Facts Edit

In 1971, Judge Harold D. Stump granted a mother's petition to have a tubal ligation performed on her 15-year-old daughter, who the mother alleged was "somewhat retarded". The petition was granted the same day that it was filed. The judge did not hold a hearing to receive evidence or appoint a lawyer to protect the daughter's interests. The daughter underwent the surgery a week later, having been told that she was to have her appendix removed. The daughter married two years later. Failing to become pregnant, she learned that she had been sterilized during the 1971 operation. The daughter and her husband sued the judge and others associated with the sterilization in federal district court. The district court found that the judge was immune from suit. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision, holding that the judge had lost his immunity because he failed to observe "elementary principles of due process" when he ordered the sterilization. Finally, in 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-3 decision, reversed the Court of Appeals, announcing a test for deciding when judicial immunity should apply and holding that the judge could not be sued.

Background Edit

The holding Edit

Associate Justice Byron White, writing for the five-member majority, disagreed with the determination by the Court of Appeals that there was a "clear absence of all jurisdiction" for Judge Stump to consider Ora McFarlin's petition, noting that Indiana law gave circuit courts "original exclusive jurisdiction in all cases at law and in equity" and jurisdiction over "all other causes, matters and proceedings where exclusive jurisdiction thereof is not conferred by law upon some other court, board or officer." Justice White acknowledged an intervening decision of the Indiana Court of Appeals[9] in 1975 that held that a parent has no common-law right to have a minor child sterilized; but he reasoned that when presented with a petition like Ora McFarlin's, an Indiana circuit judge "should deny it on its merits rather than dismiss it for lack of jurisdiction."[10] Noting that Judge Swygert found no Indiana law that authorized Judge Stump's action, Justice White observed: ...[I]t is more significant that there was no Indiana statute and no case law in 1971 prohibiting a circuit court, a court of general jurisdiction, from considering a petition of the type presented to Judge Stump.[11] Addressing Judge Swygert's assertion that even if Judge Stump had jurisdiction he was deprived of immunity because of his failure to observe elementary principles of procedural due process, Justice White countered: A judge is absolutely immune from liability for his judicial acts even if his exercise of authority is flawed by the commission of grave procedural errors. The Court made this point clear in Bradley, 13 Wall., at 357, where it stated "[T]his erroneous matter in which [the court's] jurisdiction was exercised, however it may have affected the validity of the act, did not make it any less a judicial act; nor did it render the defendant liable to answer in damages for it at the suit of the plaintiff, as though the court had proceeded without having any jurisdiction whatever....[11] Test of a "judicial act" Edit The majority opinion went on to decide that the factors determining whether an act by a judge is a judicial act "relate to the nature of the act itself": whether it is a function normally performed by a judge; and whether the parties dealt with the judge in his judicial capacity.[12] In the view of the majority, Judge Stump's action passed this test. Even if his decision was erroneous, it was within his jurisdiction to consider Ora McFarlin's petition. Moreover, the parties dealt with Judge Stump in his capacity as a judge, not as a private individual. Accordingly, he could not be held liable for the consequences of his actions, even if they were arguably tragic.

The dissent Edit

Justice Stewart's dissent Edit Associate Justice Potter Stewart entered a vigorous dissent. Agreeing that judges of general jurisdiction enjoy absolute immunity for their judicial acts, he wrote, "...what Judge Stump did...was beyond the pale of anything that could sensibly be called a judicial act."[13] Stating that it was "factually untrue"[13] that what Judge Stump did was an act "normally performed by a judge", he wrote "...there is no reason to believe that such an act has ever been performed by any other Indiana judge, either before or since."[14] Justice Stewart also denounced it as "legally unsound" to rule that Judge Stump had acted in a "judicial capacity".[14] "A judge is not free, like a loose cannon", he wrote, "to inflict indiscriminate damage whenever he announces that he is acting in his judicial capacity."[14] Concluding, Justice Stewart argued that the majority misapplied the law of the Pierson case: Not one of the considerations...summarized in the Pierson opinion was present here. There was no "case," controversial or otherwise. There were no litigants. There was and could be no appeal. And there was not even the pretext of principled decisionmaking. The total absence of any of these normal attributes of a judicial proceeding convinces me that the conduct complained of in this case was not a judicial act.[15] Justice Powell's dissent Edit Joining in Justice Stewart's opinion, Justice Lewis Powell filed a separate dissent that emphasized what he called "...the central feature of this case - Judge Stump's preclusion of any possibility for the vindication of respondents' rights elsewhere in the judicial system."[16] Continuing, he wrote: Underlying the Bradley immunity...is the notion that private rights can be sacrificed in some degree to the achievement of the greater public good deriving from a completely independent judiciary, because there exist alternative forums and methods for vindicating those rights. But where a judicial officer acts in a manner that precludes all resort to appellate or other judicial remedies that otherwise would be available, the underlying assumption of the Bradley doctrine is inoperative.[17]

Legacy Edit

The decision has been called one of the most controversial decisions in Supreme Court history.[1] External image Linda Sparkman views the 1907 Indiana Eugenics Law marker in Indianapolis, April 12, 2007 2007 marked the centennial of the 1907 Indiana sterilization law, the first of its kind in the world. Although Linda Sparkman was not sterilized under any of the eugenics laws still on the books in Indiana in 1971, she was invited to unveil a state historic marker describing the original law on April 12, 2007, in Indianapolis.[18] Indiana repealed all laws concerning sterilization of the mentally ill in 1974.[19]

See also Edit

References Edit