Robertson v. United States ex rel. Watson

• Decision Date: 24 May 2010
• Docket Number: No. 08–6261.,08–6261.
• Citation: 130 S.Ct. 2184 (Mem),560 U.S. 272,176 L.Ed.2d 1024
• Parties: John ROBERTSON, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES ex rel. Wykenna WATSON.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

560 U.S. 272

130 S.Ct. 2184 (Mem)

176 L.Ed.2d 1024

John ROBERTSON, Petitioner,

v.UNITED STATES ex rel. Wykenna WATSON.

No. 08–6261.

Supreme Court of the United States

May 24, 2010.

Jaclyn S. Frankfurt, Washington, DC, for petitioner.

Robert A. Long, Jr., Washington, DC, for respondent.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan, for the United States as amicus curiae, by special leave of the Court, supporting respondent.

James W. Klein, Counsel of Record, Jaclyn S. Frankfurt, Lee R. Goebes, Jessica R. Brand, Public Defender Service, Washington, DC, for petitioner.

Robert A. Long, Jr., Counsel of Record, Theodore P. Metzler, Jr., Mark W. Mosier, R. Gregory Rubio, Covington & Burling LLP, Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.

It is so ordered.

Chief Justice ROBERTS, with whom Justice SCALIA, Justice KENNEDY, and Justice SOTOMAYOR join, dissenting.

This is a complicated case, but it raises a straightforward and important threshold issue. When we granted certiorari, we rephrased the question presented to focus on that issue: “Whether an action for criminal contempt in a congressionally created court may constitutionally be brought in the name and pursuant to the power of a private person, rather than in the name and pursuant to the power of the United States.” 558 U.S. 1090, 130 S.Ct. 1011, 175L.Ed.2d 617 (2009). The answer to that question is no. The terrifying force of the criminal justice system may only be brought to bear against an individual by society as a whole, through a prosecution brought on behalf of the government. The court below held otherwise, relying on a dissenting opinion in one of our cases, and on the litigating position of the United States, which the Solicitor General has properly abandoned in this Court. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 12–13, n. 3. We should correct the lower court's error and return the case to that court to resolve the remaining questions.

I

In March 1999, Wykenna Watson was assaulted by her then-boyfriend, John Robertson. App. 40. Watson sought and secured a civil protective order against Robertson, prohibiting him from approaching within 100 feet of her and from assaulting, threatening, harassing, physically abusing, or contacting her. Id., at 20. At the same time, the United States Attorney's Office (USAO) was independently pursuing criminal charges against Robertson arising from the assault.

On June 26, Robertson violated the protective order by again violently assaulting Watson. On July 8, he was indicted for the previous March incident; shortly thereafter, the USAO offered, and Robertson accepted, a plea agreement resolving those charges. Id., at 26–30. At the top of the boilerplate plea form, the Assistant U.S. Attorney added in longhand: “In exchange for Mr. Robertson's plea of guilty to attempt[ed] aggravated assault, the gov't agrees to: DISMISS the [remaining] charges [,] [and] [n]ot pursue any charges concerning an incident on 6–26–99.” Id., at 28. The Superior Court accepted Robertson's plea and sentenced him to one to three years' imprisonment. Id., at 30, 46, 53.

A few months later, Watson filed a motion to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against Robertson for violating the civil protective order, based on the June 26 assault. See D.C.Code § 16–1005(f) (2009 Supp.); D.C.Super. Ct. Domestic Violence Rule 12(d) (Lexis 2010); In re Robertson, 940 A.2d 1050, 1053 (D.C.2008). After a 2–day bench trial, the court found Robertson guilty on three counts of criminal contempt and sentenced him to three consecutive 180–day terms of imprisonment, suspending execution of the last in favor of five years' probation. The court also ordered Robertson to pay Watson roughly $10,000 in restitution. App. 2, 63–64. Robertson filed a motion to vacate the judgment, which the court denied.

Robertson appealed. Criminal contempt prosecutions, he argued, “are between the public and the defendant,” and thus could “only be brought in the name of the relevant sovereign, ... the United States.” Brief for Petitioner 8, 10 (quoting Brief for Appellant in No. 00–FM–1269 etc. (D. C.), pp. 20–21, and 940 A.2d, at 1057; internal quotation marks omitted). So viewed, the prosecution based on the June 26 incident could not be brought, because the plea agreement barred the “gov[ernmen]t” from pursuing any charges arising from that incident.

The Court of Appeals rejected Robertson's arguments, in a two-step holding. Step one: “the criminal contempt prosecution in this case was conducted as a private action brought in the name and interest of Ms. Watson, not as a public action brought in the name and interest of the United States or any other governmental entity.” 940 A.2d, at 1057–1058 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). Step two: because the criminal contempt prosecution was brought as an exercise of private power, that prosecution did not implicate a plea agreement that bound only the Government. Id., at 1059–1060.

We granted certiorari to review the first step of that holding.

II

A

Our decision in United States v. Dixon, 509 U.S. 688, 113 S.Ct. 2849, 125 L.Ed.2d 556 (1993), provides the answer to the question presented here. The question in Dixon was one of double jeopardy—whether a private party's prosecution for criminal contempt barred the Government's subsequent prosecution for the “same criminal offense.” Id., at 696, 113 S.Ct. 2849. The private prosecution in that case was brought under the same D.C. contempt law at issue here. Id., at 692, 113 S.Ct. 2849 (citing D.C.Code § 16–1005 (1989)).

We thought it “obvious” in Dixon that double jeopardy protections barred the Government's subsequent prosecution. 509 U.S., at 696, 113 S.Ct. 2849. The Double Jeopardy Clause, of course, bars the second prosecution for the same offense only if that prosecution is brought by the same sovereign as the first. See Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82, 88–89, 106 S.Ct. 433, 88 L.Ed.2d 387 (1985). Thus, the only possible way the Government's second prosecution could have offended the Double Jeopardy Clause is if the Court understood the criminal contempt prosecution to be the Government's first prosecution—i.e., one brought on behalf of the Government. See United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 451, 109 S.Ct. 1892, 104 L.Ed.2d 487 (1989) (“The protections of the Double Jeopardy Clause are not triggered by litigation between private parties”), overruled on other grounds by Hudson v. United States, 522 U.S. 93, 118 S.Ct. 488, 139 L.Ed.2d 450 (1997).

That we treated the criminal contempt prosecution in Dixon as an exercise of government power should not be surprising. More than two centuries ago, Blackstone wrote that the king is “the proper person to prosecute for all public offenses and breaches of the peace, being the person injured in the eye of the law.” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *268. Blackstone repeated that principle throughout his fourth book. See, e.g., 4 id., at *2, *8, *177. Not long after Blackstone, then-Representative John Marshall agreed, stating on the House floor that “administer[ing] criminal judgment ... is a duty to be performed at the demand of the nation, and with which the nation has a right to dispense. If judgment ... is to be pronounced, it must be at the prosecution of the nation.” 10 Annals of Cong. 615 (1800).

This principle has deep historical roots. See, e.g., 1 F. Wharton, Criminal Law § 10, p. 11 (9th ed.1885) (“Penal justice ... is a distinctive prerogative of the State, to be exercised in the service [of] the State”); see also J. Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government § 88, pp. 43–44 (J. Gough ed.1947) (“[E]very man who has entered into civil society, and is become a member of any commonwealth, has thereby quitted his power to punish offences against the law of nature in prosecution of his own private judgment [.] ... [H]e has given a right to the commonwealth to employ his force for the execution of the judgments of the commonwealth” (footnote omitted)). As this Court has said before, “[c]rimes and offenses against the laws of any State can only be defined, prosecuted and pardoned by the sovereign authority of that State.” Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U.S. 657, 669, 13 S.Ct. 224, 36 L.Ed. 1123 (1892); see also Heath, supra, at 88, 106 S.Ct. 433 (“The dual sovereignty doctrine [of the Double Jeopardy Clause] is founded on the common-law conception of crime as an offense against the sovereignty of the government”).

These core principles are embodied in the Constitution. The protections our Bill of Rights affords those facing criminal prosecution apply to “any person,” “any criminal case,” and “all criminal prosecutions.” Amdts. 5, 6 (emphasis added). But those protections apply only against the government; “[i]ndividual invasion of individual rights” is not covered. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 11, 3 S.Ct. 18, 27 L.Ed. 835 (1883) (Fourteenth Amendment). If the safeguards of the Bill of Rights are to be available in “all criminal prosecutions,” then any such prosecution must be considered to be one on behalf of the government—otherwise the constitutional limits do not apply. “The Constitution constrains governmental action ‘by whatever instruments or in whatever modes that action may be taken,’ ” Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 513 U.S. 374, 392, 115 S.Ct. 961, 130 L.Ed.2d 902 (1995) (quoting Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339, 346–347, 25 L.Ed. 676 (1880)), but the action still must be governmental action.

The court below, however, rejected this understanding, concluding that Watson's “criminal contempt prosecution” was not “a public action” but “a private action,” such that it was not covered by an agreement binding the Government. 940 A.2d, at 1057–1058 (internal quotation marks omitted). But as we have explained, “[t]he purpose of a criminal court is not to provide a forum for the ascertainment of private rights. Rather it is to vindicate the public interest in the enforcement...