414
Stevens, J., dissenting
ing the relief to be ordered was unfair to petitioners and should not be repeated in comparable circumstances. The browbeaten State, the Court suggests, was "entitled to far more than an opportunity for rebuttal." Ante, at 363. I strongly disagree with this characterization of the process. Whether this Court now approves or disapproves of the contents of the Gluth decree, the Court of Appeals had affirmed it in its entirety when this case was tried, and it was surely appropriate for the District Court to use it as a starting-point for its remedial task in this case. Petitioners were represented by competent counsel who could have advanced their own proposals for relief if they had thought it expedient to do so. By going further than necessary to correct the excesses of the order, the Court's decision rewards the State for the uncooperative posture it has assumed throughout the long period of litigating both Gluth and this case. See ante, at 354-355; Gluth, 773 F. Supp., at 1312-1316. Although the State's approach has proven sound as a matter of tactics, allowing it to prevail in a forum that is not as inhibited by precedent as are other federal courts, the Court's decision undermines the authority and equitable powers of not only this District Court, but District Courts throughout the Nation. It is quite wrong, in my judgment, for this Court to suggest that the District Court denied the State a fair opportunity to be heard, and entirely unnecessary for it to dispose of the smorgasbord of constitutional issues that it consumes in Part II.
Accordingly, while I agree that a remand is appropriate, I cannot join the Court's opinion.
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