On June 9th, 2016, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in a case about illegal sale of firearms that has serious implications for Puerto Rico and its relationship with the United States.
In 2008, Luis Sánchez Valle and his accomplice Jaime Gómez Vázquez each sold a gun to an undercover policeman in Puerto Rico. The territory prepared to prosecute the miscreants. After being convicted in a federal court, Sánchez Valle argued that he couldn’t also be tried in Puerto Rico. Being tried twice for the same crime is Double Jeopardy, and is illegal.
The territorial government disagreed. Cases can be tried both by states and by the federal government, they pointed out, so Puerto Rico should also have that ability. This is known as the Dual Sovereign rule, meaning that when there are two sovereigns involved, each can have its own case against the same crime.
The U.S. and Puerto Rico are not dual sovereigns.
The Governor of Puerto Rico at the time, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, believed that Puerto Rico was not “a mere territory” but instead a “commonwealth” with some sovereign powers of its own. The thinking goes that Puerto Rico has its own constitution and its own local government, just as the states do, so why shouldn’t it have its own sovereignty?
States have tried many cases of this kind. For example, when states failed to convict people who committed racially-motivated murders, federal courts have taken up those cases and criminals were convicted in a federal court. A 1959 conspiracy to dynamite telephone lines was tried in Illinois and then again in federal court, since prosecutors saw the actions as dangers to both the state of Illinois and the United States. In these cases, the Dual Sovereignty rule kept the Double Jeopardy rule from applying.
In Sánchez Valle , however, the Supreme Court determined that Puerto Rico is not sovereign. It is instead a U.S. territory. Puerto Rico has a constitution only because Congress approved it and continues to allow it. Similarly, Puerto Rico’s local government was put in place by the U.S. Congress. While many states had their own authority before they became states, Puerto Rico was a colony of Spain transferred to the United States. The Court in Sánchez Valle ruled that Puerto Rico lacks the “power, dignity and authority” of a state.
Therefore, Sánchez Valle and his henchman could not be tried in both a federal court and in Puerto Rico.
The Supreme Court Confirms That Puerto Rico Is A Territory, Lacks “Power, Dignity and Authority” of a State
The opposition point of view
Justice Sotomayor disagreed, comparing the argument against Puerto Rico’s sovereignty to the idea of saying the U.S. got its power from King Arthur. If you go back far enough in history, she felt, every nation’s power could be said to derive from some other power before it.
Some observers said that, since Congress can make all the decisions for a territory, Congress could make the decision that a territory has sovereignty. Under the discredited Compact Theory, some thought, Congress had already done this for Puerto Rico. Robert T. McGibbon pointed out that this was the same as the old brainteaser, “Can an omnipotent God make a rock so heavy that He can’t lift it?”
Sovereignty for Puerto Rico
The Sanchez-Valle decision, along with the passage of the 2016 PROMESA law, ended the misperception of Puerto Rico as already sovereign. Puerto Rico can have sovereignty either as a state of the Union, or as an independent nation. Those are the only choices. As an independent nation, Puerto Rico could not expect to maintain U.S. citizenship or financial support. As s state, Puerto Rico would have guaranteed 14th amendment citizenship and equal footing with the other states — as well as voting representation in making federal laws, which apply to Puerto Rico.
A Page from History: An End to the Illusion of Puerto Rico Sovereignty
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