184
Opinion of the Court
551. To the extent these civil cases may be thought to have implicitly applied a form of the de facto officer doctrine, we are not inclined to extend them beyond their facts.3
The Government alternatively defends the decision of the Court of Military Appeals on the grounds that it was, for several reasons, proper for that court to give its decision in Carpenter—holding that the appointment of the civilian judges to the Coast Guard Court of Military Review violated the Appointments Clause—prospective application only. It first argues that the Court of Military Appeals exercised remedial discretion pursuant to Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S. 97 (1971).4 But whatever the continuing validity of
3 For similar reasons, we do not find instructive the Court's disposition of petitioner's challenge in Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U. S. 50 (1982). The Court declared the broad grant of jurisdiction to Article I bankruptcy courts unconstitutional and applied its decision prospectively only. Id., at 88. But in doing so, it affirmed the judgment of the District Court, which had dismissed petitioner's bankruptcy action and afforded respondent the relief requested pursuant to its constitutional challenge. Id., at 57. So Northern Pipeline is not a case in which the Court invoked the de facto officer doctrine to deny relief to the party before it and therefore does not support the Government in this case.
4 The Government advances a virtual cornucopia of factors more or less peculiar to this case which it says validate the Court of Military Appeals' exercise of discretion in this case and thus support affirmance. It points to the lack of any substantial impact that the improper appointments had on petitioner's appeal, to the lack of any constitutional right to appellate review, and to the deference owed the military and the public interest in avoiding disruption of that system. Brief for United States 22. At oral argument, it also contended that subsequent action taken by the Secretary of Transportation to cure the Appointments Clause error, the fact that petitioner's underlying claims of error were meritless, and the fact that the civilian judges in this case had previously served under proper appointments while on active duty were relevant criteria. Tr. of Oral Arg. 29-30, 33-34. The substance, if not the form, of several of these arguments is discussed and rejected in the text. Those that are not discussed are alternative grounds for affirmance which the Government did not raise below, see Answer to Supplement for Petition for Review in No. 68449 (Ct. Mil. App.), pp. 2-4, and which we decline to reach. Jenkins v. Anderson,
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