University of San Diego Digital USD University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Law Faculty Scholarship Theory Research Paper Series February 2004 Procedural Justice Lawrence B. Solum University of San Diego, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digital.sandiego.edu/lwps_public Part of the Administrative Law Commons, and the Dispute Resolution and Arbitration Commons Digital USD Citation Solum, Lawrence B., "Procedural Justice" (2004). University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series. 2. http://digital.sandiego.edu/lwps_public/art2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Faculty Scholarship at Digital USD. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series by an authorized administrator of Digital USD. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Solum: Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series Spring 2004 Procedural Justice Lawrence B. Solum Published by Digital USD, 2004 1 University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series, Art. 2 [2004] PROCEDURAL JUSTICE* ** LAWRENCE B. SOLUM TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction .................................................................................................................1 A. Where to Begin? Ex Ante and Ex Post Perspectives ............................................ 2 B. A Roadmap to the Argument ................................................................................ 8 II. Substance and Procedure ........................................................................................... 9 A. Substance and Procedure through the Lens of Erie Railroad v. Tompkins .......... 9 B. A Thought Experiment: Acoustic Separation of Substance and Procedure........ 22 C. The Entanglement of Substance and Procedure.................................................. 30 D. The Entanglement Thesis.................................................................................... 37 E. Substance and Procedure Restated ...................................................................... 38 III. The Foundations of Procedural Justice................................................................... 39 A. The Jurisprudential Framework for the Theory .................................................. 40 B. The Role of Public Reason.................................................................................. 42 C. Some Objections to a Theory of Procedural Justice............................................ 45 * © 2004 by the author. Permission is hereby granted for noncommercial reproduction of this article in whole or in part for educational or research purposes, including the making of multiple copies for classroom use, subject only to the condition that the name of the author, the title of the article, and this copyright notice and grant of permission be included in the copies. ** Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law. I am grateful to the participants in faculty workshops at Boston University, Fordham University, Loyola Marymount University, Ohio State University, and the University of Southern California, and to those who attended a meeting of the Sayre MacNeil Fellows for comments on an earlier draft. In particular, I owe thanks to Scott Altman, Randy Barnett, Robert Bone, David Leonard, Tyler Ochoa, Katherine Pratt, Ted Seto, and Peter Swire for detailed comments, criticisms, and suggestions. Martha Fineman, Sharon Lloyd, and Frank Partnoy have provided helpful discussion. Both Loyola Marymount University and the University of San Diego provided generous research support. http://digital.sandiego.edu/lwps_public/art2 2 Solum: Lawrence Solum IV. Views of Procedural Justice ................................................................................... 49 A. The Idea of Procedural Justice............................................................................ 50 B. Three Models of Procedural Justice.................................................................... 54 C. From the Three Models to a Theory of Procedural Justice ................................. 82 V. The Value of Participation....................................................................................... 83 A. Participation Is Essential for Legitimacy ............................................................ 84 B. Framing the Issue: Reduction or Dependence..................................................... 92 C. Dignity, Equality, and Autonomy ....................................................................... 95 D. Answers to Objections ........................................................................................ 97 VI. Principles of Procedural Justice............................................................................ 111 A. The Statement of the Principles ........................................................................ 111 B. The Principles in Relationship to the Three Models ......................................... 113 C. The Principles in Relationship to the Structure of Existing Doctrine ............... 114 VII. The Problem of Aggregation............................................................................... 119 A. Technologies of Aggregation............................................................................ 119 B. The Participation Problem................................................................................. 121 C. Structuring Aggregation to Allow Participation Rights.................................... 123 D. Aggregation If Participation Rights Are Impracticable .................................... 124 VIII. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 125 ii Published by Digital USD, 2004 3 University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series, Art. 2 [2004] Procedural Justice I. INTRODUCTION Questions about procedural justice are remarkably persistent. From the Court of Star Chamber in the fourteenth century1 to Guantanamo Bay in the twenty-first,2 the common-law legal tradition is no stranger to the notion that procedural rights may be sacrificed on the altar of substantive advantage. Legal sophisticates will hardly be surprised to learn that academics in the utilitarian tradition have argued that procedural fairness can be reduced to the calculation of costs and benefits,3 including, perhaps, a taste for participation.4 Even the United States Supreme Court seems to have suggested that the most basic procedural rights, notice and an opportunity to be heard, may be denied if the balance of interests does not favor them.5 But the ascendancy of consequentialist reasoning in the courts and the academy has not laid the question of procedural justice to rest. Whenever life, liberty, or property is taken without affording the affected individual a meaningful opportunity to participate in the decision making process, the cry of procedural unfairness is heard. The thesis of this article is that such cries are grounded in reason as well as passion. “Yes,” procedural justice is concerned with the benefits of accuracy and the costs of adjudication, but, “no,” not solely with costs and benefits. Rather, procedural justice is deeply entwined with the old and powerful idea that a process that guarantees rights of meaningful participation is an essential prerequisite for the legitimate authority of action-guiding legal norms. Meaningful participation requires notice and opportunity to be heard, and it requires a reasonable balance between cost and accuracy. 1 Frank Riebli, Note, The Spectre of Star Chamber: The Role of an Ancient English Tribunal in the Supreme Court's Self-Incrimination Jurisprudence, 29 HASTINGS CONST. L.Q. 807 (2002); CORA LOUISE SCOFIELD, A STUDY OF THE COURT OF STAR CHAMBER iii (Burt Franklin ed., 1969) (1900) (finding references to Star Chamber as early as 1356); William Hudson, A Treatise of the Court of Star Chamber, in COLLECTANEA JURIDICA, 1-241 (Francis Hargrave ed., 1980) (1792) (stating that Star Chamber dates from the Twelfth Century reign of Henry II); see also infra Part V.A.4, “Three Thought Experiments.” 2 Gherebi v. Bush, ___ F.3d ____, 2003 WL 23010235 (9th Cir. Dec 18, 2003); Michael Ratner, Moving Away from the Rule of Law: Military Tribunals, Executive Detentions and Torture, 24 Cardozo L. Rev. 1513 (2003); K. Elizabeth Dahlstrom, The Executive Policy Toward Detention and Trial of Foreign Citizens at Guantanamo Bay, 21 Berkeley J. Int'l L. 662 (2003). 3 LOUIS KAPLOW & STEVEN SHAVELL, FAIRNESS VERSUS WELFARE 228 (2002); see also Louis Kaplow, The Value of Accuracy in Adjudication: An Economic Analysis, 23 J. LEGAL STUDIES, 307 (1994). 4 See David Rosenberg, Individual Justice and Collectivizing Risk-Based Claims in Mass Exposure Cases, 71 N.Y.U. L. REV. 210 (1996). 5 Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 348 (1976) (using a balancing approach to resolve question whether denial of an opportunity to be heard violates due process); Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank and Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950) (using a balancing approach to resolve question whether notice of proceeding was required). 1 http://digital.sandiego.edu/lwps_public/art2 4 Solum: Lawrence Solum My case for these simple and intuitively plausible claims is elaborated in the form of a theory of procedural justice for a system of civil dispute resolution. It is a commonplace of procedure scholarship to observe that theories of procedural justice are