In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “the constitutionality of hundreds of statutes may now be in peril, and dozens of agencies could be stripped of their power to enforce laws enacted by Congress.”
The U.S. Supreme Court’s striking down of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s ability to seek fines through administrative court proceedings will likely affect how federal agencies across the government assess financial penalties, administrative law professors said.
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., writing for the court’s 6-3 majority in SEC v. Jarkesy last week, stated that the agency’s assessment of fines through administrative proceedings violated the Constitution’s Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the majority’s ruling “earth-shattering.”
