United States v. Sanchez-Gomez
United States v. Sanchez-Gomez
Opinion
Four criminal defendants objected to being bound by full restraints during pretrial proceedings in their cases, but the District Court denied relief. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the use of such restraints was unconstitutional, even though each of the four criminal cases had ended prior to its decision. The question presented is whether the appeals were saved from mootness either because the defendants sought "class-like relief" in a "functional class action," or because the challenged practice was "capable of repetition, yet evading review."
I
It is the responsibility of the United States Marshals Service to "provide for the security ... of the United States District Courts."
Respondents Jasmin Morales, Rene Sanchez-Gomez, Moises Patricio-Guzman, and Mark Ring were among the defendants produced by the Marshals Service for pretrial proceedings in full restraints. They raised constitutional objections to the use of such restraints in their respective cases, and to the restraint policy as a whole. They noted that the policy had resulted in the imposition of full restraints on, for example, a woman with a fractured wrist, a man with a severe leg injury, a blind man, and a wheelchair-bound woman. The District Court denied their challenges.
Respondents appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, but before the court could issue a decision, their underlying criminal cases came to an end. Morales, Sanchez-Gomez, and Patricio-Guzman each pled guilty to the offense for which they were charged: Morales, to felony importation of a controlled substance, in violation of
A panel of the Court of Appeals nonetheless concluded that respondents' claims were not moot, and went on to strike down the restraint policy as violating the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Judge Ikuta, writing in dissent for herself and four colleagues, rejected the majority's application of class action precedents to the individual criminal cases before the court and would have held the case moot.
We granted certiorari. 583 U.S. ----, ---- S.Ct. ----, --- L.Ed.2d ---- (2017).
II
To invoke federal jurisdiction, a plaintiff must show a "personal stake" in the outcome of the action.
Genesis HealthCare Corp. v. Symczyk,
A
In concluding that this case was not moot, the Court of Appeals relied upon our class action precedents, most prominently Gerstein v. Pugh . That reliance was misplaced. *
Gerstein,
a class action brought under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, involved a certified class of detainees raising claims concerning their pretrial detention.
The Court of Appeals interpreted
Gerstein
to cover all "cases sufficiently similar to class actions" in which, "because of the inherently transitory nature of the claims," the claimant's "interests would expire before litigation could be completed."
We reject the notion that
Gerstein
supports a freestanding exception to mootness outside the class action context. The class action is a creature of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. See generally 7A C. Wright, A. Miller & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1751
et seq.
(3d ed. 2005). It is an "exception to the usual rule that litigation is conducted by and on behalf of the individual named parties only," and "provides a procedure by which the court may exercise ... jurisdiction over the various individual claims in a single proceeding."
Califano v. Yamasaki,
Gerstein
belongs to a line of cases that we have described as turning on the particular traits of civil class actions. The first case in this line,
Sosna v. Iowa,
held that when the claim of the named plaintiff becomes moot after class certification, a "live controversy may continue to exist" based on the ongoing interests of the remaining unnamed class members.
Genesis HealthCare,
Gerstein,
announced one month after
Sosna,
provides a limited exception to
Sosna
's requirement that a named plaintiff with a live claim exist at the time of class certification. The exception applies when the pace of litigation and the inherently transitory nature of the claims at issue conspire to make that requirement difficult to fulfill. See
Sosna,
In concluding that
Gerstein
reaches further, the Court of Appeals looked to our recent decision in
Genesis HealthCare Corp. v. Symczyk.
But in that case the Court refused to extend
Gerstein
beyond the class action context, even with respect to a procedural device bearing many features similar to a class action.
Genesis HealthCare
addressed whether a "collective action" brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by a plaintiff on behalf of herself "and other 'similarly situated' employees" remained "justiciable when the lone plaintiff's individual claim bec[ame] moot."
This case, which does not involve
any
formal mechanism for aggregating claims, is even further removed from Rule 23 and
Gerstein
. The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure establish for criminal cases no vehicle comparable to the FLSA collective action, much less the class action. And we have never permitted criminal defendants to band together to seek prospective relief in their individual criminal cases on behalf of a class. As we said when declining to apply nonparty preclusion outside the formal class action context, courts may not "recognize ... a common-law kind of class action" or "create
de facto
class actions at will."
Taylor v. Sturgell,
*1540
Spangler,
The court below designated respondents' case a "functional class action" because respondents were pursuing relief "not merely for themselves, but for all in-custody defendants in the district."
Our conclusion is unaffected by the decision of the court below to recast respondents' appeals as petitions for "supervisory mandamus." See
B
Respondents do not defend the reasoning of the Court of Appeals. See Brief for Respondents 58 (arguing that this Court need not reach the functional class action issue and should "discard[ ]" that label); Tr. of Oral Arg. 43 (respondents' counsel agreeing that they "have not made any effort to defend" the functional class action approach). In respondents' view, functional class actions and Gerstein 's rule are beside the point because two respondents-Sanchez-Gomez and Patricio-Guzman-retain a personal stake in the outcome of their appeals.
Sanchez-Gomez and Patricio-Guzman are no longer in pretrial custody. Their criminal cases, arising from their illegal entry into the United States, ended in guilty pleas well before the Court of Appeals issued its decision. Respondents contend, however, that the claims brought by Sanchez-Gomez and Patricio-Guzman fall within the "exception to the mootness doctrine for a controversy that is capable of repetition, yet evading review."
Kingdomware Technologies, Inc. v. United States,
579 U.S. ----, ----,
Respondents argue that Sanchez-Gomez and Patricio-Guzman meet the second
*1541
prong because they will again violate the law, be apprehended, and be returned to pretrial custody. But we have consistently refused to "conclude that the case-or-controversy requirement is satisfied by" the possibility that a party "will be prosecuted for violating valid criminal laws."
O'Shea v. Littleton,
Respondents argue that this usual refusal to assume future criminal conduct is unwarranted here given the particular circumstances of Sanchez-Gomez's and Patricio-Guzman's offenses. They cite two civil cases- Honig v. Doe and Turner v. Rogers -in which this Court concluded that the expectation that a litigant would repeat the misconduct that gave rise to his claims rendered those claims capable of repetition. Neither case, however, supports a departure from the settled rule.
Honig
involved a disabled student's challenge to his suspension from school for disruptive behavior. We found that given his "inability to conform his conduct to socially acceptable norms" or "govern his aggressive, impulsive behavior," it was "reasonable to expect that [the student would] again engage in the type of misconduct that precipitated this suit" and "be subjected to the same unilateral school action for which he initially sought relief."
Respondents contend that Sanchez-Gomez and Patricio-Guzman, like the challengers in Honig and Turner, are likely to find themselves right back where they started if we dismiss their case as moot. Respondents cite a Sentencing Commission report finding that in 2013 thirty-eight percent of those convicted and sentenced for an illegal entry or illegal reentry offense "were deported and subsequently illegally reentered at least one time." United States Sentencing Commission, Illegal Reentry Offenses 15 (2015) (cited by Brief for Respondents 51). Respondents emphasize the economic and familial pressures that often compel individuals such as Sanchez-Gomez and Patricio-Guzman to repeatedly attempt to enter the United States. And respondents note that both men, after their release, actually did cross the border into the United States, were apprehended again, and were charged with new illegal entry offenses. All this, respondents *1542 say, adds up to a sufficient showing that Sanchez-Gomez and Patricio-Guzman satisfy the "capable of repetition" requirement. Because the Court of Appeals was not aware that Sanchez-Gomez and Patricio-Guzman had subsequently reentered the United States illegally, respondents invite us to remand this case for further proceedings.
We decline to do so because
Honig
and
Turner
are inapposite. Our decisions in those civil cases rested on the litigants' inability, for reasons beyond their control, to prevent themselves from transgressing and avoid recurrence of the challenged conduct. In
Honig,
such incapacity was the very reason the school sought to expel the student. And in
Turner,
the indigent individual's large outstanding debt made him effectively incapable of satisfying his imminent support obligations. Sanchez-Gomez and Patricio-Guzman, in contrast, are "able-and indeed required by law"-to refrain from further criminal conduct.
Lane,
III
None of this is to say that those who wish to challenge the use of full physical restraints in the Southern District lack any avenue for relief. In the course of this litigation the parties have touched upon several possible options. See, e.g., Tr. of Oral Arg. 12 (indicating circumstances under which detainees could bring a civil suit). Because we hold this case moot, we take no position on the question.
* * *
We vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and remand the case to that court with instructions to dismiss as moot.
It is so ordered.
Shortly after the panel decision in this case, the Southern District altered its policy to eliminate the routine use of full restraints in pretrial proceedings. The Government represents, however, that the Southern District intends to reinstate its policy once it is no longer bound by the decision of the Court of Appeals. Tr. of Oral Arg. 29. We agree with the Court of Appeals that the rescission of the policy does not render this case moot. A party "cannot automatically moot a case simply by ending its unlawful conduct once sued," else it "could engage in unlawful conduct, stop when sued to have the case declared moot, then pick up where [it] left off, repeating this cycle until [it] achieves all [its] unlawful ends."
Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc.,
Reference
- Full Case Name
- UNITED STATES, Petitioner v. Rene SANCHEZ-GOMEZ, Et Al.
- Cited By
- 291 cases
- Status
- Published