source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Justice Stevens

license: Public Domain

text:
    BOWEN, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, et al. v. MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF FAMILY PHYSICIANS et al.
    No. 85-225.
    Argued January 22, 1986
    Decided June 9, 1986

      Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which all other Members joined, except Rehnquist, J., who took no part in the consideration or decision of the ease.

      Edwin S. Kneedler argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Fried, Assistant Attorney General Willard, Deputy Solicitor General Getter, and Anthony J. Steinmeyer.

      Alan G. Gilchrist argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents.

         Jack R. Bierig filed a brief for the American Medical Association as amicus curiae urging affirmance.

   Justice Stevens

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question presented in this case is whether Congress, in either § 1395ff or § 1395ii of Title 42 of the United States Code, barred judicial review of regulations promulgated under Part B of the Medicare program.

Respondents, who include an association of family physicians and several individual doctors, filed suit to challenge the validity of 42 CFR § 405.504(b) (1985), which authorizes the payment of benefits in different amounts for similar physicians’ services. The District Court held that the regulation contravened several provisions of the statute governing the Medicare program:

“There is no basis to justify the segregation of allopathic family physicians from all other types of physicians. Such segregation is not rationally related to any legitimate purpose of the Medicare statute. To lump MDs who are family physicians, but who have chosen not to become board certified family physicians for whatever motive, with chiropractors, dentists, and podiatrists for the purpose of determining Medicare reimbursement defies all reason.” Michigan Academy of Family Physicians v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan, 502 F. Supp. 751, 755 (ED Mich. 1980).

Because it ruled in favor of respondents on statutory grounds, the District Court did not reach their constitutional claims. See id., at 756. The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that the Secretary’s regulation was “obviously] inconsistent] with the plain language of the Medicare statute” and held that “this regulation is irrational and is invalid.” Michigan Academy of Family Physicians v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan, 728 F. 2d 326, 332 (CA6 1984). Like the District Court, it too declined to reach respondents’ constitutional claims. See id., at 332, n. 5.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services has not sought review of the decision on the merits invalidating the regulation. Instead, he renews the contention, rejected by both the District Court and the Court of Appeals, that Congress has forbidden judicial review of all questions affecting the amount of benefits payable under Part B of the Medicare program. Because the question is important and has divided the Courts of Appeals, we granted the petition for a writ of certiorari. We now affirm.

I

We begin with the strong presumption that Congress intends judicial review of administrative action. From the beginning “our cases [have established] that judicial review of a final agency action by an aggrieved person will not be cut off unless there is persuasive reason to believe that such was the purpose of Congress.” Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 140 (1967) (citing cases). See generally L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action 339-353 (1965). In Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 163 (1803), a case itself involving review of executiye action, Chief Justice Marshall insisted that “[t]he very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws.” Later, in the lesser known but nonetheless important case of United States v. Nourse, 9 Pet. 8, 28-29 (1835), the Chief Justice noted the traditional observance of this right and laid the foundation for the modem presumption of judicial review:

“It would excite some surprise if, in a government of laws and of principle, furnished with a department whose appropriate duty it is to decide questions of right, not only between individuals, but between the government and individuals; a ministerial officer might, at his discretion, issue this powerful process . . . leaving to the debtor no remedy, no appeal to the laws of his country, if he should believe the claim to be unjust. But this anomaly does not exist; this imputation cannot be cast on the legislature of the United States.”

Committees of both Houses of Congress have endorsed this view. In undertaking the comprehensive rethinking of the place of administrative agencies in a regime of separate and divided powers that culminated in the passage of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U. S. C. §§551-559, 701-706, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary remarked:

“Very rarely do statutes withhold judicial review. It has never been the policy of Congress to prevent the administration of its own statutes from being judicially confined to the scope of authority granted or to the objectives specified. Its policy could not be otherwise, for in such a case statutes would in effect be blank checks drawn to the credit of some administrative officer or board.” S. Rep. No. 752, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., 26 (1945).

Accord, H. R. Rep. No. 1980, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 41 (1946). The Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives agreed that Congress ordinarily intends that there be judicial review, and emphasized the clarity with which a contrary intent must be expressed:

“The statutes of Congress are not merely advisory when they relate to administrative agencies, any more than in other cases. To preclude judicial review under this bill a statute, if not specific in withholding such review, must upon its face give clear and convincing evidence of an intent to withhold it. The mere failure to provide specially by statute for judicial review is certainly no evidence of intent to withhold review.” Ibid.

Taking up the language in the House Committee Report, Justice Harlan reaffirmed the Court’s holding in Rusk v. Cort, 369 U. S. 367, 379-380 (1962), that “only upon a showing of ‘clear and convincing evidence’ of a contrary legislative intent should the courts restrict access to judicial review.” Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S., at 141 (citations omitted). This standard has been invoked time and again when considering whether the Secretary has discharged “the heavy burden of overcoming the strong presumption that Congress did not mean to prohibit all judicial review of his decision,” Dunlop v. Bachowski, 421 U. S. 560, 567 (1975).

Subject to constitutional constraints, Congress can, of course, make exceptions to the historic practice whereby courts review agency action. The presumption of judicial review is, after all, a presumption, and “like all presumptions used in interpreting statutes, may be overcome by,” inter alia, “specific language or specific legislative history that is a reliable indicator of congressional intent,” or a specific congressional intent to preclude judicial review that is “‘fairly discernible’ in the detail of the legislative scheme.” Block v. Community Nutrition Institute, 467 U. S. 340, 349, 351 (1984).

In this case, the Government asserts that two statutory provisions remove the Secretary’s regulation from review under the grant of general federal-question jurisdiction found in 28 U. S. C. § 1331. First, the Government contends that 42 U. S. C. § 1395ff(b) (1982 ed., Supp. II), which authorizes “Appeal by individuals,” impliedly forecloses administrative or judicial review of any action taken under Part B of the Medicare program by failing to authorize such review while simultaneously authorizing administrative and judicial review of “any determination . . . as to . . . the amount of benefits under part A,” § 1395ff(b)(l)(C). Second, the Government asserts that 42 U. S. C. §1395ii (1982 ed., '-Supp. II), which makes applicable 42 U. S. C. §405(h) (1982 ed., Supp. II), of the Social Security Act to the Medicare program, expressly precludes all administrative or judicial review not otherwise provided in that statute. We find neither argument persuasive.

II

Section 1395ff on its face is an explicit authorization of judicial review, not a bar. As a general matter, “‘[t]he mere fact that some acts are made reviewable should not suffice to support an implication of exclusion as to others. The right to review is too important to be excluded on such slender and indeterminate evidence of legislative intent.’” Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S., at 141 (quoting L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action 357 (1965)). See Barlow v. Collins, 397 U. S. 159, 166 (1970); Stark v. Wickard, 321 U. S. 288, 309 (1944).

In the Medicare program, however, the situation is somewhat more complex. Under Part B of that program, which is at issue here, the Secretary contracts with private health insurance carriers to provide benefits for which individuals voluntarily remit premiums. This optional coverage, which is federally subsidized, supplements the mandatory institutional health benefits (such as coverage for hospital expenses) provided by Part A. Subject to an amount-in-controversy requirement, individuals aggrieved by delayed or insufficient payment with respect to benefits payable under Part B are afforded an “opportunity for a fair hearing by the carrier, ” 42 U. S. C. § 1395u(b)(3)(C) (emphasis added); in comparison, and subject to a like amount-in-controversy requirement, a similarly aggrieved individual under Part A is entitled “to a hearing thereon by the Secretary . . . and to judicial review,” 42 U. S. C. §§ 1395ff(b)(l)(C), (b)(2) (1982 ed. and Supp. II). “In the context of the statute’s precisely drawn provisions,” we held in United States v. Erika, Inc., 456 U. S. 201, 208 (1982), that the failure “to authorize further review for determinations of the amount of Part B awards . . . provides persuasive evidence that Congress deliberately intended to foreclose further review of such claims.” Not limiting our consideration to the statutory text, we investigated the legislative history which “confirm[ed] this view,” ibid., and disclosed a purpose to “ ‘avoid overloading the courts’ ” with “‘trivial matters,’” a consequence which would “‘unduly ta[x]’ ” the federal court system with “ ‘little real value’ ” to be derived by participants in the program, id., at 210, n. 13 (quoting 118 Cong. Rec. 33992 (1972) (remarks of Sen. Bennett)).

Respondents’ federal-court challenge to the validity of the Secretary’s regulation is not foreclosed by § 1395ff as we construed that provision in Erika. The reticulated statutory scheme, which carefully details the forum and limits of review of “any determination . . . of . . . the amount of benefits under part A,” 42 U. S. C. § 1395ff(b)(l)(C) (1982 ed., Supp. II), and of the “amount of . . . payment” of benefits under Part B, 42 U. S. C. § 1395u(b)(3)(C), simply does not speak to challenges mounted against the method by which such amounts are to be determined rather than the determinations themselves. As the Secretary has made clear, “the legality, constitutional or otherwise, of any provision of the Act or regulations relevant to the Medicare Program” is not considered in a “fair hearing” held by a carrier to resolve a grievance related to a determination of the amount of a Part B award. As a result, an attack on the validity of a regulation is not the kind of administrative action that we described in Erika as an “amount determination” which decides “the amount of the Medicare payment to be made on a particular claim” and with respect to which the Act impliedly denies judicial review. 456 U. S., at 208.

That Congress did not preclude review of the method by which Part B awards are computed (as opposed to the computation) is borne out by the very legislative history we found persuasive in Erika. The Senate Committee Report on the original 1965 legislation reveals an intention to preclude “judicial review of a determination concerning the amount of benefits under part B where claims will probably be for substantially smaller amounts than under part A.” S. Rep. No. 404, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 54-55 (1965) (emphasis added). The Report makes plain that “carriers, not the Secretary, would review beneficiary complaints regarding the amount of benefits.” Ibid, (emphasis added). Accord, H. R. Rep. No. 213, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 47 (1965) (“Under the supplementary plan [Part B], carriers, not the Secretary, would review beneficiary complaints regarding the amount of benefits” (emphasis added)). The legislative history of the pertinent 1972 amendment likewise reveals that judicial review was precluded only as to controversies regarding determinations of amounts of benefits. The Conference Report on the 1972 amendment explains that “there is no authorization for an appeal to the Secretary or for judicial review on matters solely involving amounts of benefits under Part B.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 92-1605, p. 61 (1972) (emphasis added). Senator Bennett’s introductory explanation to the amendment confirms that preclusion of judicial review of Part B awards — designed “to avoid overloading the courts with quite minor matters” — embraced only “decisions on a claim for payment for a given service.” 118 Cong. Rec. 33992 (1972). The Senator feared that “[i]f judicial review is made available where any claim is denied, as some court decisions have held, the resources of the Federal court system would be unduly taxed and little real value would be derived by the enrollees. The proposed amendment would merely clarify the original intent of the law and prevent the overloading of the courts with trivial matters because the intent is considered unclear.” Ibid. As we found in Erika, 456 U. S., at 206, Congress has precluded judicial review only “of adversé hearing officer determinations of the amount of Part B payments.”

Careful analysis of the governing statutory provisions and their legislative history thus reveals that Congress intended to bar judicial review only of determinations of the amount of benefits to be awarded under Part B. Congress delegated this task to carriers who would finally determine such matters in conformity with the regulations and instructions of the Secretary. We conclude, therefore, that those matters which Congress did not leave to be determined in a “fair hearing” conducted by the carrier — including challenges to the validity of the Secretary’s instructions and regulations — are not impliedly insulated from judicial review by 42 U. S. C. § 1395ff (1982 ed. and Supp. II).

Ill

In light of Congress’ express provision for carrier review of millions of what it characterized as “trivial” claims, it is implausible to think it intended that there be no forum to adjudicate statutory and constitutional challenges to regulations promulgated by the Secretary. The Government nevertheless maintains that this is precisely what Congress intended to accomplish in 42 U. S. C. §1395ii (1982 ed., Supp. II). That section states that 42 U. S. C. § 405(h) (1982 ed., Supp. II), along with a string citation of 10 other provisions of Title II of the Social Security Act, “shall also apply with respect to this subchapter to the same extent as they are applicable with respect to subchapter II of this chapter.” Section 405(h), in turn, reads in full as follows:

“(h) Finality of Secretary’s decision
“The findings and decision of the Secretary after a hearing shall be binding upon all individuals who were parties to such hearing. No findings of fact or decision of the Secretary shall be reviewed by any person, tribunal, or governmental agency except as herein provided. No action against the United States, the Secretary, or any officer or employee thereof shall be brought under section 1331 or 1346 of title 28 to recover on any claim arising under this subchapter.”

The Government contends that the third sentence of § 405(h) by its terms prevents any resort to the grant of general federal-question jurisdiction contained in 28 U. S. C. § 1331. It finds support for this construction in Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749, 756-762 (1975), and Heckler v. Ringer, 466 U. S. 602, 614-616, 620-626 (1984). Respondents counter that the dispositions in these two cases are consistent with the view that Congress’ purpose was to make clear that whatever specific procedures it provided for judicial review of final action by the Secretary were exclusive, and could not be circumvented by resort to the general jurisdiction of the federal courts. Cf. Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S., at 764-765; Heckler v. Ringer, 466 U. S., at 621-622.

Whichever may be the better reading of Salfi and Ringer, we need not pass on the meaning of § 405(h) in the abstract to resolve this case. Section 405(h) does not apply on its own terms to Part B of the Medicare program, but is instead incorporated mutatis mutandis by § 1395Ü. The legislative history of both the statute establishing the Medicare program and the 1972 amendments thereto provides specific evidence of Congress’ intent to foreclose review only of “amount determinations” — ! e., those “quite minor matters,” 118 Cong. Rec. 33992 (1972) (remarks of Sen. Bennett), remitted finally and exclusively to adjudication by private insurance carriers in a “fair hearing.” By the same token, matters which Congress did not delegate to private carriers, such as challenges to the validity of the Secretary’s instructions and regulations, are cognizable in courts of law. In the face of this persuasive evidence of legislative intent, we will not indulge the Government’s assumption that Congress contemplated review by carriers of “trivial” monetary claims, ibid., but intended no review at all of substantial statutory and constitutional challenges to the Secretary’s administration of Part B of the Medicare program. This is an extreme position, and one we would be most reluctant to adopt without “a showing of ‘clear and convincing evidence/” Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S., at 141, to overcome the “strong presumption that Congress did not mean to prohibit all judicial review” of executive action, Dunlop v. Bachowski, 421 U. S., at 567. We ordinarily presume that Congress intends the executive to obey its statutory commands and, accordingly, that it expects the courts to grant relief when an executive agency violates such a command. That presumption has not been surmounted here.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

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

       The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in conflict with the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, has held that regulations promulgated under Part B of the Medicare program are insulated from judicial review. See Starnes v. Schweiker, 748 F. 2d 217, 218 (1984) (per curiam), cert. denied, 471 U. S. 1017 (1985).

       In fact, we did so twice. We first granted the petition for a writ of certiorari to allow the Court of Appeals to consider its jurisdictional ruling in the light of Heckler v. Ringer, 466 U. S. 602 (1984). 467 U. S. 1223 (1984). On remand, the Court of Appeals ultimately decided to reinstate its original judgment, see Michigan Academy of Family Physicians v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan, 757 F. 2d 91 (1985); Michigan Academy of Family Physicians v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan,

        751 F. 2d 809 (1984), whereupon we issued the writ on which the judgment is now before us. 474 U. S. 815 (1985).

       See, e. g., Lindahl v. Office of Personnel Management, 470 U. S. 768, 778 (1985); Dunlop v. Bachowski, 421 U. S., at 567; Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, 401 U. S. 402, 410 (1971); Barlow v. Collins, 397 U. S. 159, 166-167 (1970) (“Indeed, judicial review of such administrative action is the rule, and nonreviewability an exception which must be demonstrated”). See also Wong Wing Hang v. INS, 360 F. 2d 715, 718 (CA2 1966) (Friendly, J.) (“[Ojnly in the rare — some say non-existent-case . . . may review for ‘abuse’ be precluded”). Of course, this Court has “never applied the ‘clear and convincing evidence’ standard in the strict evidentiary sense”; nevertheless, the standard serves as “a useful reminder to courts that, where substantial doubt about the congressional intent exists, the general presumption favoring judicial review of administrative action is controlling.” Block v. Community Nutrition Institute, 467 U. S. 340, 350-351 (1984).
      A strong presumption finds support in a wealth of scholarly literature. See, e. g., 2 K. Davis, Administrative Law §9:6, p. 240 (1979) (praising “the case law since 1974” for being “strongly on the side of reviewability”); L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action 327 (1965) (“An agency is not an island entire of itself. It is one of the many rooms in the magnificent mansion of the law. The very subordination of the agency to judicial jurisdiction is intended to proclaim the premise that each agency is to be brought into harmony with the totality of the law, the law as it is found in the statute at hand, the statute book at large, the principles and conceptions of the ‘common law,’ and the ultimate guarantees associated with the Constitution”); B. Schwartz, Administrative Law § 8.1, p. 436 (2d ed. 1984) (“The responsibility of enforcing the limits of statutory grants of authority is a judicial function;. . . [wjithout judicial review, statutory limits would be naught but empty words”); Jaffe, The Right to Judicial Review I, 71 Harv. L. Rev. 401, 432 (1958) (“[Jjudicial review is the rule. ... It is a basic right; it is a traditional power and the intention to exclude it must be made specifically manifest”); Shapiro, Administrative Discretion: The Next Stage, 92 Yale L. J. 1487,1489, n. 11 (1983) (since passage of the APA, the sustained effort of administrative law has been to “continuously narro[w] the category of actions considered to be so discretionary as to be exempted from review”).

       “The congressional intent necessary to overcome the presumption may also be inferred from contemporaneous judicial construction barring review and the congressional acquiescence in it, see, e. g., Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U. S. 160 (1948), or from the collective import of legislative and judicial history behind a particular statute, see, e. g., Heikkila v. Barber, 345 U. S. 229 (1953). More important for purposes of this case, the presumption favoring judicial review of administrative action may be overcome by inferences of intent drawn from the statutory scheme as a whole. See, e. g., Morris v. Gressette, 432 U. S. 491 (1977); Switchmen v. National Mediation Board, 320 U. S. 297 (1943).” Block v. Community Nutrition Institute, 467 U. S., at 349.

       The pertinent text of § 1395ff reads as follows:
      “(a) Entitlement to and amount of benefits
      “The determination of whether an individual is entitled to benefits under part A or part B, and the determination of the amount of benefits under part A, shall be made by the Secretary in accordance with regulations prescribed by him.
      “(b) Appeal by individuals
      “(1) Any individual dissatisfied with any determination under subsection (a) of this section as to—
      “(A) whether he meets the conditions of section 426 or section 426a of this title [which set forth eligibility requirements to be satisfied before an individual is permitted to participate in Part A of the Medicare program], or
      “(B) whether he is eligible to enroll and has enrolled pursuant to the provisions of part B of [the Medicare program]... , or,
      “(C) the amount of the benefits under part A (including a determination where such amount is determined to be zero)
      shall be entitled to a hearing thereon by the Secretary to the same extent as is provided in section 405(b) of this title and to judicial review of the Secretary’s final decision after such hearing as is provided in section 405(g) of this title.”

       Medicare Carrier’s Manual § 12016 (1985). In a “fair hearing” conducted pursuant to § 1395u(b)(3)(C), see 42 CFR §405.820 (1985), the carrier designates a hearing officer, § 405.823, whose jurisdiction is circumscribed by regulation as follows:
      “The hearing officer in exercising the authority to conduct a hearing under section 1842(b)(3)(C) of the Act is to comply with all the provisions of title XVIII of the Act and regulations issued thereunder, as well as with policy statements, instructions, and other guides issued by the Health Care Financing Administration in accordance with the Secretary’s agreement with the carriers.” §405.860.
      One of those guides is a compilation of instructions prepared by the Secretary and entitled the “Carrier’s Manual.” Section 12016 of the Manual, part of which is quoted in text, provides as follows:
      “Authority — the HO [Hearing Officer] occupies a significant position in the administration appeals process. Authority of the HO is limited to the extent that he must comply with all provisions of title XVIII of the Act and regulations issued thereunder, as well as with HCFA. The HO may not overrule the provisions of the law or interpret them in a way different than HCFA does when he disagrees with their intent; nor may he use hearing decisions as a vehicle for commenting upon the legality, constitutional or otherwise, of any provision of the Act or regulations relevant to the Medicare Program.”

       The fourth footnote of our opinion in Heckler v. Ringer, 466 U. S., at 608-609, n. 4, on which the Government relies for the proposition that Part B challenges are never cognizable in a judicial forum, merely declined to review “claims for Part B benefits.” Id., at 609, n. 4. The single sen-fence in which we disposed of respondents’ claim rested entirely on Erika and its companion case of Schweiker v. McClure, 456 U. S. 188 (1982). (Schweiker upheld the constitutionality of “fair hearing” proceedings conducted by private insurance carriers against a Due Process Clause attack.) We did not, in that single sentence, extend the preclusion of judicial review beyond the Part B “amount determinations” with which both Erika and that part of the Ringer opinion were concerned.

       The Government also argues that the challenged regulation is a “decision of the Secretary” which the second sentence of § 405(h) excepts from “reviefw] by any . . . tribunal.” The Government’s assumption that the regulation is such a decision, however, ignores the contextual definition of “decision” in the first sentence as those determinations made by “the Secretary after a hearing.” The purpose of “the first two sentences of § 405(h),” as we made clear in Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S. 749, 757 (1975), is to “assure that administrative exhaustion will be required.” Respondents’ attack on the regulation here is not subject to such a requirement because there is no hearing, and thus no administrative remedy, to exhaust.

       See Ellis v. Blum, 643 F. 2d 68, 74 (CA2 1981) (Friendly, J.). Cf. S. Rep. No. 734, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 52 (1939); H. R. Rep. No. 728, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 43-44 (1939).

       In this connection it bears mention that the legislative history summarized in the preceding section speaks to provisions for appeal generieally, and is thus as probative of congressional intent in enacting § 1395Ü as it is of §1395ff. See S. Rep. No. 404, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 54 (1965) (“Appeals”); H. R. Rep. No. 213, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 47 (1965) (“Appeals”); H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 92-1605, p. 61 (1972) (“CLARIFICATION OF MEDICARE APPEAL PROCEDURES”); 118 Cong. Rec. 33991 (1972) (“DETERMINATIONS AND APPEALS”) (caption to amendment proposed by Sen. Bennett).

       We do not believe that our decision will open the floodgates to millions of Part B Medicare claims. Unlike the determinations of amounts of benefits, the method by which such amounts are determined ordinarily affects vast sums of money and thus differs qualitatively from the “quite minor matters” review of which Congress confined to hearings by carriers. In addition, as one commentator pointed out, “permitting review only [of]. . . a particular statutory or administrative standard . . . would not result in a costly flood of litigation, because the validity of a standard can be readily established, at times even in a single ease.” Note, 97 Harv. L. Rev. 778, 792 (1984) (footnote omitted). We observed no flood of litigation in the first 20 years of operation of Part B of the Medicare program, and we seriously doubt that we will be inundated in the future.

       Our disposition avoids the “serious constitutional question” that would arise if we construed § 1395Ü to deny a judicial forum for constitutional claims arising under Part B of the Medicare program. Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U. S., at 762 (citing Johnson v. Robison, 415 U. S. 361, 366-367 (1974). See Yakus v. United States, 321 U. S. 414, 433-444 (1944); St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. United States, 298 U. S. 38, 84 (1936) (Brandéis, J., concurring); Gunther, Congressional Power to Curtail Federal Court Jurisdiction: An Opinionated Guide to the Ongoing Debate, 36 Stan. L. Rev. 895, 921, n. 113 (1984) (“[A]ll agree that Congress cannot bar all remedies for enforcing federal constitutional rights”). Cf. Hart, The Power of Congress to Limit the Jurisdiction of Federal Courts: An Exercise in Dialectic, 66 Harv. L. Rev. 1362, 1378-1379 (1953). It also accords with our decision in Schweiker v. McClure, 456 U. S. 188 (1982), in which we resolved a constitutional challenge arising under Part B of the Medicare program. Although the Government notes, quite accurately, that our opinion in McClure makes no mention of the jurisdictional question, we can hardly be charged with overlooking that point. McClure was argued and announced the same day as Erika, a case which did concern the judicial competence to review a challenge arising under Part B; it was written by the same Member of this Court who authored Erika, immediately precedes Erika in the United States Reports, and contains a number of cross-references to that opinion. Finally, we cannot, as the Government would have us, dismiss respondents’ constitutional attack as insubstantial — that is to say, “essentially fictitious,” “obviously frivolous,” and “obviously without merit” — under Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U. S. 528, 537 (1974) (internal quotations omitted), as would be necessary to decline jurisdiction over the case. Both courts below found the classification embodied in the regulation to be “irrational,” see supra, at 668-669, and although this finding was made with respect to respondents’ statutory claims, it surely casts sufficient doubt on the constitutionality of the classification under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses to merit resolution of the constitutional challenge.


author: Justice O’Connor

text:
    CRANE v. KENTUCKY
    No. 85-5238.
    Argued April 23, 1986
    Decided June 9, 1986
    O’Connor, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

      Frank W. Heft, Jr., argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were J. David Niehaus and Daniel T. Goyette.

      John S. Gillig, Assistant Attorney General of Kentucky, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were David L. Armstrong, Attorney General, and Virgil W. Webb III, Assistant Attorney General.
   Justice O’Connor

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Prior to his trial for murder, petitioner moved to suppress his confession. The trial judge conducted a hearing, determined that the confession was voluntary, and denied the motion. At trial, petitioner sought to introduce testimony about the physical and psychological environment in which the confession was obtained. His objective in so doing was to suggest that the statement was unworthy of belief. The trial court ruled that the testimony pertained solely to the issue of voluntariness and was therefore inadmissible. The question presented is whether this ruling deprived petitioner of his rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution.

I

On August 7, 1981, a clerk at the Keg Liquor Store in Louisville, Kentucky, was shot to death, apparently during the course of a robbery. A complete absence of identifying physical evidence hampered the initial investigation of the crime. A week later, however, the police arrested petitioner, then 16 years old, for his suspected participation in an unrelated service station holdup. According to police testimony at the suppression hearing, “just out of the clear blue sky,” petitioner began to confess to a host of local crimes, including shooting a police officer, robbing a hardware store, and robbing several individuals at a bowling alley. App. 4. Their curiosity understandably aroused, the police transferred petitioner to a juvenile detention center to continue the interrogation. After initially denying any involvement in the Keg Liquors shooting, petitioner eventually confessed to that crime as well.

Subsequent to his indictment for murder, petitioner moved to suppress the confession on the grounds that it had been impermissibly coerced in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution. At the ensuing hearing, he testified that he had been detained in a windowless room for a protracted period of time, that he had been surrounded by as many as six police officers during the interrogation, that he had repeatedly requested and been denied permission to telephone his mother, and that he had been badgered into making a false confession. Several police officers offered a different version of the relevant events. Concluding that there had been “no sweating or coercion of the defendant” and “no overreaching” by the police, the court denied the motion. Id., at 21.

The case proceeded to trial. In his opening statement, the prosecutor stressed that the Commonwealth’s case rested almost entirely on petitioner’s confession and on the statement of his uncle, who had told the police that he was also present during the holdup and murder. Tr. 10-14. In response, defense counsel outlined what would prove to be the principal avenue of defense advanced at trial — that, for a number of reasons, the story petitioner had told the police should not be believed. The confession was rife with inconsistencies, counsel argued. For example, petitioner had told the police that the crime was committed during daylight hours and that he had stolen a sum of money from the cash register. In fact, counsel told the jury, the evidence would show that the crime occurred at 10:40 p.m. and that no money at all was missing from the store. Beyond these inconsistencies, counsel suggested, “[t]he very circumstances surrounding the giving of the [confession] are enough to cast doubt on its credibility.” Id., at 16. In particular, she continued, evidence bearing on the length of the interrogation and the manner in which it was conducted would show that the statement was unworthy of belief.

In response to defense counsel’s opening statement, and before any evidence was presented to the jury, the prosecutor moved in limine to prevent the defense from introducing any testimony bearing on the circumstances under which the confession was obtained. Such testimony bore only on the “voluntariness” of the confession, the prosecutor urged, a “legal matter” that had already been resolved by the court in its earlier ruling. App. 27. Defense counsel responded that she had no intention of relitigating the issue of voluntariness, but was seeking only to demonstrate that the circumstances of the confession “cas[t] doubt on its validity and its credibility.” Ibid. Rejecting this reasoning, the court granted the prosecutor’s motion. Although the precise contours of the ruling are somewhat ambiguous, the court expressly held that the defense could inquire into the inconsistencies contained in the confession, but would not be permitted to “develop in front of the jury” any evidence about the duration of the interrogation or the individuals who were in attendance. Id., at 28.

After registering a continuing objection, petitioner invoked a Kentucky procedure under which he was permitted to develop a record of the evidence he would have put before the jury were it not for the court’s evidentiary ruling. That evidence included testimony from two police officers about the size and other physical characteristics of the interrogation room, the length of the interview, and various other details about the taking of the confession. Id., at 45-53.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and petitioner was sentenced to 40 years in prison. The sole issue in the ensuing appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court was whether the exclusion of testimony about the circumstances of the confession violated petitioner’s rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution. Over one dissent, the court rejected the claim and affirmed the conviction and sentence. 690 S. W. 2d 753 (1985). The excluded testimony “related solely to voluntariness,” the court reasoned. Id., at 754. Although evidence bearing on the credibility of the confession would have been admissible, under established Kentucky procedure a trial court’s pretrial voluntariness determination is conclusive and may not be relitigated at trial. Because the proposed testimony about the circumstances of petitioner’s confession pertained only to the voluntariness question, the court held, there was no error in keeping that testimony from the jury.

Because the reasoning of the Kentucky Supreme Court is directly at odds with language in several of this Court’s opinions, see, e. g., Lego v. Twomey, 404 U. S. 477, 485-486 (1972), and because it conflicts with the decisions of every other state court to have confronted the issue, see, e. g., Beaver v. State, 455 So. 2d 253, 256 (Ala. Crim. App. 1984); Palmes v. State, 397 So. 2d 648, 653 (Fla. 1981), we granted the petition for certiorari. 474 U. S. 1019 (1985). We now reverse and remand.

II

The holding below rests on the apparent assumption that evidence bearing on the voluntariness of a confession and evidence bearing on its credibility fall in conceptually distinct and mutually exclusive categories. Once a confession has been found voluntary, the Supreme Court of Kentucky believed, the evidence that supported that finding may not be presented to the jury for any other purpose. This analysis finds no support in our cases, is premised on a misconception about the role of confessions in a criminal trial, and, under the circumstances of this case, contributed to an evidentiary ruling that deprived petitioner of his fundamental constitutional right to a fair opportunity to present a defense. California v. Trombetta, 467 U. S. 479, 485 (1984).

It is by now well established that “certain interrogation techniques, either in isolation, or as applied to the unique characteristics of a particular suspect, are so offensive to a civilized system of justice that they must be condemned under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Miller v. Fenton, 474 U. S. 104, 109 (1985). To assure that the fruits of such techniques are never used to secure a conviction, due process also requires “that a jury [not] hear a confession unless and until the trial judge [or some other independent decisionmaker] has determined that it was freely and voluntarily given.” Sims v. Georgia, 385 U. S. 538, 543-544 (1967). See generally Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368 (1964).

In laying down these rules the Court has never questioned that “evidence surrounding the making of a confession bears on its credibility” as well as its voluntariness. Id., at 386, n. 13. As the Court noted in Jackson, because “questions of credibility, whether of a witness or of a confession, are for the jury,” the requirement that the court make a pretrial voluntariness determination does not undercut the defendant’s traditional prerogative to challenge the confession’s reliability during the course of the trial. Ibid. To the same effect was Lego v. Twomey, supra, where the Court stated,

“Nothing in Jackson [v. Denno] questioned the province or capacity of juries to assess the truthfulness of confessions. Nothing in that opinion took from the jury any evidence relating to the accuracy or weight of confessions admitted into evidence. A defendant has been as free since Jackson as he was before to familiarize a jury with circumstances that attend the taking of his confession, including facts bearing upon its weight and voluntariness.” Id., at 485-486.

Thus, as Lego and Jackson make clear, to the extent the Court has addressed the question at all, it has expressly assumed that evidence about the manner in which a confession was secured will often be germane to its probative weight, a matter that is exclusively for the jury to assess.

The decisions in both Jackson and Lego, while not framed in the language of constitutional command, reflect the common-sense understanding that the circumstances surrounding the taking of a confession can be highly relevant to two separate inquiries, one legal and one factual. The manner in which a statement was extracted is, of course, relevant to the purely legal question of its voluntariness, a question most, but not all, States assign to the trial judge alone to resolve. See Jackson v. Denno, supra, at 378. But the physical and psychological environment that yielded the confession can also be of substantial relevance to the ultimate factual issue of the defendant’s guilt or innocence. Confessions, even those that have been found to be voluntary, are not conclusive of guilt. And, as with any other part of the prosecutor’s case, a confession may be shown to be “insufficiently corroborated or otherwise . . . unworthy of belief.” Lego v. Twomey, supra, at 485-486. Indeed, stripped of the power to describe to the jury the circumstances that prompted his confession, the defendant is effectively disabled from answering the one question every rational juror needs answered: If the defendant is innocent, why did he previously admit his guilt? Accordingly, regardless of whether the defendant marshaled the same evidence earlier in support of an unsuccessful motion to suppress, and entirely independent of any question of voluntariness, a defendant’s case may stand or fall on his ability to convince the jury that the manner in which the confession was obtained casts doubt on its credibility.

This simple insight is reflected in a federal statute, 18 U. S. C. § 3501(a), the Federal Rules of Evidence, Fed. Rule Evid. 104(e), and the statutory and decisional law of virtually every State in the Nation. See, e. g., Mont. Code Ann. §46-13-301(5) (1983); Palmes v. State, supra, at 653. We recognize, of course, that under our federal system even a consensus as broad as this one is not inevitably congruent with the dictates of the Constitution. We acknowledge also our traditional reluctance to impose constitutional constraints on ordinary evidentiary rulings by state trial courts. In any given criminal case the trial judge is called upon to make dozens, sometimes hundreds, of decisions concerning the admissibility of evidence. As we reaffirmed earlier this Term, the Constitution leaves to the judges who must make these decisions “wide latitude” to exclude evidence that is “repetitive . . . , only marginally relevant” or poses an undue risk of “harassment, prejudice, [or] confusion of the issues.” Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U. S. 673, 679 (1986). Moreover, we have never questioned the power of States to exclude evidence through the application of evidentiary rules that themselves serve the interests of fairness and reliability-even if the defendant would prefer to see that evidence admitted. Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U. S. 284, 302 (1973). Nonetheless, without “signaling] any diminution in the respect traditionally accorded to the States in the establishment and implementation of their own criminal trial rules and procedures,” we have little trouble concluding on the facts of this case that the blanket exclusion of the proffered testimony about the circumstances of petitioner’s confession deprived him of a fair trial. Id., at 302-303.

Whether rooted directly in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Chambers v. Mississippi, supra, or in the Compulsory Process or Confrontation clauses of the Sixth Amendment, Washington v. Texas, 388 U. S. 14, 23 (1967); Davis v. Alaska, 415 U. S. 308 (1974), the Constitution guarantees criminal defendants “a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense.” California v. Trombetta, 467 U. S., at 485; cf. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 684-685 (1984) (“The Constitution guarantees a fair trial through the Due Process Clauses, but it defines the basic elements of a fair trial largely through the several provisions of the Sixth Amendment”). We break no new ground in observing that an essential component of procedural fairness is an opportunity to be heard. In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257, 273 (1948); Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U. S. 385, 394 (1914). That opportunity would be an empty one if the State were permitted to exclude competent, reliable evidence bearing on the credibility of a confession when such evidence is central to the defendant’s claim of innocence. In the absence of any valid state justification, exclusion of this kind of exculpatory evidence deprives a defendant of the basic right to have the prosecutor’s case encounter and “survive the crucible of meaningful adversarial testing.” United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648, 656 (1984). See also Washington v. Texas, supra, at 22-23.

Under these principles, the Kentucky courts erred in foreclosing petitioner’s efforts to introduce testimony about the environment in which the police secured his confession. As both Lego and Jackson make clear, evidence about the manner in which a confession was obtained is often highly relevant to its reliability and credibility. Such evidence was especially relevant in the rather peculiar circumstances of this case. Petitioner’s entire defense was that there was no physical evidence to link him to the crime and that, for a variety of reasons, his earlier admission of guilt was not to be believed. To support that defense, he sought to paint a picture of a young, uneducated boy who was kept against his will in a small, windowless room for a protracted period of time until he confessed to every unsolved crime in the county, including the one for which he now stands convicted. We do not, of course, pass on the strength or merits of that defense. We do, however, think it plain that introducing evidence of the physical circumstances that yielded the confession was all but indispensable to any chance of its succeeding. Especially since neither the Supreme Court of Kentucky in its opinion, nor respondent in its argument to this Court, has advanced any rational justification for the wholesale exclusion of this body of potentially exculpatory evidence, the decision below must be reversed.

Respondent contends that any error was harmless since the very evidence excluded by the trial court’s ruling ultimately came in through other witnesses. Petitioner concedes, and we agree, that the erroneous ruling of the trial court is subject to harmless error analysis. Tr. of Oral Arg. 7; cf. Delaware v. Van Arsdall, supra. We believe, however, that respondent’s harmless error argument should be directed in the first instance to the state court.

Accordingly, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Kentucky is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

So ordered.