May
15, 2000
WASHINGTON
(AP) - The Supreme Court today threw out a law that let rape
victims sue their attackers in federal court, saying Congress
wrongly trampled on an area of state authority.
The
5-4 ruling in a Virginia case invalidated a key provision of the
1994 Violence Against Women Act and followed the court's recent
trend of expanding states' rights at the expense of the federal
government.
Congress,
in enacting the provision, overstepped its authority to regulate
interstate commerce and enforce the Constitution's
equal-protection guarantee, the justices said.
The
justices ruled that Christy Brzonkala, a former Virginia Tech
student, cannot pursue her federal lawsuit against two football
players, alleging that they raped her in a dormitory room.
Brzonkala, who has allowed her name to be disclosed, became the
first person to sue under the law in 1995.
Petitioner
Brzonkala's complaint alleges that she was the victim of a
brutal assault,'' Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for
the court. ``If the allegations here are true, no civilized
system of justice could fail to provide her a remedy ... But
under our federal system that remedy must be provided by the
commonwealth of Virginia, and not by the United States.''
The
justices rejected arguments by her lawyer and the Clinton
administration that the law was needed because states are not
doing enough to protect rape victims, and because gender-based
violence restricts women's choices in jobs and travel.
That
argument ``would allow Congress to regulate any crime as long as
the nationwide, aggregated impact of that crime has substantial
effects on employment, production, transit or consumption,''
Rehnquist said. ``Indeed, if Congress may regulate
gender-motivated violence, it would be able to regulate murder
or any other type of violence. ...''
The
chief justice's opinion was joined by Justices Sandra Day
O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence
Thomas.
Dissenting
were Justices David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader
Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
