Heckler v. Chaney
Whether a federal agency's decision not to take enforcement action against an alleged violation of the law is subject to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
The Decision
9-0 decision · Opinion by William Rehnquist · 1985
Majority Opinion— William Rehnquistconcurring ↓
The Supreme Court reversed the D.C. Circuit in a unanimous 9–0 decision, with the majority opinion written by Justice William Rehnquist. The Court held that the FDA's decision not to take enforcement action against the use of drugs in lethal injections was presumptively not subject to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act.
The majority began by examining Section 701(a)(2) of the APA, which bars judicial review of agency action that is 'committed to agency discretion by law.' The Court acknowledged that this provision is a narrow exception, but held that an agency's decision not to bring an enforcement action falls squarely within it. Drawing an analogy to the long-recognized discretion of criminal prosecutors to decide which cases to pursue, the Court reasoned that enforcement decisions by agencies involve a similarly complex weighing of factors: whether a violation actually occurred, whether the agency has enough resources to pursue it, whether enforcement fits the agency's overall priorities, and whether the agency is likely to succeed if it acts.
The Court established what has become an enormously influential legal principle: there is a presumption that agency decisions not to enforce are unreviewable. The reasoning was straightforward. When an agency declines to act, there is no concrete 'action' for a court to evaluate, and courts are not well positioned to supervise the day-to-day allocation of an agency's limited resources. Furthermore, an agency's refusal to act does not exercise coercive power over anyone in the way that an enforcement action does, making judicial oversight less urgent.
However, the Court was careful to note that this presumption is not absolute. It can be overcome if Congress has indicated — through the relevant statute — that the agency's enforcement power is mandatory rather than discretionary, or if the statute provides meaningful guidelines constraining the agency's enforcement discretion. In this case, the FDCA gave the FDA broad discretion in deciding when and how to enforce its provisions, and nothing in the statute suggested Congress intended to limit that discretion or to allow courts to compel enforcement. Therefore, the FDA's decision not to act was unreviewable.
The practical effect of the ruling was that the death row inmates could not use the courts to force the FDA to intervene in how states carried out lethal injections. More broadly, the decision established a foundational principle of administrative law: when a federal agency decides not to take action, that decision is generally beyond the reach of judicial review.
Concurring Opinions
Justice Brennan wrote a concurrence emphasizing that the presumption of unreviewability should be carefully limited and that Congress could overcome it by providing statutory guidelines that constrain agency enforcement discretion. Justice Marshall, joined by Justice Brennan, wrote a separate concurrence agreeing with the result but expressing concern that the majority's presumption was too broad; Marshall argued that agency inaction should be reviewable in cases where an agency has consciously adopted a general policy of non-enforcement that effectively nullifies the statutory scheme Congress created.
Background & Facts
In the early 1980s, several states began adopting lethal injection as a method of executing death row inmates. Dennis Chaney and other inmates on death row in Texas and Oklahoma filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), asking the agency to take enforcement action against the use of certain drugs — specifically sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride — in carrying out executions by lethal injection. The inmates argued that these drugs had never been tested or approved by the FDA for use in causing death in humans, and that using them in executions violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA). They contended the drugs were unapproved 'new drugs' and were 'misbranded' because their labels did not include directions for use in lethal injections.
The FDA refused to take any action. The agency stated that it had traditionally exercised its enforcement discretion to avoid involvement in the regulation of state-sanctioned methods of execution. It also pointed to several practical and legal reasons for declining, including that it lacked jurisdiction to interfere with the practice of medicine in this context and that enforcement action would be inappropriate given the circumstances.
The inmates then sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking the court to compel the FDA to act. The District Court sided with the FDA and dismissed the case, finding the agency's refusal to take enforcement action was not subject to judicial review. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reversed, holding that the FDA's refusal was reviewable and that the agency had acted irrationally by failing to enforce the law against clear violations. The appeals court ordered the FDA to take action.
The case raised a fundamental question about the power of courts to second-guess federal agencies when those agencies choose not to enforce laws against possible violators. Because different courts had taken conflicting approaches to this question, and because it touched on the basic relationship between the judiciary and the executive branch, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
The Arguments
The FDA's decision not to pursue enforcement action regarding the use of drugs in lethal injections was a matter of agency discretion that courts have no authority to review. Just as prosecutors have broad discretion to decide which cases to bring, federal agencies have similar discretion to decide where to focus their limited enforcement resources.
- The Administrative Procedure Act explicitly excludes from judicial review any agency action 'committed to agency discretion by law,' and decisions not to enforce fall squarely within that exception.
- Enforcement decisions involve complex balancing of agency priorities, resource constraints, and strategic considerations that courts are poorly equipped to evaluate.
- The FDA has never considered itself responsible for regulating the drugs used by states in carrying out lawful executions, and forcing the agency to act would improperly interfere with the agency's own assessment of its mission and priorities.
The FDA has a statutory duty to enforce the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and its blanket refusal to act against clear violations of that law is an abuse of discretion that courts should be able to review. An agency cannot simply look the other way when confronted with obvious illegality.
- The FDCA imposes mandatory duties on the FDA to ensure the safety of drugs, and the agency cannot categorically refuse to carry out those duties.
- The drugs being used in lethal injections were being administered in ways never approved by the FDA, creating the very kind of danger the statute was designed to prevent.
- If agencies could decline to enforce the law without any judicial oversight at all, there would be no meaningful check on executive power and citizens would have no recourse when agencies ignored clear statutory commands.