contract right is found or assumed,
"the reviewing court next determines whether the impairment is of
constitutional dimension." Id. at 472. It engages in this ___
analysis by examining the statute and identifying the parties to
the contract. See id. "When the contract is a private one, and ___ ___
when the impairing statute is a federal one, this next inquiry is
especially limited, and the judicial scrutiny quite minimal. The
party asserting a Fifth Amendment due process violation must
overcome a presumption of constitutionality and establish that
the legislature has acted in an arbitrary and irrational way."
Id. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). ___
Even though the federal government is not a party to
the "contract" in issue here (the consent decree), the plaintiffs
seek to upgrade the level of scrutiny. Their gambit depends upon
the Court's opinion in Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Transit ______ ____________________________
Auth., 469 U.S. 528 (1985), which, they say, stands for the _____
proposition that the states have sufficient representation in the
federal government to influence its actions, and that, by
extension, the federal sovereign's actions should be attributed
to the states. From this coign of vantage, they argue that,
since federal laws are enacted by a government organized for the
benefit of the several states, a federal act that impairs a
contract to which a state is a party should receive the same
degree of scrutiny as a federal act that impairs a contract to
which the United States is a party.
20
This ratiocination is predicated on a strained reading
of Garcia. The Garcia Court held that state participation in the ______ ______
federal government provides a sufficient safeguard to prevent
federal overreaching vis- -vis the states. See id. at 552. ___ ___
There is, however, no basis in Garcia or elsewhere to suggest ______
that federal legislation which benefits state governments is
tantamount to self-dealing and thus subject to heightened
scrutiny. We therefore summarily reject the plaintiffs' reading
of Garcia and the attendant claim that the federal government ______
somehow became a constructive party to the 1979 consent decree.
This gets the grease from the goose. Because the
federal sovereign is not a party to the consent decree, either in
fact or by indirection, we need only subject the PLRA to a
rational basis review. See National Passenger, 470 U.S. at 471- ___ __________________
72; see also United States Trust Co. v. New Jersey, 431 U.S. 1, ___ ____ ________________________ __________
22 (1977) (holding that "[l]egislation adjusting the rights and
responsibilities of contracting parties must be [based] upon
reasonable conditions and of a character appropriate to the
public purpose justifying its adoption").
Stressing that the PLRA abrogates existing
responsibilities, the plaintiffs make the obligatory argument
that the law is arbitrary and irrational. But these
animadversions vastly overstate the case. The PLRA only affects
agreements that have at all times remained subject to
modification should circumstances change. And, moreover, by
facilitating termination, the PLRA's termination provision forges
21
a practical, commonsense linkage between a changed circumstance
the district courts' newfound inability to grant or enforce
prospective relief absent a violation of a federal right and an
existing consent decree. Consequently, section 3626(b)(2)
survives rational basis scrutiny.
C. Equal Protection. C. Equal Protection. ________________
The plaintiffs also advance a pair of arguments based
on the Equal Protection Clause. First, they note that pretrial
detainees, by definition, have not yet been convicted of the
crime(s) with which they have been charged. Thus, they enjoy
both the presumption of innocence, see In re Winship, 397 U.S. ___ _____________
358 (1970), and the right not to be punished prematurely, see ___
Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979). Building on this ____ _______
foundation, the plaintiffs assert that the PLRA is subject to
strict scrutiny (which it fails) because it abridges these
fundamental rights. In the alternative, they claim that the Act
violates core principles of equal protection because it has no
rational relationship to legitimate state interests.
1. Fundamental Rights. Although the PLRA 1. Fundamental Rights. ____________________
circumscribes a district court's ability to provide prospective
relief to pretrial detainees (as well as all other prisoners)
absent a violation of a federal right, we conclude that this
feature of the Act does not abridge the pretrial detainees' right
to be free from punishment. Prison conditions either violate
fundamental rights (in which event they also violate federally
secured rights) or they do not violate fundamental rights (in
22
which event they do not violate federally secured rights). In
the former case, the PLRA permits relief to redeem the
fundamental right. In the latter case, the PLRA does not permit
relief, but as no violation exists, the PLRA's denial of relief
does not imperil pretrial detainees' fundamental rights.
It is also possible to argue that the PLRA implicates
the fundamental right of access to the courts, see Wolff v. ___ _____
McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 578 (1974), and that, by withdrawing the _________
power to grant inmates prospective relief in a manner available
to other classes of people, the PLRA trammels inmates' rights of
access. This line of reasoning does not withstand close
examination. Under the PLRA, the courthouse doors remain open
and the withdrawal of prospective relief above and beyond what
is necessary to correct the violation of federally protected
rights does not diminish the right of access. In a nutshell,
while there is a constitutional right to court access, there is
no complementary constitutional right to receive or be eligible
for a particular form of relief. See Crowder v. Sinyard, 884 ___ _______ _______
F.2d 804, 814 (5th Cir. 1989), abrogated on other grounds by _______________________________
Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128 (1990). ______ __________
2. Rational Basis. The plaintiffs' final 2. Rational Basis. ________________
constitutional challenge suggests that the PLRA violates the
Equal Protection Clause because it "singl[es] out a certain class
of citizens for disfavored legal status or general hardship[]."
Romer v. Evans, 116 S. Ct. 1620, 1628 (1996). This suggestion is _____ _____
ill-conceived. A statute that neither abridges a fundamental
23
right nor operates against a suspect class receives rational
basis review when it is challenged under the Equal Protection
Clause. See Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 318-19 (1993). The ___ ______ ___
PLRA is such a statute: as we already have explained, it does
not impair a fundamental right, and the plaintiffs do not assert
that pretrial detainees are a suspect class. Thus, rational
basis review applies.
A statute survives rationality review if it "bear[s] a
rational relationship to an independent and legitimate
legislative end." Romer, 116 S. Ct. at 1627. The PLRA's _____
legislative history indicates that the drafters intended the Act
to "address the alarming explosion in the number of frivolous
lawsuits filed by State and Federal prisoners," to "mak[e] it
much more difficult for Federal judges to issue orders directing
the release of convicted criminals from prison custody," 141
Cong. Rec. 14,413 (1995) (statement of Sen. Dole), and to wrest
control of state penitentiaries from federal courts so that
states "will be able to run prisons as they see fit unless there
is a constitutional violation," id. at 14,419 (statement of Sen. ___
Abraham). These purposes are clearly legitimate. They involve
the allocation of public resources, the maintenance of public
safety, and the desire to institutionalize a state-centric
conception of our federal system. The means chosen to effect
these ends are stern, but they certainly bear a reasonable
relationship to the announced legislative goals. From this
perspective, the PLRA easily passes rational basis review.
24
The plaintiffs try to undermine this appraisal by
asserting that an anti-inmate animus drove Congress's approval of
the PLRA. They claim that such an invidiously discriminatory
intent violates the Court's admonition that a legislature cannot
construct legislation "for the purpose of disadvantaging the
group burdened by the law." Romer, 116 S. Ct. at 1628; see also _____ ___ ____
United States Dep't of Agric. v. Moreno, 413 U.S. 528, 534 (1973) _____________________________ ______
("[I]f the constitutional conception of `equal protection of the
laws' means anything, it must at the very least mean that a bare
congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot
constitute a legitimate governmental interest.").
We need not grapple with the intriguing question of
whether the Romer Court meant to add a new "animus test" to the _____
armamentarium of rationality review. The short, entirely
dispositive answer to the plaintiffs' supplication is that the
evidence in the record simply does not show that the legislature
inappropriately sought to disadvantage the plaintiff class.
The only "proof" that the plaintiffs offer consists of
political rhetoric, such as the statement on the Senate floor
that "criminals, while they must be accorded their constitutional
rights, deserve to be punished. Obviously, they should not be
tortured or treated cruelly. At the same time, they also should
not have all the rights and privileges the rest of us enjoy.
Rather, their lives should, on the whole, be describable by the
old concept known as `hard time.'" 141 Cong. Rec. 14,419 (1995)
(statement of Sen. Abraham). Passing the obvious point that such
25
rhetoric must be taken with a grain of salt elected officials,
after all, have been known to strike poses for public consumption
the most that fairly can be said is that oratory of this sort
may evince a philosophical shift; it hardly betokens an
impermissible animus. In all events, the state is well within
its right to punish persons convicted of crimes, and a
retributive desire to effect such punishment consequently does
not offend any supposed "animus test." Furthermore, the
plaintiffs are not criminals, but pretrial detainees; they have
not been found guilty of any crimes. Thus, even if the political
rhetoric spotlighted by the plaintiffs qualified as animus
directed at criminals, it would not constitute cognizable animus
for present purposes.
In sum, an objective reading of the legislative history
demonstrates that the plaintiffs' inability to obtain prospective
relief does not spring from Congress's wish to do them harm, but
from its desire to minimize the occasion for federal courts to
administer state prisons. Consequently, the PLRA does not
succumb to any theoretical "animus test" contained within the
Equal Protection Clause.
IV. APPLYING THE PLRA IV. APPLYING THE PLRA
The plaintiffs have a fallback position. They contend
that, even if the PLRA is constitutional, the 1979 consent decree
should remain intact because (1) the district court previously
made findings sufficient to save the decree by operation of the
Act, see 18 U.S.C.A. 3626(b)(2), or (2) if the findings to date ___
26
are inadequate, the district court should have conducted an
inquiry into whether a violation of a federal right exists
currently (or probably will come into existence if the strictures
of the consent decree are lifted) before implementing the PLRA's
termination provision. We reject both contentions.
Answering the question of whether prison conditions
constitute an ongoing violation of a federal right under the PLRA
necessitates both a definition of the right at stake and an
assessment of a specific compendium of prison conditions.
Accordingly, such a question comprises a mixed question of fact
and law, the answer to which we review "along a degree-of-
deference continuum, ranging from plenary review for law-
dominated questions to clear-error review for fact-dominated
questions." Johnson v. Watts Regulator Co., 63 F.3d 1129, 1132 _______ ___________________
(1st Cir. 1995). Here, the question is more factual than legal:
inasmuch as the double bunking of pretrial detainees does not in
and of itself violate the Constitution, see Bell v. Wolfish, 441 ___ ____ _______
U.S. at 541, the district court's conclusion that the double
bunking of which the plaintiffs continue to complain is not in
violation of a federal right must be challenged, if at all,
principally on the facts. Thus, the standard of review is highly
deferential. See Huguley v. General Motors Corp., 999 F.2d 142, ___ _______ ____________________
146 (6th Cir. 1993).
We have carefully reviewed the record and culled out
the sparse factual findings that the court made in the relevant
time frame. No useful purpose would be served by examining these
27
findings in minute detail. Judge Keeton concluded that they did
not satisfy the requirements of section 3626(a) or (b). See D. ___ __
Ct. Op., 952 F. Supp. at 880. A trial court generally is thought _______
to be the best interpreter of its own prior rulings and findings,
see, e.g., Martha's Vineyard Scuba Headquarters, Inc. v. ___ ____ _______________________________________________
Unidentified, Wrecked & Abandoned Steam Vessel, 833 F.2d 1059, ________________________________________________
1066-67 (1st Cir. 1987); Lefkowitz v. Fair, 816 F.2d 17, 22 (1st _________ ____
Cir. 1987), and this case is no exception. At any rate, we agree
with Judge Keeton's conclusion. It is simply implausible to
suggest, on this record, that the district court's assessment of
the existing factual findings is clearly erroneous.
The plaintiffs' follow-on argument gains them no
ground. As to the conditions that presently exist, we defer to
the district court's intimate familiarity with this protracted
litigation and to its informed evaluation of current prison
conditions. See D. Ct. Op., 952 F. Supp. at 880 (observing that ___ __________
"no evidence is before the court to support findings that
defendants are not in compliance with the terms of the modified
Consent Decree"). Deference is especially appropriate here
since, under the terms of an order that it entered on June 14,
1994, the district court for some time had been receiving and
evaluating periodic reports from the Sheriff concerning incidents
of assaultive behavior, rape, disease, and the like at the Nashua
Street jail.
As to what the future may bring, we cannot criticize
Judge Keeton's reluctance to play the oracle. Presented with the
28
opportunity to make further findings before deciding the
defendants' motions, the judge declined. He noted several cogent
reasons why it made sense to leave the question of whether a
violation of a federal right might follow the termination of
prospective relief under the consent decree to another day. See ___
id. ___
We discern no error. This is neither the time nor the
place to press an inherently speculative claim of harm to come.
The PLRA imposes no obligation on the trial court to make a
predictive inquiry into future conditions before terminating an
existing consent decree, and we are not aware of any other basis
for burdening the court with such a requirement. Quite often,
"[p]resent fears are less than horrible imaginings." William
Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 1, sc. 3 (1605). If, in this instance, _______
the plaintiffs' trepidation proves justified, they remain free to
initiate a new round of proceedings designed to show that post-
termination prison conditions actually do violate their federally
protected rights.
V. VACATING THE CONSENT DECREE V. VACATING THE CONSENT DECREE
Having construed the PLRA and established that its
termination-of-prospective-relief provision passes constitutional
muster, that the conditions for exemption have not been met, and
that the Act's mandate requires the district court to terminate
the consent decree, we now mull whether that mandate means that
an order must be entered not only terminating the consent decree
but actually vacating it. The district court thought not. See ___
29
D. Ct. Op., 952 F. Supp. at 883-84. We agree. __________
The defendants' opposition is easily dispatched.
Nothing in the PLRA or its legislative history speaks of vacating
consent decrees. Congress chose to use the verb "terminate" and
to eschew the verb "vacate." The distinction between these two
words is clear: "terminate" means "to put an end to" or "to
end," Black's Law Dictionary at 1471, whereas "vacate" means "to ______________________
annul" or "to render . . . void," id. at 1548. ___
In the present context, this distinction may well
possess practical significance. Cf. Benjamin, ___ F.3d at ___ ___ ________
[1997 WL 523896, at *15-16] (explaining that court's view of the
distinction between terminating prospective relief and vacating a
consent decree). While terminating a consent decree strips it of
future potency, the decree's past puissance is preserved and
certain of its collateral effects may endure. Vacating a consent
decree, however, wipes the slate clean, not only rendering the
decree sterile for future purposes, but also eviscerating any
collateral effects and, indeed, casting a shadow on past actions
taken under the decree's imprimatur. As nothing in the PLRA even
hints that consent decrees must be vacated when prospective
relief is terminated, we uphold the district court's ruling that
the PLRA does not require vacation of the 1979 decree.
VI. CONCLUSION VI. CONCLUSION
We need go no further. To the extent that the parties
advance other arguments, we reject them out of hand. None
30
requires elaboration.4
For the reasons stated herein, we affirm so much of the
judgment below that (a) found the PLRA to be constitutional, (b)
terminated all prospective relief under the 1979 consent decree,
and (c) refused to vacate that decree. We direct, however, that
the judgment be revised to terminate the consent decree itself
and we remand for the entry of a modified judgment (together
with such further proceedings, if any, as the district court may
deem necessary in light of this opinion).
Affirmed as modified and remanded. All parties shall Affirmed as modified and remanded. All parties shall __________________________________ __________________
bear their own costs. bear their own costs. ____________________
____________________
4The Commissioner moved below for vacation of the 1979
consent decree under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) and now appeals the
denial of that motion. We need not address that aspect of the
matter. At oral argument in this court, the Commissioner agreed
that if the consent decree were to be terminated, the Rule 60(b)
issue could be set to one side. We take the Commissioner at his
word and therefore express no opinion as to the merits of the
Rule 60(b) claim.
31