mr gore thank you and it please the court boyfriend palance federal courts have a virtually unflagging obligation to decide cases within their jurisdiction because of that younger is limited to specific and exceptional circumstance for multiple independent reasons the district court erred in concluding those circumstances exist here st younger years now many i'm going to stop  because i think i am puzzled a bit puzzle i should say but i think argument that younger is concerned only with children need counsel and if they are not completed then surely they are well in going the description of the proceedings where this periodic review  rovner we don't dispute that the that there is an ongoing proceeding in the sense that you just said which is that indiana courts maintain jurisdiction to periodically review the children's case plans and determine whether the services that they're receiving are sufficient to meet their needs what we say already ended is the type of proceeding that the district court focused on which is the proceeding that determine whether abuse occurred and whether the children should be removed from their homes those proceedings for our plaintiffs all ended years ago and ended in dispositional decrees that under indiana law were final judgments that put an end to the proceeding so i don't see where you get this crisp line that that you're talking about i can think of other state judicial proceedings whether they have to do with child custody where there might be a decree that ends a marriage or things in these states and trusts area the state courts sometimes are engaged in this kind of long term supervision of relationships and status  unusual for the federal courts but it's i'm very troubled at the idea of the federal court compare a shoot in and tell the state court that one particular procedural incident even an important one like counsel should be part of their proceedings our position doesn't depend on their being necessary as sharp line judge would for three we have three independent reasons why the proceedings here would not implicate younger and none of those depend on it being blind so st of all even if we you considered the initial proceeding that determine whether abuse in occurred those proceedings are not prosecution or was that criminal proceedings against the children and younger is confined to cases in which the federal plaintiff actually were arguably violated state law the defendant's concession here that children are innocent of any wrongdoing alone requires rebuttal and the defendants in the district court are wrong to point to the children's parents and argue that the parents may have violated state law can i  ask you how you reconcile the statement you just made about violations of state law with our relatively recent decision in the courthouse news case where we saw the broader issues of comedy about federal courts telling state courts how to do their business to be clear i think the courthouse news decision expressly said that the result there was not technically in line with the younger provision and i think the court there relied on cases like rizzo and o'shea which the defendants here have not argued and was not the basis for the district court's decision and said the district court thought it was required to abstain under that she was that pure line of younger decisions and that's wrong because  destroyed yes and i'm sure judge was concern just forget about younger for the moment suppose there is some i'm going state case so yeah it's a private lawsuit based on contract law and the defendant says this contract violates the i trust law can the defendant go to federal court and ask a federal judge to tell the state judge what you know trust law require to forget about younger ok would be a question any younger i'm asking for normal rules of procedure can one who has a federal issue in part of a state case go to federal court and say i want you mr federal judge to decide the federal issue and tell the state judge i will rule on the federal issue i don't want you to decide the whole case that's pending in the state court i just want you to decide the federal question as i have posted it and i guess i'm not quite sure how to address the question with that ok that question seems to me to implicate things like  i'm not talking about obstetric really believe me i think it's just talking about carving one issue out and asking a nd court to decide that one issue and then plug the answer back into what the st chord is doing especially in the federal state context you know so so i think this court's decision in death room would be a good example of at least under the type of relief that sought here why that would not be a problem under comedy and federalism so in death there was an ongoing state proceeding to demote the federal plaintiff's health license in the federal plaintive sought an injunction requiring that the state hold a hearing before determining whether before the license was demoted and this court said that that was entirely proper to be decided in federal court because there was not the type of undue interference that the comedy and federalism principles underlying abstention require in the same is true here deciding the constitutional claim that these children have brought would not implicate or unduly interfere with the state court proceedings in fact it would do the opposite as the complaint alleges and studies show providing these children counsel dovetails with the state's interest the state says it brings these these chance proceedings on the child's behalf to serve their interests and that's what counsel would do too so can i ask you this mr la and i realize this is maybe a bit too many steps down the road but it's been bothering me about this case and i was trying to think of areas of law in which the supreme court announced in a non criminal setting which i agree with you this is a constitutional right to counsel now there are a lot of people who argue that there should be civil gideon or they say all sorts of things like that but i am hard pressed to think of that kind of a holding from the supreme court so even if you got over abstention can you point to anything some help here i think gideon would be an example of what you're talking about these children are if they are found to have been abused and are taken from their parents they are subject to state control over almost every aspect of their lives right and the response you know we're just not using a formal due process model here instead we appoint a guard either a guardian ad litum or special advocate for the child there is a potential if the court season in an unusual case the need for counsel counsel can be appointed apparently does not happen most of the time but one an explanation for that is that perhaps the guardian ad li or the special advocate is able to represent the child's interests so so i'm just i'm really not sure where the foundation for what you're looking for is i think the foundation is just a fundamental liberty interest of these children that are affected i even the state recognizes that the parents have sufficient interest to require counsel in these proceedings and guarantees counsel to the parents but it's not the parents who could be taken from their homes it's not the parents who could be subjected to state control over their medical care it's the children and these children should have the right to counsel in the proceedings and they at least should have the right to have a federal court make that determination because at the end of the day what for a minute to younger in newark the children as well as the parents were plane hit in the federal suit bringing constitutional challenges to the texas statutes regarding removal that be used children but the supreme court didn't seem to make any distinction between the claims of the parents and the claims of the children in finding that younger abstention was claims of the children to proceed in federal court if you're correct they'd younger doesn't apply to cases brought by children inches proceedings because you know the children have not engaged in  any conduct to buy a life state law i think your edge that that the court didn't address that distinction it did in later cases adorne against salem is the case where the supreme court addressed multiple plaintiffs and held that each party must be considered as if they stood alone but even aside from that the more is different because of the relief stop the children here are not trying to raise a constitutional challenge to the state's authority to take them from their parents and it's also different because the proceedings at issue here are no longer the type of proceeding that was going on and more at least that the ongoing proceedings are different in kind from the type of proceeding that was issuing more i see and i'm reaching my rebuttal time i'd like to reserve  mean please the court federal plaintiffs in this case ask better who are to interfere with ongoing state court child welfare proceedings younger precludes section or parents because these are civil indorsement proceedings brought by the state in song so ms payne can i ask you one aspect of your argument that's very troubling to me you question very hard that there is every opportunity necessary in the state courts to raise a potential argument that perhaps indiana's constitution or the federal constitution assure a right to counsel in this situation that i have trouble envisioning how a seven year old child is going to have the sophistication to pop up in one of these proceedings and say by the way your honor i'd like to argue to you that i have a right to counsel most of us have been around seven year old children enough to realize that utterly unrealistic so even though the courts may be open to that kind of argument how is that even possible under the actual circumstances of these cases i mean in other words i'm trying to say indiana doesn't have to have a subsection of a statute saying we forbid people from raising right to counsel arguments i get that but when you are dealing with minors  counter the courts don't appoint counsel as i gather in excess of ten percent of the time or maybe not even that but how often do volunteer counsel wind up getting arranged they can but they're not boyer's and so presumably they wouldn't know how to raise certain point insurance proceedings themselves through the dad tickets through the court appointed special advocates for through their government counsel appearing in the state courts and proceedings younger applies here because child welfare proceedings are state court action brought by the state to enforce  i understand that you are contending that their claims are for a moment that they're not moving the rd capable of repetition etc etc what would be the conflict with state proceedings if their cases were effectively over for now why it should those seven plaintiffs not be allowed to move forward on their federal challenge to the right to counsel given that they might very well find themselves back in chains proceedings long before they reach adulthood johns can you tell me it's a matter of state procedure is some distinctive order and heard by the court at that time saying in effect the way our rule fifty eight judgments to this case is now over period look at the record the cases are not considered complete intel is going to permanent placement for the child so that would be either on the child would be returned to my logical parents rgument near the bottom of page can of the reply brief that the children are effectively plaintiffs in the chance proceedings how would you respond to the claim that these are harilal requests for relief by the same hardy and  not subject to younger abstention your honor these are not parallel requests for earlier relief because the children have no right to bring sense proceedings on their own since proceedings are always initiated by the capacity by the department of child services or by the local prosecutor and that's what makes them civil and forcing proceeding and a federal court order declaring that the children have a right to counsel in child walker proceedings could call into question the law everything that has occurred in his proceedings for the course of several years can you explain why you think it would be so terribly disruptive to have this right recognized it seems to me it would be entirely easy to make it proscriptive as to you know people who are presently in certain proceedings and you seem to think such an order would inevitably unwind everything that's ever happened in indiana i'm not sure that's fair your honor plain just here not just asking for the appointment of counsel they're asking for the appointment  your stink should between the best interest of the child and what the child wants and that seems bizarre to me count as as lawyers matter of the code of professional ethics they are obliged to act in the best interest of their client but that's not what the plaintiffs are asking for here on our own for example if you had a case with a very young child  home parents are logical parents were trying to lose theirs and the young child wants to return home to their mother and father the best interest of the child might be for the parents to stop using drugs before the drama group return home but the child may want to return home immediately because they're home sick or lonely and so if the counselors representing whatever the child wants drugs at all times but this eight year old wants to go home and sell i am arguing that this eight year old should go home if that us is simply not in a position based on knowledge to do as effective a job advocating for the child's interests as a trained lawyer would and that argument makes perfect sense that's why people have counsel in criminal proceedings even though there might be well meaning next friends around that's why we appoint count you know or allow people to be represented in you know all kinds of proceedings it's why as a matter of statute immigration law allows lawyers people don't necessarily know the web of laws that would pertain to this kind of situation so i don't if you're relying on the fact that counsel is going to just implement whatever you know a four year old says i'm just saying there's a difference between a layout advocate and counsel maybe not as big difference is the bar sometimes thanks but there is a difference but i'll ask mr lloyd we respect you we requested this that granted federal court's jurisdiction over these and the supreme court has been clear that even in the presence of parallel state court proceedings federalism and comedy concerns underline younger and similar rules still that the result is still that deference to state courts is the exception not the norm and they are the same as your lawyers let me cut you off for a nd and say one of the points it's important to me at least in this case under one of the branches the younger law is whether the contention that you're raising which is this right to counsel contention can effectively be raised in the state courts i understand the state saying yes because not only is there this guardian ad litum or court appointed special advocate but those people in turn are represented by counsel and if counsel thinks that there is some problem with what's going on in the representation of the child that counsel will in effect serve as counsel for the child so maybe you think that's wrong or maybe you agree with ms paine's characterization of your position that the role of these lawyers is just going to be to pursue whatever a child asks for no matter how immature the child but i'd like to hear what you think the net result would be and why counsel for the guardian ad litum etc isn't a sufficient didn't see in any of the briefing but i think i heard counsel say that that was true as to one of the counties here but not all of the counties she's chain mentioned like counties blankly i don't know whether to exclude others or maybe that's just what she knew yet i also do not know your honor because that again this is this is new and as to that as to the overriding issue i think that federal courts must remain open for these types of claims younger and the federalism and co many concerns are designed to prevent a specific type of forum shopping which is the idea that if you violate state law and the state prosecutes you for it you can't use a federal action as a form of defense removal but that's not what's happening in this case these children have never been accused of violating state law and to extend younger here would it would close federal courts to them potentially and well beyond younger or any other exception to federal jurisdiction that kong supreme court has recognized thank you