The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 on June 4 that the Federal Communications Commission can impose forfeiture penalties without triggering a jury trial, resolving a circuit split that pitted the Fifth Circuit's "prosecutor, jury, and judge" critique against the Second Circuit's deference to agency enforcement. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion; only Justice Thomas dissented. [1]

The case arose from the FCC's investigation of AT&T and Verizon, which the agency found had sold customer location data to third parties — including law enforcement — without adequate safeguards. The FCC assessed $57 million against AT&T and $47 million against Verizon. Both carriers argued the in-house enforcement process violated the Seventh Amendment's jury-trial guarantee. The Fifth Circuit agreed and vacated the AT&T penalty. The Second Circuit upheld the Verizon fine. [2]

Roberts held that forfeiture orders do not definitively resolve legal obligations because the Department of Justice must still file a civil suit to collect. The carriers retain a choice: pay the forfeiture and seek appellate review, or refuse to pay and wait for DOJ to sue in district court — where a jury trial would be available. The constitutional escape hatch remains open; the Court simply held that the FCC's process does not close it. [1]

The ruling is narrow. It does not expand the FCC's substantive authority over content, licensing, or spectrum. What it does is confirm the procedural machinery: the agency can investigate, find a violation, and assess a penalty through its internal process, and that process survives constitutional scrutiny.

The timing is not narrow. The same FCC that now has confirmed enforcement machinery is running The View docket — with a June 22 comment deadline — weighing the Colbert waiver question, and maintaining a license-threat posture over Iran war coverage that the paper has tracked since March. [3] Chairman Carr invoked forfeiture authority when he threatened broadcast licenses in March. The Supreme Court has now validated the procedural foundation for that threat.

AT&T and Verizon will presumably pay the location-data fines rather than invite DOJ to sue and create binding precedent. But the enforcement precedent is set: the FCC's forfeiture process works, and regulated parties face a process the Court has blessed. The gap between the agency's threat capacity and its actual enforcement record just closed.

The ruling also carries implications beyond telecommunications. The FCC's forfeiture authority was the model for several other agencies' enforcement regimes. If the process survives for the FCC, it likely survives for them — a point that energy, banking, and environmental regulators will note.

What the paper said in March was that the FCC's license threats over war coverage lacked an enforcement backbone. The View docket had deadlines but no decision. The Colbert waiver was a rights record, not a censorship verdict. [3] Today's ruling does not decide any of those questions. It changes the institutional context in which they are decided. The FCC now carries a confirmed weapon. Whether it fires is a separate question.

-- ANNA WEBER, Berlin