Morrison v. Olson

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Morrison v. Olson

Argued April 26, 1988
Decided June 29, 1988


Full case name:	Alexia Morrison, Independent Counsel v. Theodore Olson, et al.

Citations:	487 U.S. 654; 108 S. Ct. 2597; 101 L. Ed. 2d 569; 1988 U.S. LEXIS 3034; 56 U.S.L.W. 4835

Prior history:	Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

Holding

The Independent Counsel Act is constitutional, as it does not increase the power of the judiciary or legislative branches at the expense of the executive.

Court membership

Chief Justice: William Rehnquist
Associate Justices: William J. Brennan, Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy

Case opinions

Majority by: Rehnquist
Joined by: Brennan, White, Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens, O'Connor
Dissent by: Scalia
Kennedy took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Laws applied

U.S. Const. art. II

Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 (1988), was a case that went before the Supreme Court of the United States. By a 7 to 1 margin, the Court ruled that the Independent Counsel Act was constitutional. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the sole dissenting opinion.

The situation from which the case arose involved subpoenas from two subcommittees from the House of Representatives directing the Environmental Protection Agency to produce documents relating to the efforts of the EPA and the Land and Natural Resources Division of the Justice Department to enforce the Superfund law. Ted Olson was the assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. President Reagan ordered the Administrator of the EPA to withhold the documents on the ground that they contained "enforcement sensitive information." This led to an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee that later produced a report suggesting Olson had given false and misleading testimony before a House subcommittee during the investigation.

The Chairman of the Judiciary Committee forwarded a copy of the report to the Attorney General with a request that he seek the appointment of an independent council to investigate the allegations against Olson and two others.

Olson, who was a Constitutional lawyer, attempted to argue that the independent counsel took executive powers away from the office of the President of the United States and created a hybrid "fourth branch" of government that was ultimately answerable to no one. He argued that the broad powers of the independent counsel could be easily abused, or corrupted by partisanship.

Independent Counsel Alexia Morrison in turn argued that her position was necessary in order to prevent abuses of the executive branch, which historically operated in a closed environment.

The Court upheld the Independent Counsel Act because it did not violate the separation of powers by increasing the power of one branch at the expense of another. Instead, even though the President could not directly fire the independent counsel, the person holding that office was still an Executive branch officer, not under the control of either U.S. Congress or the courts.

[edit] Justice Scalia's dissent

Justice Scalia, the lone dissenter, said that the law had to be struck down because (1) criminal prosecution is an exercise of "purely executive power" as guaranteed in the Constitution and (2) the law deprived the president of "exclusive control" of that power. Scalia, in his opinion, also predicted how the law might be abused in practice, writing, "I fear the Court has permanently encumbered the Republic with an institution that will do it great harm."

Conservatives began to share his concern when in 1992, four days before the election, Lawrence Walsh announced the re-indictment of former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger on charges related to the Iran-Contra affair. Critics also sensed partisan politics when Walsh's office leaked a note suggesting President Bush had lied about his connections to the affair. Liberals also began to share Scalia's concern when independent counsel Kenneth Starr spent $40 million and more than four years investigation on President Clinton's land deals and extra-marital affairs. Many believed the investigation was plagued by partisanship.

[edit] Aftermath

Congress let the Independent Counsel Act expire in 1999.

The New York Times of Friday, December 2, 2005 on page A24, said, "[i]n an introduction he gave shortly after the case was decided, (then) Judge (Samuel A.) Alito said the decision hit the separation of powers doctrine "about as hard as heavy-weight champ Mike Tyson usually hits his opponents."

In February 2006, lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide, argued that Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald lacked the legal authority to bring charges now pending against him. [1] In April 2006, a court rejected Libby's argument, citing the precedent in Morrison v. Olson. [2]