holding, upon consideration of § 1983 claims asserted against Alabama and Alabama’s department of corrections, “[tjhere can be no doubt ... that suit against the state and its Board of Corrections is barred by the Eleventh Amendment, unless Alabama has consented to the filing of such suit”
How later courts described this case
- holding, upon consideration of § 1983 claims asserted against Alabama and Alabama’s department of corrections, “[tjhere can be no doubt ... that suit against the state and its Board of Corrections is barred by the Eleventh Amendment, unless Alabama has consented to the filing of such suit”
- stating that “the Eleventh Amendment prohibits federal courts from entertaining suits by private parties against States and their agencies,” and holding that a federal court’s injunction against the Alabama Board of Corrections was unconstitutional
- concluding that Pennsylvania's First Judicial District is a state entity entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity
- holding that Eleventh Amendment immunity precluded suit against state and state agency for injunctive relief, even though plaintiffs also had sued a number of state actors in their official capacity
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Stevens,
dissenting.
This Court is much too busy to spend its time correcting *783 harmless errors. Nothing more is accomplished by the summary action it takes today. *
The Court does not question the propriety of the injunctive relief entered by the District Court and upheld by the Court of Appeals. Striking the State’s name from the list of parties will have no impact on the effectiveness of that relief. If the state officers disobey the injunction, financial penalties may be imposed on the responsible state agencies. Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678 . The District Court’s asserted error did not trouble the Court of Appeals because it has no practical significance. It does not justify the exercise of this Court’s certio-rari jurisdiction. I respectfully dissent.
Surely the Court does not intend to resolve summarily the issue debated by my Brothers in their separate opinions in Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678, 700 (BreNNAN, J., concurring), and 708-709, n. 6 (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).