Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/554

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RUFO v. INMATES OF SUFFOLK COUNTY JAIL O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment

Public officials often operate within difficult fiscal constraints; every dollar spent for one purpose is a dollar that cannot be spent for something else. While the lack of resources can never excuse a failure to obey constitutional requirements, it can provide a basis for concluding that continued compliance with a decree obligation is no longer “equitable,” if, for instance, the obligation turns out to be significantly more expensive than anyone anticipated. Third, although the District Court purported to apply the “flexible standard” proposed by the petitioners, the court denied modification because “[t]he type of modification sought here would not comply with the overall purpose of the consent decree; it would set aside the obligations of that decree.” Id., at 565. Taken literally, this conclusion deprives the “flexible standard” of any meaning; every modification, by definition, will alter an obligation of a decree. The court may have meant no more than that the plaintiff class would never have agreed to a decree without single celling, but, taking the court at its word, it held the petitioners to a standard that would never permit modification of any decree. This was another instance where the District Court, in my view, erroneously found that it lacked the authority to grant the relief requested by the petitioners. In these three respects, the District Court felt itself bound by constraints that in fact did not exist. We do not know whether, and to what extent, the court would have modified the decree had it not placed these limits on its own authority. I would accordingly remand these cases so that the District Court may exercise the full measure of its discretion. In doing so, however, I would emphasize that we find fault only with the method by which the District Court reached its conclusion. The District Court may well have been justified, for the reasons suggested by Justice Stevens, in refusing to modify the decree, and the court is free, when fully exercising its discretion, to reach the same result on remand. This is a case with no satisfactory outcome. The new jail is