182
Opinion of the Court
the grounds that the appointment of the judge during a Senate recess was improper. This Court held that "the title of a person acting with color of authority, even if he be not a good officer in point of law, cannot be collaterally attacked." Id., at 456.
In the case before us, petitioner challenged the composition of the Coast Guard Court of Military Review while his case was pending before that court on direct review. Unlike the defendants in Ball, McDowell, and Ward, petitioner raised his objection to the judges' titles before those very judges and prior to their action on his case. And his claim is based on the Appointments Clause of Article II of the Constitution—a claim that there has been a "trespass upon the executive power of appointment," McDowell, supra, at 598, rather than a misapplication of a statute providing for the assignment of already appointed judges to serve in other districts.
In Buckley v. Valeo, supra, at 125, we said "[t]he Appointments Clause could, of course, be read as merely dealing with etiquette or protocol in describing 'Officers of the United States' but the drafters had a less frivolous purpose in mind." The Clause is a bulwark against one branch aggrandizing its power at the expense of another branch, but it is more: it "preserves another aspect of the Constitution's structural integrity by preventing the diffusion of the appointment power." Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U. S. 868, 878 (1991). In Glidden Co. v. Zdanok, 370 U. S. 530 (1962), we declined to invoke the de facto officer doctrine in order to avoid deciding a question arising under Article III of the Constitution, saying that the cases in which we had relied on that doctrine did not involve "basic constitutional protections designed in part for the benefit of litigants." Id., at 536 (plurality opinion). We think that one who makes a timely challenge to the constitutional validity of the appointment of an officer who adjudicates his case is entitled to a decision on the merits of the question and whatever
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007