[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 22-10008

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

CHEY GARRIGAN, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE STATE OF ALABAMA, 

DISTRICT COURT JUDGE, 

CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE, 

Defendants-Appellees.

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2 Opinion of the Court 22-10008

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Alabama

D.C. Docket No. 2:21-cv-00482-ECM-KFP

____________________

Before GRANT, LUCK, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

The district court abstained from hearing a case challenging 

a state’s judicial assignments, citing the suit’s interference with 

state court operations. We agree that the injunction sought here 

would cut to the core of the administration of the state’s circuit 

court system by shaping which judges can hear which cases, and 

affirm. 

I. 

Chey Garrigan petitioned an Alabama circuit court for 

primary custody of her child. Soon after she moved for recusal of 

the judge assigned to preside over her case, Judge Michelle 

Thomason. She argued that Thomason had displayed bias toward 

her in an earlier proceeding and, more important for our purposes, 

that Thomason lacked authority to hear her case. Thomason had 

been elected as a district judge, not a circuit judge. And in Alabama 

only the circuit courts have jurisdiction over proceedings to modify 

a custody order entered in a divorce proceeding. See Ala. Code 

§§ 12-1-2, 30-2-1; see also id. § 30-3-5. But a presiding circuit judge 

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can appoint a district judge to serve as a special circuit judge—and 

that is what happened here.

Most recently, in 2018, the presiding judge for the 28th 

judicial circuit “temporarily appointed” Thomason to serve as a 

special circuit judge. That appointment supposedly was under 

section 12-9A-8 of the Alabama Code, which allows a presiding 

judge to appoint a district judge within the circuit to serve as a 

special circuit judge, based on the “needs of the circuit, including 

the currency, congestion, and backlog of criminal and civil cases.” 

State rules then provide that the assignment “shall continue until 

revoked by the presiding judge or until the assigned judge leaves

office, whichever comes first.” Ala. R. Jud. Admin. R. 13(A). The 

appointment order later cited two other Code provisions. One was 

section 12-17-70, which allows a presiding judge to “designate from 

time to time a district court judge” that can then wield “the same 

powers and authority as a circuit judge to handle all cases involving 

domestic relations.” The other was section 12-1-14.1, which allows 

a presiding judge, at the request of an “affected judge,” to appoint 

a special circuit court judge for a renewable term of “temporary 

service” not to exceed 180 consecutive days. 

Garrigan hinged her motion on the last provision, 

contending that no “affected” circuit judge had requested 

Thomason’s appointment and that Thomason’s service was far 

from temporary—Thomason, she asserted, had been hearing 

circuit court cases for more than a decade. Thomason denied the 

recusal motion. Garrigan then petitioned Alabama’s court of civil 

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appeals for a writ of mandamus ordering Thomason’s recusal. 

That petition was also denied.

Garrigan then turned to federal court for relief. As relevant 

here, she sued Thomason and the now-presiding judge, Judge 

J. Clark Stankoski, alleging that they had violated her due process 

right to have her case heard by a court of competent jurisdiction. 

She sought an injunction that would bar Thomason from hearing 

her custody case and any other circuit court proceedings involving 

her, and Stankoski from assigning circuit court cases to any district 

judge, including Thomason.

The district court abstained under Younger v. Harris from 

hearing the case against the two judges. See 401 U.S. 37 (1971). 

This appeal followed.

II. 

We review a decision to abstain for an abuse of discretion. 

Tokyo Gwinnett, LLC v. Gwinnett County, 940 F.3d 1254, 1266 

(11th Cir. 2019). 

III. 

The breed of abstention at issue is Younger abstention, a 

doctrine establishing that, in certain “exceptional cases,” “federal

courts may and should withhold equitable relief to avoid 

interference with state proceedings.” 31 Foster Children v. Bush, 

329 F.3d 1255, 1274 (11th Cir. 2003). 

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Younger abstention can apply only when a federal case 

would affect one of three kinds of state proceedings: state criminal 

prosecutions, civil enforcement proceedings, and “civil 

proceedings involving certain orders uniquely in furtherance of the 

state courts’ ability to perform their judicial functions.” Sprint 

Commc’ns, Inc. v. Jacobs, 571 U.S. 69, 78 (2013) (quotation omitted 

and alteration adopted). The state custody proceeding could fall, if 

anywhere, in the third category. So the question is whether it 

involves an order that furthers the Alabama courts’ ability to 

perform their judicial functions.

We count two. First, the order appointing Thomason as a 

special circuit judge cuts to the “core of the administration” of 

Alabama’s judicial system. Juidice v. Vail, 430 U.S. 327, 335 (1977). 

The appointment process allows a state judicial circuit to manage 

its docket to ensure the efficient administration of justice; the 

appointment decisions turn on “the needs of the circuit, including 

the currency, congestion, and backlog of criminal and civil cases.” 

Ala. Code § 12-9A-8(a). Second, the order denying Garrigan’s 

recusal motion similarly implicates the judicial system’s “regular 

operation.” Juidice, 430 U.S. at 335. Recusal decisions affect which 

judge can hear a case, and so shape the allocation of cases across 

the court. We thus conclude that Younger abstention can apply to 

this case: one targeting orders that shape a state court’s case

assignments and judicial appointments.

Our inquiry does not end there. We must ensure that three 

other conditions are met: the state proceeding must be ongoing, 

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implicate important state interests, and provide an adequate 

opportunity to raise constitutional challenges. See Sprint 

Commc’ns, 571 U.S. at 81; Middlesex Cnty. Ethics Comm. v. 

Garden State Bar Ass’n, 457 U.S. 423, 432 (1982). To start, the 

custody proceeding was still pending when Garrigan filed the 

federal suit, the relevant time for determining whether abstention 

is appropriate. See Liedel v. Juv. Ct. of Madison Cnty., 891 F.2d 

1542, 1546 n.6 (11th Cir. 1990). And for the reasons already given, 

the suit implicates the state’s important interest in administering its 

judicial system. See Juidice, 430 U.S. at 335. The injunctions that 

Garrigan seeks target who can hear circuit court cases, and how a 

circuit court can use district judges to address its administrative

“needs.” Ala. Code. § 12-9A-8(a). Finally, the state provides other 

ways for Garrigan to raise her due process concerns. She has 

already availed herself of one, the mandamus process. The state 

also notes that she can raise this challenge again on appeal from the 

ultimate custody decision. See Cook v. Cook, 515 So. 2d 1269, 1270 

(Ala. Civ. App. 1987). That remedy would suffice, even though 

Garrigan contends that Thomason lacks authority to decide her 

case; the state appellate court can hear the challenge and direct the 

circuit court to set aside any judgment entered without authority. 

See Ex parte DiGeronimo, 195 So. 3d 963, 969 (Ala. Civ. App. 2015). 

Thus, the district court correctly concluded that all three 

conditions for abstention were present. 

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* * *

We have said that “even with the deferential standard of 

review, only the clearest of justifications merits abstention.” 

Tokyo Gwinnett, 940 F.3d at 1267 (quotation omitted and 

alteration adopted). That justification is present here, where a 

party seeks to interfere with decisions to assign a judge to and keep 

a judge on an ongoing state proceeding. The district court’s 

dismissal is therefore AFFIRMED.

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