Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/439/443u905.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 19:26:42+00:00

Document:
See 444 U.S. 887 , 100 S.Ct. 185.
Respondents were dismissed from their positions with the Columbus Police Department on May 31, 1971, for deliberately removing the American flag emblem from their uniforms during a public demonstration. Four days later, respondents requested hearings before the Police Hearing Board, a state-created board to which officers could appeal their discharges. Counsel for respondents informed city officials that respondents "are anxious to have a hearing on these matters and request that all efforts be made to give us an early hearing date." The Deputy Chief of Police responded by promptly notifying respondents that a "Police Hearing Board will be scheduled in the near future to hear your appeal and you will be notified of the time, date and place the hearing will be conducted." Only a week after receiving the letter granting their request for a Police Hearing Board, respondents, apparently not satisfied to invoke only the state review process, also filed the federal civil rights action now before us. Respondents claimed, inter alia, that the failure to accord them a hearing before they were discharged violated both their Fourteenth Amendment right to due process and Columbus City Ordinance No. 71-7 (1971). 1 [443 U.S. 905, 906] Hearings were initially scheduled before the Police Hearing Board for June 28, 1971, but, at the request of respondents' counsel, postponed until mid-July. The dismissals of respondents Leonard and White were unanimously upheld by the Board; the remaining dismissals were upheld on 4-2 votes. Although review of the Board's decisions was clearly available in state court, see Ball v. Police Committee of City of Atlanta, 136 Ga. App. 144, 145, 220 S.E.2d 479, 480 (1975), respondents chose not to avail themselves of the further state proceedings. Instead, having lost in the first stage of the state remedial process, respondents decided to change horses and pursue their action in federal court.
Petitioners also claimed that their dismissals violated their First Amendment rights of speech, association, and petition. [443 U.S. 905, 907] [respondents] ask this Court to construe in their prayers for relief. The present federal action seeking reinstatement would have been obviated had the [respondents] prevailed in their view before any of the four levels of state tribunals available to them."
Petitioners contend, among other arguments, that respondents should be required to exhaust their state remedies before filing an action under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and that the District Court therefore properly dismissed the action. In Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167 , 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 ( 1961), this Court held that one seeking redress for the deprivation of federal rights need not initiate state proceedings before filing an action under 1983. 365 U.S., at 183, 81 S.Ct. 473. Here, however, we are confronted by quite different and unanswered exhaustion issue-"that of the deference to be accorded state proceedings which have already been initiated and which afford a competent tribunal for the resolution of federal issues." Cf. Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592 , 609-610, n. 21, 95 S.Ct. 1200, 43 L.Ed.2d 482 (1975) (emphasis added). The District Court held that dismissal was in order under a doctrine that is best described as "they who invoke must also exhaust." Such a rule is not precluded by our prior decisions and indeed would seem to be supported by the logic of prior opinions. I would therefore grant certiorari to consider whether the Court of Appeals erred when it concluded that the District Court should have reached the merits of respondents' action.
Principles of federal-state comity have given rise to a number of limitations on the exercise of federal jurisdiction over state laws and actions. The equitable restraint doctrine enunciated in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 , 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), holds that, absent " exceptional circumstances," a federal court should not interfere with pending state criminal or civil [443 U.S. 905, 908] proceedings in which the State has an important interest. 2 See, e. g., Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., supra; Juidice v. Vail, 430 U.S. 327 , 97 S.Ct. 1211, 51 L.Ed.2d 376 (1977); Trainor v. Hernandez, 431 U.S. 434 , 97 S.Ct. 1911, 52 L.Ed.2d 486 (1977); Moore v. Sims, 442 U.S. 415 , 99 S.Ct. 2371, 60 L.Ed.2d 994 (1979).
"Virtually all of the evils at which Younger is directed would inhere in federal intervention prior to completion of state appellate proceedings, just as surely as they would if such intervention occurred at or before trial. Inter- [443 U.S. 905, 909] vention at the later stage is if anything more highly duplicative, since an entire trial has already taken place, and it is also a direct aspersion on the capabilities and good faith of state appellate courts. . . .
A requirement that respondents exhaust state remedies that they have themselves initiated is particularly appropriate here [443 U.S. 905, 910] where respondents' claim for relief rests in part on state law. On appeal, the Georgia courts may well have found that the dismissal of respondents without a hearing was unlawful under Columbus City Ordinance No. 71-7 ( 1971), obviating much, if not all, of respondents' federal claim for relief and avoiding the federal constitutional issues that the District Court may now have to decide. In Boehning v. Indiana Employees Assn., 423 U.S. 6 , 96 S.Ct. 168, 46 L.Ed.2d 148 (1975), a discharged employee brought suit in federal court under 1983 alleging procedural due process violations even though "controlling state statutes, as yet unconstrued by the state courts, might require the hearing demanded . . . and so obviate decision on the constitutional issue." 423 U.S., at 6, 96 S.Ct. 168. We held that under these circumstances the District Court properly decided to "abstai[n] until construction of the Indiana statutes had been sought in the state courts." Ibid. The similar abstention concerns present here, in combination with respondents' invocation of their state remedies, support the District Court's dismissal of respondents' action because of their failure to exhaust state appellate remedies.
Quite apart from this distinction, the time may now be ripe for a reconsideration of the Court's conclusion in Monroe that the "federal remedy is supplementary to the state remedy, and [443 U.S. 905, 911] the latter need not be first sought and refused before the federal one is invoked." Id., at 183, 81 S.Ct. 473. As noted earlier, the Court believed that this conclusion followed from the purpose of the Civil Rights Act "to provide a federal remedy where the state remedy, though adequate in theory, was not available in practice." Id., at 174, 81 S.Ct. 473 (emphasis added). But this purpose need not bar exhaustion where the State can demonstrate that there is an available and adequate state remedy . Indeed, scholarly commentators have soundly criticized the Court for holding to the contrary. See, e. g., Note, Limiting the Section 1983 Action in the Wake of Monroe v. Pape, 82 Harv.L.Rev. 1486 (1969). In Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 663 , 98 S. Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), the Court, in examining another section of Monroe v. Pape, "overrule[d] Monroe v. Pape . . . insofar as it holds that local governments are wholly immune from suit under 1983." The Court having reopened that portion of Monroe v. Pape, I would take the opportunity afforded by this case to reconsider the Court's conclusion as to exhaustion of state remedies. Not only is the Court's conclusion open to serious question, as noted earlier, but the conclusion was reached in an almost off-the-cuff manner, in distinct contrast to that portion of Monroe overruled by the Court in Monell.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.