Printz v. United States
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| Printz v. United States | ||||||||||||
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| Argued December 3, 1996 Decided June 27, 1997 |
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| Holding | ||||||||||||
| The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act's interim provision commanding the "chief law enforcement officer" (CLEO) of each local jurisdiction to conduct background checks, §922(s)(2), is unconstitutional. | ||||||||||||
| Court membership | ||||||||||||
| Chief Justice: William Rehnquist Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer |
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| Case opinions | ||||||||||||
| Majority by: Scalia Joined by: Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Thomas Concurrence by: O'Connor Concurrence by: Thomas Dissent by: Stevens Joined by: Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer Dissent by: Souter Dissent by: Breyer Joined by: Stevens |
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| Laws applied | ||||||||||||
| U.S. Const. amend. X; Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, Pub. L. 103-159, 107 Stat. 1536 | ||||||||||||
Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), was a United States Supreme Court ruling that established the unconstitutionality of certain interim provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.
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[edit] Background
[edit] The Gun Control Act of 1968
The Gun Control Act of 1968 established a detailed Federal scheme governing the distribution of firearms. The GCA prohibited firearms ownership by certain broad categories of individuals thought to pose a threat to public safety, such as convicted felons, fugitives from justice, unlawful aliens, and many others.
[edit] The Brady Act
In 1993, Congress amended the GCA by enacting the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. The Act required the Attorney General to establish a national instant background check system by November 30, 1998 to prevent firearms sales to such "prohibited persons."
[edit] Interim Provisions
The Act also immediately put in place certain interim provisions until that system became operative. Under the interim provisions, a firearms dealer who proposes to transfer a handgun must receive from the transferee a statement (the Brady Form), containing the name, address and date of the proposed transferee along with a sworn statement that the transferee is not among any of the classes of prohibited purchasers, verify the identity of the transferee by examining an identification document, and provide the "chief law enforcement officer" (CLEO) of the transferee's residence with notice of the contents (and a copy) of the Brady Form. When a CLEO receives the required notice of a proposed transfer, they must "make a reasonable effort to ascertain within 5 business days whether receipt or possession would be in violation of the law, including research in whatever State and local recordkeeping systems are available and in a national system designated by the Attorney General."
[edit] The Plaintiffs
Petitioners Jay Printz and Richard Mack, the CLEOs for Ravalli County, Montana, and Graham County, Arizona, respectively, filed separate actions challenging the constitutionality of the Brady Act's interim provisions. They objected to the use of congressional action to compel state officers to execute Federal law.
[edit] Lower Court Decisions
In each case, the District Court held that the provision requiring CLEOs to perform background checks was unconstitutional, but concluded that that provision was severable from the remainder of the Act, effectively leaving a voluntary background check system in place. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, finding none of the Brady Act's interim provisions to be unconstitutional.
[edit] Majority Decision
The majority of five justices rule that the interim provisions of the Brady Bill are unconstitutional. In his opinion, Justice Scalia states that, although there is no constitutional text precisely responding to the challenge, an answer can be found “in historical understanding and practice, the structure of the Constitution, and in the jurisprudence of this Court.”
[edit] Historical Understanding and Practice
Scalia concedes that legislation compelling judges to carry out Federal legislation has been passed. But he considers that the nature of the courts, which occupy a vertical hierarchy that requires consideration of prior decisions by Federal or state courts, exempts this from applying in this case. Furthermore, contrasting the frequency of legislation applying to judicial courts to the absence of legislation applying to state executives to show this power was not granted.
[edit] The Structure of the Constitution
Scalia refers to the “Dual Sovereignty” established by the U.S. Constitution that federalism is built upon. His opinion states that the Framers designed the Constitution to allow Federal regulation of the people, not the states. The majority arrives at the conclusion that allowing the Federal Government to draft the police officers of the 50 states into its service would increase its powers far beyond what the Constitution intends.
The Court also offered an alternative basis for striking down the provision: that it violated the constitutional separation of powers by robbing the president of his power to execute the laws; that is, that it contradicted the "unitary executive theory". The Court explained (per Justice Scalia):
- We have thus far discussed the effect that federal control of state officers would have upon the first element of the "double security" alluded to by Madison: the division of power between State and Federal Governments. It would also have an effect upon the second element: the separation and equilibration of powers between the three branches of the Federal Government itself. The Constitution does not leave to speculation who is to administer the laws enacted by Congress; the President, it says, "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," Art. II, §3, personally and through officers whom he appoints (save for such inferior officers as Congress may authorize to be appointed by the "Courts of Law" or by "the Heads of Departments" who are themselves presidential appointees), Art. II, §2. The Brady Act effectively transfers this responsibility to thousands of CLEOs in the 50 States, who are left to implement the program without meaningful Presidential control (if indeed meaningful Presidential control is possible without the power to appoint and remove). The insistence of the Framers upon unity in the Federal Executive--to insure both vigor and accountability--is well known. See The Federalist No. 70 (A. Hamilton); 2 Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution 495 (M. Jensen ed. 1976) (statement of James Wilson); see also Calabresi & Prakash, The President's Power to Execute the Laws, 104 Yale L. J. 541 (1994). That unity would be shattered, and the power of the President would be subject to reduction, if Congress could act as effectively without the President as with him, by simply requiring state officers to execute its laws.
[edit] The Jurisprudence of the Court
Finally, the majority cites previous rulings by the Supreme Court in similar situations. They cite New York v. United States, wherein the Court ruled a Federal bill compelling States to enact legislation to provide for radioactive waste disposal was unconstitutional because it violated the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. A precedent was set prohibiting the Federal Government from compelling a state to enforce a Federal regulatory program.
[edit] The Dissent
In his dissent, Justice Stevens claims that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, giving the Federal Government the right to regulate handgun sales, can be coupled with the Necessary-and-proper clause, giving Congress the power to pass whatever laws are necessary and proper to carry out its previously enumerated power. Federal direction of state officials in this manner is analogous to ordering the mass inoculation of children to forestall an epidemic, or directing state officials to respond to a terrorist threat. Moreover, the text of the Constitution does not support the Majority's apparent proposition that "a local police officer can ignore a command contained in a statute enacted by Congress pursuant to an express delegation of power enumerated in Article I."
[edit] Effects of the Decision
The immediate effects of the ruling on the Brady Bill were negligible. The vast majority of local and state law enforcement officials supported the interim provisions and were happy to comply with the background checks, unconstitutional or not. The issue ended with the completion of the federal background check database. However, Printz v. United States was an important ruling in support of limits on Federal power and States' Rights.
The political poles have reversed from Printz, especially after 9/11; where Printz protected conservative local authorities from liberal federal power, it also now protects liberal local authorities from conservative federal power. Professor Ann Althouse has suggested that, retained in its strong form, the anti-comandeering doctrine announced in Printz "can work as a safeguard for the rights of the people": should "the federal government might go too far in prosecuting the war on terrorism," Printz provides a circuit-breaker that might allow local and state officials to refuse to enforce regulations curbing individual rights. Moreover, "[b]y denying the means of commandeering to the federal government, the courts have created an incentive [for Congress] to adopt policies that inspire [rather than demand] compliance, thus preserving a beneficial structural safeguard for individual rights," and "state and local government autonomy can exert pressure on the federal government to moderate its efforts and take care not to offend constitutional rights." A. Althouse, The Vigor of the Anti-Commandeering Doctrine in Times of Terror, 69 Brook. L. Rev. 1231 (2004).
[edit] See also
[edit] External sources
