Original jurisdiction deadlocks.

• Author: Coenen, Michael

Although nine Justices sit on the Supreme Court, absences or vacancies (or both) sometimes require that fewer than nine Justices preside over a case. When the number of missing Justices is odd (and the number of presiding Justices therefore even), there arises the possibility of a tie vote on that case's merits. In cases arising under the Court's appellate jurisdiction, a tie translates into a summary affirmance of the lower court's ruling. But what happens in original jurisdiction cases, which by definition present no lower court ruling to affirm?

New Jersey v. Delaware, (1) a case decided last Term, nearly presented this conundrum. Had two more Justices dissented in the case, the Court would have found itself in the perplexing posture of an original jurisdiction deadlock (OJD). It is unknown how the Court would have handled an OJD in New Jersey, or how it would handle one in any future case. It is, as one commentator has observed, "a question experts in Supreme Court procedure have been unable to answer." (2)

Though the Court skirted the issue in New Jersey, the challenge posed by OJDs remains important. Original jurisdiction cases maintain a steady presence on the Court's docket, (3) and it is only a matter of time before one of them results in a tie. The Court should therefore treat last Term's close call as an opportunity to develop a clear and principled approach to resolving OJDs.

1. THE NEED FOR A RULE

   The Court has confronted only two OJDs, and on both occasions it struggled due to a lack of a clear tiebreaking rule. First, in the nineteenth-century case of Virginia v. West Virginia, (4) Chief Justice Chase announced that the Justices were "equally divided on the demurrer, and equally divided also upon the order which should be made in consequence of that division." (5) As a result, the matter stood unresolved for nearly three years. (6) Second, in the twentieth-century disbarment action of In re Isserman, the Court split evenly on the question of disbarment but ordered disbarment anyway. (7) One year later, the Court changed its mind and overruled its prior decision. (8)

   Unfazed by this troubled past, the Court remains unprepared for future OJDs. Rather than bind itself to a prospective rule, the Court has chosen to wait for the next OJD before determining a proper resolution. (9) Such a wait-and-see strategy may offer some near-term savings of judicial energy, but this modest benefit is outweighed by significant costs. For one thing, ad hoc OJD resolutions entail procedural decisionmaking in the face of foreseeable substantive consequences. Unsatisfactory solutions may well emerge from these situations because the Justices' views on the merits of a deadlocked case could distort their views on the appropriate response to the OJD itself. Moreover, there is the danger that the practical problem presented by Virginia will recur-namely, that a second deadlock will occur on the issue of how to deal with the initial deadlock on the merits. Finally, ad hoc rulings tend to be unstable, as illustrated by the Court's flip-flopping in In re Isserman. (10)

2. THREE POTENTIAL STRATEGIES

   Given the need to establish a method of resolving OJDs, the next task is to determine what the best method would be. This Part identifies three common tiebreaking strategies--continuation, designation, and disposition--and evaluates each strategy's potential to resolve OJDs in a satisfactory manner.

   1. Continuation

      One tiebreaking strategy treats a tie vote as an intermediate, rather than final, stage in the decision-making process. Embracing such a "continuation strategy," the Court could adopt a rule similar to the one that governs federal jury deliberations. Just as nonunanimous juries continue to convene in an effort to achieve unanimity, a split panel of Justices could respond to an OJD by continuing to deliberate until a majority coalition materializes. In other words, a tie vote would signify that a decision had not yet been reached, and the case would remain on the docket until a majority of the Justices comes to a consensus.

      This strategy has some virtues. It might, for example, prompt individual Justices to reassess their positions on the merits and to consider the views of their colleagues with greater care. That said, the continuation strategy presents severe drawbacks. First, as hung juries regularly demonstrate, decisionmakers often do not change their minds to produce decisions, even when under strong pressure to do so. Especially in the high-stakes cases that occupy the Court's docket, Justices might be loath to switch allegiance for the sole sake of ending deadlock. (11) For this reason, the continuation strategy could produce intolerable delay. (12)

      More importantly, deadlock-induced allegiance switching would be normatively undesirable. The continuation strategy would not necessarily produce the best outcome in a deadlocked case; it would more likely produce whichever outcome happened to be preferred by the Court's most obdurate personalities. (13) In short, the Court should disfavor a tiebreaking process that rewards stubbornness at the expense of dispassionate deliberation.

   2. Designation

      A second tiebreaking strategy involves the intervention of an additional participant to break the decision-making body's deadlock. Many legislatures employ this "designation strategy," (14) and the approach has found favor in some state courts as well. (15)

      In the Supreme Court, however, most applications of the designation strategy would be unlawful. Although 28 U.S.C. [section] 294(d) permits federal judges to assume temporary duties on lower courts, it also provides that "[n]o such designation or assignment shall be made to the Supreme Court." (16) Additionally, such delegations, even if provided for by statute, might present constitutional problems. (17)

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