Gonzales v. Oregon

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Gonzales v. Oregon

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued October 5, 2005
Decided January 17, 2006


Full case name:	Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney General, et al., v. Oregon, et al.

Docket #:	04-623

Citations:	546 U.S. ___ (2006); 126 S.Ct. 94, 2006 U.S. LEXIS 767, 74 USLW 4068, 06 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 433, 2006 Daily Journal D.A.R. 608, 19 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 49

Prior history:	Summary judgment granted to plaintiffs in part, Oregon v. Ashcroft, 192 F. Supp.2d 1077 (D. Ore. 2002); affirmed, 368 F.3d 1118 (9th Cir. 2003); cert. granted, sub. nom. Gonzales v. Oregon, 125 S.Ct. 1299 (2005)

Holding

The Controlled Substances Act does not empower the Attorney General of the United States to prohibit doctors from prescribing regulated drugs for use in physician-assisted suicide under state law permitting the procedure. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.

Court membership

Chief Justice: John Roberts
Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer

Case opinions

Majority by: Kennedy
Joined by: Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
Dissent by: Scalia
Joined by: Roberts, Thomas
Dissent by: Thomas

Laws applied

Ore. Rev. Stat. § 127.800 et seq. (2003) (Oregon Death With Dignity Act)
21 U.S.C. § 801 et seq. (Controlled Substances Act)
66 Fed. Reg. § 56608 (2001)

Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. ___ (2006)^[1], was a United States Supreme Court case which ruled that the United States Attorney General could not enforce the Controlled Substances Act against physicians prescribing drugs for the assisted suicide of the terminally ill as permitted by an Oregon law. It was the first major case heard under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr..

1 Background of the case
2 The Court's decision
- 2.1 Scalia's dissent
- 2.2 Thomas's dissent
3 Notes
4 External links

[edit] Background of the case

In 1994, voters in the State of Oregon approved Oregon Ballot Measure 16, legalizing physician-assisted suicide by a margin of 31,962 votes, and retained this measure by 220,445 votes in a 1997 special election attempt to repeal the law. The law permits physicians to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to a patient agreed by two doctors to be within six months of dying from an incurable condition. As of 2004, 208 individuals had ended their lives under the law.^[2]

On November 9, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued an Interpretive Rule that assisted-physician suicide was not a legitimate medical purpose, and that any physician administering federally controlled drugs for that purpose would be in violation of the Controlled Substances Act. The State of Oregon, joined by a physician, a pharmacist, and some terminally ill patients, all from Oregon, filed a challenge to the Attorney General's rule in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.^[3] The court ruled for Oregon and issued a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the Interpretive Rule. This was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

[edit] The Court's decision

In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy,^[4] the Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit's judgment, but employed different reasoning. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas filed dissents. The majority opinion did not dispute the power of the federal government to regulate drugs, but disagreed that the statute in place empowered the U.S. Attorney General to overrule state laws determining what constituted the appropriate use of medications that were not themselves prohibited.

[edit] Scalia's dissent

Justice Scalia, in a dissent joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas, argued that under the Supreme Court precedent deference was due to the Attorney General's interpretation of the statute. He wrote that "[i]f the term 'legitimate medical purpose' has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death".

[edit] Thomas's dissent

In addition to joining Justice Scalia's dissent, Justice Thomas also filed a brief dissent in which he argued that the court's majority opinion was inconsistent with the reasoning in Gonzales v. Raich. Thomas also dissented in that decision, in which five of the six justices in the majority in Oregon found broad federal authority under the Controlled Substances Act for Congress to forbid the growth of medical marijuana. Thomas had argued for a more limited congressional power under the Commerce Clause in Raich, which focused on intra-state vs. inter-state commerce. In Oregon, by contrast, the case was instead a matter of the validity of an executive interpretation of that statute.

[edit] Notes

↑ Full text of the Supreme Court's decision
↑ This statistic may be found at http://www.ohd.hr.state.or.us/chs/pas/ar-smmry.cfm.
↑ The case was initially filed as Oregon v. Ashcroft, with John Ashcroft, then Attorney General, as a nominal defendant by virtue of his status as the head of the U.S. Dept. of Justice. Alberto Gonzales was substituted for Ashcroft following his appointment to that position.
↑ Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was in the majority, though she had announced her retirement on July 1, 2005, pending confirmation of a successor. She remained on the Court when oral argument was heard and when the case was considered, though her vote would not have counted if her successor was seated before the Court formally announced its decision. Samuel Alito was still pending confirmation by the Senate to replace O'Connor when the ruling was handed down.