holding that Younger abstention is inappropriate when no state-court proceeding “is pending at the time the federal complaint is filed,” because in that circumstance “federal intervention does not result in duplicative legal proceedings or disruption of the state criminal justice system”; it cannot “be interpreted as reflecting negatively upon [a] state court’s ability to enforce constitutional principles”; and the absence of a pending state-court proceeding deprives “the federal plaintiff [of] a concrete opportunity to vindicate his constitutional rights”
How later courts described this case
- holding that Younger abstention is inappropriate when no state-court proceeding “is pending at the time the federal complaint is filed,” because in that circumstance “federal intervention does not result in duplicative legal proceedings or disruption of the state criminal justice system”; it cannot “be interpreted as reflecting negatively upon [a] state court’s ability to enforce constitutional principles”; and the absence of a pending state-court proceeding deprives “the federal plaintiff [of] a concrete opportunity to vindicate his constitutional rights”
- finding that when the petitioner had “been twice warned to stop the handbilling that he claim[ed was] constitutionally protected and ha[d] been told by police that if he again handbill[ed] at the shopping center and disobey[ed] a warning to stop he [would] likely be prosecuted,” it was “not necessary that petitioner first expose himself to actual arrest or prosecution to be entitled to challenge a statute that he claim[ed] deters the exercise of his constitutional rights”
- holding that “alleged threats cannot be characterized as ‘imaginary or speculative’ ” where petitioner was warned that continued exercise of his constitutional rights would result in prosecution and petitioner’s companion was prosecuted for engaging in the same conduct (quoting Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 41, 91 S.Ct. 746, 749, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971); Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 508, 81 S.Ct. 1752, 1758-1759, 6 L.Ed.2d 989 (1961))
- holding, in a case where prosecution was threatened but not pending, that to require arrest before issuing declaratory relief would place “the hapless plaintiff between the Seylla of intentionally flouting state law and the Charybdis of forgoing what he believes to be constitutionally protected activity in order to avoid becoming enmeshed in a criminal proceeding”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Fieger v. Michigan Supreme Court, 553 F.3d 955 (2009)
Id. at 459, 94 S.Ct. 1209. Steffel is readily distinguishable from this case.
Distinguished by Washington v. Boslow, 375 F. Supp. 1298 (1974)
The recent Supreme Court case of Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 94 S.Ct. 1209, 39 L.Ed.2d 505 (1974), cited by the plaintiff, is inapposite.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Stewart,
with whom The Chief Justice joins, concurring.
While joining the opinion of the Court, I add a word by way of emphasis.
*476 Our decision today must not be understood as authorizing the invocation of federal declaratory judgment jurisdiction by a person who thinks a state criminal law is unconstitutional, even if he genuinely feels “chilled” in his freedom of action by the law’s existence, and even if he honestly entertains the subjective belief that he may now or in the future be prosecuted under it.
As the Court stated in Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 , 52:
“The power and duty of the judiciary to declare laws unconstitutional is in the final analysis derived from its responsibility for resolving concrete disputes brought before the courts for decision
See also Boyle v. Landry, 401 U. S. 77, 80-81 .
The petitioner in this case has succeeded in objectively showing that the threat of imminent arrest, corroborated by the actual arrest of his companion, has created an actual concrete controversy between himself and the agents of the State. He has, therefore, demonstrated “a genuine threat of enforcement of a disputed state criminal statute . . ." * Cases where such a “genuine threat” can be demonstrated will, I think, be exceedingly rare.
See ante, at 475. Whether, in view of “recent developments,” the controversy is a continuing one, will be for the District Court to determine on remand. See ante, at 460.