21

- 1441 Talandar v. State of Vermont



## UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT



# SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT ’ S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NO TATION “ SUMMARY ORDER ” ). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 1 held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of 2 New York, on the 3 1 s t d a y of J a n u a r y , two thousand twenty

- three

. 3 4 PRESENT: 5 JOHN M. WALKER , JR., 6 REENA RAGGI, 7 MICHAEL H. PARK, 8 Circuit Judges

. 9

_____________________________________ 10 11 Draxxion Talandar , 12 13 Plaintiff

- Appellant, 14 15

v. 16 17 State of Vermont, 21

- 1441 18 19 Defendan t

- Appell ee

. 20

_____________________________________ 21 22 FOR PLAINTIFF

- APPELLANT : Cabot R. Teachout, 23 DesMeules Olmstead & 24 Ostler, Norwich, VT. 25 26 FO R DEFENDANT

- APPELLEE : Rachel E. Smith, Deputy 27 Solicitor General, Office of 28 the Attorney General, 29 Montpelier, VT. 30 312 Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Vermont 1

( William K. Sessions
, J

. ). 2

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND 3

DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED

. 4

Draxxion Talandar filed a declaratory judgment action in the district court, seeking a 5

judgment that the State of Vermont violated his rights under the Speedy Trial Clause of the Sixth 6

Amendment to the United States Cons titution. 1 In December 2019, Vermont charged Talandar 7

with
, inter alia , multiple counts of felony sexual assault in two cases. Talandar’s efforts to raise 8

Speedy Trial Clause challenges in state court were unsuccessful. One of his state cases has now 9

b een tried, while the other remains pending. The district court dismissed the present action 10

without prejudice , holding that it was required to abstain under Younger v. Harris , 401 U.S. 37 11

( 1971 ). We assume the parties ’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of 12

the case, and the issues on appeal. 13

The Younger doctrine recognizes that “only exceptional circumstances

. . . justify a federal 14

court’s refusal to decide a case in deference to the States,” one of which is to av oid “federal 15

intrusion into ongoing state criminal prosecutions

. ” Sprint Commc’ns, Inc. v. Jacobs , 571 U.S. 16

69, 78 (2013) (cleaned up). We review the application of Younger abstention de novo

. See 17

Diamond “D” Constr. Corp. v. McGowan , 282 F.3d 191, 197

- 98 (2d Cir. 2002) . Talandar does 18

not argue that his case falls outside the scope of Younger but instead that it qualifies for an 19

exception to that doctrine. The relevant exception requires the plaintiff to show “(1) that there 20

[is] no state remedy availa ble to meaningfully, timely, and adequately remedy the alleged 21

1 Talandar’s civil complaint was combined with his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. H e voluntarily dismissed th e habeas portion of this case after his release on bail to home detention

.3 constitutional violation; and (2)

. . . that the litigant will suffer great and immediate harm if the 1

federal court does not intervene.” Id. at 201 (cleaned up). This case meets neither requi rement. 2

First, the Vermont courts are capable of adjudicating Talandar’s constitutional claims and 3

have done so several times. In fact, Talandar has had some success in the state

- court litigation, 4

including obtaining his release on bail

— the same relief he initially sought from the district court 5

here

. Talandar’s lack of complete victory does not show the state courts’ inadequacy. “[T] he 6

question whether the state ’ s procedural remedies could provide the relief sought does not turn on 7

wh ether the state will provide the relief sought by the plaintiff before the federal court. ” Kirschner 8

v. Klemons , 225 F.3d 227, 235 (2d Cir. 2000)

. 9

Second, Talandar has not shown that he will be irreparably harmed absent federal 10

intervention. He points to his “prolonged incarceration” and the delay in scheduling trial, 11

Appellant’s Br. at 13, but those issues have since been substantially remedied, and “the threat to 12

the plaintiff’s federally protected rights must be one that cannot be eliminated by his d efense 13

against a single criminal prosecution,” Younger , 401 U.S. at 46. This Court has previously 14

applied Younger to criminal defendants who experienced considerably longer pretrial detention 15

than T a landar

. See

, e.g. , Jordan v. Bailey , 570 F. App’x 42, 44

- 45 (2d Cir. J une 19, 2014) 16

(applying Younger abstention in a case involving a criminal defendant who “ha[d] been detained 17

for some 52 months”). T he district court here also properly declined to entertain Talandar’s case. 18

We have considered all of Talandar’s remaining arguments and find them to be without 19

merit. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED

. 20

FOR THE COURT: 21 Catherine O ’ Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court 22 23