512
Kennedy, J., dissenting
ance between State and Federal Governments, not to mention the reallocation of authority between the Executive and Judicial Branches, shows the implausibility of the majority's reasoning.
If a federal agency were to exercise an analogous power to review the decisions of federal courts, the arrangement would violate the well-established rule that the judgments of Article III courts cannot be revised by the Executive or Legislative Branches. See Hayburn's Case, 2 Dall. 409, 410, n. (1792) (" '[B]y the Constitution, neither the Secretary [of] War, nor any other Executive officer, nor even the Legislature, are authorized to sit as a court of errors on . . . judicial acts or opinions . . .' "); see also Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U. S. 211 (1995). The principle that judicial decisions cannot be reopened at the whim of the Executive or the Legislature is essential to preserving separation of powers and judicial independence. Judges cannot, without sacrificing the autonomy of their office, put onto the scales of justice some predictive judgment about the probability that an administrator might reverse their rulings.
The Court today denies state judicial systems the same judicial independence it has long guarded for itself—only that the injury here is worse. Under the majority's holding, decisions by state courts would be subject to being overturned, not just by any agency, but by an agency established by a different sovereign. We should be reluctant to interpret a congressional statute to deny to States the judicial independence guaranteed by their own constitutions. See Buckalew v. Holloway, 604 P. 2d 240, 245 (Alaska 1979) ("There is no doubt that judicial independence was a paramount concern of the delegates [to the Alaska Constitutional Convention]"); see also, e. g., Cal. Const., Art. 3, § 3 ("The powers of state government are legislative, executive, and judicial. Persons charged with the exercise of one power may not exercise either of the others except as permitted by this Constitution"); see also 7 B. Witkin, Summary of
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