(Slip Opinion)              OCTOBER TERM, 2023                                       1

                                       Syllabus

         NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
       being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
       The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
       prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
       See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 

.


SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

                                       Syllabus

     SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION v.
                  JARKESY ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
                  THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

   No. 22–859.      Argued November 29, 2023—Decided June 27, 2024
In the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Congress passed a
  suite of laws designed to combat securities fraud and increase market
  transparency. Three such statues are relevant: The Securities Act of
  1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the Investment Advis-
  ers Act of 1940. These Acts respectively govern the registration of se-
  curities, the trading of securities, and the activities of investment ad-
  visers. Although each regulates different aspects of the securities
  markets, their pertinent provisions—collectively referred to by regula-
  tors as “the antifraud provisions,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 73a, 202a—
  target the same basic behavior: misrepresenting or concealing mate-
  rial facts.
     To enforce these Acts, Congress created the Securities and Exchange
  Commission. The SEC may bring an enforcement action in one of two
  forums. It can file suit in federal court, or it can adjudicate the matter
  itself. The forum the SEC selects dictates certain aspects of the litiga-
  tion. In federal court, a jury finds the facts, an Article III judge pre-
  sides, and the Federal Rules of Evidence and the ordinary rules of dis-
  covery govern the litigation. But when the SEC adjudicates the matter
  in-house, there are no juries. The Commission presides while its Divi-
  sion of Enforcement prosecutes the case. The Commission or its dele-
  gee—typically an Administrative Law Judge—also finds facts and de-
  cides discovery disputes, and the SEC’s Rules of Practice govern.
     One remedy for securities violations is civil penalties. Originally,
  the SEC could only obtain civil penalties from unregistered investment
  advisers in federal court. Then, in 2010, Congress passed the Dodd-
  Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The Act au-
  thorized the SEC to impose such penalties through its own in-house
2                            SEC v. JARKESY

                                  Syllabus

    proceedings.
       Shortly after passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC initiated an
    enforcement action for civil penalties against investment adviser
    George Jarkesy, Jr., and his firm, Patriot28, LLC for alleged violations
    of the “antifraud provisions” contained in the federal securities laws.
    The SEC opted to adjudicate the matter in-house. As relevant, the
    final order determined that Jarkesy and Patriot28 had committed se-
    curities violations and levied a civil penalty of $300,000. Jarkesy and
    Patriot28 petitioned for judicial review. The Fifth Circuit vacated the
    order on the ground that adjudicating the matter in-house violated the
    defendants’ Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.
Held: When the SEC seeks civil penalties against a defendant for securi-
 ties fraud, the Seventh Amendment entitles the defendant to a jury
 trial. Pp. 6–27.
    (a) The question presented by this case—whether the Seventh
 Amendment entitles a defendant to a jury trial when the SEC seeks
 civil penalties for securities fraud—is straightforward. Following the
 analysis set forth in Granfinanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 

,
 and Tull v. United States, 

, this action implicates the Sev-
 enth Amendment because the SEC’s antifraud provisions replicate
 common law fraud. And the “public rights” exception to Article III ju-
 risdiction does not apply, because the present action does not fall
 within any of the distinctive areas involving governmental preroga-
 tives where the Court has concluded that a matter may be resolved
 outside of an Article III court, without a jury.
    (b) The Court first explains why this action implicates the Seventh
 Amendment.
      (1) The right to trial by jury is “of such importance and occupies
 so firm a place in our history and jurisprudence that any seeming cur-
 tailment of the right” has always been and “should be scrutinized with
 the utmost care.” Dimick v. Schiedt, 

. When the
 British attempted to evade American juries by siphoning adjudications
 to juryless admiralty, vice admiralty, and chancery courts, the Ameri-
 cans protested and eventually cited the British practice as a justifica-
 tion for declaring Independence. In the Revolution’s aftermath, con-
 cerns that the proposed Constitution lacked a provision guaranteeing
 a jury trial right in civil cases was perhaps the “most success[ful]” cri-
 tique leveled against the document during the ratification debates.
 The Federalist No. 83, p. 495. To fix that flaw, the Framers promptly
 adopted the Seventh Amendment. Ever since, “every encroachment
 upon [the jury trial right] has been watched with great jealousy.” Par-
 sons v. Bedford, 

. Pp. 7–8.
      (2) The Seventh Amendment guarantees that in “[s]uits at com-
 mon law . . . the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.” The right
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                              Syllabus

itself is not limited to the “common-law forms of action recognized”
when the Seventh Amendment was ratified. Curtis v. Loether, 

. Rather, it “embrace[s] all suits which are not of equity
or admiralty jurisdiction, whatever may be the peculiar form which
they may assume.” Parsons, 

. That includes statutory
claims that are “legal in nature.” Granfinanciera, 

.
To determine whether a suit is legal in nature, courts must consider
whether the cause of action resembles common law causes of action,
and whether the remedy is the sort that was traditionally obtained in
a court of law. Of these factors, the remedy is the more important.
And in this case, the remedy is all but dispositive. For respondents’
alleged fraud, the SEC seeks civil penalties, a form of monetary relief.
Such relief is legal in nature when it is designed to punish or deter the
wrongdoer rather than solely to “restore the status quo.” Tull, 

. The Acts condition the availability and size of the civil
penalties available to the SEC based on considerations such as culpa-
bility, deterrence, and recidivism. See §§77h–1; 78u–2, 80b–3. These
factors go beyond restoring the status quo and so are legal in nature.
The SEC is also not obligated to use civil penalties to compensate vic-
tims. SEC civil penalties are thus “a type of remedy at common law
that could only be enforced in courts of law.” Tull, 

.
This suit implicates the Seventh Amendment right and a defendant
would be entitled to a jury on these claims.
   The close relationship between federal securities fraud and common
law fraud confirms that conclusion. Both target the same basic con-
duct: misrepresenting or concealing material facts. By using “fraud”
and other common law terms of art when it drafted the federal securi-
ties laws, Congress incorporated common law fraud prohibitions into
those laws. This Court therefore often considers common law fraud
principles when interpreting federal securities law. See, e.g., Dura
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Broudo, 

, 343–344. While fed-
eral securities fraud and common law fraud are not identical, the close
relationship between the two confirms that this action is “legal in na-
ture.” Granfinanciera, 

. Pp. 8–13.
   (c) Because the claims at issue here implicate the Seventh Amend-
ment, a jury trial is required unless the “public rights” exception ap-
plies. Under this exception, Congress may assign the matter for deci-
sion to an agency without a jury, consistent with the Seventh
Amendment. For the reasons below, the exception does not apply.
Pp. 13–27.
      (1) The Constitution prevents Congress from “withdraw[ing] from
judicial cognizance any matter which, from its nature, is the subject of
a suit at the common law.” Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Im-
provement Co., 

. Once such a suit “is brought within
4                             SEC v. JARKESY

                                   Syllabus

    the bounds of federal jurisdiction,” an Article III court must decide it,
    with a jury if the Seventh Amendment applies. Stern v. Marshall, 

. On that basis, this Court has repeatedly explained that
    matters concerning private rights may not be removed from Article III
    courts. See, e.g., Murray’s Lessee, 

. If a suit is in the
    nature of an action at common law, then the matter presumptively
    concerns private rights, and adjudication by an Article III court is
    mandatory. Stern, 

.
       The Court also recognizes a class of cases concerning “public rights.”
    Such matters “historically could have been determined exclusively by
    [the executive and legislative] branches.” 

 (internal quota-
    tion marks omitted). No involvement by an Article III court in the
    initial adjudication of public rights claims is necessary. Certain cate-
    gories that have been recognized as falling within the exception in-
    clude matters concerning: the collection of revenue; aspects of customs
    law; immigration law; relations with Indian tribes; the administration
    of public lands; and the granting of public benefits. The Court’s opin-
    ions governing this exception have not always spoken in precise terms.
    But “even with respect to matters that arguably fall within the scope
    of the ‘public rights’ doctrine, the presumption is in favor of Article III
    courts.” Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 

 (plurality opinion). Pp. 13–18.
         (2) In Granfinanciera, this Court previously considered whether
    the Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial “in the
    face of Congress’ decision to allow a non-Article III tribunal to adjudi-
    cate” a statutory “fraud claim.” 

. There the issue
    was whether Congress’s designation of fraudulent conveyance actions
    as “core [bankruptcy] proceedings” authorized non-Article III bank-
    ruptcy judges to hear them without juries. 

. The Court held
    that the designation was not permissible, even under the public rights
    exception. To determine whether the claim implicated the Seventh
    Amendment, the Court applied the principles distilled in Tull. Sur-
    veying English cases and considering the remedy these suits provided,
    the Court concluded that fraudulent conveyance actions were “quin-
    tessentially suits at common law.” Granfinanciera, 

.
    Because these actions were akin to “suits at common law” and were
    not “closely intertwined” with the bankruptcy process, the Court held
    that the public rights exception did not apply, and a jury was required.
    

. Pp. 19–20.
         (3) Granfinanciera effectively decides this case. The action here
    was brought under the “anti-fraud provisions” of the federal securities
    laws and provide civil penalties that can “only be enforced in courts of
    law.” Tull, 

. They target the same basic conduct as
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                                  Syllabus

  common law fraud, employ the same terms of art, and operate pursu-
  ant to similar legal principles. In short, this action involves a “mat-
  ter[ ] of private rather than public right.” Granfinanciera, 

. Pp. 20–21.
       (4) The SEC claims that the public rights exception applies be-
  cause Congress created “new statutory obligations, impose[d] civil pen-
  alties for their violation, and then commit[ted] to an administrative
  agency the function of deciding whether a violation ha[d] in fact oc-
  curred.” Brief for Petitioner 21. Granfinanciera does away with much
  of the SEC’s argument. Congress cannot “conjure away the Seventh
  Amendment by mandating that traditional legal claims be . . . taken
  to an administrative tribunal.” 

. The SEC’s argument
  that Granfinanciera does not apply because the Government is the
  party bringing this action also fails. What matters is the substance of
  the suit, not where it is brought, who brings it, or how it is labeled.
  Northern Pipeline Constr. Co., 

 n. 23 (plurality opinion).
  Pp. 21–22.
       (5) The Court’s opinion in Atlas Roofing Co. v. Occupational Safety
  and Health Review Comm’n, 

, is not to the contrary. The
  litigation in that case arose under the Occupational Health and Safety
  Act. Facing agency enforcement actions, two employers alleged that
  the agency’s adjudicatory authority violated the Seventh Amendment.
  See 

 at 448–449. The Court concluded that Congress could assign
  the OSH Act adjudications to an agency because the claims involved
  “a new cause of action, and remedies therefor, unknown to the common
  law.” 

. The cases Atlas Roofing relied upon applied the
  “public rights” exception to actions that were “ ‘not . . . suit[s] at com-
  mon law or in the nature of such . . . suit[s].’ ” 

. Atlas Roofing
  therefore does not apply here, where the statutory claim is “ ‘in the
  nature of ’ ” a common law suit. 

. Later rulings also foreclose
  reading Atlas Roofing as the SEC does. This Court clarified in Tull
  that the Seventh Amendment does apply to novel statutory regimes,
  so long as the statutory claims are akin to common law claims. See
  481 U. S., at 421–423. And the Court has explained that the public
  rights exception does not apply automatically whenever Congress as-
  signs a matter to an agency for adjudication. See Granfinanciera, 

. Pp. 22–27.
     The Court does not reach the remaining issues in this case.

, affirmed and remanded.

   ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS,
ALITO, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. GORSUCH, J.,
filed a concurring opinion, in which THOMAS, J., joined. SOTOMAYOR, J.,
filed a dissenting opinion, in which KAGAN and JACKSON, JJ., joined.
                        Cite as: 

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                             Opinion of the Court

     NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
     United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of
     Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543,
     [email protected], of any typographical or other formal errors.


SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
                                   _________________

                                   No. 22–859
                                   _________________


    SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION,
     PETITIONER v. GEORGE R. JARKESY, JR.,
                     ET AL.

 ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
            APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
                                 [June 27, 2024]

  CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the
Court.
  In 2013, the Securities and Exchange Commission initi-
ated an enforcement action against respondents George
Jarkesy, Jr., and Patriot28, LLC, seeking civil penalties for
alleged securities fraud. The SEC chose to adjudicate the
matter in-house before one of its administrative law judges,
rather than in federal court where respondents could have
proceeded before a jury. We consider whether the Seventh
Amendment permits the SEC to compel respondents to de-
fend themselves before the agency rather than before a jury
in federal court.
                             I
                             A
   In the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Con-
gress passed a suite of laws designed to combat securities
fraud and increase market transparency. Three such stat-
ues are relevant here: The Securities Act of 1933, the Secu-
rities Exchange Act of 1934, and the Investment Advisers
Act of 1940. 

, 15 U. S. C. §§77a et seq.; 

             SEC v. JARKESY

                      Opinion of the Court

881, 78a et seq.; 

, 80b–1 et seq. These Acts re-
spectively govern the registration of securities, the trading
of securities, and the activities of investment advisers.
Their protections are mutually reinforcing and often over-
lap. See Lorenzo v. SEC, 

 (2019). Although
each regulates different aspects of the securities markets,
their pertinent provisions—collectively referred to by regu-
lators as “the antifraud provisions,” App. to Pet. for Cert.
73a, 202a—target the same basic behavior: misrepresent-
ing or concealing material facts.
   The three antifraud provisions are Section 17(a) of the
Securities Act, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act,
and Section 206 of the Investment Advisers Act. Section
17(a) prohibits regulated individuals from “obtain[ing]
money or property by means of any untrue statement of a
material fact,” as well as causing certain omissions of ma-
terial fact. 15 U. S. C. §77q(a)(2). As implemented by Rule
10b–5, Section 10(b) prohibits using “any device, scheme, or
artifice to defraud,” making “untrue statement[s] of . . . ma-
terial fact,” causing certain material omissions, and “en-
gag[ing] in any act . . . which operates or would operate as
a fraud.” 

.10b–5 (2023); see 15 U. S. C. §78j(b).
And finally, Section 206(b), as implemented by Rule 206(4)–
8, prohibits investment advisers from making “any untrue
statement of a material fact” or engaging in “fraudulent, de-
ceptive, or manipulative” acts with respect to investors or
prospective investors. 

(4)–8(a)(1), (2); see
15 U. S. C. §80b–6(4).
   To enforce these Acts, Congress created the SEC. The
SEC may bring an enforcement action in one of two forums.
First, the Commission can adjudicate the matter itself. See
§§77h–1, 78u–2, 78u–3, 80b–3. Alternatively, it can file a
suit in federal court. See §§77t, 78u, 80b–9. The SEC’s
choice of forum dictates two aspects of the litigation: The
procedural protections enjoyed by the defendant, and the
remedies available to the SEC.
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                      Opinion of the Court

   Procedurally, these forums differ in who presides and
makes legal determinations, what evidentiary and discov-
ery rules apply, and who finds facts. Most pertinently, in
federal court a jury finds the facts, depending on the nature
of the claim. See U. S. Const., Amdt. 7. In addition, a life-
tenured, salary-protected Article III judge presides, see
Art. III, §1, and the litigation is governed by the Federal
Rules of Evidence and the ordinary rules of discovery.
   Conversely, when the SEC adjudicates the matter in-
house, there are no juries. Instead, the Commission pre-
sides and finds facts while its Division of Enforcement pros-
ecutes the case. The Commission may also delegate its role
as judge and factfinder to one of its members or to an ad-
ministrative law judge (ALJ) that it employs. See 15
U. S. C. §78d–1. In these proceedings, the Commission or
its delegee decides discovery disputes, see, e.g., 

(b), and the SEC’s Rules of Practice govern, see 

 et seq. The Commission or its delegee also
determines the scope and form of permissible evidence and
may admit hearsay and other testimony that would be in-
admissible in federal court. See §§201.320, 201.326.
   When a Commission member or an ALJ presides, the full
Commission can review that official’s findings and conclu-
sions, but it is not obligated to do so. See §201.360; 15
U. S. C. §78d–1. Judicial review is also available once the
proceedings have concluded. See §§77i(a), 78y(a)(1), 80b–
13(a). But such review is deferential. By law, a reviewing
court must treat the agency’s factual findings as “conclu-
sive” if sufficiently supported by the record, e.g., §78y(a)(4);
see Richardson v. Perales, 

 (1971), even
when they rest on evidence that could not have been admit-
ted in federal court.
   The remedy at issue in this case, civil penalties, also orig-
inally depended upon the forum chosen by the SEC. Except
in cases against registered entities, the SEC could obtain
civil penalties only in federal court. See Insider Trading
4                      SEC v. JARKESY

                      Opinion of the Court

Sanctions Act of 1984, §2, 

; Securities Enforce-
ment Remedies and Penny Stock Reform Act of 1990, §§101,
201–202, 104 Stat. 932–933, 935–938. That is no longer so.
In 2010, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Re-
form and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act), 

. That Act “ma[de] the SEC’s authority in admin-
istrative penalty proceedings coextensive with its authority
to seek penalties in Federal court.” H. R. Rep. No. 111–687,
p. 78 (2010). In other words, the SEC may now seek civil
penalties in federal court, or it may impose them through
its own in-house proceedings.         See Dodd-Frank Act,
§929P(a), 124 Stat. 1862–1864 (codified in relevant part as
amended at 15 U. S. C. §§77h–1(g), 78u–2(a), 80b–3(i)(1)).
   Civil penalties rank among the SEC’s most potent en-
forcement tools. These penalties consist of fines of up to
$725,000 per violation. See §§77h–1(g), 78u–2, 80b–3(i).
And the SEC may levy these penalties even when no inves-
tor has actually suffered financial loss. See SEC v. Blavin,

 (CA6 1985) (per curiam).
                                B
   Shortly after passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC be-
gan investigating Jarkesy and Patriot28 for securities
fraud. Between 2007 and 2010, Jarkesy launched two in-
vestment funds, raising about $24 million from 120 “accred-
ited” investors—a class of investors that includes, for exam-
ple, financial institutions, certain investment professionals,
and high net worth individuals. App. to Pet. for Cert. 72a–
73a, 110a, n. 72; see 

. Patriot28, which
Jarkesy managed, served as the funds’ investment adviser.
According to the SEC, Jarkesy and Patriot28 misled inves-
tors in at least three ways: (1) by misrepresenting the in-
vestment strategies that Jarkesy and Patriot28 employed,
(2) by lying about the identity of the funds’ auditor and
prime broker, and (3) by inflating the funds’ claimed value
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                      Opinion of the Court

so that Jarkesy and Patriot28 could collect larger manage-
ment fees. App. to Pet. for Cert. 80a–86a, 95a–105a. The
SEC initiated an enforcement action, contending that these
actions violated the antifraud provisions of the Securities
Act, the Securities Exchange Act, and the Investment Ad-
visers Act, and sought civil penalties and other remedies.
   Relying on the new authority conferred by the Dodd-
Frank Act, the SEC opted to adjudicate the matter itself
rather than in federal court. In 2014, the presiding ALJ
issued an initial decision. Id., at 155a–225a. The SEC re-
viewed the decision and then released its final order in
2020. Id., at 71a–154a. The final order levied a civil pen-
alty of $300,000 against Jarkesy and Patriot28, directed
them to cease and desist committing or causing violations
of the antifraud provisions, ordered Patriot28 to disgorge
earnings, and prohibited Jarkesy from participating in the
securities industry and in offerings of penny stocks. Id., at
152a–154a.
   Jarkesy and Patriot28 petitioned for judicial review. 

 (CA5 2022). A divided panel of the Fifth
Circuit granted their petition and vacated the final order.

 at 449–450. Applying a two-part test from Granfinan-
ciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 

 (1989), the panel held
that the agency’s decision to adjudicate the matter in-house
violated Jarkesy’s and Patriot28’s Seventh Amendment
right to a jury trial. 

. First, the panel de-
termined that because these SEC antifraud claims were
“akin to [a] traditional action[ ] in debt,” a jury trial would
be required if this case were brought in an Article III court.

; see 

 at 453–455. It then considered whether
the “public rights” exception applied. That exception per-
mits Congress, under certain circumstances, to assign an
action to an agency tribunal without a jury, consistent with
the Seventh Amendment. See 

 at 455–459. The panel
concluded that the exception did not apply, and that there-
fore the case should have been brought in federal court,
6                     SEC v. JARKESY

                     Opinion of the Court

where a jury could have found the facts pertinent to the de-
fendants’ fraud liability. Based on this Seventh Amend-
ment violation, the panel vacated the final order. 

.
  It also identified two further constitutional problems.
First, it determined that Congress had violated the non-
delegation doctrine by authorizing the SEC, without ade-
quate guidance, to choose whether to litigate this action in
an Article III court or to adjudicate the matter itself. See

 at 459–463. The panel also found that the insulation of
the SEC ALJs from executive supervision with two layers
of for-cause removal protections violated the separation of
powers. See 

 at 463–466. Judge Davis dissented. 

at 466–479. The Fifth Circuit denied rehearing en banc, 

 (2022), and we granted certiorari, 

(2023).
                              II
   This case poses a straightforward question: whether the
Seventh Amendment entitles a defendant to a jury trial
when the SEC seeks civil penalties against him for securi-
ties fraud. Our analysis of this question follows the ap-
proach set forth in Granfinanciera and Tull v. United
States, 

 (1987). The threshold issue is whether
this action implicates the Seventh Amendment. It does.
The SEC’s antifraud provisions replicate common law
fraud, and it is well established that common law claims
must be heard by a jury.
   Since this case does implicate the Seventh Amendment,
we next consider whether the “public rights” exception to
Article III jurisdiction applies. This exception has been
held to permit Congress to assign certain matters to agen-
cies for adjudication even though such proceedings would
not afford the right to a jury trial. The exception does not
apply here because the present action does not fall within
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                      Opinion of the Court

any of the distinctive areas involving governmental prerog-
atives where the Court has concluded that a matter may be
resolved outside of an Article III court, without a jury. The
Seventh Amendment therefore applies and a jury is re-
quired. Since the answer to the jury trial question resolves
this case, we do not reach the nondelegation or removal is-
sues.
                           A
 We first explain why this action implicates the Seventh
Amendment.
                                1
   The right to trial by jury is “of such importance and occu-
pies so firm a place in our history and jurisprudence that
any seeming curtailment of the right” has always been and
“should be scrutinized with the utmost care.” Dimick v.
Schiedt, 

 (1935). Commentators recog-
nized the right as “the glory of the English law,” 3 W. Black-
stone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 379 (8th ed.
1778) (Blackstone), and it was prized by the American colo-
nists. When the English began evading American juries by
siphoning adjudications to juryless admiralty, vice admi-
ralty, and chancery courts, Americans condemned Parlia-
ment for “subvert[ing] the rights and liberties of the colo-
nists.” Resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress, Art. VIII
(Oct. 19, 1765), reprinted in Sources of Our Liberties 270,
271 (R. Perry & J. Cooper eds. 1959). Representatives gath-
ered at the First Continental Congress demanded that Par-
liament respect the “great and inestimable privilege of be-
ing tried by their peers of the vicinage, according to the
[common] law.” 1 Journals of the Continental Congress,
1774–1789, p. 69 (Oct. 14, 1774) (W. Ford ed. 1904). And
when the English continued to try Americans without ju-
ries, the Founders cited the practice as a justification for
8                       SEC v. JARKESY

                       Opinion of the Court

severing our ties to England. See Declaration of Independ-
ence ¶20; see generally Erlinger v. United States, 

, ___–___ (2024).
   In the Revolution’s aftermath, perhaps the “most suc-
cess[ful]” critique leveled against the proposed Constitution
was its “want of a . . . provision for the trial by jury in civil
cases.” The Federalist No. 83, p. 495 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961)
(A. Hamilton) (emphasis deleted). The Framers promptly
adopted the Seventh Amendment to fix that flaw. In so do-
ing, they “embedded” the right in the Constitution, securing
it “against the passing demands of expediency or conven-
ience.” Reid v. Covert, 

 (1957) (plurality opin-
ion). Since then, “every encroachment upon it has been
watched with great jealousy.” Parsons v. Bedford, 

 (1830).
                                2
   By its text, the Seventh Amendment guarantees that in
“[s]uits at common law, . . . the right of trial by jury shall be
preserved.” In construing this language, we have noted
that the right is not limited to the “common-law forms of
action recognized” when the Seventh Amendment was rat-
ified. Curtis v. Loether, 

 (1974). As Jus-
tice Story explained, the Framers used the term “common
law” in the Amendment “in contradistinction to equity, and
admiralty, and maritime jurisprudence.” Parsons, 

. The Amendment therefore “embrace[s] all suits
which are not of equity or admiralty jurisdiction, whatever
may be the peculiar form which they may assume.” 

.
   The Seventh Amendment extends to a particular statu-
tory claim if the claim is “legal in nature.” Granfinanciera,

. As we made clear in Tull, whether that
claim is statutory is immaterial to this analysis. See 481
U. S., at 414–415, 417–425. In that case, the Government
sued a real estate developer for civil penalties in federal
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                      Opinion of the Court

court. The developer responded by invoking his right to a
jury trial. Although the cause of action arose under the
Clean Water Act, the Court surveyed early cases to show
that the statutory nature of the claim was not legally rele-
vant. “Actions by the Government to recover civil penalties
under statutory provisions,” we explained, “historically
ha[d] been viewed as [a] type of action in debt requiring
trial by jury.” Id., at 418–419. To determine whether a suit
is legal in nature, we directed courts to consider the cause
of action and the remedy it provides. Since some causes of
action sound in both law and equity, we concluded that the
remedy was the “more important” consideration. Id., at 421
(brackets and internal quotation marks omitted); see id., at
418–421.
   In this case, the remedy is all but dispositive. For re-
spondents’ alleged fraud, the SEC seeks civil penalties, a
form of monetary relief. While monetary relief can be legal
or equitable, money damages are the prototypical common
law remedy. See Mertens v. Hewitt Associates, 

 (1993). What determines whether a monetary
remedy is legal is if it is designed to punish or deter the
wrongdoer, or, on the other hand, solely to “restore the sta-
tus quo.” Tull, 

. As we have previously
explained, “a civil sanction that cannot fairly be said solely
to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be ex-
plained as also serving either retributive or deterrent pur-
poses, is punishment.” Austin v. United States, 

 (1993) (internal quotation marks omitted). And
while courts of equity could order a defendant to return un-
justly obtained funds, only courts of law issued monetary
penalties to “punish culpable individuals.” Tull, 

. Applying these principles, we have recognized that
“civil penalt[ies are] a type of remedy at common law that
could only be enforced in courts of law.” 

 The same is
true here.
   To start, the Securities Exchange Act and the Investment
10                      SEC v. JARKESY

                      Opinion of the Court

Advisers Act condition the availability of civil penalties on
six statutory factors: (1) whether the alleged misconduct in-
volved fraud, deceit, manipulation, or deliberate or reckless
disregard for regulatory requirements, (2) whether it
caused harm, (3) whether it resulted in unjust enrichment,
accounting for any restitution made, (4) whether the de-
fendant had previously violated securities laws or regula-
tions, or had previously committed certain crimes, (5) the
need for deterrence, and (6) other “matters as justice may
require.” §§78u–2(c), 80b–3(i)(3). Of these, several concern
culpability, deterrence, and recidivism. Because they tie
the availability of civil penalties to the perceived need to
punish the defendant rather than to restore the victim,
such considerations are legal rather than equitable.
   The same is true of the criteria that determine the size of
the available remedy. The Securities Act, the Securities
Exchange Act, and the Investment Advisers Act establish
three “tiers” of civil penalties. See §§77h–1(g)(2), 78u–2(b),
80b–3(i)(2). Violating a federal securities law or regulation
exposes a defendant to a first tier penalty. A second tier
penalty may be ordered if the violation involved fraud, de-
ceit, manipulation, or deliberate or reckless disregard for
regulatory requirements. Finally, if those acts also resulted
in substantial gains to the defendant or losses to another,
or created a “significant risk” of the latter, the defendant is
subject to a third tier penalty. Each successive tier author-
izes a larger monetary sanction. See ibid.
   Like the considerations that determine the availability of
civil penalties in the first place, the criteria that divide
these tiers are also legal in nature. Each tier conditions the
available penalty on the culpability of the defendant and
the need for deterrence, not the size of the harm that must
be remedied. Indeed, showing that a victim suffered harm
is not even required to advance a defendant from one tier to
the next. Since nothing in this analysis turns on “res-
tor[ing] the status quo,” Tull, 

, these factors
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                      Opinion of the Court

show that these civil penalties are designed to be punitive.
   The final proof that this remedy is punitive is that the
SEC is not obligated to return any money to victims. See
id., at 422–423. Although the SEC can choose to compen-
sate injured shareholders from the civil penalties it collects,
see 

(a), it admits that it is not required to
do so, see App. to Pet. for Cert. 124a, n. 116 (citing 

). Such a penalty by definition does not “restore
the status quo” and can make no pretense of being equita-
ble. Tull, 

.
   In sum, the civil penalties in this case are designed to
punish and deter, not to compensate. They are therefore “a
type of remedy at common law that could only be enforced
in courts of law.” 

 That conclusion effectively decides
that this suit implicates the Seventh Amendment right, and
that a defendant would be entitled to a jury on these claims.
See 

 at 421–423.
   The close relationship between the causes of action in this
case and common law fraud confirms that conclusion. Both
target the same basic conduct: misrepresenting or conceal-
ing material facts. Compare 15 U. S. C. §§77q(a)(2), 78j(b),
80b–6(4); 

.10b–5(b), 275.206(4)–8(a)(1), with
Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Economic Harm,
§§9, 13 (2018); see also, e.g., Pauwels v. Deloitte LLP, 

, 189–190 (CA2 2023) (identifying the elements of
common law fraud under New York law); Conroy v. Regents
of Univ. of Cal., 

, 1254–1255, 

 (2009) (same for California law); Wesdem, L.L.C.
v. Illinois Tool Works, Inc., 

 (CA5 2023)
(same for Texas law). That is no accident. Congress delib-
erately used “fraud” and other common law terms of art in
the Securities Act, the Securities Exchange Act, and the In-
vestment Advisers Act. E.g., 15 U. S. C. §77q(a)(3) (prohib-
iting any practice “which operates . . . as a fraud”). In so
doing, Congress incorporated prohibitions from common
law fraud into federal securities law. The SEC has followed
12                    SEC v. JARKESY

                     Opinion of the Court

suit in rulemakings. Rule 10b–5, for example, prohibits
“any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud,” and “engag[ing]
in any act . . . which operates or would operate as a fraud.”

.10b–5(a), (c).
    Congress’s decision to draw upon common law fraud cre-
ated an enduring link between federal securities fraud and
its common law “ancestor.” Foster v. Wilson, 

 (CA9 2007). “[W]hen Congress transplants a
common-law term, the old soil comes with it.” United States
v. Hansen, 

 (2023) (internal quotation
marks omitted). Our precedents therefore often consider
common law fraud principles when interpreting federal se-
curities law. E.g., Dura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Broudo,

, 343–344 (2005) (evaluating pleading require-
ments in light of the “common-law roots of the securities
fraud action”); Schreiber v. Burlington Northern, Inc., 

 (1985) (“The meaning the Court has given the
term ‘manipulative’ [in §10b of the Securities Exchange
Act] is consistent with the use of the term at common law
. . . .” (footnote omitted)); Chiarella v. United States, 

, 227–229 (1980) (explaining that insider trading
liability under Rule 10b–5 is rooted in the common law duty
of disclosure); Basic Inc. v. Levinson, 

(1988) (White, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part)
(“In general, the case law developed in this Court with re-
spect to §10(b) and Rule 10b–5 has been based on doctrines
with which we, as judges, are familiar: common-law doc-
trines of fraud and deceit.”).
    That is not to say that federal securities fraud and com-
mon law fraud are identical. In some respects, federal se-
curities fraud is narrower. For example, federal securities
law does not “convert every common-law fraud that hap-
pens to involve securities into a violation.” SEC v.
Zandford, 

 (2002). It only targets certain
subject matter and certain disclosures. In other respects,
                  Cite as: 

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                      Opinion of the Court

federal securities fraud is broader. For example, federal se-
curities fraud employs the burden of proof typical in civil
cases, while its common law analogue traditionally used a
more stringent standard. See Herman & MacLean v. Hud-
dleston, 

, 387–390 (1983). Courts have also
not typically interpreted federal securities fraud to require
a showing of harm to be actionable by the SEC. See, e.g.,
Blavin, 

; SEC v. Life Partners Holdings,
Inc., 

 (CA5 2017). Nevertheless, the close
relationship between federal securities fraud and common
law fraud confirms that this action is “legal in nature.”
Granfinanciera, 

.
                                B
                                 1
   Although the claims at issue here implicate the Seventh
Amendment, the Government and the dissent argue that a
jury trial is not required because the “public rights” excep-
tion applies. Under this exception, Congress may assign
the matter for decision to an agency without a jury, con-
sistent with the Seventh Amendment. But this case does
not fall within the exception, so Congress may not avoid a
jury trial by preventing the case from being heard before an
Article III tribunal.
   The Constitution prohibits Congress from “withdraw[ing]
from judicial cognizance any matter which, from its nature,
is the subject of a suit at the common law.” Murray’s Lessee
v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 

(1856). Once such a suit “is brought within the bounds of
federal jurisdiction,” an Article III court must decide it,
with a jury if the Seventh Amendment applies. Stern v.
Marshall, 

 (2011). These propositions are
critical to maintaining the proper role of the Judiciary in
the Constitution: “Under ‘the basic concept of separation of
powers . . . that flow[s] from the scheme of a tripartite gov-
ernment’ adopted in the Constitution, ‘the judicial Power of
14                     SEC v. JARKESY

                      Opinion of the Court

the United States’ ” cannot be shared with the other
branches. 

 at 483 (quoting United States v. Nixon, 

 (1974); alteration in original). Or, as Alex-
ander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist Papers, “ ‘there is
no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from the
legislative and executive powers.’ ” The Federalist No. 78,
at 466 (quoting 1 Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws 181
(10th ed. 1773)).
   On that basis, we have repeatedly explained that matters
concerning private rights may not be removed from Article
III courts. Murray’s Lessee, 

; Granfinanci-
era, 492 U. S., at 51–52; Stern, 

. A hall-
mark that we have looked to in determining if a suit con-
cerns private rights is whether it “is made of ‘the stuff of
the traditional actions at common law tried by the courts at
Westminster in 1789.’ ” 

 at 484 (quoting Northern Pipe-
line Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 

(1982) (Rehnquist, J., concurring in judgment)). If a suit is
in the nature of an action at common law, then the matter
presumptively concerns private rights, and adjudication by
an Article III court is mandatory. Stern, 

.
   At the same time, our precedent has also recognized a
class of cases concerning what we have called “public
rights.” Such matters “historically could have been deter-
mined exclusively by [the executive and legislative]
branches,” 

 (internal quotation marks omitted),
even when they were “presented in such form that the judi-
cial power [wa]s capable of acting on them,” Murray’s Les-
see, 

. In contrast to common law claims, no
involvement by an Article III court in the initial adjudica-
tion is necessary in such a case.
   The decision that first recognized the public rights excep-
tion was Murray’s Lessee. In that case, a federal customs
collector failed to deliver public funds to the Treasury, so
the Government issued a “warrant of distress” to compel
him to produce the withheld sum. 18 How., at 274–275.
                  Cite as: 

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                      Opinion of the Court

Pursuant to the warrant, the Government eventually seized
and sold a plot of the collector’s land. Id., at 274. Plaintiffs
later attacked the purchaser’s title, arguing that the initial
seizure was void because the Government had audited the
collector’s account and issued the warrant itself without ju-
dicial involvement. Id., at 275.
   The Court upheld the sale. It explained that pursuant to
its power to collect revenue, the Government could rely on
“summary proceedings” to compel its officers to “pay such
balances of the public money” into the Treasury “as may be
in their hands.” Id., at 281, 285. Indeed, the Court ob-
served, there was an unbroken tradition—long predating
the founding—of using these kinds of proceedings to “en-
force payment of balances due from receivers of the reve-
nue.” Id., at 278; see id., at 281. In light of this historical
practice, the Government could issue a valid warrant with-
out intruding on the domain of the Judiciary. See id., at
280–282. The challenge to the sale thus lacked merit.
   This principle extends beyond cases involving the collec-
tion of revenue. In Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. v.
Stranahan, 

 (1909), we considered the imposi-
tion of a monetary penalty on a steamship company. Pur-
suant to its plenary power over immigration, Congress had
excluded immigration by aliens afflicted with “loathsome or
dangerous contagious diseases,” and it authorized customs
collectors to enforce the prohibition with fines. 

 at 331–
334. When a steamship company challenged the penalty
under Article III, we upheld it. Congress’s power over for-
eign commerce, we explained, was so total that no party had
a “ ‘vested right’ ” to import anything into the country. 

at 335 (quoting Buttfield v. Stranahan, 

(1904)). By the same token, Congress could also prohibit
immigration by certain classes of persons and enforce those
prohibitions with administrative penalties assessed with-
out a jury. See Oceanic Steam Navigation Co., 

                          SEC v. JARKESY

                           Opinion of the Court

339–340.1
   In Ex parte Bakelite Corp., we upheld a law authorizing
the President to impose tariffs on goods imported by “unfair
methods of competition.” 

 (1929). The
law permitted him to set whatever tariff was necessary,
subject to a statutory cap, to produce fair competition. If
the President was “satisfied the unfairness [was] extreme,”
the law even authorized him to “exclude[ ]” foreign goods en-
tirely. 

 Because the political branches had tradition-
ally held exclusive power over this field and had exercised


——————
   1 The dissent asserts that Oceanic Steam Navigation stands for the

proposition that the public rights exception applies to any exercise of
power granted to Congress. Post, at 10–11 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J). It
must be reading from a different case than we are. Oceanic Steam Nav-
igation expressly confines its analysis to the exercise of Congress’s power
over foreign commerce. 

 (“It is insisted that the decisions
just stated and the legislative practices referred to are inapposite here,
because they all relate to subjects peculiarly within the authority of the
legislative department of the Government, and which, from the necessity
of things, required the concession that administrative officers should
have the authority to enforce designated penalties without resort to the
courts. But over no conceivable subject is the legislative power of Con-
gress more complete than it is over that with which the act we are now
considering deals.); 

 (explaining that the statute “rest[s] . . .
upon the authority of Congress over foreign commerce and its right to
control the coming of aliens into the United States” (emphasis added));

 at 340 (citing “the authority of Congress over the right to bring aliens
into the United States”); see 

 (discussing congressional power
over “the valuation of imported merchandise,” “ ‘importers,’ ” and “tar-
iff[s]” (quoting Bartlett v. Kane, 

 (1854)); 

 (expressly acknowledging and avoiding comment on “ ‘limitations’ ”
of Congress’s “ ‘interstate commerce’ ” power because this case concerns
instead Congress’s exercise of its “ ‘plenary power in respect to the exclu-
sion of merchandise brought from foreign countries’ ” (quoting Buttfield
v. Stranahan, 

 (1904); emphasis added). Nowhere does
Oceanic Steam Navigation say that the public rights exception applies to
cases concerning the securities markets or interstate commerce more
broadly. The rules the dissent purports to locate in Oceanic Steam Nav-
igation are therefore wholly inapposite.
                      Cite as: 

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                          Opinion of the Court

it, we explained that the assessment of tariffs did not im-
plicate Article III. Id., at 458, 460–461.
   This Court has since held that certain other historic cat-
egories of adjudications fall within the exception, including
relations with Indian tribes, see United States v. Jicarilla
Apache Nation, 

 (2011), the administra-
tion of public lands, Crowell v. Benson, 

(1932), and the granting of public benefits such as pay-
ments to veterans, ibid., pensions, ibid., and patent rights,
United States v. Duell, 

, 582–583 (1899).
   Our opinions governing the public rights exception have
not always spoken in precise terms. This is an “area of fre-
quently arcane distinctions and confusing precedents.”
Thomas v. Union Carbide Agricultural Products Co., 

 (1985) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The Court “has not ‘definitively explained’ the distinction
between public and private rights,” and we do not claim to
do so today. Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s
Energy Group, LLC, 

 (2018).
   Nevertheless, since Murray’s Lessee, this Court has typi-
cally evaluated the legal basis for the assertion of the doc-
trine with care. The public rights exception is, after all, an
exception. It has no textual basis in the Constitution and
must therefore derive instead from background legal prin-
ciples. Murray’s Lessee itself, for example, took pains to jus-
tify the application of the exception in that particular in-
stance by explaining that it flowed from centuries-old rules
concerning revenue collection by a sovereign. See 18 How.,
at 281–285. Without such close attention to the basis for
each asserted application of the doctrine, the exception
would swallow the rule.2
——————
   2 The dissent would brush away these careful distinctions and unfurl a

new rule: that whenever Congress passes a statute “entitl[ing] the Gov-
ernment to civil penalties,” the defendant’s right to a jury and a neutral
Article III adjudicator disappears. See post, at 2 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR,
J.). It bases this rule not in the constitutional text (where it would find
18                          SEC v. JARKESY

                          Opinion of the Court

   From the beginning we have emphasized one point: “To
avoid misconstruction upon so grave a subject, we think it
proper to state that we do not consider congress can . . .
withdraw from judicial cognizance any matter which, from
its nature, is the subject of a suit at the common law, or in
equity, or admiralty.” Murray’s Lessee, 

. We
have never embraced the proposition that “practical” con-
siderations alone can justify extending the scope of the pub-
lic rights exception to such matters. Stern, 

. “[E]ven with respect to matters that arguably fall
within the scope of the ‘public rights’ doctrine, the presump-
tion is in favor of Article III courts.” Northern Pipeline Con-
str. Co., 

 (plurality opinion) (citing
Glidden Co. v. Zdanok, 

, 548–549, and n. 21
(1962) (plurality opinion)). And for good reason: “Article III
could neither serve its purpose in the system of checks and
balances nor preserve the integrity of judicial decisionmak-
ing if the other branches of the Federal Government could
confer the Government’s ‘judicial Power’ on entities outside

——————
no foothold), nor in the ratification history (where again it would find no
support), nor in a careful, category-by-category analysis of underlying le-
gal principles of the sort performed by Murray’s Lessee (which it does not
attempt), nor even in a case-specific functional analysis (also not at-
tempted). Instead, the dissent extrapolates from the outcomes in cases
concerning unrelated applications of the public rights exception and from
one opinion, Atlas Roofing Co. v. Occupational Safety and Health Review
Comm’n, 

 (1977). The result is to blur the distinctions our
cases have drawn in favor of the legally unsound principle that just be-
cause the Government may extract civil penalties in administrative tri-
bunals in some contexts, it must always be able to do so in all contexts.
   The dissent also appeals to practice, ignoring that the statute Jarkesy
and Patriot28 have been prosecuted under is barely over a decade old. It
is also unclear how practice could transmute a private right into a public
one, or how the absence of legal challenges brought by one generation
could waive the individual rights of the next. Practice may be probative
when it reflects the settled institutional understandings of the branches.
That case is far weaker when the rights of individuals are directly at
stake.
                  Cite as: 

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                      Opinion of the Court

Article III.” Stern, 

.
                               2
   This is not the first time we have considered whether the
Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial “in
the face of Congress’ decision to allow a non-Article III tri-
bunal to adjudicate” a statutory “fraud claim.” 

. We did so in Granfinanciera, and the principles
identified in that case largely resolve this one.
   Granfinanciera involved a statutory action for fraudulent
conveyance. As codified in the Bankruptcy Code, the claim
permitted a trustee to void a transfer or obligation made by
the debtor before bankruptcy if the debtor “received less
than a reasonably equivalent value in exchange for such
transfer or obligation.” 

(a)(2)(A) (1982 ed.,
Supp. V). Actions for fraudulent conveyance were well
known at common law. 

. Even when Con-
gress added these claims to the Bankruptcy Code in 1978,
see 

, it preserved parties’ rights to a trial by
jury, 492 U. S., at 49–50. In 1984, however, Congress des-
ignated fraudulent conveyance actions “core [bankruptcy]
proceedings” and authorized non-Article III bankruptcy
judges to hear them without juries. Id., at 50.
   The issue in Granfinanciera was whether this designa-
tion was permissible under the public rights exception.
Ibid. We explained that it was not. Although Congress had
assigned fraudulent conveyance claims to bankruptcy
courts, that assignment was not dispositive. See id., at 52.
What mattered, we explained, was the substance of the
suit. “[T]raditional legal claims” must be decided by courts,
“whether they originate in a newly fashioned regulatory
scheme or possess a long line of common-law forebears.”
Ibid. To determine whether the claim implicated the Sev-
enth Amendment, the Court applied the principles distilled
in Tull. We examined whether the matter was “from [its]
nature subject to ‘a suit at common law.’ ” 

20                    SEC v. JARKESY

                     Opinion of the Court

(some internal quotation marks omitted); see 

 at 43–50.
A survey of English cases showed that “actions to recover
. . . fraudulent transfers were often brought at law in late
18th-century England.” 

. The remedy the trustee
sought was also one “traditionally provided by law courts.”

. Fraudulent conveyance actions were thus “quin-
tessentially suits at common law.” 

.
    We also considered whether these actions were “closely
intertwined” with the bankruptcy regime. 

. Some
bankruptcy claims, such as “creditors’ hierarchically or-
dered claims to a pro rata share of the bankruptcy res,” 

, are highly interdependent and require coordination.
Resolving such claims fairly is only possible if they are all
submitted at once to a single adjudicator. Otherwise, par-
ties with lower priority claims can rush to the courthouse
to seek payment before higher priority claims exhaust the
estate, and an orderly disposition of a bankruptcy is impos-
sible. Other claims, though, can be brought in standalone
suits, because they are neither prioritized nor subordinated
to related claims. Since fraudulent conveyance actions fall
into that latter category, we concluded that these actions
were not “closely intertwined” with the bankruptcy process.

. We also noted that Congress had already author-
ized jury trials for certain bankruptcy matters, demonstrat-
ing that jury trials were not generally “incompatible” with
the overall regime. 

 at 61–62 (internal quotation marks
omitted).
    We accordingly concluded that fraudulent conveyance ac-
tions were akin to “suits at common law” and were not in-
separable from the bankruptcy process. 

. The
public rights exception therefore did not apply, and a jury
was required.
                             3
  Granfinanciera effectively decides this case. Even when
an action “originate[s] in a newly fashioned regulatory
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                      Opinion of the Court

scheme,” what matters is the substance of the action, not
where Congress has assigned it. Id., at 52. And in this case,
the substance points in only one direction.
   According to the SEC, these are actions under the “anti-
fraud provisions of the federal securities laws” for “fraudu-
lent conduct.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 72a–73a (opinion of the
Commission). They provide civil penalties, a punitive rem-
edy that we have recognized “could only be enforced in
courts of law.” Tull, 

. And they target the
same basic conduct as common law fraud, employ the same
terms of art, and operate pursuant to similar legal princi-
ples. See supra, at 10–12. In short, this action involves a
“matter[ ] of private rather than public right.” Granfinan-
ciera, 

. Therefore, “Congress may not ‘with-
draw’ ” it “ ‘from judicial cognizance.’ ” Stern, 

 (quoting Murray’s Lessee, 

).
                                4
  Notwithstanding Granfinanciera, the SEC contends the
public rights exception still applies in this case because
Congress created “new statutory obligations, impose[d] civil
penalties for their violation, and then commit[ted] to an ad-
ministrative agency the function of deciding whether a vio-
lation ha[d] in fact occurred.” Brief for Petitioner 21 (inter-
nal quotation marks omitted).
  The foregoing from Granfinanciera already does away
with much of the SEC’s argument. Congress cannot “con-
jure away the Seventh Amendment by mandating that tra-
ditional legal claims be . . . taken to an administrative tri-
bunal.” 

. Nor does the fact that the SEC
action “originate[d] in a newly fashioned regulatory
scheme” permit Congress to siphon this action away from
an Article III court. 

 The constructive fraud claim in
Granfinanciera was also statutory, see 

, but we
nevertheless explained that the public rights exception did
not apply. Again, if the action resembles a traditional legal
22                      SEC v. JARKESY

                       Opinion of the Court

claim, its statutory origins are not dispositive. See 

.
   The SEC’s sole remaining basis for distinguishing Gran-
financiera is that the Government is the party prosecuting
this action. See Brief for Petitioner 26–28; see also Tr. of
Oral Arg. 25 (Principal Deputy Solicitor General) (the “crit-
ical distinction” in the public rights analysis is “enforce-
ment by the executive”); id., at 26 (identifying as “the con-
stitutionally relevant distinction” that “this is something
that has been assigned to a federal agency to enforce”). But
we have never held that “the presence of the United States
as a proper party to the proceeding is . . . sufficient” by itself
to trigger the exception. Northern Pipeline Constr. Co., 

 (plurality opinion). Again, what matters
is the substance of the suit, not where it is brought, who
brings it, or how it is labeled. See 

 The object of this
SEC action is to regulate transactions between private in-
dividuals interacting in a pre-existing market. To do so, the
Government has created claims whose causes of action are
modeled on common law fraud and that provide a type of
remedy available only in law courts. This is a common law
suit in all but name. And such suits typically must be ad-
judicated in Article III courts.
                               5
   The principal case on which the SEC and the dissent rely
is Atlas Roofing Co. v. Occupational Safety and Health Re-
view Commission, 

 (1977). Because the public
rights exception as construed in Atlas Roofing does not ex-
tend to these civil penalty suits for fraud, that case does not
control. And for that same reason, we need not reach the
suggestion made by Jarkesy and Patriot28 that Tull and
Granfinanciera effectively overruled Atlas Roofing to the
extent that case construed the public rights exception to al-
low the adjudication of civil penalty suits in administrative
                      Cite as: 

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                           Opinion of the Court

tribunals.3
    The litigation in Atlas Roofing arose under the Occupa-
tional Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act), a federal
regulatory regime created to promote safe working condi-
tions. Id., at 444–445. The Act authorized the Secretary of
Labor to promulgate safety regulations, and it empowered
the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission
(OSHRC) to adjudicate alleged violations. Id., at 445–446.
If a party violated the regulations, the agency could impose
civil penalties. Id., at 446.
    Unlike the claims in Granfinanciera and this action, the
OSH Act did not borrow its cause of action from the common
law. Rather, it simply commanded that “[e]ach employer
. . . shall comply with occupational safety and health stand-
ards promulgated under this chapter.” 

, 

(a)(2) (1976 ed.). These standards bring no
common law soil with them. Cf. Hansen, 

.
Rather than reiterate common law terms of art, they in-
stead resembled a detailed building code. For example, the
OSH Act regulations directed that a ground trench wall of
“Solid Rock, Shale, or Cemented Sand and Gravels” could
be constructed at a 90 degree angle to the ground. 

, Table P–1 (1976); see Atlas Roofing, 

 (discussing Table P–1). But a wall of “Compacted
Angular Gravels” needed to be sloped at 63 degrees, and a
wall of “Well Rounded Loose Sand” at 26 degrees.
§1926.652, Table P–1. The purpose of this regime was not
to enable the Federal Government to bring or adjudicate


——————
  3 The dissent chides us for “leav[ing] open the possibility that Granfi-

nanciera might have overruled Atlas Roofing.” Post, at 25, n. 8 (opinion
of SOTOMAYOR, J.). But the author of Atlas Roofing certainly thought
that Granfinanciera may have done so. See Granfinanciera, 

 (White, J., dissenting) (“Perhaps . . . Atlas Roofing is no longer good
law after today’s decision.”); see also 

 (Granfinanciera “can
be read as overruling or severely limiting” Atlas Roofing).
24                      SEC v. JARKESY

                       Opinion of the Court

claims that traced their ancestry to the common law. Ra-
ther, Congress stated that it intended the agency to “de-
velop[ ] innovative methods, techniques, and approaches for
dealing with occupational safety and health problems.” 

(b)(5) (1976 ed.). In both concept and execu-
tion, the Act was self-consciously novel.
   Facing enforcement actions, two employers alleged that
the adjudicatory authority of the OSHRC violated the Sev-
enth Amendment. See Atlas Roofing, 430 U. S., at 448–449.
The Court rejected the challenge, concluding that “when
Congress creates new statutory ‘public rights,’ it may as-
sign their adjudication to an administrative agency with
which a jury trial would be incompatible, without violating
the Seventh Amendment[ ].” Id., at 455. As the Court ex-
plained, the case involved “a new cause of action, and rem-
edies therefor, unknown to the common law.” Id., at 461.
The Seventh Amendment, the Court concluded, was accord-
ingly “no bar to . . . enforcement outside the regular courts
of law.” Ibid.
   The cases that Atlas Roofing relied upon did not extend
the public rights exception to “traditional legal claims.”
Granfinanciera, 

. Instead, they applied the
exception to actions that were “ ‘not . . . suit[s] at common
law or in the nature of such . . . suit[s].’ ” Atlas Roofing, 

 (quoting Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301
U. S., at 48); see Atlas Roofing, 430 U. S., at 450–451 (dis-
cussing, e.g., Murray’s Lessee, Ex parte Bakelite Corp.,
Helvering v. Mitchell, 

 (1938), and Oceanic
Steam Navigation Co.). Indeed, the Court recognized that
if a case did involve a common law action or its equivalent,
a jury was required. See 

 (“ ‘[W]here the
action involves rights and remedies recognized at common
law, it must preserve to parties their right to a jury trial.’ ”
(quoting Pernell v. Southall Realty, 

(1974)); Atlas Roofing, 430 U. S., at 458–459 (jury required
                      Cite as: 

 (2024)                     25

                           Opinion of the Court

when “courts of law supplied a cause of action and an ade-
quate remedy to the litigant”).
   Atlas Roofing concluded that Congress could assign the
OSH Act adjudications to an agency because the claims
were “unknown to the common law.” 

. The
case therefore does not control here, where the statutory
claim is “ ‘in the nature of ’ ” a common law suit. 

 at 453
(quoting Jones & Laughlin, 301 U. S., at 48). As we have
explained, Jarkesy and Patriot28 were prosecuted for
“fraudulent conduct,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 72a, and the per-
tinent statutory provisions derive from, and are interpreted
in light of, their common law counterparts, see 15 U. S. C.
§§77q(a)(2), 78j(b), 80b–6(4); 

.10b–5(b),
275.206(4)–8(a)(1); Basic Inc., 

 (opinion of
White, J.).
   The reasoning of Atlas Roofing cannot support any
broader rule. The dissent chants “Atlas Roofing” like a
mantra, but no matter how many times it repeats those
words, it cannot give Atlas Roofing substance that it lacks.4

——————
   4 Reading the dissent, one might also think that Atlas Roofing is among

this Court’s most celebrated cases. As the concurrence shows, Atlas Roof-
ing represents a departure from our legal traditions. See post, at 12–20
(opinion of GORSUCH, J.).
   This view is also reflected in the scholarship. Commentators writing
comprehensively on Article III and agency adjudication have often
simply ignored the case. See, e.g., R. Fallon, Of Legislative Courts, Ad-
ministrative Agencies, and Article III, 

 (1988) (no
citation to Atlas Roofing); J. Harrison, Public Rights, Private Privileges,
and Article III, 

 (2019) (same); W. Baude, Adjudication
Outside Article III, 

 (2020) (same).
   Others who have considered it have offered nothing but a variety of
criticisms. See, e.g., R. Kirst, Administrative Penalties and the Civil
Jury: The Supreme Court’s Assault on the Seventh Amendment, 

, 1294 (1978) (through its “careless use of precedent,”
Atlas Roofing did “not recognize or [mis]understood” “careful distinctions
developed by . . . earlier judges”); G. Young, Federal Courts & Federal
Rights, 45 Brooklyn L. Rev. 1145, 1153 (1979) (“The Atlas Court . . .
failed to offer an adequate justification for its interpretation of the sev-
26                           SEC v. JARKESY

                           Opinion of the Court

Even as Atlas Roofing invoked the public rights exception,
the definition it offered of the exception was circular. The
exception applied, the Court said, “in cases in which ‘public
rights’ are being litigated—e. g., cases in which the Govern-
ment sues in its sovereign capacity to enforce public rights
created by statutes.” 

; see 

.
   After Atlas Roofing, this Court clarified in Tull that the
Seventh Amendment does apply to novel statutory regimes,
so long as the claims are akin to common law claims. See
481 U. S., at 421–423. In addition, we have explained that
the public rights exception does not apply automatically
whenever Congress assigns a matter to an agency for adju-
dication. See Granfinanciera, 

.
   For its part, the dissent also seems to suggest that Atlas
Roofing establishes that the public rights exception applies
whenever a statute increases governmental efficiency.
Post, at 15 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.). Again, our prece-
dents foreclose this argument. As Stern explained, effects
like increasing efficiency and reducing public costs are not
enough to trigger the exception. See 564 U. S., at 501; INS
v. Chadha, 

 (1983). Otherwise, evading
——————
enth amendment, either in terms of precedent or the language and his-
tory of the amendment.”); M. Redish & D. La Fave, Seventh Amendment
Right to Jury Trial in Non-Article III Proceedings: A Study in Dysfunc-
tional Constitutional Theory, 4 Wm. & Mary Bill of Right J. 407, 436
(1995) (criticizing Atlas Roofing for failing to “provid[e] a principled basis
upon which to determine the proper scope of congressional power to re-
move the civil jury from federal adjudications”); V. Amar, Implementing
an Historical Version of the Jury in an Age of Administrative Factfinding
and Sentencing Guidelines, 

, 298 (2005) (question-
ing Atlas Roofing for “invert[ing] and turn[ing] on its head the Apprendi
doctrine’s central insight that juries are most important to check the
power of the state” (emphasis deleted)); C. Nelson, Adjudication in the
Political Branches, 

, 604–605, and n. 189 (2007)
(describing Atlas Roofing as “misus[ing]” precedent to “deny the novelty
of its holding” and “drive a wedge” into the traditional understanding of
the public-private rights distinction). We express no opinion on these
various criticisms.
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)            27

                      Opinion of the Court

the Seventh Amendment would become nothing more than
a game, where the Government need only identify some
slight advantage to the public from agency adjudication to
strip its target of the protections of the Seventh Amend-
ment.
   The novel claims in Atlas Roofing had never been brought
in an Article III court. By contrast, law courts have dealt
with fraud actions since before the founding, and Congress
had authorized the SEC to bring such actions in Article III
courts and still authorizes the SEC to do so today. See 3
Blackstone 41–42; §§77t, 78u, 80b–9. Given the judiciary’s
long history of handling fraud claims, it cannot be argued
that the courts lack the capacity needed to adjudicate such
actions.
   In short, Atlas Roofing does not conflict with our conclu-
sion. When a matter “from its nature, is the subject of a
suit at the common law,” Congress may not “withdraw [it]
from judicial cognizance.” Murray’s Lessee, 

.
                         *    *     *
   A defendant facing a fraud suit has the right to be tried
by a jury of his peers before a neutral adjudicator. Rather
than recognize that right, the dissent would permit Con-
gress to concentrate the roles of prosecutor, judge, and jury
in the hands of the Executive Branch. That is the very op-
posite of the separation of powers that the Constitution de-
mands. Jarkesy and Patriot28 are entitled to a jury trial in
an Article III court. We do not reach the remaining consti-
tutional issues and affirm the ruling of the Fifth Circuit on
the Seventh Amendment ground alone.
   The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
is affirmed, and the case is remanded for further proceed-
ings consistent with this opinion.
                                              It is so ordered.
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)              1

                     GORSUCH, J., concurring

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
                          _________________

                           No. 22–859
                          _________________


     SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION,
      PETITIONER v. GEORGE R. JARKESY, JR.,
                      ET AL.

 ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
            APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
                         [June 27, 2024]

   JUSTICE GORSUCH, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins,
concurring.
   The Court decides a single issue: Whether the Security
and Exchange Commission’s use of in-house hearings to
seek civil penalties violates the Seventh Amendment right
to a jury trial. It does. As the Court details, the government
has historically litigated suits of this sort before juries, and
the Seventh Amendment requires no less.
   I write separately to highlight that other constitutional
provisions reinforce the correctness of the Court’s course.
The Seventh Amendment’s jury-trial right does not work
alone. It operates together with Article III and the Due Pro-
cess Clause of the Fifth Amendment to limit how the gov-
ernment may go about depriving an individual of life, lib-
erty, or property. The Seventh Amendment guarantees the
right to trial by jury. Article III entitles individuals to an
independent judge who will preside over that trial. And due
process promises any trial will be held in accord with time-
honored principles. Taken together, all three provisions
vindicate the Constitution’s promise of a “fair trial in a fair
tribunal.” In re Murchison, 

 (1955).
                       I
  In March 2013, the SEC’s Commissioners approved
2                     SEC v. JARKESY

                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

charges against Mr. Jarkesy. The charges were serious; the
agency accused him of defrauding investors. The relief the
agency sought was serious, too: millions of dollars in civil
penalties. See SEC, Division of Enforcement’s Post-Hear-
ing Memorandum of Law in In re John Thomas Capital
Management Group, LLC, Admin. Proc. File No. 3–15255,
pp. 28–29 (SEC, Apr. 7, 2014). For most of the SEC’s 90-
year existence, the Commission had to go to federal court to
secure that kind of relief against someone like Mr. Jarkesy.
Ante, at 3–4. Proceeding that way in this case hardly would
have promised him an easy ride. But it would have at least
guaranteed Mr. Jarkesy a jury, an independent judge, and
traditional procedures designed to ensure that anyone
caught up in our judicial system receives due process.
   In 2010, however, all that changed. With the passage of
the Dodd Frank Act, Congress gave the SEC an alternative
to court proceedings. Now, the agency could funnel cases
like Mr. Jarkesy’s through its own “adjudicatory” system.
See 

, 1862–1865. That is the route the SEC
chose when it filed charges against Mr. Jarkesy.
   There is little mystery why. The new law gave the SEC’s
Commissioners—the same officials who authorized the suit
against Mr. Jarkesy—the power to preside over his case
themselves and issue judgment. To be sure, the Commis-
sioners opted, as they often do, to send Mr. Jarkesy’s case
in the first instance to an “administrative law judge” (ALJ).
See 

 (2023). But the title “judge” in this
context is not quite what it might seem. Yes, ALJs enjoy
some measure of independence as a matter of regulation
and statute from the lawyers who pursue charges on behalf
of the agency. But they remain servants of the same mas-
ter—the very agency tasked with prosecuting individuals
like Mr. Jarkesy. This close relationship, as others have
long recognized, can make it “extremely difficult, if not im-
possible, for th[e ALJ] to convey the image of being an im-
partial fact finder.” B. Segal, The Administrative Law
                     Cite as: 

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                        GORSUCH, J., concurring

Judge, 62 A. B. A. J. 1424, 1426 (1976). And with a jury out
of the picture, the ALJ decides not just the law but the facts
as well.1
   Going in, then, the odds were stacked against Mr.
Jarkesy. The numbers confirm as much: According to one
report, during the period under study the SEC won about
90% of its contested in-house proceedings compared to 69%
of its cases in court. D. Thornley & J. Blount, SEC In-House
Tribunals: A Call for Reform, 

, 286
(2017) (Thornley). Reportedly, too, one of the SEC’s handful
of ALJs even warned individuals during settlement discus-
sions that he had found defendants liable in every contested
case and never once “ ‘ruled against the agency’s enforce-
ment division.’ ” Axon Enterprise, Inc. v. FTC, 

, 213–214 (2023) (GORSUCH, J., concurring in judg-
ment).
   The shift from a court to an ALJ didn’t just deprive Mr.
Jarkesy of the right to an independent judge and a jury. He
also lost many of the procedural protections our courts sup-
ply in cases where a person’s life, liberty, or property is at
stake. After an agency files a civil complaint in court, a de-
fendant may obtain from the SEC a large swathe of docu-
ments relevant to the lawsuit. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc.
26(b)(1). He may subpoena third parties for testimony and
documents and take 10 oral depositions—more with the
court’s permission. Rule 45; Rule 30(a)(2)(A)(i). A court has
flexibility, as well, to set deadlines for discovery and other
matters to meet the needs of the case. See Rule 16. And

——————
  1 In many agencies, litigants are not even entitled to have ALJs, with

their modicum of protections, decide their cases. These agencies use “ad-
ministrative judges.” Some agencies can replace these administrative
judges if they don’t like their decisions. And some of these judges may
move in and out of prosecutorial and adjudicatory roles, or move in and
out of the very industries their agencies regulate. See United States v.
Arthrex, Inc., 

, 36–37 (2021) (GORSUCH, J., concurring in part
and dissenting in part).
4                     SEC v. JARKESY

                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

come trial, the Federal Rules of Evidence apply, meaning
that hearsay is generally inadmissible and witnesses must
usually testify in person, subject to cross-examination. See
Fed. Rule Evid. 802.
   Things look very different in agency proceedings. The
SEC has a responsibility to provide “documents that con-
tain material exculpatory evidence.”               

(b)(3). But the defendant enjoys no general right
to discovery. Though ALJs enjoy the power to issue subpoe-
nas on the request of litigants like Mr. Jarkesy,
§201.232(a), they “often decline to issue [them] or choose to
significantly narrow their scope,” G. Mark, SEC and CFTC
Administrative Proceedings, 

, 68
(2016). Oral depositions are capped at five, with another
two if the ALJ grants permission. §201.233(a). In some
cases, an administrative trial must take place as soon as 1
month after service of the charges, and that hearing must
follow within 10 months in even the most complex matters.
§201.360(a)(2)(ii). The rules of evidence, including their
prohibition against hearsay, do not apply with the same ri-
gor they do in court. §201.235(a)(5); see §201.230. For that
reason, live testimony often gives way to “investigative tes-
timony”—that is, a “sworn statement” taken outside the
presence of the defendant or his counsel. §201.235(b).
   How did all this play out in Mr. Jarkesy’s case? Accom-
panying its charges, the SEC disclosed 700 gigabytes of
data—equivalent to between 15 and 25 million pages of in-
formation—it had collected during its investigation. App.
to Pet. for Cert. 164a; Complaint in Jarkesy v. U. S. SEC,
No. 1:14–cv–00114 (DDC, Jan. 29, 2014), ECF Doc. 1, ¶49,
pp. 12–13. Over Mr. Jarkesy’s protest that it would take
“two lawyers or paralegals working twelve-hour days over
four decades to review,” ibid., the ALJ gave Mr. Jarkesy 10
months to prepare for his hearing, see App. to Pet. for Cert.
156a. Then, after conducting that hearing, the ALJ turned
around and obtained from the Commission “an extension of
                  Cite as: 

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                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

six months to file [her] initial decision.” In re John Thomas
Capital Management Group LLC, SEC Release No. 9631,
p. 1 (Aug. 13, 2014). The reason? The “ ‘size and complexity
of the proceeding.’ ” Id., at 2. When that decision eventu-
ally arrived seven months after the hearing, the ALJ agreed
with the SEC on every charge. See App. to Pet. for Cert.
155a–156a, 212a.
   Mr. Jarkesy had the right to appeal to the Commission,
but appeals to that politically accountable body (again, the
same body that approved the charges) tend to go about as
one might expect. The Commission may decline to review
the ALJ’s decision. §201.411(b)(2). If it chooses to hear the
case, it may increase the penalty imposed on the defendant.
Thornley 286. A defendant unhappy with the result can
seek further review in court, though that process will take
more time and money, too. Nor will he find a jury there,
only a judge who must follow the agency’s findings if they
are supported by “ ‘more than a mere scintilla’ ” of evidence.
Biestek v. Berryhill, 

 (2019).
   Mr. Jarkesy filed an appeal anyway. The Commission
agreed to review the ALJ’s decision. It then afforded itself
the better part of six years to issue an opinion. And, after
all that, it largely agreed with the ALJ. See App. to Pet. for
Cert. 71a–74a. None of this likely came as a surprise to the
SEC employees in the Division of Enforcement responsible
for pressing the action against Mr. Jarkesy. While his ap-
peal was pending, employees in that division—including an
“ ‘Enforcement Supervisor’ ” in the regional office prosecut-
ing Mr. Jarkesy—accessed confidential memos by the Com-
missioners’ advisors about his appeal. See SEC, Second
Commission Statement Relating to Certain Administrative
Adjudications 3 (June 2, 2023).
                            II
                            A
  If administrative proceedings like Mr. Jarkesy’s seem a
6                     SEC v. JARKESY

                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

thoroughly modern development, the British government
and its agents engaged in a strikingly similar strategy in
colonial America.         Colonial administrators routinely
steered enforcement actions out of local courts and into
vice-admiralty tribunals where they thought they would
win more often. These tribunals lacked juries. They lacked
truly independent judges. And the procedures materially
differed from those available in everyday common-law
courts.
   The vice-admiralty courts in the Colonies began as rough
equivalents of English courts of admiralty. E. Surrency,
The Courts in the American Colonies, 

, 355 (1967). These courts generally concerned them-
selves with maritime matters arising on “the oceans and
rivers and their immediate shores.” C. Ubbelohde, The
Vice-Admiralty Courts and the American Revolution 19
(1960) (Ubbelohde). And the proceedings they used ac-
corded more with civil law traditions than common law
ones. Among other things, this meant officials could try
cases against colonists without a jury. Id., at 21.
   Confined to admiralty disputes, perhaps the lack of a jury
would have proven unexceptional (as juries were not usu-
ally required in such cases then, nor are they today). See,
e.g., Lewis v. Lewis & Clark Marine, Inc., 

(2001). But Parliament deployed these juryless tribunals
in the Colonies to new ends that, according to John Adams,
could fill “ ‘volumes.’ ” Ubbelohde vii. The creep away from
the original province of those courts began with the grant
of authority over violations of certain trade and customs
laws. But in the decade before the Revolution, the drip,
drip, drip of expanding power became a torrent, as Parlia-
ment allowed more and more actions to be brought in colo-
nial vice-admiralty courts.
   Many of the matters added to vice-admiralty jurisdiction
in the Colonies would have required juries in England. Id.,
at 112. But as the Massachusetts royal governor explained,
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)              7

                     GORSUCH, J., concurring

colonial juries “ ‘were not to be trusted.’ ” D. Lovejoy, Rights
Imply Equality: The Case Against Admiralty Jurisdiction
in America, 1764–1776, 16 Wm. & Mary Q. 459, 468 (1959).
Even violations that did not implicate the jury right nor-
mally would have been heard in England “before a court in
[one’s] own neighborhood or county where [one] could count
on traditional common-law procedure.” Id., at 471. But by
expanding the reach of vice-admiralty jurisdiction in the
Colonies, Parliament denied similar protections to Ameri-
cans. See Erlinger v. United States, 

, ___
(2024) (slip op., at 5).
   Vice-admiralty court judges also lacked independence.
While judges in England since the end of the seventeenth
century generally enjoyed the protection of tenure during
good behavior, colonial judges usually served at the pleas-
ure of the royal administration. See United States v. Will,

, 218–219 (1980). And, doing away with the
pretense of impartiality entirely, some vice-admiralty
judges held dual appointments—for instance, as colonial at-
torneys general and vice-admiralty judges. Ubbelohde 162–
163.
   Like the modern SEC, British colonial officials were not
required to bring many of their cases before the vice-admi-
ralty courts. Often, Parliament gave those officials the op-
tion to proceed in either the ordinary common-law courts or
the vice-admiralty courts. Unsurprisingly, though, they
sought to file where they were most likely to win. And “[i]n
this contest, the vice-admiralty courts were usually the vic-
tors.” Id., at 21.
                              B
  The abuses of these courts featured prominently in the
calls for revolution. In the First Continental Congress, the
assembled delegates condemned how Parliament “ex-
tend[ed] the jurisdiction of Courts of Admiralty,” com-
plained how colonial judges were “dependent on the
8                      SEC v. JARKESY

                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

Crown,” and demanded the right to the “common law of
England” and the “great and inestimable privilege” of a jury
trial. Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental
Congress, Oct. 14, 1774, in 1 Journals of the Continental
Congress, 1774–1789, pp. 68–69 (W. Ford 1904 ed.). Two
years later, the drafters of the Declaration of Independence
repeated these concerns, admonishing the King for
“ma[king] Judges dependent on his Will alone,” ¶11, and
“[f]or depriving [the colonists] in many cases, of the benefits
of Trial by Jury,” ¶20. By that point, however, the “musket
fire at Lexington and Concord . . . signaled the end not only
of the vice-admiralty courts, but of all British rule in Amer-
ica.” Ubbelohde 190.
   When the smoke settled, the American people went to
great lengths to prevent a backslide toward anything like
the vice-admiralty courts. Erlinger, 602 U. S., at ___–___
(slip op., at 5–6). One product of these efforts was Article
III of the Constitution. There, the Constitution provided
that “[t]he judicial Power”—the power over “Cases” and
“Controversies”—would lie with life-tenured, salary-protected
judges. §§1–2; see Oil States Energy Services, LLC v.
Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, 

 (2018)
(GORSUCH, J., dissenting). As the Court has recognized,
this meant the Executive Branch could “exercise no part of
th[e] judicial power.” Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land &
Improvement Co., 

 (1856), “no matter how
court-like [its] decisionmaking process might appear,” Ortiz
v. United States, 

 (2018) (ALITO, J., dis-
senting). Nor could Congress “withdraw from judicial cog-
nizance any matter which, from its nature, is the subject of
a suit at the common law, or in equity, or admiralty”—the
traditional scope of the “judicial Power.” Murray’s Lessee,

; see Art. III, §2.
   Despite these guarantees, many at the founding thought
Article III didn’t go far enough. Yes, it promised a defend-
ant an independent judge rather than one dependent on
                   Cite as: 

 (2024)              9

                     GORSUCH, J., concurring

those who hold political power. But what would stop Con-
gress from requiring litigants to navigate vice-admiralty’s
alien procedures in all federal cases? Or from making “fed-
eral processes” even more byzantine, so “as to [effectively]
destroy [individual] rights?” Letter from a Federal Farmer
(Jan. 20, 1788), in 2 The Complete Anti-Federalist 328 (H.
Storing ed. 1981).
   And what about civil juries? “[T]he jury trial,” one prom-
inent Anti-Federalist observed, “brings with it an open and
public discussion of all causes, and excludes secret and ar-
bitrary proceedings.” Letter from a Federal Farmer (Jan.
18, 1788), in id., at 320 (Federal Farmer 15). The partici-
pation of ordinary Americans “drawn from the body of the
people” serves another function, too: “If the conduct of
judges shall . . . tend to subvert the laws, and change the
forms of government, the jury may check them.” Ibid. As
originally composed, however, the Constitution promised a
trial by jury for “all Crimes,” but said nothing about civil
cases. Art III, §2, cl. 3. Some wondered, did this mean
judges, not juries, would be “left masters as to facts” in civil
disputes? Federal Farmer 15, at 322. If so, asked another,
“what satisfaction can we expect from a lordly court of jus-
tice, always ready to protect the officers of government
against the weak and helpless citizen”? Essay of a Demo-
cratic Federalist (Oct. 17, 1787), in 3 Complete Anti-Feder-
alist 61.
   The answer to these concerns was the Bill of Rights. Er-
linger, 602 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 6). As the Court details,
the Seventh Amendment promised the right to a jury trial
in “ ‘[s]uits at common law.’ ” Ante, at 8 (quoting Amdt. 7).
But because the Constitution was designed to “endure for
ages to come,” McCulloch v. Maryland, 

(1819), this did not mean only those “suits, which the com-
mon law recognized among its old and settled proceedings,”
Parsons v. Bedford, 

 (1830). The founding
10                    SEC v. JARKESY

                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

generation anticipated the possibility Congress would in-
troduce new causes of action and perhaps new remedies,
too. See 

 Accordingly, this Court has long understood
the Seventh Amendment’s protections to apply in “all [civil]
suits which are not of equity [or] admiralty jurisdiction.”
Ibid.; accord, ante, at 8–9. In this way, the Seventh Amend-
ment seeks to ensure there will be no juryless vice-admiralty
courts in the United States.
   The Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause addressed
remaining concerns about the processes that would attend
trials before independent judges and juries. It provided
that the government may not deprive anyone of “life, lib-
erty, or property, without due process of law.” As originally
understood, this provision prohibited the government from
“depriv[ing] a person of those rights without affording him
the benefit of (at least) those customary procedures to
which freemen were entitled by the old law of England.”
Sessions v. Dimaya, 

 (2018) (GORSUCH, J.,
concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (internal
quotation marks omitted); see Erlinger, 602 U. S., at ___–
___ (slip op., at 6–7).
   More than that, because it was “the peculiar province of
the judiciary” to safeguard life, liberty, and property, due
process often meant judicial process. 1 St. George Tucker,
Blackstone’s Commentaries, Editor’s App. 358 (1803). That
is, if the government sought to interfere with those rights,
nothing less than “the process and proceedings of the com-
mon law” had to be observed before any such deprivation
could take place. 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Consti-
tution of the United States §1783, p. 661 (1833) (Story). In
other words, “ ‘due process of law’ generally implie[d] and
include[d] . . . judex [a judge], regular allegations, oppor-
tunity to answer, and a trial according to some settled
course of judicial proceedings.” Murray’s Lessee, 

. This constitutional baseline was designed to serve
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)             11

                     GORSUCH, J., concurring

as “a restraint on the legislative” branch, preventing Con-
gress from “mak[ing] any process ‘due process of law,’ by its
mere will.” Id., at 276.
                                C
   These three constitutional provisions were meant to work
together, and together they make quick work of this case.
In fact, each provision requires the result the Court reaches
today.
   First, because the “ ‘matter’ ” before us is one “which, from
its nature, is the subject of a suit at the common law,” id.,
at 284, “the responsibility for deciding [it] rests with Article
III judges in Article III courts.” Stern v. Marshall, 

 (2011). Nor does it make a difference whether we
think of the SEC’s action here as a civil-penalties suit or
something akin to a traditional fraud claim: At the found-
ing, both kinds of actions were tried in common-law courts.
See ante, at 9–13 (discussing civil penalties); see also, e.g.,
Pasley v. Freeman, 3 T. R. 51, 100 Eng. Rep. 450 (K. B.
1789) (action for fraud); Baily v. Merrell, 3 Bulst. 94, 81
Eng. Rep. 81 (K. B. 1615) (same). And that tells us all we
need to know that the SEC’s in-house civil-penalty scheme
violates Article III by “withdraw[ing]” the matter “from ju-
dicial cognizance” and handing it over to the Executive
Branch for an in-house trial. Murray’s Lessee, 

; see supra, at 7–8.
   Second, because the action the SEC seeks to pursue is not
the stuff of equity or admiralty jurisdiction but the sort of
suit historically adjudicated before common-law courts, the
Seventh Amendment guarantees Mr. Jarkesy the right to
have his case decided by a jury of his peers. In this regard,
it is irrelevant that the SEC derived its power to sue under
a “new statut[e]” or that the agency proceeded under “a new
cause of action.” Brief for Petitioner 13, 22 (internal quota-
tion marks omitted). As we have seen, the government can-
not evade the Seventh Amendment so easily. See ante, at
12                     SEC v. JARKESY

                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

9; supra, at 8–10.
   Third, were there any doubt, the Due Process Clause con-
firms these conclusions. Cf. Murray’s Lessee, 

 (explaining that the Article III challenge before the
Court could “best be considered” as raising a due process
question). Because the penalty the SEC seeks would
“depriv[e]” Mr. Jarkesy of “property,” Amdt. 5, due process
demands nothing less than “the process and proceedings of
the common law,” 3 Story §1783, at 661. That means the
regular course of trial proceedings with their usual protec-
tions, see Murray’s Lessee, 

, not the use of
ad hoc adjudication procedures before the same agency re-
sponsible for prosecuting the law, subject only to hands-off
judicial review, see supra, at 10–11.
                              III
                               A
   The government resists these conclusions. As the govern-
ment sees it, this case implicates the so-called public rights
exception. One that defeats not only Mr. Jarkesy’s right to
trial by jury, but also his right to proceed before an inde-
pendent trial judge consistent with traditional judicial pro-
cesses. That is, on the government’s account, not only does
the Seventh Amendment fall away; so does the usual oper-
ation of Article III and the Due Process Clause.
   In the government’s view, the public rights exception “at
a minimum allows Congress to create new statutory obliga-
tions, impose civil penalties for their violation, and then
commit to an administrative agency the function of deciding
whether a violation has in fact occurred.” Brief for Peti-
tioner 21 (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omit-
ted). Put plainly, all that need be done to dispense almost
entirely with three separate constitutional provisions is an
Act of Congress creating some new statutory obligation.
And, the government continues, this case easily meets that
standard because the proceeding against Mr. Jarkesy is one
                  Cite as: 

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                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

“brought by the government against a private party” under
a statute designed “to remedy harm to the public at large.”
Id., at 24 (internal quotation marks omitted).
   The Court rightly rejects these arguments. See ante, at
19–21. No one denies that, under the public rights excep-
tion, Congress may allow the Executive Branch to resolve
certain matters free from judicial involvement in the first
instance. Ante, at 6, 14–15. But, despite its misleading
name, the exception does not refer to all matters brought
by the government against an individual to remedy public
harms, or even all those that spring from a statute. See
ante, at 16–17. Instead, public rights are a narrow class
defined and limited by history. As the Court explains, that
class has traditionally included the collection of revenue,
customs enforcement, immigration, and the grant of public
benefits. Ante, at 15–17.
   How did these matters find themselves categorized as
public rights? Competing explanations abound. Some have
pointed to ancient practical considerations. In Murray’s
Lessee, for example, the Court reasoned that the “[i]mpera-
tive necessity” of tax collection for a functional state had
long caused governments to treat “claims for public taxes”
differently from “all others.” 

. Others have
theorized that “the core of the judicial power” concerns the
disposition of the “three ‘absolute’ rights” “to life, liberty,
and property.” Wellness Int’l Network, Ltd. v. Sharif, 

, 713–714 (2015) (THOMAS, J., dissenting). Public
rights, the theory goes, involve matters originally under-
stood to fall outside this core. 

. So, for example,
“[a]lthough Congress could authorize executive agencies to
dispose of public rights in land—often by means of adjudi-
cating a claimant’s qualifications for a land grant under a
statute—the United States had to go to the courts if it
wished to revoke” that grant, which had become the owner’s
private property. 

. There are still other theories
yet. See, e.g., Stern, 

.
14                      SEC v. JARKESY

                     GORSUCH, J., concurring

   Whatever their roots, traditionally recognized public
rights have at least one feature in common: a serious and
unbroken historical pedigree. See Culley v. Marshall, 

, 397–398 (2024) (GORSUCH, J., concurring); ante,
at 14–17. For good reason. If the Article III “judicial
Power” encompasses “the stuff of the traditional actions at
common law tried by the courts of Westminster in 1789,”
ante, at 14 (internal quotation marks omitted), it follows
that matters traditionally adjudicated outside those courts
might not fall within Article III’s ambit. See Stern, 564
U. S., at 504–505 (Scalia, J., concurring) (“[A]n Article III
judge is required in all federal adjudications, unless there
is a firmly established historical practice to the contrary”).
So too with the Due Process Clause. If that clause sets cus-
tomary common-law practice as the ordinary procedural
baseline, see Part II–B, supra, clear historical evidence of a
different practice might warrant a departure from that
baseline, see Murray’s Lessee, 

. That’s why
this Court has said “ ‘a process of law . . . must be taken to
be due process of law’ if it enjoys ‘the sanction of settled us-
age both in England and in this country.’ ” Culley, 

 (GORSUCH, J., concurring) (quoting Hurtado v. Cali-
fornia, 

 (1884)).
   With the public rights exception viewed in this light, the
government’s invocation of it in this case cannot succeed.
Starting with a “ ‘presumption . . . in favor of Article III
courts’ ” and their usual attendant processes, ante, at 18, we
look for some “deeply rooted” tradition of nonjudicial adju-
dication before permitting a case to be tried in a different
forum under different procedures, Culley, 

(GORSUCH, J., concurring). We have upheld summary pro-
cedures for customs collection, for example, because they
were consistent with both “the common and statute law of
England prior to the emigration of our ancestors” and “the
laws of many of the States at the time of the adoption of ”
the Constitution. Murray’s Lessee, 

; see
                  Cite as: 

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                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

ante, at 14–15. But when it comes to the kind of civil-pen-
alty suit before us, that same history points in the opposite
direction, suggesting actions of this sort belong before an
independent judge, a jury, and decided in a trial that ac-
cords with traditional judicial procedures. Ante, at 9–13;
supra, at 11–12. Just as SEC practices themselves largely
reflected as recently as 2010.
                               B
   If all that’s so, why might the government feel comforta-
ble invoking the public rights exception? To be fair, much
of it may have to do with this Court. Some of our past deci-
sions have allowed the government to chip away at the
courts’ historically exclusive role in adjudicating private
rights—and juries’ accompanying role in that adjudication.
This process began, of all places, in an admiralty case.
   In Crowell v. Benson, 

 (1932), this Court faced
a constitutional challenge to the Longshoremen’s and Har-
bor Workers’ Compensation Act of 1927. The Act directed
employers to compensate employees for injuries occurring
at sea. 

. The law further assigned primary
responsibility for deciding liability disputes to an Executive
Branch official, the deputy commissioner of the United
States Employees’ Compensation Commission. Id., at
1435–1437; Crowell, 285 U. S., at 42–43. The Court
acknowledged that this regime empowered the deputy com-
missioner to decide in the first instance the monetary “lia-
bility of one individual to another.” Id., at 51. The Court
recognized that this amounted to a classic “private right”
suit of the kind traditionally tried in court. Ibid. The Court
even conceded that, under the law, the factual “findings of
the deputy commissioner, supported by evidence and within
the scope of his authority, shall be final”: An Article III
court could not review the facts anew. Id., at 46. But the
Court upheld the scheme and its limited judicial review an-
yway.
16                     SEC v. JARKESY

                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

   To get there took a dash of fiction and a pinch of surmise.
From time to time, the Court observed, judges appoint their
own special “masters and commissioners” to prepare re-
ports on fact issues or damages. Id., at 51. These reports
are nonbinding and “essentially . . . advisory.” Ibid. Judges
themselves remain the decisionmakers. In Crowell, the
Court embraced the fiction that Executive Branch officials
might similarly act as assistants or adjuncts to Article III
courts. And because judges often adopt the proposed find-
ings of their masters and commissioners, the Court sur-
mised, Article III posed no bar to Congress taking a further
step and requiring judges to treat the findings of Executive
Branch officials as essentially “final.” Id., at 46. “To hold
otherwise,” the Court reasoned, “would be to defeat the ob-
vious purpose of the legislation”: “to furnish a prompt, con-
tinuous, expert, and inexpensive method for dealing with a
class of questions of fact which are peculiarly suited to ex-
amination and determination by an administrative agency
specially assigned to that task.” Ibid.
   Crowell itself only went so far, however. The case fell
within federal courts’ admiralty jurisdiction, and tribunals
sitting in admiralty in England and America alike had long
heard certain matters falling within the public rights ex-
ception. See Culley, 

 (GORSUCH, J., concur-
ring). In deciding those matters, courts had long tolerated
some flexibility in procedures, had long restricted appellate
review of factual findings, and had always proceeded with-
out a jury. Crowell, 

.
   Soon, though, none of that mattered. Almost in a blink,
the admiralty limitation was discarded, and more and more
agencies began assuming adjudicatory functions previously
reserved for judges and juries, employing novel procedures
that sometimes bore faint resemblance to those observed in
court. Along the way, prominent voices in and out of gov-
ernment expressed concern at this development. Consider
just two typical examples. Were an agency endowed with
                  Cite as: 

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                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

the power to assess civil penalties, advised a committee
overseen by Attorney General (soon-to-be Justice) Robert
H. Jackson, “the aggrieved person” should at least “be per-
mitted review de novo by a Federal district court.” Final
Report of Attorney General’s Committee on Administrative
Procedure 147 (1941). That was the only way, the commit-
tee opined, “to resolve any doubts concerning the constitu-
tionality of the procedure.” Ibid. Around the same time, a
committee of the American Bar Association led by Roscoe
Pound sounded a similar alarm. Administrative agencies,
the committee warned, had a “tendency to mix up rule mak-
ing, investigation, prosecution, the advocate’s function, the
judge’s function, and the function of enforcing the judg-
ment, so that the whole proceeding from end to end is one
to give effect to a complaint.” Report of the Special Com-
mittee on Administrative Law, 63 Ann. Rep. 331, 351
(1938).
   The high-water mark of the movement toward agency ad-
judication may have come in 1977 in Atlas Roofing Co. v.
Occupational Safety and Health Review Comm’n, 

. Some have read that decision to suggest the category
of public rights might encompass pretty much any case aris-
ing under any “ ‘new statutory obligations,’ ” Brief for Peti-
tioner 22 (quoting Atlas Roofing, 

). It is a
view the government essentially espouses in this case. But
without reference to any constitutional text or history to
guide what does or does not qualify as a public right, that
view has (unsurprisingly) proven wholly unworkable.
   It did not take long for this Court to realize as much. Just
12 years later, in Granfinanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 

 (1989), this Court cabined Atlas Roofing so nar-
rowly that the author of Atlas Roofing complained that the
Court had “overrul[ed]” it. 

 (White, J.,
dissenting); see ante, at 23, n. 3. Far from endorsing the
notion that any new statutory obligation could qualify for
18                     SEC v. JARKESY

                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

treatment as a public right, for example, the Court in Gran-
financieria read Atlas Roofing as having “left the term ‘pub-
lic rights’ undefined.” 

. And since then
this Court has, in one case after another, “adhere[d]” only
to Atlas Roofing’s “general teaching” that Congress may
constitutionally adopt “new statut[es] ” assigning matters
that indeed qualify as “public rights . . . to an administra-
tive agency.” 

 (internal quotation marks
omitted); see, e.g., Stern, 564 U. S., at 489–490; Oil States,

.
   Yet, even after the Court moved away from Atlas Roofing,
our public rights jurisprudence remained muddled. Since
then, the Court has suggested that public rights might in-
clude those “involving statutory rights that are integral
parts of a public regulatory scheme.” Granfinanciera, 

. We have changed course and tried our
hand at a five-factor balancing test. See Stern, 

 (describing Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n v.
Schor, 

 (1986)). We have replaced that test
with one that considers “at least seven different” factors.
564 U. S., at 504 (Scalia, J., concurring). And at one time
or another, these factors have included the consideration of
“the concerns that drove Congress to depart from the re-
quirements of Article III.” Schor, 

. So, for
example, we have asked whether insistence on “the institu-
tional integrity of the Judicial Branch” would “unduly con-
strict Congress’ ability to take needed and innovative action
pursuant to its Article I powers.” 

   Today, the Court does much to return us to a more tradi-
tional understanding of public rights. Adhering to Granfi-
nancieria, the Court rejects the government’s overbroad
reading of Atlas Roofing and recognizes that the kind of
atextual and ahistorical (not to mention confusing) tests it
inspired do little more than ask policy questions the Con-
stitution settled long ago. Yes, a limited category of public
rights were originally and even long before understood to
                  Cite as: 

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                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

be susceptible to resolution without a court, jury, or the
other usual protections an Article III court affords. But out-
side of those limited areas, we have no license to deprive
the American people of their constitutional right to an in-
dependent judge, to a jury of their peers, or to the proce-
dural protections at trial that due process normally de-
mands. Let alone do so whenever the government wishes
to dispense with them.
   This Court does not subject other constitutional rights to
such shabby treatment. We have “reaffirm[ed],” many
times and “emphatically[,] that the First Amendment does
not permit the State to sacrifice speech for efficiency.” Riley
v. National Federation of Blind of N. C., Inc., 

 (1988). We have rejected a framework for Second
Amendment challenges that would balance the right to bear
arms against “ ‘other important governmental interests.’ ”
District of Columbia v. Heller, 

 (2008). It
is hornbook Fourth Amendment law that “[a] generalized
interest in expedient law enforcement cannot, without
more, justify a warrantless search.” Georgia v. Randolph,

 (2006). And even though the Sixth
Amendment’s guarantee of a jury trial in criminal cases
may have “ ‘its weaknesses and the potential for misuse,’ ”
Duncan v. Louisiana, 

 (1968), we con-
tinue to insist that it “be jealously preserved,” Patton v.
United States, 

 (1930); see Ramos v. Lou-
isiana, 

, 110–111 (2020) (plurality opinion); Er-
linger, 602 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 18) (“There is no effi-
ciency exception to the . . . Sixth Amendmen[t]”).
   Why should Article III, the Seventh Amendment, or the
Fifth Amendment’s promise of due process be any different?
None of them exists to “protec[t] judicial authority for its
own sake.” Oil States, 

 (GORSUCH, J., dis-
senting). They exist to “protect the individual.” Bond v.
United States, 

 (2011). And their protec-
20                      SEC v. JARKESY

                     GORSUCH, J., concurring

tions are no less vital than those afforded by other constitu-
tional provisions. As American colonists learned under
British rule, “the right of trial” means little “when the ac-
tual administration of justice is dependent upon caprice, or
favour, [or] the will of rulers.” 3 Story §1568, at 426; id.,
§1783, at 661. In recognizing as much today, the Court es-
sentially follows the advice of Justices Brennan and Mar-
shall, “limit[ing] the judicial authority of non-Article III fed-
eral tribunals to th[o]se few, long-established exceptions”
that bear the sanction of history, and “countenanc[ing] no
further erosion.” Schor, 

 (Brennan, J.,
joined by Marshall, J., dissenting).
                               C
   The dissent’s competing account of public rights is aston-
ishing. On its telling, the Constitution might impose some
(undescribed) limits on the power of the government to send
cases “involving the liability of one individual to another”
to executive tribunals for resolution. Post, at 22 (opinion of
SOTOMAYOR, J.). But, thanks to public rights doctrine, the
dissent insists, the Constitution imposes no limits on the
government’s power to seek civil penalties “outside the reg-
ular courts of law where there are no juries.” Post, at 2. In
that field, the Constitution falls silent. The dissent does not
even attempt to deploy any of the contrived balancing tests
that emerged in Atlas Roofing’s aftermath to rein in the
government’s power. But where in Article III, the Seventh
Amendment, and due process can the dissent find this new
rule? What about founding-era practice or original mean-
ing? And why would a Constitution drawn up to protect
against arbitrary government action make it easier for the
government than for private parties to escape its dictates?
The dissent offers no answers.
   To be sure, the dissent tries to appeal to precedent. It
even asserts that our decisions support, “without exception,”
its sweeping conception of public rights doctrine. Post, at
                  Cite as: 

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                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

12 (emphasis added). But the dissent’s approach to our
precedents is like a picky child at the dinner table. It se-
lects only a small handful while leaving much else un-
touched. To start, the dissent lingers briefly on Murray’s
Lessee—but not long enough to explain the opinion’s con-
ception of Article III, due process, or the extended historical
inquiry that led the Court to conclude the collection of rev-
enue concerned a public right. See post, at 9–10; supra, at
8, 10–14.
   The 19th century behind it (for it does not trouble with
the founding era), the dissent turns to Oceanic Steam Nav.
Co. v. Stranahan, 

 (1909). Drawing on that
decision, the dissent contends that “Congress [has] rou-
tinely ‘impose[d] appropriate obligations’ ” by statute and
given “ ‘executive officers the power to enforce’ ” them
“ ‘without the necessity of invoking the judicial power.’ ”
Post, at 11 (quoting Stranahan, 

). Notably
absent from the dissent’s account, however, is the decision’s
discussion of Congress’s long-recognized and extensive au-
thority over the field of immigration, the area of law at issue
there. See 

. Unmentioned, too, is Stranahan’s
explanation that what links immigration to other public
rights like “tariff[s], . . . internal revenue, taxation,” and
“foreign commerce” is that, “ ‘from the beginning[,] Con-
gress has exercised a plenary power’ ” over them “because
they all relate to subjects peculiarly within the authority of
the legislative department.” 

.
   Really, one has to wonder: If the public rights exception
is as broad and unqualified as the dissent asserts, why did
our predecessors bother to discuss history or Congress’s pe-
culiar powers when it comes to revenue and immigration?
Why didn’t the Court simply announce the rule the dissent
would have us announce today: that our Constitution does
not stand in the way of “agency adjudications of statutory
claims . . . brought by the Government in its sovereign ca-
22                     SEC v. JARKESY

                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

pacity”? Post, at 4. The answer, of course, is that the Con-
stitution has never countenanced the dissent’s notion that
the Executive is free to reassign virtually any civil case in
which it is a party to its own tribunals where its own em-
ployees decide cases and inconvenient juries and traditional
trial procedures go by the boards.
   That my dissenting colleagues plow ahead anyway with
their remarkable conception of public rights is all the more
puzzling considering how regularly they have argued
against that sort of sweeping concentration of governmen-
tal power. The dissenters have recognized that a “lack of
standardized procedural safeguards” can leave government
enforcement schemes “vulnerable to abuse” and individuals
subject to coercive “pressure from unchecked prosecutors.”
Culley, 

 (SOTOMAYOR, J., joined by
KAGAN and JACKSON, JJ., dissenting). They have con-
tended that the Judiciary has an affirmative obligation to
supply “meaningful remedies,” trials before judges and ju-
ries included, even when “Congress or the Executive has
[already] created a remedial process.” Egbert v. Boule, 

, 524–525 (2022) (SOTOMAYOR, J., joined by, inter
alios, KAGAN, J., dissenting) (internal quotation marks
omitted; emphasis deleted). And like most every current
Member of this Court at one time or another, they have
acknowledged that the jury-trial right “stands as one of the
Constitution’s most vital protections against arbitrary gov-
ernment.” United States v. Haymond, 

(2019) (plurality opinion).
   The dissent’s conception of public rights is so unqualified
that it refuses to commit itself on the question whether even
muted forms of judicial review—such as asking executive
tribunals to muster “more than a mere scintilla” of evidence
in support of their rulings—are constitutionally required in
the essentially unbounded class of cases that fall within its
conception of public rights. See Part I, supra; post, at 8,
n. 4. Gone, too, is any role for the jury—for why would the
                       Cite as: 

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                          GORSUCH, J., concurring

government ever go to court if it may more readily secure a
win before its own employees? The only attempt to mitigate
the havoc its rule would wreak comes when the dissent de-
clares that “ ‘[t]he public-rights doctrine does not extend to
. . . criminal matters.’ ” Post, at 27, n. 9. But the dissent
does not (and cannot) explain how that fits with all else it
says. If, as the dissent insists, a public right is any “new
right” that “belongs to the public and inheres in the Gov-
ernment in its sovereign capacity,” post, at 28, what could
possibly better fit the description than the enforcement of
new criminal laws? See Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez, 

 (2022) (“The power to convict and punish
criminals lies at the heart of the States’ residuary and invi-
olable sovereignty” (internal quotation marks omitted)).2
    All but admitting its view has no support in “historical
practice dating back to the founding,” the dissent chastises
the Court for daring to rely on that practice to flesh out the
scope of the public rights exception. Post, at 18. It would
be so much simpler, the dissent says, to adopt its rule per-
mitting the government to skirt oversight by judge and jury
alike whenever it enacts a new law. And, true enough, “a
principle that the government always wins surely would be
simple for judges to implement.” United States v. Rahimi,

, ___ (2024) (GORSUCH, J., concurring) (slip op.,
at 6). But looking to original meaning and historical prac-
tice informing it is exactly how this Court proceeds in so
——————
   2 The best the dissent can do is to observe that “Article III itself pre-

scribes that ‘[t]he trial of all Crimes . . . shall be by Jury.’ ” Post, at 27,
n. 9 (quoting §2, cl. 3). That response might be reassuring if the dissent’s
treatment of the Seventh Amendment didn’t supply a roadmap for work-
ing around it. On the dissent’s telling, the Seventh Amendment can be
dispensed with at will: It applies “only in judicial proceedings,” and not
whenever the government chooses to assign a matter to its own in-house
tribunals. Post, at 5. And under that logic, there is no apparent reason
why the government could not evade Article III’s jury-trial right just as
easily, simply by choosing to route criminal prosecutions through execu-
tive agencies.
24                     SEC v. JARKESY

                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

many other contexts where we seek to honor the Constitu-
tion’s demands—including, notably, when we seek to ascer-
tain the scope of the criminal jury-trial right and the de-
fendant’s attendant right to confront his accusers. See
Erlinger, 602 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 19–20); Crawford
v. Washington, 

 (2004). What’s more, this
approach has the virtue of “keep[ing] judges in their proper
lane” by “seeking to honor the supreme law the people have
ordained rather than substituting our will for theirs.”
Rahimi, 602 U. S., at ___–___ (GORSUCH, J., concurring)
(slip op., at 4–5); see Crawford, 

.
   It is hard, as well, to take seriously the dissent’s charges
of unworkability and unpredictability. At least until today,
the dissenters supported procedural protections for those in
the government’s sights in civil as well as criminal cases.
What kind of protections? Often, they have argued, it de-
pends on a judicial balancing test. One that is “flexible,”
defies “technical conception,” lacks “fixed content,” and will
“not always yield the same result” even when applied in
similar circumstances. Culley, 

 (opinion of
SOTOMAYOR, J.) (internal quotation marks omitted). As we
have seen, that was essentially the course some pursued,
too, when it came to the public rights exception in the fall-
out from Atlas Roofing. See Part III–B, supra. But that
kind of “ ‘we know it when we see it’ ” approach to constitu-
tional rights, post, at 21, can hardly claim any serious ad-
vantages when it comes to workability or predictability.
   Failing all else, the dissent retreats to Atlas Roofing. At
least that decision, it insists, supports its nearly boundless
conception of public rights. The dissent goes so far as to
accuse the Court of undermining “stare decisis and the rule
of law,” post, at 15, and engaging in “a power grab,” post, at
37, by failing to give Atlas Roofing its broadest possible con-
struction. It’s a “disconcerting” accusation indeed, post, at
36, and a misdirected one at that. Construed as broadly as
the dissent proposes, Atlas Roofing’s view of public rights
                  Cite as: 

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                     GORSUCH, J., concurring

stands as an outlier in our jurisprudence—with no appar-
ent support in original meaning, at odds with prior prece-
dent, and inconsistent with later precedent as well. See
ante, at 25, n. 4; Part III–B, supra. Meanwhile, the Court’s
alternative construction of Altas Roofing fits far more com-
fortably with all those legal sources. In that respect, the
majority’s approach is of a piece with Granfinanciera’s sim-
ilar approach 25 years ago. And, more broadly, it is of a
piece with our usual practice of construing “loose language”
found in a prior judicial opinion in a way that better con-
forms it to the mainstream of our precedents. Groff v.
DeJoy, 

 (2023) (SOTOMAYOR, J., concur-
ring). As the dissenters have previously acknowledged,
that course is neither unusual nor at odds with stare decisis.
See 

 at 474–475; see also Brown v. Davenport, 

 (2022) (“We neither expect nor hope that our suc-
cessors will comb these pages for stray comments and
stretch them beyond their context—all to justify an outcome
inconsistent with this Court’s reasoning and judgments”).
   Were there any doubt about the propriety of the Court’s
treatment of Atlas Roofing, consider one more feature of the
alternative the dissent proposes. In defending the broadest
possible construction of Atlas Roofing’s public rights discus-
sion, the dissent necessarily endorses that decision’s excep-
tionally narrow conception of the Seventh Amendment. See
post, at 6. After all, as public rights expand, so too the jury-
trial right must contract. Yet Atlas Roofing’s discussion of
the jury-trial right, no less than its discussion of public
rights, is difficult to square with precedent and original
meaning.
   Recall that, from the start, the Seventh Amendment was
understood to protect that right “not merely” in suits recog-
nized at common law, but in “all suits which are” of legal,
as opposed to “equity [or] admiralty[,] jurisdiction.” Par-
sons, 

 (emphasis added); see Part II–B, supra.
This Court repeated that understanding of the Amendment
26                      SEC v. JARKESY

                     GORSUCH, J., concurring

until well into the 1970s, noting, for example, that “the ap-
plicability of the constitutional right to jury trial in actions
enforcing statutory rights” was “a matter too obvious to be
doubted.” Curtis v. Loether, 

 (1974) (in-
ternal quotation marks omitted); accord, Pernell v. Southall
Realty, 

 (1974) (the Seventh “Amendment
requires trial by jury in actions unheard of at common
law”). And the Court rejected the notion that a statute
must present “a close equivalent” to a common-law cause of
action; the jury-trial right attached, we said, so long as the
“action involve[d] rights and remedies of the sort tradition-
ally enforced in an action at law.” 

   Atlas Roofing ignored all of that. Instead, it suggested,
“[t]he phrase ‘Suits at common law’ has been construed to
refer to cases tried prior to the adoption of the Seventh
Amendment in courts of law.” 

 (emphasis
added). That cramped construction of the Seventh Amend-
ment was, of course, a key move in Atlas Roofing. For with-
out it, the Court would have been hard pressed to suggest
the public rights doctrine permits Congress to route any
“ ‘new cause of action’ ” for adjudication before agencies
where juries do not sit. Post, at 14 (quoting Atlas Roofing,

).
   Almost immediately, however, the Court rejected Atlas
Roofing’s analysis, not just with respect to public rights doc-
trine but the Seventh Amendment, too. Returning to our
mainstream precedents, the Court reaffirmed the applica-
bility of the Seventh Amendment to new causes of action,
first in Tull v. United States, 

 (1987), and then
in Granfinanciera. See ante, at 8–9. And by 1990, our case
law had come full circle, announcing once again what has
always been true: that “[t]he right to a jury trial includes
more than the common-law forms of action recognized in
1791.” Teamsters v. Terry, 

.
   Today, the Court respects and follows this longstanding
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)            27

                    GORSUCH, J., concurring

message in our Seventh Amendment precedents. The dis-
sent chooses another path entirely—adopting a reading of
Atlas Roofing that leads not only to an implausibly broad
construction of public rights, but to an implausibly narrow
understanding of the jury-trial guarantee as well. One
wholly at odds with precedents both old and new. Nor is
the dissent shy about its real motivation—and it has noth-
ing to do with respect for precedent but much more to do
with a “power grab”: Holding the government to the Con-
stitution’s promise of a jury trial, the dissent insists, would
impose “constraints on what,” in its view, “modern-day
adaptable governance must look like.” Post, at 37. All of
which, at bottom, amounts to little more than a complaint
with the Constitution’s revolutionary promise of popular
oversight of government officials—and with those judges
who would honor that promise.
                              *
  People like Mr. Jarkesy may be unpopular. Perhaps even
rightly so: The acts he allegedly committed may warrant
serious sanctions. But that should not obscure what is at
stake in his case or others like it. While incursions on old
rights may begin in cases against the unpopular, they
rarely end there. The authority the government seeks (and
the dissent would award) in this case—to penalize citizens
without a jury, without an independent judge, and under
procedures foreign to our courts—certainly contains no
such limits. That is why the Constitution built “high walls
and clear distinctions” to safeguard individual liberty.
Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 

 (1995).
Ones that ensure even the least popular among us has an
independent judge and a jury of his peers resolve his case
under procedures designed to ensure a fair trial in a fair
forum. In reaffirming all this today, the Court hardly
leaves the SEC without ample powers and recourse. The
agency is free to pursue all of its charges against Mr.
28                    SEC v. JARKESY

                   GORSUCH, J., concurring

Jarkesy. And it is free to pursue them exactly as it had
always done until 2010: In a court, before a judge, and with
a jury. With these observations, I am pleased to concur.
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)              1

                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
                          _________________

                           No. 22–859
                          _________________


     SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION,
      PETITIONER v. GEORGE R. JARKESY, JR.,
                      ET AL.

 ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
            APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
                         [June 27, 2024]

   JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE KAGAN and
JUSTICE JACKSON join, dissenting.
   Throughout our Nation’s history, Congress has author-
ized agency adjudicators to find violations of statutory obli-
gations and award civil penalties to the Government as an
injured sovereign. The Constitution, this Court has said,
does not require these civil-penalty claims belonging to the
Government to be tried before a jury in federal district
court. Congress can instead assign them to an agency for
initial adjudication, subject to judicial review. This Court
has blessed that practice repeatedly, declaring it “the ‘set-
tled judicial construction’ ” all along; indeed, “ ‘from the be-
ginning.’ ” Atlas Roofing Co. v. Occupational Safety and
Health Review Comm’n, 

 (1977). Unsur-
prisingly, Congress has taken this Court’s word at face
value. It has enacted more than 200 statutes authorizing
dozens of agencies to impose civil penalties for violations of
statutory obligations. Congress had no reason to anticipate
the chaos today’s majority would unleash after all these
years.
   Today, for the very first time, this Court holds that Con-
gress violated the Constitution by authorizing a federal
agency to adjudicate a statutory right that inheres in the
2                      SEC v. JARKESY

                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

Government in its sovereign capacity, also known as a pub-
lic right. According to the majority, the Constitution re-
quires the Government to seek civil penalties for federal-
securities fraud before a jury in federal court. The nature
of the remedy is, in the majority’s view, virtually disposi-
tive. That is plainly wrong. This Court has held, without
exception, that Congress has broad latitude to create statu-
tory obligations that entitle the Government to civil penal-
ties, and then to assign their enforcement outside the regu-
lar courts of law where there are no juries.
   Beyond the majority’s legal errors, its ruling reveals a far
more fundamental problem: This Court’s repeated failure
to appreciate that its decisions can threaten the separation
of powers. Here, that threat comes from the Court’s mis-
taken conclusion that Congress cannot assign a certain
public-rights matter for initial adjudication to the Execu-
tive because it must come only to the Judiciary.
   The majority today upends longstanding precedent and
the established practice of its coequal partners in our tri-
partite system of Government. Because the Court fails to
act as a neutral umpire when it rewrites established rules
in the manner it does today, I respectfully dissent.
                                I
   The story of this case is straightforward. The Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) investi-
gated respondents George Jarkesy and his advisory firm
Patriot28, LLC, for alleged violations of federal-securities
laws in connection with the launch of two hedge funds.
   In deciding how and where to enforce these laws, the SEC
could have filed suit in federal court or adjudicated the mat-
ter in an administrative enforcement action subject to judi-
cial review. See 15 U. S. C. §§77h–1, 77t, 78u, 78u–2, 78u–
3, 80b–3, 80b–9. The SEC opted for the latter. In 2013, the
SEC initiated an administrative enforcement action
against respondents, alleging violations of the Securities
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)             3

                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the
Investment Advisers Act of 1940. Specifically, the SEC al-
leged that respondents falsely told brokers and investors
that: (1) a prominent accounting firm would audit the hedge
funds; (2) a prominent investment bank would serve as the
funds’ prime broker; and (3) one of the funds would invest
50% of its capital in certain life-insurance policies. In real-
ity, the audit never took place, the bank never opened a
prime brokerage account, and the hedge fund invested less
than 20% of its capital in the life-insurance policies. In ad-
dition to misrepresenting the funds’ investment strategies,
respondents allegedly overvalued the funds’ holdings to
charge higher management fees.
   The SEC assigned the action to one of its administrative
law judges, who held an evidentiary hearing and issued a
lengthy initial decision, concluding that respondents in fact
had violated the three securities laws. The full Commission
reviewed the initial decision and reached the same deter-
mination. The Commission also denied respondents’ con-
stitutional challenges to the order, including that the
agency’s in-house adjudication violated respondents’ Sev-
enth Amendment right to a jury trial in federal court. Ul-
timately, the SEC ordered respondents to pay a civil pen-
alty of $300,000 and to cease and desist from violating the
federal-securities laws. It also barred Jarkesy from doing
certain things in the securities industry and ordered Pa-
triot28 to disgorge $685,000 in illicit profits.
   Respondents filed a petition for review in the Fifth Cir-
cuit. 

 (2022). A divided panel granted the
petition and vacated the SEC’s order. The panel held, over
the dissent of Judge Davis, that respondents were entitled
to a jury trial in federal court under the Seventh Amend-
ment because the federal-securities antifraud provisions
were similar to common-law fraud claims to which the jury-
trial right would attach. See 

 at 451–459. Because the
SEC forced respondents to proceed within the agency, the
4                          SEC v. JARKESY

                       SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

Court of Appeals held that the SEC violated respondents’
Seventh Amendment rights and thus vacated the SEC’s or-
der. 

 at 465–466.1
  The majority affirms the Fifth Circuit’s decision, notwith-
standing the mountain of precedent against it. A faithful
application of our precedent would have led, inexorably, to
upholding the statutory scheme that Congress enacted for
the SEC’s in-house adjudication of federal-securities
claims.
                                II
   The majority did not need to break any new ground to
resolve respondents’ Seventh Amendment challenge. This
Court’s longstanding precedent and established govern-
ment practice uniformly support the constitutionality of ad-
ministrative schemes like the SEC’s: agency adjudications
of statutory claims for civil penalties brought by the Gov-
ernment in its sovereign capacity. See Part II–B (infra, at
7–14). In assessing the constitutionality of such adjudica-
tions, the political branches’ “ ‘[l]ong settled and established
practice,’ ” which this Court has upheld and reaffirmed time
and again, is entitled to “ ‘great weight.’ ” Chiafalo v. Wash-
ington, 

, 592–593 (2020) (quoting The Pocket
Veto Case, 

 (1929)); accord, Vidal v. El-
ster, 

, 323 (2024) (BARRETT, J., concurring in
part); id., at 330 (SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in judgment);
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Fi-
nancial Services Assn. of America, Ltd., 

, 442
——————
   1 As the majority notes, respondents also prevailed on two other con-

stitutional challenges in the Court of Appeals. See ante, at 6. The di-
vided panel concluded that: (1) the SEC’s discretion to bring the case
within the agency instead of federal court violated the nondelegation doc-
trine; and (2) a for-cause restriction on the Administrative Law Judge’s
removal violated Article II and the separation of powers. 

,
459–465 (CA5 2022). I disagree with the ruling below on both points.
Because the majority does not reach these issues, though, I address only
the Seventh Amendment challenge discussed in the majority’s opinion.
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)              5

                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

(2024) (KAGAN, J., concurring).
                                A
   There are two key constitutional provisions at issue here.
One is the Seventh Amendment, which “preserve[s]” the
“right of trial by jury” in “Suits at common law, where the
value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars.” The
other is Article III’s Vesting Clause, which provides that the
“judicial Power of the United States . . . shall be vested” in
federal Article III courts. This case presents the familiar
interplay between these two provisions.
   Although this case involves a Seventh Amendment chal-
lenge, the principal question at issue is one rooted in Article
III and the separation of powers. That is because, as the
majority rightly acknowledges, the Seventh Amendment’s
jury-trial right “applies” only in “an Article III court.” Ante,
at 7. That conclusion follows from both the text of the Con-
stitution and this Court’s precedents.
   As to the text, the Amendment is limited to “Suits at com-
mon law.” That means two things. First, that the right
applies only in judicial proceedings. The term “suit,” after
all, refers to “the prosecution of some demand in a Court of
justice,” Cohens v. Virginia, 

 (1821) (Mar-
shall, C. J.), or a “proceeding in a court of justice,” Weston
v. City Council of Charleston, 

 (1829) (same)
(“The modes of proceeding may be various, but if a right is
litigated between parties in a court of justice, the proceed-
ing by which the decision of the court is sought, is a suit”).
Consistent with that understanding, this Court has held re-
peatedly that “the Seventh Amendment is not applicable to
administrative proceedings.” Tull v. United States, 

 (1987); accord, Atlas Roofing, 430 U. S.,
at 454–455; Curtis v. Loether, 

 (1974).
Factfinding by a jury is “incompatible with the whole con-
cept of administrative adjudication,” which empowers exec-
utive officials to find the relevant facts and apply the law to
6                           SEC v. JARKESY

                       SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

those facts like juries do in a courtroom. Pernell v. Southall
Realty, 

 (1974) (collecting cases).
    Second, the requirement that the “ ‘[s]uit’ ” must be one
“ ‘at common law’ ” means that the claim at issue must be
“ ‘legal in nature.’ ” Ante, at 8. So, whether a defendant is
entitled to a jury under the Seventh Amendment depends
on both the forum and the cause of action. If the claim is in
an Article III proceeding, then the right to a jury attaches
if the claim is “legal in nature” and the amount in contro-
versy exceeds $20. Granfinanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 

 (1989); Atlas Roofing, 

. Yet when, as here, the claim proceeds in a non-
Article III forum, the relevant question becomes whether
“Congress properly assign[ed the] matter” for decision to
that forum consistent with Article III and the separation of
powers. Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy
Group, LLC, 

 (2018). In other words, the
question is whether Congress improperly bestowed federal
judicial power on a non-Article III forum. See 

(Congress cannot “ ‘confer the Government’s “judicial
Power” on entities outside Article III’ ” (quoting Stern v.
Marshall, 

 (2011))).2
    The conclusion that Congress properly assigned a matter
to an agency for adjudication therefore necessarily “resolves
[any] Seventh Amendment challenge.” Oil States, 

 (explaining that if non-Article III adjudication

——————
   2 Since the founding, Executive Branch officials have adjudicated cer-

tain matters, while others have required resolution in an Article III
court. An executive official properly vested with the authority to find
facts, apply the law to those facts, and impose the consequences pre-
scribed by law exercises executive power under Article II, not judicial
power under Article III. See Arlington v. FCC, 

(2013) (explaining that agency rulemaking and adjudications may “take
‘legislative’ and ‘judicial’ forms, but they are exercises of—indeed, under
our constitutional structure they must be exercises of—the ‘executive
Power’ ” (quoting Art. II, §1, cl. 1)).
                      Cite as: 

 (2024)                     7

                       SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

is permissible, then “ ‘the Seventh Amendment poses no in-
dependent bar to the adjudication of that action by a non-
jury factfinder’ ” (quoting Granfinanciera, 492 U. S., at 53–
54)); see W. Baude, Adjudication Outside Article III, 

, 1571 (2020) (“The Article III analysis
should be conducted first, on its own. And then . . . if the
non-Article III adjudication is permissible, the Seventh
Amendment should be ignored”). When executive power is
at stake, Congress does not violate Article III or the Sev-
enth Amendment by authorizing a nonjury factfinder to ad-
judicate the dispute.
   So, the critical issue in this type of case is whether Con-
gress can assign a particular matter to a non-Article III
factfinder.
                                B
    For more than a century and a half, this Court has an-
swered that Article III question by pointing to the distinc-
tion between “private rights” and “public rights.” See Mur-
ray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 

 (1856) (recognizing public-rights exception). The
distinction is helpful because public rights always can be
assigned outside of Article III. They “ ‘do not require judi-
cial determination’ ” under the Constitution, even if they
“ ‘are susceptible of it.’ ” Crowell v. Benson, 

(1932) (quoting Ex parte Bakelite Corp., 

(1929)).
    The majority says that aspects of the public-rights doc-
trine have been confusing. See ante, at 17. That might be
true for cases involving wholly private disputes, but not for
cases where the Government is a party.3 It has long been

——————
  3 Every case that has expressed consternation about the precise con-

tours of the public-rights doctrine, including those cited by the majority,
involve only private disputes—or, more precisely, “disputes to which the
Federal Government is not a party in its sovereign capacity.” Granfi-
8                           SEC v. JARKESY

                       SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

settled and undisputed that, at a minimum, a matter of
public rights arises “between the government and persons
subject to its authority in connection with the performance
of the constitutional functions of the executive or legislative
departments.” Crowell, 

; Oil States, 

 (describing the “Court’s longstanding formula-
tion of the public-rights doctrine”); accord, Granfinanciera,

, and n. 8; Atlas Roofing, 

; Ex parte Bakelite Corp., 

. Indeed,
“from the time the doctrine of public rights was born, in
1856,” everyone understood that public rights “ ‘arise “be-
tween the government and others,” ’ ” and refer to “rights of
the public—that is, rights pertaining to claims brought by
or against the United States.” Granfinanciera, 492 U. S.,
at 68–69 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in
judgment); see 

 (collecting sources). So, while this
Court has recognized public rights in certain disputes be-
tween private parties, see infra, at 19–20, the doctrine’s
heartland consists of claims belonging to the Government.
   When a claim belongs to the Government as sovereign,
the Constitution permits Congress to enact new statutory
obligations, prescribe consequences for the breach of those
obligations, and then empower federal agencies to adjudi-
cate such violations and impose the appropriate penalty.
See Atlas Roofing, 430 U. S., at 450–455 (collecting cases).4
——————
nanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 

 (1989) (involving dis-
pute between private parties in bankruptcy court); see ante, at 17 (citing
Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, 

, 332–334 (2018) (involving patent dispute between private parties
before the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office); Thomas v. Union Carbide
Agricultural Products Co., 

 (1985) (involving challenge
to arbitration procedure for private parties disputing data compensation
under federal pesticide registration program)); see also Stern v. Mar-
shall, 

, 469–470 (2011) (involving dispute between private
parties in bankruptcy court); Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon
Pipe Line Co., 

, 56–57 (1982) (plurality opinion) (same).
  4 Judicial review of these agency decisions allows Congress to avoid
                      Cite as: 

 (2024)                     9

                       SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

This Court has repeatedly emphasized these unifying prin-
ciples through an unbroken series of cases over almost 200
years.
                                1
   Start at the beginning, with Murray’s Lessee in 1856. In
that case, the Government issued a warrant to compel a
federal customs collector to produce public funds that the
Government determined the collector had unlawfully with-
held. See 18 How., at 274–275. The Government executed
the warrant to seize and sell a plot of the collector’s land to
make up for the withheld funds. See id., at 274. In uphold-
ing the sale of the seized property, this Court concluded
that the Government’s in-house assessment and collection
of taxes and penalties based on a federal official’s adjudica-
tion of the facts did not violate Article III. The scheme was

——————
any due process concerns that might arise from having executive officials
deprive someone of their property without review in an Article III court.
See Atlas Roofing Co. v. Occupational Safety and Health Review
Comm’n, 

 (1977) (“[T]hese cases do not present
the question whether Congress may commit the adjudication of public
rights and the imposition of fines for their violation to an administrative
agency without any sort of intervention by a court at any stage of the
proceedings”); accord, Oil States, 

 (same); Tr. of Oral
Arg. 29 (Principal Deputy Solicitor General) (stating that “the Court has
emphasized that judicial review of agency action may well be required”
and the Due Process Clause may “ha[ve] something to say” about that
requirement). The concurrence reproaches this dissent for declining to
address any potential deficiencies in this administrative scheme, as well
as failing to specify which forms of judicial review may be constitution-
ally required, see ante, at 22 (opinion of GORSUCH, J.), even though re-
spondents did not raise any due process challenge in this case. Deciding
whether this statutory scheme is procedurally deficient and so circum-
scribes judicial review that it violates due process would be inconsistent
with the “settled principles of party presentation and adversarial test-
ing.” Vidal v. Elster, 

 (2024) (SOTOMAYOR, J., concur-
ring in judgment) (citing Maslenjak v. United States, 

(2017) (GORSUCH, J., joined by THOMAS, J., concurring in part and con-
curring in judgment)).
10                     SEC v. JARKESY

                   SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

constitutional, the Court said, because “public rights” were
at issue. Id., at 284. In other words, the dispute arose be-
tween the Government and the customs collector in connec-
tion with the Government’s exercise of its constitutional
power to collect revenue. Congress could have brought such
claims, if it wanted, “within the cognizance of the courts of
the United States, as it may deem proper.” Ibid. The Court
thus endorsed that constitutional balance: Congress could
decide whether to assign a public-rights dispute to the Ex-
ecutive for initial adjudication subject to judicial review or
to an Article III federal court for resolution.
   Fast forward half a century. In Oceanic Steam Nav. Co.
v. Stranahan, 

, 338–340 (1909), the Court up-
held a customs official’s imposition of a penalty on a steam-
ship company that violated immigration laws barring the
entry of certain classes of people into the country. The cus-
toms official determined the facts, adjudicated the viola-
tion, and enforced the statutory prohibition on immigration
through the assessment of a monetary penalty. See 

. The Court noted the breadth of Congress’s immigra-
tion power and held that the civil-penalty statutory scheme
at issue was “beyond all question constitutional.” 

. Yet, far from restricting the public-rights doctrine to
this particular exercise of congressional power or to specific
prerogatives, the Stranahan Court went out of its way to
explain that the “settled judicial construction” that civil-
penalty claims brought by the Government could be as-
signed to the Executive for initial adjudication extended
“not only as to tariff, but as to internal revenue, taxation,
and other subjects,” including the regulation of foreign com-
merce. 

; see also 

 at 334–335.
   Importantly, Stranahan rejected the “proposition” that,
in “cases of penalty or punishment, . . . enforcement must
depend upon the exertion of judicial power, either by civil
or criminal process.” 

. In words that could have
                      Cite as: 

 (2024)                    11

                       SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

been written in response to today’s ruling, the Court ex-
plained that such a “proposition magnifies the judicial to
the detriment of all other departments of the Government,
disregards many previous adjudications of this court, and
ignores practices often manifested and hitherto deemed to
be free from any possible constitutional question.” Ibid.
For that reason, the validity of legislation authorizing the
non-Article III adjudication of civil-penalty claims does not
turn on the Judiciary’s assessment of whether it is neces-
sary for executive officials “to enforce designated penalties
without resort to the courts.” Id., at 339. Whether or not
such legislation violates Article III depends on whether
Congress acted pursuant to a “grant of power made by the
Constitution,” and not on whether it “relate[s] to subjects
peculiarly within the authority of the legislative depart-
ment of the Government” or on the circumstances that
might have “caused Congress to exert a specified power.”
Id., at 339–340.
   By the time Stranahan was decided, Congress already
routinely “impose[d] appropriate obligations and sanc-
tion[ed] their enforcement by reasonable money penalties,
giving to executive officers the power to enforce such penal-
ties without the necessity of invoking the judicial power.”
Id., at 339. Far from limiting the public-rights doctrine to
the particular context in Stranahan and prior cases, this
Court has expressly rejected the notion that the public-
rights doctrine is so confined. See infra, at 18–19. This
Court has repeatedly approved Congress’s assignment of
public rights to agencies in diverse areas of the law, reflect-
ing Congress’s varied constitutional powers.5 A nonexhaus-
tive list includes “interstate and foreign commerce, taxa-
tion, immigration, the public lands, public health, the
——————
  5 The majority’s fixation on this dissent’s discussion of Stranahan, see

ante, at 16, n. 1, misses the fact that Stranahan exists within a long line
of cases recognizing the diverse areas of the law comprising the public-
rights doctrine.
12                     SEC v. JARKESY

                   SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

facilities of the post office, pensions, and payments to vet-
erans,” Crowell, 

, and n. 13 (collecting
cases); see also, e.g., Helvering v. Mitchell, 

,
401–404 (1938) (administrative penalty for underpayment
of taxes); NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 

, 22–24, 48–49 (1937) (reinstatement of dismissed em-
ployee and backpay in adjudication of unfair-labor-prac-
tices claim under the National Labor Relations Act); Phil-
lips v. Commissioner, 

, 591–592 (1931)
(deficiency assessments for unpaid taxes); Lloyd Sabaudo
Societa Anonima per Azioni v. Elting, 

, 334–
335 (1932) (fines for violation of immigration law barring
entry of certain classes of individuals); Ex parte Bakelite
Corp., 279 U. S., at 446–447, 451, 458 (adjudication of un-
fair-methods-of-competition and unfair-acts claims, and im-
position of additional duties under customs law); Passavant
v. United States, 

, 215–216, 220 (1893) (pen-
alty for undervaluation of imported merchandise).
   The list could go on and on. That is because, in every case
where the Government has acted in its sovereign capacity
to enforce a new statutory obligation through the adminis-
trative imposition of civil penalties or fines, this Court,
without exception, has sustained the statutory scheme au-
thorizing that enforcement outside of Article III.
                               2
   A unanimous Court made this exact point nearly half a
century ago in Atlas Roofing. That was the last time this
Court considered a public-rights case where the constitu-
tionality of an in-house adjudication of statutory claims
brought by the Government was at issue. That case pre-
sented the same question as this one: Whether the Seventh
Amendment permits Congress to commit the adjudication
of a new cause of action for civil penalties to an administra-
tive agency. 

. The Court said it did.
                  Cite as: 

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                   SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

   In Atlas Roofing, the Court explained how Congress iden-
tified a national problem, concluded that existing legal rem-
edies were inadequate to address it, and then created a new
statutory scheme that endorsed Executive in-house enforce-
ment as a solution. Specifically, Congress found “that
work-related deaths and injuries had become a ‘drastic’ na-
tional problem,” and that existing causes of action, includ-
ing tort actions for negligence and wrongful death, did not
adequately “protect the employee population from death
and injury due to unsafe working conditions.” Id., at 444–
445. In response, Congress enacted the Occupational
Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA) to require employers
“to avoid maintaining unsafe or unhealthy working condi-
tions.” Id., at 445. OSHA in turn “empower[ed] the Secre-
tary of Labor to promulgate health and safety standards,”
and the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commis-
sion to impose civil penalties on employers maintaining un-
safe working conditions, regardless of whether any worker
was in fact injured or killed. Id., at 445–446.
   Two employers that had been assessed civil penalties for
OSHA violations resulting in the death of employees chal-
lenged the constitutionality of the statute’s enforcement
procedures. They observed that “a suit in a federal court by
the Government for civil penalties for violation of a statute
is a suit for a money judgment[,] which is classically a suit
at common law.” Id., at 449. Therefore, the employers
claimed, the Seventh Amendment right to a jury attached
and Congress could not assign the matter to an agency for
resolution. See ibid.
   This Court upheld OSHA’s statutory scheme. It relied on
the long history of public-rights cases endorsing Congress’s
now-settled practice of assigning the Government’s rights
to civil penalties for violations of a statutory obligation to
in-house adjudication in the first instance. See id., at 450–
455. In light of this “history and our cases,” the Court con-
14                     SEC v. JARKESY

                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

cluded that, where Congress “create[s] a new cause of ac-
tion, and remedies therefor, unknown to the common law,”
it is free to “plac[e] their enforcement in a tribunal supply-
ing speedy and expert resolutions of the issues involved.”
Id., at 460–461. “That is the case even if the Seventh
Amendment would have required a jury where the adjudi-
cation of those rights is assigned to a federal court of law.”
Id., at 455; see id., at 461, n. 16.
   The “new rule” and “legally unsound principle” that the
majority accuses this dissent of “unfurl[ing]” today, ante, at
17–18, n. 2, is the one that this Court declared “ ‘settled ju-
dicial construction’ . . . ‘from the beginning’ ”: “[T]he Gov-
ernment could commit the enforcement of statutes and the
imposition and collection of fines . . . for administrative en-
forcement, without judicial trials,” even if the same action
would have required a jury trial if committed to an Article
III court. Atlas Roofing, 

 (collecting cases);
accord, Elting, 

 (Congress “may lawfully
impose appropriate obligations, sanction their enforcement
by reasonable money penalties, and invest in administra-
tive officials the power to impose and enforce them”);
Stranahan, 

 (Congress may “impose appro-
priate obligations and sanction their enforcement by rea-
sonable money penalties, giving to executive officers the
power to enforce such penalties without the necessity of in-
voking the judicial power”).
                             C
   It should be obvious by now how this case should have
been resolved under a faithful and straightforward applica-
tion of Atlas Roofing and a long line of this Court’s prece-
dents. The constitutional question is indistinguishable.
The majority instead wishes away Atlas Roofing by burying
it at the end of its opinion and minimizing the unbroken
line of cases on which Atlas Roofing relied. That approach
                  Cite as: 

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                   SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

to precedent significantly undermines this Court’s commit-
ment to stare decisis and the rule of law.
   This case may involve a different statute from Atlas Roof-
ing, but the schemes are remarkably similar. Here, just as
in Atlas Roofing, Congress identified a problem; concluded
that the existing remedies were inadequate; and enacted a
new regulatory scheme as a solution. The problem was a
lack of transparency and accountability in the securities
market that contributed to the Great Depression of the
1930s. See ante, at 1. The inadequate remedies were the
then-existing state statutory and common-law fraud causes
of action. The solution was a comprehensive federal scheme
of securities regulation consisting of the Securities Act of
1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the Invest-
ment Advisers Act of 1940. See ibid. In particular, Con-
gress enacted these securities laws to ensure “full disclo-
sure” and promote ethical business practices “in the
securities industry,” SEC v. Capital Gains Research Bu-
reau, Inc., 

 (1963), as well as to “protect
investors against manipulation of stock prices,” Ernst &
Ernst v. Hochfelder, 

 (1976).
   The prophylactic nature of the statutory regime also is
virtually indistinguishable from the OSHA scheme at issue
in Atlas Roofing. Among other things, these securities laws
prohibit the misrepresentation or concealment of various
material facts through the imposition of federal registration
and disclosure requirements. See ante, at 2. Critically, fed-
eral-securities laws do not require proof of actual reliance
on an investor’s misrepresentations or that an “investor has
actually suffered financial loss.” Ante, at 4; see also SEC v.
Life Partners Holdings, Inc. 

 (CA5 2017);
SEC v. Blavin, 

 (CA6 1985) (per curiam).
OSHA too prohibits conduct that could, but does not neces-
sarily, injure a private person. Atlas Roofing, 

 (OSHA remedies “exis[t] whether or not an employee is
16                     SEC v. JARKESY

                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

actually injured or killed as a result of the [unsafe or un-
healthy working] condition”). The employer’s failure to
maintain safe and healthy working conditions violates
OSHA even if there is no actionable harm to an employee,
just as a misrepresentation to investors in connection with
the buying or selling of securities violates federal-securities
law even if there is no actual injury to the investors.
   Moreover, both here and in Atlas Roofing, Congress em-
powered the Government to institute administrative en-
forcement proceedings to adjudicate potential violations of
federal law and impose civil penalties on a private party for
those violations, all while making the final agency decision
subject to judicial review. In bringing a securities claim,
the SEC seeks redress for a “violation” that “is committed
against the United States rather than an aggrieved individ-
ual,” which “is why, for example, a securities-enforcement
action may proceed even if victims do not support or are not
parties to the prosecution.” Kokesh v. SEC, 

 (2017). Put differently, the SEC seeks to “ ‘remedy
harm to the public at large’ ” for violation of the Govern-
ment’s rights. 

 The Government likewise seeks to
remedy a public harm when it enforces OSHA’s prohibition
of unsafe working conditions.
   Ultimately, both cases arise between the Government
and others in connection with the performance of the Gov-
ernment’s constitutional functions, and involve the Govern-
ment acting in its sovereign capacity to bring a statutory
claim on behalf of the United States in order to vindicate
the public interest. They both involve, as Atlas Roofing put
it, “new cause[s] of action, and remedies therefor, unknown
to the common law.” 

. Neither Article III
nor the Seventh Amendment prohibits Congress from as-
signing the enforcement of these new “Governmen[t] rights
to civil penalties” to non-Article III adjudicators, and thus
“supplying speedy and expert resolutions of the issues in-
volved.” 

. In a world where precedent means
                  Cite as: 

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                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

something, this should end the case. Yet here it does not.
                               III
   The practice of assigning the Government’s right to civil
penalties for statutory violations to non-Article III adjudi-
cation had been so settled that it become an undisputable
reality of how “our Government has actually worked.” Con-
sumer Financial Protection Bureau, 

(KAGAN, J., concurring). That is why the Court has had no
cause to address this kind of constitutional challenge since
its unanimous decision in Atlas Roofing. The majority
takes a wrecking ball to this settled law and stable govern-
ment practice. To do so, it misreads this Court’s precedents,
ignores those that do not suit its thesis, and advances dis-
tinctions created from whole cloth.
   The majority’s treatment of the public-rights doctrine is
not only incomplete, but is gerrymandered to produce to-
day’s result. See Part III–A (infra, at 17–21). Unable to
explain that doctrine, the majority effectively ignores the
Article III threshold question to focus instead on two Sev-
enth Amendment cases: Tull v. United States, 

(1987), and Granfinanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 

(1989). Neither involved the in-house adjudication of stat-
utory claims brought by the Government pursuant to its
sovereign powers, which is the critical fact under this
Court’s precedent. See Part III–B–1 (infra, at 22–24) (dis-
cussing Tull); Part III–B–2 (infra, at 24–29) (discussing
Granfinanciera). The majority and the concurrence then
predictably fail to distinguish Atlas Roofing, which resolved
the Seventh Amendment question for cases like this one im-
plicating that critical fact. See Part III–C (infra, at 29–32).
                               A
   To start, it is almost impossible to discern how the major-
ity defines a public right and whether its view of the doc-
trine is consistent with this Court’s public-rights cases. The
18                          SEC v. JARKESY

                       SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

majority at times seems to limit the public-rights exception
to areas of its own choosing. It points out, for example, that
some public-rights cases involved the collection of revenue,
customs law, and immigration law, see ante, at 14–17, and
that Atlas Roofing involved OSHA and not “civil penalty
suits for fraud,” ante, at 22.6 Other times, the majority
highlights a particular practice predating the founding,
such as the “unbroken tradition” in Murray’s Lessee of ex-
ecutive officials issuing warrants of distress to collect reve-
nue. Ante, at 15; see also ante, at 13–14 (GORSUCH, J., con-
curring). Needless to say, none of these explanations for
the doctrine is satisfactory. What is the legal principle be-
hind saying only these areas and no further? This Court
has rejected that kind of arbitrary line-drawing in cases
like Stranahan and Atlas Roofing. How does the require-
ment of a historical practice dating back to the founding, or
“flow[ing] from centuries-old rules,” ante, at 17, account for
the broad universe of public-rights cases in the United
States Reporter? The majority does not say.
   The majority’s only other theory fares no better. The ma-
jority seems to suggest that a common thread underlying
these cases is that “the political branches had traditionally
held exclusive power over th[ese] field[s] and had exercised
it.” Ante, at 16–17. To the extent the majority thinks this
is a distinction, it fails for at least two reasons.
   First, Atlas Roofing expressly rejected the argument that
the public-rights doctrine is limited to particular exercises
of congressional power. The employers in Atlas Roofing ar-
gued “that cases such as Murray’s Lessee, Elting, [Strana-
han], Phillips, and Helvering all deal with the exercise of
sovereign powers that are inherently in the exclusive do-

——————
   6 The majority also cites cases involving “relations with Indian tribes,

the administration of public lands, and the granting of public benefits
such as payments to veterans, pensions, and patent rights.” Ante, at 17
(citations omitted).
                   Cite as: 

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                     SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

main of the Federal Government and critical to its very ex-
istence—the power over immigration, the importation of
goods, and taxation.” 

. Cabining the cases
in that way, the employers argued that “[t]he theory of
those cases is inapplicable where the Government exercises
other powers that [they] regard[ed] as less fundamental,
less exclusive, and less vital to the existence of the Nation,
such as the power to regulate commerce among the several
States, the latter being the power Congress sought to exer-
cise in enacting [OSHA].” 

 The Court rejected the em-
ployers’ argument, explaining that nothing in those cases
turned on those particular exercises of the Government’s
authority. See 

 at 456–457; cf. Crowell, 

(offering a list of “[f]amiliar illustrations of . . . exercise[s]”
of Congress’s constitutional authority that have fallen
within the public-rights exception to Article III).
   Second, even if Atlas Roofing had not explicitly rejected
the proposed distinction here, the majority cannot reconcile
its restrictive view of the public-rights doctrine with Atlas
Roofing and other precedents. For example, it is unclear
how OSHA, or the National Labor Relations Act at issue in
Jones & Laughlin, would fit the majority’s view of the pub-
lic-rights doctrine, or why the exercise of interstate-com-
merce power to enact those statutes would be any different
from the exercise of that same power to enact the federal-
securities laws at issue here. See Atlas Roofing, 

 (“It is also apparent that Jones & Laughlin, Pernell,
and Curtis are not amenable to the limitations suggested
by [the employers]”).
   The majority’s description of the doctrine also fails to ac-
count for public rights that do not belong to the Federal
Government in its sovereign capacity. See Granfinanciera,

 (“[T]he Federal Government need not be a
party for a case to revolve around ‘public rights’ ”). This
Court, after all, has rejected the confinement of public
rights to that heartland. See 

 (“[W]e [have] rejected the
20                      SEC v. JARKESY

                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

view that ‘a matter of public rights must at a minimum
arise “between the government and others” ’ ”). Conspicu-
ously absent from the majority’s discussion are, for exam-
ple, cases in which this Court held that Congress could as-
sign a private federally created action that was “closely
integrated into a public regulatory scheme” for adjudication
in a non-Article III forum. Thomas v. Union Carbide Agri-
cultural Products Co., 

 (1985). These
cases include, for example, an agency’s adjudication of
state-law counterclaims to an investor’s federal action
against its broker, Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n v.
Schor, 

, 835–836, 847–850 (1986), and the ar-
bitration of data-compensation disputes among partici-
pants in the Environmental Protection Agency’s pesticide
registration scheme, Thomas, 

, 589–592.
Both Thomas and Schor thus upheld the non-Article III ad-
judication of disputes between private parties, which natu-
rally did not involve the Government in its sovereign capac-
ity.
   Even accepting the majority’s public-rights-are-confusing
defense, its “strategy for dealing with the confusion is not
to offer a theory for rationalizing this body of law,” but to
provide an incomplete and unprincipled account of the doc-
trine. Haaland v. Brackeen, 

 (2023). The
majority references, but does not explain, “distinctions our
cases have drawn,” ante, at 18, n. 2, also cherry-picking
some cases and ignoring others. Indeed, in lieu of a coher-
ent theory, all the majority has to offer is a list of five “his-
toric categories of adjudications [that] fall within the excep-
tion,” ante, at 14–17, and maybe (just maybe) OSHA, which
the majority reluctantly adds to the mix at the end of its
opinion for good measure, see ante, at 22–24. The majority
ignores countless public-rights cases and entire strands of
the doctrine, and fails to heed its own admonition that
“close attention” must be paid “to the basis for each asserted
                     Cite as: 

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                       SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

application of the doctrine.” Ante, at 17.7
   The majority also attacks a strawman when it asserts
that “precedents foreclose th[e] argument” that the public-
rights doctrine “applies whenever a statute increases gov-
ernmental efficiency.” Ante, at 26; see also ante, at 19
(GORSUCH, J., concurring). No one has made that argument
in this case; not the Government and certainly not this dis-
sent. The fact that certain rights might be susceptible to
speedy and expert resolution through non-Article III adju-
dication is not what makes them “rights of the public—that
is, rights pertaining to claims brought by or against the
United States.” Granfinanciera, 492 U. S., at 68–69
(Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
   It is not clear what else, if anything, might qualify as a
public right, or what is even left of the doctrine after today’s
opinion. Rather than recognize the long-settled principle
that a statutory right belonging to the Government in its
sovereign capacity falls within the public-rights exception
to Article III, the majority opts for a “we know it when we
see it” formulation. This Court’s precedents and our coe-
qual branches of Government deserve better.
                               B
   Rather than relying on Atlas Roofing or the relevant pub-
lic-rights cases, the majority instead purports to follow Tull
and Granfinanciera. The former involved a suit in federal
court and the latter involved a dispute between private par-
ties. So, just like that, the majority ventures off on the
wrong path. Indeed, as explained below, both the majority
and the concurrence miss the critical distinction drawn in


——————
   7 Among other things, the concurrence accuses this dissent of behaving

like a “picky child at the dinner table.” Ante, at 21 (opinion of GORSUCH,
J.). The precedents, though, speak for themselves. It is the majority and
concurrence that pick and choose among public-rights cases, excluding
broad strands of precedent constituting the doctrine.
22                      SEC v. JARKESY

                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

this Court’s precedents between the non-Article III adjudi-
cation of public-rights matters involving the liability of one
individual to another and those involving claims belonging
to the Government in its sovereign capacity.
   According to the majority, respondents are entitled to a
jury trial in federal court because, as here, Tull involved a
Government claim for civil penalties, and Granfinanciera
looked to the common law to determine if a statutory cause
of action was legal in nature. By focusing on the remedy in
this case, and the perceived similarities between the statu-
tory cause of action and a common-law analogue, the ma-
jority elides the critical distinction between those cases and
this one: Whether Congress assigned the Government’s sov-
ereign rights to civil penalties to a non-Article III factfinder
for adjudication.
                               1
    The majority bafflingly proclaims that “the remedy is all
but dispositive” in this case, ante, at 9, ignoring that Atlas
Roofing and countless precedents before it rejected that
proposition. Not content to take just a page from the em-
ployers’ challenge in Atlas Roofing, the majority has taken
their whole brief, resuscitating yet another theory that this
Court has long foreclosed. The employers in Atlas Roofing
argued that the Seventh Amendment prohibited Congress
from assigning to an agency the same remedy at issue here:
civil penalties. See 

 (“Petitioners . . . claim
that . . . assign[ing] the function of adjudicating the Gov-
ernment’s rights to civil penalties for [a statutory] violation
. . . deprive[s] a defendant of his Seventh Amendment jury
right”). This Court rejected that argument outright, citing
a long line of cases involving the Executive’s adjudication of
statutory claims for civil penalties brought by the Govern-
ment in its sovereign capacity. 

 at 450–455 (collecting
cases).
                   Cite as: 

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                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

   As discussed above, this Court has long endorsed statu-
tory schemes authorizing agency adjudicators to find viola-
tions and award civil penalties to the Government. See su-
pra, at 9–12. Long before Atlas Roofing, this Court held
that the Constitution permits Congress to enact statutory
obligations and then “sanction their enforcement by reason-
able money penalties” by government officials “without the
necessity of invoking the judicial power.” Stranahan, 

; see 

 at 338–339 (collecting cases). That the
SEC imposed civil penalties on respondents therefore has
little, if any, bearing on the resolution of this case.
   Again, even if over a century of precedent did not fore-
close the majority’s argument, it fails on its own terms. The
majority relies almost entirely on Tull, which held that
statutory claims for civil penalties were “a type of remedy
at common law” that entitled a defendant to a jury trial.

; see 

. Critically, however, the
Tull Court’s analysis took place in an entirely different con-
text: federal court. See ante, at 8–9 (“In [Tull], the Govern-
ment sued a real estate developer for civil penalties [under
the Clean Water Act] in federal court” (emphasis added)).
Tull did not present the question at issue in Atlas Roofing
and other cases involving non-Article III adjudication of
Government claims in the first instance. Rather, Tull
stands for the unremarkable proposition that, when the
Government sues an entity for civil penalties in federal dis-
trict court, the Seventh Amendment entitles the defendant
“to a jury trial to determine his liability on the legal claims.”

.
   That conclusion says nothing about the constitutionality
of the SEC’s in-house adjudicative scheme. Atlas Roofing
and its predecessors could not have been clearer on this
point: Congress can assign the enforcement of a statutory
obligation for in-house adjudication to executive officials,
“even if the Seventh Amendment would have required a
jury where the adjudication of those rights is assigned to a
24                      SEC v. JARKESY

                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

federal court of law instead of an administrative agency.”

. Although “the Government could commit
the enforcement of statutes and the imposition and collec-
tion of fines to the judiciary, in which event jury trial would
be required,” the Government “could also validly opt for ad-
ministrative enforcement, without judicial trials.” 

 at
460 (citing Stranahan, 

; Hepner v. United
States, 

 (1909); United States v. Regan, 

 (1914); Helvering, 303 U. S., at 402–403; Crowell,
285 U. S., at 50–51); Curtis, 

 (explaining
that Congress can “entrust [the] enforcement of statutory
rights to an administrative process . . . free from the stric-
tures of the Seventh Amendment,” but must abide by the
Amendment when it does so “in an ordinary civil action in
the district courts”).
   It would have been quite remarkable for Tull, which in-
volved a claim in federal court, to overrule silently more
than a century of caselaw involving non-Article III adjudi-
cations of the Government’s rights to civil penalties for stat-
utory violations. Of course, Tull did no such thing. Tull
even reaffirmed Atlas Roofing by emphasizing that the Sev-
enth Amendment depends on the forum, not just the rem-
edy, because it “is not applicable to administrative proceed-
ings.” 

, n. 4 (citing Atlas Roofing, 

; Pernell, 

). For the majority to pre-
tend otherwise is wishful thinking at best.
                              2
  The majority next argues that the “close relationship” be-
tween the federal-securities laws and common-law fraud
“confirms that this action is ‘legal in nature,’ ” and entitles
respondents to a jury trial. Ante, at 13. That argument
does not fare any better than the argument on remedy.
Again, the majority bends inapposite case law to an illogical
thesis. Granfinanciera, on which the majority relies to
make its cause-of-action argument, set forth the public-
                      Cite as: 

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                       SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

rights analysis only for “disputes to which the Federal Gov-
ernment is not a party in its sovereign capacity.” 

. For cases that, as here, involve the Govern-
ment in its sovereign capacity, the Granfinanciera Court
plainly stated that “Congress may fashion causes of action
that are closely analogous to common-law claims and [still]
place them beyond the ambit of the Seventh Amendment by
assigning their resolution to a [non-Article III] forum in
which jury trials are unavailable.” 

 at 52 (citing Atlas
Roofing, 430 U. S., at 450–461).8
  The Court held in Granfinanciera that “a person who has
not submitted a claim against a bankruptcy estate has a
right to a jury trial when sued by the trustee in bankruptcy
to recover an allegedly fraudulent monetary transfer.” 

. In doing so, the Court noted that actions to
recover such transfers through a claim of fraudulent con-
veyance were traditionally available at common law. See
——————
  8 The majority leaves open the possibility that Granfinanciera might

have overruled Atlas Roofing. See ante, at 22–23. That suggestion
strains credulity. By my count, Granfinanciera favorably cites to Atlas
Roofing at least 12 times. See 

, 51–54, 57, 60–61; see also

 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). It
even reaffirmed the definition of public rights from Atlas Roofing, declar-
ing that the Court “adhere[d] to that general teaching . . . in Atlas Roof-
ing.” 

. The majority’s only response is to say that Justice
White thought Granfinanciera may have overruled Atlas Roofing. See
ante, at 23, n. 3; see also ante, at 17 (GORSUCH, J., concurring). That is
misleading at best. When Justice White said in his Granfinanciera dis-
sent that the Court’s opinion in that case could be read as overruling or
limiting portions of several cases, including Atlas Roofing, he was refer-
ring to his understanding that Atlas Roofing also extended to private
disputes. See Granfinanciera, 492 U. S., at 79–83; see also Tr. of Oral
Arg. 58–59 (Principal Deputy Solicitor General explaining that Justice
White understood “Atlas Roofing to speak [also] to the private parties
cases,” not just to cases involving the Government, which “is really a
through line that the Court has never questioned”). With respect to
claims involving the Government, such as those at issue here, Granfi-
nanciera expressly reaffirmed Atlas Roofing and “adhere[d] to [its] gen-
eral teaching.” 

.
26                      SEC v. JARKESY

                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

 at 43–49. That did not resolve the case, however. Un-
like in Tull, the proceeding at issue in Granfinanciera was
in a non-Article III forum (i.e., a bankruptcy court). So, to
answer whether Congress could assign the fraudulent-con-
veyance claim to a bankruptcy judge for decision, Congress
needed to decide whether the “legal cause of action in-
volve[d] ‘public rights.’ ” 

.
   Granfinanciera explains that there are two ways to iden-
tify a “public right.” First, there are the matters in which
Congress enacts a statutory cause of action that “inheres in,
or lies against, the Federal Government in its sovereign ca-
pacity.” 

 at 53 (citing Atlas Roofing, 

).
These matters necessarily arise between the Government
and the people in connection with the Government’s exer-
cise of its constitutional authority. See supra, at 7–8. In
these cases, the Court said, Atlas Roofing controls the pub-
lic-rights analysis. See Granfinanciera, 

.
The Court explained that “Congress may effectively sup-
plant a common law cause of action carrying with it a right
to a jury trial with a statutory cause of action shorn of a
jury trial right if that statutory cause of action inheres in,
or lies against, the Federal Government in its sovereign ca-
pacity.” 

 at 53 (citing Atlas Roofing, 

).
   The second kind of public right that Granfinanciera rec-
ognized involves “disputes to which the Federal Govern-
ment is not a party in its sovereign capacity,” 

, that is, usually “[w]holly private” disputes, 

. The public-rights analysis in these private-dispute
cases looks different: “The crucial question, in cases not in-
volving the Federal Government, is whether ‘Congress, act-
ing for a valid legislative purpose pursuant to its constitu-
tional powers under Article I, has created a seemingly
“private” right that is so closely integrated into a public reg-
ulatory scheme as to be a matter appropriate for agency res-
olution with limited involvement by the Article III judici-
ary.’ ” 

 at 54 (quoting Thomas, 473 U. S., at 593–594;
                    Cite as: 

 (2024)                 27

                      SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

emphasis added; alterations omitted).
   These two approaches together stand for the proposition
that “[i]f a statutory right is not closely intertwined with a
federal regulatory program Congress has power to enact,
and if that right neither belongs to nor exists against the
Federal Government, then it must be adjudicated by an Ar-
ticle III court.” 492 U. S., at 54–55 (emphasis added). Once
in federal court, “[i]f the right is legal in nature, then it car-
ries with it the Seventh Amendment’s guarantee of a jury
trial.” Id., at 55.
   Because Granfinanciera did not involve a statutory right
that belonged to the Government in its sovereign capacity,
Atlas Roofing did not control the outcome. Instead, the
Court applied the private-disputes test to determine
whether fraudulent-conveyance “actions were ‘closely inter-
twined’ with the bankruptcy regime.” Ante, at 20 (quoting
Granfinanciera, 

). The Court held that the
fraudulent-conveyance actions “were not inseparable from
the bankruptcy process,” and thus the public-rights excep-
tion did not apply. Ante, at 20 (citing Granfinanciera, 

).
   The majority brushes aside this critical distinction be-
tween Atlas Roofing and Granfinanciera in one sentence.
That “the Government is the party prosecuting this action,”
the majority writes, is meaningless because this Court has
“never held that the ‘presence of the United States as a
proper party to the proceeding is . . . sufficient’ by itself to
trigger the exception.” Ante, at 22 (quoting Northern Pipe-
line Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 

 (1982) (plurality opinion)). Here, too, the majority at-
tacks a strawman. The SEC does not claim that the mere
presence of the United States as a proper party necessarily
means that a public right is at issue. See Reply Brief 8, n. 2
(disclaiming this argument).9 Of course “what matters is
——————
 9 Indeed, “the public-rights doctrine does not extend to any criminal
28                          SEC v. JARKESY

                       SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

the substance” of the claim. Ante, at 21.
   By no means, though, does this case involve a “purely tax-
onomic change.” Granfinanciera, 

. Con-
gress did not just repackage a common-law claim under a
new label. It created new statutory obligations and an en-
tire federal scheme. See supra, at 14–16.10 Perhaps most
importantly, Congress created a new right unknown to the
common law that, unlike common-law fraud, belongs to the
public and inheres in the Government in its sovereign ca-
pacity. That is why, when the SEC seeks to enforce the fed-
eral-securities laws, it does so to remedy the harm to the
United States. See supra, at 16. It seeks to protect the in-
tegrity of the securities market as a whole through the im-
position of new and distinct remedies like civil penalties
——————
matters, although the Government is a proper party.” Northern Pipeline
Constr. Co., 

 (plurality opinion) (citing United
States ex rel. Toth v. Quarles, 

 (1955)). That is so not only
because this Court has held as much, but also because Article III itself
prescribes that “[t]he trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment,
shall be by Jury.” §2, cl. 3. In other words, Article III requires criminal
trials to take place before a jury in federal court, but says nothing about
civil-penalty claims brought by the Government. Beyond criminal trials,
the Solicitor General also concedes that, under this Court’s precedents,
the public-rights doctrine does not apply when the Government brings a
common-law claim in a proprietary capacity. See Reply Brief 8, n. 2.
   10 The majority spills much ink on the perceived similarities between

federal-securities fraud and common-law fraud, only to conclude that the
causes of action are not identical. That conclusion was inevitable be-
cause of critical differences between the two. Even if Congress drew upon
common-law fraud when it enacted federal-securities laws, see ante, at
11–12, this Court has repeatedly disclaimed any suggestion that Con-
gress federalized a common-law fraud claim. See, e.g., Stoneridge Invest-
ment Partners, LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., 

 (2008)
(“Section 10(b) does not incorporate common-law fraud into federal law”);
SEC v. Zandford, 

 (2002) (“[T]he statute must not be
construed so broadly as to convert every common-law fraud that happens
to involve securities into a violation of §10(b)”); Herman & MacLean v.
Huddleston, 

, 388–389 (1983) (“[T]he antifraud provisions
of the securities laws are not coextensive with common-law doctrines of
fraud”).
                 Cite as: 

 (2024)           29

                   SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

and orders barring violators from holding certain positions
and performing certain activities in the industry. See 15
U. S. C. §§77h–1(f ), and (g), 78u–2, 78u–3(f ).
   For these reasons, “[a]n action brought by an Executive
Branch agency to enforce federal securities laws is not the
same as an action brought by one individual against an-
other for monetary or injunctive relief of the sort that law
courts (with juries) in England or the States have tradition-
ally heard.” Brief for Professor John Golden et al. as Amici
Curiae 3. Congress did not unlawfully “siphon” a tradi-
tional legal action “away from an Article III court” when it
enacted the federal-securities laws and provided for their
enforcement within the SEC. Ante, at 21.
   The majority asserts that “Granfinanciera effectively de-
cides this case.” Ante, at 20. That can only be true, though,
if one ignores what Granfinanciera actually says: Its public-
rights analysis of whether an action is closely intertwined
with a federal regulatory program only applies “in cases not
involving the Federal Government.” 

. The
analysis from Atlas Roofing controls where, as here, “ ‘the
Government is involved in its sovereign capacity under an
otherwise valid statute.’ ” 

 (quoting Atlas
Roofing, 

).
                              C
   Both cases relied on by the majority, Tull and Granfinan-
ciera, reaffirm that Atlas Roofing controls precisely in cir-
cumstances like the ones at issue in this case. That is why
the majority’s late-stage attempt to distinguish Atlas Roof-
ing fails. The majority’s principal argument that the OSHA
scheme in Atlas Roofing “did not borrow its cause of action
from the common law” and was instead a “self-consciously
novel” scheme that “resembled a detailed building code,”
ante, at 23–24, is flawed on multiple fronts.
   First, OSHA’s cause of action should be largely irrelevant
under the majority’s view that the remedy of civil penalties
30                    SEC v. JARKESY

                   SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

is effectively dispositive under Tull. Atlas Roofing, and
many other cases involving non-Article III adjudications,
also involved civil penalties designed to punish and deter,
and yet the majority does not expressly disavow them. Log-
ically, then, either Atlas Roofing and countless other cases
were wrongly decided, or the majority’s view on civil penal-
ties is wrong.
   Second, because the majority elides the critical distinc-
tion between Atlas Roofing and Granfinanciera, it fails to
grapple with the fact that this case, like Atlas Roofing and
unlike Granfinanciera, involves the Government acting in
its sovereign capacity to enforce a statutory violation. That
makes the right at issue a “public right” that Congress can
take outside the purview of Article III, even when the new
cause of action is analogous to a common-law claim.
   Third, the relationship between the federal-securities
laws (including their antifraud provisions) and common-
law fraud is materially indistinguishable from the relation-
ship between OSHA and the common-law torts of wrongful
death and negligence. Unlike their common-law compara-
tors, neither statute requires actionable harm to an individ-
ual. See supra, at 15. In arguing that OSHA’s scheme was
“self-consciously” novel in ways unknown to the common
law, the majority points to the granularity of OSHA stand-
ards. Ante, at 23–24. Yet lawyers and regulated parties in
the securities industry would be surprised to hear that this
could be a distinguishing feature. Anyone familiar with the
industry knows securities laws are replete with specific and
exceedingly detailed requirements implementing the stat-
ute’s disclosure and antifraud provisions. See, e.g., 

(4)–1(b) (2023) (prohibiting testimonials and en-
dorsements that do not satisfy requirements without meet-
ing complex disclosure requirements); §275.206(4)–2(a)
(prohibiting investment advisers from having custody of cli-
ent funds or securities unless specific requirements are
                      Cite as: 

 (2024)                     31

                        SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

met, including qualifications, notices, and account state-
ments).
   The majority further rests on the notion that Congress
drew inspiration from the common law in enacting the an-
tifraud provisions of the federal-securities laws, whereas
OSHA’s new statutory duty did not bring any common-law
soil with it. See ante, at 23–24. Yet both statutes share
elements with claims at common law that Congress deemed
inadequate to address the national problems that prompted
it to legislate. See supra, at 14–15. Still, even accepting
that federal-securities laws bring common-law soil with
them and OSHA does not, the majority does not explain
why that is a constitutionally relevant distinction.11
   In sum, all avenues by which the majority attempts to
distinguish Atlas Roofing fail. The majority cannot escape
the entrenched principle that a “legal cause of action in-
volves ‘public rights’ ” that can be taken outside of Article
III if the “statutory right is . . . closely intertwined with a
federal regulatory program Congress has power to enact” or
if it “belongs to [o]r exists against the Federal Government.”
Granfinanciera, 492 U. S., at 53–54.12 In both Atlas Roof-
ing and this case, a public right exists. In both statutory
——————
   11 In Tull v. United States, 

 (1987), for example, there was

no common-law soil brought into that federal regulatory regime, and the
Seventh Amendment still applied. Indeed, no one can argue that “[t]he
purpose of [the Clean Water Act] was . . . to enable the Federal Govern-
ment to bring or adjudicate claims that traced their ancestry to the com-
mon law.” Ante, at 23–24.
   12 The concurrence’s assertion that the majority is “follow[ing] the ad-

vice of Justices Brennan and Marshall” by “ ‘limit[ing] the judicial au-
thority of non-Article III federal tribunals’ ” is misleading. Ante, at 20
(quoting Schor, 

 (Brennan, J., joined by Marshall, J.,
dissenting)). Justice Brennan in his Schor dissent wrote that he would
limit the authority of non-Article III tribunals to three recognized excep-
tions: (1) territorial courts; (2) courts-martial; and (3) forums adjudicat-
ing public-rights matters. As examples of the public-rights category, Jus-
tice Brennan cited Murray’s Lessee, Ex parte Bakelite, Crowell, Thomas,
and his plurality opinion in Northern Pipeline. See Schor, 

                         SEC v. JARKESY

                       SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

schemes, regardless of any perceived resemblance to the
common law, Congress enacted a new cause of action that
created a statutory right belonging to the United States for
the Government to enforce pursuant to its sovereign pow-
ers.
                              IV
  A faithful and straightforward application of this Court’s
longstanding precedent should have resolved this case.
Faithful “[a]dherence to precedent is ‘a foundation stone of
the rule of law.’ ” Kisor v. Wilkie, 

 (2019)
(quoting Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community, 

 (2014)). It allows courts to function, and be
perceived, as courts, and not as political entities. “ ‘It pro-
motes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent develop-
ment of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial deci-
sions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity
of the judicial process.’ ” 588 U. S., at 586–587 (quoting
Payne v. Tennessee, 

 (1991); alterations
omitted). That is why, “even in constitutional cases, a de-
parture from precedent ‘demands special justification.’ ”
Gamble v. United States, 

 (2019) (quoting
Arizona v. Rumsey, 

 (1984)).
  Today’s decision disregards these foundational princi-
ples.13 Time will tell what is left of the public-rights doc-



——————
859. As those citations demonstrate, both Justices Brennan and Mar-
shall certainly thought that public-rights matters extend to certain pri-
vate disputes that do not involve the Government as a party, as well as
disputes involving the Government in connection with different exercises
of congressional power. Indeed, it was Justice Brennan who reaffirmed
Atlas Roofing in his opinion for the Granfinanciera Court and explained
that a public right includes, at a minimum, a statutory right that “be-
longs to [o]r exists against the Federal Government.” 492 U. S., at 53–
54.
   13 Precedents should not be so easily discarded based on the views of
                      Cite as: 

 (2024)                     33

                        SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

trine. Less uncertain, however, are the momentous conse-
quences that flow from the majority’s insistence that the
Government’s rights to civil penalties must now be tried be-
fore a jury in federal court. The majority’s decision, which
strikes down the SEC’s in-house adjudication of civil-pen-
alty claims on the ground that such claims are legal in na-
ture and entitle respondents to a federal jury, effects a seis-
mic shift in this Court’s jurisprudence. Indeed, “[i]f you’ve
never heard of a statute being struck down on that ground,”
and you recall having read countless cases approving of
that arrangement, “you’re not alone.” Seila Law LLC v.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 

(2020) (KAGAN, J., concurring in judgment with respect to
severability and dissenting in part).
   The majority pulls a rug out from under Congress with-
out even acknowledging that its decision upends over two
centuries of settled Government practice. The United
States, led by then-Solicitor General Robert Bork and then-
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Rex Lee,
told this Court in Atlas Roofing that “during the whole of
our history, regulatory fines and penalties have been col-
lected by non-jury procedures pursuant to . . . legislative de-
cisions,” and that “[i]t would be most remarkable if, at this
late date, the Seventh Amendment were construed to out-
law this consistent rule of government followed for two cen-
turies.” Brief for Respondents in Atlas Roofing, O. T. 1976,
No. 75–746, etc., pp. 81–82. This Court agreed and upheld
that practice, it seemed, once and for all.
——————
some commentators, or on whether or not a particular case is “cele-
brated.” Ante, at 25, n. 4. Atlas Roofing and the long line of cases before
it are precedents from this Court entitled to stare decisis effect. Indeed,
this Court has reaffirmed and repeatedly cited Atlas Roofing with ap-
proval. See, e.g., Oil States, 584 U. S., at 344–345; Stern, 564 U. S., at
489–490; Granfinanciera, 492 U. S., at 48, 51–54, 60–61; id., at 65–66
(Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Tull, 481
U. S., at 418, n. 4; Northern Pipeline Constr. Co., 458 U. S., at 67, n. 18,
69, n. 23, 70, 73, 77 (plurality opinion).
34                      SEC v. JARKESY

                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

   Following this Court’s precedents and the recommenda-
tion of the Administrative Conference of the United States,
Congress has enacted countless new statutes in the past 50
years that have empowered federal agencies to impose civil
penalties for statutory violations. See 2 P. Verkuilm, D.
Gifford, C. Koch, R. Pierce, & J. Lubbers, Administrative
Conference of the United States, Recommendations and Re-
ports, The Federal Administrative Judiciary 861, and nn.
350–351 (1992). These statutes are sometimes enacted in
addition to, but often instead of, “the traditional civil en-
forcement statutes that permitted agencies to collect civil
penalties only after federal district court trials.” Id., at 861.
“By 1986, there were over 200 such statutes” and “[t]he
trend has, if anything, accelerated” since then. Id., at 861,
and n. 351.
   Similarly, there are, at the very least, more than two
dozen agencies that can impose civil penalties in adminis-
trative proceedings. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 78–79 (Principal
Deputy Solicitor General) (recognizing two dozen agencies
with administrative civil-penalty authorities); see also, e.g.,

(a)(3)(A)(ii) (Merit Systems Protection
Board); 

(10)(C), 13a (Commodity Futures
Trading Commission); §§499c(a), 586, 2279e(a) (Depart-
ment of Agriculture); 8 U. S. C. §§1324c, 1324d (Depart-
ment of Justice); 

(a)(2), (c), (Consumer Fi-
nancial Protection Bureau); 16 U. S. C. §823b(c) (Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission); 

(g) (De-
partment of Education); 21 U. S. C. §335b (Department of
Health and Human Services/Food and Drug Administra-
tion); 

(j) (Occupational Safety and Health
Review Commission); 

(a) and (b) (Federal
Mine Safety and Health Review Commission); 

(a)(2) (Department of the Treasury); 

(d) and (g) (Environmental Protection Agency); 

(c) (Postal Service); 

(f ) (De-
partment of Housing and Urban Development); 46 U. S. C.
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)             35

                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

§41107(a) (Federal Maritime Commission); 

(b)(3) (Federal Communications Commission); 

 (Federal Railroad Administration); §46301
(Department of Transportation).
   Some agencies, like the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the
SEC, can pursue civil penalties in both administrative pro-
ceedings and federal court. See, e.g., 

(a),
5564(a), 5565(a)(1), (2)(H), and (c) (Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau); 

(a), (b), and (g) (En-
vironmental Protection Agency); supra, at 2 (SEC). Others
do not have that choice. As the above-cited statutes con-
firm, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commis-
sion, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Fed-
eral Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, the
Department of Agriculture, and many others, can pursue
civil penalties only in agency enforcement proceedings. For
those and countless other agencies, all the majority can say
is tough luck; get a new statute from Congress.
   Against this backdrop, our coequal branches will be sur-
prised to learn that the rule they thought long settled, and
which remained unchallenged for half a century, is one
that, according to the majority and the concurrence, my dis-
sent just announced today. Unfortunately, that mistaken
view means that the constitutionality of hundreds of stat-
utes may now be in peril, and dozens of agencies could be
stripped of their power to enforce laws enacted by Congress.
Rather than acknowledge the earthshattering nature of its
holding, the majority has tried to disguise it. The majority
claims that its ruling is limited to “civil penalty suits for
fraud” pursuant to a statute that is “barely over a decade
old,” ante, at 18, n. 2, 22, an assurance that is in significant
tension with other parts of its reasoning. That incredible
assertion should fool no one. Today’s decision is a massive
sea change. Litigants seeking further dismantling of the
“administrative state” have reason to rejoice in their win
36                      SEC v. JARKESY

                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

today, but those of us who cherish the rule of law have noth-
ing to celebrate.
                           *    *     *
   Today’s ruling is part of a disconcerting trend: When it
comes to the separation of powers, this Court tells the
American public and its coordinate branches that it knows
best. See, e.g., Collins v. Yellen, 

 (2021)
(concluding that the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s
“structure violates the separation of powers” because the
Agency was led by a single Director removable by the Pres-
ident only “ ‘for cause’ ”); United States v. Arthrex, Inc., 

 (2021) (holding that “authority wielded by [Ad-
ministrative Patent Judges] during inter partes review is
incompatible with their appointment by the Secretary to an
inferior office”); Seila Law, 591 U. S., at 202–205 (holding
that “the structure of the [Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau] violates the separation of powers” because it was
led by a single Director removable by the President only “for
cause”); Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Account-
ing Oversight Bd., 

, 483–484, 492 (2010) (hold-
ing “that the dual for-cause limitations on the removal of
[Public Company Accounting Oversight] Board members
contravene the Constitution’s separation of powers”). The
Court tells Congress how best to structure agencies, vindi-
cate harms to the public at large, and even provide for the
enforcement of rights created for the Government. It does
all of this despite the fact that, compared to its political
counterparts, “the Judiciary possesses an inferior under-
standing of the realities of administration” and how “politi-
cal power . . . operates.” Free Enterprise Fund, 561 U. S., at
523 (Breyer, J., dissenting).
   There are good reasons for Congress to set up a scheme
like the SEC’s. It may yield important benefits over jury
trials in federal court, such as greater efficiency and exper-
tise, transparency and reasoned decisionmaking, as well as
                  Cite as: 

 (2024)             37

                    SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

uniformity, predictability, and greater political accounta-
bility. See, e.g., Brief for Administrative Law Scholars as
Amici Curiae 30–32. Others may believe those benefits are
overstated, and that a federal jury is a better check on gov-
ernment overreach. See, e.g., Brief for Cato Institute as
Amicus Curiae 11–25. Those arguments take place against
the backdrop of a philosophical (and perhaps ideological)
debate on whether the number of agencies and authorities
properly corresponds to the ever-increasing and evolving
problems faced by our society.
   This Court’s job is not to decide who wins this debate.
These are policy considerations for Congress in exercising
its legislative judgment and constitutional authority to de-
cide how to tackle today’s problems. It is the electorate, and
the Executive to some degree, not this Court, that can and
should provide a check on the wisdom of those judgments.
   Make no mistake: Today’s decision is a power grab. Once
again, “the majority arrogates Congress’s policymaking role
to itself.” Garland v. Cargill, 

 (2024)
(SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting). It prescribes artificial con-
straints on what modern-day adaptable governance must
look like. In telling Congress that it cannot entrust certain
public-rights matters to the Executive because it must
bring them first into the Judiciary’s province, the majority
oversteps its role and encroaches on Congress’s constitu-
tional authority. Its decision offends the Framers’ constitu-
tional design so critical to the preservation of individual lib-
erty: the division of our Government into three coordinate
branches to avoid the concentration of power in the same
hands. The Federalist No. 51, p. 349 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (J.
Madison). Judicial aggrandizement is as pernicious to the
separation of powers as any aggrandizing action from either
of the political branches.
   Deeply entrenched in today’s ruling is the erroneous be-
lief that any “mistaken or wrongful exertion by the legisla-
tive department of its authority” can lead to “grave abuses”
38                    SEC v. JARKESY

                   SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

and “it behooves the judiciary to apply a corrective by ex-
ceeding its own authority” through requiring civil-penalty
claims to proceed before a federal jury. Stranahan, 214
U. S., at 340. As this Court said over a century ago in this
public-rights context, that belief “mistakenly assumes that
the courts can alone be safely intrusted with power, and
that hence it is their duty to unlawfully exercise preroga-
tives which they have no right to exert, upon the assump-
tion that wrong must be done to prevent wrong being ac-
complished.” Ibid.
   By giving respondents a jury trial, even one that the Con-
stitution does not require, the majority may think that it is
protecting liberty. That belief, too, is deeply misguided.
The American People should not mistake judicial hubris
with the protection of individual rights. Our first President
understood this well. In his parting words to the Nation,
he reminded us that a branch of Government arrogating for
itself the power of another based on perceptions of what, “in
one instance, may be the instrument of good . . . is the cus-
tomary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”
Farewell Address (1796), in 35 The Writings of George
Washington 229 (J. Fitzpatrick ed. 1940) (footnote omitted).
The majority today ignores that wisdom.
   Because the Court disregards its own precedent and its
coequal partners in our tripartite system of Government, I
respectfully dissent.