Tennessee v. Lane

This Monday, the radio was all abuzz about three political issues, all involving the judiciary. There were, of course, the debacle over same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, and a lengthy discussion in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. I noted that the discussion of Brown dealt, predictably, very little with its actual legal innovations, and almost exclusively with the absurd question "If Brown outlawed segregated schools, why are our schools still segregated?" (Answer: because Brown did not outlaw segregated schools, it merely prohibited states from segregating them.)
But the third and really perplexing treatment was of the recently decided case Tennessee v. Lane. Lane is the sort of case that the news media love dearly for its lurid facts and potential to spark controversy among the ignorant. It involves a suit brought by a parapalegic southern gentleman who was charged with some minor criminal offenses and arraigned in a courthouse without wheelchair access. The reporters took every possible opportunity to repeat, with salacious alacrity, that "Mr. Lane had to crawl up the steps of the courthouse," and dwelt at great length on the myriad indignities imposed on the disabled by our cold and heartless society.
Mr. Lane's plight seemed very sympathetic, but the story left me a little puzzled. The ADA has for years required provision for wheelchair access to public facilities, and almost any litlgation surrounding the interpretation or validity of that act was decided years ago. However, the reporter finally saw fit to note that the decision was not on the actual merits of Mr. Lane's claim, but on the 11th Amendment issue.
For those without pocket Constitutions handy, the 11th Amendment disallows suing states in federal court. This may come as a surprise, since a great deal of federal "civil rights" litigation has a state or one of its organs as a defendant. Suffice it to say that there are many exceptions, notably that, under ex parte Young, you can sue federal officials to enjoin them from state action. The issue in Mr. Lane's case was not, therefore, whether the vile state of Tennessee could force him to crawl up the steps of the courthouse, since he could clearly ask for an injuction requiring the state to install a ramp, or probably even have his convicion overturned on a federal habeas petition if he were jailed for failing to appear. No, the issue was whether Mr. Lane could sue the state for money damages, for which the ADA also provides.
I understand that the general public might have trouble understanding all the ramifications of 11th Amendment jurisprudence, but had NPR's purpose been to inform rather than titillate, they could easily have reduced the issue and holding in Lane to four points:

1. The 11th Amendment prohibits suing states for money damages.

2. The 14th Amendment created an exception to the 11th Amendment when states violate 14th Amendment rights.

3. Therefore, Congress can abrogate state sovereign immunity as long as it is acting under its power to enforce the 14th Amendment.

4. The right of access to the courts is one such right, and so Congress can authorize damage suits against states who violate it.

Lane contains no startling revelations about the constitutionality of failing to have wheelchair ramps in public places. Indeed, the Court's decision would apply equally if Congress had provided for damage suits in case of any barring of access to the courts whatsoever: Mr. Lane's being handicapped is irrelevant to the majority opinion's reasoning. This is true despite the unhelpful and fatuous concurrences of Souter and Ginsburg, which, respectively, bring up eugenics and try to turn the Constitution into a manifesto of inclusiveness.
All this is as much as to say that, if the news is going to report on current Supreme Court decisions (which I generally regard as a bad idea, but that is the subject of another post), it ought at least to enlighten the ignorance of the masses rather than provoke it. For heaven's sake, it took me weeks to learn last summer that the much-deplored American Library Association decision was a spending-power case.