United States v. Sanchez-Gomez

Case Year: 2018

Case Ruling: 9-0

Opinion Justice: Roberts

FACTS

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California adopted a districtwide policy permitting the use of full restraints—handcuffs connected to a waist chain, with legs shackled—on most in-custody defendants produced in court for non-jury proceedings.

Respondents Rene Sanchez-Gomez and Moises Patricio-Guzman were among the defendants produced for pretrial proceedings in full restraints. They raised constitutional objections to the use of such restraints in their respective cases, and to the restraint policy as a whole. They noted that the policy had resulted in the imposition of full restraints on, for example, a woman with a fractured wrist, a man with a severe leg injury, a blind man, and a wheelchair-bound woman.

After the District Court denied their challenge, they appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Before that court could issue a decision, respondents’ underlying criminal cases ended because each pled guilty to the offense for which they were charged: Morales, to felony importation of a controlled substance and Sanchez-Gomez, to felony misuse of a passport. Nonetheless, the Court of Appeals did not dismiss their case as moot and went on to strike down the restraint policy as violating the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

OPINION

Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court

The question presented is whether the appeals were saved from mootness because the challenged practice was “capable of repetition, yet evading review.”[1] …

To invoke federal jurisdiction, a plaintiff must show a “personal stake” in the outcome of the action. “This requirement ensures that the Federal Judiciary confines itself to its constitutionally limited role of adjudicating actual and concrete disputes, the resolutions of which have direct consequences on the parties involved.” Such a dispute “must be extant at all stages of review, not merely at the time the complaint is filed.” A case that becomes moot at any point during the proceedings is “no longer a ‘Case’ or ‘Controversy’ for purposes of Article III,” and is outside the jurisdiction of the federal courts.

Sanchez-Gomez and Patricio-Guzman [claim to] retain a personal stake in the outcome of their appeals [because their cases fall] within the “exception to the mootness doctrine for a controversy that is capable of repetition, yet evading review.” A dispute qualifies for that exception only “if (1) the challenged action is in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or expiration, and (2) there is a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party will be subjected to the same action again.” The parties do not contest that the claims at issue satisfy the first prong of that test, but they sharply disagree as to the second.

Sanchez-Gomez and Patricio-Guzman [claim to] meet the second prong because they will again violate the law, be apprehended, and be returned to pretrial custody. But we have consistently refused to “conclude that the case-or-controversy requirement is satisfied by” the possibility that a party “will be prosecuted for violating valid criminal laws.”  We have instead “assume[d] that [litigants] will conduct their activities within the law and so avoid prosecution and conviction as well as exposure to the challenged course of conduct.”  Respondents argue that this usual refusal to assume future criminal conduct is unwarranted here given the particular circumstances of [their] offenses. They cite two civil cases—Honig v. Doe and Turner v. Rogers—in which this Court concluded that the expectation that a litigant would repeat the misconduct that gave rise to his claims rendered those claims capable of repetition. Neither case, however, supports a departure from the settled rule.

Honig involved a disabled student’s challenge to his suspension from school for disruptive behavior. We found that given his “inability to conform his conduct to socially acceptable norms” or “govern his aggressive, impulsive behavior,” it was “reasonable to expect that [the student would] again engage in the type of misconduct that precipitated this suit” and “be subjected to the same unilateral school action for which he initially sought relief.” In Turner, we determined that an indigent person repeatedly held in civil contempt for failing to make child support payments, who was at the time over $13,000 in arrears, and whose next hearing was only five months away, was destined to find himself in civil contempt proceedings again. The challenged denial of appointed counsel at his contempt hearing was thus capable of repetition.

Respondents contend that they, like the challengers in Honig and Turner, are likely to find themselves right back where they started if we dismiss their case as moot. Respondents cite a Sentencing Commission report finding that in 2013 thirty-eight percent of those convicted and sentenced for an illegal entry or illegal reentry offense “were deported and subsequently illegally reentered at least one time.” Respondents emphasize the economic and familial pressures that often compel individuals such as [themselves] to repeatedly attempt to enter the United States. And respondents note that … after their release, actually did cross the border into the United States, were apprehended again, and were charged with new illegal entry offenses. All this, respondents say, adds up to a sufficient showing that [they] satisfy the “capable of repetition” requirement …

Honig and Turner are inapposite. Our decisions in those civil cases rested on the litigants’ inability, for reasons beyond their control, to prevent themselves from transgressing and avoid recurrence of the challenged conduct. In Honig, such incapacity was the very reason the school sought to expel the student. And in Turner, the indigent individual’s large outstanding debt made him effectively incapable of satisfying his imminent support obligations. Sanchez-Gomez and Patricio-Guzman, in contrast, are “able—and indeed required by law”—to refrain from further criminal conduct. Their personal incentives to return to the United States, plus the elevated rate of recidivism associated with illegal entry offenses, do not amount to an inability to obey the law. We have consistently refused to find the case or controversy requirement satisfied where, as here, the litigants simply “anticipate violating lawful criminal statutes.”

None of this is to say that those who wish to challenge the use of full physical restraints in the Southern District lack any avenue for relief. In the course of this litigation the parties have touched upon several possible options. Because we hold this case moot, we take no position on the question.

We vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and remand the case to that court with instructions to dismiss as moot.

It is so ordered.

[1] Roberts also addressed whether defendants’ claims were saved from mootness because they had sought “class-like relief” in a “functional class action.” He held that they were not.