author: Per Curiam. Mr. Justice Stewart, Mr. Justice Marshall, Mr. Justice Blackmun, Mr. Justice Powell,

text:
    BALDASAR v. ILLINOIS
    No. 77-6219.
    Argued November 26, 1979
    Decided April 22, 1980

      Michael Mulder argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Mary Robinson, Ralph Ruebner, and Peter Nolle.

      Michael B. Weinstein, Assistant Attorney General of Illinois, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were William, J. Scott, Attorney General, and Donald B. Mackay and Melbourne A. Noel, Jr., Assistant Attorneys General.

        Solicitor General McCree, Assistant Attorney General Heymann, and Harriet S. Shapiro filed a brief for the United States as amicus curiae urging affirmance.

   Per Curiam.

In Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367 (1979), the Court held that an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction is constitutionally valid if the offender is not incarcerated. This case presents the question whether such a conviction may be used under an enhanced penalty statute to convert a subsequent misdemeanor into a felony with a prison term.

Under Illinois law, theft “not from the person” of property worth less than $150 is a misdemeanor punishable by not more than a year of imprisonment and a fine of not more than $1,000. Ill. Rey. Stat., ch. 38, §§ 16-1 (e)(1), 1005-8-3 (a) (1), 1005-9-1 (a)(2) (1975). A second conviction for the same offense, however, may be treated as a felony with a prison term of one to three years. § 1005-8-1 (b) (5).

Thomas Baldasar, the petitioner, was convicted of misdemeanor theft in Cook County Circuit Court in May 1975. The record of that proceeding indicates that he was not represented by a lawyer and did not formally waive any right to counsel. Baldasar was fined $159 and sentenced to one year of probation. In November 1975 the State charged him with stealing a shower head worth $29 from a department store. The case was tried to a jury in Du Page County Circuit Court in August 1976. The prosecution introduced evidence of the prior conviction and asked that Baldasar be punished as a felon under the Illinois enhancement statute. Defense counsel objected to the admission of the 1975 conviction. She argued unsuccessfully that because Baldasar had not been represented by a lawyer at the first proceeding, the conviction was too unreliable to support enhancement of the second misdemeanor. App. 7-9. The jury returned a guilty verdict on the felony charge, and Baldasar was sentenced to prison for one to three years.

The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed by a divided vote. It emphasized that when the right to counsel in misdemeanor cases was recognized in Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25 (1972), this Court confined that right to prosecutions that “ 'end up in the actual deprivation of a person’s liberty.’ ” 52 Ill. App. 3d 305, 307, 367 N. E. 2d 459, 462 (1977), quoting Argersinger, supra, at 40. The Illinois court rejected petitioner’s argument that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments prevented the imposition of the enhanced prison term. “The fact is,” the court wrote, “that [Baldasar] was sentenced to imprisonment for his second theft conviction only and not, as he suggests, sentenced again, and this time to imprisonment, for the first theft conviction.” 52 Ill. App. 3d, at 310, 367 N. E. 2d, at 463. The Supreme Court of Illinois denied leave to appeal, and we granted certiorari. 440 U. S. 956 (1979).

For the reasons stated in the concurring opinions, the judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Appellate Court of Illinois, Second District, for further proceedings.

It is so ordered.

Mr. Justice Stewart,

with whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Stevens join,

concurring.

In Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367, the Court held that “the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution require . . . that no indigent criminal defendant be sentenced to a term of imprisonment unless the State has afforded him the right to assistance of appointed counsel in his defense.” Id., at 373-374.

In this case the indigent petitioner, after his conviction of petit larceny, was sentenced to an increased term of imprisonment only because he had been convicted in a previous prosecution in which he had not had the assistance of appointed counsel in his defense.

It seems clear to me that this prison sentence violated the constitutional rule of Scott v. Illinois, supra, and I, therefore, join the opinion and judgment of the Court.

Mr. Justice Marshall,

with whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Stevens join,

concurring.

The Sixth Amendment provides: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.” Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, 342 (1963), held that the appointment of counsel for an indigent criminal defendant is “fundamental and essential to a fair trial.” Therefore, the guarantee of counsel was made applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. Gideon, of course, involved a felony prosecution, but nothing in the opinion suggests that its reasoning was not, like the words of the Sixth Amendment itself, applicable to “all criminal prosecutions.” In Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25, 37 (1972), we rejected the suggestion that the right to counsel applied only to nonpetty offenses where the accused had a right to a jury trial, and held that “no person may be imprisoned for any offense . . . unless he was represented by counsel at his trial.”

Seven years later, in Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367 (1979), we considered a question expressly reserved in Argersinger, whether counsel must be provided if imprisonment was an authorized punishment but had not actually been imposed. See Argersinger v. Hamlin, supra, at 37. The Court “conclude [d] . . . that Argersinger did indeed delimit the constitutional right to appointed counsel in state criminal proceedings” and “adopt[ed] . . . actual imprisonment as the line defining the constitutional right to appointment of counsel.” Scott v. Illinois, supra, at 373. For the reasons stated in Mr. Justice Brennan’s dissenting opinion in Scott, I remain convinced that that case was wrongly decided. Nevertheless, even if one accepts the line drawn in Scott as the constitutional rule applicable to this case, I think it plain that petitioner’s prior uncounseled misdemeanor conviction could not be used collaterally to impose an increased term of imprisonment upon a subsequent conviction.

The court below held that petitioner’s earlier conviction for shoplifting three packages of bacon was constitutionally valid under Scott since he received only a fine and probation, and therefore it could be used to elevate his subsequent conviction from a misdemeanor to a felony and to permit him to be sentenced to three years in prison rather than the one year maximum otherwise applicable. This logic is fallacious for the simple reason that petitioner’s prior conviction was not valid for all purposes. Specifically, under the rule of Scott and Argersinger, it was invalid for the purpose of depriving petitioner of his liberty.

Scott, of course, did not purport to modify or restrict Argersinger. The question in Scott was simply one of “the proper application of our decision” in Argersinger. Scott v. Illinois, supra, at 368. The Court concluded that the precise holding in Argersinger, that counsel was required because Argersinger had been imprisoned as a result of the prosecution, expressed the limit of the right to counsel. Accordingly, the Court declined to extend Argersinger to all cases in which imprisonment was an authorized penalty. In the Court’s view, Argersinger rested primarily on the conclusion “that incarceration was so severe a sanction that it should not be imposed as a result of a criminal trial unless an indigent defendant had been offered appointed counsel to assist in his defense,” 440 U. S., at 372-373.

That petitioner has been deprived of his liberty “as a result of [the first] criminal trial” could not be clearer. If it had not been for the prior conviction, petitioner could not have been sentenced to more than one year for the present offense. Solely because of the previous conviction the second offense was transformed from a misdemeanor into a felony, with all the serious collateral consequences that a felony conviction entails, and he received a sentence that may result in imprisonment for two years in excess of that 1-year maximum.

Mr. Justice Powell’s dissenting opinion, post, at 232, asserts that this result is constitutionally permissible because under the enhancement statute the increased punishment was imposed for the second offense rather than the first. I agree that the increased prison sentence in this case is not an enlargement of the sentence for the original offense. If it were, this would be a double jeopardy case. But under the recidivist clause of the Illinois statute, if the State proves a prior conviction for the same offense a completely different range of sentencing options, including a substantially longer term of imprisonment, becomes available. The sentence petitioner actually received would not have been authorized by statute but for the previous conviction. It was imposed as a direct consequence of that uncounseled conviction and is therefore forbidden under Scott and Argersinger.

We should not lose sight of the underlying rationale of Argersinger, that unless an accused has “the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him,” Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, 69 (1932), his conviction is not sufficiently reliable to support the severe sanction of imprisonment. Argersinger v. Hamlin, supra, at 31-36. An uncoun-seled conviction does not become more reliable merely because the accused has been validly convicted of a subsequent offense. For this reason, a conviction which is invalid for purposes of imposing a sentence of imprisonment for the offense itself remains invalid for purposes of increasing a term of imprisonment for a subsequent conviction under a repeat-offender statute. It is therefore incorrect to say that our decision today creates a “new hybrid” of misdemeanor convictions. Post, at 232 (Powell, J., dissenting). To the contrary, a rule that held a conviction invalid for imposing a prison term directly, but valid for imposing a prison term collaterally, would be an illogical and unworkable deviation from our previous cases.

Mr. Justice Blackmun,

concurring.

In Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367 (1979), I stated in dissent:

“Accordingly, I would hold that an indigent defendant in a state criminal case must be afforded appointed counsel whenever the defendant is prosecuted for a non-petty criminal offense, that is, one punishable by more than six months’ imprisonment, see Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968); Baldwin v. New York, 399 U. S. 66 (1970), or whenever the defendant is convicted of an offense and is actually subjected to a term of imprisonment, Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25 (1972).
“This resolution, I feel, would provide the ‘bright line’ that defendants, prosecutors, and trial and appellate courts all deserve and, at the same time, would reconcile on a principled basis the important considerations that led to the decisions in Duncan, Baldwin, and Argersinger.” Id., at 389-390.

I still am of the view that this “bright line” approach would best preserve constitutional values and do so with a measure of clarity for all concerned. Had the Court in Scott v. Illinois adopted that approach, the present litigation, in all probability, would not have reached us. Petitioner Baldasar was prosecuted for an offense punishable by more than six months’ imprisonment, and, under my test, was entitled to counsel at the prior misdemeanor proceeding. Since he was not represented by an attorney, that conviction, in my view, is invalid and may not be used to support enhancement.

I therefore join the Court’s per curiam opinion and its judgment.

Mr. Justice Powell,

with whom The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice White, and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join,

dissenting.

Last Term in Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367 (1979), we rejected the claim that Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25 (1972), requires the appointment of counsel for an indigent charged with a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment, regardless of whether the defendant actually is sentenced to jail. We held explicitly that an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction is constitutionally valid if the offender is not jailed.

In 1975, the petitioner in this case was tried without the appointment of counsel and convicted of a misdemeanor theft. Although the statute authorized imprisonment, petitioner only was fined. The circumstances of that conviction, therefore, were precisely like those of the petitioner in Scott v. Illinois, and the conviction was constitutionally valid.

The question presented today is different from that decided in Scott. This case concerns the enhanced sentence imposed on petitioner Baidasar for a subsequent conviction for misdemeanor theft. Petitioner, who was represented by counsel at the second trial, concedes that he could have been sentenced to one year in jail for the second offense. He challenges only the addition of two years to his sentence, an enhancement that was based on his record as a recidivist. The Court holds that, even though the first conviction was valid, the State cannot rely upon it for enhancement purposes following a subsequent valid conviction. This holding undermines the rationale of Scott and Argersinger and leaves no coherent rationale in its place. A constitutionally valid conviction is now constitutionally invalid if relied upon as the predicate for enhancing the sentence of a recidivist.

In my view, this result is logically indefensible. More seriously, the courts that try misdemeanor cases daily no longer have clear guidance from this Court. No court can predict with confidence whether a misdemeanor defendant is likely to become a recidivist. The option of not imposing a jail sentence on an uncounseled misdemeanant, expressly preserved by Argersinger and Scott, no longer exists unless the court is willing prospectively to preclude enhancement of future convictions. I dissent both because I believe that Scott dictates a contrary result, and because the courts of our Nation are entitled, at a minimum, to a clear rule on this important question.

I

Scott held that “actual imprisonment [is] the line defining the constitutional right to appointment of counsel.” 440 U. S., at 373. Petitioner Baidasar concedes the validity under Scott of his uncounseled theft conviction in 1975. He argues, nevertheless, that the enhanced sentence imposed for the second offense included an element of imprisonment for the first conviction. Consequently, he continues, the enhancement violates the rule of Scott that a conviction may not lead to imprisonment unless retained or appointed counsel is available to the defendant. Although Mr. Justice Blackmun applies his own “bright line” approach to the question, four Members of the Court agree with petitioner’s contentions. See ante, p. 224 (Stewart, J., concurring); ante, p. 224 (Marshall, J., concurring).

This line of argument misapprehends the nature of enhancement statutes. These laws, commonplace in our criminal justice system, do not alter or enlarge a prior sentence. If, as in this case, a person with a prior conviction chooses to commit a subsequent crime, he thereby becomes subject to the increased penalty prescribed for the second crime. This Court consistently has sustained repeat-offender laws as penalizing only the last offense committed by the defendant. E. g., Moore v. Missouri, 159 U. S. 673, 677 (1895); Oyler v. Boles, 368 U. S. 448, 451 (1962). Under Illinois law a second conviction for petty theft may be treated as a felony with a prison term. The sentence imposed upon petitioner was solely a penalty for the second theft.

Moreover, petitioner’s argument ignores the significance of the constitutional validity of his first conyiction. Petitioner questions neither the factual accuracy nor the legality of that conviction. In order to accept his argument, the Court creates a special class of uncounseled misdemeanor convictions. Those judgments are valid for the purposes of their own penalties as long as the defendant receives no prison term. But the Court holds that these convictions are invalid for the purpose of enhancing punishment upon a subsequent misdemeanor conviction.

By creating this new hybrid, the Court departs from the position it took after Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963), established the right to counsel in felony cases. Following Gideon, the Court consistently held that because an uncounseled felony conviction was constitutionally invalid— and therefore void — it could not be put to other uses in court. In Burgett v. Texas, 389 U. S. 109, 115 (1967), the Court stated that an uncounseled felony conviction could not be used in a later trial to enhance punishment under a recidivist statute. Loper v. Beto, 405 U. S. 473, 483 (1972), barred impeachment of a defendant with such a felony conviction, and United States v. Tucker, 404 U. S. 443 (1972), held that a sentencing judge cannot consider a prior uncounseled felony.

Misdemeanor convictions, however, have been treated differently. Argerdnger held that in misdemeanor cases the right to counsel applies only if the prosecution may “end up in the actual deprivation of a person’s liberty.” 407 U. S., at 40. In a fully considered opinion last Term, the Court ruled in Scott that the Sixth Amendment does not bar an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction if the defendant is not imprisoned.

Logically, just as a constitutionally invalid felony judgment could not be used for sentence enhancement in Burgett, the valid misdemeanor conviction in this case should be available to enhance petitioner’s sentence. But the Court makes no effort to defend its ruling on the basis of logic, or even on the policy ground that an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction is too unreliable to support enhancement of a subsequent sentence. Instead, four Members of the Court rely on what I view as the incorrect statement that sentence enhancement equals imprisonment for the earlier offense, while a fifth Member adheres to the assertion rejected in Scott that a “bright line” should require counsel for prosecutions that could result in imprisonment for six months or more. Ante, p. 229 (Blackmun, J., concurring).

II

The Court’s decision not only is analytically unsound, but also will create confusion in local courts and impose greater burdens on state and local governments. The Illinois Appellate Court pointed out that at least 11 Illinois laws, including the statute at issue here, impose enhanced penalties for repeat misdemeanants. 52 Ill. App. 3d 305, 308, and n. 1, 367 N. E. 2d 459, 462, and n. 1 (1977). Most state criminal codes have similar provisions. See, e. g., Note, 35 Ohio St. L. J. 168, 182, n. 72 (1974) (citing Ohio statutes). And the Solicitor General, urging affirmance in this case, emphasized that this decision will hamper enforcement of important federal statutes long in effect. Providing counsel for all defendants charged with enhanceable misdemeanors will exacerbate the delays that plague many state misdemeanor courts and will impose unnecessary costs on local governments. Those communities that cannot provide counsel for misdemeanor defendants will lose by default the possibility of enhancing future sentences if -criminal conduct persists. The result will be frustration of state policies of deterring recidivism by imposing enhanced penalties.

In addition, as the Illinois Appellate Court predicted, today’s ruling will incite further litigation claiming that uncounseled misdemeanor convictions cannot be used to impeach a defendant’s testimony, or that judges should not consider such convictions in later sentencing determinations. 52 Ill. App. 3d, at 310, 367 N. E. 2d, at 463. Following today’s pronouncement, there is no way to predict the outcome of any such claim.

But at least it is clear, regrettably, that the Court has frustrated its own effort in Scott to provide effective guidance to the local courts that try misdemeanor cases every day. I would affirm the decision of the Illinois Appellate Court that faithfully followed our decision in Scott.

      It is noteworthy that the brief filed by the State of Illinois in Scott expressly anticipated the result in this case:
      “When prosecuting an offense the prosecutor knows that by not requesting that counsel be appointed for defendant, he will he 'precluded, from

        enhancing subsequent offenses. To the degree that the charging of offenses involves a great deal of prosecutorial discretion and selection, the decision to pursue conviction with only limited use comes within proper scope of that discretion.” Brief for Respondent in Scott v. Illinois, O. T. 1978, No. 77-1177, p. 20 (emphasis added).
      Mr. Justice BreNNAN adheres to his dissent in Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367, 375.

       The fact that petitioner could be sentenced to some period of incarceration as a result of his second conviction does not, of course, prevent him from objecting to a further deprivation of liberty on the basis of an uncounseled conviction.

       I cannot agree with Mr. Justice Powell’s unsupported assertion, post, at 233-234, n. 2, that an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction is more likely to be reliable than an uncounseled felony conviction. I had thought that suggestion was squarely rejected in Argersinger. Mr. Justice Douglas’ opinion for the Court emphasized the need for the assistance of counsel to assure reliability of misdemeanor convictions: “We are by no means convinced that legal and constitutional questions involved in a case that actually leads to imprisonment even for a brief period are any less complex than when a person can be sent off for six months or more.” Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S., at 33. The Chief Justice concurred in the result, stating: “The issues that must be dealt with in a trial for a petty offense or a misdemeanor may often be simpler ■ than those involved in a felony trial and yet be beyond the capability of a layman. . . . There is little ground, therefore, to assume that a defendant, unaided by counsel, will be any more able adequately to defend himself against the lesser charges that may involve confinement than more serious charges.” Id., at 41. Mr. Justice Powell observed: “Many petty offenses will also present complex legal and factual issues that may not be fairly tried if the defendant is not assisted by counsel. Even in relatively simple cases, some defendants, because of ignorance or some other handicap, will be incapable of defending themselves.” Id., at 47 (opinion concurring in result).
      In fact, as the opinion for the Court recognized, misdemeanor convictions may actually be less reliable than felony convictions. “[T]he volume of misdemeanor cases . . . may create an obsession for speedy dispositions, regardless of the fairness of the result. . . . ‘The misdemeanor trial is characterized by insufficient and frequently irresponsible preparation on the part of the defense, the prosecution, and the court. Everything is rush, rush.’ . . . There is evidence of the prejudice which results to misdemeanor defendants from this ‘assembly-line justice.’ ” Id., at 34r-36 (footnote and citations omitted). Moreover, if the ease is tried to a jury, as was petitioner’s first conviction, it is entirely possible that jurors may be less scrupulous about applying the reasonable-doubt standard if the offense charged is “only a misdemeanor.”

       The dissent expresses concern that our decision will impose unacceptable economic burdens on state and local governments. Post, at 235. I do not share that view. Not all misdemeanor defendants, of course, are indigent. See Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367, 385, and n. 16 (1979) (Brennan, J., dissenting). Where the defendant is indigent, counsel will be provided in the first trial unless the prosecution does not seek a jail term. A great many States provide counsel in all cases where imprisonment is authorized, even though counsel is not constitutionally required. See id., at 386-387, n. 18. Further, not all subsequent offenses are subject to enhancement, and not all previous offenses are predicate offenses for enhancement purposes. Thus the number of cases in which the State must decide whether to provide counsel solely to preserve its ability to enhance a subsequent offense will be only a fraction of the total. In many of those remaining eases, the judgment whether future misconduct is likely, and whether the first offense is serious enough to warrant its use for enhancement, will be a relatively easy exercise of prosecutorial discretion.
      The economic effect of our decision today will be miniscule compared to that of Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45 (1932), Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963), and Argersinger v. Hamlin, supra. But whatever that cost may be, it cannot outweigh the Sixth Amendment command that no one may be imprisoned as a result of a conviction in which he was denied the assistance of counsel.

       Despite reservations, I joined the decision in Scott v. Illinois because it was consistent with Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S., at 44 (Powell, J., concurring in result), and it “provide[d] clear guidance to the hundreds of courts across the country that confront this problem daily.” 440 U. S., at 374 (Powell, J., concurring).

       Although only the opinion of Mr. Justice Marshall mentions the issue, ante, at 227-228, n. 2, petitioner urges that an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction is too unreliable to support sentence enhancement for later offenses. Compared to a felony judgment, however, most uncoun-seled misdemeanor convictions are far more likely to be reliable. In my separate opinion in Argersinger, I expressed the view that counsel should be provided in certain misdemeanor cases not involving the possibility of a jail sentence. 407 U. S., at 47-50. That view was rejected by the Court. It cannot be denied, however, that the issues in the great majority of misdemeanor cases are not complicated and the facts often are not in dispute. In addition, most such cases are tried to a judge. But there is a more fundamental answer to petitioner’s argument. Here, the uncounseled conviction is conceded to be valid and thus must be presumed reliable.

       Today’s decision is all the more puzzling in view of the Court’s recent ruling in Lewis v. United States, 445 U. S. 55 (1980). Lewis held that an uncounseled felony conviction is a proper predicate for imposing federal sanctions for possession of a firearm by a felon. Although I dissented on statutory grounds in Lewis, the opinion’s constitutional holding squarely conflicts with today’s decision. Unlike misdemeanors, all uncounseled felony judgments are constitutionally invalid. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963). Yet Lewis held that even though the federal firearm statute imposes a prison sentence solely because the defendant had an uncounseled — and thus void — felony conviction on his record, that procedure does not use the void conviction to “ ‘support guilt or enhance punishment.’ ” 445 U. S., at 67, quoting Burgett v. Texas, 389 U. S. 109, 115 (1967). In this case, the Court refuses to permit sentence enhancement on the basis of a constitutionally valid misdemeanor conviction. The conflict between the two holdings could scarcely be more violent.

       Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 2, citing 8 U. S. C. § 1325 (illegal entry into United States by alien); and 2, n. 2, citing 15 U. S. C. § 1263 (shipment of misbranded or banned hazardous substances).


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Per Curiam. Mr. Justice Blackmun, Mr. Justice White,

license: Public Domain

text:
    WILLIAMS et al. v. BROWN et al.
    No. 78-357.
    Argued March 19, 1979
    Reargued October 29, 1979—
    Decided April 22, 1980

      William H. Allen reargued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were Donald Harrison, John Michael Clear, and Robert C. Campbell III.

      Eric Schnapper reargued the cause for appellees. With him on the briefs were J. U. Blacksher, Larry Menefee, and Jack Greenberg.

      Deputy Assistant Attorney General Turner reargued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. On the brief were Solicitor General McCree, Assistant Attorney General Days, Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, Elinor Hadley Stillman, Brian K. Lafidsberg, Jessica Dunsay Silver, Dennis J. Dimsey, and Miriam R. Eisenstein.

    [For dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Brennan, see ante, p. 94.]
    [For dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Marshall, see ante, p. 103.]
   Per Curiam.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings in light of the decision of the Court announced today in City of Mobile v. Bolden, ante, p. 55.

It is so ordered.

Mr. Justice Blackmun,

concurring.

I, of course, must accept the Court’s vacation of the judgment and its remand. If, however, we were to reach the merits, then, in contrast to the result in City of Mobile v. Bolden, ante, p. 55, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals in this case.

Mr. Justice White,

dissenting.

Because the decision below in this case is based on findings of fact and conclusions of law virtually identical to those in City of Mobile v. Bolden, ante, p. 55, I dissent for the reasons stated in my opinion in that case, ante, p. 94.


author: Mr. Justice Marshall

text:
    MARSHALL, SECRETARY OF LABOR, et al. v. JERRICO, INC.
    No. 79-253.
    Argued March 19, 1980
    Decided April 28, 1980

      Marshall, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

      Deputy Solicitor General Getter argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs was Solicitor General McCree.

      Thomas W. Power argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were William E. Anderson and Curtis L. Wilson.

   Mr. Justice Marshall

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Under § 16 (e) of the Pair Labor Standards Act, 29 U. S. C. § 216 (e), sums collected as civil penalties for the unlawful employment of child labor are returned to the Employment Standards Administration (ESA) of the Department of Labor in reimbursement for the costs of determining violations and assessing penalties. The question for decision is whether this provision violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment by creating an impermissible risk of bias in the Act’s enforcement and administration.

I

The child labor provisions of federal law are primarily contained in § 12 of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 52 Stat. 1067, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 212. The Secretary of Labor has designated the ESA as the agency responsible for enforcing these provisions, 36 Fed. Reg. 8755 (1971). The ESA in turn carries out its responsibilities through regional offices, and the assistant regional administrator of each office has been charged with the duty of determining violations and assessing penalties.

Appellee Jerrico, Inc., is a Delaware corporation that manages approximately 40 restaurants in Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida. In a series of investigations from 1969 to 1975, the ESA uncovered over 150 violations of the child labor provisions at appellee’s various establishments. After considering the factors designated by statute and regulations, the ESA Assistant Regional Administrator in the Atlanta office assessed a total fine of $103,000 in civil penalties for the various violations. That figure included a supplemental assessment of $84,500 because of his conclusion that the violations were willful.

Appellee filed exceptions to the determination and assessment of the Assistant Regional Administrator, and pursuant to 29 U. S. C. § 216 (e), a hearing was held before an Administrative Law Judge. Witnesses included employees of appellee and representatives of the Department of Labor. The Administrative Law Judge accepted the Assistant Regional Administrator’s contention that violations had occurred, concluding that the record showed “a course of violations” for which “[respondent's responsibility cannot be disputed.” At the same time, he was persuaded by appellee’s witnesses and by a review of the evidence that the violations were not willful. Accordingly, he reduced the total assessment to $18,500.

Appellee did not seek judicial review of the decision of the Administrative Law Judge. Instead, it brought suit in Federal District Court, challenging the civil penalty provisions of the Act on constitutional grounds and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against their continued enforcement. Appellee accepted the determination of the Administrative Law Judge and alleged no unfairness in the proceedings before him. Nonetheless, it contended that § 16 (e) of the Act violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment by providing that civil penalties must be returned to the ESA as reimbursement for enforcement expenses and by allowing the ESA to allocate such fines to its various regional offices. According to appellee, this provision created an impermissible risk and appearance of bias by encouraging the assistant regional administrator to make unduly numerous and large assessments of civil penalties.

After the parties engaged in discovery with respect to the administration of § 16 (e), appellee moved for summary judgment. The District Court granted the motion. It acknowledged that the Office of Administrative Law Judges was unaffected by the total amount of the civil penalties. At the same time, the court concluded that the reimbursement provision created an impermissible risk of bias on the part of the assistant regional administrator. Citing Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510 (1927), and Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U. S. 57 (1972), the court found that because a regional office’s greater effort in uncovering violations could lead to an increased amount of penalties and a greater share of reimbursements for that office, § 16 (e) could distort the assistant regional administrator’s objectivity in assessing penalties for violations of the child labor provisions of the Act.

We noted probable jurisdiction, 444 U. S. 949 (1979), and now reverse.

II

A

The Due Process Clause entitles a person to an impartial and disinterested tribunal in both civil and criminal cases. This requirement of neutrality in adjudicative proceedings safeguards the two central concerns.of procedural due process, the prevention of unjustified or mistaken deprivations and the promotion of participation and dialogue by affected individuals in the decisionmaking process. See Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S. 247, 259-262, 266-267 (1978). The neutrality requirement helps to guarantee that life, liberty, or property will not be taken on the basis of an erroneous or distorted conception of the facts or the law. See Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 344 (1976). At the same time, it preserves both the appearance and reality of fairness, “generating the feeling, so important to a popular government, that justice has been done,” Joint Anti-Fascist Committee v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 172 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring), by ensuring that no person will be deprived of his interests in the absence of a proceeding in which he may present his case with assurance that the arbiter is not predisposed to find against him.

The requirement of neutrality has been jealously guarded by this Court. In Tumey v. Ohio, supra, the Court reversed convictions rendered by the mayor of a town when the mayor’s salary was paid in part by fees and costs levied by him acting in a judicial capacity. The Court stated that the Due Process Clause would not permit any “procedure which would offer a possible temptation to the average man as a judge to forget the burden of proof required to convict the defendant, or which might lead him not to hold the balance nice, clear and true between the State and the accused.” 273 U. S., at 532. Tumey was applied in Ward v. Village of Monroeville, supra, to invalidate a procedure by which sums produced from a mayor’s court accounted for a substantial portion of municipal revenues, even though the mayor’s salary was not augmented by those sums. The forbidden “possible temptation,” we concluded, is also present “when the mayor’s executive responsibilities for village finances may make him partisan to maintain the high level of contribution from the mayor’s court.” 409 U. S., at 60. We have employed the same principle in a variety of settings, demonstrating the powerful and independent constitutional interest in fair adjudicative procedure. Indeed, “justice must satisfy the appearance of justice,” Offutt v. United States, 348 U. S. 11, 14 (1954), and this “stringent rule may sometimes bar trial by judges who have no actual bias and who would do their very best to weigh the scales of justice equally between contending parties,” In re Murchison, 349 U. S. 133, 136 (1955). See also Taylor v. Hayes, 418 U. S. 488 (1974).

Appellee contends that these principles compel the conclusion that the reimbursement provision of the Act violates the Due Process Clause. We conclude, however, that the strict requirements of Tumey and Ward are not applicable to the determinations of the assistant regional administrator, whose functions resemble those of a prosecutor more closely than those of a judge. The biasing influence that appellee discerns in § 16 (e) is, we believe, too remote and insubstantial to violate the constitutional constraints applicable to the decisions of an administrator performing prosecutorial functions. To explain our conclusion, we turn to the relevant sections of the Act.

As noted above, the major portions of the federal child labor provisions appear in 29 U. S. C. § 212, which outlaws the employment in interstate commerce of “oppressive child labor,” as that term is defined in 29 U. S. C. § 203 (l) and implementing regulations. These provisions demonstrate a firm federal policy of “protect [ing] the safety, health, well-being, and opportunities for schooling of youthful workers.” 29 CFR § 570.101 (1979). See also H. R. Rep. No. 1452, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1937); S. Rep. No. 884, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 2, 6 (1937);

Before 1974, the Secretary of Labor enforced the child labor provisions primarily through actions for injunctive relief, see 29 U. S. C. §§ 212 (b), 217, and for criminal sanctions, see 29 U. S. C. §§ 216 (a), 215(a)(4). Having found such relief to be an inadequate or insufficiently flexible remedy for violations of the law, cf. H. R. Rep. No. 93-913, p. 15 (1974), Congress in 1974 authorized the Secretary to assess a civil penalty not to exceed $1,000 for each violation of § 212. 29 U. S. C. § 216 (e). Under this provision for the assessment of civil penalties, the Secretary’s determination of the existence of a violation and of the amount of the penalty is not final if the person charged with a violation enters an exception within 15 days of receiving notice. In the event that such an exception is entered, the final determination is made in an administrative hearing conducted in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 554. The administrative law judge “may affirm, in whole or in part, the determination by the Administrator of the occurrence of violations or . . . may find that no violations occurred, and shall order payment of a penalty in the amount originally assessed or in a lesser amount ... or order that respondent pay no penalty, as appropriate.” 29 CFR § 580.32 (a) (1979). He is directed to consider the same factors considered by the assistant regional administrator in making his original assessment. Ibid. Under the natural construction of this regulation, the administrative law judge is required to conduct a de novo review of all factual and legal issues.

The provision whose constitutionality is at issue in this case is a part of 29 U. S. C. § 216 (e), the civil penalty section of the Act. That provision states that civil penalties collected for violations of the child labor law “shall be applied toward reimbursement of the costs of determining the violations and assessing and collecting such penalties, in accordance with the provisions of section 9a of this title.” Section 9a, 29 U. S. C. § 9a, added in 1934, provides in turn that all sums

“received by the Department of Labor in payment of the cost of such work shall be deposited to the credit of the appropriation of that bureau, service, office, division, or other agency of the Department of Labor which supervised such work, and may be used, in the discretion of the Secretary of Labor, and notwithstanding any other provision of law, for the ordinary expenses of such agency and/or to secure the special services of persons who are neither officers nor employees of the United States.”

The record developed in the District Court permits a detailed description of the administration of the reimbursement provision in the years 1976, 1977, and 1978. It is plain that no official’s salary is affected by the levels of the penalties. In all three years the sums collected as child labor penalties amounted to substantially less than 1% of the ESA’s budget. And in each of those years, the ESA did not spend the full amount appropriated to it, and the sums that were not spent were returned to the Treasury. The amounts returned to the Treasury in that fashion substantially exceeded the sums collected under § 16 (e) in all three years. The challenged provisions have not, therefore, resulted in any increase in the funds available to the ESA over the amount appropriated by Congress.

Civil penalties for child labor violations are allocated by the national office of the ESA, subject to the approval of the Secretary of Labor. In 1976, the sums collected were allocated to and retained by the ESA national office; in 1977, they were allocated to the national office, to the Office of the Solicitor of Labor, and to the various regional offices in proportion to the amounts expended on enforcement of the child labor provisions; and in 1978, the penalties were held in the Treasury. Civil penalties have never been allotted to the regional offices on the basis of the total amount of penalties collected by particular offices.

The District Court concluded that in these circumstances the challenged provision violated the Due Process Clause under the principles set forth in Tumey and Ward. It noted that, as the 1977 practice demonstrated, the ESA has discretion to return sums collected as civil penalties .to the regional offices in proportion to the amounts expended on enforcement efforts. Increased enforcement costs could thus lead to a larger share of reimbursements. According to the court, an assistant regional administrator would therefore be inclined to maximize the total expenditures on enforcement of the child labor provisions of the Act, and those increased expenditures would result in an increase in the number and amount of penalties assessed. The court concluded that this possibility created an unconstitutional risk of bias in the assistant regional administrator’s enforcement decisions. We disagree.

The assistant regional administrator simply cannot be equated with the kind of decisionmakers to which the principles of Tumey and Ward have been held applicable. He is not a judge. He performs no judicial or quasi-judicial functions. He hears no witnesses and rules on no disputed factual or legal questions. The function of assessing a violation is ..akin to that of a prosecutor or civil plaintiff. If the employer excepts to a penalty — as he has a statutory right to do- — -he is entitled to a dé novo hearing before .an administrative law judge. In that hearing the assistant regional administrator acts as the complaining party and bears the burden of proof on contested issues. 29 CFR § 580.21 (a) (1979). Indeed, the Secretary’s regulations state that the notice of penalty assessment and the employer’s exception “shall, respectively, be given the effect of a complaint and answer thereto for purposes of the administrative proceeding.” 29 CFR § 580.3 (b) (1979). It is the administrative law judge, not the assistant regional administrator, who performs the function of adjudicating child labor violations. As the District Court found, the reimbursement provision of § 16 (e) is inapplicable to the Office of Administrative Law Judges.

The rigid requirements of Turney and Ward, designed for officials performing judicial or quasi-judicial functions, are not applicable to those acting in a prosecutorial or plaintiff-like capacity. Our legal system has traditionally accorded wide discretion to criminal prosecutors in the enforcement process, see Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U. S. 614 (1973), and similar considerations have been found applicable to administrative prosecutors as well, see Moog Industries, Inc. v. FTC, 355 U. S. 411, 414 (1958); Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 182 (1967). Prosecutors need not be entirely “neutral and detached,” cf. Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U. S., at 62. In an adversary system, they are necessarily permitted to be zealous in their enforcement of the law. The constitutional interests in accurate finding of facts and application of law, and in preserving a fair and open process for decision, are not to the same degree implicated if it is the prosecutor, and not the judge, who is offered an incentive for securing civil penalties. The distinction between judicial and non judicial officers was explicitly made in Tumey, 273 U. S., at 535, where the Court noted that a state legislature “may, and often ought to, stimulate prosecutions for crime by offering to those who shall initiate and carry on such prosecutions rewards for thus acting in the interest of the State and the people.” See also Hortonville School Dist. v. Hortonville Ed. Assn., 426 U. S. 482, 495 (1976).

We do not suggest, and appellants do not contend, that the Due Process Clause imposes no limits on the partisanship of administrative prosecutors. Prosecutors are also public officials; they too must serve the public interest. Berger v. United States, 295 U. S. 78, 88 (1935). In appropriate circumstances the Court has made clear that traditions of prosecutorial discretion do not immunize from judicial scrutiny cases in which the enforcement decisions of an administrator were motivated by improper factors or were otherwise contrary to law. See Dunlop v. Bachowski, 421 U. S. 560, 567, n. 7, 568-574 (1975); Rochester Telephone Corp. v. United States, 307 U. S. 125 (1939). Moreover, the decision to enforce — or not to enforce — may itself result in significant burdens on a defendant or a statutory beneficiary, even if he is ultimately vindicated in an adjudication. Cf. 2 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise 215-256 (2d ed. 1979). A scheme injecting a personal interest, financial or otherwise, into the enforcement process may bring irrelevant or impermissible factors into the prosecutorial decision and in some contexts raise serious constitutional questions. See Borden-kircher v. Hayes, 434 U. S. 357, 365 (1978); cf. 28 U. S. C. § 528 (1976 ed., Supp. Ill) (disqualifying federal prosecutor from participating in litigation in which he has a personal interest). But the strict requirements of neutrality cannot be the same for administrative prosecutors as for judges, whose duty it is to make the final decision and whose impartiality serves as the ultimate guarantee of a fair and meaningful proceeding in our constitutional regime.

B

In this case, we need not say with precision what limits there may be on a financial or personal interest of one who performs a prosécutorial function, for here the influence alleged to impose bias is exceptionally remote. No governmental official stands to profit economically from vigorous enforcement of the child labor provisions of the Act. The salary of the assistant regional administrator is fixed by law. 5 U. S. C. § 5332 (1976 ed. and Supp. III). The pressures relied on in such cases as. Tumey v. Ohio, supra; Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U. S. 564, 579 (1973); and Connally v. Georgia, 429 U. S. 245, 250 (1977) (per curiam), are entirely absent here.

Nor is there a realistic possibility that the assistant regional administrator’s judgment will be distorted by the prospect of institutional gain as a result of zealous enforcement efforts. As we have noted, the civil penalties collected under § 16 (e) represent substantially less than 1% of the budget of the ESA. In each of the relevant years, the amount of the ESA’s budget that was returned to the Treasury was substantially greater than the amount collected as civil penalties. Unlike in Ward and Tumey, it is plain that the enforcing agent is in no sense financially dependent on the maintenance of a high level of penalties. Furthermore, since it is the national office of the ESA, and not any assistant regional administrator, that decides how to allocate civil penalties, such administrators have no assurance that the penalties they assess will be-returned to their offices at all. See Dugan v. Ohio, 277 U. S. 61 (1928).

Moreover, the ESA’s administration of the Act has minimized any potential for bias. In the only year in which the ESA elected to allocate part of the civil penalties to the regional offices, it did so in proportion to the expenses incurred in investigating and prosecuting child labor violations, not on the basis of the amounts of penalties collected. Thus, even if an assistant regional administrator were to act on the assumption that civil penalties would be returned to his office in any given year, his decision to assess an unjustifiably large penalty in a particular case would be of no benefit to his office, since that decision would not produce an increase in the level of expenses.

The District Court’s conclusion that the reimbursement provision violated the Due Process Clause was evidently premised on its perception that an assistant regional administrator might be tempted to devote an unusually large quantity of resources to enforcement efforts in the hope that he would ultimately obtain a higher total allocation of federal funds to his office. This increase in enforcement effort, the court suggested, might incline the assistant regional administrator to assess an unjustified number of penalties, and to make those penalties unduly high. But in light of the factors discussed above, it is clear that this possibility is too remote to violate the constraints applicable to the financial or personal interest of officials charged with prosecutorial or plaintiff-like functions. In order to produce the predicted result, the ESA would be required to decide to allocate civil penalties to regional offices; the sums allocated to the particular regional office would have to exceed any amount of that office’s budget returned to the Treasury at the end of the fiscal year; the assistant regional administrator would have to receive authorization from his superiors to expend additional funds to increase his enforcement expenditures to the desired level; the increased expenditures would have to result in an increase in penalties; and the administrative law judge and reviewing courts would have to accept or ratify the assistant regional administrator’s assessments. “[U]nder a realistic appraisal of psychological tendencies and human weakness,” Withrow v. Larkin, 421 U. S. 35, 47 (1975), it is exceedingly improbable that the assistant regional administrator’s enforcement decisions would be distorted by some expectation that all of these contingencies would simultaneously come to fruition. We are thus unable to accept appellee’s contention that, on this record and as presently administered, the reimbursement provision violates standards of procedural fairness embodied in the Due Process Clause.

The judgment of the District Court is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

       Those factors include “any history of prior violations; any evidence of willfulness or failure to take reasonable precautions to avoid violations; the number of minors illegally employed; the age of the minors so employed and records of the required proof of age; the occupations in which the minors were so employed; exposure of such minors to hazards and any resultant injury to such minors; the duration of such illegal employment; and, as appropriate, the hours of the day in which it occurred and whether such employment was during or outside school hours.” 29 CFR § 579.5 (c) (1979).

       For example, we have invalidated a system in which justices of the peace were paid for issuance but not for nonissuance of search warrants, Connally v. Georgia, 429 U. S. 245 (1977) (per curiam); prohibited the trial of a defendant before a judge who has previously held the defendant in contempt, Taylor v. Hayes, 418 U. S. 488 (1974); Mayberry v. Pennsylvania, 400 U. S. 455 (1971); forbidden a state administrative board consisting of optometrists in private practice from hearing charges filed against licensed optometrists competing with board members, Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U. S. 564, 578-579 (1973); and prohibited a parole officer from making the determination whether reasonable grounds exist for the revocation of parole, Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 485-486 (1972).

       See xi. 1, supra.

       See n. 9, infra, and accompanying text.

       The section was originally designed “[t]o authorize the Department of Labor to make special statistical studies upon payment of the cost thereof, and for other purposes.” See 48 Stat. 582; S. Rep. No. 322, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. (1934).

       In 1976, the ESA collected about $151,000 in child labor penalties; in 1977, $650,000; and in 1978, $592,000. By comparison, $87,407,000 was appropriated to the ESA in 1976; $98,992,000 in 1977; and $119,632,000 in 1978. See Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1980— Appendix 652; Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1979 — Appendix 623-624; Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1978 — Appendix 510.

       The record indicates that, in 1976, the ESA returned $981,000 to the Treasury; $870,000 was returned in 1977; and $4,600,000 in 1978.

       In that year a total of $559,800 was allotted, including $194,800 to the national office. The Chicago office received $44,300, the highest allotment of any regional office; the Denver office received the lowest, $4,900.

       Appellee claims that the hearing before the administrative law judge is not truly de novo because the judge has the authority only to determine the existence of the violation, not to assess the reasonableness of the penalty. We are unable to discern any such limitation on the administrative law judge’s authority. Under federal regulations, the administrative law judge is expressly empowered to review the amount of the penalty and is required to consider precisely those factors considered by the assistant regional administrator in making his assessment. See 29 CFR § 579.5 (1979). Indeed, in this very case the Administrative Law Judge carefully reviewed the Assistant Regional Administrator’s assessment and reduced it by over 80%.
      Appellee correctly points out that in Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U. S. 57 (1972), we held that the availability of a trial de novo before an unbiased judge did not remove the constitutional infirmity in an original trial before one whose impartiality was impaired. A litigant, we said, “is entitled to a neutral and detached judge in the first instance.” Id., at 61-62. Ward does not aid appellee in this case, however, for the administrative law judge presides over the initial adjudication.

       Appellee errs in suggesting that the Office of Administrative Law Judges is also entitled to reimbursement under §16 (e). When read in conjunction with 29 U. S. C. § 9 (a), that section allows reimbursement to offices that “supervised [the] work” of “determining the violations and assessing and collecting [the] penalties.” The Office of Administrative Law Judges does not “supervise” that work. Indeed, the Administrative Procedure Act expressly forbids such supervision. 5 U. S. C. § 554 (d). The Office of Administrative Law Judges maintains an administrative section within the Department of Labor entirely separate from that of the supervising body, the ESA, and the Office has a separate budget.

       Cf., e. g., Adams v. Richardson, 156 U. S. App. D. C. 267, 480 F. 2d 1159 (1973); Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v. Ruckelshaus, 142 U. S. App. D. C. 74, 439 F. 2d 584 (1971); Medical Comm. for Human Rights v. SEC, 139 U. S. App. D. C. 226, 432 F. 2d 659 (1970), vacated as moot, 404 U. S. 403 (1972); Perez v. Boston Housing Authority, 379 Mass. 703,-,-, 400 N. E. 2d 1231, 1247, 1252-1253 (1980). See Stewart, The Reformation of American Administrative Law, 88 Harv. L. Rev. 1667, 1752-1756 (1975); Jaffe, The Individual Right to Initiate Administrative Process, 25 Iowa L. Rev. 485 (1940).

       In particular, we need not say whether different considerations might be held to apply if the alleged biasing influence contributed to prosecutions against particular persons, rather than to a general zealousness in the enforcement process.

         Even if the ESA received a considerable amount in civil penalties in a particular year, of course, it is possible that Congress would decide to appropriate a correspondingly lower amount from the Treasury.

       We need not, of course, say whether the alleged biasing influence is too remote to raise constitutional objections even under the standards of Ward and Tumey.


author: Mr. Justice Blackmun Mr. Justice Powell,

text:
    UNITED STATES v. LOUISIANA et al.
    No. 9,
    Orig.
    Argued March 18, 1980
    Decided April 28, 1980

      BlackmüN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Burger, C. J., and BreNNAN, White, and SteveNs, JJ., joined. Powell, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Stewart and RehNquist, JJ., joined, post, p. 273. Marshall, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

      Deputy Solicitor General Claiborne argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General McCree, Assistant Attorney General Moorman, Bruce C. Rashkow, Michael W. Reed, and Margaret Strand.

      William J. Guste, Jr., Attorney General of Louisiana, and Frederick W. Ellis, Special Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for defendants. With them on the briefs were Oliver P. Stockwell and Booth Kellough, Special Assistant Attorneys General, Gary L. Keyser and C. H. Mandell, Assistant Attorneys General, and Nora K. Duncan.

   Mr. Justice Blackmun

delivered the opinion of the Court.

We are concerned here with certain features of what appears to be the final stage of the long-continuing and sometimes strained controversy between the United States and the State of Louisiana over the proceeds of mineral leases on lands off Louisiana’s Gulf Coast. Specifically at issue are the asserted obligation of the United States for interest on, or for the value of the use of, impounded funds that have been awarded and paid to Louisiana, and the asserted obligation of Louisiana to account to the United States for certain unimpounded lease revenues received by the State.

I

Litigation between the United States and the State of Louisiana over rights in lands submerged in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast began over 30 years ago, in 1948, when the United States moved this Court, under its original jurisdiction, for leave to file a complaint. The Government prayed for a decree (a) declaring rights of the United States as against Louisiana over lands “underlying the Gulf of Mexico, lying seaward of the ordinary low-water mark on the coast of Louisiana and outside of the inland waters, extending seaward twenty-seven marine miles and bounded on the east and west, respectively, by the eastern and western boundaries of the State of Louisiana,” and (b) requiring that Louisiana account to the United States for money received by the State after June 23, 1947, from the area so designated. Over opposition, the requested leave was granted. United States v. Louisiana, 337 U. S. 902 (1949). Louisiana was directed to answer. 337 U. S. 928 (1949). The State, however, filed a demurrer and motions to dismiss and for other relief. These were overruled and denied. 338 U. S. 806 (1949).

Louisiana then did answer, placing in issue the claims of the United States and asserting affirmative defenses. The plaintiff’s responsive motion for judgment was set down for argument. The Court ruled that United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19 (1947), then recently decided, controlled the Louisiana litigation. In that case, the Court had held that California was not the owner of the marginal belt along its coast beyond the low-water mark, and that the Federal Government had primary rights in and power over that belt. The rationale, it was said, was that “ [n] ational rights must therefore be paramount in that area.” 339 U. S. 699, 704 (1950). A decree was entered enunciating the United States’ possession of “paramount rights” and Louisiana’s lack of “title thereto or property interest therein”; enjoining Louisiana from carrying on activities in the area for the purpose of taking petroleum, gas, or other mineral products without authority first obtained from the United States; and stating that the United States was entitled to an accounting from Louisiana of sums derived by the State from the area since June 5, 1950 (the date of the Court’s opinion). 340 U. S. 899 (1950). A like decree was entered in a companion case against Texas. United States v. Texas, 340 U. S. 900 (1950).

The Submerged Lands Act, 67 Stat. 29, 43 U. S. C. § 1301 et seg., passed May 22, 1953, came in response to these rulings. By that statute, the United States released to the coastal States its rights in the submerged lands within stated limits and confirmed its own rights therein seaward of those limits. The Act was sustained as a constitutional exercise of Congress’ power to dispose of federal property. Alabama v. Texas, 347 U. S. 272 (1954).

The passage of the Act, however, did not end the controversy. Opposing claims continued to be asserted, and Louisiana continued to conduct leasing activities with respect to submerged lands in the disputed area. Accordingly, in 1956, the United States sought and was granted leave to file a complaint in a new suit (the present litigation) against Louisiana. 350 U. S. 990. The Court forthwith enjoined Louisiana and the United States “from leasing or beginning the drilling of new wells in the disputed tidelands area . . . unless by agreement of the parties filed here.” 351 U. S. 978 (1956). In response to this ruling, on October 12, 1956, the parties entered into an Interim Agreement designed to permit further development of the submerged lands in dispute. Interpretation of this agreement is the central task of this opinion. The lawsuit continued, and in 1957 the other Gulf States in effect were requested to intervene. 354 U. S. 515.

In due course this Court held, among other things, that the Submerged Lands Act granted Louisiana ownership “to a distance no greater than three geographical miles from its coastlines, wherever those lines may ultimately be shown to be.” 363 U. S. 1, 79 (1960). A “Final Decree” was entered accordingly. 364 U. S. 502 (1960). That decree, like the one of 1950 in the earlier litigation, confirmed in the United States as against Louisiana all the land, minerals, and other natural resources underlying the Gulf of Mexico more than three geographic miles seaward from the coastline; recited that Louisiana-had no interest therein and was enjoined from interfering with the rights of the United States; stated that as against the United States Louisiana was entitled to all the lands, minerals, and other natural resources underlying the Gulf extending seaward from its coastline three geographic miles, and that the United States was not entitled to any interest therein (with a stated exception inapplicable here) ; and provided that whenever the location of the coastline of Louisiana should be agreed upon or determined, the State was to render the United States an appropriate accounting of all sums derived by it since June 5, 1950, “either by sale, leasing, licensing, exploitation or otherwise from or on account of any of the lands or resources [decreed to the United States] . . . provided, however, that as to the State of Louisiana the allocation, withdrawal and payment of any funds now impounded under the Interim Agreement between the United States and the State of Louisiana, dated October 12, 1956, shall, subject to the terms hereof, be made in accordance with the appropriate provisions of said Agreement.” Id., at 503.

On December 13, 1965, a supplemental decree was entered. 382 U. S. 288. It generally reconfirmed the respective rights of the United States and Louisiana as theretofore determined ; released to the United States all sums held impounded by it under the Interim Agreement and attributable to the lands confirmed in the United States; released to Louisiana all sums held impounded by it under that agreement and attributable to the lands confirmed in the State; directed, within 75 days, the payments required of the respective parties, and an accounting from each of sums attributable to lands confirmed in the other, id., at 293; and retained jurisdiction particularly with respect “to the remainder of the disputed area/' id., at 295.

The determination of the exact location of the Louisiana coastline remained for resolution. In United States v. California, 381 U. S. 139 (1965), this Court held that Congress had left to the courts the task of defining “inland waters,” and the Court adopted for purposes of the Submerged Lands Act the definitions contained in the international Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, ratified by the United States in 1961. [1964] 15 U. S. T. (pt. 2) 1607, T. I. A. S. No. 5639. In the present litigation, in March 1969, the Court held that that part of Louisiana's coastline which, under the Submerged Lands Act, consists of “the line marking the seaward limit of inland waters,” see 43 U. S. C. § 1301 (c), is also to be drawn in accordance with the definitions of the Convention. It decided to refer to a Special Master particularized disputes over the precise boundary between the submerged lands belonging to the United States and those belonging to Louisiana. 394 U. S. 11. A Master was appointed. 395 U. S. 901 (1969).

A second supplemental decree was entered December 20, 1971. 404 U. S. 388. That decree, among other things, determined that the United States had exclusive rights to an area of the Continental Shelf lying more than one foot seaward of a line therein described; recited that sums held impounded by the United States under the Interim Agreement and derived from those lands were released to the United States, id., at 389; and provided that leases of lands lying partly within that area and partly landward thereof were not affected by the decree, so that revenues derived therefrom were to remain subject to impoundment, id., at 402.

Still a third supplemental decree was entered October 16, 1972. 409 U. S. 17. By this decree, the Court ruled that, with a stated exception, Louisiana was entitled to all lands, minerals, and other natural resources lying more than one foot landward of a line therein described and seaward of the ordinary low-water mark on the Louisiana shore, id., at 17-18; that leases of land partly within that area and partly seaward thereof were not affected by the decree, so that revenues derived therefrom were to remain subject to impoundment; and that all sums held impounded by Louisiana or the United States under the Interim Agreement derived from leases of lands wholly within areas allotted to Louisiana were released to that State, id., at 31.

The Special Master thereafter filed his report dated July 31, 1974. Exceptions to that report made by the United States and by Louisiana, respectively, were overruled, the Special Master’s recommendations were accepted, and the parties were directed to prepare and file a proposed decree establishing “a baseline along the entire coast of the State of Louisiana.” 420 U. S. 529, 530 (1975). The parties were able to agree, and a fourth supplemental decree was entered June 16, 1975. 422 U. S. 13. Exclusive rights were affirmed in the respective parties in areas lying landward or seaward of a line three geographical miles seaward of the baseline, and impounded sums were released accordingly. Id., at 13-14. Cross-payments within 90 days and cross-accountings within 60 days were ordered. Id., at 15. The decree recited: “It is understood that the parties may be unable to agree on . . . whether interest may be due on funds impounded pursuant to the Interim Agreement of October 12, 1956.” Id., at 17. The required accountings were filed and referred to the Special Master. 423 U. S. 909 (1975).

The Master held hearings on the accountings and on the objections that were interposed. He now has filed his supplemental report dated August 27, 1979. Louisiana and the United States have each filed exceptions to that report.

II

As was observed at the beginning of this opinion, the parties and this Court should be near the end of this long-enduring litigation. The territorial dispute has been resolved. The boundary between federal and state submerged lands, except for the formal entry of yet another supplemental decree describing that boundary, has been fixed. And each party has been directed to account for revenues derived from areas adjudicated to the other sovereign.

The Special Master’s supplemental report recites the fifing of the several accountings by Louisiana and by the United States; the respective objections made to those accountings; the agreements reached by the parties; and the fact that three issues remain unresolved. As phrased by the Master, these issues are:

First issue — Is the United States obligated to account for and pay to the State of Louisiana either the value of the use of Louisiana’s share of the impounded funds or interest upon that portion of those funds?
Second issue — Does Louisiana have the obligation to account for revenues received by it from mineral leases on areas lying within Zone 1?
Third issue — Does Louisiana have the obligation to account for as unimpounded funds and to pay to the United States money collected by it as severance taxes on minerals removed from areas subsequently determined to belong to the United States?

The Master’s ruling on each issue was in the negative. He has recommended that all exceptions to the accountings be overruled, and that the accountings be approved as filed.

Before this Court, Louisiana has filed exceptions only to the Special Master’s recommendations as to the first stated issue. The United States has filed exceptions only as to the second stated issue. The Master’s recommendations as to the third stated issue, concerning money collected by Louisiana as severance taxes, thus are not the subject of any exceptions here. In the absence of present controversy we accept the Special Master’s recommendations on that issue. We consider the exceptions to the other issues in turn.

Ill

The First Stated Issue

The Interim Agreement of October 12, 1956, between the United States and Louisiana, referred to in this Court’s “Final Decree” of December 12, 1960, see 364 U. S., at 503, came into being after the Court, on June 11, 1956, had provided:

“IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the State of Louisiana and the United States of America are enjoined from leasing or beginning the drilling of new wells in the disputed tidelands area pending further order of this Court unless by agreement of the parties filed here.” 351 U. S. 978.

The Interim Agreement recites that the parties “desire to provide for the impoundment of . . . sums . . . payable under mineral leases in the disputed area, pending the final settlement or adjudication of the said controversy.” App. to Reply Brief for Louisiana 9a. It divided the submerged lands off the Louisiana coast into four zones therein described. The zone contiguous to the coastline was designated as Zone 1, the next most seaward as Zone 2, the next as Zone 3, and the most seaward as Zone 4. Id., at 10a-lla. It described the area comprising Zones 2 and 3 as the “disputed area,” id., at 11a, and it conferred upon the United States (with certain exceptions) the responsibility for collecting receipts from the disputed zones, id., at 26a-27a. By If 7 (a), the United States agreed (with exclusions not material here) “to impound in a separate fund in the Treasury of the United States a sum equal to all . . . payments heretofore or hereafter paid to it for and on account of each lease, or part thereof, in Zones 2 and 3.” Id., at 14a. Certain other payments were to be impounded by Louisiana. Paragraph 9 of the agreement then provides:

“[T]he impounded funds provided for herein shall be held intact, in a separate account for each lease or portion thereof affected, by each party until title to the area affected is determined. Whereupon, except as otherwise herein provided:
“(b) Any funds derived from an area finally determined to be owned by the State of Louisiana [with an exception not here material] shall be taken from the separate and impounded fund in the Treasury of the United States provided for herein,”

and paid to the appropriate officer of Louisiana. Id., at 18a-19a.

Pursuant to these provisions of the Interim Agreement, the United States collected and retained payments on mineral leases for operations within the designated disputed area. As a consequence of the first supplemental decree, entered December 13, 1965, see 382 U. S., at 293, the United States paid Louisiana some $34 million of impounded funds. Indeed, with an additional payment of some $136 million in 1975, pursuant to the supplemental decree of June 16, 1975, see 422 U. S., at 14-15, all payments due Louisiana from the funds impounded by the United States have been made. But the United States has not paid Louisiana any interest on the funds so impounded, and has not made any payment for the use of those funds while they were held in the United States Treasury. Louisiana asserts a claim for such interest, apparently approximating $88 million, or for the value of the use of the money during the period of impoundment, and the United States resists these claims.

Louisiana’s position is at least fourfold: (1) The impoundment provisions of the Interim Agreement implied a trust that imposed on the United States the fiduciary duty of a trustee in its handling of the impounded funds. It is said that an escrow arrangement in fact was established. The presence of a trust is evident from the conduct and relationship of the parties, from documentary evidence, and from admissions by federal officials. (2) The United States used Louisiana’s money for its own purposes and without authority under the Interim Agreement. The funds were deposited in the general account of the Treasurer of the United States where they were available, and used, to meet cash needs of the Federal Government. (3) The United States had the duty to invest the impounded funds for the benefit of both parties. This duty is implied from the provisions of the agreement; is imposed upon the United States as a trustee as a matter of law; was breached by the refusal of the United States to honor a request by Louisiana to invest the funds; is supported by the provisions of 31 U. S. C. § 547a to the effect that “[a] 11 funds held in trust by the United States . . . shall be invested” in interest-bearing securities; and is not limited by the supplemental decree of June 16, 1975. (4) Equitable remedies to prevent the unjust enrichment of the United States at the expense of Louisiana are appropriate.

We find no merit in any of Louisiana’s contentions. The Interim Agreement provided only that the payments made to the United States on each lease within the disputed area were to be impounded “in a separate fund in the Treasury of the United States” and, upon determination of the ownership of the land, were to be taken from that separate and impounded fund and paid to the party entitled to them. The agreement contains no express provision for the payment of interest or for the use of the funds or for investment. Neither do we find anything in the agreement’s use of the word “impound” or, indeed, in Louisiana’s characterization of the arrangement as an escrow (a word that does not appear in the agreement), that implies an obligation on the part of the United States to pay interest or to pay for the use of the money. The word “impound,” in its application to funds, means to take or retain in “the custody of the law.” Black’s Law Dictionary 681 (5th ed., 1979); Bouvier’s Law Dictionary 1515 (8th ed., 1914). That obligation, as is an escrow, is to hold and deliver property intact.

What actually happened here, of course, was that, as the funds were paid to the United States, the lessees’ checks were cashed and the resulting cash was commingled with general funds of the Treasury and used in governmental operations. A separate account, No. 14X6709, nonetheless, was established on the books of the Treasury for these payments, and a credit entry covered every receipt from the disputed area. The United States did not stockpile that inflowing cash in a far corner of the Government vaults. But the special account was maintained and it accurately recorded the increasing potential liability of the United States to Louisiana. This was much more than a recordkeeping device. The receipts were never treated as governmental revenues. The recognition of a contingent liability, corresponding to the cash deposited, enabled the United States to make prompt payment to Louisiana without special congressional authorization or appropriation. There was no proof or even suggestion that at any time there were insufficient funds in the United States Treasury to pay any amount that might be determined to be due Louisiana from the impoundment.

Apart from constitutional requirements, in the absence of specific provision by contract or statute, or “express consent... by Congress,” interest does not run on a claim against the United States. Smyth v. United States, 302 U. S. 329, 353 (1937); Albrecht v. United States, 329 U. S. 599, 605 (1947); United States v. N. Y. Rayon Importing Co., 329 U. S. 654, 658-659 (1947). See also 28 U. S. C. §2516. It follows that the same is true as to any claim of duty to invest.

We are persuaded, also, that the omission, in the Interim Agreement, of any provision for interest was a conscious one. When the agreement was signed in 1956, almost $60 million in disputed revenues already had accumulated. The importance of any interest obligation was obvious. And pertinent here is the fact that two of Louisiana’s negotiators candidly conceded that they did not insist on an interest clause because they knew the United States would not agree to one. Tr. 70, 95, 98, 99, 102, 103, 163. Nor does Louisiana’s intimation that it was willing to pass the matter in silence because the agreement was expected to be short lived carry weight. The agreement itself specified no term, and, in its ¶ 13, it provided for operations after a year had elapsed.

We note, too, that Louisiana is not in a position to assert that it was unaware that the funds were not invested or that it did not know that the United States held itself not responsible for interest. The State received regular monthly reports of the amounts credited to the impounded account, as the agreement’s ¶ 8 required. Those reports reflected no interest. Louisiana accepted the $34 million distribution, made pursuant to the 1965 decree, without complaint about the absence of interest. And communications flowed from officers of the State and its representatives in Congress, suggesting the deposit of some of the funds in Louisiana banks, presumably so that they might enjoy the free use of those funds. The Louisiana Legislature, it is true, on June 6, 1967, by House Concurrent Resolution No. 251, did call upon the United States “to take such steps as are necessary to effect a prudent and effective investment of the funds now and hereafter so impounded.” See 1967 Louisiana Legislative Calendar 161-162. The quoted language, however, was only preca-tory and suggestive; it was not demanding. At most, it amounted to a request for a change of status. A Treasury official, pleading absence of authority, promptly returned a negative answer. In fact, Louisiana apparently never took the position that it was entitled to interest upon, or payment for the use of, its share of the impounded funds until 1975 when it filed its objections to the accounting. And Louisiana made no request for modification of the Interim Agreement. The State thus acquiesced for two decades.

We conclude that the United States fulfilled the obligations imposed upon it by the agreement; that the impoundment served its intended purpose; that there is no liability on the part of the United States for interest or for the use of the funds; and that the United States has no further obligation for payment beyond those it has performed.

IV

The Second Stated Issue

This issue concerns money paid to Louisiana by oil and gas lessees since 1950 in respect to Zone 1 areas now adjudicated to the United States. Louisiana asserts a right permanently to retain that money. The amount involved is some $19 million.

During the past three decades these federal lands have been administered by Louisiana. Before the Interim Agreement of 1956, Louisiana acted unilaterally in leasing those areas; after that date, it acted with the acquiescence of the United States given by the agreement.

The Special Master concluded that, by permitting Louisiana to administer Zone 1, the United States waived its rights to demand an accounting of, and payment with respect to, the revenues derived from its lands in the Zone. The Master did acknowledge that the very opposite result “would certainly be the case in the absence of any adjudication or agreement between the parties to the contrary.” Supplemental Report 15. He found a waiver on the part of the United States, however, that centered in a provision of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U. S. C. § 1336, which he read as foreclosing the federal claim to the money. He noted that the Interim Agreement contained no specific language regarding payments derived from leases on areas lying within Zone 1 or Zone 4, although it did with respect to revenues derived from leases on areas lying within Zones 2 and 3. He stressed ¶ 6 of the agreement, which provided that notwithstanding any adverse claim, Louisiana, as to any area in Zone 1 (and the United States, as to any area in Zone 4), “shall have exclusive supervision and administration, and may issue new leases and authorize the drilling of new wells and other operations without notice to or obtaining the consent of the other party.” App. to Reply Brief for Louisiana 14a. Louisiana, in fact, collected rentals on mineral leases on areas in Zone 1. The United States did not question Louisiana’s right to do so. The Master observed that Louisiana anticipated the possibility that some portions of Zone 1, upon which it granted leases, might ultimately be adjudged to belong to the United States, for it inserted in almost all the leases a provision to the effect that it was granting the right to extract minerals only from those parts of the leasehold areas owned by Louisiana. The conclusion the Master drew was that Louisiana was entitled to keep all rentals derived prior to the entry of the supplemental decree of June 16, 1975, from leases upon areas lying within Zone 1, and that the United States had no right to recover them.

We are constrained to disagree with the Special Master on this issue. We accept the submission of the United States that the “ground rules” of the controversy were laid down in 1950. The Court’s very first decree, issued December 11, 1950, specified, 340 U. S., at 900, that the United States was entitled to an accounting from Louisiana of all sums derived by the State from lands adjudicated to the United States. This was a principle laid down independently of the not-yet-enacted Submerged Lands Act and Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. The principle had its roots in the Court’s decision in United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19 (1947).

The Submerged Lands Act of 1953 did not change the ground rules. It released and “confirmed” a coastal belt to the coastal States, and the United States thereby “release[d] and relinquished] all claims of the United States ... for money . . . arising out of [past] operations” within the belt. 43 U. S. C. § 1311 (b)(1). For areas seaward of that belt, however, the States’ obligation to account and pay remained unchanged. This Court’s decision of May 31, 1960, in the second suit, was unambiguous on this matter, and the Court made plain the continued vitality of the original ground rules. 363 U. S., at 7, 83, and n. 140. The cited footnote stated flatly:

“On June 5, 1950, the date of this Court’s decision in the Louisiana and Texas cases, all coastal States were put on notice that the United States was possessed of paramount rights in submerged lands lying seaward of their respective coasts. . . . [T]he United States remains entitled to an accounting for all sums derived since June 5, 1950, from lands not so relinquished [by the Submerged Lands Act].”

The preceding Interim Agreement of October 1956 was forced into being by continuing conflict, by an injunction obtained by Louisiana in its courts, and by the injunction issued by this Court on June 11, 1956. See 351 U. S. 978. As we have noted, the agreement divided the submerged lands into the four zones hereinabove described. The first, nearest the shore, was to be administered by Louisiana. The others were to be administered by the United States, except for certain leases already granted by Louisiana in Zone 2 and the requirement of state concurrence for any new leasing in that zone. Receipts from Zones 2 and 3 were to be “impounded.” No such impoundment obligation, however, was imposed on the United States with respect to Zone 4 or upon Louisiana with respect to Zone 1.

It turned out that the seaward boundary of Louisiana’s submerged lands, as finally determined, does not coincide with the line that divided Zones 1 and 2. The final boundary meanders back and forth across the agreement’s line between those two Zones producing bulges on each side. Louisiana has been successful in some of its claims to lands within Zone 2, and the United States has accounted for and paid over funds received from those areas. Yet Louisiana denies any corresponding obligation to account for and pay over revenues it received from those portions of Zone 1 that the United States has successfully claimed.

Louisiana asserts that the United States, by the Interim Agreement, waived and abandoned its right to revenues from Zone 1 during the life of the agreement. The agreement itself contains no express words of waiver. On the other hand, neither does it provide specifically for eventual repayment of any revenues from portions of Zone 1 ultimately adjudicated to the United States. But the agreement does recite: “nor shall any provision hereof be the basis for . . . waiving in any manner any right, interest, claim, or demand whatsoever of either party now pending in the proceedings above referred to, or otherwise.” App. to Reply Brief for Louisiana 9a. And it further recites that the baseline from which the several zones were measured had not been surveyed or finally fixed, and that no inference was to be drawn from the use of that baseline. Id., at 10a. These provisions of the agreement persuade us that each party specifically was reserving any monetary claims it might have outside Zones 2 and 3.

It was to be expected, of course, that most of Zone 1 would ultimately be adjudicated to Louisiana. This fact accounts for the decision to permit the State to enjoy, for the interim, the revenues from that area.

The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act was the complement of the Submerged Lands Act, for it provided in detail for the administration of federal submerged lands lying beyond those granted to the coastal States. It authorized an agreement with a State “respecting operations under existing mineral leases” and the issuance of new leases “pending the settlement or adjudication” of a controversy as to ultimate ownership. 43 U. S. C. § 1336. This provision is referred to in the Interim Agreement, and it is the one on which the Special Master focused his attention. The Master placed particular stress on the following sentence in the statute:

“Payments made pursuant to such agreement, or pursuant to any stipulation between the United States and a State, shall be considered as compliance with section 1335 (a) (4) of this title.”

The Master viewed the payments made by Louisiana’s lessees in Zone 1 as governed by this language and concluded that any federal claim with respect to those payments was foreclosed. ,

We do not so read that sentence. The provision, we feel, means no more than that a lessee is not in default so long as the agreement remains in effect and he makes the payments required by it. The Act protects the lessee. Whatever the lessee’s ultimate obligation, if any, to the United States might turn out to be, there is no basis for reading into § 1336 a waiver by the United States of Louisiana’s independent duty to account, or a waiver of any claim for money due the United States. The State’s obligation does not derive from the Shelf Lands Act; it was imposed by this Court’s 1950 decree, was not waived by the Interim Agreement, and is not excused by the quoted provision of the Shelf Lands Act.

This conclusion is buttressed by the fact that until 1975 the actions of the parties and the rulings of this Court consistently indicate that this was the common understanding. The 1960 decree was prepared by the parties at the invitation of the Court. 363 U. S., at 85. The decree itself recognized that once the coastline was determined, Louisiana was to account and to pay. 364 U. S., at 503. The decree of December 13, 1965, although distinguishing between impounded and nonimpounded- funds, contained no waiver of any obligation relating to receipts that were not impounded. 382 U. S., at 294. This Court’s decision of March 17, 1975, 420 U. S. 529, and the implementing decree of June 16, 1975, 422 U. S. 13, recognized that in some places the true limit of Louisiana’s submerged lands was shoreward of the Zone 1 line. That decree, also, was proposed by the parties at the invitation of the Court. 420 U. S., at 530. It declared rights divided by a specified boundary line which, in many places, did not correspond with the seaward edge of Zone 1. It required each party to account for and to pay over impounded revenues attributable to lands adjudicated to the other. 422 U. S., at 15-16. We see no reason to conclude that those accounting provisions were included only for informational purposes, rather than to spell out the parties’ pecuniary-obligations.

y

In summary: We accept, upon acquiescence of the parties, the Special Master’s recommendations that Louisiana has no obligation to account for and to pay to the United States money collected by it as severance taxes on minerals removed from areas adjudicated to the United States. We agree with and accept the Special Master’s recommendations that the United States is not obligated to account for and pay Louisiana either the value of the use of Louisiana’s share of the impounded funds or interest upon that portion of those funds. We therefore overrule Louisiana’s exceptions to the supplemental report of the Special Master. We disagree with and do not accept the Special Master’s recommendations with respect to Louisiana’s obligation to account for revenues derived by it from mineral leases on areas within Zone 1 adjudicated to the United States. Instead, we sustain the exception of the United States and rule that Louisiana does have the obligation to account for such revenues received by it. Subject to this ruling, the respective accountings are approved as filed.

We leave to the Special Master and the parties the determination of the final amount due and owing, and of the method of payment. The ease is remanded to the Special Master for further proceedings.

It is so ordered.

Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

Mr. Justice Powell,

with whom Mr. Justice Stewart and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join,

concurring in part and dissenting in part.

I concur in the Court’s opinion except with respect to its disposition of the “second stated issue.” Ante, at 266-272. As framed by the Special Master, the second issue is whether Louisiana has “the obligation to account for revenues received by it from mineral leases on areas lying within Zone 1. . . .” Ante, at 260. The Special Master found that the State had no such obligation. The United States filed an exception, and the Court sustains it.

I would accept the recommendations of the Master on all three issues, including his finding that Louisiana has no obligation to account for revenues derived from Zone 1. The latter finding certainly is not free from doubt, but the able Master has a more intimate familiarity with this “long-continuing and sometimes strained controversy,” ante, at 254, than an appellate judge possibly can acquire by studying only the available record. Although we have the duty to make an independent judgment, I cannot conclude that the Master’s finding on the second stated issue is erroneous. Accordingly, I dissent on this issue.

       The United States asserts:
      “For a variety of reasons — including a reluctance to burden the Court with an esoteric and complex question of no recurring importance — we are not excepting to the Master’s conclusion with respect to the State’s obligation to pay over to the United States the severance taxes attributable to the extraction of minerals beyond State jurisdiction.” Memorandum of United States in Support of Exception, p. 3.

       Louisiana’s total receipts attributable to the federal lands in Zone 1 since 1950 amount to some $23 million. This figure, however, includes the severance taxes (the third stated issue) to which the United States no longer makes claim. The United States calculates that Louisiana will be indebted to it for some $19 million if its exception to the second stated issue is sustained. It concedes, however, that Louisiana would be entitled to an offset for unimpounded moneys, received by the United States from Louisiana’s submerged lands, in excess of $5 million. Memorandum of United States in Support of Exception, pp. 40-41, n. 23. We recognize that Louisiana argues that its indebtedness will be much smaller even if the United States’ position is sustained.

       We see no substance in the fact that most, but not all, of the leases granted by Louisiana in Zone 1 referred to lands owned by the State. Some of these antedated the Interim Agreement, and we read them all as merely repeating an established pattern. The recital hardly is acceptable as a device that is at once self-serving for Louisiana and capable of being detrimental to the lessees who surely thought they were getting, and paying for, full value.

       We note that the conclusion we reach should entail no pressing hardship for Louisiana. Apart from the fact that Louisiana will be disgorging United States funds it has enjoyed for many years and will be doing so in depreciated dollars without interest, the United States has represented to this Court that accumulated impounded receipts'attributable to state lands from “split leases” exceed the sum now claimed from Louisiana. The accounting of the split lease revenues is not yet due. See 422 U. S., at 16-17. The United States asserts, however, that it is content to defer payment from Louisiana until the split lease impounded fund accounting is settled, and to waive the benefit of the absence of offset provisions if Louisiana does likewise. Memorandum of United States in Support of Exception, p. 40.