This post describes a friend-of-the-court brief of the old-fashioned
variety that is far less common these days; it is a brief written at the Court’s
request, ostensibly seeking objective, expert guidance about a discrete subject
relevant to the case. What is that discrete subject in this amicus brief? It has to do with
standing. Harvard Law prof, Vicki Jackson, was asked to weigh in about “standing”
problems suggested by the DOMA case. Professor Jackson has concluded that the
set of Republicans in the House of Congress who have brought the appeal do not
have “standing” to speak on behalf of the entire Congress, let alone to step
into the shoes of the Executive Branch that elected not to defend the law
that the appellate court had struck down below.
Likewise, the SCOTUS directly asked the parties in the
Proposition 8 case to address a standing problem in that one. Specifically, the
parties are supposed to explain how sponsors of the Proposition 8 ballot
measure, as opposed to the state of California, which is charged with enforcing
state law, had “standing” to bring the appeal that was unsuccessful below and
is now pending before the SCOTUS.
Standing is a barrier born of the way the SCOTUS has long
interpreted Article III of the Constitution, which expressly limits the kinds
of cases that the federal judiciary can hear. Federal courts are supposed to be
courts of limited jurisdiction; and the SCOTUS has decided that means these
courts are only supposed to hear actual “cases” and “controversies.” This
principle derives from the fact that Article III, section 2 uses those words—“cases”
and “controversies”—in the short laundry list of the types of legal disputes
federal courts are allowed to adjudicate. Here is the whole text:
The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and
Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and
Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; to all Cases
affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; to all Cases of
admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United
States shall be a Party; to Controversies between two or more States; between a
State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States;
between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different
States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States,
Citizens or Subjects.
An astute reader such as yourself
will notice that the word “standing” is not in there. Nor is the word “ripeness”
or “mootness,” a couple of the Court’s other favorite “justiciability
doctrines.” These doctrines have emerged over the years as the SCOTUS has fleshed
out its understanding of the words “cases” and “controversies.”
This development is probably why
my husband (also a non-lawyer) insists that “standing is a crock.” Certainly, standing
is, in some sense, a court-invented doctrine that permits the court to reduce
its own workload. But I, a lawyer, wouldn’t go so far as to say that that makes
standing a “crock.” Yet I understand the sentiment because I once felt that way
myself. In fact, among law students, I would say I was rather slow to embrace
the whole concept—especially in Con Law cases with big social implications. If a
dispute over the proper way to interpret a Constitutional provision was a meaty
one, if the facts of the case provided a vivid instance of why the provision
needed interpretation, and the parties in the suit represented much larger
groups that cared about getting those issues resolved in the name of Justice,
why should it matter whether some technical “threshold” requirement was satisfied?
Indeed, it seemed rather absurd that a case, after years of litigation, could
be dismissed at the highest level for “lack of standing”—the rationale for
which is the principle of “judicial economy.” How could it be “economical” or efficient
to throw out a case on a technicality when so much work had already been put
into teeing it up such that the Court could resolve a matter of textual
interpretation?
That is what I, as a law student,
thought. I have grown since then. Now I rather enjoy these threshold
justiciability issues when they arise. (Especially when I am on the defense side
of a case and I can really appreciate the value of nifty tricks developed to
help judges reduce their workload. . . .)
Shakespeare, however, would not, I
think, be a fan of standing. All we have to do is look back at my earliest blogs
about Measure for Measure. That play
is all about someone pursuing justice whom federal courts would say had no
standing to do so—at least initially. Isabella starts out the action by petitioning
the authorities on her brother’s behalf. In other words,
she steps into his shoes (since he is in jail at the moment) and argues to The
Man charged with dispensing justice that her brother’s death sentence for “fornication”
is a wee bit harsh. But no sister, no matter how righteous her cause and how
right she is about the underlying legal issues, can just step into her brother’s
shoes and pursue an appeal of his capital case (or any case) in which her
brother had been the loser just because she “cared” about the issues and had
some “relationship” to the actual party to the underlying case. And I feel
certain that Shakespeare would have seen this as a crock.
ISABELLA
Spare him, spare him!
He's not prepared for
death. Even for our kitchens
We kill the fowl of
season: shall we serve heaven
With less respect
than we do minister
To our gross selves?
Good, good my lord, bethink you;
Who is it that hath
died for this offence?
There's many have
committed it.
(II.2)
We shall have to wait
and see if the SCOTUS thinks standing, in the DOMA/Prop 8 cases, is a crock or
not.
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