Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/547

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Cite as: 502 U. S. 367 (1992)

389

Opinion of the Court

Neither Bell nor the Federal Constitution forbade this course of conduct. Federal courts may not order States or local governments, over their objection, to undertake a course of conduct not tailored to curing a constitutional violation that has been adjudicated. See Milliken v. Bradley (Milliken II), 433 U. S. 267, 281 (1977). But we have no doubt that, to “save themselves the time, expense, and inevitable risk of litigation,” United States v. Armour & Co., 402 U. S. 673, 681 (1971), petitioners could settle the dispute over the proper remedy for the constitutional violations that had been found by undertaking to do more than the Constitution itself requires (almost any affirmative decree beyond a directive to obey the Constitution necessarily does that), but also more than what a court would have ordered absent the settlement. Accordingly, the District Court did not abuse its discretion in entering the agreed-upon decree, which clearly was related to the conditions found to offend the Constitution. Milliken v. Bradley (Milliken I), 418 U. S. 717, 738 (1974). See also Dowell, 498 U. S., at 246–248. Cf. Firefighters v. Cleveland, 478 U. S. 501, 525 (1986).12 To hold that a clarification in the law automatically opens the door for relitigation of the merits of every affected consent decree would undermine the finality of such agreements and could serve as a disincentive to negotiation of settlements in institutional reform litigation. The position urged by petitioners 12

Petitioner Rapone contends that the District Court was required to modify the consent decree because “the constitutional violation underlying the decree has disappeared and will not recur” and that “no constitutional violation [is] even alleged” at the new jail, “so there is no constitutional violation to serve as a predicate for the federal court’s continued exercise of its equitable power.” Brief for Petitioner in No. 90–1004, pp. 36–37. His argument is not well taken. The District Court did not make findings on these issues, and even if it had ruled that double celling at the new jail is constitutional and that the modification should be granted, we do not have before us the question whether the entire decree should be vacated.