Opinion

Hudson v. United States

  • 522 U.S. 93
  • 118 S. Ct. 488
  • 139 L. Ed. 2d 450
  • 1997 U.S. LEXIS 7497
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Filed
Dec 10, 1997
Status
Published
Author
Scalia
On the bench
Soutee, Rehnquist, O'Con-Nor, Scaua, Kennedy, Thomas, Scalia, Stevens, Souter, Breyer, Ginsburg
Cited by
1,284 cases
Authority
More cited than 24.3%

Questioned by State v. Baehler, 604 N.W.2d 601 (2000)

stating that “there is obvious sense in employing common criteria to point up the criminal nature of a statute for purposes of both the Fifth and Sixth Amendments,” and “once it is understood that a legislature intended a penalty to be treated as civil in character, that penalty may be held criminal for Fifth Amendment purposes (and, for like reasons, under the Sixth Amendment) only on the “clearest proof” of its essentially criminal proportions.”

How later courts described this case

  • stating that “there is obvious sense in employing common criteria to point up the criminal nature of a statute for purposes of both the Fifth and Sixth Amendments,” and “once it is understood that a legislature intended a penalty to be treated as civil in character, that penalty may be held criminal for Fifth Amendment purposes (and, for like reasons, under the Sixth Amendment) only on the “clearest proof” of its essentially criminal proportions.”
  • explaining that “[wjhether a particular punishment is criminal or civil is, at least initially, a matter of statutory construction” and that “[a] court must first ask whether the legislature, in establishing the penalizing mechanism, indicated either expressly or impliedly a preference for one label or the other” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)
  • concluding that although the monetary sanctions at issue were “intended to deter future wrongdoing, [they] also serve[d] to promote the stability of the banking industry” and thus, “[t]o hold that the mere presence of a deterrent purpose renders such sanctions ‘criminal’ ... would severely undermine the [g]overnment’s ability to engage in effective regulation”
  • explaining that the Federal Fifth Amendment Double 2 Allaire's original motion for summary judgment cites the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution on this point. 13 Jeopardy Clause "protects only against imposition of multiple criminal punishments for the same offense, . . . and then only when such occurs in successive proceedings"

Written by the judges who cited it.

Later courts went against this

  • Questioned by State v. Baehler, 604 N.W.2d 601 (2000)

    522 U.S. 93, 118 S.Ct. 488, 139 L.Ed.2d 450 (1997), has drawn into question the continued vitality of the Court’s holding in
    Supreme Court of IowaJan 20, 2000Read it

Distinguished

  • Distinguished by In Re Detention of Turay, 986 P.2d 790 (1999)

    [29] While one could argue that Hudson is distinguishable because the sanctions involved in that case were a monetary penalty and occupational disbarment, rather than confinement, such an argument would fail because the Supreme Court explicitly stated that in determining whether a statutory scheme is so punitive that it actually constitutes a criminal penalty, among the factors to be considered
    Washington Supreme CourtDec 22, 1999Read it
  • Distinguished by In re the Detention of Turay, 139 Wash. 2d 379 (1999)

    While one could argue that Hudson is distinguishable because the sanctions involved in that case were a monetary penalty and occupational disbarment, rather than confinement, such an argument would fail because the Supreme Court explicitly stated that in determining whether a statutory scheme is so punitive that it actually constitutes a criminal penalty, among the factors to be considered
    Washington Supreme CourtOct 21, 1999Read it

The opinion

*106 Justice Scalia,

with whom Justice Thomas joins,

concurring.

I wholly agree with the Court’s conclusion that Halper’s test for whether a sanction is “punitive” was ill considered and unworkable. Ante, at 101-102. Indeed, it was the absurdity of trying to force the Halper analysis upon the Montana tax scheme at issue in Department of Revenue of Mont v. Kurth Ranch, 511 U. S. 767 (1994), that prompted me to focus on the prior question whether the Double Jeopardy Clause even contains a multiple-punishments prong. See id., at 802-803 . That evaluation led me to the conclusion that the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits successive prosecution, not successive punishment, and that we should therefore “put the Halper genie back in the bottle.” Id., at 803-805 . Today’s opinion uses a somewhat different bottle than I would, returning the law to its state immediately prior to Halper — which acknowledged a constitutional prohibition of multiple punishments but required successive criminal prosecutions. So long as that requirement is maintained, our multiple-punishments jurisprudence essentially duplicates what I believe to be the correct double jeopardy law, and will be as harmless in the future as it was pre-Halper. Accordingly, I am pleased to concur.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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