Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Rouse

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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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