Facts of the Case
In 1982, the New Jersey Legislature overrode the Governor's veto and enacted a statute requiring the state's public school teachers to permit students to observe a minute of silence before the start of each school day. A group of New Jersey public school teachers, students, and parents sued the New Jersey Department of Education, its Commissioner, and two township boards of education. The suit alleged that the statute violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. After the named defendants and the New Jersey Attorney General refused to defend the statute, Alan J. Karcher, the Speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly, and Carmen A. Orechio, the President of the New Jersey Senate, intervened as defendants on behalf of the Legislature. The district court ruled against them and declared the "minute-of-silence" statute unconstitutional. Karcher and Orechio appealed the ruling in their official capacities as presiding officers of the Legislature. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed, and shortly thereafter, Karcher and Orechio lost their respective officer positions. They subsequently filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court, but the successors to their offices indicated to the Court that they were withdrawing the appeal on behalf of the Legislature. The plaintiffs argued that the withdrawal of the appeal ended the controversy and that the Court no longer had jurisdiction to review the case, according to Article III of the Constitution. Karcher and Orechio countered that they should be permitted to continue the appeal in their capacities as legislators and representatives of the legislative body that enacted the statute. Alternatively, they argued that the Court should vacate the judgment of the lower court upon their dismissal as appellants. They contended that New Jersey law does not authorize presiding legislative officers to represent the Legislature in litigation, and they argued that their loss of presiding officer status rendered the judgment unappealable.
Questions
Issues:
1. May public officials who have participated in a lawsuit solely in their official capacities appeal an adverse judgment after they have left office?
2. If not, must the appellate court vacate the judgment of the lower court on the grounds that it is unreviewable?
Conclusions
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No and No. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor delivered the opinion of the 8-0 majority. The Court held that once the individuals left their offices, the authority to pursue the lawsuit on behalf of the Legislature passed to their successors. Because Karcher and Orechio’s successors withdrew the appeal, there was no longer an active case or controversy, so the Court had no jurisdiction to hear the case under Article III. The Court further held that the appellants' intervention and participation in the lawsuit as president and speaker did not entitle them to appeal as individual legislators. The Court rejected both theories that Karcher and Orechio offered in support of vacating the lower court's judgment and noted that the first argument appeared to be wrong as a matter of New Jersey State law and directly contrary to Karch and Orechio's representations to the district court. The Court also held that the loss of Karcher and Orechio's right to appeal from the appellate court's ruling did not render the case unreviewable, instead it was their successors' refusal to pursue the appeal that caused the judgment to become final.
Justice Byron R. White wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment in which he agreed with the Court that Karcher and Orechio lost their authority to appeal on behalf of the New Jersey Legislature when they were no longer presiding officers of the General Assembly and Senate. Rather than hear this matter, Justice White argued that the Court should have reversed its prior order denying a motion by parents and school teachers to intervene as appellants before the Court. In his opinion, the parents and school teachers likely had standing to defend the law while the right of individual legislators to intervene in a non-representative capacity to defend legislation remained an open question, even after the Court's ruling in this case.