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Gonzales v. Oregon

Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 243 (2006), was a United States Supreme Court case which ruled that the United States Attorney General could not enforce the Controlled Substances Act against physicians prescribing drugs for the assisted suicide of the terminally ill as permitted by an Oregon law. It was the first major case heard under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr.

Background of the case

In 1994, voters in the state of Oregon approved Measure 16, a ballot initiative that established the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, by a margin of 31,962 votes, or 51.3%. The Act legalized physician-assisted suicide. A 1997 referral by the Oregon Legislative Assembly aimed to repeal the Death with Dignity Act, but was defeated by a 60% margin, with 220,445 votes cast against it. The law permits physicians to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to a patient agreed by two doctors to be within six months of dying from an incurable condition. As of 2006, 292 individuals had ended their lives under the law.

On November 9 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued an Interpretive Rule that assisted-physician suicide was not a legitimate medical purpose, and that any physician administering federally controlled drugs for that purpose would be in violation of the Controlled Substances Act. The State of Oregon, joined by a physician, a pharmacist, and a group of terminally ill patients, all from Oregon, filed a challenge to the Attorney General's rule in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. The court ruled for Oregon and issued a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the Interpretive Rule. The ruling was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Court's decision

In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit's judgment, but employed different reasoning. The majority opinion did not dispute the power of the federal government to regulate drugs, but disagreed that the statute in place empowered the U.S. Attorney General to overrule state laws determining what constituted the appropriate use of medications that were not themselves prohibited. The court cited Linder v. United States to limit federal power to regulate medical practice. The court found that it was inappropriate to apply Chevron deference toward the Attorney General's "interpretive rule" that controlled substances could not medically be used for the purpose of euthanasia.

Scalia's dissent

Justice Scalia, in a dissent joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas, argued that under the Supreme Court precedent deference was due to the Attorney General's interpretation of the statute. He wrote that "[i]f the term 'legitimate medical purpose' has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death".

Thomas's dissent

In addition to joining Justice Scalia's dissent, Justice Thomas also filed a brief dissent in which he argued that the court's majority opinion was inconsistent with the reasoning in Gonzales v. Raich. Thomas also dissented in that decision, in which five of the six justices in the majority in Oregon found broad federal authority under the Controlled Substances Act for Congress to forbid the growth of medical marijuana. Thomas had argued for a more limited congressional power under the Commerce Clause in Raich, which focused on intra-state vs. inter-state commerce. In Oregon, by contrast, the case was instead a matter of the validity of an executive interpretation of that statute.

Notes

Full text of the Supreme Court's decision
This statistic may be found at http://www.ohd.hr.state.or.us/chs/pas/ar-smmry.cfm.
The case was initially filed as Oregon v. Ashcroft, with John Ashcroft, then Attorney General, as a nominal defendant by virtue of his status as the head of the U.S. Dept. of Justice. Alberto Gonzales was substituted for Ashcroft following his appointment to that position.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was in the majority, though she had announced her retirement on July 1, 2005, pending confirmation of a successor. She remained on the Court when oral argument was heard and when the case was considered, though her vote would not have counted if her successor was seated before the Court formally announced its decision. Samuel Alito was still pending confirmation by the Senate to replace O'Connor when the ruling was handed down.