178
Souter, J., dissenting
federal law may be enforced in a federal court by substituting a nonimmune party (the state officer) for an immune one (the State itself). Young does no more and furnishes no authority for the Court's assumption that it somehow pre-empts procedural rules devised by Congress for particular kinds of cases that may depend on Young for federal jurisdiction.61
If, indeed, the Court were correct in assuming that Congress may not regulate the procedure of a suit jurisdictionally dependent on Young, the consequences would be revolutionary, for example, in habeas law. It is well established that when a habeas corpus petitioner sues a state official alleging detention in violation of federal law and seeking the prospective remedy of release from custody, it is the doctrine identified in Ex parte Young that allows the petitioner to evade the jurisdictional bar of the Eleventh Amendment (or, more properly, the Hans doctrine). See Young, 209 U. S., at 167-168; Larson v. Domestic and Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U. S. 682, 689-690 (1949).62 And yet Congress has im-61 The Court accuses me of misrepresenting its argument. Ante, at 75, n. 17. The Court's claim, as I read it, is not that Congress cannot authorize federal jurisdiction under Ex parte Young over a cause of action with a limited remedial scheme, but rather that remedial limitations on the underlying cause of action do not apply to a claim based on Ex parte Young. Otherwise, the existence of those remedial limitations would provide no reason for the Court to assume that Congress did not intend to permit an action under Young; rather, the limitations would apply regardless of whether the suit was brought against the State or a state officer.
62 See also Brennan v. Stewart, 834 F. 2d 1248, 1252, n. 6 (CA5 1988) ("[A]lthough not usually conceptualized as Ex parte Young cases, most of the huge number of habeas claims in the federal courts under 28 U. S. C. § 2254 are effectively suits against the states. These suits pass muster under the Eleventh Amendment because the habeas theory of a civil suit against the bad jailer fits perfectly with the Ex parte Young fiction"); United States ex rel. Elliott v. Hendricks, 213 F. 2d 922, 926-928 (CA3) (exercising jurisdiction over a habeas suit despite an Eleventh Amendment challenge on the theory that the suit was against a state officer), cert. denied, 348 U. S. 851 (1954).
Page: Index Previous 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007