PUBLISH
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
_______________ ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
04/23/99
No. 97-6818 THOMAS K. KAHN
_______________ CLERK
D. C. Docket No. CV-86-V-461-N
JACKIE NICHOLS, CAROL REGISTER, et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
JOE S. HOPPER, Commissioner, Alabama
Department of Corrections; WAYNE TEAGUE,
Superintendent, Alabama Board of Education,
et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
______________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Alabama
______________________________
(April 23, 1999)
Before BIRCH and BARKETT, Circuit Judges, and ALAIMO*, Senior District Judge.
__________________
*Honorable Anthony A. Alaimo, Senior U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Georgia,
sitting by designation.
BIRCH, Circuit Judge:
In this case, we consider whether the immediate termination provisions of
the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”), codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3626(b),
violate the separation of powers doctrine as articulated in United States v. Klein,
80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 128, 20 L.Ed. 519 (1871).
I. BACKGROUND
On October 5, 1987, the district court entered a consent order, agreed upon
by the parties, concerning the conditions of confinement at the Julia Tutwiler
Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama. The consent order remained in effect
until the Attorney General of Alabama and the Alabama Department of Corrections
filed a motion to terminate the order on July 2, 1997, pursuant to the immediate
termination provision of the PLRA which provides:
Immediate termination of prospective relief. – In any civil action
with respect to prison conditions, a defendant or intervener 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.
2
18 U.S.C. § 3626(b)(2). The district court granted the motion to terminate. On
appeal, appellants challenge the constitutionality of section 3626(b)(2), arguing
that the statute violates the separation of powers doctrine.1
We addressed several constitutional issues concerning section 3626(b)(2) in
Dougan v. Singletary, 129 F.3d 1424 (11th Cir. 1997) (per curiam), cert. denied,
___ U.S. ___, 118 S. Ct. 2375, 141 L.Ed.2d 743 (1998). In Dougan, we held that
the termination provision did not violate the Fifth Amendment's Due Process
Clause, id. at 1426-27; did not violate the equal protection component of the Fifth
Amendment, id. at 1427; and did not violate the separation of powers doctrine, id.
at 1426. Our separation of powers analysis, however, concerned only the aspect of
the doctrine that forbids legislation that “command[s] the federal courts to reopen
final judgments.” See Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U.S. 211, 219, 115 S.
Ct. 1447, 1453, 131 L.Ed.2d 328 (1995). We upheld the statute in light of this
particular separation of powers challenge, finding that a consent decree “does not
undermine the finality of a final judgment in the separation of powers sense.”
Dougan, 129 F.3d at 1426. We specifically left open, however, the rules of
decision aspect of the separation of powers doctrine as articulated in United States
1
We note that appellants do not challenge the Attorney General's assertion that the consent order
contained no findings concerning the scope of the consent decree. Appellants instead attack only the
constitutionality of the statute itself.
3
v. Klein, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 128, 20 L.Ed. 519 (1871). See Dougan, 129 F.3d at
1426 n.10.
The appellants here posit two arguments based on the separation of powers
doctrine not considered in Dougan.2 First, they allege that the PLRA's termination
provisions impose a rule of decision for pending cases in violation of Klein.
Second, the appellants argue that the PLRA violates Article III of the United States
Constitution by depriving the courts of their authority to fashion effective relief in
constitutional cases involving prison inmates. We review questions of
constitutional law de novo. Pleasant-El v. Oil Recovery Co., 148 F.3d 1300, 1301
(11th Cir. 1998).
II. DISCUSSION
A. Separation of Powers Under Klein
We review briefly the now-familiar facts of Klein. Klein, the administrator
of the estate of Confederate sympathizer, V. F. Wilson, filed a petition pursuant to
the Abandoned and Captured Property Act of 1863 to secure the proceeds of cotton
that had been abandoned to federal treasury agents. To obtain reimbursement,
petitioners were required to prove loyalty during the war. Wilson had taken an
2
The appellants have also argued here that section 3626(b)(2) of the PLRA violates the Due
Process Clause and Equal Protection dimension of the Fifth Amendment. As appellants noted, however,
we rejected those challenges in Dougan and we decline to revisit them here.
4
oath in 1864 pursuant to President Lincoln's proclamation granting full pardon to
those who took an oath of allegiance to the United States. Prior Supreme Court
precedent held that those who took such an oath satisfied the loyalty provision of
the 1863 act. In 1870, while Klein's case was pending, however, Congress passed
legislation stating that a presidential pardon was proof of disloyalty and directing
the dismissal for lack of jurisdiction any pending recovery action brought on behalf
of a pardon recipient. The Supreme Court invalidated the statute, holding that
Congress violates the separation of powers doctrine when a statute “prescribes a
rule for the decision of a cause in a particular way.” See Klein, 80 U.S. at 146.
In striking down the statute, the Klein Court distinguished the case of
Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 59 U.S. (18 How.) 421 (1855).
In Wheeling Bridge, Congress passed an act that legalized the structure of a bridge
that the Supreme Court decreed in an earlier lawsuit to be a nuisance. When the
Court was asked to enforce its prior nuisance decree, it held that the bridge had
ceased to be a nuisance as defined by the legislation of Congress. As the Court
later explained, “[n]o arbitrary rule of decision was prescribed in [Wheeling], but
the court was left to apply its ordinary rules to the new circumstances created by
the act.” See Klein, 80 U.S. at 146-47. The statute in Klein, on the other hand,
5
created “no new circumstances” and this “inadvertently passed the limit which
separates the legislative from the judicial power.” Id. at 147.
More recently, in Robertson v. Seattle Audubon Society, 503 U.S. 429, 112
S. Ct. 1407, 118 L.Ed.2d 73 (1992), the Supreme Court declined to decide whether
an act of Congress was unconstitutional under Klein because the act merely
amended underlying law and did not prescribe a rule of decision. See 503 U.S. at
441, 112 S. Ct. at 1414. Recalling its holding in Wheeling Bridge, the Court held
that the challenged legislation “replaced the legal standards” in an environmental
statute “without directing particular applications under either the old or new
standards.” Id. at 437, 112 S. Ct. at 1413. The Court noted that the legislation
“expressly provided for judicial determination of the lawfulness” of activity under
the statute and that the legislation did not instruct the courts whether any particular
activity would violate the legislation. Id. at 438-39, 112 S. Ct. at 1413 (emphasis
in original). See also Henderson v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., 971 F.2d 1567, 1573
(11th Cir. 1992) (applying Seattle Audubon and finding the challenged legislation
did “not require courts to make any particular findings of fact or applications of
law to fact. Any effect on pending cases is solely a result of a change in the
underlying law.”).
6
Finally, in Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U.S. 211, 115 S. Ct. 1447,
131 L.Ed.2d 328 (1995), the Court once again attempted to clarify the meaning of
Klein. “Whatever the precise scope of Klein, . . . later decisions have made clear
that its prohibition does not take hold when Congress