¶ … Briefings on Administrative Law Case facts

In 1994, the initial state law that gave physicians the authority to prescribe lethal amounts of controlled substances to terminally ill patients was established by Oregon. However, in 2001 the Attorney General Ashcroft affirmed that the physician-steered suicide dishonored the Controlled Substances Act enacted in 1970. The Attorney General threatened to revoke all the medical physician licenses of those who took part in the practice. As a result, Oregon took a step and filed a claim against Ashcroft in the federal district court. The Federal court and Ninth Circuit declared that Ashcroft's directive as illegal. Both courts asserted that the Controlled Substances Act did not authorize to the attorney general to control the physician-assisted suicide. The case touched on medical issue that was historically entrusted to the states (Lindsay 2006).

Issue

The actual issue from the case is whether the Control Substance Act grants the Attorney general the authority...

Is the state law wrong for particularly authorizing such medical uses?
Holding

No, the control Substance Act does not grant the Attorney General any form of authority to prohibit medical practitioners (doctors) from prescribing the lethal control substances to enhance the physician-assisted suicide in a manner that is encouraged by the state law.

Reasoning

Justice Kennedy submitted the opinion of the court. At the start, the Justice affirmed that under the Chevron deference, the interpreting agencies are afforded deference through their interpretation of the ambiguous laws or statutes, as long as the congress has granted authority to the agency to make regulations that have the force of law. Therefore, it can be asserted that the attorney general did not apply the considerable experience of his agencies as well as their professionalism to give a regulation that would assist in establishing an ambiguous law.…