# Hall v. Beals

> Supreme Court of the United States · December 8, 1969 · 396 U.S. 45

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9424112

## Case

- **Full name:** HALL Et Ux. v. BEALS, CLERK AND RECORDER OF EL PASO COUNTY, Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** December 8, 1969
- **Citations:** 396 U.S. 45; 90 S. Ct. 200; 24 L. Ed. 2d 214; 1969 U.S. LEXIS 269
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Brennan
- **Judges:** Brennan, Marshall
- **Cited by:** 541 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9424112

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that an issue is moot when it has “lost its character as a present, live controversy of the kind that must exist if we are to avoid [rendering] advisory opinions on abstract propositions of law.”
- holding that “speculative contingencies afford no basis for our passing on the substantive issues the appellants would have us decide with respect to the now-amended law of Colorado” (citations omitted)
- holding that a case becomes moot whenever it “los[es] its character as a present, live controversy of the kind that must exist if we are to avoid advisory opinions on abstract propositions of law”
- holding that an amendment to the challenged statute eliminated any "controversy of the kind that must exist if we are to avoid advisory opinions"

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Brennan,
dissenting.
I dissent from the direction to dismiss this case as moot. Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U. S. 814 (1969), involved a challenge to the constitutionality of a statute which had been invoked to deny the appellants a place on the 1968 ballot. We were not persuaded in that case by the argument that the appeal should be dismissed since the 1968 election had been held and there was no possibility of granting any relief to appellants. Even though appellants did not allege they would seek a place on the ballot at future elections, we held that the constitutional question was one “capable of repetition, yet evading review,” Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U. S. 498, 515 (1911), and, therefore, that mootness would not prevent our decision of its merits. In my view the present case is an even stronger one for application of that principle. At stake here is the fundamental right to vote — the right “preservative of other basic civil and political rights,” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 562 (1964); see also Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U. S. 663, 670 (1966), and the constitutional challenge of the amended Colorado statute is peculiarly evasive of review. This is because ordinarily a person’s standing to make that challenge would not mature unless he had become a Colorado resident within two months prior to a presidential election. Barring resort to extraordinary expedients, that interval is obviously too short for the exhaustion of state administrative remedies and the completion of a lawsuit through filing of the *51 complaint in a federal district court, convening of a three-judge court, trial, and review by this Court. * True, today’s virtual foreclosure of any opportunity for definitive judicial review may in some measure be prevented by resort to waiver of the requirement of exhaustion of administrative remedies, preferred calendar position, or even relaxation of the rules of ripeness to permit a person not yet a resident to challenge the statute on a showing of reasonable certainty that he would be moving to the State within the two-month period. But the difficulties which attend these expedients only buttress my conclusion that if mootness did not bar decision of the constitutional question in Moore v. Ogilvie , there is even more reason to hold that mootness does not bar decision of the constitutional question presented here.
Reaching the merits, I would reverse for the reasons stated by Mr. Justice Marshall in his dissenting opinion, which I join.
The proceedings would probably require even more time if the plaintiff sued in state court, for review in this Court would come only after one or more levels of state appellate review.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9424112. Public record. Not legal advice.