Posted on 06/24/2004 11:40:49 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Excerpts from Thursday's Supreme Court ruling on Vice President Dick Cheney's private energy task force meetings.
From the main opinion written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy:
"It is well established that a president's communications and activities encompass a vastly wider range of sensitive material than would be true of any ordinary individual. ... As United States v. Nixon explained, these principles do not mean that the 'president is above the law.' Rather, they simply acknowledge that the public interest requires that a coequal branch of government 'afford presidential confidentiality the greatest protection consistent with the fair administration of justice,' and give recognition to the paramount necessity of protecting the executive branch from vexatious litigation that might distract it from the energetic performance of its constitutional duties."
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"The need for information for use in civil cases, while far from negligible, does not share the urgency or significance of the criminal subpoena requests in Nixon. As Nixon recognized, the right to production of relevant evidence in civil proceedings does not have the same 'constitutional dimensions.'... The situation here cannot, in fairness, be compared to Nixon, where a court's ability to fulfill its constitutional responsibility to resolve cases and controversies within its jurisdiction hinges on the availability of certain indispensable information. ...
"This is not a routine discovery dispute. The discovery requests are directed to the vice president and other senior government officials who served on the NEPDG (energy task force) to give advice and make recommendations to the president. The executive branch, at its highest level, is seeking the aid of the courts to protect its constitutional prerogatives. As we have already noted, special considerations control when the executive branch's interests in maintaining the autonomy of its office and safeguarding the confidentiality of its communications are implicated."
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Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, agreeing in part:
"(Sierra Club and Judicial Watch) had to demonstrate in the district court a clear and indisputable right to the Federal Advisory Committee Act materials. If (their) right to the materials was not clear and indisputable, then (the Bush administration's) right to relief in the Court of Appeals was clear. One need look no further than the district court's opinion to conclude (the suing parties') right to relief in the district court was unclear ... indeed, the district court acknowledged this court's recognition 'that applying FACA to meetings among presidential advisers' presents formidable constitutional difficulties.'"
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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by David H. Souter, in a dissent:
"As the Court of Appeals observed, it appeared that the government never asked the district court to narrow discovery. Given the government's decision to resist all discovery, mandamus relief based on the exorbitance of the discovery orders is at least 'premature.' I would therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals denying the writ, and allow the district court, in the first instance, to pursue its expressed intention 'tightly to rein in discovery,' should the government so request. ...
"The Court of Appeals stressed that the district court could accommodate separation-of-powers concerns short of denying all discovery or compelling the invocation of executive privilege. Principally, the Court of Appeals stated, discovery could be narrowed, should the government so move, to encompass only 'whether non-federal officials participated 1/8in NEPDG 3/8, and if so, to what extent.'"
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Justice John Paul Stevens, agreeing with the decision:
"Instead of requiring (the Bush administration) to object to particular discovery requests, the district court should have required (the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch) to demonstrate that particular requests would tend to establish their theory of the case. I therefore think it would have been appropriate for the Court of Appeals to vacate the district court's discovery order. I nevertheless join the court's opinion and judgment because, as the architect of the de facto member doctrine, the Court of Appeals is the appropriate forum to direct future proceedings in the case."
AP-ES-06-24-04 1405EDT
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| High Court Sides with Cheney on Energy Papers Thu Jun 24, 2004 10:36 AM ET
The justices sided with the government. They ruled a U.S. appeals court was wrong in concluding it lacked authority to give relief to the government because the government could protect its rights by asserting executive privilege to keep the documents secrets when the case went back to the judge. |
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Tom Daschle is deeply saddened. Heh heh heh...
Do we know the vote? I didn't see it mentioned so I'm wondering if it was higher than "5" in favor of Cheney.
BUMP!
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